America's Revolutionary War is a subject that engenders perpetual curiosity. By any sensible reckoning, Britain should have won the war. England's army was the strongest professional fighting force in the world, supremely confident, and led by experienced, gifted commanders with a long and storied history of military success. She had the largest, most nimble navy the world had ever seen, spread throughout the globe. Britain's economy was strong, prominent among nations in all areas of commerce, banking, and agriculture. Military supplies were plentiful, credit easily obtained, and the early vestiges of the Industrial Revolution were gaining a foothold with England in the forefront. .
Nations friendly to England thought a war with America would be a relatively quick and easy triumph for the British. The most conservative elements within the British government were enthusiastic supporters of British superiority, unabashed, fervently loyal subjects of their King, George III. They believed they were waging a war against destabilizing, revolutionary ideals " which threaten a general subversion of every system, religious or civil, hitherto respected by mankind." Moderate elements within British leadership were convinced that keeping the American colonies under British rule was indispensable to England's endurance as the premier world power. Losing the war was inconceivable, and outright impossible. Victory was certain. When the result was the antithesis, it was no small wonder that when seeking causation for the loss of the colonies, the easiest attributable ideology was failure of leadership on all levels, political and military. .
Political and military leaders became subjects of derision. The imperfect lens of history tends to portray these individuals as incompetent. A mythos permeates the American historical psyche that the British were opposed to progress, trying to enforce a centuries-old authoritarian regime on progressive, forward thinking, and liberty-loving colonies.
