John Fiske CONTENTS chap page Biographical Sketch. vii I. Introduction. 1 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER II. THE COLONIES IN 1750. CHAPTER III THE FRENCH WARS, AND THE FIRST PLAN OF UNION. CHAPTER IV. THE STAMP ACT, AND THE REVENUE LAWS. CHAPTER V. THE CRISIS. CHAPTER VI. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. CHAPTER VII. THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. INTRODUCTION BOOK THE FIRST LUCRETIA BORGIA IN ROME CHAPTER I LUCRETIA'S FATHER CHAPTER II LUCRETIA'S MOTHER CHAPTER III LUCRETIA'S FIRST HOME CHAPTER IV LUCRETIA'S EDUCATION CHAPTER V NEPOTISM GIULIA FARNESE LUCRETIA'S BETROTHALS CHAPTER VI HER FATHER BECOMES POPE GIOVANNI SFORZA CHAPTER VII LUCRETIA'S FIRST MARRIAGE CHAPTER VIII FAMILY AFFAIRS CHAPTER IX LUCRETIA LEAVES ROME CHAPTER X HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF PESARO CHAPTER XI THE INVASION OF ITALY THE PROFLIGATE WORLD CHAPTER XII THE DIVORCE AND SECOND MARRIAGE CHAPTER XIII A REGENT AND A MOTHER CHAPTER XIV SOCIAL LIFE OF THE BORGIAS CHAPTER XV MISFORTUNES OF CATARINA SFORZA CHAPTER XVI MURDER OF ALFONSO OF ARAGON CHAPTER XVII LUCRETIA AT NEPI CHAPTER XVIII CAESAR AT PESARO CHAPTER XIX ANOTHER MARRIAGE PLANNED FOR LUCRETIA CHAPTER XX NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE HOUSE OF ESTE CHAPTER XXI THE EVE OF THE WEDDING CHAPTER XXII ARRIVAL AND RETURN OF THE BRIDAL ESCORT BOOK THE SECOND LUCRETIA IN FERRARA CHAPTER I LUCRETIA'S JOURNEY TO FERRARA CHAPTER II FORMAL ENTRY INTO FERRARA CHAPTER III FeTES GIVEN IN LUCRETIA'S HONOR CHAPTER IV THE ESTE DYNASTY DESCRIPTION OF FERRARA CHAPTER V DEATH OF ALEXANDER VI CHAPTER VI EVENTS FOLLOWING THE POPE'S DEATH CHAPTER VII COURT POETS GIULIA BELLA AND JULIUS II THE ESTE DYNASTY ENDANGERED CHAPTER VIII ESCAPE AND DEATH OF CAESAR CHAPTER IX MURDER OF ERCOLE STROZZI DEATH OF GIOVANNI SFORZA AND OF LUCRETIA'S ELDEST SON CHAPTER X EFFECTS OF THE WAR THE ROMAN INFANTE CHAPTER XI LAST YEARS AND DEATH OF VANNOZZA CHAPTER XII DEATH OF LUCRETIA BORGIA CONCLUSION The Riverside Literature Series THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE BY JOHN FISKE WITH MAPS, INDEX, AND A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH emblem HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 85 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue The Riverside Press, Cambridge

This little book does not contain the substance of the lectures on the American Revolution which I have delivered in so many parts of the United States since 1883. Those lectures, when completed and published, will make quite a detailed narrative; this book is but a sketch. It is hoped that it may prove useful to the higher classes in schools, as well as to teachers. When I was a boy I should have been glad to get hold of a brief account of the War for Independence that would have suggested answers to some of the questions that used to vex me. Was the conduct of the British government, in driving the Americans into rebellion, merely wanton aggression, or was it not rather a bungling attempt to solve a political problem which really needed to be solved? Why were New Jersey and the Hudson river so important? Why did the British armies make South Carolina their chief objective point after New York? Or how did Cornwallis happen to be at Yorktown when Washington made such a long leap and pounced upon him there? And so on. Such questions the old-fashioned text-books not only did not try to answer, they did not even recognize their existence. As to the large histories, they of course include so many details that it requires maturity of judgment to discriminate between the facts that are cardinal and those that are merely incidental. When I give lectures to schoolboys and schoolgirls, I observe that a reference to causes and effects always seems to heighten the interest of the story. I therefore offer them this little book, not as a rival but as an aid to the ordinary text-book. I am aware that a narrative so condensed must necessarily suffer from the omission of many picturesque and striking details. The world is so made that one often has to lose a little in one direction in order to gain something in another. This book is an experiment. If it seems to answer its purpose, I may follow it with others, treating other portions of American history in similar fashion.

Cambridge, February 11, 1889.