The American Revolution was not a revolution in the sense of radical or total change. It was not a sudden and violent overturning of the political and social framework. What happened was accelerated evolution rather than outright revolution. During the conflict, people went on working and praying, marrying and playing. Most of them were not seriously disturbed by the actual fighting. America's War of Independence inspired the birth of three modern nations. One was Canada, which received its first large flood of English-speaking population from the thousands of loyalists who fled there from the United States. Another was Australia, which became a penal colony now that America was no longer available for prisoners and debtors. The third newcomer - the United States - based itself squarely on republican principles. Yet even the political overturn was not so revolutionary as one might suppose. In some states, the war largely approved a colonial self-rule already existing. British officials were replaced by a home-grown governing class, which promptly sought a local substitute for king and Parliament.