17. By 1779 the British could no longer sustain the war financially
By the spring of 1779, as the war was entering its fourth year in North America, the government of British prime minister Lord North had run up 48 million pounds of debt attempting to secure the rebellious American colonies. For their efforts, the British held New York and Savannah. The nation was at war with France, and soon Bourbon Spain. Roughly 2,000 British ships had been taken by American privateers and warships, Americans had raided the coast of England and defeated British warships in sight of British homes. Taxes reached ruinous levels, and there was no end of the war in sight.
The tobacco market had all but dried up with the loss of American tobacco, and the shipment of Turkish tobacco was threatened by the French in the Mediterranean. Nationally in Britain, the average tax burden reached 20%. Markets for exports dropped, and unemployment rose as the British economy, which had not recovered from the Seven Years’ War when the Revolutionary War began, edged towards collapse. Ships rotted at their wharves, their owners unable to pay insurance rates, and unwilling to risk them going to sea anyway, in the dim hope they would be protected by the Royal Navy.