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Let's deal with three more wars Britain was involved in during the last few years of this century. By now Britain had 13 colonies on the American continent. These were grouped in the north eastern part of what is now the United States of America. France controlled great areas of the middle and had the support of many of the native Indian tribes.
The colonies were, (get your atlas) New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. They had been given some control over their own affairs but still had to pay tax to the British King. They didn't like this. One of the taxes was on tea imports to their shores.
In 1773 a group of protesters had boarded 3 ships in Boston Harbour and thrown 342 chests of tea into the harbour. Life now became very difficult between the settlers and the British Army who were originally there to protect them. In 1775 some violence happened and in 1776 the 13 colonies joined together to form the United States of America and declared they were now independent from British rule. They stopped paying any taxes to Britain. Britain sent more troops to fight these people they considered as rebels. France, Spain and the Netherlands took sides with the rebels who had chosen a man called George Washington as their leader.
Many battles were fought both on land and at sea. The most significant was the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 which effectively ended the war although the peace treaty wasn't signed until 1783 with the Treaty of Paris. It had nothing to do with climate control and, with this treaty, the new United States of America was born. George III who had followed the war very closely was not happy with his Prime Minister, Lord North, and some say that it contributed a great deal to his later illness (more later). No battles were fought in England with one weird exception which occurred in 1778 when an American naval commander, John Paul Jones, who had actually been born in Scotland, mounted an attack on the English port of Whitehaven. He captured a small fort but failed in his attempt to set fire to the merchant ships there.
In 1789 the people of France had rebelled against their King and the French revolution began. That, as you can guess, is French history and not to concern us here. At first Britain had remained neutral but in 1793 French troops arrived in Belgium and the British were worried about a possible invasion of our land and also the fact that the French troops would make it more difficult for us to trade in Europe.
We were allies with Spain, Austria, Prussia and the Netherlands so it was all against France. By 1796 only Austria and Britain remained and a young French general called Napoleon Bonaparte was leading his army straight to the Austrian capital of Vienna. The Austrians sued for peace and Britain joined in.
In 1798 the war began again when Napoleon invaded Egypt. Once again no battles took place on British soil but it did allow us to have two new heroes but I will tell you about them in the next century. One only had one arm and one eye and one had two boots; sort of.
Finally, right at the end of the century, in 1798, and possibly inspired by the American and French revolutions, the people of Ireland thought they would have a go too. At the time there was an Irish Parliament in Dublin which could make laws that applied to Ireland but Catholics, and most people in Ireland were Catholics, were not allowed to be elected to that parliament. In 1791 a group of people established the Society of United Irishmen. There were branches in Dublin and Belfast and members came from all religions.
Most of the people in the Irish parliament were wealthy, protestant, landowners and they tended to pass laws that were agreed with the British government. The story of the rebellion really belongs to the history of Ireland but in this English history I can tell you that tension between the two parties got worse and worse and, in 1798, a proper uprising began. It didn't last long and, despite a bit of help from the French, the English government troops won. William Pitt, the Prime Minister who you can read more about later, decided to do something about the problems in Ireland after this rebellion. Firstly, many of those who fought on the losing side found themselves on a one-way trip to Australia.
Then in 1801 he introduced an Act of Parliament which officially made Ireland part of the United Kingdom. In 1542 the Irish Parliament recognised Henry VIII as King of Ireland but there had been nothing put in law. The Act abolished the Irish Parliament and Ireland was given 100 members of the House of Commons and 32 members of the House of Lords. Many Irish objected but the government in London bribed some members of the Irish Parliament, gave a few others honours and the Irish Parliament eventually voted to get rid of itself. The Act took effect on January 1. Great Britain, made up of England, Scotland and Wales, was now, with the inclusion of Ireland, known as the United Kingdom.
However, this was the beginnings of problems that are still around today. Wait and see, about 1920ish.
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