So his chief rival in Parliament, Edmund Burke, who shocked more than half of England by seeming to approve the nascent French Revolution, died execrating it.
The failure of the Commission on Reconciliation to get even an official hearing in America further depressed George III, and there seemed to have flitted through his unsound mind more and more frequent premonitions that England might not win after all.

Having made friendly overtures, which were rejected, he now planned to be more savage than ever.

In 1779 the American privateers won many victories which gave them a reputation out of proportion to the importance of the battles they fought, or the prizes they took.

Chief among the commanders of these vessels was a Scotchman, John Paul Jones, who sailed the Bonhomme Richard and with two companion ships attacked the Serapis and the Scarborough, convoying a company of merchantmen off Flamborough Head.

Night fell, darkness came, the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis kept up bombarding each other at short range.