<P> The Continental Army under the direction of George Washington sought to engage in a war of attrition . Because the fight was on colonial soil, Washington aimed to take advantage of the lack of trade with Great Britain by cutting them off from necessary resources, hoping that eventually the redcoat army in North America would grow sick and tired . Under the Articles of Confederation, however, the Continental Congress did not have the power to impose taxes or regulate commerce in the colonies, and thus could not generate the sufficient funds for a war of attrition . </P> <P> To solve this problem, the Continental Congress sent diplomats including Benjamin Franklin to Europe in search of foreign support for the American cause . For the first two years of war, the colonists received secretive private and public loans from the French, who held a lingering resentment for the British after the Seven Years' War . After the British defeat at Saratoga, however, foreign support for the Continental Army increased, and in 1778 the colonies signed a treaty with France, officially bringing them into the war with England . By the end of the war, the colonies had received loans from several different European nations, including significant contribution from France, Spain and the Netherlands . In addition, the colonies received much private funding, most notably from the Marquis de Lafayette and the Baron of Kalb, both Frenchmen . This funding ultimately enabled them to fight the war of attrition that General Washington hoped for . </P> <P> Because the French possessed a powerful navy, their entrance into the war weakened the British blockade on colonial ports and further cut off the British army from its Atlantic supply route . The British forces recognized that they would not last long without shipping in supplies, so in retaliation, the British redeployed some of their forces to the French Caribbean . Their hope was to capture French sugar islands and cut the French financial supply line . The new war in the Caribbean added to England's already large financial costs, yet unlike the colonies, the British were not successful in their attempts to garner foreign loans or armaments . Without economic assistance from other nations, the financial strain on Parliament and British taxpayers became increasingly burdensome, and ultimately had a hand in wearing down the British forces and ending the war for independence . </P> <P> As the war progressed, the Americans' deteriorating financial stability quickly became Britain's greatest asset . Because it did not possess the power to tax the colonists, the Continental Congress printed money at a rapid rate to fund the army's expenses and pay off its loans from foreign nations . As a result, the colonies experienced severe inflation and depreciation of the Continental dollar . The colonists also had great difficulty in financing a wartime effort against the British southern campaign, not effectively halting the British destruction until the battle of Yorktown in 1781 . When war ended in 1783, American negotiations, monetary policies and government restructuring all contributed to paying off the American national debt . </P>

What did the british government do to recover the cost of the war