[Footnote: The Louisiana territory, which
had come into Spanish possession in 1763, was re-ceded to France in
1800 and sold by France to the United States in 1803. Eighteen years
later (1821) all of Florida was formally transferred to the United
States. And see below, p. 532.]
[Sidenote: Settlement between Great Britain and Holland, 1784]
Holland, the least important participant in the war, was not a party to
the treaty of Versailles, but was left to conclude a separate peace
with Great Britain in the following year (1784). The Dutch not only
lost some of their East Indian possessions, [Footnote: Including
stations on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of India.] but, what was
more essential, they were forced to throw open to British merchants the
valuable trade of the Malay Archipelago.
THE REFORMATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
[Sidenote: New Conciliatory Colonial Policy]
The War of American Independence not only had cost Great Britain the
thirteen colonies, hitherto the most important, [Footnote: The thirteen
colonies were not actually then so profitable, however, as the fertile
West Indies, nor did they fit in so well with the mercantilist theory
of Colonialism.
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