History of the United Kingdom First British Empire. With the defeat by the United States, France and Spain in the War of American Independence, Britain lost its 13 American colonies and rebuilt a Second British Empire based in Asia and Africa. As a result, British culture, and its technological, political, constitutional, and linguistic influence, became worldwide. Politically, the central event was the French Revolution and its Napoleonic aftermath from 1793 to 1815, which British elites saw as a profound threat, and worked energetically to form multiple coalitions that finally defeated Napoleon in 1815. The Tories, who came to power in 1783, remained in power (with
Origins of the War of 1812 They made the demand as late as 1814 at the peace conference, but dropped the demand. Their position had been weakened by the collapse of Tecumseh's Confederacy after the Battle of the Thames, but the British also simply no longer considered the goal worth conflict with the United States. Much of the proposed buffer state remained largely under British and Indian control throughout the war. There were several immediate stated causes for the U.S. declaration of war. First, a series of trade restrictions called the Orders in Council (1807) introduced by Britain to impede American trade with France, a country