On the morning after Evacuation Day, November 25th, 1783, George Washington, newly resident in New York, kept a breakfast engagement.
He was the hero of the hour, feted the night before at Fraunces Tavern by Governor Clinton of New York and many other leading figures. He was the magnificent leader of a brand new nation that, even then, looked likely to be the most powerful on earth.
He had just held a farewell morning parade in Bowling Green. The British ships had sailed for home after seven years of occupying New York; their grasp on world domination shattered for all time. Their ignominious defeat at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 dealt a fatal blow to their empire-building and willingness to fight.
Even the mad King George III knew the jig was up - the cost of supplying an army in America a crushing burden at a time when the British economy was in dire straits. It was time to wind down. America would be free.
