Editing Kingdom of Great Britain (section)

====Loss of the 13 American colonies====
{{Main|American Revolution}} 
{{See also|American Revolutionary War|United States Declaration of Independence}}
During the 1760s and 1770s, relations with the [[Thirteen Colonies]] turned from benign neglect to outright revolt, primarily because of the [[Parliament of Great Britain|British Parliament]]'s insistence on taxing colonists without their consent to recover losses incurred protecting the American Colonists during the [[French and Indian War]] (1754–1763). In 1775, the [[American Revolutionary War]] began at the [[Battles of Lexington and Concord]], and the Americans then trapped the [[British Army during the American Revolutionary War|British Army]] in [[Boston]] in the [[Siege of Boston]] and suppressed the Loyalists who supported [[The Crown]].

On 4 July 1776, the [[Second Continental Congress]], representing the [[Thirteen Colonies]], unanimously adopted and issued the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]]. The Second Continental Congress charged the [[Committee of Five]] with authoring the Declaration, but the committee, in turn, largely relied on [[Thomas Jefferson]], who authored its first draft.

Under the military leadership of [[Continental Army]] general [[George Washington]] and with some economic and military assistance from [[Kingdom of France|France]], the [[Dutch Republic]], and [[Kingdom of Spain|Spain]], the United States held off successive British invasions. The Americans captured two main British armies in 1777 and 1781. After that, King [[George III]] lost control of Parliament and was unable to continue the war, which was brought to an end with the signing of the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]] in 1783, which acknowledged the independence and sovereignty of the thirteen colonies and recognised the [[United States]].

The American Revolutionary War, which lasted from 1775 to 1783, was expensive but the British financed it successfully. Approximately 8,500 British troops were killed in action during the war.<ref>{{Citation |last=Black |first=Jeremy |title=War for America: The Fight for Independence, 1775–1783 |date=1991 |publisher=Alan Sutton |isbn=978-0-862-99725-0 |author-link=Jeremy Black (historian)}}</ref>