PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER 
 
 HISTORICAL SERIES 
 No. Ill 
 
 The Old Colonial 
 System. 
 
JV 
 .H5 
 
 SHERRATT & HUGHES 
 
 Publishers to the Victoria University of Manchester 
 
 Manchester : 27 St. Ann Street 
 
 London : 65 Long Acre 
 
The Old Colonial 
 System - 
 
 GERALD BERKELEY HERTZ, M.A., B.C.L. 
 
 Lecturer on Constitutional Law 
 
 V 
 
 or THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 or 
 
 MANCHESTER 
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 1905 
 
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER PUBLICATIONS 
 No. VII 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IN 1902 I published a sketch of "English Public Opinion 
 after the Restoration," and it seemed natural to follow the 
 colonising ideals of that period into a subsequent age of 
 more self-conscious empire. I found an additional incentive 
 in courses of lectures on the rise of Greater Britain and 
 kindred topics, which I have given during the last few years 
 in various parts of Lancashire and Cheshire in connection 
 with the University Extension scheme of the Manchester 
 University. One feature, which has characterised every 
 audience with whom I have come in contact, is a complete 
 misunderstanding of the old colonial system. 
 
 That system was in truth marked by many faults in theory 
 and practice, and in the ensuing pages, it will, I trust, be 
 seen how unfitted it was to sustain a great empire without 
 radical amendment. Yet it is wrong to regard the policy 
 under which Greater Britain evolved, and for which most 
 English statesmen f rom Cromwell to Chatham strained every 
 effort, as selfish fatuity, unworthy of the race. In the 
 United States, this superficial view is no longer deemed a 
 necessary tenet for the patriotic, and the circumstances 
 under which the War of Independence arose have been 
 approached in a truly scientific spirit, but in our own 
 country, a traditional Whiggism still permeates most popular 
 histories. 
 
 The genesis of the present volume lies in my desire to 
 treat the question in a more impartial manner, and in my 
 concern at the exasperating prevalence of this misconcep- 
 tion of imperial history. Since I first studied the subject 
 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 as an undergraduate of Lincoln College, I have tried to 
 dissociate discussion of the controversies of the past from the 
 political partisanship of the present. 
 
 The materials which I have used are sufficiently indicated 
 by the footnotes. I have had access to the numerous tracts 
 and pamphlets therein referred to, in the Bodleian, in the 
 Manchester University Library, and in the Manchester Free 
 Reference Library. In regard to the due choice and 
 appreciation of authorities, and to the general handling of 
 the theme, I am greatly indebted to Professor Tout. His 
 criticisms have made me aware how hard it is even to try to 
 epitomise a vast subject in the compass of a single volume. 
 I also owe thanks to Mr. J. A. Doyle of All Souls' College, 
 Oxford, for valuable suggestions. 
 
 Manchester, 
 
 October, 1905. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction ... ... ... ... ... ... ix. 
 
 Great Britain and the Seven Years' War ... ... i 
 
 Pitt's Influence as Minister ... ... ... ... 23 
 
 The Old Colonial Theory ... ... ... ... 37 
 
 Dialectics on the Question of Taxation ... ... 70 
 
 British Feeling towards America in 1775 ... ... 91 
 
 Chatham and Burke ... ... ... ... ... 105 
 
 " United Empire " Loyalty 118 
 
 The War Spirit in England 1775-1783 131 
 
 Britain's Conduct of the War ... ... ... ... 155 
 
 Colonial Theory in 1783 ... 187 
 
 " Hands Across the Sea " 199 
 
 Lessons of the American Revolution 210 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE present work is intended to weigh the causes, 
 character and results of Great Britain's old colonial 
 system. It is proposed to examine the popular conception 
 of the uses of empire during those portions of the reigns 
 of George II. and George III., when that system reached 
 its zenith. In this respect, the ideas which led the nation 
 to choose its distinctive imperial policy, and to embark 
 upon the two wars of the period will be dealt with at 
 greater length than the actual details of any legislation 
 or campaigns. Such details are ascertainable exactly and 
 are familiar to the world, but on the other hand there can 
 be infinite variety in representations of public opinion. It 
 is however probable that this subject is characterised by 
 unity, that the contrast between the Britain of 1756 and 
 the Britain of 1775 is only superficial, that cleavage from 
 America was due to no sudden accident of haphazard 
 impolicy, and that there is nothing to dissociate the 
 statesmanship which directed Wolfe to strike at Quebec, 
 and Hawke at Quiberon, from that which allowed 
 Burgoyne to drift to Saratoga, and Cornwallis to Yorktown. 
 In each case the national aim was the maintenance of the 
 same imperial ideal, and only the concurrence of colonial 
 with British interests in the Seven Years' War disabled 
 the politicians of the time from betraying that their ideal 
 had feet of clay. At all events, the forces in English life, 
 which made the struggle with France so popular and 
 successful under Pitt, led obviously to the policy that 
 culminated in the War of Independence; and for this 
 
x INTRODUCTION 
 
 reason we propose to review the nature of that struggle 
 and the character of Pitt's own statesmanship before 
 dealing at length with the theory of colonial government, 
 which ruled British aspirations until the American 
 Revolution. 
 
 A topic like that which is indicated above hardly needs 
 an apology. The growth of our dominions over sea is 
 now deemed the chief feature in the modern history of 
 Great Britain, and as statesmanship rarely comes by 
 instinct, those who interest themselves in the politics of 
 the present day are willing to study every aspect of the 
 annals of the past. Most experiments are at least instruc- 
 tive, and we cannot be too well acquainted with the 
 virtues and defects of the old colonial system, under which 
 our country won North America and lost the United 
 States. In this volume therefore after discussing the 
 tendency in British political thought which animated the 
 ardour for the Seven Years' War, and which created the 
 colonial ideals of the time, we shall investigate more closely 
 England's attempt to organise what she had won. 
 
 Such an investigation leads directly to a survey of the 
 British standpoint during the conflict with the colonies 
 over the Stamp Act, and during the Revolution itself. 
 History should be free from passion if not from partisan- 
 ship, and it is surely possible to view the theories upon 
 which England's case rested without heat. It is suggested 
 that those theories had a far more general acceptance in 
 the country than has often been alleged by critics of the 
 government then actually in office, and that they followed 
 naturally upon the conquest of Canada. There was no 
 cataclysm whatever in the evolution of the old colonial 
 system. 
 
 The last portion of this work is concerned with the 
 reaction in British imperial theory after 1783, and with 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 other results of the downfall of the lately triumphant 
 school of political thought. It is possible that men hardly 
 realise how accurately the colonial ideas of the Manchester 
 economists were anticipated by the disputants who wrote 
 in the morning of the "laisser f aire " era. The closing 
 chapter attempts to sketch how far their contentions 
 embraced the true lessons of the fall of the old colonial 
 system. 
 
 Throughout this book, the materials are derived from 
 the immense storehouses of the writings of the day, 
 rather than from more modern commentaries. However 
 inadequate, the picture of Britain's conception of its 
 mission in the world in the eighteenth century is drawn 
 from the versions given by its own exponents. Pamphlet 
 and tract are often as illustrative of popular beliefs as the 
 speech of a minister or the text of a statute, and they give 
 freshness and light to historical narrative. The chapters 
 which describe the old colonial theory and the character 
 of British opinion during the years 1765 to 1783, are 
 especially based upon the voluminous polemical literature 
 of that age of controversy. Under such circumstances, 
 there is perhaps a danger of losing the bold outlines of the 
 general theme under a mass of incidental detail, but it is 
 hoped that the ensuing effort to keep the nature of the 
 colonial scheme of the day always before the reader's eye 
 will conquer the difficulties inherent to all subjects, which 
 enjoy innumerable authorities. 
 
The Old Colonial 
 System 
 
2 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 Canada the Indians were drawn by tactful diplomacy into 
 a valuable alliance, which made the 1 French "coureur de 
 bois" a master of woodcraft and an adept in forest warfare. 
 The Jesuits mastered the Iroquois tongue in order to con- 
 vince their hearers. Moreover, the Canadians were united 
 under the despotism of their Intendants, and knew nothing/ 
 of the religious and racial feuds which split Greater Britain 
 ".jfoto incong^qu? and weakened units. 2 Less hampered 
 than the British .colonists by economic restraints, and 
 /enfe'ly : :free: from': the toils of party government, the 
 hunters and trappers of French North America were able 
 to make a bold bid for supremacy at the beginning of their 
 last struggle against England. Lord Chancellor Hardwicke 
 said justly in 1755 that "'the oldest man livin S never saW 
 such a scene. 'Tis a time of great thoughtfulness and 
 
 anxiety." 
 
 In 1754 the French had descended upon the 
 beyond the Blue Ridge held by the Six Nations and 
 claimed as British territory by the English Ohio Company, 
 which had been founded in 1748 to exploit over half a 
 million acres lying chiefly to the north of that river, 
 occupation had never been effective, and the invaders 
 mastered the Ohio valley. Fort Duquesne was built 
 July 1754 Fort Necessity fell. A year later General 
 Braddock led an army of regulars and colonials into an 
 ambuscade ten miles from Fort Duquesne, where two 
 hundred of his men were killed and four hundred wounde 
 He himself died of wounds, and no fewer than sixty-eigh 
 of his officers fell. He had handled his men with a dif 
 
 1 Gent. Mag. (1755), p. 436; Charlevoix' Journal of a Voyage to North 
 
 America (1761), i. 123; Kalm's Travels (1772), ii. 379; Pownall i 
 Administration of Brit. Colonies (1774), ii. 187. 
 
 2 Sensible Observations on General Commerce (1737), p. 6: 
 
 3 Harris's Hardwicke (1847), iii. 37. 
 
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 3 
 
 astrous contempt for colonial methods of forest warfare. 
 An attempt to take Fort Ticonderoga also failed. In May 
 1T56 England formally declared war, but the government 
 was inefficient and slow, and the colonies were backward 
 with assistance. i"I dread to hear from America," Pitt 
 wrote to Gren ville in June 1756, and in August the French cap- 
 tured Oswego with a hundred guns and took sixteen hundred 
 prisoners. In Europe Minorca was lost, and early in 1T57 
 Byng was shot for not having saved it; but the example 
 failed to turn the tide of the war. Notwithstanding Pitt's 
 advent to power and the greater zeal of the new govern- 
 ment, Loudon failed to take Louisburg in August 1757, 
 and the fall and massacre of Fort William Henry took 
 place in the same month. In September Cumberland 
 was forced to conclude the convention of Closterseven. 
 
 Certain inherent defects in the state of Greater France 
 helped to save England's colonies. Canada had not the 
 solid basis of a successful settlement. Its inhabitants 
 were absorbed either in missionary work among the 
 Indians, or in the pursuit of furs and fish, 2 " leading," in 
 Doctor -Johnson's words, " a laborious and necessitous life 
 in perpetual regret of the deliciousness and plenty of their 
 native country." 3 Their population was a mere fraction 
 of that of the British colonies, and infinitely less pros- 
 perous. Their capacity to settle effectually was spoilt by 
 feudalism and religious bigotry. They had no town life 
 at all, and were mentally and politically stagnant. More- 
 over, there was no force in France to neutralise such 
 sources of weakness in America. King and nobles 
 looked exclusively upon the Continent as the proper field 
 for their warlike ambitions, and the colonial struggle was 
 
 1 Grenville Papers (ed. 1852), i. 165. 
 
 2 Introduction to the Political State of Great Britain (1774), p. 41. 
 
 3 Charlevoix' Journal (1761), i. 113. 
 
4 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 noticed only with a dull apathy. Since Colbert's day, 
 Canada had been to the French nation no more than a 
 waste of snow. 
 
 In contrast with such indifference, there were several 
 tendencies in English public opinion at the time, which 
 led directly to the popularity of a war for empire over 
 sea. In the first place, social life was dominated by com- 
 mercialism, and this spirit made men believe in the efficacy 
 of wars of trade. National policy was governed by trade 
 considerations, and in the light of contemporary economics, 
 such considerations pointed towards colonial aggrandise- 
 ment, and gave England a predisposition to meet the 
 crisis in America in a manner worthy of a fighting race. 
 All observers of British ideas at this time agree as to the 
 strength of this mercantile war spirit, and to pessimists it 
 was even a source of misgiving. They argued that the 
 fruits of England's wars fell to the prudent not to the 
 brave, and that to play the part of a modern Carthage was 
 fatal. Wealth had no saving virtue on the day of battle, 
 and the custom of entrusting a large share in national 
 defence to alien mercenaries was thought ignobly character- 
 istic. John Brown's " Estimate of the Manners and 
 Principles of the Times," and John Shebbeare's "Letters 
 on the English Nation" painted the people as sordid, 
 avaricious and immoral. Self-interest certainly swayed 
 the corrupt and oligarchic legislature, and politics were 
 always discussed on a plane from which principles were 
 banished. The excise was opposed in 1T33, as being 
 imposed upon ia the sweat of the laborious brows of 
 brewers and distillers." Men fought avowedly for the 
 most material objects only. Gold ruled the aspirations of 
 the greatest, and India afforded many examples of its fatal 
 
 l The Excise Anatomized, by Z. G. (1733), p. 9. 
 
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 5 
 
 power at the time, especially during the years between 
 1760 and 1765. The significant trail of commercialism lay 
 so markedly over all national thought, that even poets 
 delighted in the growth of manufacturing towns at the 
 expense of the country districts. Thus John Dyer, in 
 " The Fleece," says of the aspect of ancient Carthage, 
 
 1 ". ... So appear 
 
 Th' increasing walls of busy Manchester, 
 Sheffield and Birmingham, whose redd'ning fields 
 Rise, and enlarge their suburbs." 
 
 Fancy loved to frolic over British markets. 
 
 2 "On Guinea's sultry strand the drap'ry light 
 Of Manchester and Norwich is bestowed," 
 
 while Lancashire was said to provide 
 
 3 "The thin shading trail for Agra's nymphs." 
 
 To optimists of course, this dominance of trade motives 
 was something to be proud of, and certainly it showed the 
 practical nature of English enthusiasm, as distinguished 
 from the fever of French militarism, which drained the 
 life blood of that country to maintain the spurious glory 
 of Continental dominion. 
 
 Side by side with this predominance of mercantilism, 
 was another tendency in English life, leading towards the 
 popularity of wars for empire. The people were under- 
 going a wave of sensationalism. A love of excitement 
 characterised all classes, and this trait has helped to 
 support war policies in every age. 4 In 1741 the London 
 mob celebrated Yernon's exploit at Carthagena by four 
 
 1 The Fleece, by J. Dyer LL.B. (1757), p. 101. 
 
 2 ibid, p. 129. 
 
 3 ibid, p. 109. 
 
 4 Paston's Little Memoirs (1901), p. 36. 
 
6 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 nights of orgy, in which every window that was not 
 illuminated was broken, and in which Westminster was 
 pampered by the gift of free beer. There was a general 
 thirst for novelty. Selwyn's impetuosity to obtain a good 
 view of the breaking of Damiens on the wheel at Paris led 
 the French crowd to make way for him as l " an English- 
 man and an amateur." Speculation did not end with the 
 South Sea bubble, when the most sober of citizens 2 " never 
 dreamt of less than three or four thousand a year." When 
 Goldsmith studied medicine at Leyden he wrote home 
 that 3 " the Dutch slumber, the French chatter, the English 
 play at cards." 4 Westminster Bridge and the British 
 Museum were largely built by means of the proceeds of 
 lotteries. In the world of fashion, the craving for excite- 
 ment was hardly satisfied by the most extravagant games 
 of chance, while the lower orders indulged in bull and 
 bear-baiting and cock-fights, and played football recklessly 
 in the streets. Naval officers were the terror of seaports. 
 " Good Lord ! What men ! " wrote a traveller from 
 Lausanne, who saw them rioting at Portsmouth in the 
 reign of George II. The excitable and adventurous char- 
 acter of British society at the time, made it very liable to 
 the influence of a war spirit, and a conflict for high stakes 
 in America and in the east offered allurement to the jaded. 
 A third feature in the England of that day, which gave 
 the nation a bias towards favouring a French war was the 
 state of political life. Walpole's finance had provided the 
 country with ample means wherewith to carry on a success- 
 ful struggle, while at the same time, the parliamentary 
 
 1 H. Walpole's Memoirs (ed. 1851), ii. 97. 
 
 2 James Houstoun's Works (1753), p. 119. 
 
 3 Prior's Life of Goldsmith (1837), i. 163. 
 
 4 The Lottery Displayed (1771), p. 7. 
 
 5 Letters of de Saussure (ed. 1902), p. 360. 
 
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 7 
 
 system of intrigue and dishonesty, which he had en- 
 couraged, made men weary of confining public events to 
 the category of aristocratic wrangles. England now 
 sighed for something more exhilarating. She was utterly 
 tired of such leaders as Pelham who had no ardour, and of 
 Henry Fox who had no principles, of Granville who had 
 sunk into premature dotage, and of Newcastle the prototype 
 of the politically corrupt. She was weary of their lordly 
 cliques, of favouritism and bribery, of places and pensions. 
 There was indeed a great opportunity for a man of genius 
 to break away from the hated network of oligarchy, to 
 clear the public mind from the parliamentary cant, which 
 represented the Revolution settlement of 1689 as an ideal 
 constitution. The nation longed for a statesman to arise 
 from the ruck of office-hunters. For this reason, it cannot 
 be surprising to find Englishmen keenly susceptible to the 
 teachings of William Pitt, who emerged from this wilder- 
 ness of sordid egoism to preach a new Crusade a Crusade 
 moreover, which appealed to the already prevailing passions 
 of the hour. A great man fighting against the current of 
 public opinion rarely conquers it; swimming with the 
 stream, he is irresistible. 
 
 One secret of Pitt's success is that he was barely ahead 
 of his age. He had his contemporaries' hatred of France ; 
 he had their love of national aggrandisement, and their 
 belief in colonial trade restrictions. His character and 
 statesmanship are therefore particularly worthy of study, 
 and it is probably more important to examine his personal 
 view of the Seven Years' War than the views of the people 
 who gave him their support. However, in the present 
 chapter, it is proposed to ignore the Great Commoner 
 himself if such a course is possible and to deal with the 
 people only. We have to understand the nature of English 
 political thought while Pitt was transforming the war into 
 scenes of British glory. 
 
8 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 With, the exception of two months in 1757 Pitt was chief 
 minister from December 1756 to October 1761, and the 
 successes of the remaining two years of the war were the 
 heritage of his administration. Nominally one of the 
 heads of the political clique formerly led by Pelham, but 
 really welcomed for the moment by all the Whig factions, 
 he gave the people a new interest in public affairs. The 
 hold of the Whig nobles upon political power was more 
 solid and lasting than his own personal influence, but the 
 glamour of success was his, if only for a day, and the 
 country acknowledged him the creator of its triumphs in 
 the war. In 1758 Senegal and Goree were conquered : in 
 the July of the same year, Louisburg, a great fort in Cape 
 Breton Island and the key of Canada, surrendered, with a 
 garrison of nearly six thousand men, to Amherst and 
 Wolfe. In the same month, Abercromby was repulsed at 
 Ticonderoga, but the enthusiasm at home was shared by 
 army and navy, and after the fall of Louisburg, Wolfe 
 wrote, " It is my humble opinion that the French may be 
 rooted out," while Amherst stated that 1<r What I wish to 
 do is to go to Quebec." In November 1758 Fort Duquesne 
 was taken at last by General Forbes and re-named 
 Pittsburg. In May 1759 Guadeloupe was subdued, and in 
 August Boscawen gained a great naval victory off Cape 
 Lagos in Portugal. In September Wolfe took Quebec. 
 Of the actual details of his generalship there is no need to 
 speak here, but it is worth noticing that only four days 
 before his death and triumph, he wrote: 2 "My constitu- 
 tion is entirely ruined without the consolation of having 
 done any considerable service to the state or without any 
 prospect of it." Wolfe's work was soon followed by the 
 
 1 Chatham Correspondence (ed. 1838), i. 330. 
 
 2 ibid, i. 425. 
 
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 9 
 
 conquest of Canada. In November 1759 Hawke dashed 
 Conflans' fleet to pieces among the rocks of Quiberon Bay. 
 In Germany, English troops had done much to win the 
 battle of Minden in August. Before the peace of 1763 
 the French West Indies were reduced, while in the east, 
 the genius of Clive had supplanted France by England 
 as destined arbiter of India. In January 1762 war was 
 declared against Spain, and Havannah and Manila were 
 conquered in the autumn. By the peace of Paris of 1763 
 France ceded Canada, Cape Breton, St. John, Senegal, 
 St. Yincent, Grenada, Dominica, and Tobago to England, 
 and Louisiana to Spain, which in turn gave up Florida and 
 the right to cut timber in Honduras to Great Britain. 
 
 Nothing gains adherents for a government more speedily 
 than military success, and no one will wonder at the volume 
 of enthusiasm evoked by such a roll of victories. Pitt 
 found a large part of the nation already only waiting for 
 some break in the continuity of England's misfortunes to 
 become rapturous for the war, and his deft choice of good 
 men, and good plans of campaign in 1759 created what is 
 probably still the high-water mark in the history of the 
 spirit of militarism in Great Britain. By that time, he 
 had learnt the mistake of wasting resources upon unprofit- 
 able raids on the French coast, and he gave the people 
 some substantial fruits of their eagerness for conflict. The 
 intensity of their zeal for the colonial war was so great 
 that even the magnitude of the armies and subsidies 
 lavished upon the German struggle had come to pass 
 almost uncriticised. 
 
 It would however be most unfair to attribute England's 
 zeal during the Seven Years' War to mere intoxication 
 with success. As we have seen above, the general tendency 
 of the time lay in the direction of fighting trade rivals, 
 such conflicts being considered so essential to commercial 
 
10 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 greatness that Hhe Turkey company tried to exclude a 
 Quaker from its councils in 1759 as professing opinions 
 detrimental to the waging of trade wars. Long before 
 1756, the people had tried to interest their government in 
 the cause of expansion. It was the trading class, who 
 forced Walpole into the Spanish war of 1739 in spite of 
 his love of peace and contempt for all such imperial pro- 
 jects as Berkeley's scheme of founding a university in 
 Bermuda, and the pamphlets of the day attest to the 
 eagerness of the nation at large to divert the aristocracy 
 from its absorption in domestic cabals to the larger question 
 of the struggle for survival in America. 2 It was urged 
 that all England would support a war to secure colonial 
 supremacy. 3 A11 our troubles were attributed to Trench 
 schemes to subvert our empire. While the ministry was 
 dallying with European diplomacy, 4 England's legs were 
 being hamstrung across the Atlantic. No force in the 
 world could withstand British infantry, and so the country 
 should strike at once. The only sensible policy in view of 
 the French depredations of 1754 was to move energetically, 
 argued the "Cobbler's Letter" of 1756; 5 "war, my brave 
 Britons, war." 
 
 Thus the spirit of battle awoke in England. 6 It was 
 then the vogue to pelt foreigners in London with dead 
 dogs and cats on Lord Mayor's day, and now the mob 
 assuming that all foreigners were Frenchmen, hurled in 
 addition the old epithet of 7 " French dog" at every 
 
 1 Burr's Eeports, ii. 1003 (R. v. March). 
 
 2 Present State of the Revenues of France and Spain (1740), p. 45. 
 
 3 A Letter from a Cobbler to the People of England (1756), p. 9. 
 
 4 ibid, p. 12. 
 
 5 ibid, p. 29. 
 
 6 Letters of de Saussure (ed. 1902), p. 111. 
 
 7 ibid, p. 112; Baretti's Journey from London to Genoa (1770), i. 64. 
 
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 11 
 
 stranger. In November 1755 1 Garrick was attacked for 
 employing French actors on the stage in Noverre's Chinese 
 ballet, and it is suggestive to read that in 1760 2 the 
 theatres were considered to support the war feeling even 
 more warmly than the press. In general however, the 
 zealots of the day were as sober as they were ambitious. 
 The war party knew what it wanted. Thus in a " Letter 
 from a Merchant of the city of London," the writer pointed 
 at 3 North America as the prize for which his country had 
 then to contend. With such an end before it, parsimony 
 was absurd. 4 If she had spent two millions instead of 
 200,000 in 1756 she would have won and held Crown Point 
 and Oswego. American colonists should be made to con- 
 tribute more adequately towards the cost of their own 
 defence. All writers of this school followed Pitt in 
 emphasising the imperial character of the war. It was 
 being waged for the maintenance of British interests all 
 the world over. One essayist said very correctly, 5 "If ever 
 there was a national war, this is truly such a one." The 
 future of the whole race was in the balance, and the 
 quarrel with France was vital to every Briton, and not 
 merely a dispute, personal to "the weavers of Yorkshire, 
 Norwich or the west, the cutlers of Sheffield, or the 
 button makers of Birmingham." 
 
 For the time, the nation forgot its old terror of a 
 standing army. The evils of the press-gang were forgiven. 
 It was not the people's fault if supplies for the soldiery 
 were diverted by dastardly contractors, for money was 
 
 1 Private Correspondence of David Garrick (ed. 1831), p. xxx. 
 
 2 Grosley's Tour to London (1772), i. 97. 
 
 3 Letter from a Merchant (1757), p. 9. 
 
 4 ibid. p. 30. 
 
 5 Interest of Great Britain (1759), p. 20. 
 
12 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 lavished upon their comforts, and l AVolfe even complained 
 that they suffered from too much pay and too much rum. 
 Benevolence was then a strong factor in English life, and 
 combined with patriotism, it gave impetus to the Marine 
 Society, founded by Fowler Walker, a barrister in 1756 for 
 the purpose of collecting waifs and strays for the navy. 
 The scheme was forwarded with spirit by Sir John Fielding 
 and Jonas Hanway, the oriental traveller, and subscrip- 
 tions were contributed by the corporations of London, 
 Bristol, Leeds, York and Norwich. 2 Between 1756 and 
 1762, 5451 boys were drafted from the streets to the navy, 
 and 4787 enlisted as naval volunteers. Youths flocked 
 into both branches of the service, and 3 special perform- 
 ances were given by Garrick, Rich and the proprietors of 
 Ranelagh, to raise funds for the Marine Society. In May 
 1756 the government waived its right to share in prize 
 money accruing from subsequent French captures, with a 
 view to encourage officers and seamen, while 4 the King 
 devoted the proceeds of the sale of prizes taken before the 
 declaration of war, amounting to over 700,000, to the 
 national cause. 5 In 1759 the Court of Common Council 
 subscribed 1,000 towards a voluntary London fund to 
 bestow bounties upon recruits, to which 6 the City 
 Companies contributed liberally. 7 The people of New- 
 castle raised sufficient money to furnish each recruit who 
 joined the Royal Volunteers or the sixty-ninth regiment 
 then quartered in the town, with a gratuity of two guineas, 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Comm. Eep. ix. ; pt. 3, 75. 
 
 2 J. Pugh's Life of Hanway (1768), p. 143. 
 
 3 ibid, p. 142. 
 
 4= Consideration on the Trade of this Kingdom (1766), p. 30. 
 s Annual Register (1759), p. 106. 
 
 6 ibid, p. 115. 
 
 7 ibid, p. 116. 
 
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 13 
 
 while Berwick emulated Newcastle by offering three 
 guineas. For once England made light of the difficulty in 
 completing her establishment, under which she laboured 
 during the whole century. Every county encouraged its 
 soldiery. Isaac Barre, afterwards an adherent of Shelburne 
 and an opponent of the forward policy in America, fought 
 under Wolfe at Rochefort, and organised the Black 
 Musqueteers in 1761 ; Gibbon and his father served in the 
 Hampshire militia for over three years. l In 1759 fourteen 
 thousand militiamen did not object to remaining under 
 arms in spite of the haymaking and harvest seasons. 
 2 "You may be easy as to the consequences of invasion," 
 wrote Lord Holderness laughingly to Lord George Sackville, 
 " as the Yorkshire militia is ready to take the field." Large 
 sums were raised for the relief of widows and orphans. 
 In 1762 upwards of 3 337,000 men were employed on land 
 and sea in the British service, of whom 57,000 were German 
 mercenaries and 20,000 colonials. The ratio of British- 
 born soldiery was for that age remarkably high, and their 
 morale never better. The heroes of the war live still in 
 song and story. An eloquent contemporary said of 
 Boscawen that he 4 " established the British fame in 
 remotest Asia, and made the Indies echo with his thunder" ; 
 the Marquis of Granby became a popular idol, while 
 Hawke, when thanked for his deeds by the Houses of 
 Parliament, answered simply, 5 "In doing my utmost, I 
 only did the duty I owed my King and country." 
 
 It cannot be disputed that the polemical literature which 
 supported the work of these men of action reached a 
 
 1 Bedford Correspondence (ed. 1842), ii. 393. 
 
 2 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. ix. ; pt. 3, 79. 
 ; 3 Annual Register (1763), p. 50. 
 
 4= The Real Character of the Age (1757). 
 s Cobbett's Parl. Hist. xv. 958. 
 
14 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 comparatively high level of good sense. If the enemy 
 were assailed with scurrility, such abuse was not levelled 
 against them as Frenchmen, but rather as against obstacles 
 in the way of the national mission. Men felt very honestly 
 on the question of America. It was thought essential to 
 England to save her own territory, and win that of the 
 French. Politicians had unsound views as to the true uses 
 of a colony, but of its value as a market they had very 
 clear perception, and this calculating statesmanship was 
 never wholly obscured by the enthusiasm with which it 
 was supported. Most apostles of the war policy remained 
 cool and alert, even when Pitt himself seemed to lose his 
 feet in the rush of triumphs. 
 
 The foundation of a firm empire was thus a genuine 
 object of the majority of Englishmen, who little dreamed 
 then that their choice of means was destined shortly to 
 subvert it. x " Farewell imperial England," wrote Joseph 
 Baretti, Doctor Johnson's Italian friend in 1759, a 
 significant term in the mouth of one who knew the mean- 
 ing of empire, and had seen 2 militiamen drilling at 
 Honiton. Hundreds of poems proclaimed the virtues of 
 England's new militant ideal. 3 " ( Britannia resting on 
 her ported spear" supplanted the complacent goddess of 
 the days of Walpole's peace. One Jones dedicated his 
 "Patriot Enterprize" to Pitt, and vaunted "the crimson 
 cross of England" in 1758; 
 
 4 "Around the globe her dreaded flag display, 
 Let ocean's utmost bounds her flag obey." 
 
 James Ogden chose the same stirring theme for his poem, 
 called " The British Lion Roused." 
 
 1 Baretti's Journey from London to Gnoa (1770), i. 3. 
 
 2 ibid, i. 8. 
 
 3 W. Dobson's Prussian Campaign (1759), p. 25. 
 
 4 Gent. Mag. (1758), p. 282. 
 
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 15 
 
 1 "Aloft the British flag defiance hurls 
 
 Her topsail lately loos'd the Frenchman furls." 
 
 Sheer exultation breathes in every line of such appeals to 
 popular ardour, though the Annual Register of 1762 is 
 careful to explain that the nation's self-confidence was not 
 based on arrogance or presumption, but on 2 " a just opinion 
 of superior courage." Patrick, a volunteer who fought at 
 Quebec, wrote a "Poetical Essay," in which patriotism 
 burned very brightly. 
 
 3 "Short the dispute, for when could Gallic strength 
 Withstand a British arm?" 
 
 He ranged over the world-wide scenes of English conquest, 
 including even " inmost Af ric," while 4 another bard 
 treated the flag as supreme from the sands of Africa to the 
 snows of Nova Zembla. Patrick however, saw the practical 
 side of the war as well, and in discussing its chief issue, he 
 said with much truth and acumen that it was 5 " a war 
 perhaps the most just and simple that ever nation engaged 
 in, and entered into with uncommon spirit by King and 
 people." In the struggle for survival among would-be 
 world empires, each combatant has a just cause' and a clear 
 issue at stake. 
 
 Such then was the general impression, and the Great 
 Commoner found it easy to stir men's already kindling 
 thoughts. London, as the centre of English commerce, 
 throbbed with the war spirit, and furnished the army with 
 as many recruits as did the whole of Protestant 
 Ireland; Catholics were not allowed to enlist. 6 Flags 
 
 1 Ogden's British Lion (1758), p. 13. 
 
 2 Annual Register (1762), p. 6. 
 
 3 Patrick's Quebec (1760), p. 20. 
 * Annual Register (1763), p. 226. 
 s Patrick's Quebec (1760), p. 2. 
 
 H. Walpole's Letters to Mann (ed. 1833), iii. 292. 
 
16 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 captured at Louisburg were carried in triumph to St. 
 Paul's, and cannon taken at Cherbourg were trailed into 
 Hyde Park. The rich " Nabobs," who were just entering 
 English society now that dive's genius had for the first 
 time opened the way to making large private fortunes in 
 India, gave solid support to those who preached the uses 
 of trade wars. Clive was devoted to Pitt, and when the 
 great victory of Plassey had made him master of northern 
 India, he presented him with a very beautiful and un- 
 common animal from Bengal. *A Cambridgeshire vicar 
 called Wilson made the first recorded suggestion of con- 
 structing a Panama canal, calling upon the government to 
 conquer the Isthmus. Success in Canada converted many 
 of the Whig nobles from their early indifference. 2 " Great 
 and most seasonable news," wrote Newcastle to Bedford 
 after Quebec. 3 " Interesting news, and I hope to find the 
 price of beaver hats much lowered," was Baretti's drier 
 comment. Newcastle indeed, though remaining 4 jealous 
 of Pitt, and pleased when he fell in 1761, realised some- 
 thing of the glory of the new efficiency. 5 " My heart is so 
 full of the joyful news," he said after the taking of 
 Louisburg, and certainly such successes were so captivating 
 that there seemed to be need no longer of the artificial 
 propaganda of an 6 Anti-Gallican Association, which had 
 been called into being for the diffusion of odes to Pitt, and 
 invectives against France. 7 The gallery and pit inter- 
 rupted the Drury Lane pantomime in order to make the 
 band play " God save great George the King." In 1759 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. vi. ; pt. 1, 316. 
 
 2 Bedford Correspondence, ii. 415. 
 
 s Baretti's Journey from London to Genoa (1770), iv. 44. 
 
 4 Nicholls' Recollections (1822), i. 9. 
 
 s Grenville Papers, i. 259. 
 
 e For Our Country (1757), p. 17. 
 
 7 Kilmansegg's Journey in England (ed. 1902), p. 225. 
 
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 17 
 
 one writer treated England's various acquisitions as already 
 her children; 
 
 ia Here Senegal hold up your head; 
 This tawny boy, his parents' boast, 
 Shall bring us gold from Afric's coast, 
 And mark these twins of Indian mien, 
 This Louisburg, and this Du Quesne." 
 
 After all, it is not often that a country can claim without 
 dispute that its chief minister is the greatest figure in the 
 world, and sueh indeed was Pitt. 2 In regions as remote as 
 Armenia and Georgia, men looked to him for deliverence 
 from the Turkish yoke. Every Englishman who thought 
 himself a bard sought to do him honour, from Goldsmith 
 and Mark Akenside down to "William Whitehead, the 
 laureate himself. 
 
 However, the Judges were no less successful than the 
 poets in exemplifying the mercantile aspect of the war. 
 When the great Sir William Scott delivered judgment in 
 the leading case of The Immanuel in 1799, he alluded 
 deferentially to "the revered decisions" of the Court of 
 Appeal of 1756. That Court had expressed the so-called 
 Rule of the "War of 1756 that no neutral could trade 
 between a belligerent country and such of that country's 
 colonies, from which neutrals had been excluded before 
 the outbreak of hostilities. The French had opened the 
 doors of their colonial markets under stress of the war, but 
 the English courts deemed any Dutch or Hamburg neutrals, 
 who availed themselves of this too opportune free trade, 
 interlopers in a belligerent traffic, and as such incorporated 
 into the French navigation and liable to be condemned. 
 This is a clear instance of the manner in which the Judges 
 
 1 Annual Register (1759), p. 442. 
 
 2 Original Letters (ed. Rebecca Warner, 1817), pp. 176, 178. 
 
18 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 have treated English customary ideas as law. The country 
 was but a novice in International Law. Murray had com- 
 posed his famous refutation of Prussian claims in the 
 affair of the Silesian loan in 1753, simply by means of 
 special research. The device of France in opening her 
 colonial trade to neutrals puzzled English jurists at first, 
 and as Anne, Princess of Orange and guardian of the 
 young stadtholder, William V., was an English princess, 
 1 Pitt favoured her by releasing certain Dutch offenders in 
 1758. The question however soon rose again when Anne 
 died, and Pitt changed his attitude. Jenkinson, who had 
 already proved that the Netherlands were bound by the 
 treaty of 1717 to give England active assistance instead of 
 covert hostility, had already 2 searched London for Dutch 
 authorities on International Law, there being no English 
 book on the subject later than that of Zouch (1650), and 
 had advised the government in 1757 that the trade com- 
 plained of was illegal. By the middle of 1759 the English 
 principle was established, largely owing to the determina- 
 tion of 3 Pitt and the opinions of 4 Hardwicke and Mansfield. 
 Thenceforward, 5 few cases arise on the point, as most of 
 the French colonies had been conquered, and trade with 
 the remainder had become too hazardous. Two Dutch 
 ships were condemned by the Lords of Appeal in March 
 1760, and two more in the following June. The judicial 
 decisions on the question show clearly that colonies were 
 then considered to have no independent existence apart 
 from their Mother Country, and to have by nature what a 
 later age has called " closed doors." 
 
 1 Chatham Correspondence, i. 357. 
 
 2 Grenville Papers, i. 270. 
 
 3 Authentic Memoirs of Chatham (1778), p. 20. 
 
 4 Grenville Papers, ii. 295. 
 
 s Annual Pvegister (1759), p. 5. 
 
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 19 
 
 Of course, there were doubters, for even Pitt could not 
 charm all Britain into unanimity. The bulk of the nation 
 echoed his colonial ambitions, but one section stood aloof 
 from the war policy altogether. The Leicester House 
 clique did not disagree on the American question, but they 
 hated the waste of men and money on Continental battle- 
 fields. In opposition to George II. 's schemes, they had no 
 patience for the sounding paradox, " conquering America 
 on the plains of Germany." 
 
 1 "Yes, he forsook the empire of the main, 
 
 With British blood dy'd every German plain." 
 
 There were however others, who objected to the whole 
 theory of empire upon which Pitt's policy was based. 
 They would rather have seen the French carve out what 
 dominions they might choose to exploit in the west, than 
 incur the long exhaustion involved by even successful 
 warfare. Shebbeare for instance, ridiculed the scheme of 
 American supremacy. 2 Our alarm of French attacks on 
 our colonies was attributed to the private interest and 
 backstairs influence of a certain Quaker. The dull 3 Lord 
 Hillsborough, who was afterwards made Secretary of State 
 for India before he knew the geographical whereabouts of 
 Bengal, refused to believe that the French had en- 
 croached upon the Ohio valley at all. Grenville, a far 
 abler man, disclaimed the prevailing habit of fighting for 
 mere trade interests. With a dim premonition of the 
 future problem of ways and means, that was destined to 
 lead him to suggest the Stamp Act, he opposed the forward 
 school in 1755, as bent on dragging England into a war for 
 
 1 The Patriot Poet, a Satire (1764), p. 10. 
 
 2 A Letter to the People of England on the Present Situation (1755), 
 
 p. 33. 
 s Wraxall's Memoirs (ed. 1818), ii. 156. 
 
20 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 gold, l " vexing your neighbours for a little muck." 
 2 Horace Walpole objected to endangering our own island 
 for visionary empire on the Ohio. When the war had 
 lasted several years, the voice of opposition became more 
 articulate. The severe winter of 1759-60 occasioned dis- 
 tress, while Pitt had no mastery of finance, and critics 
 complained that the incidence of his taxation of beer, malt 
 and cider fell 3 "upon the most useful and laborious part 
 of the nation." This was no idle charge, as the liquor 
 interest procured the passing of 4 an act enabling victuallers 
 and others to raise the price of strong beer and ale, and 
 thereby to transfer their own burden to the consumers. 
 In 1761 David Hume deplored 5 "this miserable war." In 
 1762 one writer pointed out the horrors of the protracted 
 struggle with more than a touch of Swift, and asked 
 whether 6 "a few wooden legs or a battered French ship" 
 were worth the price of war. 7 Would it not be better to 
 till the earth and throw the shuttle? Similar doubts led 
 8 Sir Samuel Romilly in after days to declare that all the 
 glories of Pitt's policy and of the Seven Years' War, did 
 not confer a moment's happiness to humanity, but merely 
 much bloodshed and a burdensome debt. 
 
 In general however, the war party predominated, and in 
 few British wars has a government been able to rely on so 
 effective a majority. 9 The Senegal expedition was made 
 
 1 G. Bubb Dodington's Diary (July 21, 1755). 
 
 2 H. Walpole's Letters to Mann, iii. 326. 
 
 3 An Enquiry into the Conduct of a late Rt. Hon. Commoner (1766), 
 
 p. 15; cf. Consideration on the Trade etc. of this kingdom 
 (1766), p. 6. 
 
 4 2 Geo. iii. c. 14. 
 
 5 Hume's Private Correspondence (ed. 1820), p. 3. 
 
 6 Some Reasons for Serious Candor (1762), p. 7. 
 
 7 ibid, p. 8. 
 
 8 Romilly's Memoirs (ed. 1840), i. 402. 
 
 9 Authentic Memoirs of Chatham (1778), p. 19. 
 
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 21 
 
 at the suggestion of Gumming, a Quaker, and every class 
 1 contributed towards providing the army with thousands 
 of flannel waistcoats, woollen gloves and caps, and half- 
 gaiters. Among the ministers of the time, Pitt, and Pitt 
 alone, was essentially the people's choice. There is so 
 great a volume of evidence as to England's practical 
 unanimity in her colonial aspirations during the Seven 
 Years' War, that one cannot help asking why so vast a 
 power for good was frittered away in a decade. It is true 
 that her theory of empire was as yet crude and fallacious, 
 and that much of her zeal was undisciplined, but it is just 
 possible that such defects could have been cured by a wise 
 leader. The empire was young, and her children over sea, 
 like Washington, rejoiced with her children in the home 
 country that 2 "the French are so well drubbed." The 
 motive power which had constructed Greater Britain, was 
 surely capable of something more than conquest. Yet 
 though the conquerors thus required immediate education, 
 their master's hand shook at the crucial moment, for Pitt 
 allowed their imperial ardour to sink into the profitless 
 channels of Continental militarism. He did not rise above 
 his generation to find the true science of colonial govern- 
 ment. Great as he was, he fell just short of that con- 
 summate statesmanship, which might possibly have made 
 the elements in English life evoked by the French war a 
 source of perpetual union among Britons rather than seeds 
 of separation. Be that as it may, there are few war 
 administrations to which Englishmen can look back with 
 more respect than that which witnessed Plassey and 
 Quebec. The country then showed a wonderful capacity 
 to understand and to endure a most momentous crisis. 
 
 1 Annual Register (1760), p. 67. 
 
 2 Sparks' Writings of Washington (1847), ii. 332. 
 
22 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 Unfortunately the subsequent necessity to organise and 
 perpetuate the empire she had created proved too great a 
 task and Pitt's warning to Hardwicke after the capture of 
 Quebec dipped into an actual future. x " Sustaining this 
 war, arduous as it has been and still is, may not be more 
 difficult than properly and happily closing it." 
 
 1 Harris's Hardwicke, iii. 193. 
 
PITT'S INFLUENCE 23 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PITT'S INFLUENCE AS MINISTER. 
 
 PITT'S chief title to fame lies in his power to awaken 
 enthusiasm for the cause of Greater Britain. He found 
 dormant possibilities in English life, and he made them 
 valuable realities. He saw tendencies, which might be 
 utilised for the empire, and he made them do service for 
 that purpose. His boast, " I alone can save this country," 
 was true, and he guided the state in the Seven Years' War 
 towards vast territorial aggrandisement. For this reason, 
 we can be too censorious as to the crooked paths by which 
 Pitt groped his way to power. They are really irrelevant 
 to his place in history. Like most great statesmen, he 
 considered that the end justified the means, and so he 
 truckled to the prejudices of the hour until he was once 
 supreme. Then he showed his real convictions, and after 
 1755, he never conceded an iota to any popular clamour, 
 with which he did not agree. Thus as a "boy patriot," 
 yearning for opportunities, he had denounced l Hanover as 
 u a despicable electorate," and as " an execrable mill-stone 
 hung about the neck of Great Britain." As minister, he 
 styled it 2 " as dear to us as Hampshire," and the mill-stone 
 became 3 "a cork jacket." In opposition, he had received 
 in 1744 a legacy of 10,000 from the Duchess of 
 
 1 An Enquiry into the Conduct of a late Rt. Hon. Commoner (1766), 
 
 p. 12; A Letter to Will Chat-em (1766), p. 19. 
 
 2 Dodington's Diary (Aug. 6, 1755). 
 
 3 A Vindication of the Conduct of the Great Commoner (1766), p. 9. 
 
24 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 Marlborough to enable him to work l " unplaced and un- 
 pensioned " ; in office, he was lavish in such instruments of 
 allurement. 2 As late as November 1755, he had denounced 
 foreign wars and subsidies; his own ministry thought of 
 little else. Judged however, as empire-builder and colonial 
 theorist, Pitt's past inconsistencies should not be treated 
 too seriously. They had no bearing upon the influence 
 which he exercised over the country during the Seven 
 Years' War, and it is this influence that is really all- 
 important in estimating Pitt's share in the evolution of 
 British imperial policy. It has been suggested that possibly 
 his change of front can be justified by the change in the 
 character of the European conflict; German campaigns 
 were no longer of merely Hanoverian interest. 
 
 Undoubtedly, Pitt's greatest work was to give the nation 
 scope for its latent capacity for expansion. For many 
 years, the potentiality of a Crusade against France had 
 been there. Pitt made the Crusade a practical and success- 
 ful undertaking. He was indifferent to finance; he was 
 given to acting, and often lacked balance and sobriety, but 
 no Englishman has ever attained to his power to evoke 
 enthusiasm, or to his genius for sustaining that enthusiasm 
 by efficiency in action. In this, he showed himself a man 
 of the times. He was distinguished from the average 
 citizen only by his far greater talents; he had the same 
 national ambitions, and the same sound appreciation of 
 how best to carry out a working project. Careless though 
 he was of popular criticism, he was the first to learn 
 wisdom through experience, and men recognized how 
 directly he was the cause of their triumphs on sea and in 
 the field. He had a genius for discovering talent, and 
 
 1 An Enquiry etc., p. 11. 
 
 2 An Examination of the Principles of a late Rt. Hon. Gentleman (1766), 
 
 p. 29. 
 
PITT'S INFLUENCE 25 
 
 Wolfe and Boscawen, Amherst and Pocock were all objects 
 of his own personal choice, as were the diplomatists, 
 Louis Dutens, and Hans Stanley. Pitt was bent on making 
 Greater Britain a permanent empire, and with that end 
 in view, he never hesitated to stimulate the general hatred 
 of the house of Bourbon. 1 In 1T55 he urged that the 
 government ought never to have allowed the French to 
 establish themselves in America at all, and he clung to 
 this principle to the last. His resignation in October 1761 
 was directly due to the King's aversion to declaring war on 
 Spain, and in 1763, when it looked as if some of the fruits 
 of his work might be lost through the shallow leniency of 
 Bute, he declaimed against the retrocession of Manila and 
 Havannah, and declared maritime and colonial supremacy 
 to be essentials of British policy. Even William of Orange 
 did not evince greater animus against France than did 
 Pitt during the years of his power. 2 When the Due de 
 Nivernois remonstrated against certain acts of piracy by 
 Englishmen, he was told that if Great Britain were only 
 just to her neighbour, the latter's existence would not last 
 another fifty years. 
 
 Pitt's influence upon the people was naturally immense, 
 and their consequent realisation of the issues involved by 
 the war won the struggle for England. 3 In America 
 Dinwiddie explained the true gravity of the situation to 
 the Virginia assembly, while Arthur Dobbs enlisted support 
 in North Carolina in 1755, by dilating upon French 
 depredations in Protestant Germany, and along the 
 frontier of our American colonies. He said that Britain's 
 object was to confine the enemy to inhospitable Canada 
 and the hot sands of Louisiana, instead of suffering them 
 
 1 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xv. 605. 
 
 2 Soulavie, Memoires du regne de Louis xvi. (ed. 1801), iii. 372. 
 
 3 Gent. Mag. (1755), p. 305. 
 
26 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 to perfect their own plans of conquest, l " hatched in hell, 
 and supported by the court of Rome." In England Pitt 
 did much to encourage national self-confidence, or (as 
 some will say) vainglory, for choice between two such 
 terms is usually arbitrary. Pessimists, who had lamented 
 the futility of British efforts in 1754 and 1755, and the 
 seeming decadence of national spirit, were now attacked 
 with vigour. 2 Brown, who had pointed with dismay at 
 our reliance on foreign mercenaries in 1745, and 3 had 
 questioned the efficacy of subsidies if an invader once 
 reached Salisbury Plain, was now judged to be refuted. 
 The army had disproved their alleged inability to do more 
 than polish helmets, and march past correctly. 4 "0ur 
 soldiers dress better than others," wrote one of Pitt's 
 adherents in 1757, "but sir, they also fight better. We 
 have beau Admirals, and the prettiest gentleman of the 
 age commands a ship of war. You infer from hence they 
 will not fight but .... if an enemy takes your word, I 
 am persuaded he will repent it bitterly. There is nothing 
 inconsistent in valour and a clean shirt. The best dressed 
 head may face an enemy as erect as the uncombed Charles 
 of Sweden." This writer looked forward to England out- 
 shining Greece and Eome under Pitt's guidance. He 
 deemed his country naturally supreme, not only in war 
 but also in the arts of peace. It had even shown its 
 appreciation of music by welcoming the "Messiah," and 
 as to our chances in the struggle for America they were 
 bright indeed. " The reverence for liberty and property 
 is so religiously stamped on every breast that the meanest 
 Briton (if it be possible a Briton can be mean) would wish 
 
 1 ibid, p. 306. 
 
 2 Brown's Estimate of the Manners of the Times (1757), p. 91. 
 
 3 ibid, p. 201. 
 
 4 The Eeal Character of the Age (1757). 
 
PITT'S INFLUENCE 27 
 
 to live free rather than be a Frenchman and a slave." In 
 Scotland, Pitt's wisdom led to the raising of two Highland 
 regiments Montgomery's (the 77th) and Eraser's (the 
 78th) in 1757, a step which led to the formation of others 
 in 1759 and 1760. 
 
 It seems to have been also largely due to Pitt, that 
 George II. earned popularity in the last years of his reign. 
 Previously the King had hated him for his opposition, but 
 Court support was still most useful to a ministry, and Pitt 
 won it by his conversion to a policy of self-assertion 
 abroad. He assured Cumberland of his wish iu to efface 
 the past." In return, he defended that unlucky general 
 after Closterseven, and always identified the Crown with 
 the national ambitions in the war. 2 In Parliament, the 
 old King became universally popular. He was at last in a 
 situation for which he had qualifications, and his candid 
 preference for English generals like Clive over Germans 
 like Eerdinand of Brunswick, and his liking for Hawke, 
 whom he called "my captain," showed the new relation- 
 ship between King and people. They began to appreciate 
 his good work in keeping the army free from corrupt 
 patronage. 
 
 However, the most important historical question which 
 arises in reference to this time, is how far Pitt turned the 
 enthusiasm which he so largely created to the best advant- 
 age. We must ask whether he utilised the new imperial 
 ardour to the full, and whether he could control the flood 
 of national feeling which he had evoked, in order to 
 organise an empire as well as victories. 
 
 It is exceedingly difficult to surmise whether Pitt con- 
 templated any remodelling of colonial relations as a 
 necessary sequel to the conquest of North America. It is 
 
 1 P. Fitzgerald's Townshend (1866), p. 97. 
 
 2 Arthur Young's Autobiography (ed. 1898), p. 17. 
 
28 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 probable that he had drifted away from his single-minded 
 endeavours to expand the empire long before his fall in 
 1761. Undoubtedly, he did aim consistently at the sup- 
 planting of a French by a British world empire, but in 
 the whirl of military triumphs, this scheme appears to 
 have sunk into a group of other aims of far less national 
 moment, and this modification of his policy of 1756 had 
 very serious influence upon popular thought. Men were 
 so subject to his personal opinions, that his subordination 
 of colonial dreams to European policy led to absolute 
 popular neglect of the far more vital question of how to 
 govern America after 1763. Converted to the plan of in- 
 juring France in Europe, Pitt never taught them that the 
 expulsion of the French from Canada necessitated a re- 
 adjustment of the existing colonial system, and even in 
 his subsequent wealth of oratory on the subject of American 
 taxation, he never pointed out any concise scheme of re- 
 construction. English indifference to the need for a new 
 imperial policy can therefore be attributed largely to Pitt's 
 exclusive attention to conquering America on the plains of 
 Germany. 1 That policy was abhorrent to him in 1755, 
 but by three subsequent treaties Great Britain agreed to 
 subsidise Frederick the Great, and men and money were 
 sent to the Continent in profusion, for the purpose of 
 aiding him in his struggle against France, Austria and 
 Russia. The alliance clearly injured France; it was 
 probably necessary at the time though Bute's reckless 
 abandonment of Prussia in November 1762 forfeited 
 England's claims upon her gratitude. It is doubtful how- 
 ever, if Pitt's famous paradox was much better than a bare 
 excuse. It is true that France's absorption in the 
 Continental war proved her ruin over sea, but such was 
 the customary trend of her .politics ; and the same conflict 
 i Harris's Hardwicke, iii. 33. 
 
PITT'S INFLUENCE 29 
 
 would have diverted her from America, even if Pitt had 
 not stiffened Prussian resistance by soldiers and subsidies. 
 The tendency in France to prefer European dominion to 
 colonial expansion was already irresistible, and if the 
 dust was in the eyes of the French government, it was not 
 of Pitt's throwing. 
 
 Moreover, Pitt's interest in the German war seems to 
 have encroached on his interest in purely colonial policy, 
 when once the conflict had taken a decisive turn. At all 
 events, his joy over Prussian victories was not expressed 
 in a manner calculated to give the impression that he 
 regarded the war as primarily maritime and colonial. 
 1 " Here's enough to make one giddy," he wrote delightedly 
 after Frederick's victory at Breslau. In June 1758 he 
 wrote to Grenville that 2 "we are all joy here," on account 
 of the battle of Creveld. "We are sending twelve 
 squadrons of English cavalry to this glorious school of 
 war, and I hope to share a sprig of Germanic laurel very 
 soon," words which are hard to reconcile with the idea 
 that he had engaged in the German war as a disagreeable 
 necessity for the sake of more English issues. After 3 " our 
 happy victory " of Minden, he sems to have believed in the 
 expediency of continuing to support the campaigns of 
 4 "our immortal Frederick" for mere glory's sake. 
 Ferdinand of Brunswick, who led English troops in 
 Prussian service with skill and success, was 5 rewarded by 
 a grant of 25,000, a sword worth 1,000, a blue ribbon, 
 and 2,500 a year secured on the Irish establishment, 
 while English officers who were " conquering America " in 
 
 1 Chatham Correspondence, ii. 2. 
 
 2 Grenville Papers, i. 244. 
 
 3 Chatham Correspondence, ii. 7. 
 
 4 ibid, ii. 9. 
 
 5 Letter to Will Chat-em Esquire of Turn-about Hall (1766), p. 28. 
 
30 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 America itself had no such favours. Nor was Hawke re- 
 warded with a peerage until 1765. 
 
 It must indeed be admitted that ^ome Englishmen 
 believed that no trans-Atlantic war could be waged 
 successfully against France, without some Continental 
 alliance. One of Pitt's supporters argued in Parliament 
 in 1762 that 2 " the minister who goes to war with France, 
 when that nation is in her full vigour, without a diversion 
 on the Continent does it with a halter about his neck," 
 and a typical Whig of 1781 ascribed our failures in the 
 American War to its being 3 "one of those stupid wars 
 which the Tories have always clamoured for a naval war 
 with France without any land war in which our men might 
 die in German ditches." On the other hand, contemporary 
 evidence rather points to the conclusion that Pitt was 
 simply carried off his feet by the flood of military 
 successes. 4 " Happy, happy day," he wrote on hearing 
 the escape of Quebec from the pressing danger of recapture 
 in 1760. " My joy and hurry are inexpressible." In the 
 rush of the busy war administration, which made such 
 hurry inevitable, he had little time to look beyond the 
 present, and after Wolfe's triumph, he seems to have 
 allowed public opinion to be more centred in the European 
 war than in the prospect opened out for England in the 
 west. He did indeed enlist sympathy for the coming 
 maritime struggle with Spain, but he none the less looked 
 on Germany with a gaze more rapt than discriminating. 
 He was very sensitive to what Junius mockingly described 
 as 5 " the guttural pomp of a German campaign," and his 
 
 1 The Case of the British Troops serving in Germany (1761), p. 29; 
 
 Reasons in support of the War in Germany (1762), p. 28. 
 
 2 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xv. 1226. 
 
 3 Arthur Young's Autobiography, p. 108. 
 
 4 Chatham Correspondence, ii. 45. 
 s Letters of Junius, ii. 186. 
 
PITT'S INFLUENCE 31 
 
 advocacy of the Prussian cause was so earnest that even 
 in America itself, we find George Washington writing in 
 1760, lu We are in pain here for the King of Prussia, and 
 wish Hanover safe, these being events in which we are 
 much interested." In England, Pitt made Frederick a 
 popular hero, although a few years earlier no German 
 prince could have won even respect. 2 General Oglethorpe 
 compared him with Henry Y. and Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 In 1790 London contained no fewer than twenty inns with 
 the sign of the King of Prussia, and several with the sign 
 of the Protestant Hero, all relics of the dead enthusiasm of 
 1756. 
 
 It must also be remembered that many Englishmen had 
 as yet hardly felt the glow of purely colonial ambition. 
 In 1755 a Whig politician wrote, 3 " There is not the least 
 tittle of other public news from America, or (more import- 
 ant) Germany." His choice of language is significant. 
 4 Bedford complained of the transference of soldiery from 
 Ireland to America, while already in 1759, the representa- 
 tion of the Continental war as an English necessity had 
 provoked plenty of satire. 
 
 5 "The Hanoverians, Hessians, Prussians, 
 
 Are paid to oppose the French and Russians, 
 
 Nor scruple they with truth to say 
 
 They are fighting for America. 
 
 No more they make a fiddle-faddle 
 
 About a Hessian horse or saddle, 
 
 No more of Continental measures, 
 
 No more of wasting British treasures, 
 
 Ten millions and a vote of credit," etc. 
 
 1 Sparks' Washington, ii. 333. 
 
 2 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. ix. ; pt. 2, 229. 
 s Bedford Correspondence, ii. 164. 
 
 * ibid, ii. 360. 
 
 s Annual Register (1759), p. 440. 
 
32 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 It looks as if the destruction of French power was a 
 livelier motive with Pitt than the consolidation of the 
 British empire. At least, during his ministry he had no 
 time nor inclination to dwell on any topic but the conduct 
 of the war. In that, he was indeed successful, notwith- 
 standing some deviations into valueless schemes like the 
 fatal raid on St. Malo in 1758 ; but he was only inspired 
 while playing the war minister. He was so immersed in 
 his work as such, that he had no moment to attend to 
 finance. He could only trust in the patience of the people, 
 and the talents of his subordinates. lu The Hessian 
 demand for forage is preposterous, and would revolt att 
 the world/' he writes wearily in 1758; "I wish to God I 
 could see my way through this mountain of expense/' In 
 1760 the wide extension of the war from its original 
 objects necessitated the raising of sixteen millions of 
 revenue. In 1763 the consequent taxes on beer and cider 
 were much disliked. When the war was over, the new 
 problem of imperial relations afforded perhaps a fairer test 
 for Pitt's policy, and it was then clear that he had not 
 shaken off the fetters of the old English economics, and 
 believed as thoroughly as ever in the virtues of restricting 
 colonial trade. Even if he had escaped from that delusion, 
 it is very open to question whether his influence on the 
 people was of such a nature as to lead them in any con- 
 structive direction. It is obvious that he could inspire all 
 that makes a war spirit effective, that he could choose 
 excellent leaders, and turn enthusiasm to the most practical 
 uses. Thus Lyttelton, writing to Pitt on 2 " the great and 
 glorious news" of the capture of Quebec, and deploring 
 Wolfe's death, pointed out how Townshend and other 
 devoted leaders were left in Canada, all " animated by your 
 
 1 Chatham Correspondence, i. 305. 
 
 2 ibid, i. 442. 
 
PITT'S INFLUENCE 33 
 
 spirit, and by you brought forward into action." On the 
 other hand, there is nothing to give rise to the supposition 
 that Pitt could have guided the populace towards a policy 
 of self-restraint and discretion. The Seven Years' War 
 required only a judicious handling of public opinion in a 
 course for which the people had every natural predisposi- 
 tion. There was no such inclination towards the imperial 
 policy necessitated by the new conditions of the British 
 realm. 
 
 It will be seen hereafter that Pitt's conception of the 
 empire was limited by the traditions of his age, and that 
 just as his delight in dive's successes did not involve any 
 luminous insight into the destinies of India, so his great- 
 ness during the Seven Years' War did not involve greatness 
 as an imperial organiser in times of peace. It is however, 
 necessary to recognize the superficial nature of his influence 
 on England in 1756, in view of its otherwise extraordinary 
 disappearance within a few years of reaching its highest 
 pitch. The explanation lies rather in his personal char- 
 acter than in his political ideas. He seems, even at the 
 height of his popularity, to have discouraged the sympathy 
 which his oratory invited. He won men's hearts by 
 appealing to those inclinations which he best understood, 
 but he was too proud to try to hold them, or to attach 
 himself to any political party. Occasionally he unbent, as 
 when he wrote to Wolfe's mother in November 1759, 
 1 " May Heaven who assists the virtuous grant you every 
 possible comfort under a loss which nothing can repair to 
 you or to England," but in general he disdained the arts 
 of politicians, and departing from the common English 
 habit of paying homage to the mob, he kept his reverence 
 for the state, and his flattery for the Crown. 
 
 When once in power, Pitt showed rare courage in 
 i ibid, i. 451. 
 
34 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 ignoring the clamour of men on whose support he relied. 
 So great was their belief in his matchless competence to 
 beat the French, that for the time they swallowed his 
 contempt. They allowed him to defend Byng after his 
 failure off Minorca, and Cumberland after the Convention 
 of Closterseven. He feared nothing; he championed the 
 Highlanders during the outcry against Bute and Scotland, 
 and denounced the maladministration of the East India 
 Company in defiance of the rich Nabobs, who had inclined 
 to follow his leadership. He had not the patience to 
 satisfy popular expectations and neglected to attend the 
 coronation of George III. He lost touch with the rank 
 and file of his adherents. Even in 1758 1 Waldegrave 
 foretold that he was too masterful and imperious to keep 
 his popularity long, and consequently his ability to carry 
 the country with him did not last when his figure was once 
 dissociated from its original glory. At the close of the 
 war, Pitt had a great claim to gratitude, and most men 
 were proud of him; 2 innkeepers chose his name for their 
 signs, and the bridge then being built at Blackfriars was 
 called for the time Pitt's Bridge, in his honour. In 1766 
 3 Burgoyne found his name a touchstone in Germany. He 
 had no longer however, the capacity to extort support from 
 doubters. Under the prevailing political conditions, it 
 was essential for him to attach himself to one of the great 
 Whig connexions like that of Rockingham, but his pride 
 debarred him from such a course. He trusted simply in 
 the glamour of his own name, forgetting that purely 
 personal causes can at most be but transient. His fascina- 
 tion therefore ended with the war, and had he known the 
 future effects of his isolation from every parliamentary 
 
 1 Waldegrave's Memoirs (1821), p. 16. 
 
 2 Grosley's Tour to London (1772), p. 241. 
 
 3 Chatham Correspondence, iii. 41. 
 
PITT'S INFLUENCE 35 
 
 party, there would have been less sincerity than there 
 actually was in his prayer after Minden, l " May happy 
 peace wind up the glorious work, and heal a bleeding 
 world." 
 
 Such limitations to Pitt's power as a statesman 
 contributed to weaken that empire, which his war 
 policy had done so much to promote. Amid his many 
 speeches and voluminous correspondence there is no trace 
 of an attempt to create a form of colonial policy, which 
 might perpetuate the fabric. A man of the age, he uncjer- 
 stood acquisition better than organisation. Consequently, 
 the Seven Years' War conduced in effect to the subsequent 
 outbreak of the War of Independence. Obviously, the 
 removal of the standing menace of a French invasion freed 
 the colonies from a fear which had hitherto enhanced their 
 reliance upon Great Britain, but Pitt's influence on 
 English public opinion led to less general causes for the 
 coming schism. In the first place, his variation of the 
 original aim of England's warfare had caused an expendi- 
 ture of blood and treasure, far in excess of that necessarily 
 involved in a straightforward struggle with France purely 
 for colonial ascendency. The effect of this course was to 
 increase the apparent burden of empire to an extent, 
 certain to invite the fatal suggestion of direct taxation of 
 the colonies from home. 
 
 Secondly, the brilliancy of British triumphs over sea 
 captivated popular imagination. It diverted men's minds 
 from the crying need of purging the parliamentary system, 
 admitted by Pitt himself to be 2 "the rotten part of the 
 constitution." His great war administration had thus sub- 
 merged old partisan distinctions, and hence the opportunity 
 
 i ibid, ii. 9. 
 
 ^ Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xvi. 100. 
 
36 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 laid open to the young King George III., who had been 
 bred in the principles of Bolingbroke, and desired nothing 
 more than to play the patriotic despot among the ruins 
 of parliamentary parties. 
 
 Lastly, it may justly be complained that Pitt's belief in 
 the adequacy of the prevailing colonial theory, and his 
 partiality towards German connexions disabled him from 
 educating his party. He was master of British thought, 
 but he neglected his power to teach ideas, other than those 
 which had a natural self-commendation to the patriotic 
 citizens of the day. Indeed, he merely acquiesced in the 
 current beliefs as to the art of governing an empire, and 
 failed to realise how much more was to be conquered than 
 mere territory. Marvellous as was Pitt's capacity to 
 inspire true patriotism, to organise victory, to point out 
 splendid ideals, he had not that cool and calculating 
 insight into men and affairs, which could alone perpetuate 
 his gains. In this respect, he was inferior to Franklin, a 
 man of far commoner clay, but of greater penetration. 
 l "No man can more sincerely rejoice than I do on the 
 reduction of Canada," wrote Franklin to Lord Kames in 
 1760, "and this is not merely as I am a colonist, but as I 
 am a Briton. I have long been of opinion that the founda- 
 tions of the future grandeur and stability of the British 
 empire lie in America, and though like other foundations, 
 they are low and little now, they are nevertheless broad 
 and strong enough to support the greatest political struc- 
 ture that human wisdom ever yet erected." 
 
 i Bigelow's Franklin, i. 399. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY. 
 
 WITHOUT the magic of such an influence as William Pitt's, 
 it was impossible in 1763 to move the English people from 
 the traditional lines of their colonial system. As no such 
 influence was forthcoming, that system reached its natural 
 and inevitable conclusion in open breach between Great 
 Britain and her colonies. With its actual operation, the 
 world has long been familiar, thanks to the historical 
 writings of English Whigs and American patriots. The 
 Navigation Acts had restricted colonial carrying trade to 
 English ships ever since 1651. Many "enumerated 
 articles " could be exported to Europe by way of England 
 alone, to the detriment of colonial producers, but to the 
 supposed advantage of British shipping. Such articles 
 included tobacco, ginger, sugar and cotton in 1706, and 
 copper and beaver skins in 1722. A concession whereby 
 Carolina could ship rice direct to lands south of Cape 
 Finisterre was made in 1730, and subsequently Georgia 
 and Florida were granted similar relief ; but four-fifths of 
 that export trade continued to pass through English ports. 
 Furthermore, several manufactures likely to compete with 
 those of England were suppressed in what Adam Smith 
 confessed to be x "a manifest violation of the most sacred 
 rights of mankind," wool and bar iron in 1719, felt hats 
 in 1732, molasses in 1733, and steel furnaces in 1750. In 
 view of such apparent injustice, it is clearly important to 
 examine the theory as to the uses of colonies, and their 
 
 l Wealth of Nations (ed. "World Library"), p. 459. 
 
38 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 place in the imperial system, upon which these severe and 
 oppressive measures purported to be based. After all, it 
 was this theory which braced England's activity in her 
 struggle with France, and in support of its tenets, she 
 faced the world in arms. It cannot have been wholly 
 arbitrary and perverse. 
 
 I In actual fact, the old colonial policy was based upon J 
 'the very sensible ideal of a self-sufficing empire. That ' 
 ideal was applied with a selfish bias by British ministers, 
 but it was common at the time throughout Christendom, 
 and was much encouraged by the popularity of mer- 
 cantilism. Business men believed implicitly in the idea 
 of the balance of trade, and considered English independ- 
 ence of all other states in every necessity of life to be a 
 proper aim of policy. In some respects its effects were 
 bad; 1 the high duties imposed upon yarn from Hamburg, 
 Dantzig and Konigsberg enabled the Dutch, who only 
 imposed a duty of one per cent., to undersell British linen 
 merchants in the West Indies and Guinea. Its political 
 advantages were less questionable. Economic mercantilism 
 was indeed a declining force after 1720. Walpole cleared 
 away all export duties, and 2 Hume suggested in 1740 that 
 Britain might even benefit from Continental prosperity. 
 Trade, not mere bullion, came to be regarded as the chief 
 source of a nation's wealth. Nevertheless, the old theory 
 of a self-sufficing empire still held the field. Colonial 
 importations enjoyed preferential rates, and large bounties 
 were given to stimulate such colonial industries as would 
 enable England to avoid having recourse to foreign 
 countries for their purchase. 3 The production of indigo, 
 
 1 Keports of House of Commons Committees, 1715 73 (1751; ii. 291, 
 
 294). 
 
 2 Hume's Essays (ed. 1903), p. 333. 
 
 3 The Rights of Great Britain Asserted (1776), p. 14. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 39 
 
 tobacco, hemp, flax, raw silk, iron, pipe-staves, vegetable 
 oils, cod, whale oil, vines, olive trees, rosin, myrtle-wax, 
 pearlash, potash, indigo, cochineal, raisins, gum, logwood, 
 pitch, tar, and turpentine, was thus forwarded not only by 
 the government, but also in some cases by a voluntary 
 ''Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Commerce," 
 which was founded in 1754, and which bestowed nearly 
 2,800 and twelve gold medals upon colonial producers 
 between that year and 1776. The utility of bounties is of 
 course an open question, but those upon pitch, tar and 
 turpentine bore good fruit as the price of a barrel had 
 sunk 1 to ten shillings in 1766 after having been fifty 
 shillings in the days of Swedish monopoly. Owing to 
 bounties the 2 Irish were enabled to undersell German 
 competitors in the West Indian linen market. 
 
 All colonial expansion had this end of self-sufficiency 
 in view. When Oglethorpe colonised Georgia in 1732, he 
 aimed at supplying England with wine and silk, so as to 
 free her from seeking either abroad. It was thought 
 possible to obtain 3 cheaper iron ore from America than 
 from Russia, as the cost of transit down the colonial water 
 ways was much less than the cost of transit from the Urals 
 to St. Petersburg, but even if this was not the case, price 
 was deemed a less material point than the place of origin. 
 British-grown commodities were worth a somewhat higher 
 price, if the alternative entailed buying goods from an 
 alien market, and it was better 4 to clothe the seventy 
 thousand slaves in Barbados with English and Irish stuff 
 than with the cheaper goods offered by Hamburg shippers. 
 Therefore John Dyer asks us in " The Fleece " to 
 
 1 Morgan's Dissertation on Advantages of Union (1766), p. 14. 
 
 2 Reports of House of Commons Committees, 1715 73 (1751; ii. 290). 
 
 3 Adair's Hist. Am. Indians (1775), p. 452. 
 
 4 Reports of House of Commons Committees, 171573 (1744; ii. 72). 
 
40 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 1 "Pray for the culture of the Georgia tract, 
 Nor slight the green savannahs and the plains 
 Of Carolina." 
 
 2 Rhenish vines were planted in Pennsylvania, and one 
 of the many tracts written to support Oglethorpe's 
 experiment exclaimed, 
 
 3 "Now bid thy merchants bring thy wine no more 
 Or from th' Italian or the Tuscan shore, 
 No more they need th' Hungarian vineyards drain, 
 And France herself may drink her best champagne ; 
 Behold at last, and in a subject land 
 Nectar sufficient for thy large demand." 
 
 It was argued that 4 England would obtain as much raw 
 silk from Georgia as she had previously bought from 
 Piedmont for <200,000 a year. 5 She would also have a 
 cheaper, and at the same time a British, source of supply 
 of coffee, tea, raisins, currants, olives, almonds, cochineal 
 and potash. It was then assumed that Georgia would 
 fulfil such promises as might well be held out By a state 
 6 " in the same latitude as the promised Canaan." The sequel 
 proved that not every Canaan flows with milk and honey, 
 but as fjohn Wesley had wanted Georgia to be religious 
 rather than rich, there was consolation for the pious. 
 
 "With similar motives, the English empire builders of 
 the eighteenth century gave consistent help to the silk 
 
 1 Dyer's Fleece (1757), p. 147. 
 
 2 John Adams' Works (ed. 1850), ii. 81. 
 
 3 Narrative of the Colonization of Georgia (1741), p. xii. 
 
 4 Oglethorpe's Brief Account (1733), p. 3. 
 
 5 Mountgomry's Discourse concerning a new Colony (1717), p. 11. 
 
 6 ibid, p. 6. 
 
 7 Narrative of the Colonization of Georgia (1741), p. 30. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 41 
 
 industry in Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania, to the 
 fisheries of Newfoundland and New York, l the coal mines 
 of Cape Breton, the tobacco culture of Virginia and 
 Maryland, the sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton plantations 
 of the 2 West Indies. The production of naval stores in 
 Newfoundland and North Carolina was designed to 
 dispense with the timber of Sweden and the tar, pitch and 
 turpentine of Norway, and to free England from having 
 to pay the 3 exorbitant export duties and 4 extortionate 
 prices of Sweden and Russia. By dint of unsparing 
 efforts, the government succeeded in making such timber 
 producing colonies as Massachusetts and New Hampshire 
 of the utmost use to naval constructors. The dread of 
 wasting British money upon imports from abroad was 
 very strong, and was especially directed against French 
 goods. 5 The German traveller, Keysler estimated that 
 Englishmen spent 450,000 annually on foreign silks, but 
 6 900,000 would probably have been nearer the truth. 
 In any case it was contended that the empire ought to 
 benefit instead by her own custom. Hence the sympathy 
 given to thousands of journeymen silk weavers who 
 marched in 7 procession from Spitalfields to St. James's 
 in 1764, to represent the misery to which they were 
 reduced by the clandestine importation of French silks, 
 though Italy was in actual fact the chief source of supply. 
 Accordingly, England became zealous for the growth of 
 colonies, which might relieve her from all economic 
 
 1 Regulations lately made concerning the Colonies (1765), p. 11. 
 
 2 Loftt's Reports (1776), p. 661; Report on the African Slave Trade 
 
 (1789) passim. 
 
 3 An Appeal to the Justice of Great Britain (1775), p. 29. 
 
 4 Galloway's Cool Thoughts (1780), p. 29. 
 
 5 Keysler's Travels (1760), i. 355. 
 
 6 Contrast between Woollen and Silk Manufactures (1782), p. 15. 
 
 7 Annual Register (1764), p. 64. 
 
42 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 dependence on the foreigner. 1 Eaw silk should be 
 produced more cheaply in North Carolina than in Italy, 
 where land was two hundred times as dear, and labour far 
 more costly. 2 Pitt himself was anxious to grow cotton 
 in Dominica rather than import it from Dutch or French 
 possessions, and 3 in spite of cotton requiring light, dry 
 soil rather than the deep, rich mould and clay subsoil of 
 the Bullish West Indies, efforts were made to cultivate it 
 in Nevis, Antigua, St. Yincent, and more successfully in 
 Barbados. The chief rivals of these West Indian islands 
 were at this time 4 the French and Spanish Indies, 
 Demerara, Brazil and Turkey, while cotton growing in the 
 East Indies was in a similar experimental state. The 
 public was not yet satisfied with the outlook for empire- 
 grown cotton. The commodity could be obtained very 
 cheaply from shippers in France, 5 0stend and Smyrna, 
 while an abundant supply of cotton in the West Indies 
 would only serve 6 to depress the more important woollen 
 trade, and to raise the cost of freight for 7 sugar and 
 rum. Consequently in this respect the usual policy of the 
 Empire was not carried through with vigour, for the 
 demand for raw cotton was never great until after the 
 fall of the old colonial system. 8 Only four million pounds 
 
 1 Gent. Mag. (1756), pp. 161-2. 
 
 2 Chatham Correspondence, ii. 420. 
 
 3 Report of the Slave Trade (1789) ; evidence as to Jamaica (question 
 
 33), Nevis (q. 31), Antigua (q. 31), St. Vincent (q. 31), Barbados 
 (q. 31), Dominica (q. 33). 
 
 4 An Important Crisis in the Calico and Muslin Manufacture explained 
 
 (1788), pp. 8-9. 
 
 5 Contrast between Woollen, Linen, Cotton and Silk Manufactures 
 
 (1782), p. 12; Report House of Commons Committees 171573 
 (1751; ii. 295). 
 
 6 Contrast etc., p. 14. 
 
 7 ibid, p. 11. 
 
 8 Quarterly Review (1861), pp. 422-3. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 43 
 
 were imported here in 1764 and seven in 1780, as compared 
 with thirty million pounds in 1790, fifty million in 1800, 
 and two hundred and twenty-nine million in 1825. 
 It is singular that the hopes of those who dreamed of 
 imperial self-sufficiency in the reign of George III., as 
 regards the supply of raw cotton, centred in the West 
 Indies and not in the provinces on the American mainland. 
 In 1770 two thousand pounds weight of cotton was 
 exported from the latter market to England, this trivial 
 quantity being almost the only shipment before the 
 Revolution. 
 
 1 Indigo was cultivated after 1742. in South Carolina 
 and Georgia to avoid spending 200,000 a year in France. 
 In 1731, 2 Joshua Gee published a strong plea for self- 
 sufficiency, exposing the then state of the balance of trade 
 in a way which 3 "struck the nation with universal panic," 
 and 4 economists never tired of exhorting Englishmen to 
 import hemp and fiax, timber and deals from America, 
 rather than from Norway and Riga, and 5 alkalies from 
 New England rather than from Hungary. They should 
 purchase their 6 isinglass from London rather than from 
 Russia, their 7 porcelain from Worcester rather than from 
 Dresden or Chatillon, 8 their hats from Stockport rather 
 than from France, and should buy 9 linen from Ireland, 
 
 10 thread from Glasgow, and rely on their own colonists for 
 
 11 sugar and tobacco. 
 
 1 An Appeal to the Justice of Great Britain (1775), p. 29. 
 
 2 Gee's Trade and Navigation of Great Britain (1731). 
 
 3 Hume's Essays, p. 317. 
 
 4 Present State of Great Britain and North America (1767), p. 129. 
 
 5 Annual Register (1765), p. 115. 
 
 6 ibid, (1760), p. 67. 
 
 7 ibid (1763), p. 105. 
 
 8 Reports of the Commons Committees, 1715 73 (1752; ii. 372). 
 
 9 Ashley's Trade of Colonies (1740), p. 128. 
 
 10 Gee's Trade, etc., p. 157. 
 
 11 Dyer's Fleece (1757), p. 129. 
 
44 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 It was disappointing to find that political artifice could 
 not overcome natural disadvantages in respect of colonial 
 silk and wine. In Virginia one out of every ten trees 
 planted had to be a mulberry; ten had to be planted on 
 every acre granted to settlers in Georgia, while all the 
 colonies were exhorted l to choose sites for mulberry trees 
 in rich, loose mould remote from marshes, woods and 
 north and north-west winds. 2 When, however, the bounty 
 on silk expired in 1766, the Savannah market collapsed, 
 and though George III. dressed his Queen in New Jersey 
 silk in 1771, the industry flickered out before the more 
 profitable competition of other trades. Similarly the wine 
 of Virginia was never able to emulate the cheaper vintages 
 of Portugal and Madeira; 3 a French traveller suggested 
 that one reason lay in the destructiveness of American 
 blackbirds. No better fate awaited the efforts of the 
 government to implant exotics like madder, hops and woad 
 on American soil, to cultivate 4 indigo in South Carolina 
 and to extend to Connecticut the struggling cotton-growing 
 industry of the West Indies. We can only say that the 
 ideal for which such sacrifices were made was in itself 
 great and good. 
 
 The wish to make colonial industry as productive as 
 possible led incidentally to the slave trade. 5 Between 
 1676 and 1776 three and a half millions of negroes were 
 carried from Africa to British North America and the 
 West Indies. One-fifth of that number died on the 
 voyage, and a quarter of the rest perished in 6 " their 
 
 1 Samuel Pullein's Culture of Silk for the use of the American Colonies 
 
 (1758), pp. 3, 4, 25. 
 
 2 See Eggleston's article in Cent. Mag., v. 431. 
 
 3 Brissot's Travels in U.S.A. in 1788 (1794), p. 212. 
 
 4 Whitney's Government of S.C. (1895), p. 56. 
 
 5 Considerations on Abolition of Slavery (1789), p. 68. 
 
 6 Benezet's Caution to Gt. Britain (1767), p. 6. 
 
v x * 
 
 THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 
 
 seasoning. 57 They seem to have been worst 
 Barbados, where the penalty imposed on a master for 
 killing a slave was but l a fine of fifteen pounds, yet 
 everywhere there was at least a possibility of merciless 
 owners, and the 2 defence that the blacks were much less 
 to be pitied than the beggars of England is not convincing. 
 The system is to be attributed partly to the British resolve 
 to force the colonies to cultivate tobacco rather than to 
 follow industries calculated to compete with home manu- 
 factures, and partly to the somewhat loftier desire to assist 
 those branches of trade for which the southern provinces 
 seemed to have a natural aptitude. For instance, 3 all 
 the naval and military experts, who gave evidence before 
 the Privy Council Committee on the slavery question in 
 1789 Rodney, Barrington, Parker, Hotham considered 
 its maintenance essential to the West Indian industries, 
 and when the proprietors of Georgia surrendered their 
 charter in 1752, that colony was freed, in spite of Oglethorpe's 
 resistance, from its previous inability to import slaves, 
 in view of the alleged requirements of its staple trades. 
 4 For the sake of South Carolina and Georgia, the framers 
 of the Declaration of Independence forebore to denounce 
 England for her furtherance of the slave trade. 
 
 This theory as to the usefulness of colonisation did not 
 necessarily involve the friction to which it led in actual 
 fact. But for the concurrent tendency to regard the 
 interests of the home country as the paramount object of 
 state interference in the normal course of trade, it might 
 as easily have induced some popular form of imperial 
 federation. In practice, the econo'mic measures of 
 
 1 Hoare's Memoirs of G. Sharp (1820), p. 79. 
 
 2 Strictures on Slave Trade (1787), p. 37. 
 
 3 Eeport on the African Slave Trade (1789), part iii. 
 
 4 Jefferson's Memoirs (ed. 1829), i. 16. 
 
46 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 government were confined to creating a self-sufficing 
 empire at the cost of colonial industries, but in theory 
 there was no such need. Englishmen desired nothing 
 more than the development of industries upon lines not 
 only conducive to their own political ideal, but also to 
 colonial prosperity. Bounties and prizes stimulated the 
 natural resources of British settlements. * Timber was an 
 American product which every theorist praised. The 
 immensity of the supply and the ease of its transport 
 created the prosperity of the shipyards of Philadelphia and 
 Norfolk. In 1740, 2 John Ashley argued how greatly it 
 was to be preferred to that of the Baltic, and indeed it 
 had fascinating possibilities in the day of " wooden walls." 
 Every observer noticed its promise. The Swedish traveller, 
 
 3 Kalm, admired the oak, hiccory and firs of Pennsylvania. 
 
 4 Governor Pownall applauded the white pines of Virginia ; 
 
 5 Bruce, the mulberry trees, live oak, pines and mahogany 
 planks of Carolina; 6 Lord Sterling, the white pines of 
 Massachusetts and New Hampshire; Pennington, 7 "the 
 beautiful New England pine." Taylor, a traveller whose 
 voyage to Philadelphia is memorable for the straits which 
 made the crew feed on human flesh ( 8 "like young pork, 
 very sweet") remarked on the 9 prosperous saw mills around 
 New York. 10 There were fifty saw mills on one river 
 
 1 Gee's Trade of Gt. Britain (1731), p. 104. 
 
 2 Ashley's Trade of Brit. Colonies (1740), p. 23. 
 
 3 Kalm's Travels (1772), i. 8. 
 
 4 Pownall's Administration of Brit. Colonies (1774), i. 282. 
 
 5 P. H. Bruce's Memoirs (1783), p. 522. 
 
 6 Conduct of Major-Gen. Shirley (1758), p. 2. 
 
 7 W. Pennington's Pveflections on Large Commons (1759), p. 71; cf. 
 
 Adair's Hist. Am. Indians (1775), p. 452. 
 
 8 Taylor's Voyage to N. America (1771), p. 34. 
 
 9 ibid, p. 147. 
 
 10 Bigelow's Franklin (1890), i. 569. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 47 
 
 alone in North Carolina, l White pines made the best 
 masts, and so, except in Massachusetts, they could not 
 be cut down on unappropriated land without a government 
 licence, while after the loss of the United States, 2 patriots 
 consoled themselves with the oak of Upper Canada, and 
 the hardwood and pine timber of Cape Breton. It is 
 indeed clear that the British government exerted itself 
 to develope colonial resources on these lines. The old 
 bounty of twenty shillings per ton on masts, yards or 
 bowsprits exported to England was extended by a statute 
 (5 Geo. III. c. 45) to deals, planks, boards and timber. 
 The actual success of the policy is more doubtful. From 
 the report of a House of Commons Committee which sat in 
 1771, we gather that the Americans had 3 to compete with 
 timber exporters in Hamburg, Stettin and Dantzig. The 
 first was the depot of 4 Bohemian timber, the second of 
 5 Silesian, the third of 6 " Prussian deals," the local name 
 for Baltic fir plank. Upon the whole, the navy was advised 
 to prefer the foreign woods unless the nature and methods 
 of the colonial market were improved. ''"Virginia's oak 
 plank was better than that of New York, and its pitch 
 pine was excellent, but good and bad timber was shipped 
 indiscriminately to England in sharp contrast to the well- 
 regulated and carefully chosen shipments from Dantzig. 
 The 8 oak of the southern provinces was not fitted for the 
 navy, nor was American as good as Baltic fir. Quebec oak 
 
 1 Pownall's Administration etc.,i. 126; Whitney's Government of S.C. 
 
 (1895), p. 21. 
 
 2 Gray's Letters from Canada (1809), pp. 19, 207. 
 
 3 Reports of House of Commons Committees, 1715 73 (1771; iii. 16). 
 
 4 ibid, iii. 22. 
 
 5 ibid, iii. 17. 
 
 6 ibid, iii. 21. 
 
 7 ibid, iii. 24. 
 
 8 ibid, iii. 22. 
 
48 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 was probably admirable, but the contractor had failed to 
 supply it. The proposed cedar and mahogany venture in 
 the l Mosquito country had come to nothing. In short, 
 even the highest ideal cannot be forced into practice by 
 legislation alone. 
 
 The question of the practicability of England's dream of 
 self-sufficiency in the eighteenth century is now of little 
 more than academic interest, as the conditions of her 
 empire have since been profoundly modified by the 
 chances of time and fortune. No historian however can 
 look without respect upon this side of the imperial theory 
 of the day. It was one of the chief factors of the old 
 colonial system ; it was the force which made commercialism 
 so strong an ally of the forward policy during the Seven 
 Years' War, and so strong a foe to any economic re- 
 construction of the imperial system after 1763. There is 
 no reason to doubt its intense hold upon English political 
 thought throughout the whole period of colonial expansion. 
 
 2 Gee urged men to prefer Somerset and Dorset linen to 
 French, and plantation rum to French brandy, and 
 
 3 Otis Little pleaded for the American iron industry as a 
 means to avoid spending <200,000 annually in Sweden and 
 Spain. George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, asked in the 
 "Querist" 4 "whether if our ladies drank sage or blaum 
 tea out of Irish ware it would be an insupportable national 
 calamity," and protested against the general use of foreign 
 5 pottery, 6 tapestry, lace and linen. Nor did this ideal 
 die with the old colonial system, for 7 John Hunter, a 
 
 1 ibid, in. 17. 
 
 2 Gee's Trade, etc., p. 5. 
 
 3 Little's State of Trade in the Northern Colonies (1748), p. 39. 
 
 4 Berkeley's Querist (1751), p. 18. 
 
 5 ibid, p. 54. 
 
 6 ibid, p. 9. 
 
 7 Hunter's Historical Journal of Transactions at Port Jackson (1793), 
 
 p. x. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 49 
 
 naval captain, who, after service in North America, carried 
 convicts to "the east coast of New Holland" in 1786, 
 anticipated that New South Wales had a future as a 
 1 wine-growing and limestone country, whereby the 
 productive capacity of the empire might become more 
 catholic, and 2 Hugh Gray pleaded in 1806 for the diversion 
 of England's custom from Eussia to Canada in respect of 
 hemp. Export duties 3 upon English coal were applauded 
 as the burden of their incidence fell wholly on the 
 foreigner, who found no Continental coal, not even that 
 of Liege, equal to that of Sunderland and Newcastle. 
 
 The consequent leaning towards the use of artificial 
 means to direct the channels of British activity, led 
 Englishmen to adopt a cast of thought very alien to the 
 ideas which were springing up at the same time in the 
 colonies. There, people felt principally the harsher side 
 of the ideals of the Parliament at Westminster. As they 
 could ship tobacco, ginger, sugar, cotton, copper, beaver 
 skins, and 4 four-fifths of their export of rice to Europe, 
 only by way of England, they were impeded in their 
 competition with foreign plantations. Although the 
 prohibitive acts were 5 very loosely enforced, their wool, 
 iron, hat, molasses and steel industries were at least 
 hampered for the benefit of other portions of the empire, 
 and naturally they lost pleasure in a policy, however 
 patriotic, which led to such unfortunate manipulation of 
 private trades by public authorities. It was exasperating 
 to be forced by the Navigation Act of 1733 to prefer the 
 
 1 ibid, p. 525; Tench's Narrative of Expedition to Botany Bay (1789), 
 
 p. 141. 
 
 2 H. Gray's Letters from Canada (1809), p. 206. 
 
 3 Consideration on the Trade of this Kingdom (1766), pp. 9, 10. 
 
 4 Ashley's Trade of Colonies (1740), p. 16. 
 
 5 J. Adams' Works (ed. 1850), iv. 49. 
 
50 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 molasses of Jamaica to the cheaper molasses of the French 
 West Indies. In English eyes, tbeir best function was 
 merely to produce such goods as Great Britain could not 
 herself produce, and thus to obviate the need for recourse 
 to imports from abroad. England dreaded the balance of 
 trade going against her, and this fear induced widespread 
 government interference. Exactly the same political 
 view of economics prompted the preference given to 
 Portugal over France. The Methuen Treaty was deemed 
 a model of admirable policy, and the most common English 
 1 drink was stated to be port, not claret, by all foreign 
 observers from Casanova to St. Fond. 
 
 In Pitt's time, the prejudice against foreign, and 
 especially French, imports, gained in intensity. Patriots 
 protested against the common use of French words, and 
 such irritating fashionable nomenclature as 2 "the 
 Pompadour cap," "the Orleans handkerchief," and "the 
 Conti mantlet. " 3 Shebbeare complained that for every 
 Englishman who visited Wales, a hundred toured in Italy, 
 and his school scorned those who 4 wasted English money 
 abroad. 
 
 5 " Each year how many English visit France 
 To learn the language, and to learn to dance. 
 'Twixt Dover cliffs and Calais in July, 
 Observe how thick the birds of passage fly, 
 Fair weather fops in swarms, fresh water sailors, 
 Cooks, mantua-makers, milliners and taylors." 
 There was a general wish to keep the nation's skill at home, 
 
 1 Casanova's Memoirs (ed. 1902), p. 156; St. Fond's Travels (1799), 
 
 i. 58; De Saussure's Letters, p. 159. 
 
 2 Letters on the English Nation (1755), ii. 229. 
 
 3 ibid, ii. 33. 
 
 4 A British Philippic (1756), p. 13; J. Hope's Letters on Certain 
 
 Proceedings (1772), p. 79; Tucker's Cui Bono (1781), p. 19. 
 5 Annual Eegister (1767), p. 246. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 51 
 
 and many 1 laws were passed to punish those who enticed 
 British artificers abroad. Alien immigration was disliked, 
 and in 1765 2 the peruke makers petitioned George III. 
 to discharge foreign hairdressers, and the hatters asked 
 for similar redress. Clearly however, the chief incentive 
 towards both the mercantile zeal for expansion and the 
 mercantile insistence on the state regulations of colonial 
 industries was the jealousy of French imports. 3 In 1753 
 Sir John Barnard's attempt to repeal acts against the 
 wearing and importation of cambrics and French lawn was 
 defeated, the 4 opinion being expressed that it was better 
 that Dresden manufacturers should draw 200,000 a year 
 from England in this branch of trade than that Frenchmen 
 should draw 100,000. It was hoped that 5 the cambric 
 industry at Winchelsea would enable the country to 
 dispense altogether with such foreign imports in the course 
 of time. In "Trade Revived," a dialogue in verse "between 
 Mrs. Alamode, an eminent London milliner, and Mrs. 
 Edging, a noted Bucks lace woman," composed in 1739, 
 the former says of the latter' s English-made goods : 
 
 6 "I can't think what you do with all your geer, 
 The ladies will have none but Mechlin here." 
 
 Mrs Edging answers : 
 
 " What strange, what savage notions fill their head 
 To give to strangers their own people's bread." 
 
 It is to be hoped that her scorn stung the conscience of 
 "the modish," for they did not usually accept such 
 
 1 5 Geo. i. c. 27; 23 Geo. ii. c. 13. 
 
 2 Annual Register (1765), p. 64. 
 
 3 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xv. 163 
 
 4 ibid, xv. 181. 
 
 5 Annual Register (1763), p. 100. 
 
 6 Trade Revived (1739), p. 4. 
 
52 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 arguments, and it was already the vogue for English play- 
 actors and singers to pose as aliens. When iJVlark Moore 
 turned from the navy to the stage, he became Moreo, and 
 when his wife sang "Eileen Aroon" in Irish, the fashion- 
 able took it for Italian, and cheered. The middle classes 
 were more susceptible to the patriotic plea. Lord Clare 
 however, encouraged the demand for British manufactures 
 at Court by presenting Queen Charlotte in 1775 with some 
 Irish goods and his poems, and in Beawes's time (1787) 
 Dunstable and Luton straw hats and bone lace were 
 2 " worn by multitudes of the principal ladies of England." 
 The drinking of 3 rum was encouraged as its consumption 
 enriched West Indian planters, and much resentment was 
 felt because Hhe cosmopolitan population of New York 
 bought Dutch rather than Lancashire checked and striped 
 linens, which cost more than the foreign-made goods 
 owing to the dearness of yarn in England. 
 
 The effect of this political sentiment upon the old 
 colonial, system was therefore twofold. It led first, to an 
 ardent desire to expand British territory, as that would 
 involve an expansion of the empire's productive capacity, 
 and secondly, to a strong leaning to regulate colonial 
 enterprise in accordance with the English conception of 
 imperial economics. 
 
 Colonial policy was affected with identical results by 
 the Navigation Acts of 1651, 1660 and 1663. These also 
 aimed at a patriotic ideal, the expansion of the British 
 carrying trade, and like the creed of self-sufficiency, they 
 met with considerable success in this direction. At the 
 same time, like that creed, they contributed to confirm the 
 
 1 Moore's Memoirs (1795), pp. 315 7. 
 
 2 W. Beawes's Lex Mercatoria (ed. 1813), ii. 6. 
 
 3 Massie's State of Brit. Sugar Colonies' Trade (1759), p. 75. 
 
 4 Reports of House of Commons Committees 171573 (1751); ii. 291-2). 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 53 
 
 extravagant use of state interference in American 
 activities. With regard therefore to both the economic 
 and maritime aspects of the theory of empire in the 
 eighteenth century, it may be said that while each helped 
 Pitt to inspire national enthusiasm for the Seven Years' 
 War, each helped George III. to alienate America. 
 
 The Navigation^ Acts were prompted directly by English 
 ambitions for sea power and trade supremacy. l That of 
 1660 laid down, so far as the colonies were concerned, 
 that no ships could carry their goods to England (and 
 indirectly to Europe at all) unless truly owned by British 
 subjects, manned by a crew of whom three-quarters at 
 least were Britons, and navigated by a British captain. 
 2 That of 1663 insisted upon the additional proviso that 
 ships so plying should be English-built. The effect was 
 that colonial commodities could only be exported in the 
 vessels of owners, who could fix their own arbitrary freights 
 in the absence of foreign competition. This policy would 
 have ruined the colonists if thoroughly carried out, and 
 as it was, it crippled them. On the other hand, it was 
 thought by men of every school that England benefited by 
 such a system, and it was for this reason that 3 John Ashley 
 in 1740 deemed the colonies the chief source of our wealth 
 and naval strength. In many respects his opinion was 
 probably true, for while the carrying trade with America 
 was always lucrative, its fisheries were also ideal nurseries 
 of seamanship. The Navigation Acts were symptoms of 
 the general wish to force national character into a 
 maritime groove. 4 In 1734 it was suggested that every 
 British herring buss should carry four charity boys as 
 
 1 11 Car. ii. c. 18. 
 
 2 14 Car. ii. c. 11. 
 
 3 Ashley's Trade of Brit. Colonies (1740), p. 11. 
 
 4 The British Fishery recommended to Parl. (1734), p. 42. 
 
54 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 apprentices, and the youth of the nation were attracted to 
 the hard life oft' the dreary Newfoundland banks, as men 
 were sure to grow lusty and skilful among the l everlasting 
 fogs of that sodden clime. In 1756 the " British 
 Philippic " ascribed our superiority over 2 " the starveling 
 Gaul" to the prowess on sea, which the possession of our 
 colonies involved. The patriotic opera of " Eliza," 
 performed in Drury Lane during the war fever of 1757, 
 and set to music by Arne, had maritime greatness as its 
 leading topic. The navy was always more popular than 
 the army, and war at sea than war on land, and one writer 
 argued ingeniously that an alliance with Austria must 
 be inherently unnatural, as the English people could have 
 no feelings in common with a nation possessing 3 " scarce a 
 cockboat." It is also important to observe that the 
 colonies shared the advantages offered to sailors by the 
 British government, and Franklin himself could not but 
 recognize that in some ways the Navigation Act then in 
 force was to their advantage. In 1754 the four New 
 England provinces employed 4 six thousand men in the 
 cod, mackerel and whale fisheries ; 5 by 1774 Marblehead 
 alone had four thousand fishermen, and Gloucester three 
 hundred schooners, the seamanship of 6 New York and 
 Rhode Island being also particularly good. In 1780 the 
 number of Americans engaged in the fisheries had risen 
 7 to thirty-five thousand. The people of 8 Bermuda were 
 
 1 Cassini's Voyage to Newfoundland (1778), pp. 115 23. 
 
 2 The British Philippic (1756), p. 17. 
 
 3 Pasquin and Marforio (1783), p. 81. 
 
 4 Ramsay's Hist. Amer. Rev. (1793), i. 161. 
 
 5 Friendly Address to Reasonable Americans (1774), p. 40. 
 
 6 Little's State of Trade etc. (1743), p. 30; Pownall's Administration 
 
 etc. (1774), p. 251. 
 
 7 Cool Thoughts (1780), p. 25. 
 
 8 Bruce's Memoirs (1783), p. 510. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 55 
 
 said to be the best fishermen in the world, while the ship- 
 building of Philadelphia and Boston repaid the fostering 
 care of the legislature. 
 
 The Navigation Act however was no doubt designed 
 primarily for the good of England, for besides closing 
 British trade with foreign states to neutral carriers, it 
 confined colonial exports and imports in effect to British 
 ships, as colonial shipping was in its infancy, and was 
 only able to transport about one-eighth of the tobacco 
 despatched to Europe from the Chesapeake. The Act was 
 considered essential to English maritime greatness. To 
 Josiah Child in 1692, it was " our Charta Maritima." 
 1 Gee in 1731 considered that to allow any direct trade 
 between British colonies and foreign countries would be 
 inviting ruin. To 2 Decker in 1766 the Act seemed " that 
 most glorious bulwark of our trade ;" to 3 Grenville in 
 1771, and also to 4 Gibbon, it seemed " the palladium of 
 British commerce." 5 Pitt himself believed in its 
 excellence, and even 6 Adam Smith thought that its 
 political advantages outweighed its theoretic failings. 
 Lord Sheffield in 1783 called it 7 " the guardian of the 
 prosperity of Britain," and 8 Beawes in 1787 deemed it 
 the basis of our pre-eminence in shipping and seamanship. 
 In a modified form it survived until 1849, and it was 
 adopted as a model by the American Congress itself after 
 independence had been won. 
 
 1 Gee's Trade, etc. (1731), p. 49. 
 
 2 Decker's High Duties (1766), p. 21. 
 
 3 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xvi. 101. 
 
 4 Gibbon's Autobiography (ed. 1896), p. 334. 
 
 5 A Vindication of the Conduct of the Great Commoner (1766), p. 22. 
 
 6 Wealth of Nations (ed. World Library), p. 361. 
 
 7 Sheffield's Observations on the Commerce of the American States 
 
 (1783), p. 1. 
 
 8 Beawes's Lex Mercatoria, i. 54, 55, 98. 
 
56 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 In a scientific light the merits of this policy have often 
 been questioned in England, although it has since been at 
 least partially adopted by most civilised states. It fostered 
 commerce within the empire, but unduly discouraged 
 foreign trade, a defect according to l Adam Smith, a merit 
 according to Pownall, who thought that Americans were 
 safer customers than Germans. From the American and 
 Irish points of view, it had several ill-effects. The British 
 West Indians were ousted from neutral Spanish markets 
 by the French, who were freed from the necessity of 
 employing their mother country as an intermediate depot, 
 while Ireland suffered from its forced inability to trade 
 directly with France and America. The chief grievance, 
 however, was the restriction of all exports to England. 
 Virginia and Maryland shipped 2 90,000 hogsheads of 
 tobacco a year to British ports, of which 3 60,000 were re- 
 shipped here with a rebate. 4 Nearly all the Maryland or 
 Oronoko tobacco was re-exported. Although the govern- 
 ment connived at a general evasion of the law in this 
 respect, the nominal disabilities of the colonies were 
 objected to in Virginia as early as 1671 by Sir William 
 Berkeley, but they never decreased. The locking up of 
 capital and waste of energy and time, which resulted from 
 this policy of " a roundabout trade " was regretted by 
 competent judges like 5 Pownall, who suggested the 
 establishment of British factories on the Elbe or Weser, 
 whither colonial goods might be allowed to travel direct 
 without a halt and trans-shipment in England. 6 France, 
 
 1 Pownall's Letter to A. Smith (1776), p. 46; Wealth of Nations, p. 471. 
 
 2 J. Carver's Travels through N. America in 1766-8 (1779), p. 21; 
 
 Morgan's Advantages of a Perpetual Union (1766), p. 40. 
 
 3 Dulaney's Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes (1766), 
 
 p. 75. 
 
 4 Reports of House of Commons Committees, 171573 (1733; i. 637). 
 
 5 Pownall's Letter to Adam Smith (1776), p. 26. 
 
 6 Jefferson's Memoirs (1829), i. 379. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 57 
 
 wliicli might well have bought British colonial rice under 
 a free system of commerce, procured it instead from Egypt 
 and the Levant. Incidentally, the Navigation Act was 
 the cause of the vast extent l of smuggling, and of the 
 consequent embitterment of feeling between government 
 officials and collectors and the colonists, as soon the three 
 surveyors-general of the customs in America, were directed 
 by Grrenville to enforce the operation of the Act. This 
 ill-effect of the policy was its most important influence on 
 the conditions of the time, especially as the Dutch were 
 eager accomplices of the colonial smugglers, but the 
 2 difficulties met with in English custom houses and the 
 degeneration of 3 the Isle of Man into a sanctuary of 
 thieves and smugglers were also minor sources of trouble. 
 In England itself the constant running of forbidden 
 cargoes gave French seamen an accurate knowledge of the 
 stretch of coast between Plymouth and Land's End, and 
 even, according to one writer, a fatal familiarity with the 
 British shore as far north as 4 Yorkshire. On the other 
 hand, 5 llodney complained of similar effects produced by 
 the opening of free ports in Jamaica and Dominica in 
 1766 on French knowledge of their coasts, so that 
 according to partisans of both schools of economics, either 
 policy would place our shores at the mercy of foreign spies. 
 Seriously however, this aspect of the old colonial 
 system, while conducive to such enthusiasm as that which 
 won victory for England in the struggle for survival in 
 America against the Dutch in the seventeenth century, 
 
 1 An Appeal to Landowners (1733), p. 31; Grosley's Tour to London 
 
 (1772), i. 119. 
 
 2 Casanova's Memoirs, ii. 137; Baretti's Journey, ii. 65; Grosley, i. 8. 
 
 3 Consid. of the Trade of this Kingdom (1766), p. 55; Hist. MSS. 
 
 Comm. Rep. xv. ; pt. 1, 176. 
 
 * History of the loyal Town of Ripon (1733), p. 44. 
 5 Mundy's Life and Correspondence of Rodney (1830), i. 136 8. 
 
 xt^ RA ^N 
 
 f or THE \ 
 I UNIVERSITY ) 
 
 \ or 
 
58 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 and against the French in the eighteenth, led ultimately to 
 the loss of her earliest settlements. Its framers showed a 
 want of proportion in thus neglecting all interests but that 
 of the Mother Country. It was indeed tyrannical to force 
 Britons over sea to pay l twenty-five per cent, more for 
 the wine, oil and fruit which they procured from Spain 
 and Portugal than they need have paid if not forced to 
 import by way of England alone. It was unjust to force 
 colonists to buy hats from a market 3,000 miles off at 
 treble their intrinsic cost. They would be infinitely more 
 prosperous if enjoying merely normal freedom in their 
 trade, and the home country would only benefit by such 
 prosperity. Washington argued that money would still 
 2 "centre in Great Britain as the needle will settle to the 
 pole." Moreover this side of the current colonial policy 
 was so dear to British people that it could not expand 
 under the new conditions, which governed national affairs 
 after the expulsion of foreign powers from North America, 
 though even at home some thinkers questioned the utility 
 of bolstering decayed West Indian industries at the 
 expense of 3 New England, just as 4 colonial consumers 
 complained that the Jamaican planters were the only 
 persons benefited by the duty on foreign molasses. 
 
 Another characteristic of the country's theory of empire 
 in Pitt's day also tended indirectly towards separation. 
 One of the chief uses of colonisation is its provision for the 
 surplus population of a state, for there is always a margin 
 of efficient inhabitants above the contemporary level of the 
 demand of the labour market. Now during the first half 
 of the eighteenth century, this margin was very small, for 
 
 1 Gent. Mag. (1775), p. 476. 
 
 2 Sparks' Washington, iii. 345. 
 
 3 Dickens' Late Regulations (1765), p. 11. 
 
 4 The Controversy between Gt. Brit, and Colonies (1769), p. 40. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 59 
 
 the land was prosperous, and population almost stationary. 
 Consequently, the character of British emigration did not 
 tend to bind Britain and her colonies any more closely to 
 each other, for a large proportion of the emigrants were 
 miserable and shiftless, and not fit apostles of unity. 
 They carried with them to America little love for England, 
 and the avowed desire of the home government to "dump" 
 the derelicts of society upon the soil of thrifty and religious 
 colonies was by no means calculated to please. The 
 " Brief Account of the Establishment of Georgia " 
 contemplated the creation of a haven for people, lu who 
 would otherwise starve and burden England." As a field 
 for the deportation of idle rogues, America offered many 
 attractions. As early as 1619 Virginia was treated as a 
 fitting bourne for "dissolute persons," and by 2 a statute 
 of Charles II. 's reign, Judges were empowered to ship 
 Cumberland and Northumberland moss-troopers to the 
 plantations. During the seventeenth century a succession 
 of lost causes Royalist, Irish, Covenanter furnished their 
 quotas of involuntary emigrants for the colonies, which 
 were described by 3 Child in 1692 as sites for our 
 superfluous malefactors and Quakers. In 1732 4 South 
 Carolina appealed for carpenters, vine planters, husband- 
 men, or labourers from the Swiss Protestant cantons, with 
 three or four good shirts apiece, in place of pauper wastrels 
 ' from England, and in 1742 5 Georgia asked for good 
 English or Welsh servants. Otherwise the provinces 
 would naturally prefer industrious foreigners like the 
 6 Crefeld weavers who founded Germanstown in Pennsyl- 
 vania. 
 
 1 Oglethorpe's Brief Account (1733), p. 5. 
 
 2 18 Car. ii. c. 3. 
 
 3 Child's Discourse concerning Plantations (1692), p. 35. 
 
 4 Description of S. Carolina (1732), p. 14. 
 
 5 State of the Province of Georgia (1742), p. 13. 
 
 6 Holcomb's Pennsylvania Boroughs (1886), p. 24. 
 
60 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 In conflict with such desires, the British people 
 deemed America simply a land of hope for those whom 
 fortune had treated unkindly at home, and so l humanity 
 supported expediency in teaching that no better method 
 than transportation could be devised for the reform of 
 criminals. Estimates differ very widely, but after 1719, 
 several hundred convicts were shipped annually to 
 2 Virginia, by virtue of 3 two statutes of George I. and 
 under indentures made between the government at home 
 and masters in the provinces, though a 4 large number of 
 these convicts managed to return to England. They were 
 assigned for various terms of years to their contractors, 
 and sent off sometimes in weekly-, batches from Newgate. 
 For them 5 the change from the pestilential English gaols 
 could only be for the better. 6 " Last week, as the convicts 
 were passing to the waterside in order to be shipped for 
 America with fifes playing before them ' Thro' the wood, 
 laddie,' a gentleman observed to another that they were 
 very joyous; to which a droll convict replied, ' Joyous? 
 Aye, so we are, master; and if you will but go along with 
 us, you will be quite transported.' ' When America had 
 been lost, the same considerations led to the Order in 
 Council of 1786, authorising convict settlements in 
 
 7 Australia, a scheme more humane, after all, than the 
 
 8 counter proposal of using felons to exploit Gambia and 
 the Gold Coast, and one thought likely to promote trade 
 
 1 Gee's Trade etc., p. 62. 
 
 2 Letters on the English Nation (1755), i. 142. 
 
 3 4 Geo. i. c. 2; 6 Geo. i. c. 23. 
 
 4 Observations on the Causes of Dissoluteness (1772), p. 39. 
 
 5 Eeasons for Establishing Georgia (1733), p. 18. 
 
 6 Annual Register (1766), p. 85. 
 
 7 Tench's Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay (1789), p. 138. 
 
 8 Short Review of Present State of Gt. Britain (1797), p. 80; 16 Geo. 
 
 iii. c. 43. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 61 
 
 with China. l The Newgate prisoners petitioned for leave 
 to go to Botany Bay, that spot being thought so preferable 
 to the hulks that 2 Judges sentenced felons to periods of 
 imprisonment longer than seven years from motives of 
 mercy to ensure transportation. Such a source of emigra- 
 tion tended to fill the colonies with restless and violent 
 inhabitants, whose influence was bound to demoralise both 
 the British and native peoples among whom they came to 
 settle. As Churchill wrote in 1764, when the tide of 
 convict influx into America was high : 
 
 3 " Happy, thrice happy now the savage race 
 
 Since Europe took their gold, and gave them grace ! 
 And on sure grounds the gospel pile to rear 
 Sends missionary felons once a year." 
 
 4 There was also an unfortunate tendency to regard all 
 " indented" servants, whether voluntary or convict, as 
 their masters' property, service becoming a status rather 
 than a contract. 
 
 There was however a far brighter side to the old 
 colonial system. If public opinion did wander into 
 many impolitic deviations from what our far longer 
 and wider experience has shown to be the best type 
 of a colonial policy, it had at the same time a very 
 thorough appreciation of some of the national advantages 
 accruing from the possession of an empire. It was this 
 understanding which gave the Seven Years' War its great 
 hold upon British feeling, and which made the country 
 withstand the forces of disintegration with much constancy 
 and patience during the War of Independence. 
 
 1 Dibdin's Musical Tour (1788), p. 235 
 
 2 Atkinson's Bentham (1905), p. 39. 
 
 3 Annual Register (1764), p. 235. 
 
 * See J. C. Ballagh's White Servitude in Virginia (1895). 
 
62 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 In clear contrast to France, England thought that 
 colonies were prizes, for which she ought to strive hard. 
 In America were wide domains, where Britons could make 
 easier livelihoods than at home without sacrificing their 
 nationality, and it must not be imagined that the most 
 common type of emigrant was the one pilloried by 
 Churchill. Every traveller told the same tale of wealth to 
 be won in the colonies, and so appealed to the ambitious 
 and the able. In 1768 a Sheffield man, called Taylor, 
 heard the praises of America from merchants at a 
 1 Whitehaven inn, and tested their accuracy by a tour over 
 sea. He reported the prosperity of colonial towns where 
 English life was reflected, the wealth of New York, the 
 culture of Boston. Philadelphia boasted a bull-ring and 
 horse races 2 after Newmarket rules, as well as ironworks 
 and shipyards. The productive capacity of the colonies 
 was generally rightly estimated, although 3 the climate of 
 South Carolina proved bad for potters' work. 4 In Georgia 
 a labourer was expected to earn six times the amount of 
 wages he could obtain in London, and 5 the South Carolina, 
 government offered Wedgwood's workmen three and a half 
 times the wages they earned in Staffordshire. Land was 
 so boundless across the Atlantic that England needed no 
 other territory; over-population was an absurdity. One 
 acre in Jamaica or Barbados was said by 6 Penn to be 
 worth three British acres. 7 In 1765 it was argued that a 
 poor settler with ten acres of land became at once happier 
 than an English labourer, and with but thirty acres, he 
 
 1 Taylor's Voyage to N. America (1771), p. 1. 
 
 2 ibid, p. 175. 
 
 3 Wedgwood's Address to Workmen in the Pottery (1783), p. 5. 
 * Narrative of the Colonization of Georgia (1741), p. xi. 
 
 5 Wedgwood's Address, pp. 7, 11. 
 
 Penn's Benefit of Colonies or Plantations, p. 27. 
 
 7 Begulations lately made concerning the Colonies (1765), p. 29. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 63 
 
 was as prosperous as an English farmer. Sometimes these 
 promises ended in x ruin and despair, but in the main 
 they were well kept. Here then was the panacea for 
 sufferings at home. 2 One writer alleged that the policy 
 of expansion would clear the last beggar and stroller from 
 English streets. A tract industriously circulated by the 
 authorities of South Carolina to the effect that even tailors 
 and shoemakers rode their own horses in that ideal 
 province drew hundreds of Germans and Swiss to settle at 
 Purrysburg. If there was little luxury in America, there 
 was 3 no squalor. In 4 1763, 5 1773 and 6 1779 acute 
 observers remarked on the fascination exercised by the 
 prospect of riches in the new continent upon the Irish 
 people. Between 1740 and 1745 South Carolina gave a 
 cow and calf to each group of five emigrants settling in a 
 frontier township, while tools and free conveyance were 
 always offered to settlers, who were chiefly German, 
 Huguenot, Scotch and Welsh. 7 Grants of land were 
 made liberally to retired soldiers in 1765, and America was 
 always thought to hold out to the young and uninfluential 
 the possibility of careers denied to them at home. Illiberal 
 landlords drove the ambitious from British soil to act as 
 pioneers of civilisation in the backwoods of America. 
 William Grant, a future English Master of the Rolls, but 
 then only a newly-called barrister, emigrated to Canada in 
 1774 to become Attorney-General there in 1776, at the age 
 
 1 Wedgwood's Address, pp. 7, 8. 
 
 2 Letter from a French Refugee in America (1774), p. 114. 
 
 3 Lauzun's Memoirs (ed. 1896) ii. 271; Brissot's Travels in U.S.A. in 
 
 1788 (1794), p. 71. 
 * Annual Register (1763), p. 79. 
 
 5 Reports of House of Commons Committees, 1715 73 (1773; iii. 109). 
 
 6 Bigelow's Franklin (1890) ii. 476. 
 
 7 Annual Register (1763), p. 21. 
 
64 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 of 23. l Burke thought of going to America in 1754, and 
 2 Arthur Young in 1779. 3 In 1782 Jefferson said that he 
 had never yet seen a native American begging in the 
 streets or highways. Nor was this an idle boast, for even 
 during the Revolution 4 Englishmen were amazed at the 
 absence of beggars in New York. 
 
 The zeal for empire was heightened by the prospect 
 of an illimitable market, which lay behind the obvious 
 benefit of colonisation to individuals. Emigrants from 
 England were not lost to her, for they became purchasers 
 of her goods in a market from which foreign competition 
 was excluded. Hence the general indifference to the fear 
 of depopulation, which .might otherwise have troubled 
 a nation of mercantilists^ and which made the King of 
 Prussia hang 5 " newlanders, or those who seduced his 
 subjects to emigrate." Thus many districts like 6 the 
 Highlands of Scotland lost a large number of their in- 
 habitants. Trade and empire were deemed to outweigh 
 the evils incidental to rural decay, and resulting from their 
 persuasiveness to English villagers 
 
 7 " To traverse climes beyond the western main ; 
 Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around, 
 And Niagara stuns with thundering sound." 
 
 Perhaps some of the best blood in England thus left her 
 for ever, for 8 Child thought that the most active thinkers 
 
 1 Burke's Correspondence (ed. 1844), i. 32. 
 
 2 A Young's Autobiography, p. 83. 
 
 3 Jefferson's Notes on Virginia (1782), p. 242. 
 
 4 Hist. MSS. Comm. Eep. xv. ; pt. 6, 365. 
 
 5 Candidus' Plain Truth (1776), p. 17. 
 
 <3 Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1773) ; Han- 
 way's Defects of Police (1775), pp. 199, 291. 
 
 7 Goldsmith's Traveller (1764). 
 
 8 Child's Discourse (1692), p. 33. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 65 
 
 are a nation's first emigrants; but British merchants were 
 compensated by their possession of an empire of customers, 
 confined to English goods by the closed doors of the old 
 colonial system. 
 
 Hence the zest with which emigration was furthered. 
 General Oglethorpe carried Protestant refugees from the 
 Palatinate to Georgia, and his philanthropy was approved 
 by men of business. In 1764 the London crowd demonstrated 
 in favour of German. Protestants, who were moved from 
 their camp at Whitechapel to the river side, and iu were 
 carried in lighters to the ships lying at Blackwall, singing 
 hymns all the way," outward bound for South Carolina, 
 refugees to-day, customers to-morrow. Manufacturers 
 needed markets of this nature. 2 " Great Britain," wrote 
 a pamphleteer of 1767, " wants nothing more than people, 
 which the narrow and limited bounds of her possessions 
 at home cannot maintain.' 3 Moreover the Salzburgers 
 proved themselves the best road makers in America, a 
 useful capacity at a 3 time when roads were few and bad. 
 The tendency to rely too much on the American trade was 
 clearly bad, but during the years of dependence it brought 
 much wealth to England, creating the prosperity of 
 Manchester and Liverpool, Kendal, Lancaster and Bristol, 
 of the leather industry of Glasgow, and the export trade 
 in stuffs from the West Hiding. Even when the colonists 
 began to make their own clothes, they came to England 
 for higher class goods, their own being 4 inferior to our 
 best drabs, while the need to clothe slaves in cotton resulted 
 in 5 Manchester exporting half a million pounds worth of 
 
 1 Annual Register (1764), p. 147. 
 
 2 Present State of Gt. Britain and N. America (1767), p. viii. 
 
 3 Hist. MSS. Comm. Kep. xiv. ; pt. 10, 52. 
 
 4 Taylor's Voyage to N. America (1771), p. 145. 
 
 5 Report on the Slave Trade (1789), part iv. no. 3. 
 
66 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 cotton goods a year to the West Indies and Africa. 
 1 Unfashionable articles could be safely shipped to 
 American markets, which were barred to foreign com- 
 petitors, and where the current exigencies of London 
 fashion were unknown. 2 The retention of Canada in 1763 
 was only insisted on under the belief that the colonists in 
 America would derive so much benefit by its acquisition as 
 to have a greater purchasing power, and so furnish 3 "a 
 demand of our manufactures as large as all the working 
 hands of Great Britain could possibly supply." The 
 devout were drawn to support the same cause by the idea 
 of doing good among the Indians, and the dissenting 
 ministers of London hailed the glories of the Seven Years' 
 War as giving an opportunity 4 "for imparting even to 
 the most uncultivated of our species the happiness of 
 Britons." Behind such edifying philanthropy lurked 
 6 the knowledge that even the Red Indian brave, when on 
 the point of death, desired to meet his fate in a white shirt 
 and Stroud blanket. 
 
 C" Thus the old colonial system was prompted by a curious 
 compound of great ideals and petty prejudices. Behind 
 the clumsy fabric of shameless restrictions and liberal 
 bounties lay plenty of patriotism. The empire-builders of 
 the age did not mind making sacrifices for the sake of the 
 expansion, which was to excel that of RomeA When 
 the French traveller, 6 Grosley asked an B-nglishman 
 sarcastically in Drury Lane, whether he considered bread 
 at threepence a pound, and beer at threepence halfpenny 
 a pot brilliant trophies of the struggle that closed in 1763, 
 
 1 Gee's Trade etc. p. 102. 
 
 2 Bigelow's Franklin, i. 402. 
 
 3 Annual Eegister (1762), p. 60. 
 
 4 ibid (1763), p. 204. 
 
 5 Adair's Hist. Am. Indians (1775), p. 331. 
 
 6 Grosley's Tour to London (1772), i. 98. 
 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 67 
 
 he was answered, that it did not matter; "We have got 
 Canada and beaver." x The skins of the beaver, deer, 
 racoon, otter, bear and martin were for some years 
 the solitary exports of Canada, 2 some thirty to forty 
 thousand beaver skins being annually required for the hat 
 trade. Pitt imposed taxes deliberately upon the working 
 classes, who had made themselves responsible for the war 
 by their clamours against France, but who asked 
 for little in return, f The colonial charters were 
 nearly all drafted by Americans, and indeed apart 
 from industrial matters, Great Britain gave her colonies 
 absolute self-government, and tolerated slavery as necessary 
 to the welfare of the south long after it was considered 
 unlawful here, and was 3 "an abomination to the middle and 
 northern colonies." The constitutions of all the provinces 
 were democratic, each possessing one elective assembly, 
 and Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut electing 
 their upper houses as well. Rhode Island and Connecticut 
 chose their own governors, and along with Maryland, 
 could enact laws without the Crown's approval. It must 
 also be remembered that some of the commercial restrictions 
 were designed to assist other parts of the Empire. 4 By 
 Act of Parliament, Great Britain denied herself the 
 cultivation of tobacco. The restraint on the making of 
 molasses in America and on its importation from non- 
 British sources aimed at helping West Indians, and the 
 unpopular tea duty of 1773 was itself contrived so as to 
 relieve the East India Company and actually to benefit 
 the American colonists at the same time^> Its incidence 
 would have fallen most lightly on tKe consumer, in view 
 
 1 Hugh Gray's Letters from Canada (1809), p. 383. 
 
 2 Reports of House of Commons Committees, 171573 (1752; ii. 377). 
 
 3 Controversy between Gt. Britain and Colonies (1769), p. 95. 
 
 4 22 Car. ii. c. 26. 
 
68 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 of the privilege given to dispense with the intermediate 
 landing of tea in England. Moreover, l the governors who 
 abetted the policy of coercion had in many cases high 
 ideals of duty to their provinces. Hutchinson himself was 
 a thoroughly patriotic New Englander, and Bernard's chief 
 fault was want of sympathy with colonial thought, not 
 want of principle. 
 
 COn the other ha-nd, in the new preacher of empire there 
 was much of the old Adam. The policy of shackling the 
 commercial energy of fellow citizens across the seas was 
 ignoble to a degreeN 2 Franklin remarked on the ceaseless 
 hum of the English press against a colonist's free use of 
 his faculties, notwithstanding the existing repressive laws, 
 and the impossibility of any real colonial competition at 
 that time( British manufacturers need not have prohibited 
 the woollen industry in America where labour was dear, 
 and native-grown wool scarce. Nor was it reasonable for 
 Birmingham traders to have petitioned the government in 
 1773 to refuse to relax its regulations against the making 
 of steel and of tilt hammers in the colonies. Yet even 
 Pitt acquiesced in the policy of curbing their industry at 
 every turn. Great as the British theory of empire was 
 in certain aspects, this side of the old colonial system was 
 fatally bad. The country wanted some leader with genius 
 to point out the necessity for adapting its modes of 
 government to new phases of dominion, but Pitt's role was 
 only that of the enthusiast, and he did not combine 
 Franklin's saneness with his own fire. Though he was not 
 the actual promoter of the measures which led to Lexington 
 and Bunker Hill, he was an adherent of that restrictive 
 colonial theory, which was the deeper cause of separation. 
 
 1 See Prof. Hosmer's Samuel Adams (1884), pp. 29, 30. 
 
 2 Bigelow's Franklin, 1. 569. 
 
THE OLD COLONIAL THEORY 69 
 
 He believed in a policy which was shaped by the 
 mercantilist creed of the age, and which made men haggle 
 for legal rights instead of judging policies on principle. 
 Such a narrow vision was not by any means peculiar to 
 English statesmen ; they but shared it with their European 
 contemporaries. Nevertheless, it cost us America, for as 
 Burke said, 1 " magnanimity in politics is not seldom the 
 truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill 
 together.'^ 
 
 1 Burke's Select Works (ed. Payne), i. 233. 
 
70 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 DIALECTICS ON THE QUESTION OF TAXATION. 
 
 GRENVILLE succeeded Bute as Prime Minister in April 
 1763, and in March 1765, lie passed the Stamp Act, which 
 levied duties upon deeds, cards, dice, pamphlets, advertise- 
 ments, licenses, newspapers and legal proceedings within 
 the American colonies. At the same time he tried to 
 enforce the Navigation Acts, and to suppress the importation 
 of smuggled molasses from the French West Indies. Both 
 projects evoked indignation in America. Grenville resigned 
 in 1765, and was succeeded by Buckingham, who repealed 
 the Stamp Act early in 1766, but the repeal was accompanied 
 by a declaration affirming the soundness of the principle 
 upon which the Act had been based, in that the colonies 
 were alleged " to be subordinate unto and dependent upon 
 the imperial crown and Parliament of Great Britain." 
 Rockingham failed to secure the co-operation of Pitt, whose 
 distaste for all party connections remained unabated, and 
 he retired from office in the summer of the same year. A 
 new ministry was formed under Pitt, who accepted the 
 earldom of Chatham at the same time, but he was too ill 
 to be more than a nominal leader. Grafton acted as his 
 deputy, and finance was left in the hands of Charles 
 Townshend. Like Grenville, Townshend misunderstood 
 the character of American resistance, and possibly he even 
 entertained the idea of subverting the existing colonial 
 constitutions. At all events, he introduced a Revenue Act, 
 which became law in June 1767, and provided for the 
 imposition of duties upon tea, paper, glass and painters' 
 
DIALECTICS ON TAXATION 71 
 
 colours in the colonies. As in the case of the preceding 
 measure, the product of the duties was much less than the 
 cost of collection. The new regulations were however 
 enforced by an army of revenue officers, backed by a few 
 thousand regular troops. The outcry in the colonies, and 
 the open sympathy of many Whigs with the policy of 
 evasion and resistance during Grafton's ministry (1768-70) 
 led to the repeal of all the duties except that on tea in 
 1770. This was insisted on by Lord North, who had just 
 become Prime Minister, and who thought concession would 
 be imputed as surrender. The Boston tea riot in December, 
 1773 was punished by the closing of the port of Boston 
 and by the nullification of the charter of Massachusetts. 
 Government coercion was met by colonial violence, and 
 the Continental Congress of September 1774 declared 
 definitely for the cause of resistance to all taxation for 
 raising a revenue from American subjects* without their 
 consent. The first shot of the War of Independence was 
 fired at Lexington in April 1775. 
 
 - Thus the question of direct taxation was the immediate 
 cause of the struggle for independence, and for this reason 
 that struggle has often been attributed to the personal 
 work of George III. and of his Tory adherents. This 
 however is an entirely wrong view. No doubt that impolitic 
 king was largely responsible for the actual incidents 
 leading to rebellion. American resistance was to him as 
 much an obstacle to his own monarchical ideal as to British 
 public policy. No doubt also the Tories would be more 
 disposed than the Whigs to treat the colonial opposition 
 as a national menace rather than as the assertion of a 
 constitutional theory, internal to the empire. On the 
 other hand, the King's friends formed but a small clique ; 
 the Bedford and Grenville factions, which supported him, 
 were thoroughly Whig, and the government policy was a 
 
72 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 far more logical outcome of the accepted colonial system 
 than any conciliation could have been. Indeed, it is 
 impossible to dissociate the insistence on direct taxation 
 from the general spirit of the current theory of empire. 
 To understand the English side of the dialectics, which 
 spurred the controversy of the time, it is necessary to 
 imbibe for the moment the spirit of the old colonial 
 system. Imagine that expansion is essential to 
 the mother country, and that colonies exist primarily to 
 further its material welfare. Then recall the vast exertions 
 of the Seven Years' War, in which England had safeguarded 
 the future of her colonists by fighting all over the globe. 
 1 Nothing could be more natural than the inference that 
 America should contribute its share towards sustaining the 
 burden of empire. 
 
 Questions like that involved by Grenville and North's 
 policy of taxing colonies directly from Westminster are 
 now old enough to be judged without passion. It is not 
 for an historian to declaim on their justice or injustice. 
 Concerned as he is with causes for which great masses of 
 men honestly contended, it is more his province to explain 
 why they appealed so successfully to so many minds than 
 to balance their ethics and moralities. At all events, it is 
 palpably unfair to assume that righteousness was on the 
 side of the victors in the American War, and even if this 
 be assumed, it does not follow that an average follower 
 of that side had better reasons for his partnership than a 
 sincere opponent. Certainly the abuse so often lavished 
 upon George III. and his ministers has been unwarranted. 
 Politically, their minds were opaque where clear vision was 
 essential, but as typical men of the day they could not 
 have been properly expected to see beyond their fellows, 
 
 1 Conduct of the late Administration (1767), p. 12. 
 
DIALECTICS ON TAXATION 73 
 
 for figs do not grow on thistles. Living in the atmosphere 
 of the old colonial system, it would have been unnatural 
 had such men of small talent more than but partially 
 conceived the true uses of an empire. Polemics must be 
 ephemeral, and therefore the nature of English arguments 
 on the question of taxation cannot but appear reasonable, 
 if we place ourselves in the position of their exponents, 
 and accept the truth of premises, which have only been 
 discarded as false in the light of later and larger experience. 
 Their policy may well appear now to have been indefensible 
 as statesmanship, but it was none the less a very natural 
 outcome of the contemporary theory of empire. 
 
 The Seven Years' War had involved 1 brisk trade for 
 the time, especially during its last years, and the taxes 
 to the amount of twenty-five millions, which it entailed, 
 were not severely felt. It added however nearly seventy- 
 five millions to the National Debt, and it left war's usual 
 legacy of distress behind it. There was some suffering in 
 England as soon as she began to feel the exhaustion 
 incident to all such gigantic efforts, while 2 commercial 
 panics in Berlin, Hamburg and Holland lessened the 
 demand for British goods in those markets. Men wondered 
 then why they had ever enabled Pitt, the quondam 
 champion of peace and isolation, to 3 " conquer America 
 in Germany at the cost of eighty millions." Here and 
 there, the return of soldiery to civil occupations overstocked 
 the labour market; a great storm broke over England in 
 December 1763, and harvests were bad for some years. 
 4 Dundee and Edinburgh had thriven on the transient 
 
 1 A. Smith's Wealth of Nations, p. 343. 
 
 2 Consideration of the Trade of this Kingdom (1766), p. 6. 
 
 3 An Enquiry into the Conduct of a late Bt. Hon. Commoner (1766), 
 
 p. 14. 
 
 4 Reports of House of Commons Committees, 171573 (1773; iii. 101, 
 
 105, 109). 
 
74 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 demand for shirtings for the army; they drooped after 
 the war. The Irish had benefited while the struggle had 
 disabled Germans from competing with their linen industry ; 
 they lost the whole trade when the Continent was free to 
 try again, with its cheaper yarn and underpaid labour. 
 The prospect of maintaining a considerable army in the 
 newly ceded territories was therefore not pleasing, although 
 no less than ten thousand troops had been left in North 
 America and the West Indies in 1763. 1 It was estimated 
 that the annual Ordnance charge after the war was on 
 an average sixty thousand pounds more than before its 
 outbreak, and that 2 the cost of the American establishment 
 was about one hundred and sixty thousand pounds a year. 
 
 Under these circumstances, there is no reason to wonder 
 why Grenville should ha,ve proposed to exact direct 
 contributions towards the cost of empire-building from the 
 colonies themselves. 3 ' Three millions sterling were being 
 spent every year upon imperial defence, towards which sum 
 the Americans, though constituting one-fifth of the British 
 population, paid nothing whatever. Any Englishman who 
 had learnt the doctrines of the system under which the 
 colonies had been brought into being, would naturally fall 
 in with such a clear application of those doctrines. In 
 1757 it was suggested that the Pennsylvania^ should 
 4 " pay those who fought their battles." In 1761 a judicial 
 decision enabled the government to repress American 
 smuggling more effectually by means of writs of assistance, 
 enabling collectors of customs to command the help of 
 sheriffs and constables in searching for smuggled goods, 
 
 1 Consideration of the Trade of this Kingdom (1766), p. 28. 
 
 2 ibid, p. 70. 
 
 3 ibid, p. 73. 
 
 4 A Letter from a Merchant of London to Rt. Hon. W. Pitt (1757), 
 
 p. 33. 
 
DIALECTICS ON TAXATION 75 
 
 and a writer in the "Annual Register" of 1763, who was 
 almost certainly a Whig, for that publication was conducted 
 by Burke himself, said of the garrison in Canada : l " For 
 the present these troops are maintained by Great Britain. 
 When a more calm and settled season comes on, they are to 
 be paid, as is reasonable, by the colonies they are intended 
 to protect." Early in 1764 Governor Bernard sent certain 
 definite proposals on this point to the government, and in 
 March the House of Commons passed a resolution that it 
 was proper to charge certain stamp duties in the colonies. 
 Such a view was surely characteristic of the utilitarian, 
 and by no means altruistic side of the war spirit of Pitt's 
 time. Grenville himself described his aim as being the 
 establishment of 2 " settled, moderate and frugal govern- 
 ment " by the choice of such methods of taxation as 
 would fall least heavily upon the taxpayer. He did not 
 anticipate resistance in America. The colonists had 
 gained enormously by the war, and if they had submitted 
 in the past to the many restrictive measures of the old 
 imperial system without demur, it seemed probable that 
 they would accept state interference in a new form for 
 a necessary purpose. 3 In the winter of 1763 he had 
 interviewed the agents of various colonies in order to be 
 advised as to the names of tax collectors likely to be 
 acceptable to the inhabitants. It was palpable that 
 the alternative method of making direct and distinct 
 requisitions for proportionate contributions to each of the 
 colonial assemblies would fail utterly. 
 
 The English disputants laid great stress afterwards on 
 the claim of Great Britain to colonial gratitude arising 
 from the general neglect of the colonists in British North 
 
 1 Annual Register (1763), p. 21. 
 
 2 Bedford Correspondence, iii. 397. 
 
 3 Bigelow's Franklin, i. 464. 
 
76 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 America to provide for their own defence. The ministry 
 believed that the whole brunt of the late war had been 
 borne by soldiers and sailors from home. In actual fact, 
 numerous colonial levies had fought with the same 
 gallantry and skill which had won Louisburg from the 
 French in 1745, but upon the evidence actually coming to 
 English ears, the prevailing partial misconception of facts 
 was not unnatural. Certainly it added to the popularity 
 of the claim to tax America. During the Seven Years' 
 War, the many extreme sectaries in the colonies had 
 vented their theories of unpractical quietism with foolish 
 ostentation. The Dutch of x Albany had shown themselves 
 avaricious and disloyal, while 2 Pennsylvania in particular, 
 ignored the danger of French and Indian forays with fatal 
 composure. In 1754 its people refused to supply Braddock 
 with 3 waggons, and 4 complained that the British army 
 was depriving provincials of their indented servants. 
 Indeed, their attitude goes far to justify that general's 
 refusal to rely on colonial military advice. One infatuated 
 enthusiast preached to the Quakers : 5 " If the potsherds of 
 the earth clash together, what is that to us?" Such men 
 considered English troops 6 "poisonous," and Maryland 
 contributed practically nothing to the cost of their main- 
 tenance. Both 7 these provinces were still proprietary, and 
 their efforts to escape expense were no more edifying than 
 the similar attempts of their narrow-minded proprietors. 
 Lord Baltimore refused to pay anything by way of taxation 
 
 1 Kalm's Travels (1772), i. 100. 
 
 2 ibid, i. 36. 
 
 3 Brief View of the Conduct of Pennsylvania (1755), p. 31. 
 
 4 An Answer to an Invidious Pamphlet etc. (1755), p. 11. 
 
 5 Brief View etc., p. 23. 
 
 6 J. Dickinson's Speech at Philadelphia (1764), p. 29. 
 
 7 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xvi. 146; Black's Maryland's Attitude in the 
 
 Struggle for Canada (1892), pp. 19, 25, 55. 
 
DIALECTICS ON TAXATION 77 
 
 while the French were ravaging the borders. In many 
 colonies the danger of French invasion was thought remote, 
 and the peace-loving population left defence to others, the 
 Quakers in some cases 1 excommunicating active resisters 
 to invasion. Washington described provincial recruits in 
 1754 as being chiefly 2 "loose, idle persons, quite destitute 
 of hearth and home, and I may truly say, many of them 
 of clothes." The wealthier were often incorrigibly selfish, 
 and with a singular apathy towards the welfare of the 
 empire, 3 New England traders plied their business under 
 fictitious flags of truce on the Mississippi and Mobile 
 throughout the war. 4 Bossu saw these disloyal pedlars 
 chaffering at New Orleans, while Wolfe was struggling to 
 win Quebec, and similar indifference was shown in the 
 next wax, when the revolutionary army were starved in 
 consequence of local " corners " in food-stuffs. Washington 
 then said.: 5 "Shall a few designing men for their own 
 aggrandisement, and to gratify their own avarice, overset 
 the goodly fabric we have been rearing at the expense of 
 so much time, blood and treasure?" These causes of 
 complaint were foreshadowed repeatedly in America during 
 the Seven Years' War ; 6 General Forbes was compelled to 
 take 300 soldiers at Forts Cumberland and Frederick 
 into his own pay in 1758, as Maryland would not save 
 them from starvation, and we cannot wonder that such 
 incidents weighed more with English politicians than facts 
 which reflected the better side of American thought. They 
 deserve considerable weight, even when we recognize that 
 
 1 Brissot's Travels in U.S.A. in 1788 (1794), p. 350. 
 
 2 Sparks' Washington, ii. 2. 
 
 3 Gent. Mag. (1759), p. 629. 
 
 4 Bossu's Travels through Louisiana (1771), i. 237. 
 
 5 Sparks' Washington, vi. 211. 
 
 <3 Black's Maryland (1892), p. 64. 
 
78 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 in 1740 r 15,000 New England seamen were willing to fight 
 Spain, that 2 Franklin did as much to stimulate the war 
 spirit in America in 1756 as Pitt did in England, and that 
 altogether the colonies sent 3 23,800 men and 400 privateers 
 to do battle for the race in the Seven Years' War. The 
 lion's share in the fighting was borne by British troops, 
 even if the future revolutionary leaders, Washington, Lee, 
 Prescott, Putnam, Montgomery and Gates all fought 
 against the French. 
 
 Therefore, in the war of words between Great Britain 
 and her colonies, which began in 1764, the British 
 controversialists found their most effective argument in 
 the plea that every portion of the empire should bear its 
 quota of the common burden. To sustain this contention 
 most successfully, they did not admit that America had 
 herself made great sacrifices in the French struggle. 
 Whatever might be alleged against England's choice of 
 means, her end was deemed just in this respect. As one 
 writer said, 4 "If the Americans enjoy the privileges, let 
 them participate, in some degree, of the burthens of their 
 fellow subjects." Taking America's economic disabilities 
 as matters of course and irrelevant, English disputants 
 pointed out how much the Mother Country had done for 
 her children. The very able author of "The Eights of 
 Great Britain Asserted" showed that the old colonial 
 system had provided the colonies with nearly two and a 
 half millions sterling in bounties between 1706 and 1774. 
 In the Seven Years' War England had done much for 
 them. 5 In 1756 115,000 were sent us "a free gift" to 
 
 1 Present State of France and Spain (1740), p. 41. 
 
 2 Bigelow's Franklin, i. 278. 
 
 3 Eamsay's Hist. Amer. Eev. (1793), i. 40. 
 
 4 Conduct of the late Administration (1767), p. 153. 
 
 5 The Eights of Great Britain Asserted (1776), pp. 12-3. 
 
DIALECTICS ON TAXATION 79 
 
 New England. In 1757 50,000 were sent for "the use 
 and relief " of North and South Carolina and Yirginia ; in 
 1758 41, 000 were given to Massachusetts and Connecticut. 
 The vaunted Louisburg expedition of 1745 had been 
 financed by the home government, and between 1759 and 
 1763 870,000 were paid to the colonies for the maintenance 
 of the army in America. Townshend said with some force 
 that the colonists were only asked to give their mite 
 towards a common fund. Their contribution would be 
 expended in America itself. Adam Smith, while 
 1 condemning the monopolist tendencies of the old colonial 
 system in 1776, argued that the Americans had no just 
 ground for exemption from helping to bear the cost of a 
 war waged as well for their, as for English interests, and 
 that there was no good in 2 "the splendid and showy 
 equipage of empire," if England had to bear the whole 
 burden of its maintenance. 
 
 Of course, the most efficient weapon in the armoury of 
 colonial dialectics was the argument against England's 
 choice of means to effect her end. It was however 
 considered necessary to combat the justice of that end as 
 well. The American case on this point rested on three 
 pleas. In the first place, it was argued that there was no 
 necessity at all to quarter an army among the colonists. 
 3 They could hold their own against any French or Indian 
 incursion, and desired no protection. The troops, for 
 whom they were asked to pay were garrisoned in Canada, 
 and would therefore only benefit that province by their 
 expenditure. 4 If England herself disliked a standing 
 
 1 Wealth of Nations (ed. "World Library"), p. 485. 
 
 2 ibid, p. 760. 
 
 3 Considerations on behalf of the Colonists (1765), p. 11. 
 
 4 An Appeal to the World (1769), p. 27; Adair's Hist. Am. Indians 
 
 (1775), p. 463. 
 
80 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 army, she should not force one on her colonies, and risk 
 creating another Ireland. Secondly, Franklin urged that 
 America had made equal sacrifices with England in the 
 French war. She had put nearly 25,000 men in the field, 
 and in the later Indian war 1,000 men out of the British 
 force of 1,300 were colonial. The payments made to the 
 colonies were far less than their disbursements for the 
 purposes of the war. Pennsylvania spent 440,000 more 
 than she received. So willing was America to fight for 
 any English interest that she had sent 3,000 men to the 
 Carthagena expedition in 1739, and would help the Mother 
 Country even in the event of a purely European conflict. 
 Thirdly, the country was said to be l too poor in gold and 
 silver to pay the duties demanded. 
 
 None of these pleas however were conclusive, and the 
 colonial controversialists directed their opposition rather 
 against England's choice of means. Though there was no 
 precedent to favour imposing duties directly upon colonies, 
 British policy had been exercised again and again in 
 controlling the economics of Greater Britain for the benefit 
 of vested interests at home. The American provinces had 
 entire self-government in internal affairs, and Massachusetts 
 was 2 admittedly a genuine democracy ; but they had always 
 been regarded as subject to the paramount exigencies of 
 the imperial system. Hence the natural drift of the 
 government to the policy of the Stamp Act, which obviated 
 the difficulties of separate appeals to a dozen different 
 unwilling legislatures. It was said very truly that direct 
 taxation from home was 3 " to the great ease of the Mother 
 
 1 Present State of Gt. Britain and N. America, p. 285 ; Late Regulations 
 
 respecting Brit. Colonies, p. 23 ; Bigelow's Franklin, i. 468. See 
 however J. Adams' Twenty-one Letters (ed. 1789), p. 41. 
 
 2 Bernard and Gage's Letters to Hillsborough (1769), p. 43. 
 
 3 Two Papers on Taxing the British Colonies in America (1767), p. 14. 
 
DIALECTICS ON TAXATION 81 
 
 State, and without the trouble of applying to the several 
 assemblies in so many distinct and independent provinces." 
 The question of legality played a great part in the 
 dialectics of the day. The colonial lawyers were then 
 almost l notorious for their fine verbal distinctions, and 
 their genius for evasion and chicane. They claimed to 
 discriminate between the previous indirect taxation from 
 home as external, and the new taxation as internal. With 
 regard to the latter, they claimed to have been always 
 exempt from the jurisdiction of the English Houses of 
 Parliament. 2 " We 'owe them no more subjection than 
 the Divan of Constantinople." 3 Washington seems to 
 have deemed the Stamp Act simple robbery and " a direful 
 attack upon our liberties," and 4 John Adams thought that 
 there was no more justice in Britain than in hell. More 
 learned and precise critics like James Otis sought con- 
 troversial weapons in the past history of English freedom, 
 to prove the unlawfulness of direct taxation of the colonies 
 from Westminster, and though Mansfield deemed his views 
 5 " full of wildness," he found plenty of matter in the 
 writings of Locke and other political philosophers 6 to 
 support the plea of no taxation without representation. 
 7 Writing upon paper made at Boston in support of the 
 proposal to import no English goods, Otis asked 8 why 
 America should be governed by the electors of Old Sarum, 
 and the occupants of Cornish barns and alehouses. 9 The 
 
 1 See Douglas' Reports (1781), p. 647; Bernard and Gage's Letters to 
 
 Hillsborough (1769), p. 39. 
 
 2 Conduct of the late Administration (1767), p. 91. 
 
 3 Sparks' Washington, ii. 543; iii. 394. 
 
 4 J. Adams' Works (ed. 1850), ii. 308. 
 
 5 Holliday's Life of Mansfield (1797), p. 248. 
 
 6 Rights of Parliament Vindicated (1766), p. 8. 
 
 7 Tudor's Life of Otis (1823), p. 35. 
 
 8 ibid, p. 191. 
 
 9 ibid, p. 165. 
 
82 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 in jury to the colonists arising from their forced inability to 
 
 accept molasses from the French West Indies in return for 
 
 fish was the work of the Sugar Act of 1733 and was already 
 
 intolerable. On the other hand, like John Dickenson and 
 
 other moderate reformers, Otis abandoned the plea as the 
 
 alleged difference between external and internal taxation. 
 
 That plea is indeed difficult to maintain, and if to-day we 
 
 can agree that it was fallacious, it is clear that apart from 
 
 the deterrent effects of long disuse the government might 
 
 have been legally entitled to extend its admitted right 
 
 to regulate the affairs of the colonies without consulting 
 
 them, in order to cover the claim to levy taxes. This is 
 
 the view of the best American authorities, such as 
 
 1 Professor Woodburn, and in any case, we should hesitate 
 
 to term illegal a course considered constitutional by a 
 
 lawyer as profound as Mansfield, and an historian as great 
 
 as Gibbon. It is especially difficult to accept the American 
 
 contention as correct if we believe in the juristic rather 
 
 than in the political conception of sovereignty. A 
 
 philosopher might hold that all the power of a government 
 
 is derived from and delegated by the people, but the 
 
 custom of the British constitution has discarded such an 
 
 abstract proposition and made Parliament absolute. By 
 
 accepting the trade restrictions imposed upon them by 
 
 those in authority at Westminster, the colonies had 
 
 habitually admitted in effect their illimitable sovereignty. 
 
 Justice and expediency should no doubt temper the exercise 
 
 of legal rights, but they do not themselves alter or abridge 
 
 such rights, and the declaration of Parliament in 1766 
 
 (6 Geo. III. c. 12) that it had full power "to make laws 
 
 and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the 
 
 colonies and people of America in all cases whatever" is 
 
 not technically open to objection. 
 
 1 Woodburn's Causes of the Am. Rev. (1892), p. 51. 
 
DIALECTICS ON TAXATION 83 
 
 The disputation of that day is far more suggestive in the 
 spirit than the letter. Arguments " ad hoc " may have no 
 lasting value, but the general tone of this controversy is 
 most suggestive, as the best American writers made amends 
 in the early years of the struggle for any legal flaws in 
 their political case. Otis said : 1 " God forbid (that) these 
 colonies should ever prove undutiful to their Mother 
 Country," but he brushed aside the sophistry of forensic 
 quibbles, realising that there are occasions when political 
 principles must outweigh bare legal rights. Englishmen 
 were arguing that many districts at home paid taxes 
 without returning members to Parliament, but it was 
 madness to extend such an anomaly. A trained disputant 
 witness his admirable argument against the legality of 
 writs of assistance as being general not special, perpetual 
 not returnable, he appealed to English Whigs to 
 sympathise with men struggling for 2 "the laws, customs 
 and usages of our ancestors, bravely supported and 
 defended with the monarchy, and from age to age handed 
 down." He argued that the economic restrictions were in 
 effect America's taxes, and that further interference would 
 be tyranny. 3 Richard Bland of Virginia pointed out 
 how even the system of bounties was really devised for 
 the sake of Britain. 
 
 Such contentions enabled the opposition at home to 
 evade treating the question as a national issue, while at the 
 same time its appeal to abstract principles opened the way 
 to a repudiation of England's repressive colonial theory 
 altogether. When once the " locus standi " of the old 
 colonial system was disputed it was but a step to the 
 avowed republicanism of Paine. Franklin held out long 
 
 1 James Otis' Vindication of the British Colonies (1769), p. 22. 
 
 2 ibid, p. 47. 
 
 3 Eland's Enquiry into the Eights of British Colonies, p. 19. 
 
84 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 for peace, but in time lie saw that Britain would never 
 give way, and he was then willing to avail himself of this 
 opportunity. He perceived that when once the colonies 
 could be persuaded that their previous subjection to British 
 mercantilism was but arbitrary and terminable, there 
 would be an open road to a new career of freedom, 
 unimpeded by British interests, wars and debts. Such 
 a dream animated the heated abstractions of Paine' s 
 " Common Sense and Plain Truth," where alleged " natural 
 rights" are preferred to the old political ties. 1 "In England 
 the King hath little more to 1 do than to make war and give 
 away places, which, in plain terms, is to impoverish the 
 nation and set it together by the ears. ... Of more worth 
 is one honest man to society and in the sight of God than 
 all the crowned ruffians that ever lived." When we read 
 such language we cannot but feel in a new atmosphere, 
 where history and tradition are treated with contempt, and 
 where the formal pleading of old world constitutional 
 lawyers sounds like a dead tongue. 2 Blackstone was 
 quoted to support the since exploded doctrine that human 
 laws which conflict with those of nature are invalid. The 
 admission of alleged eternal "laws" into the category of 
 legal arguments and Paine's rancorous invective against 
 3 "the royal brute of Great Britain," 4 "Mr. Guelph," were 
 clear steps towards the unhistorical rhetoric of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. They marked a distinct departure 
 from the earlier and far more closely reasoned appeals to 
 juristic principles; and revolutionaries of the saner sort like 
 5 John Adams deplored Paine's "Newgate" epithets, and the 
 
 1 Common Sense (1776), p. 23. 
 
 2 The Farmer Refuted (1775), p. 6. 
 
 3 Common Sense (1776), p. 40. 
 
 4 22 State Trials, p. 406. 
 
 5 J. Adams' Works (ed. 1850), ii. 507-9. 
 
 
DIALECTICS ON TAXATION 85 
 
 coarse abuse, which, alienated many moderate reformers. 
 Indeed the years between 1765 and 1775 witnessed a steady 
 growth of this new republicanism under the influence of 
 hot-headed zealots of the type of Warren and Samuel 
 Adams. 1 The burning of effigies on the liberty tree at 
 Boston, the 2 cruelty and violence of "the Sons of Liberty" 
 towards the Tories, the innumerable libels on loyalty, the 
 practice of tarring and feathering opponents, were all 
 novel applications of the notion of man's natural rights. 
 Temperate patriots like Benjamin Thompson, afterwards 
 celebrated as Count Eumf ord, were thus driven unwillingly 
 into the loyalist camp. Men said that if all American 
 fancies were true, 3 "we are as abject slaves as France and 
 Poland can show in wooden shoes and with uncombed 
 hair," and they listened willingly to the passionate 
 eloquence of Jefferson, whose hatred of the British people 
 was intense, and whose 4 expurgated passages in the 
 Declaration of Independence ring with sonorous and 
 trenchant denunciations. 
 
 English arguments were cast in an utterly different 
 mould. The generation of Adam Smith and Josiah Tucker 
 hated fanciful abstractions; they wanted facts alone, 
 and judged policies from business experience, not from 
 commentaries on Locke or Filmer. They clung probably 
 too closely to the assertion of legal rights without consider- 
 ing the larger question of expediency. John Wesley said 
 that no charter had ever given an American colony 5 "the 
 illegal privilege of being exempt from parliamentary 
 
 1 Bernard's Letters (1765), p. 13. 
 
 2 What think ye of Congress Now? (1775), p. 12. 
 
 3 Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (1768), p. 25. 
 
 i See the fine passage beginning with " the road to happiness " etc., in 
 
 Jefferson's Memoirs (1829), i. 21. 
 5 Wesley's Journal (ed. 1902), p. 405. 
 
86 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 taxation," and thought this defect conclusive. His cast of 
 thought was not characterised by particularly elevated 
 philosophy, but it was eminently logical. No pamphleteer 
 of the age, who wrote in support of the British government, 
 ever approached the burning hatred of Paine, who had 
 become even more bitter than native-born Americans. In 
 fact, the dominant note of the tracts which vindicated the 
 policy of Lord North was the simplicity of their practical 
 self-interest. Samuel Johnson's violence was only in 
 expression. With massive bigotry, he said in 1769 that 
 the malcontents were l " a race of convicts, and ought to 
 be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging," 
 and that if they had their deserts, 2 "we should have at 
 once razed their towns, and let them enjoy their forests." 
 Those who recognize the habitual dogmatism of the 
 writer, will see in such words merely a keen dislike to 
 speculative theorists and mob orators. In " Taxation no 
 Tyranny," he compared the constitutional functions of the 
 colonial assemblies to those of parish vestries in England, 
 and refused to see in their pretensions to a greater province 
 anything more than pretexts to avoid taxation. He did 
 not admit that the cry of liberty among colonists was 
 genuine at all. If they believed in it they would have 
 freed their own slaves first. As a defence in the present 
 case the plea of freedom was a mere excuse. Johnson's 
 school of thought always inculcated resignation to fate, 
 and acquiescence in established forms of government. The 
 fact that eight-ninths of our own population were un- 
 represented in Parliament was thought to prove that the 
 principle, " no taxation without representation " was 
 inadmissible, and existing laws, whether as to the franchise 
 here or taxation in America, needed no reform, living as 
 
 1 Boswell's Johnson (ed. 1896), iii. 163. 
 
 2 E. Napier's Johnsoniana (1884), p. 273. 
 
DIALECTICS ON TAXATION 87 
 
 we did, * " in Britain not Utopia." 2 No one could say that 
 hop or cider growers had willingly "consented" to the 
 hop or cider tax in England, and yet such taxes were 
 binding on them. A minority's grievance did not justify 
 a revolution of the existing constitution. England was 
 proud of not applying "the rule of three" to representation, 
 and 3 Tucker explained that a town had no right to 
 additional members by virtue of having become, like 
 London, " swollen and bloated." What would become of 
 the constitution if the theory of " no taxation without 
 representation" were applied to the 4 " thousands of poor 
 journeymen day labourers and low ignorant mechanics 
 residing in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Halifax?" 
 5 " Liberty ! my Country !" exclaimed the Tory dean. 
 Johnson, with a similar distaste for democratic dreams, 
 shuddered at the idea that the rebels would increase in 
 numbers at the rate of progression suggested by Franklin. 
 6 "When the Whigs of America are thus multiplied, let 
 the princes of the earth tremble in their palaces." 
 
 This indifference to all arguments except those derived 
 from actual constitutional law was eminently characteristic 
 of the partisans of England's old colonial theory. John 
 Wesley's addresses at the time are admirable examples of 
 clear and moderate statement, but they all assume that the 
 existing conception of empire is adequate for every 
 purpose. 7 "Do you not sit without restraint, every man 
 under his own vine ?" he writes in his " Calm Address to 
 our American Colonists," as if personal freedom necessarily 
 
 1 An Answer at large to Mr. Pitt's Speech (1766), p. 12. 
 
 2 Controversy between Gt. Britain and Colonies (1769), p. 87. 
 
 3 Tucker's Four Letters (ed. 1783), p. 59. 
 
 4 ibid, p. 117. 
 
 5 ibid, p. 61. 
 
 6 Boswell's Johnson (ed. 1896), iii. 166. 
 
 7 Calm Address (1775), p. 15. 
 
88 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 atoned for economic repression. To men of his school of 
 thought all political agitation seemed worthless, so long as 
 he who ploughed the field was allowed to reap it in peace, 
 and he who built a house remained master of the door. So 
 long as person and property were safe, it was wrong to disturb 
 a state on behalf of immaterial doctrines. 1 Adam Smith 
 admitted that any representation of America in England 
 was impracticable, and it was thought absurd to allow this 
 difficulty to present the enforcement of a just demand. 
 Politicians so different from one another as Grenville and 
 Junius considered that colonial resistance was based on the 
 most sordid motives, and even 2 Wilkes was opposed to 
 American claims until won over by a flattering address 
 from Boston. 
 
 A similar vein, of thought ran through the contemporary 
 loyalist literature of America, which assumed 3 that the 
 rebellious colonists wanted England to draw water and 
 hew wood for America without reward. It will indeed be 
 seen later how Joseph Galloway, sometime Speaker of the 
 Pennsylvania Assembly, conceived 4 a plan of union between 
 Great Britain and her colonies, but 5 it is clear that he 
 saw in the pioneers of the United States only frantic 
 zealots, 6 when he pointed out that if the colonists desired, 
 they need not buy any tea at all, but that they were only 
 hurting themselves by such abstinence. 7 They had 
 implored help from England in 1754, and now dared to 
 incite the British army to attack them. The able tracts 
 of Samuel Seabury and the sermons of Jonathan Boucher 
 
 1 Wealth of Nations, p. 494. 
 
 2 Stephens' Memoirs of J. H. Tooke (1813), i., 178. 
 
 3 Galloway's Reflections on the Rise of the Am. Rebellion (1780), p. 23. 
 
 4 Candid Examination of the Mutual Claims etc. (1775), p. 53. 
 
 5 ibid, p. 47. 
 
 6 A Friendly Address to all Reasonable Americans (1774), p. 7. 
 
 7 ibid, p. 27. 
 
DIALECTICS ON TAXATION 89 
 
 exposed the legal fallacies of the American disputants, 
 showing Hhe inconsistency of their tenets with their 
 charters, and 2 the humble reality of their subordination to 
 Parliament, contrasted the justice of England with 3 the 
 violent methods of colonial mob law, and showed how 
 hardly the non-importation policy would weigh on 4 the 
 poor farmer. The Hutchinson letters breathe horror of 
 the wild sentiments of the 5 " Boston Gazette/' and are 
 themselves written with coolness and composure. Temper- 
 ance alone, however, cannot win battles, and the loyalists 
 thought it hopeless to attempt to organise resistance to the 
 rise of the demagogues. Their dry contempt for the fire- 
 brands of the coming Revolution faithfully reflected the 
 tone prevailing in Great Britain. 
 
 The truest deduction therefore, that we can draw from 
 the dialectics of the day on the question of taxation, is 
 that each side adopted an attitude inevitable during the 
 sway of the old colonial theory. Both indeed drifted 
 into spheres of thought, not necessarily following from 
 that theory. The forward party in America became 
 immersed in a new ideal of republicanism, while in 
 England the chance influence of domestic politics gave to 
 the government policy a partisan character wholly alien to 
 its origin. The energetic effort of George III. to reverse' 
 the work of two centuries of political development 
 complicated the colonial issue by partially identifying 
 the national theory of empire with his own personal greed 
 for power. If however we hold the opinion that the 
 English people were already committed to the policy of 
 
 1 A View of the Contest (1774), p. 14. 
 
 2 ibid, pp. 15, 35. 
 
 3 Free Thoughts by a Farmer (1774), p. 16. 
 * ibid, p. 17. 
 
 5 Hutchinson Letters (1773), p. 25. 
 
90 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 direct interference in America, by their deep convictions 
 as to the adequacy of the prevailing colonial system, there 
 is no reason to paint George III. as the sole author of the 
 war. iJohn Adams himself alleged that the roots of the 
 Revolution lay in the aspiration after a free trade with 
 all the world, in place of subjection to a mean monopoly. 
 Under the same circumstances and conditions, it is probable 
 that the American colonies would have tried to sever 
 themselves from Great Britain, had she been a republic 
 instead of a monarchy, and George III. been a cypher 
 instead of a despot. 
 
 i Adams' Twenty-one Letters (ed. 1789), p. 9. 
 
ENGLISH FEELING 91 
 
 CHAPTER T. 
 ENGLISH FEELING TOWARDS AMERICA IN 1775. 
 
 WHEN Bra-ddock's army marched to its ruin in the woods 
 near Fort Duquesne, its contempt for colonial allies earned 
 it deserved unpopularity. x Franklin was always stung by 
 the common British opinion that colonists were "Yahoos." 
 For example, an essay on the Militia in 1757 referred 
 scornfully to the fact that 2 " every Indian incursion alarms 
 the American militia." 3 Wolfe described the Americans 
 in 1758 as " in general the dirtiest, most contemptible 
 cowardly dogs that you can conceive." 4 In 1765 a 
 provincial writer complained that the colonies were spoken 
 of as the property of Englishmen at home by " every 
 gazeteer from the environs of Grub Street to the purlieus 
 of St. James's," and English officials themselves deplored 
 the provoking insolence of British garrisons towards the 
 American populace. Already in 1769 Washington spoke 
 bitterly of 5 "our lordly masters." In 1774 a member of 
 Parliament called Yan, described by 6 Governor Hutchinson 
 as "a plain, blunt man," styled Boston 7 "a nest of locusts," 
 which ought to be destroyed, and in 1775 one 8 Colonel 
 Grant alleged in the House of Commons that the colonists 
 
 1 Bigelow's Franklin, iii. 284. 
 
 2 An Essay on the Expediency of a National Militia (1757), p. 15. 
 
 3 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. ix. ; pt. 3, 76. 
 
 4 Considerations on behalf of the Colonists (1765), p. 14. 
 
 5 Sparks' Washington, iii. 351. 
 
 6 Hutchinson's Diary (ed. 1883), i. 319. 
 
 7 Cobbett's Parl. Hist. xvii. 1178. 
 
 8 Gent. Mag. (1775), p. 63. 
 
92 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 would never face any army in the field, while Lord 
 Sandwich, a responsible minister, declared in the House 
 of Lords that the Americans were l " raw, undisciplined, 
 cowardly men/ 3 a taunt which 2 rankled long. A much 
 greater Englishman, Rodney wrote to his wife from Paris 
 in 1778 of three captains of American warships then in 
 that city : 3 " They talk, I hear, much of fighting, for 
 which reason I helieve they are cowards." In 1776 Aaron 
 Burr said that the British officers 4 " hold us in the utmost 
 contempt, talk of forcing our lines without firing a gun," 
 for the war was well advanced before the army admitted 
 that the colonists had the same courage as themselves, 
 5 " though their hair may not be so well powdered." We 
 can see the glimmering of a truer view in the vivid 
 account of Bunker Hill by the commander of the Light 
 Infantry in that action. 6 " The rebels were very numerous 
 and behaved far beyond any idea I could have formed of 
 
 them We have paid for our victory, lost a great 
 
 number of our officers I am told abqut eighty killed and 
 wounded a great smash by such miscreants." Yet Lady 
 Sarah Bunbury wrote of Howe in 1775, that she hoped he 
 7 "will not be employed long in so vile and fruitless a 
 service, where he may be killed and cannot get any 
 honour." Even loyalists like 8 Joseph Galloway and 
 Samuel Curwen resented the attitude adopted towards their 
 fellow countrymen by 9 " these conceited islanders." 
 
 1 Russell's Life of Fox (1859), i. 83. 
 
 2 Sparks' Washington, iii. 407. 
 
 3 Mundy's Rodney, i. 170. 
 
 4 M. L. Davis' Memoirs of Aaron Burr (1838), i. 97. 
 
 5 Lord Stair's Facts and their Consequences (1782), p. 31. 
 
 6 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xi. ; pt. 5, 381. 
 
 7 Life and Letters of Lady S. Lennox (ed. 1902), i. 235. 
 
 8 Considerations upon the Am. Enquiry (1779), p. 7. 
 9Curwen's Journal and Letters (ed. 1842), p. 90. 
 
ENGLISH FEELING Ve*, ,^o*vKX 93 
 
 Such examples of English feeling display the common 
 want of that political sentimentality, with which we now 
 associate our conception of the British empire. The idea 
 of racial brotherhood, now so popular with all classes, made 
 no appeal to men of that day. It was an unimaginative 
 age in England, and much of the efficiency of the 
 government during the war for America had been derived 
 from the severely practical nature of England's colonial 
 ambitions. The war benefited the colonies, but its aim 
 was rather to expand our imperial market, and its 
 popularity owed nothing to the modern fancy that it was 
 waged to rescue brothers beyond the sea from oppression 
 by the French. In that respect, the age of chivalry had 
 gone, for even the best and most disinterested side of 
 national activity was then eminently unemotional^ 
 Eeligion had thus sunk into creedless benevolence. 
 Charity was as yet as soberly administered, that the idea 
 that every citizen had a right to outdoor relief and to 
 state help in maintaining his family was only a delusion 
 of the next generation; but philanthropy was practised 
 with visible effect and with better results. ^In the same 
 simple spirit, the uses of the empire were estimated by 
 its material fruits alone, and a colonist was weighed 
 critically in the balance as a customer, without being 
 privileged by his fellow citizenship in the same imperial 
 community. Men saw no advantages in territory per se, 
 and never appreciated the sentimental aspect of a British 
 North America/ 
 
 A number of active minds among the colonists 
 approached far more nearly than the thinkers of the 
 Mother Country to the modern idealism. When the 
 New Englanders captured Louisburg, ^'the Dunkirk of 
 
 l Letter from a French Refugee in America (1774), p. 13. 
 
94 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 America," in 1745, they exulted over " the sixpence-a-day " 
 regulars, in having proved the efficiency of untrained 
 Anglo-Saxons in furthering the common cause. l " What 
 is it that Britons cannot do ?" wrote one of them to James 
 Houstoun, thus identifying himself with the Englishman 
 at home. In 1755 Dinwiddie appealed to the Virginians 
 to atone for the sluggishness of some of the other colonists 
 by 2 "distinguishing yourselves the sons of Britons." In 
 the Seven Years' War the relations between the English 
 regulars and the colonial levies improved with experience 
 of each others' worth. Thomas Pownall, once Governor 
 of Massachusetts, attempted to infuse a wider and more 
 lasting geniality into the attitude of Great Britain and 
 America towards each other. Like Franklin, he saw the 
 need to impress upon each the lesson that unity should 
 mean more than mere business relationship. 3 He wrote 
 that the colonies were as much part of the home country 
 as the Palatine counties, that they were constituents of 
 4 the same empire as England herself, and it will be 
 seen how he 5 recommended colonial representation at 
 Westminster, a scheme which ignored the prevailing 
 conditions of Parliament. That haughty oligarchy 
 would never understand the reasoning, whereby rugged 
 backwoodsmen and austere New England traders were 
 to intrude upon an assembly, which had treated repre- 
 sentation as only a legal fiction for generations. The 
 colonists in this respect were far more modern in their 
 view of political systems, and Dulaney claimed that they 
 
 1 James Houstoun's Works (1753), p. 366. 
 
 2 Gent. Mag. (1755), p. 305. 
 
 3 Pownall's Administration of British Colonies (1774), i. x. 
 
 4 ibid, i. 10. 
 
 5 ibid, ii. 82. 
 
ENGLISH FEELING 95 
 
 should be treated as 1 " other Englishmen." Great Britain 
 was often called 2 " by the tender endearing appellation of 
 ' home ' " in these days before the Revolution. 3 " They 
 may be looked on as foreigners," wrote Franklin of his 
 compatriots, "but they do not consider themselves as such." 
 They thought that an empire was more than a mere 
 commercial appendage to a Mother Country, and had 
 plenty of sentiment for the 4 " Old England men." What- 
 ever were the true feelings of the Congress of 5 1765 and 
 of that of 6 1774, each expressed lip loyalty to the Crown, 
 and it is to be observed that 7 the much abused Germans 
 and Quakers of Pennsylvania were among those most 
 disinclined to resist English claims. 
 
 S jlence the surprised character of much of the colonial 
 dialectics, when the British government treated the 
 American provinces as negligible factors in formulating 
 the public policy of the empire. It was said that 
 Englishmen only lost their votes by leaving Britain for 
 a foreign country, not by migrating from Yorkshire to 
 London, and it was argued that migration to British 
 America was on the same footing as the latter. The 
 colonists were "fellow-subjects" with Britons at home, 
 and not " their subjects." The Congress of Pennsylvania 
 
 1 Dulaney's Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes (1766), 
 
 p. 39. 
 
 2 Dissertations on the Advantages of Perpetual Union (1766), p. 97. 
 
 3 Bigelow's Franklin, i. 495-6. 
 
 4 ibid, i. 476. 
 
 5 Authentic Account of the Proceedings of the Congress at N.Y. (1765), 
 
 p. 25. 
 
 6 Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress at Philadelphia (1774), 
 
 pp. 25, 65. 
 
 7 Galloway's Reflections on the Rise of the Am. Rebellion (1780), p. 115. 
 
96 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 said that they were only acting l " like the descendants of 
 Britons.^/ In 1748 2 Otis Little wrote that there were no 
 people on earth more loyal than the colonists. 3 In 1764 
 an advocate of the colonies protested that nothing was 
 further from their nature, their interest, their thoughts, 
 than revolt, and in 1765 the Massachusetts assembly 
 considered dependence on the Mother Country " a great 
 blessing." 4 Philadelphia was Tory to the last, and 5 the 
 Anglican, Lutheran, Quaker, Calvinist and German 
 elements among the American people largely inclined 
 towards the British cause throughout the Revolution. 
 Numbers of loyalist corps served valiantly in the war, 
 such as the Corps of Pioneers, De Lancey's Regiment, the 
 Florida Grenadiers, the Loyal Refugees of West Florida, 
 the King's American Dragoons and Orange Rangers, the 
 Loyal American Regiment, the Maryland Loyalists, the 
 Yolunteers of New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and 
 Nova Scotia, the Pennsylvania Loyalists and Royal 
 Fencible American Regiment. These represented the 
 class who invented the phrase " United Empire." 
 ^In England itself there was far less feeling of sentimental 
 affinity. Its people had always been willing to fight for 
 a colonial cause, but they looked for some reward, more 
 immediate and material than airy gratitude and un- 
 substantial protestations. They realised how useful 
 British protection had been to the colonies, and how 
 liberal the colonial policy was with regard to internal 
 self-government, in comparison with that of Spain or 
 Holland. It was therefore the general belief that England 
 
 1 Gent. Mag. (1775), p. 496. 
 
 2 State of the Northern Colonies (1748), p. 15. 
 
 3 The Administration of the Colonies (1764), p. 25 
 
 4 J. Adams' Works (ed. 1850), ii. 437. 
 
 5 Galloway's Eise of the Am. Bebell. (1780), p. 115. 
 
ENGLISH FEELING 97 
 
 deserved in return every solid advantage that could 
 possibly accrue from the possession of dependencies. 
 1 It was thought that a desire for separation could not 
 be produced by such a policy, in view of England's mild 
 laws and generous defence in war. 2 The want of fellow 
 feeling between the Puritans of New England, the 
 Anglicans of Virginia, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the 
 Germans of Georgia, the Catholics of Maryland, and the 
 Dutch of New York, was deemed to make a colonial 
 league against Britain an impossibility, and it should not 
 be forgotten that far better informed judges like Otis and 
 Franklin were surprised by the strength of American 
 unity in 1765.x 
 
 Moreover^ although some enlightened colonists might 
 proclaim the unity of all Britons in the common empire, 
 emigration across the Atlantic did mean in actual fact a 
 real drift away from the contemporary evolution of 
 European thought and character, in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth century. The Puritans who had fled to 
 Massachusetts in the reign of Charles I., did not bequeath 
 to their descendants of 1775 anything analogous to the 
 spirit of Hanoverian England. The Americans were still 
 eminently Cromwellian in their conception of life and 
 duty; the Bostonians, who listened to Samuel Adams at 
 their town meetings, were wholly Puritan, and New 
 England was still swayed by theologians ; she delighted in 
 sermons, and 3 celebrated every 5th of November by 
 burning the Pope in effigy, and burlesquing Catholic rites. 
 Such colonies had little of the Englishman's sober 
 callousness to political anomalies. So far from having 
 been planted by our care, as Townshend alleged in 1767, 
 
 1 Reasons for Establishing Georgia (1733), p. 15. 
 
 2 Interest of Great Britain considered (1759), p. 39 
 
 3 Tudor's Otis (1823), p. 25. 
 
98 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 they were largely the products of government intolerance, 
 and naturally the Puritan element feared episcopacy, 
 hated any possible extension of royal prerogative, and 
 was devoted to pulpit oratory. The Mother Country 
 possessed nothing analogous to the way men lived in 
 1 Philadelphia, where a,n austere theology had for many 
 years condemned fencing, dancing and play-acting as 
 diabolical, and the use of wall-papers, carpets, tombstones 
 and tooth-brushes as equally vain and unseemly, and where 
 such small sums as the Assembly could be induced to grant 
 for local defence were raised as " tokens of respect " to 
 the Crown, and not for their true purpose. These provinces 
 in fact, were so far removed from British thought that 
 the community of faith and sentiment, which so largely 
 supports the sense of imperial brotherhood to-day, was 
 genuinely absent from the empire of the eighteenth 
 century. ^There is no doubt also that while the opinions 
 of emigrants to America remained almost unchanged, their 
 actual natures had been modified under the quick influence 
 of a new clime. The distance between England and 
 America could only be spanned in a month, and the citizen 
 at home rarely visited his compatriot over sea.^0tis justly 
 said, 2 "We are little more known thair^me savages of 
 California." National character is probably but a 
 patriotic myth, for history proves that it can rarely resist 
 physical influences, and 3 the drinking and gaming slave 
 owners of the West Indies had little of their original 
 ancestors; 4 John Adams said that their nerves had been 
 relaxed by the great heat. 5 A traveller described the 
 
 1 A. C. Applegarth's Quakers in Pennsylvania (1892), pp. 13, 15, 24, 
 
 42. 
 
 2 Otis's Vindication of the British Colonies, p. 25. 
 
 3 J. Atkins' Voyage to Guinea etc. (1757), p. 206. 
 
 4 J. Adams' Works (ed. 1850), ii. 174. 
 
 5 Atkins, p. 208. 
 
ENGLISH FEELING 99 
 
 women of beautiful Barbados in 1757, as nearly all Scotch 
 or Irish, " very homely and great swearers." In America 
 itself, the colonial type had already diverged slowly from 
 the English, changing every characteristic, from the 
 inflection of the voice to the form of the face and frame 
 itself. "Yankee" was a distinctive term applied to the 
 New Englander early in the eighteenth century, and 
 the phrase, x "an Americanism/' which has suggestive 
 analogues in the Spanish and Portuguese languages, was 
 already current at the time of the Revolution. In the 
 Pennsylvania Chronicle of 1768 we find the un-English 
 but American expression, 2 "this fall," and the un-English 
 but American name, 3 " Silas Yerkes." 4 Paine was 
 particularly eager to dissociate the colonies from British 
 traditions, alleging that two-thirds of their inhabitants 
 were of foreign descent, and that their motherland was 
 Europe not England. 5 Tohn Adams, afterwards President 
 of the United States, said that no relation for whom he 
 cared a farthing had been in England for one hundred 
 and fifty years, and that he himself was purely American. 
 Under these circumstances/ English feeling towards 
 America in 1774 was naturally wanting in the sentiment 
 which normally flows from a people's realisation of the 
 tie of kinship. The armies which fought for England 
 in the War of Independence treated loyalist allies with 
 ill-advised neglect. The average Briton knew little of the 
 colonies beyond their exigencies in time of war, and their 
 utility as market^/ It is curious to read in George Yeal's 
 " Musical Travels through England," that 6 while strolling 
 
 1 Ramsay's Hist. Amer. Rev. (1793), i., v. 
 
 2 Pennsylvania Chronicle (1768), p. 410. 
 
 3 ibid, p. 275. 
 
 4 Common Sense (1776), pp. 28-9. 
 
 5 J. Adams' Works (ed. 1850), iii. 392. 
 
 6 Collier's Musical Travels (1775), p. 89. 
 
100 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 on the banks of the Severn at Worcester in 1775, lie heard 
 a boy whistling "Yankee Doodle," a song "very popular 
 in America," as the time appears never to have been 
 printed before 1784, and the words are certainly not older 
 than 1755. In general, England's acquaintance with the 
 customs of her colonies was dim and uninquisitive. Their 
 political experiments aroused no interest. l Johnson, for 
 instance, said in 1762, " In America there is little to be 
 observed except natural curiosities." 
 
 /Another reason for British coolness towards the 
 Americans was a firm belief in their ingratitude. 
 Convinced that the many sacrifices of the long French 
 and Spanish wars had been largely occasioned by colonial 
 interests, the Englishman could not understand American 
 unwillingness to make England any repayment. As we 
 have seen above, he did not admit that the colonies had 
 contributed any assistance in those wars, nor did he 
 tolerate theoretic objections to direct taxation. He had 
 no appreciation of the irritating incidence of the old 
 colonial system upon a sensitive and ambitious commercial 
 people.^> Consequently he could only consider travellers' 
 commentaries upon the American attitude towards England 
 as revelations of extraordinary thanklessness. In spite of 
 the British sentiment of many colonial traders, there was 
 already no want of possible centres for disaffection, as the 
 origin of so many colonies had simply been government 
 oppression at home. The restrictions on trade stung such 
 communities, and as early as 1703 2 the Abbe Dubos 
 predicted separation within ten years, as the colonists 
 were not of the same long-suffering mould as those of 
 Spain. The presence of the French Catholic power in 
 Canada did what sentiment alone could not have done, 
 
 1 Boswell's Johnson, ii. 38. 
 
 2 Grosley's Tour to London (1772), i. 133-9. 
 
ENGLISH FEELING 101 
 
 in keeping American loyalty alive, but an 1731 Gee 
 referred to 1 "the uncommon stiffness" of, .New England 
 towards Britons at home, due no do.ubt .to its-, .earliest 
 traditions as to the character of an England, 'very idift'ei^nt 
 to the England of George III. In 1748 a Swede, named 
 Peter Kalm, visited North America, and in the course of 
 a bright narrative of his travels, 2 he predicted that the 
 colonies would seek independence within thirty or fifty 
 years, but for the then fear of the French. The same 
 tendency was noticed among the common people by 
 3 another traveller in 1774. Such, indeed, was the general 
 opinion when once the terror of the Canadian scalping 
 knife had been removed. 4 The unanimity of the north 
 in resisting the Boston Port Act was a striking and novel 
 sign of the universal scepticism as to the value of the 
 British connection. 
 
 England was also aware of the presence of elements 
 in American society, prejudicial to the continuance of 
 community in thought between the two portions of 
 the empire. The strong Congregationalist body in 
 Massachusetts *was avowedly hostile to monarchical 
 institutions, and their chief minister, 5 May hew, of Boston, 
 was both an exponent of the absurdity of celebrating 
 Charles I's memory on the 30th of January, and one of 
 the earliest promoters of a colonial congress. For some 
 years before the Revolution, 6 Irishmen used to celebrate 
 St. Patrick's Day by drinking to the cause of separation 
 in the City Tavern at Philadelphia. The outlying frontier 
 settlements west of the Blue Ridge were peopled 
 
 1 Gee's Trade and Navigation of Gt. Britain (1731), p. 72. 
 
 2 Kalm's Travels (1772), i. 207. 
 
 3 Thoughts of a Traveller upon our American Disputes (1774), p. 7. 
 
 4 Joseph Priestley's Memoirs (1806), pp. 90, 451. 
 
 5 Memorial History of Boston (1881), iii. 20, 119. 
 
 6 Remarks on the Travels of Chastellux (1787), p. 79. 
 
102 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 notoriously fyy I;cish and Scottish Presbyterian malcontents. 
 ,The .words' (< V' Irish rogue" were used as a common term 
 0$ la.buse. Hmxm'g th^ Seneca Indians. Such men hated the 
 
 C * o o ' ' ' '< ** l < ( 
 
 Tconnection'wTth England, and public opinion was generally 
 with Dulaney, when he said of the colonies that 2 "for 
 food, thank God, they do not, and for raiment they need 
 not, depend upon Great Britain." At home also, men 
 distrusted the numerous foreign settlers among the British 
 colonists, especially in the western provinces, Swedes, 
 German Lutherans, Dutch, Jews, Frenchmen, Camisards, 
 Swiss, Italians and in some cases their distrust was well 
 founded, for New York, where the cosmopolitan element 
 was strongest, took the lead in the policy of non- 
 importation. 
 
 f For these reasons English feeling in 1774 was not 
 marked by any widespread misgiving as to the justice 
 of the cause of the government. In consequence 
 of the existing order of events, there seemed nothing 
 unnatural in forcing the old colonial policy upon fellow 
 citizens in America at the point of the sworoO Pitt, 
 now Earl of Chatham, Burke, and several of tlie Whig 
 nobles, excluded from office by the recent diplomacy of 
 George III., tried from varying motives to prove the 
 struggle unnatural, but in view of the actual conditions 
 of the accepted imperial system of the day, we cannot 
 wonder at their unsuccess. Franklin, who had once 
 described England as 3 " this happy island," and looked 
 forward 4 "as a Briton" to "awing the world with a 
 British North America," who had sought with delight 
 tne home of his ancestors, and styled the victors of 1763 
 
 1 Taylor's Voyage to N. America (1771), p. 94. 
 
 2 Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes (1766), p. 65. 
 
 3 Bigelow's Franklin, i. 432. 
 
 4 ibid, i. 399. 
 
 
ENGLISH FEELING 103 
 
 1 " that brave army of veterans," had long since despaired 
 of awaking the Mother Country from her fatal oblivion 
 to the new necessities of her dominions over sea. With 
 the exception of Chatham, and a few enlightened but 
 Lininfluential Whigs, he found every English official 
 exasperating, from the time that he begged 2 Braddock 
 to listen to colonial experts in 1755, to the days when he 
 tried to teach Clare and Hillsborough the needs of the 
 empire. The profit of the existing colonial policy was 
 great and obvious in England, and its modification 
 naturally appeared to be but a needless concession to 
 selfish demagogues. Franklin's sarcastic " Rules for 
 reducing a Great Empire to a Small one " dealt with the 
 opinion prevailing throughout England, and were not in 
 the least personal to the Crown or ministry. A nation, 
 which had raised wild demonstrations in honour of 
 " Wilkes and liberty," was not so spiritless as to drift into 
 a long war simply at the will of a king. The prospect of 
 stopping trade by insisting on the Stamp Act of 1765 had 
 aroused genuine resistance in the manufacturing districts 
 affected, but on the larger question of abandoning the 
 economic pretensions of the old colonial theory, Burke 
 himself admitted that the superficial advantages of 
 coercion retained the sympathies of the majority of the 
 nation. Men of the world were with the government, and 
 3 Dean Tucker provoked little criticism, by suggesting an 
 appeal to the negroes and Red Indians in the colonies, 
 to join in the comon cause of humbling the Americans, 
 real flaw in British imperial theory was its failure 
 to appreciate the idea of a common membership in 
 the same national community. In this the American 
 
 1 ibid, i. 435. 
 
 2 ibid, i. 316. 
 
 3 Tucker's Tract v. (1775), p. v. 
 
104 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 revolutionaries were happier, as when George Washington 
 declared in 1776 that ls 'I have laboured to discourage 
 all kinds of local attachments and distinctions of country, 
 denominating the whole by the greatest name of America." 
 The founders of the federal constitution of the United 
 States, notably Hamilton and Washington, fought 
 strenuously against 2 the tendency to prefer local prejudices 
 to the welfare of the whole community, realising that 
 insistence on the special advantages of individual states 
 can only lead to disintegration. Englishmen had no 
 analogous conception of the British empire in the days 
 before the Revolution. As yet, they were merely groping 
 towards the only safe imperialism. They still looked 
 exclusively at purely English interests, and their 
 particularism was the curse of the old colonial system. 
 
 1 Washington^ Official Correspondence (1795), i. 352. 
 
 2 Sparks' Washington, viii. 443. 
 
CHATHAM AND BURKE 105 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 CHATHAM AND BURKE. 
 
 WHILE the old colonial system was breaking down, it was 
 natural to look for guidance to the statesman, who had 
 caused its greatest triumphs. Pitt's contempt for the 
 ministers in office at the time of the Stamp Act, his 
 disbelief in the legality of direct taxation, his dread of the 
 re-assertion of French power in the world, and his great 
 solicitude for the colonies, which he prized so much, all 
 led him to denounce a policy, which might throw Greater 
 Britain into an alliance with Louis XVI. Such an 
 attitude on his part earned him the affection of later day 
 Whigs, in spite of his refusal to co-operate effectually with 
 the opposition of his own time, and it won him also a 
 pathetic fame in America, in spite of his adherence to the 
 economic principles, which really made the Revolution 
 inevitable. 
 
 In actual fact, however, the latter years of the Great 
 Commoner did nothing to increase his reputation as a 
 leader of men. An excessive pride made him widen the 
 gulf which flowed between himself and the people. It is 
 indeed a sign of high moral character to follow the right, 
 disdaining the criticisms of the time-serving, but there 
 is no virtue in flouting the most cherished ideals of one's 
 own partisans. Pitt indeed maintained them against 
 Bute, and though so * " excessively ill" as to be unable to 
 stand, he spoke for three hours against the too lenient 
 treaty of 1763. Yet his attitude towards Tories and Whigs, 
 
 1 Cobbett's Parl. Hist. xv. 1263. 
 
106 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 " King's friends " and Wilkes's allies, remained equally 
 scornful and cold. While he treated Grenville 
 and Edgcumbe, Conway and Richmond with an easy 
 insolence, he also estranged many of his less aristocratic 
 Whig supporters by accepting an annuity of .3,000 a 
 year for the lives of himself, his wife and eldest son, 
 and a title for his wife in 1761. His refusal to help 
 Rockingham's ministry, and his own elevation to the 
 earldom of Chatham in 1766 disentitled him to be 
 considered a party leader at all, and gave the lie to his 
 earlier democratic creed. The excuse that this step was 
 due to ill-health and was a natural sequence to his 
 acceptance of the office of Lord Privy Seal, did not prevent 
 the mob from twisting his name into l " Cheat 'em," and 
 from 2 burning him in effigy in his own former stronghold 
 of London. A great war minister who scorns all party 
 connections, cannot possess lasting magnetism in a country 
 subject to aristocratic government, and where interest in 
 politics is not widely diffused ; and the nation's response to 
 
 3 Chatham's reckless desire to fight Spain on the question 
 of the Falkland Islands in 1771, was but an echo of its 
 earlier enthusiasm. 
 
 While thus losing popularity, Chatham adopted an 
 attitude of Elizabethan deference towards royalty. His 
 singular exaltation of George III., even while opposing 
 him in Parliament, was always an obstacle in the way 
 of any true union between him and the Whig nobles. 
 
 4 " The least peep into that closet intoxicates him, and 
 will to the end of his life," Burke wrote to Rockingham 
 
 1 Bedford Correspondence, iii. 51. 
 
 2 ibid, iii. 54. 
 
 3 Nicholls' Recollections (1822), ii. 129. 
 
 4 Burke's Correspondence, i. 506. 
 
CHATHAM AND BURKE 107 
 
 in 1774. Both these men thoroughly l distrusted him ; the 
 destroyer of party politics could hardly claim esteem from 
 the author of "Thoughts on the Present Discontents." 
 Physical weakness, repeated attacks of gout, constant 
 lethargy, all made him an utterly unreliable force in 
 English politics after 1763. 2 The loyalist Galloway said 
 scornfully that Chatham no longer lived; he merely 
 protracted a wearisome existence. He refused to join 
 with any of the Whig cliques, and when he accepted office 
 in 1766 his dislike to party caused him to select colleagues 
 who had nothing in common with one another. He was 
 too ill ever to act the part of leader; his position as Lord 
 Privy Seal was a sinecure, and after living in complete 
 seclusion for over a year, he resigned in 1768. There was 
 a ferment of popular indignation against his delinquencies 
 in the matter of consistency. 3 Hume said in 1766 that 
 Lord Chatham was as much detested as Mr. Pitt was ever 
 adored, and even his intimate associate and brother-in-law, 
 
 4 Temple, turned against him. Innumerable tracts satirised 
 "Will Cheat-'em Esquire, of Turn-about Hall/' One 
 critic, in a pamphlet called " The Eight Honourable 
 Annuitant Vindicated," said of his pension, 5 "if you take 
 it beforehand it is a bribe; if you take it afterwards it is 
 a gratification." To Whig zealots it seemed deplorable 
 that the only man in England with sufficient genius to 
 stay the drift towards despotism at home and rebellion in 
 the colonies, should have preferred to stand aloof from all 
 party ties. Partisans like Richmond and Granby, Camden 
 and Eockingham could not understand his contempt for 
 
 1 ibid, ii. 63. 
 
 2 Considerations upon the American Enquiry (1779), p. 9. 
 
 3 Hume's Private Correspondence (ed. 1820), p. 211. 
 * Grosley's Tour to London (1772), ii. 243. 
 
 5 p. 19. 
 
108 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 their political traditions, failing to recognise that his 
 splendid war ministry would have been impossible had 
 he worked in the groove of party. Yet their failure was 
 natural and their suspicion powerful. 
 
 " Mourn, Albion, mourn, the wretched chance deplore ; 
 
 In Chatham buried, William Pitt's no more," 
 wrote one of the hack-writers employed by these Whig 
 aristocrats, and 2 Blackfriars Bridge regained its old name 
 in place of the recent appellation of Pitt's Bridge. 
 
 The wide breach between Chatham and the Whigs after 
 1766 attests to the independence of his judgment on the 
 American question, for he was as careless of their favour 
 as he was of the suspicions of the Court party. For this 
 reason it might be surmised that his previous views 
 on imperial government had developed into broader 
 statesmanship, as he showed much of his old vehemence 
 in withstanding the growing tendency to alienate the 
 colonies by insistence on direct taxation. Gravely 
 distrusting the King's avowed aim to become despotic in 
 England upon the ruins of the party system, Chatham 
 deemed the proposed extension of the established colonial 
 policy but another step towards the destruction of parlia- 
 mentary government. He considered the mediocre Tory 
 ministers of the day as oblivious to the national necessity 
 of maintaining the good feeling between the British 
 peoples, and hence such criticisms of them as 3 "govern- 
 ment butchers," which come amiss from one so great. 
 They only typify his constitutional impatience of little 
 minds and special pleading, and not an acquiescence in the 
 suggestion of dismembering the empire. When Chatham 
 
 1 An Enquiry into the Conduct of a late Bt. Hon. Commoner (1766), 
 
 p. 70. 
 
 2 Grosley's Tour to London, i. 30 ; ii. 241, 245. 
 
 3 Chatham Correspondence, iv. 403. 
 
CHATHAM AND BURKE 109 
 
 rejoiced that America had resisted, lie did not contemplate 
 the evolution of a protest for freedom into a war for 
 absolute cleavage from Great Britain. It should not be 
 forgotten that he attacked Rockingham's proposal to 
 acknowledge American independence in 1778, and that his 
 dying speech was directed against the Whig separatism 
 of the Duke of Richmond. Such divergence from the 
 extremists among the opposition testifies to the honesty 
 of his sympathy with colonial opposition to arbitrary 
 measures, though we cannot but doubt the goodness of 
 the precedent he set in refusing, from political scruples, 
 to allow his son to serve in the army during the early years 
 of the war. 
 
 In the controversy evoked by the projects of taxation 
 Chatham strained every effort to avert a scheme which 
 he saw would weaken the sentimental bonds of empire. 
 1 In 1766 he pointed out the absurdity of Parliament 
 purporting "to grant" taxes on behalf of unrepresented 
 Americans. By nature, taxes were voluntary gifts, not 
 compulsory exactions, and Parliament had therefore no 
 right under heaven to enforce them. 2 The colonists were 
 the sons, not the bastards of England, and as such were 
 entitled to all our ancient liberties. The argument as to 
 taxation being applied to many unrepresented districts in 
 Great Britain, he held futile and foolish. 3 " The rotten 
 part of the constitution" deserved to be amputated, not 
 extended. On the purely legal side of the dispute, 
 however, Chatham was really a less qualified spokesman of 
 opposition than many less famous controversialists. He 
 was a 4 thorough believer in the sovereignty and supremacy 
 
 1 Fox's Memoirs (ed. 1853), i. 109. 
 
 2 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xvi. 99. 
 
 3 ibid, xvi. 100; A Short View of the Life of the late Rt. Hon. 
 
 Commoner (1766), p. 53. 
 
 4 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 46. 
 
110 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 of Parliament over the colonies, and consequently lie 
 could only escape the conclusion that whatever it 
 commanded was legal, by pleading the alleged difference 
 between external and internal taxation, and by holding 
 that to give or grant supplies was not a function of 
 government or legislation. In fact, his admission of the 
 validity of parliamentary claims to rule the empire upon 
 the principles of the old colonial system, put the burden 
 of proof in the present case upon his own side. We can 
 hardly be surprised that the Whigs resented such difficult 
 inconsistency, and that Lord Hardwicke, as a government 
 partisan, thought his doctrines 1 " absurd and pernicious." 
 Chatham's views are therefore far less assailable as 
 expositions of the great lesson that expediency rather than 
 a false notion of dignity should govern a nation's policy. 
 It was idle to tell a man, who saw to what the drift of 
 ministerial coercion might lead the empire, that the tea 
 duty was considered legal by the same class, who had 
 justified ship money under Charles I. and dispensations 
 under Charles II. He had never any taste for law or 
 constitutional history. A rather dim idea of Magna 
 Charta, and a very clear intuition as to the meaning of 
 liberty provided him with a sufficient political philosophy. 
 He had nothing whatever of Otis' or Dickenson's legal 
 acumen; his speeches appealed to the emotions more than 
 to intellect, and were characterised by a grasp of large 
 principles rather than by accuracy or precision. Such a 
 man was bound to display an almost dramatic scorn for 
 academics, at a moment when the country wanted 
 statesmanship, not pedantry. Of America he said : 
 
 2 " Be to her faults a little blind, 
 Be to her virtues very kind." 
 
 1 Albemarle's Rockingham (1852), i. 290; cf. Hutchinson's Diary (ed. 
 
 1883), ii. 171. 
 
 2 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xvi. 109; A Short View (1766), p. 64. 
 
CHATHAM AND BURKE 1 1 1 
 
 He was of opinion that coercion would entail the loss of 
 freedom at home as well as over sea, and might further 
 lead to the wreck of that empire, which had just been 
 acclaimed. lu The fate of Old England is at stake," he 
 wrote to Shelburne in March 1774, and to save her he 
 advocated yielding to every colonial demand except that 
 of separation. In May 1774 he drew an eloquent picture 
 of what the future of Britain might be if she chose gentler 
 means for retaining her hold over her rising empire. 
 " Length of days be in her right hand, and in her left 
 hand riches and honour; may her ways be ways of 
 pleasantness, and all her paths be peace !" It is easy to 
 realise the awe, which was inspired by Chatham's fierce 
 declamation, and the English public, who knew little in 
 those days of the politicians who purported to represent 
 it, was singularly familiar with his dominating aspect 
 from the hawk-like eyes down to the ebony crutch and 
 3 black velvet boots. 
 
 Chatham's attitude has endeared his memory to genera- 
 tions of Americans, and his despair at the prospect of 
 " pouring the riches of America into the lap of the House 
 of Bourbon " has given a splendid pathos to his last days. 
 France and the rebels concluded a formal alliance in 
 February 1778, and he died three months later in despair. 
 No one however, who realises the inevitable trend of the 
 old colonial system, will allow that Chatham's policy after 
 1764 marked any real advance from his earlier ideas on 
 imperial government, or that it could have ever secured 
 the permanence of the union between England and 
 America. Assuming even tha.t he had had the tact to keep 
 the nation at his back, he had not that detachment from 
 
 1 Chatham Correspondence, iv. 336. 
 
 2 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xvii. 1356 
 
 3 H. Walpole's Last Journal (ed. 1859), i. 369. 
 
112 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 the spirit of the age which could alone have pointed out 
 the way of escape from ultimate separation. We have 
 seen above that his influence on popular thought never 
 touched the old colonial system with the precious gift of 
 adaptability, so necessary in view of the new conditions 
 of the time. Chatham never wavered in his belief in the 
 virtues of state interference and of those economic 
 restrictions, which were in fact the chief disintegrating 
 factors in imperial policy. He hated the fiscal aspect of 
 Ameria,n resistance. When New York opposed Grenville's 
 attempt to enforce the Navigation Act he ascribed such 
 opposition to a l " spirit of infatuation." The colonial 
 contentions against economic restraints were, in his 
 opinion, 2 " grossly fallacious." The demagogues of 1767 
 were 3 " irritable and umbrageous." The Boston tea riot 
 in December 1773 was 4 " criminal violence," and 5 any 
 relaxation of the old repressive policy would destroy 
 England. Long before the Revolution he had threatened 
 America with the full weight of the government's power 
 to punish, if she manufactured a single horse-shoe, and 
 6 he never contested the right of the ministry to quarter 
 troops in the colonies. Moreover, 7 his opposition to the 
 Quebec Act of 1774 was characterised by intense prejudice 
 against that policy of allowing a conquered people to 
 retain its own established religion and laws, which has 
 since proved sound statesmanship. 
 
 These considerations point to the conclusion that even if 
 Chatham had retained his hold upon the nation, he was not 
 
 1 Chatham Correspondence, iii. 188. 
 
 2 ibid, iii. 189. 
 
 3 ibid, iii. 193. 
 
 4 ibid, iv. 336. 
 
 5 ibid, iv. 338. 
 
 6 Russell's Life of Fox (1859), i. 187. 
 
 7 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xvii. 1403. 
 
CHATHAM AND BURKE 113 
 
 endowed with sufficient insight into political science to 
 save the Greater Britain of that day from ruin. l " I can 
 only say God's will be done, with the simplicity of a poor 
 American," he wrote on the eve of the Revolution, but 
 even then he was still a believer in the old colonial system. 
 If it never had another exponent so liberal as Chatham, 
 it could claim him none the less as a follower, and his 
 heartiest eulogist must admit that if there was much in 
 his theory of empire to admire, there was also much to 
 criticise. 
 
 Edmund Burke approached modern theory more nearly 
 than Chatham, in that he was an advocate of Free Trade, 
 and would have been satisfied by ties of merely the 
 Hellenic type between England and her colonies. On the 
 purely legal question at issue his arguments also were only 
 general and historical, and in fact he admitted the bare 
 legality of direct taxation. As to the principle however, 
 which was involved by insistence on the exercise of that 
 prerogative of Parliament, he opposed the short-sighted 
 policy of Lord North's government with brilliant vigour. 
 2 He argued that the imperial character of Parliament 
 entailed the imposition of strict checks upon its use of 
 theoretic powers. Morally, it had no claim to intrude into 
 the place of its subordinate sister legislatures. Plainly 
 it was for the latter to "grant" supplies, and yet the 
 government affected to "grant" and not to "impose" 
 taxes payable in America. No man appreciated the uses 
 of colonisation more than Burke, and he pointed out the 
 folly of dissipating the work of past years. 3 He compared 
 the Boston rioters to Hampden, and 4 argued that the 
 
 1 Chatham Correspondence, iv. 387. 
 
 2 Burke's Select Works, i. 15G-7. 
 
 3 ibid, i. 105. 
 
 4 ibid, i. 121. 
 
114 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 adoption of a commercial monopoly in America marked 
 the abandonment of the alternative right of taxation. 
 1 To prove the popular notion that dignity would suffer 
 by concession to be thoroughly bad, he showed that the 
 risks, involved by coercion, were far more vital than any 
 possible advantages. 2 Chesterfield said that it was absurd 
 to risk trade amounting to two million pounds a year for 
 a tax which might bring in one hundred thousand, and 
 similarly Burke held that England should be guided by 
 national expediency, not by the latter of the law. He 
 reversed Gibbon's method absolutely, by preferring 
 imperial needs to legal argument, while the latter voted 
 with the government in favour of 8 "the rights, though 
 not perhaps the interests of the Mother Country." When 
 he advised the amiable but lukewarm Rockingham to 
 introduce the bill declaring the right of Parliament to 
 tax America, Burke was clearly leaving the academics of 
 coercion to pass unrefuted. He saw the larger necessity 
 for immediate concession, and he recognised that to give 
 way only after defeat in the field was an impossible course, 
 for 4 "if we are beat, America is gone irrevocably." It 
 was far better to associate the idea of the British empire 
 with the rights which the colonists enjoyed, than with the 
 claims which they disputed. 
 
 His most remarkable speeches on the colonial question 
 are those of the 19th April, 1774, and the 22nd March, 
 1775, but the tone of all his utterances at the time is clear 
 and consistent. Assuming the truth of the current parallel 
 of England's relationship with her colonies to that between 
 a parent and children, was England to give them a stone 
 
 1 ibid, i. 106. 
 
 2 Chatham Correspondence, ii. 361. 
 
 3 Gibbon's Autobiography (ed. 1896), p. 310 
 
 4 Burke's Correspondence, ii. 38. 
 
CHATHAM AND BURKE 115 
 
 if they asked for bread? He pointed out the immense 
 worth of the possession of a British empire. The whole 
 export trade of England in 1704 was not much in excess 
 of her exports to her colonies alone in, 1772. He asked 
 old men to go back to the days of their boyhood, and 
 imagine what their feeling would have been had some 
 angel then opened to their vision the future glories of 
 Britain's realm across the sea. x " Young man, there is 
 America, which at this day serves for little more than to 
 amuse with stories of savage men and uncouth manners; 
 yet shall before you taste of death show itself equal to 
 the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy 
 of the world." He asked whether all the glory and 
 progress of a century was to be sacrificed to the litigious 
 obstinacy of self-willed ministers. In his opinion, the 
 danger of losing America made concession the more 
 profitable as well as the more magnanimous policy. 
 
 The force and beauty of Burke's language made him a 
 welcome ally to the Whig nobles, but under the conditions 
 of the time, he had no more power than Chatham to stay 
 the downfall of the British empire in America. It may 
 well be doubted if he grasped what the American cause 
 really involved, for he never felt the touch of the new 
 Radicalism, then slowly coming to birth in England, 
 and no glimmer of the dawning faith in democracy 
 emancipated his mind from the general British devotion 
 to the established order of things in Church and State.- 
 He acquiesced in the slave trade, and unlike Chatham, 
 he opposed the tendency for Parliament to curb the East 
 India Company's maladministration. He was quite willing 
 to fight for the cause of a wider theory of empire in the 
 ranks of an aristocracy, which had nothing of his idealism, 
 
 1 Burke's Select Works, i. 173. 
 
116 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 and his later attitude towards the French Revolution 
 shows how little understanding he had of the forces in 
 society which made America rebel. l In 1773 he told 
 Priestley that the hope of England lay in increasing the 
 power of the great Whig families. This was hardly a 
 creed to inspire a people just emerging from a century 
 of oligarchy. Burke's quasi-imperialism offered to the 
 country no prospect of direct gain nor of any realisation 
 of its alleged legal rights over dependencies. No wonder 
 his schemes were thought visionary and extravagant. If 
 his mind was slightly more balanced tnaii Chatham's it 
 had far less captivating power, for to the last Chatham 
 was a name to inspire awe and to command attention, 
 while Burke seemed but a follower and an ex-secretary 
 of Buckingham, not a master of men. Such certainly 
 was his estimation by the House of Commons in 1775. 
 As he said himself, 2 only angels or devils could stand 
 aloof from the ties of existing parties, and so he stooped 
 to serve the most hopeful among the groups in the House 
 of Commons, realising that no plebeian could possibly have 
 governed that corporate aristocracy. Burke catered to its 
 moderate interest in territorial expansion, and his ideal of 
 an empire was that of several communities federated by 
 the loosest of material ties, and destitute of Chatham's 
 passionate centralisation. 3 He reached the height of his 
 influence in 1779, when he led the Rockingham Whigs in 
 the House of Commons, and frustrated their proposed union 
 with the group of more original thinkers, who gathered 
 round Shelburne and Dunning. Soon afterwards he found 
 that his leadership had passed to Fox, whose habits and 
 temper were more congenial to the party. It is plain that 
 
 1 Joseph Priestley's Memoirs (1806), p. 455. 
 
 2 Burke's Select Works, i. 90. 
 
 3 Nicholl's Recollections, i. 3941. 
 
CHATHAM AND BURKE 117 
 
 Burke's methods were often unattractive, and though he 
 delighted his hearers by his wit and strength, his long, 
 vague and elaborate speeches were not of a nature to 
 convince phlegmatic opponents. Parliament had already 
 lost its likeness to an open debating society, and it listened 
 with settled convictions to partisan oratory, never expected 
 to persuade. 2 Horace Walpole said that rhetoric was 
 invented before the days of places and commissions. To 
 such an audience 3 Burke's many mannerisms seemed 
 grating, his emotionalism repellant, and his eloquence 
 rather won the admiration of Americans like 4 Curwen, 
 whose models were very different from those of the 
 ordinary Englishman. Even Tories like Johnson recognized 
 Burke's consummate genius, but they considered him a 
 mere theorist in politics, and his friend Goldsmith admitted 
 the natural difficulty that prevented the House of Commons 
 from appreciating one, 
 
 5 " Who too deep for his hearers still went on refining, 
 And thought of convincing while they thought of dining, 
 Though equal to all things, for all things unfit, ; 
 Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit." 
 In spite of his renown, Burke never won a place in any 
 cabinet. Indeed, both these great English politicians, 
 Chatham and Burke, by widely different means, appealed 
 to an imagination too high for contemporary politics, 
 without possessing quite enough genius to raise their 
 world from its existing level. For this reason Chatham 
 passed as 6 " wholly mad," and Burke as an unpractical 
 enthusiast. 
 
 1 Lord Teignmouth's Memoirs of Sir Wm. Jones (1806), i. 294. 
 
 2 Letters of H. Walpole to Mann (1833); iii. 117. 
 Fox's Memoirs, i. 163. 
 
 Curwen's Journal and Letters (ed. 1842), p. 311. 
 
 5 Goldsmith's Retaliation. 
 
 6 Hume's Private Correspondence (ed. 1820), p. 243. 
 
118 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " UNITED EMPIRE " LOYALTY. 
 
 IT will be clear from the foregoing pages that Great 
 Britain in 1775 was destitute of constructive imperialism. 
 None of her politicians devised any scheme whereby strong 
 executive government for the whole empire could be 
 reconciled with the particularist tendencies then at work 
 on both sides of the Atlantic. Every great federation has 
 to face some such problem, and even to-day the present 
 relationship between the Mother Country and her colonies 
 appears to be so transient that no one would dare to 
 prophesy the ultimate evolution of Greater Britain. 
 Consequently singular interest must attach to the only 
 proposals made in George III.'s time to solve the 
 perplexities of empire by giving real freedom to every 
 partner in the British community, and by subordinating 
 each at the same time to the general interests of that 
 community. In view of the contemporary selfishness of 
 English colonial ideas, and of the concurrent American 
 perception of an easier road than that of constitutional 
 compromise to economic independence, it was a bold step 
 to frame a scheme for unity among all British peoples. 
 Those who took the risk spoke to deaf ears. The work 
 and even the names of Thomas Pownall and Joseph 
 Galloway may be said to have perished with them, for 
 their ideals were less practicable than those of Hamilton 
 and Washington, whose feat of binding together the 
 United States was less perfect in conception than an 
 Anglo-Saxon federation but was in the light of that age, 
 
"UNITED EMPIRE" LOYALTY 119 
 
 the only feasible compromise of the warfare between the 
 larger and smaller political units. 
 
 As England's devotion to the old colonial system 
 made the needs of the whole empire irreconcilable 
 with the individualism of its component parts, the 
 more practical colonial thinkers abandoned British for 
 American patriotism, and organised trans-Atlantic rather 
 than Anglo-Saxon unity. Nevertheless, the courage and 
 ingenuity of the constitutional theorists in the colonies, 
 who refused to despair of the wider union, and who parted 
 company with Franklin upon reaching the point where 
 their common patriotism forced them to choose between 
 plain rebellion and pure Toryism, deserve much respect. 
 The Falklands and Colepepers of 1775 are to be 
 distinguished from the blinder partisans of what was 
 called the cause of the " United Empire." Not that the 
 latter class do not merit British gratitude, for even such 
 pro-American zealots as Burke and Shelburne recognized 
 their devotion to the Crown, but it was natural that most 
 of them should merely acquiesce in the English view of 
 the issue then at stake, and should ask for no amendment 
 of the existing imperial system. Their position was 
 simply that of honest citizens, who hated 1 "01iverian" 
 fanatics, who distrusted radical changes in society, loved 
 old English traditions, and loathed the forensic and pulpit 
 bluster of the fiercer revolutionaries. This " Church and 
 King " type is familiar to all, and its scornful bravery in 
 conflict is not rare. Jonathan Boucher, a clerical refugee 
 from Maryland, told proudly of the loyalty of the cloth. 
 2 "We did not bow the knee to Baal." Such attachment 
 however is not often intellectual. The loyalists, who 
 experimented in constitutional science, who wished to 
 
 1 An Alarm to New York (1775), p. 88. 
 
 2 Boucher's Causes and Consequences of the Am. Rev. (1797), p. xlix. 
 
120 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 purge colonial policy of its particularism, are those in 
 whom modern participants in imperial politics have most 
 reason to be interested. 
 
 Such men had all shared the earlier aim of consolidating 
 the British brotherhood, which had led Franklin to 
 propose the formation of a confederate council at the 
 Albany Congress of 1754 to deal with such questions as 
 1 trade, taxation, defences and Indian policy. Many of 
 them had been his intimates, but unlike that more 
 sceptical and calculating statesman, they did not discard 
 that brotherhood while the approach of rebellion was fast 
 making it an empty dream. When one realises their 
 unsentimental surroundings, the attitude of these writers 
 seems precociously pan-Britannic. The whole race, said 
 Pownall, once Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey, should 
 form 2 "a grand marine dominion .... united in one 
 empire in a one centre." It should be knit, said Galloway, 
 the leading lawyer at Philadelphia and sometime Speaker 
 of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, 3u in one grand 
 and illustrious empire." The colonies, said Dr. Chandler, 
 should feel themselves 4 "a part of the great British 
 community." Dreading the break-up of the empire, such 
 thinkers aimed in the first place at displaying to both 
 England and America the value of the imperial connection. 
 They tried to refute the common British opinion that 
 colonies, which withstood the claims of taxation, were not 
 worth having, and the more widespread colonial belief 
 that the tie which linked the two peoples was an impedi- 
 ment to American development. The first task was best 
 attempted by Galloway, the second by Samuel Seabury, 
 afterwards Bishop of Connecticut. 
 
 1 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 37, 52. 
 
 2 Pownall's Administration Brit. Cols. (5th ed. 1774), p. 10. 
 
 3 Galloway's Reply to an Address etc. (1775), p. 7. 
 
 4 The- American Querist (1774), p. 6. 
 
"UNITED EMPIRE" LOYALTY 121 
 
 Upon the facts of the day Galloway's was the easier 
 work, and he succeeded in showing that expediency as 
 well as justice required a modification of the colonial 
 system in view of the immense worth to England 
 of her American possessions. Galloway was so far 
 from being an unthinking adherent of the existing 
 order as to have acquiesced in the non-importation policy 
 of the first Congress of 1774, and his loyalty was the 
 more magnanimous. He tried to reveal the fallacy of the 
 doctrine that the ingratitude of colonies proved the futility 
 of colonisation. The race wanted the readjustment of her 
 imperial system, not its disruption. * He ridiculed the 
 complacency with which Dean Tucker was willing that 
 Britain should lose a vast territory and three million 
 citizens. 2 The trade with the American colonies more 
 than doubled every ten years, and British exports thither 
 had risen in volume from 830,000 in 1748 to nearly 
 4,600,000 in 1771. 3 Such exports were many times as 
 great as exports to the West Indies, and amounted to 
 nearly half the volume of British exports to all foreign 
 countries, representing at the same time a safer and more 
 profitable trade. Moreover, if England were to lose her 
 American provinces by her obstinacy she would also lose 
 4 the West Indies in the course of years, those islands 
 being as natural appanages of North America as the Isle 
 of Man and the Orkneys were of Great Britain. Surely so 
 great an empire was worth the trouble of reorganisation; 
 without it the home country would dwindle into a second- 
 rate power, and its flag 5 " would be no more respected than 
 
 1 Cool Thoughts (1780), p. 11. 
 
 2 ibid, p. 15. 
 
 3 ibid, p. 14. 
 
 4 ibid, p. 26. 
 
 5 ibid, p. 34. 
 
122 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 the lug sail of an oyster boat." This line of argument has 
 an echo of that of Burke, but Galloway was not a political 
 partisan. He was a far clearer advocate of expansion than 
 Burke, and he crowned his reasoning by propounding a 
 definite plan of imperial federation. 
 
 A different note was required to sustain Seabury's 
 appeal to Americans to consider the advantages of the 
 British connection. It was essential that the loyalist 
 drafts of remodelled constitutions should be backed by 
 evidence of their desirability, and yet it was hard to show 
 that their adoption would provide as adequately for 
 national development as the gaudy dreams of the 
 republicans. The argument that the colonies required 
 protection against foreign states was now untenable, 
 although apparently 1 unquestioned as late as 1766. 
 Under these circumstances we cannot but wonder at the 
 skill with which Seabury argued that the young states of 
 North America were only benefited by dependence. The 
 tracts which he published under the pseudonym of 
 A. W. Farmer are singularly clever; if he attempted the 
 impossible, he attempted it very well. First he showed 
 the far-reaching harm of the proposed non-importation of 
 British and West Indian goods. Without molasses 
 2 American distilleries would come to a standstill, as maple 
 juice and honey were poor and insufficient substitutes. 
 The one hundred thousand colonial dram-drinkers would 
 suffer. Similarly 3 the farmer would be crippled by having 
 to discard British clothing for the coarse and expensive 
 manufactures of New England, and the agricultural and 
 seafaring elements the best part of the population 
 
 1 Dissertations upon the Advantages of Perpetual Union (1766), pp. 20, 98. 
 
 2 Friendly Address to Reasonable Americans (1774), p. 38. 
 
 3 A View of the Controversy (1774), p. 25; Free Thoughts on Proceed- 
 
 ings of Congress (1774), p. 17. 
 
UNITED EMPIRE" LOYALTY 123 
 
 would bo exploited to enrich the commercial Puritans. 
 Again, independence would hurt the people at every turn. 
 The Newfoundland fisheries would be barred to Americans, 
 and 1 thousands of sailors, shipbuilders, carmen, smiths, 
 boatmen, iron workers and pilots would lose their means 
 of livelihood. Even the West Indies would buy all their 
 goods from England, and not from the mainland, and 
 2 their timber from Canada or Hamburg. It was foolish 
 for the various provinces to sacrifice themselves for the sake 
 of a few oppressed persons at Boston, which could surely 
 relieve its own sufferers without appealing to every colony 
 from Nova Scotia to Georgia. 3 "Have you no poor of 
 your own to relieve?" Britain's cause was just, for no 
 sovereign's charter could discharge inferior bodies politic 
 from parliamentary authority, and the colonies 4 "as parts 
 of the body must be subject to the general laws of the 
 body;" but even if it were unjust, it was far better to 
 remain part of an empire able to protect every member 
 from foreign aggression than to break away into a number 
 of discordant and segregated units, for it was impossible 
 that states as hostile to each other as 5 New York and 
 New Jersey would ever unite. A similar spirit governed 
 Daniel Leonard's arguments against John Adams in the 
 Massachusetts Gazette. 
 
 Assuming therefore the general necessity of preserving 
 the empire, the more capable loyalists sketched various 
 plans whereby the colonial system might be revivified, 
 and the prejudices then aflame respected. Thomas 
 Pownall was a recognized authority on American 
 
 1 Friendly Address, p. 39. 
 
 2 ibid, p. 43. 
 
 3 Congress Canvassed (1775), p. 33. 
 
 4 Candid Examination (1775), p. 21. 
 
 5 Congress Canvassed, p. 25. 
 
124 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 questions, who after acting as Governor of Massachusetts 
 between 1757 and 1760, and afterwards as Lieutenaiit- 
 Governor of New Jersey and Governor of South 
 Carolina, sat between 1768 and 1780 in the British 
 House of Commons. A convinced reformer but a thorough 
 loyalist, he advocated the direct representation of America 
 at Westminster. 1 He abhorred the idea of using force 
 instead of diplomacy, and following a policy which had 
 in its early days received the sanction of some random 
 remarks of Franklin, he never ceased proclaiming this 
 course to be 2 the only alternative to separation. 3 The 
 centre of the empire would still be in England, and she 
 need not fear its transference to America, a move 4 which 
 would only be justified upon the shifting of the real heart 
 of the British nation to the new world. Distance was no 
 obstacle; it only necessitated 5 the lengthening of the 
 periods for the issue and return of writs. 6 The national 
 debts of the Mother Country and her colonies might be 
 readily adjusted upon principles similar to those adopted 
 in the Anglo-Scottish union of 1707. England need not 
 fear that the American members would form 7 a compact 
 phalanx, nor 8 need America fear that her representatives 
 would be corrupted or overawed by British influences. If 
 the oppressive economic restrictions upon the colonies had 
 to continue they might be much softened by opening 
 English trade depots on the Continent whither American 
 goods could be shipped direct. 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xi. ; pt. 5, 339. 
 
 2 Admin. Brit. Cols. (5th ed. 1774), ii. 82. 
 
 3 ibid, 
 
 4 ibid, 
 
 5 ibid, 
 
 6 ibid, 
 
 7 ibid, 
 
 8 ibid, 
 
 35. 
 
 171. 
 
 174. 
 
 170. 
 
 173. 
 
 172. 
 
"UNITED EMPIRE" LOYALTY 125 
 
 The "Administration of the British Colonies," in which 
 these contentions were advanced, appeared in 1764, and 
 ran through six editions in thirteen years without ever 
 really obtaining a hold on public opinion. Neither side cared 
 for Pownall's scheme. l George III. could not tolerate so 
 moderate a partisan; Governor Hutchinson said his 
 proposal was 2 " above my capacity;" 3 Franklin and his 
 friends had passed Pownall's stage of thought long since, 
 and scouted the idea of coming to Westminster. In fact, 
 the Americans could not possibly be satisfied by the right 
 of sending a few members to a distant assembly, which 
 would only look on them as strange and uncultivated 
 intruders. 4 A plan of representation, brought forward in 
 1766, allowed for four members from Massachusetts, 
 Pennsylvania and Virginia respectively, " or a smaller 
 number at their option." Nothing in such a suggestion 
 could attract Americans. The last two words in the ciy 
 of "no taxation without representation " could well have 
 been dispensed with, as the rising school of colonial 
 patriots did not dream of sinking their self-importance 
 in the back benches of the English House of Commons, 
 and 5 John Adams, for instance, ridiculed the legal fiction 
 by which Massachusetts was to be deemed part of the 
 English soil. The spirit of Pownall's plan is better than 
 its details. 
 
 Galloway's scheme of imperial reorganisation was far 
 wiser and more original, and in some respects it offers 
 useful suggestions to modern searchers after racial federa- 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xi. ; pt. 5, 440. 
 
 2 Hutchinson's Diary (ed. 1883), i. 355. 
 
 3 ibid, i. 183; Galloway's Rise and Progress of the Am. Rebellion 
 
 (1780), p. 102; The Controversy between Gt. Brit, and her Colonies 
 
 (1769), p. 91. 
 
 * Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xiv. pt. 10, 51. 
 5 J. Adams' Works (ed. 1850), ii. 191. 
 
126 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 tion. Himself a member of the Congress of 1774, and 
 for long an opponent of the government, he entirely 
 discarded the old folly of commercial restraint, and 
 advocated the removal of every colonial disability. His 
 means, however, were far removed from the aims of the 
 revolutionaries, as he intended such reform to be but a 
 step to a more perfect British union. He wished to see 
 the erection of an American branch of the imperial 
 assembly, * "incorporated with Parliament for the purpose 
 of taxation and general regulations,' 7 coinage, defence, 
 boundary disputes. Each province would retain its own 
 legislature for local affairs, but the formation of one 
 central federal body would end the silly distinction 
 between the Briton at home and the Briton over sea, and 
 kill the grievance of taxation without representation. 
 2 The American branch of Parliament was to be a Grand 
 Council sitting in one of the colonies, elected every three 
 years, and presided over by a President-General appointed 
 by the King, and holding office during his good pleasure. 
 The Council was to sit at least once a year, and to enjoy 
 privileges and rights analogous to those of the House of 
 Commons. Every act relating to matters of general 
 concern had to be transmitted by the House of Commons 
 to the Grand Council and vice versa, for their respective 
 approval, as the consent of each house was required in 
 imperial legislation. The one exception was in the case 
 of aids granted in time of war, when the government need 
 not wait for the consent of the sister body over sea. In 
 theory, the scheme would have 3 identified all the King's 
 subjects in one common citizenship, making it 4 immaterial 
 
 1 Galloway's Rise and Progress of the Am. Reb. (1780), p. 81. 
 
 2 What think ye of Congress Now? (1775), pp. 71-3. 
 
 3 Rise of the Am. Rebellion (1780), p. 128. 
 
 4 Reply to an Address etc. (1775), p. 8. 
 
"UNITED EMPIRE" LOYALTY 127 
 
 to Britain whether a man acquired riches in London or on 
 the Ohio. 
 
 In the light of after events, it is difficult to see how 
 Galloway's constitution could have survived the many 
 changes in politics and society, which came within the 
 ensuing fifty years. The growth of the cabinet at the 
 expense of the legislature would have either excluded 
 Americans from all imperial business requiring secrecy 
 and despatch, or else drawn the best colonial politicians 
 away from the assembly of which they were the chosen 
 leaders and to which they were responsible. However, 
 Galloway's failure to convince his contemporaries was not 
 due to any such defect in political speculation, but rather 
 to the unwillingness of both Great Britain and her colonies 
 to recognize the necessity for concession. No scheme 
 which provided for the abandonment of the economic 
 ideals of the old colonial system, and which gave 
 Americans an equal voice in public policy with the richer 
 and more numerous population at home, could have 
 appealed successfully to Englishmen before the War of 
 Independence, and in America the prospect of British 
 parliamentary control was far less alluring than the vision 
 of complete independence. The revolutionary party 
 practically drove Galloway to join the English in 1776, 
 and as late as 1 1847, its admirers could find no other 
 epithet than " notorious " for this admirable theorist. 
 
 Nevertheless the efforts of the loyalists to rationalise the 
 imperialism of England deserve a separate chapter in any 
 review of the old colonial system. They groped for truth 
 amid the darkness of revolution, and refused to acquiesce 
 in the alleged necessity of perpetual misunderstanding. 
 It is however easy to see why they failed to make 
 
 1 Sparks' Washington, v. 522. 
 
128 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 any impression upon British thought, which was not of 
 such a nature a,s would respond to obscure provincial 
 appeals for moderation and reform when a response would 
 have entailed the reversal of cherished economic ideals. 
 Though it is just as clear why America ignored their 
 doubts and scruples, we cannot but feel some surprise at 
 the insignificance of their successes, and at the small 
 space they filled in American public life between 1765 and 
 1775, for these loyal constitution framers were among the 
 first men of the colonies, while the cultivated society 
 in which they moved enjoyed great social influence. 
 Hutchinson was a great great-grandson of the famous 
 Anne Hutchinson, and in spite of his disastrous relations 
 with the men whom he had to govern after 1771, he 
 was admittedly the leading authority on the history of 
 Massachusetts. Sewall was Attorney-General of that 
 colony; the De Lanceys were among the richest and most 
 influential families in New York, and some of the best 
 names in Boston figured in the list of refugees, who 
 formed the loyal * New England Club in London in 1776. 
 The explanation seems to lie in the weakness inherent 
 in conservatism in times of national uprising and passion. 
 The allegiance contemplated by Galloway's constitution 
 was based on sentiment alone, and against such sentiment 
 was the armed enthusiasm of zealots as well as the clear 
 material advantage of the majority of the people. Passive 
 half measures are of little avail in the face of the fierce 
 proselytism of an ardent and interested minority, and the 
 academics, which were to have saved the empire, were 
 brushed away by the fierce rhetoric of the bar and the 
 dissenting ministers, to whom George III. seemed diabolic, 
 and the timorous 2 Gage an Alva. More particularly was 
 
 1 Memorial History of Boston (1881), iii. 175. 
 
 2 John Adams' Works (ed. 1850), ix. 351. 
 
"UNITED EMPIRE" LOYALTY 129 
 
 the failure of the Tory reform movement due to the 
 work of debtors who wished to rid themselves of the 
 crushing burden of indebtedness to England, and of the 
 Congregationalists, whom Galloway considered the authors 
 of the Revolution. The first class owed a sum variously 
 estimated from * three to 2 six millions sterling to British 
 merchants in 1775, and their dependence would in no way 
 be relieved by mere constitutional readjustment. The 
 second class realised that any strengthening of the ties 
 of union would but enhance the claims of the Anglican 
 Church, suspicion of which lay at the bottom of New 
 England animosity. They resented 3 the general choice 
 of government officials from the ranks of the established 
 Church alone, and prophesied in the words of Ezra Stiles, 
 President of Yale, that 4 there would be a Runnymede in 
 America. 5 In 1764 a Presbyterian synod at Philadelphia 
 led the way to repudiation of the empire, and from 1766 
 onwards the 6 Congregationalist ministers of Boston, under 
 the influence of Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, preached open 
 resistance. Their anti-monarchical bias was profound. 
 Only one minister of their sect in Boston remained loyal 
 to the Crown in 1775. 7 Seabury adverted on their former 
 practice of reading the words, " Civil Magistrate " in the 
 Bible in place of the word " King," and of substituting 
 for " the kingdom of Heaven " the phrase " the Parliament 
 of Heaven." These no doubt were obsolete vagaries, but 
 the old spirit lived still, and the temper of the Ironsides 
 was the making of the United States. 
 
 1 Boucher's Causes and Consequences of the Am. Rev. (1797), p. xl. 
 
 2 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xiv. pt. 10, 29. 
 
 3 Kingsley's Life of Stiles (1847), p. 23. 
 
 4 ibid, p. 48. 
 
 5 Galloway's Rise of the Am. Reb. (1780), p. 53. 
 
 6 ibid, p. 67; Memorial History of Boston (1881), iii. 20, 126; 
 
 Hutchinson's Diary (ed. 1883), i. 169. 
 
 7 Friendly Address (1774), pp. 29, 30. 
 
130 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 Thus the men of thought, who strove for true 
 imperialism, became but part of the flotsam of loyal 
 America, cast upon the shores of Great Britain and 
 her remaining colonies during the hard years of the 
 Revolution. 1 Galloway left property to the value of forty 
 thousand pounds behind him, while Seabury was not only 
 2 neglected by English churchmen, but never even won 
 credit for his tracts, as 3 they were published under the 
 name of a Farmer and were attributed to another. These 
 men fell back into the ruck. Their cause nevertheless 
 was great, and their ready sacrifices for the enlightened 
 ideal of a " United Empire " should keep their memories 
 green. 
 
 1 Considerations upon the Am. Enquiry (1779), p. 44. 
 
 2 Hoare's Memoirs of Sharp (1820), p. 213. 
 
 3 Boucher's Causes and Consequences (1797), p. 557. 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 131 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND, 17T5 1783. 
 
 FEW governments have been more unpopular than that 
 which was in office in England on the eve of the War of 
 Independence. The growth of royal power, the rise of 
 "the King's friends," the decline of party politics, the 
 foolish resistance to the claims of John Wilkes, all 
 contributed to lower the dignity of the ministry in 
 British eyes. Even if the proposal to coerce America was 
 considered just, its expediency was questioned by many 
 powerful interests. Until the actual outbreak of war, the 
 trading centres and also x the Irish were clearly in favour 
 of concession. Trouble in America affected their material 
 welfare by stopping commerce, and their political welfare 
 by encouraging the pretensions of the Crown. 2 For many 
 years after 1765 there was continuous distress in London, 
 Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Lancaster, Leeds, 
 Hull and Glasgow owing to the colonial policy of non- 
 importation, and each of these places took an active part 
 in obtaining the repeal of the Stamp Act. 3 Even the 
 unpolitical mind of Boswell deprecated coercion in view 
 of trade depression. As late as 1775, 4 many merchants 
 and most Dissenters were ardent for peace. Yet, when 
 once the idea of separation had been mooted, and it was 
 
 1 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 37. 
 
 2 Annual Register (1766), p. 35; Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xiv. pt. 10; 
 
 28, 4447; ibid, Rep. xv. pt. 1; 220. 
 
 3 Burke's Correspondence, ii. 209. 
 
 4 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 47, 240; Chatham Correspondence, iv. 401. 
 
132 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 clear that the whole system of governing the empire was 
 being called in question, the bulk of the nation rallied 
 round the ministry. Incidents like Franklin's publication 
 of the private letters of Governor Hutchinson, which he 
 had obtained by surreptitious means, and the burning of 
 the revenue schooner Gaspee by American patriots in 1772 
 had embittered their feelings. That England was dragged 
 into the war by George III. is simply a Whig legend. His 
 fatuity indeed was responsible for many administrative 
 follies, but in the American War the British case was 
 based on far wider principles than royal desire. The cause 
 for which the country fought was identical with that 
 which had triumphed in the Seven Years' War. The old 
 colonial system was dear to the heart of the British people. 
 It was rudely challenged in 1775, and naturally this 
 development of what had once been regarded as a mere 
 incident in the growing conflict between George III. and 
 popular liberties, entirely altered the national outlook. 
 In view of the actual character of English popular thought 
 during the War of Independence, it is absurd to continue 
 to regard that war as the effect of only a legal or con- 
 stitutional controversy. Of course, it suited George to 
 treat the struggle as a " King's war," because success would 
 lead to his own exaltation. Similarly, it was to the 
 advantage of the Whig oligarchy to treat it as but a royal 
 entanglement, for its failure would liberate their political 
 world from the danger of a new despotism. However, the 
 mass of Englishmen had no such bias, and they showed 
 the true nature of public opinion by their distinctive 
 acceptance of the belief that their own imperial theory 
 was the genuine cause of war. 
 
 Surely this is a more reasonable conclusion than the 
 inference so often drawn by writers bred in Whig tradi- 
 tions, that the peers who led the opposition retained the 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 133 
 
 heart of England, in spite of the country allowing itself 
 to drift into nine years of conflict. Surely there was a 
 more national issue at stake than the King's conception of 
 his own dignity. Burke was clearly no lover of the war- 
 party, and so his picture of British opinion in 1775 is 
 worth more than that of later day partisans. 1 He described 
 the people as curiously languid on the great question of 
 the time, without the fire and jealousy of 1756. In the 
 main however, they were out of touch with the Whig 
 politicians, who tried to treat the attack on the old 
 colonial system as only an incident in the struggle with 
 the Crown. All the opposition could do was 2 "to clog" 
 the war, a phrase hardly characteristic of an ascendent 
 party. 3 He said that the business class was pacified by 
 war contracts, and that the ill effects of a stoppage in the 
 American trade were obscured by a passing boom in trade 
 with the north of Europe, and by the demand for freights 
 and clothing for English and Canadian troops. That 
 demand was only enhanced in 1776, when Paul Jones 
 captured ten thousand uniforms in a vessel outward bound 
 from Liverpool. The old Whigs of the commercial districts 
 were being lured towards the government policy by 4 "the 
 cadaverous ' haut gout ' of lucrative war." After all, the 
 system then fundamentally assailed by America, was the 
 creation of Whig economists, and the type of Whig 
 ambitions. The Duke of Richmond, most ardent pioneer 
 of the new Radical school, 5 admitted that merchants would 
 not support the opposition unless they felt the pinch of 
 bad trade. The early interference of foreign powers gave 
 
 1 Burke's Correspondence, ii. 48. 
 
 2 ibid, ii. 55. 
 
 3 ibid, ii. 49. 
 
 4 ibid, ii. 50. 
 
 5 Albemarle's Rockingham (1852), ii. 290. 
 
134 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 additional impetus to the process of nationalising the 
 struggle. With France and Spain in the field, it was 
 impossible to ignore the difference between the state of the 
 colonial question in 1766 and its state in 1778. The new 
 French theory " f ree ships free goods" ran counter to 
 England's maritime code. The adherence of France, Spain, 
 Holland, Prussia, Russia, Denmark, Sweden and Austria 
 in 1780 to that theory, and to such doctrines as that which 
 condemned " paper blockades " as null, and that which 
 limited the definition of contraband to sulphur and muni- 
 tions of war, placed the British version of International 
 Law upon its defence. English successes increased the 
 popularity of the war; English failures increased the 
 determination with which it was waged. Under such cir- 
 cumstances, we cannot wonder that such enlightened Whig 
 leaders as Temple and Cornwallis tried to strengthen the 
 hands of the government, although they had had nothing 
 to do with the steps which led to the Revolution, and 
 disapproved of the royal conduct which had hastened its 
 outbreak. They joined in the defence of a doomed cause, 
 the success of which would not have contributed towards 
 the world's happiness, but none the less we cannot speak 
 too highly of their attitude, for very few statesmen have 
 the courage to bury partisanship in patriotism. When 
 Chatham deplored the policy which had made 1 "poor 
 England" fall upon her own sword, Temple answered, 2 "I 
 am no party to the war, nor am I to the causes of it, which 
 I think my greatest happiness ; but engaged as we are in, 
 I think, a most just cause, I cannot but wish victory to 
 dear, dear England." 
 
 Thus men who had doubted the government's policy 
 originally, acquiesced in their management of the war, 
 
 1 Grenville Papers, iv. 573. 
 
 2 ibid, iv. 575. 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 135 
 
 when conflict became inevitable. North's tardy abandon- 
 ment of the right to tax the colonies in 1778 by the statute 
 18 Geo. III. c. 12, attracted other elements of earlier 
 opposition to the national camp. If we have given a 
 faithful picture of the old colonial system in the chapter 
 above, the adherence of most Englishmen to the cause of 
 its maintenance cannot excite surprise. Their fatal blind- 
 ness to its narrowness and impolicy was more foolish than 
 dishonest. l Camden, the Whig Lord Chancellor of 1766 
 and a keen foe to the ministry, admitted that the landed 
 interest was on their side. Among the gentry, the war 
 spirit had something of the fire of earlier days. By means 
 of their voluntary offers to facilitate army manoeuvres 
 upon their lands, 2 army cadets were enabled to encamp on 
 Banstead Downs in 1773 and 1774, and on Wimbledon 
 Common in 1775 and 1776. Rural sportsmen were exhorted 
 in 1780 to 
 
 3 Leave fields of pleasure for the fields of fame, 
 The foes of Britain are the noblest game." 
 
 4 One Tory politician said wittily that on the question of 
 the day, the country gentlemen were " for their country " ; 
 many of them, like 5 Lord Harrington and 6 Lord Sheffield, 
 raised regiments of light dragoons, or like Lord Kenmure 
 and Sir Boyle Roche, beat up recruits for the infantry by 
 dint of bounties and persuasion. It was clear that 7 the 
 land tax, which had been reduced by Townshend from four 
 to three shillings in 1767, in view of the Revenue Act of 
 
 1 Chatham Correspondence, iv. 401. 
 
 2 Lewis LocheVs Essay on Military Education (1776), p. 70. 
 
 3 September, a Eural Poem (1780), p. 9. 
 
 4 Malmesbury's Letters (ed. 1870), i. 327. 
 
 5 Cowper's Letters (ed. E.T.S.), p. 207. 
 
 6 Adeane's Girlhood of M. J. Holroyd (1896), p. 15. 
 
 7 Stephens' Memoirs of J. H. Tooke (1813), i. 433. 
 
136 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 that year, would remain at the lower figure if the policy of 
 that Act could be enforced against the colonies. Old 
 adherents of the Jacobite cause had long since drifted into 
 the Tory ranks. Scotland was on 1 the side of the govern- 
 ment, while the English Church was heartily loyal. The 
 Anglican attitude cannot cause wonder, in view of 
 American resistance to the proposed extension of Church 
 work in the colonies and to the suggested establishment of 
 a colonial bishopric. 
 
 The popularity of the British cause was indeed far wider 
 than that of a mere party cry. The towns were as zealous 
 as the Tory centres in their support of that colonial policy, 
 on which their trade with America had been built up. 
 In London the corporation was hostile to the ministry 
 and refused to vote bounties for recruits, but 2 20,000 were 
 collected by voluntary subscriptions for the raising of 
 troops, and Burke himself admits the 3 " wild tumult of 
 joy," aroused in the capital on the arrival one Sunday 
 morning in November 1777 of the news of the capture of 
 Philadelphia. Birmingham, which had welcomed the 
 repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, was now heartily with 
 the war party, whether or no we care to accept 4 Horace 
 Walpole's explanation that this was due to its being the 
 emporium of the swords and muskets of the British army. 
 The growth of the town between 1770 and 1790 was 
 5 generally attributed to its profits during the American 
 ^Revolution. 6 Its annual output of gun barrels amounted 
 to sixty thousand. As early as September 1775 the ex- 
 Jacobites of Manchester presented George III. with a 
 
 1 A Second Appeal to the Justice of Gt. Britain (1775), p. 55. 
 
 2 Annual Kegister (1778), p. 85. 
 
 3 Burke's Correspondence, ii. 199. 
 
 4 Seeley's H. Walpole and his World, p. 152. 
 
 5 St. Fond's Travels (1799), i. 341. 
 
 6 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep., xv. pt. 1, 180. 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 137 
 
 loyal address, l " which really gives me pleasure," wrote 
 the King, " as it comes unsolicited." This town was 
 thoroughly Tory in its sympathies, and 2 as late as 
 1777 it celebrated the royal oak day of Charles II. It is 
 therefore not surprising to read that it raised a regiment 
 of a thousand men for service in America. The feeling in 
 3 Liverpool, where a similar force was raised voluntarily, 
 is really more significant, as its inhabitants were not only 
 more Whig but had also everything to gain by reconcilia- 
 tion. In spite of the disastrous effects of the cessation of 
 colonial trade upon Liverpool shipping, 4 Burke told Fox 
 that its inhabitants " loved " the war, and 5 Gilbert Wake- 
 field's congregation objected to his omission of what he 
 called " unchristian words against the Americans " from 
 the special prayer ordered to be used in churches during 
 the war. 6 Bristol, though also affected by the depression 
 in colonial trade, voted the freedom of the city to Lords 
 Sandwich and Suffolk in 1777, although two most eager 
 advocates of coercion. 7 Both Edinburgh and Glasgow 
 raised regiments at their own expense. In fact, as 8 Gibbon, 
 a very dispassionate observer, remarked, the people in 
 general regarded the war as their favourite incident in 
 politics, and as late as March 1781, we find Horace Walpole 
 writing, 9 "the nation is more besotted and the ministry 
 more popular than ever." Beyond the narrow if brilliant 
 circle of Whig debaters, and the small group of Whig 
 
 1 Correspondence of Geo. III. with North (ed. 1867), i. 267. 
 
 2 Curwen's Journal (ed. 1842), p. 137. 
 
 3 Correspondence of Geo. iii., ii. 100. 
 
 4 Russell's Life of Fox, p. 155. 
 
 5 Wakefield's Memoirs (1804), i. 198. 
 Russell's Life of Fox, p. 155. 
 
 7 Hist. MSS, Comm. Rep. on Amer. MSS., vol. i. 187. 
 
 8 Gibbon's Autobiography, i. 324; cf. Hutchinson's Diary, i. 506. 
 
 9 Some Unpublished Letters of H. Walpole (1902), p. 49. 
 
138 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 philosophers, whose Radical bent made them dissent 
 altogether from the prevailing faith in colonisation, few 
 notable Englishmen objected to the war policy. William 
 Scott, afterwards the great Lord Stowell, but then not even 
 called to the bar, wrote to his relations at Newcastle in 
 1777 that he and his brothers and sister in London had 
 lamented lu the fate of the great Burgoyne. We mingled 
 our tears for two days together, being English folks of the 
 old stamp, and retaining in spite of modern 'patriotism,' 
 some affection and reverence for the name of England." 
 He added that if the government wanted common sense, 
 its foes wanted common honesty. His younger brother, 
 2 John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, wrote in 1775 that 
 the American contentions were bad in law, and that 
 England had to decide between conquest and separation. 
 Neither of these men had anything whatever to gain by 
 such opinions. Lawyers like Mansfield, whose judgment 
 in the leading case of 3 Campbell v. Hall is a model of 
 sound constitutional law, and Thurlow, whose opinions 
 were always shrewd, had come unhesitatingly to the same 
 conclusion, and on the bare legal aspect of the question 
 they 4 far outclassed the shallower Lord Camden. Even 
 5 Jeremy Bentham for once favoured the contentions of 
 the government. 
 
 It is clear that the support given to the war could only 
 increase when the colonial issue had been complicated by 
 foreign intervention. It was then too late to gain by con- 
 cession, and a substantial number of moderate Whigs 
 dissociated themselves from leaders, who seemed mere 
 
 1 Townshend's Lives of the Judges (1846), ii. 291. 
 
 2 H. Twiss's Life of Eldon (1844), i. 98. 
 
 3 Loftt's Reports, p. 655. 
 
 4 Nicholl's Recollections (1822), ii. 128. 
 
 5 C. M. Atkinson's Bentham (1905), p. 23. 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 139 
 
 anti-English extremists. Thus Chatham himself allowed 
 his son to serve at Gibraltar after the outbreak of war with 
 France. 1 Arthur Young, who had nothing of Toryism, 
 warmly supported Lord Bristol's proposal to purchase a 
 74-gun ship by public subscription as a gift to the nation, 
 and 2 Lady Sarah Bunbury, once the object of the King's 
 admiration but a thorough Whig, wrote that in spite of 
 all her sympathies with America, she could only wish the 
 English soldiers success in the field. It is indeed palpable 
 that this was the true type of public opinion. In the heart 
 of the country, men felt just as they had done fifteen years 
 earlier. For once the placid monotony of 3 Cowper's 
 letters from his Olney hermitage was broken by the joy 
 attendant on the capture of Charleston in 1780. 4 The 
 strains of regimental music charmed even this recluse, 
 while busier men appreciated the more practical issues of 
 the struggle, and in 1776 Adam Smith closed "The Wealth 
 of Nations " with the advice that " if any of the provinces 
 of the British empire cannot be made to contribute towards 
 the support of the whole empire, it is surely time that 
 Great Britain should free herself from the expense of 
 defending those provinces in time of war, and of support- 
 ing any of their civil or military establishments in time 
 of peace." Although a strong Whig in politics, Smith was 
 so far satisfied with the American policy of Lord North as 
 to accept the office of Commissioner of Customs in Scotland 
 at his hands in 1777. Indeed most thinkers of the con- 
 temporary political school believed that the only alterna- 
 tive to the policy of the government was absolute separa- 
 
 1 A. Young's Autobiography (ed. 1898), p. 102. 
 
 2 Life and Letters of Lady S. Lennox, i. 235, 275. 
 
 3 Cowper's Letters, p. 129. 
 * ibid, p. 208. 
 
140 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 tion, and therefore all who held that colonies were useful 
 sided with the Crown. l " I am more and more convinced,'' 
 wrote Gibbon to Holroyd in January 1775, "that we have 
 both the right and the power on our side, and that we are 
 now arrived at the decisive moment of preserving or of 
 losing for ever both our trade and our empire." 2 He 
 doubted in fact whether Lord North would be firm enough, 
 and was agreeably surprised by the willingness of the 
 trading interests to embark on the war. 
 
 Indeed, indirect evidence of the spirit with which most 
 Englishmen were ready to fight for the colonial system lies 
 in the shortness of the interval between 1763 and 1775. 
 If the national character in the first year was calculated 
 to sustain a war for empire, there was no reason why it 
 should have altered by the second, in spite of the evolution 
 of domestic politics in the interim. 3 The army itself was 
 Tory, and its belief in trade wars had not declined. A 
 few Whig soldiers may perhaps have feared the new 
 influence of the " Nabobs," and distrusted the com- 
 mercialism of imperial theory. Draper, the conqueror of 
 Manila, for instance, had no idea of the greatness of 
 dive's work in India, thought Grenville's preference for 
 the latter 4 "very mortifying," and complained that the 
 only way to gain success was now to be " a most dirty dog, 
 rob and pillage whenever I can." 5 Burgoyne had a 
 similar dislike for Clive and had been one of his least 
 scrupulous assailants. However, among the people no 
 such alienation from the policy of trade wars is discover- 
 
 1 Gibbon's Autobiography, i. 248. 
 
 2 ibid, i. 250. 
 
 3 H. Walpole's Last Journal, ii. 242. 
 
 4 Bedford Correspondence, iii. 261-2. 
 
 5 H. Walpole's Last Journal, i. 207. 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 141 
 
 able. On the contrary, the ardour of 1756 reappeared in 
 a modified form. 
 
 1 "0ur fame shall spread in every distant shore, 
 
 And in new climes the British lion roar," 
 is a characteristic couplet from verses of 1776, while 2 the 
 more prosaic press revelled in the news of victories. In 
 Scotland, regiments of a thousand men each were raised 
 by the Gordons and Macdonalds, and several companies 
 were raised by public-spirited partisans in Wales. 
 
 Rodney represented the best type of the simple and 
 straightforward Englishman of his day, and though person- 
 ally a Tory, there was nothing distinctively partisan in his 
 thought or character. He was clear indeed as to the national 
 nature of England's war. In his opinion, party jealousy 
 lost us America. 3 "What is it that party and faction cannot 
 do ? " Like all his fellows, he saw only the minor sources 
 of the war and the less vital reasons of its failure, but the 
 vigour and gaiety of his fighting spirit throw a glow of 
 fancy that we should not like to miss, upon the cause for 
 which the country fought. Brightness of touch and 
 genuine love of country serve to redeem much bad political 
 science. In 1780 Rodney's little daughter wrote to him 
 from London, 4 " There are a great number of songs going 
 about the streets, the chorus always being, ' Brave Rodney 
 for ever.' Such rhymes I never saw, and if they were not 
 about you, I am sure I should not have the patience to 
 read them." 5 Rodney told her in return, after his victory 
 over Grasse, that he had captured four admirals within the 
 last two years, two Spanish, one French, and one Dutch. 
 
 1 T. Maurice's Hagley (1776), p. 41. 
 
 2 Cowper's Letters, p. 212. 
 
 3 Mundy's Kodney (1830), ii. 329. 
 
 4 ibid, i. 263. 
 
 5 ibid, ii. 225. 
 
142 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 It is noteworthy that Hhe Dissenters were from the 
 first, lukewarm in their support of the opposition. They 
 had little in common with the great Whig families, beyond 
 a distrust of the Crown. It is true that 2 the impolicy, 
 which drove six Methodists from St. Edmund Hall at 
 Oxford in 1768 was not likely to attract their co-religionists 
 towards Lords North's party, and in Priestley and Price, 
 Franklin found two learned allies of considerable weight. 
 The former was then minister of Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, 
 and 3 his appeal to Dissenters to oppose the government 
 met with some success. On the other hand, they were 
 strongest in number in those trading districts where 
 prosperity was most affected by the methods of reprisal 
 adopted in America. The threatened stoppage of colonial 
 traffic naturally estranged them from the revolutionary 
 doctrines. Hence their readiness to believe in the then 
 orthodox theory of empire, expounded by John Wesley. 
 This great man's exposition of the English view of the war 
 deserves a far wider fame than it now enjoys. If we 
 really want to understand the British standpoint, and to 
 see how naturally and inevitably the war spirit of 1TT5 
 evolved from the current colonial system, we have only to 
 read 4 Wesley's eloquent tracts. 5 The Dartmouth papers, 
 disclosed by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, 
 reveal that he had at one time inclined to favour the 
 Americans. In June 1775 he wrote passionately to Lord 
 Dartmouth to abstain from the use of force and to 
 remember Philip II and Charles I. However as " an High 
 Churchman and the son of an High Churchman, bred up 
 
 l Russell's Life of Fox, i. 156. 
 
 2BoswelPs Johnson (ed. 1896), iii. 44; Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xv. 
 pt. 1; 187. 
 
 3 Priestley's Memoirs (1806), pp. 149, 457. 
 
 4 See Malmesbury's Letters, i. 328. 
 
 5 Hist. MSS. Comm. Report xi. ; part v., 379. 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 143 
 
 from my childhood in the highest notions of passive 
 obedience and non-resistance," he soon came back to the 
 orthodox fold, and in his " Calm Address to the American 
 Colonies," he explained that emigration had modified the 
 original rights of British settlers, by reducing them to 
 1 the innumerable multitude that have no votes." There 
 was no hardship in that ; every colonist was suffered to live 
 undisturbed. The question of representation was dealt 
 with in " Observations on Liberty," which defended exist- 
 ing constitutional anomalies. The " Calm Address to the 
 Inhabitants of England," was a far warmer appeal to the 
 country to avenge 2 the burning and devastation by the 
 enemy of loyalists' property and lands in America. 
 Wesley spoke particularly to those 3 "who are vulgarly 
 called Methodists," and asked for a continuance of such 
 prayer and fasting, as had just effected the expulsion of 
 the rebels from New York and Rhode Island. " I believe 
 Americans cannot fight, for the hand of God is upon 
 them." His subsequent " Serious Address " is a protest 
 against pessimism. His arguments, and those of his friend 
 Fletcher in " The Bible and Sword " were probably more 
 effective than the "Constitutional Answer" of Caleb 
 Evans, and the " Second Answer of W.D." in winning over 
 Whig Dissenters. Many of them had always believed in 
 the commercial ideas of the government. The more 
 extreme Whigs, who disliked Wesley as 4 "a declared 
 enemy of civil and religious liberty," found solace in 
 abuse. In the scurrilous satire of " The Saints," he was 
 described as 
 
 5 " Beating his drum for murderers to enlist," 
 
 1 Calm Address, p. 8. 
 
 2 Calm Address to the Inhabitants etc., p. 21. 
 
 3 ibid, p. 13. 
 
 4 Constitutional Answer to Wesley's Calm Address (1775), p. 3. 
 
 5 The Saints (1778), p. 23. 
 
144 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 and he was said to " inflame intestine broils," 
 
 1 "And spread destruction in his Saviour's name." 
 In prose he figured as 2 "a low and puny tadpole in 
 divinity," and in caricature he was quaintly pictured as 
 an old fox dressed in clerical attire and tarred and 
 feathered, but he won the day nevertheless against his 
 more republican co-religionists, and made Methodism a 
 conservative force in British politics. He made the lower 
 middle class adherents of the established order in political 
 life, and left them no spark of sympathy with the fiery 
 theorists who were leading New England to rebellion. 
 
 Thus until the war reached a stage of absolute hopeless- 
 ness, the country supported the ministry, and the frequent 
 superiority of the opposition in Parliament, both in wit 
 and intellect, does not attest to any such ascendency out- 
 side Westminster. The general belief in the perfection of 
 the old colonial system was so great that any other national 
 outlook at this crisis would have been extraordinary and 
 unnatural. The country hated the rebels, and despised the 
 French, and when 3 Noailles, the French ambassador passed 
 through the streets of Canterbury with his wife on their 
 homeward journey in 1778, the mob pelted them both, 
 conduct which Gibbon coolly describes as 4 " some slight 
 expressions of ill humour from John Bull." In America, 
 there had been an impression that the Whig nobles were 
 powerful enough to raise a rebellion in the event of royal 
 policy causing a breach with the colonies, but men who 
 had no sympathy with that policy soon realised the 
 absurdity of this illusion. Samuel Curwen, an American 
 judge of admiralty, whose moderate politics led him to 
 
 1 ibid, p. 24. 
 
 2 An Old Fox Tarred etc., by an Hanoverian (1775). 
 
 3 H. Walpole's Last Journal, ii. 243 
 
 4 Gibbon's Autobiography, i. 333. 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 145 
 
 live in England in 1775, 1 described the manufacturers as 
 being so busy that they had no regret at the stoppage of 
 orders from the colonies. 
 
 These considerations point to the conclusion that 
 George Ill's personal influence on the war has been often 
 exaggerated. This reasoning applies most to events after 
 the skirmish at Lexington, as undoubtedly the steps 
 actually leading to the outbreak of the Revolution owed 
 much of their disastrous sting to the King's own hand. All 
 that can be said is that his personal desires hastened an in- 
 evitable tendency, and made the chance of a temporary 
 armistice between two incompatible theories impossible. 
 He had none of the scruples which troubled sensitive 
 Britons, and said he would 2 " as lief fight the Bostonians 
 as the French." He wrote to Lord Dartmouth, the 
 Secretary of the Colonial Department in 1775, that 3 "as 
 the rebels have got Indians to their assistance, we must 
 make use of the same desperate weapons." He had a 
 genuine belief in the virtue of the war; his love of his 
 soldiery was remarkably sincere, and he waived the con- 
 temporary dignity of kingship when 4 he took off his hat 
 to the Guards paraded on Wimbledon Common in 1776. 
 When he said, "the die is cast; the colonies must either 
 triumph or submit," he expressed a joy, which was not 
 less patriotic because it happened to be utterly misguided. 
 He could see no honesty in the opposition to the war. 
 6 "Thank God," he wrote of Chatham to Lord North, "the 
 nation does not see the unhappy contest through his 
 mirour" (sic). Similarly, 6 Anthony Storer, one of his 
 
 1 Curwen's Journal and Letters (ed. 1842), i. 35. 
 
 2 H. Walpole's Last Journal, i. 366. 
 
 3 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xi. j pt. 5, 440. 
 
 4 Walpole's Last Journal, ii. 3. 
 
 5 Correspondence of Geo. III. with North, ii. 70. 
 
 6 Hist. MSS. Comm. Eep. xv. ; pt. 6, 317-8. 
 
146 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 cleverest supporters, wrote of Fox, "I stayed tete a tete 
 with Charles till four. His ideas, if they are his real ones, 
 almost make me think that he is mad. I must have per- 
 fectly lost the use of my eyes before I could be made to 
 fancy things as he represents them." In the narrower 
 mind of George III. such criticisms tended to become wild 
 fanaticism. He played a a pitiful part when he said that 
 he deemed the country's demonstrations of regret on 
 Chatham's death " offensive measures to me personally." 
 Nevertheless in his meanest, as well as in his bravest 
 moments, he was convinced both of the justice and the 
 necessity of his war. In view of the 2 opinion of such a 
 competent judge as Hutchinson upon the perfection of the 
 King's knowledge of American affairs, it is idle to treat his 
 attitude as blind and thoughtless. However much we may 
 deprecate his obstinacy we cannot question the earnestness 
 with which he faced the problem of the day. He had 
 always wished to develope the colonies, and in 1763 he 
 gave personal instructions to Governor Murray to lay out 
 townships for possible English emigrants to Canada, who 
 were to be provided with clergy and schoolmasters. As an 
 enthusiast in his own narrow but fervid creed of 
 imperialism, he did not flinch after Saratoga, and thought 
 those who wished to relax the national efforts were 3 " lost 
 to all ideas of self-importance." 4 It was said that the 
 Court resounded with "delenda est Carthago" after that 
 reverse. When the ill news of Yorktown was brought 
 from Falmouth to Pall Mall 5 "on Sunday the 25th 
 November (178.1) about noon," even the cool and patient 
 
 1 Russell's Life of Fox, p. 190. 
 
 2 Hutchinson's Diary (ed. 1883), i. 159. 
 
 3 Correspondence of Geo. III. with North, ii. 310. 
 
 4 Curwen's Journal, p. 160. 
 
 5 Wraxall's Memoirs (1818), ii. 433. 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 147 
 
 North lost his balance. He took the news, says x Wraxall, 
 " like a ball in his breast," and gave way to the inevitable 
 at last. " Oh God, it is all over ! " George III. was made 
 of different metal. Three days later, we find him writing 
 to his pliant Prime Minister, 2 " Many men chuse rather 
 to despond on difficulties than see how to get out of them. 
 A good end may yet be made of the war." It was then so 
 evident that the old colonial system could never be re- 
 asserted, that perhaps George's optimism does little credit 
 to his head, but on the other hand, his point of view is 
 quite characteristic of the British people, and is one of 
 which it has often been proud. He and his followers hoped 
 to see England emerge victorious from the dark days of 
 blunder and defeat. They had no notion that America 
 was fighting for any principle beyond that of a selfish 
 immunity from imperial obligations, and were oblivious 
 to the moral issues which the colonists believed to be 
 involved. A Scotchman is said to have pointed to some 
 American prisoners and remarked to a Frenchman, 3 " You 
 fought for your master, I for mine; but for whom were 
 these men fighting?" 
 
 It is possible also that some high-minded men may have 
 been attracted towards the royal policy by the frequent 
 lapses of the colonists from their high ideal of freedom. 
 Paine and Jefferson were pioneers of the tendency to make 
 war upon all law-abiding society, and side by side with 
 the true patriots of the Revolution were to be found many 
 of those bad men, who are always thrown to the surface by 
 great national uprisings. These persons were principally 
 responsible for the dreadful treatment of the loyalists, and 
 their views on persecution infected even Washington. 
 
 1 ibid, ii. 435. 
 
 2 Correspondence of Geo. III. with North, ii. 392. 
 
 3 Lauzun's Memoirs (1896), ii. 216. 
 
148 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 Their attitude towards the French Catholics of Canada 
 makes it also impossible in practice to identify the colonial 
 cause with the toleration it purported to embrace. The 
 New Englanders, whose Puritanism was still the un- 
 quenchable bigotry of 1629, hated the British policy of 
 winning the loyalty of a conquered race by the gift of 
 liberty to retain an established religion and law. lu Since 
 they have the Catholic religion established among them, 
 and are even allowed a Popish bishop in the British 
 dominions with the French language and customs, we 
 cannot suppose that they will ever become Englishmen or 
 true subjects of Britain," was the complaint of an American 
 pamphleteer, who probably felt the additional local 
 grievance of the annexation to Quebec of the undeveloped 
 lands north-west of the Ohio. With less genuine fear, 
 English Whigs like Chatham, Burke, Camden, Savile, 
 Horace Walpole, and Barre, opposed the tolerant Quebec 
 Act of 1774, which simply carried out a pledge given in 
 article 4 of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, and which was 
 amply justified by North as being 2 " thought better cal- 
 culated to secure the happiness of the Canadians." The 
 Act secured Canadian loyalty to England for half a 
 century, and though its details were very open to criticism, 
 its spirit was certainly more liberal than that of the policy 
 advocated by the usual preachers of freedom. To describe 
 it as 3 " calculated for tyrannical purposes" was unjust. 
 In the heat of the war, Richard Price, the Whig 
 philosopher, abused the government for availing them- 
 selves of the services of 4 "' French Papists from Canada/' 
 but their loyalty at the time of Montgomery and Arnold's 
 
 1 Present State of Great Britain and N. America, p. 326. 
 
 2 Debates of the House of Commons in 1774 (ed. Wright, 1839), p. 11. 
 
 3 Considerations on the Provisional Treaty with America (1783), p. 36. 
 
 4 Price's Observations on Civil Liberty (1776), p. 94. 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 149 
 
 invasion must surely have given most Englishmen of the 
 day a far different and more exhilarating impression. The 
 best side of the old colonial system is brought out by Hhe 
 difficulty experienced by Washington's French Canadian 
 friends to raise more than a handful of troops for the 
 American cause in spite of 2 his attempt to conciliate them 
 by forbidding his army to burn the Pope's effigy on Guy 
 Fawkes' day, 1775. 3 The parish priests and the seigneurs 
 had been won for Britain by the Quebec Act. 
 
 So far as ardent Whigs were concerned, the war must 
 have raised in many cases the difficult and much contested 
 question as to the rival claims of country and conscience. 
 Allowing for the prejudices of bitter partisanship, there 
 must still have been a large element in the Whig ranks 
 who hated the blunders that culminated in conflict, and 
 4 the tendency of the Crown to use national enthusiasm 
 for its own despotic purposes. In these instances, con- 
 demnation of the war can only have been whole-hearted 
 and sincere. The moral sense of mankind has hardly 
 determined even yet whether "my country, right or 
 wrong," is a proper principle for the guidance of such 
 thinkers, or whether it were better to run counter to the 
 dearest wishes of the majority of our compatriots for the 
 sake of what appears right. The problem, was then as 
 painful as ever, and the interference of France with the 
 avowed object of avenging her losses of 1763 complicated 
 its difficulty. A certain number of the Whigs whom it 
 perplexed then rallied to the government, but the majority 
 preferred to follow the example of Chatham and Burke, 
 and to make no terms with the government. Probably 
 
 1 Washington's Official Correspondence (1795), i. 12. 
 
 2 Sparks Washington, iii. 144. 
 
 3 Canadian Freeholder (1777), i. 14. 
 
 4 J. Burgh's Political Disquisitions (1774), ii. 276. 
 
150 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 many of the Whig nohles and a small element in the great 
 towns honestly dreaded both the moral and the commercial 
 effects of alienating lu the brave Americans," and fancied 
 that the war would destroy 2 one-third of the country's 
 trade. Furthermore, the conduct of George III. had done 
 much to give the war a partisan colour, which was not its 
 natural guise, but which was none the less effective in 
 enabling the Whigs to disclaim the slur arising from lack 
 of patriotism. They alleged that 3 just as Chatham had 
 conquered America in Germany, so the government was 
 now trying to conquer Great Britain in America. The 
 political conditions of England were then most unfavour- 
 able to more disinterested action, and the chiefs of the 
 opposition happened to be aristocrats, whose lives had 
 never come in touch with the aspirations upon which wars 
 of trade were built, and colonial restrictions founded. It 
 was satisfactory to them to treat the revolt against the 
 existing English theory of empire as a rising against royal 
 tyranny and Tory incompetence. They were cheerfully 
 indifferent to its effects on Greater Britain. Thus Horace 
 Walpole looked forward complacently to the country's 
 mouldering again 4 "into our insignificant islandhood," 
 and indeed, 5 but for the fierce rivalry between the opposi- 
 tion faction under Buckingham, Burke and Fox, and that 
 under Shelburne, the ministry could hardly have survived 
 so long. 
 
 The peace party contained all the ablest parliamentary 
 speakers of the day except Mansfield, Thurlow and 
 
 1 A Full Examination of Wesley's Address by a Friend to the People 
 
 (1775), pp. 3, 15. 
 
 2 Price's Observations on Civil Liberty (1776), p. 85. 
 
 3 Essay on Patriotism (1768), p. 11. 
 
 4 Seeley's H. Walpole and his World, p. 154. 
 
 5 Nicholls' Recollections, i. 296. 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 151 
 
 Wedderburn, and the war spirit rarely shone brightly in 
 debate. We cannot be surprised that Tories who disliked 
 abstract rhetoric on constitutional government, found the 
 speeches of Burke and Barre 1 " immoderately long," and 
 2 alleged that the former's diffuse and emotional oratory 
 reminded them of Drury Lane. The Whig advocates of 
 peace at any price grew stronger as the struggle became 
 more and more exhausting, and as the drain upon the 
 country's resources began to lead to undiscriminating and 
 disastrous outdoor relief; ultimately they wore down the 
 voting strength of the ministry as well as its power of 
 argument. It must however be admitted that in many 
 cases their policy was coloured by unscrupulous oppor- 
 tunism, and had nothing of the sincerity or idealism of 
 Burke. Wedderburn may have been a selfish time-server 
 himself, but assuredly he spoke the truth when he said of 
 the Whigs after Cornwallis' surrender, 3 " It is strange they 
 should never have learnt that to show exultation in a 
 public calamity makes them odious, and aids those they are 
 attacking." In the darkest hours of the war, Fox never 
 ceased to denounce the cause for which Great Britain was 
 contending, and we cannot easily respect an English 
 statesman, who said 4 he heard the news of Saratoga and 
 Yorktown with delight. His hate was so great that every 
 British success dismayed him in the same way as an un- 
 fortunate division in the House. 5 " Whatever happens," 
 he wrote after the American disasters of June 1776, "let 
 us all resolve to stick by them as handsomely (or more so) 
 in their adversity as we have done in their glory," and he 
 
 1 Malmesbury's Letters, i. 327. 
 
 2 ibid, i. 321, 396. 
 
 3 Hist. MSS. Comm. Hep., xv. ; pt. 6, 539. 
 
 4 Gibbon's Autobiography, ii. 320 (note). 
 
 5 Fox's Memoirs, i. 143. 
 
152 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 alluded to the tidings of Howe's victory in Long Island as 
 l " terrible news." 2 Shelburne affected to consider the 
 numerous voluntary gifts of a military nature, which were 
 made to the government, dangerous and unconstitutional, 
 and was quite willing that 3 the sun of Britain should set 
 for ever in the west. 
 
 We have seen above that the country in general sided 
 with the war policy, but the violence of these Whig 
 politicians was reflected in the conduct of their supporters, 
 and there are few English struggles in which the peace 
 party have made a greater show of opposition. It had 
 such distinguished models as Chatham and Burke, Camden 
 and Fox, while the ministry included unpopular leaders of 
 doubtful worth like Germain and Sandwich. Lord Pitt, 
 Chatham's eldest son, had been serving as aide-de-camp to 
 Carleton in Canada since 1773, but 4 he was made by his 
 father to stand idle from 1776 to 1778, an example followed 
 by Lord Effingham, by Watson and Wilson (two members 
 of the Irish Parliament) and by a handful of other 
 enthusiasts. Granville Sharp, the high-minded apostle of 
 slave emancipation, 5 threw up his post in the Ordnance 
 Office. In 1776 Home Tooke, an extreme Whig much 
 disliked by Doctor Johnson, collected 100 at a meeting 
 of the Constitutional Society in the King's Arms Tavern, 
 Cornhill, for 6 " the relief of the widows, orphans, and aged 
 parents of our beloved American subjects, inhumanly 
 murdered by the King's troops at or near Lexington and 
 
 1 ibid, i. 145. 
 
 2 Fitzmaurice's Shelburne (1875), iii. 13. 
 
 3 Considerations upon the Am. Enquiry (1779), p. 53. 
 
 4 Soulavie, Memoires (ed. 1801) iii. 390; Chatham Correspondence iv. 
 
 292, 420. 
 
 5 Hoare's Memoirs of G. Sharp (1820), p. 126. 
 
 6 Henry Cowper's Reports, ii. 672. 
 
THE WAR SPIRIT IN ENGLAND 153 
 
 Concord in the province of Massachusetts." x He was 
 sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a fine of 200. 
 Such extraordinary animus against the ministerial policy 
 was the common characteristic of all who remained on the 
 side of the opposition, and who were wittily described as 
 2 " the Americans in our house." Sir William Jones could 
 only refer to the struggle as 3 "this abominable war." 
 Party hack writers like " Malcolm Macgregor " asked 
 America sarcastically to 
 
 4 "Toast peace and plenty to their mother nation, 
 Give three huzzas to George and to taxation, 
 And beg, to make their loyal hearts the lighter, 
 He'll send them o'er Dean Tucker with a mitre." 
 
 It will be seen later why Tucker was thus pilloried. 
 
 The vigour of the minority was a great injury to govern- 
 ment efficiency. Home Tooke, Priestley, Price and 
 Hartley were almost more American than the Americans, 
 while the Whig corporation of London conferred the 
 freedom of the city upon Price for his " Observations on 
 Civil Liberty," of which sixty thousand copies were sold 
 in 1776. 5 Behind the dialectics of tracts such as these 
 "Observations" and the "Facts" of Price and Home Tooke, 
 was the cold and clever master mind of Shelburne. The 
 ministry on the other hand had few capable organisers on 
 whom to rely, and Lord George Germain, though 6 an able 
 man with sound views on 7 tactics, had too bad a reputa- 
 tion to act successfully as Secretary of the Colonial Depart- 
 
 1 ibid, ii. 681. 
 
 2 Malmesbury's Letters, i. 328. 
 
 3 Teignmouth's Memoirs of Sir Wm. Jones (1806), i. 416. 
 
 4 Epistle to Dr. Shebbeare (1777), p. 10. 
 
 5 Stephens' Memoirs of J. H. Tooke (1813), ii. 24. 
 
 6 Nicholls' Eecollections, i. 35. 
 
 7 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. ix. ; pt. 3, 83. 
 
154 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 merit of the Board of Trade. 1 "The ghost of Minden" 
 hung for ever on his shoulders. Consequently plans of 
 campaign were always impeded. In 1778 a wrangle 
 between the Whig Admiral Keppel and the Tory Yice- 
 Admiral Palliser developed into a heated counter- 
 agitation at home, and paralysed naval warfare for months. 
 The opposition leaders were resolved to reverse the govern- 
 ment policy completely as soon as fortune smiled upon 
 them, and thus E/odney was rewarded for his glorious 
 victory over Grasse in April 1782 by being displaced by 
 Pigot, a Whig Lord of Admiralty. The French writer, 
 
 2 Soulavie justly attributed the government's difficulty in 
 raising troops to such pernicious party feeling, and John 
 Wesley's remark that colonial resistance was helped by 
 Whig sympathy in England was accepted as true by 
 admirers of the politicians, whom he attacked. Just as 
 Napoleon and in a later age the Boers looked hopefully 
 to the British Opposition to defeat the policy of the 
 government in office, so some of the acutest intellects in 
 Europe and America expected co-operation with a large 
 party in this country, and saw in the Gordon Riots a 
 
 3 symptom of sympathetic revolution. ^Indeed the whole 
 character of British politics during the War of Independ- 
 ence illustrates the unfortunate influence of faction upon 
 a country's activity. The old colonial system proved no 
 rallying point for the nation. One of its worst faults was 
 a complete want of that idealism, which alone can unite a 
 whole people in the hour of need, and before which party 
 jealousies roll away like mists before sunshine. It failed 
 wholly to inspire a national conviction that justice was on 
 the side of the British arms, y 
 
 1 ibid, Itep. xv. ; pt. 6, 311. 
 
 2 Soulavie, Memoires, iii. 360-1. 
 
 3 Paston's Little Memoirs (1901), p. 93. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 155 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 
 
 IN view of of the militant character of the old colonial 
 system, the inadequate nature of the forces intended to 
 maintain it is remarkable. A policy, which aimed at 
 monopoly and expansion, could only be carried into effect 
 by the sword, and yet the defences of the empire were 
 puny and precarious in time of peace, and quite insufficient 
 in time of war. This defect in the practical side of 
 England's commercial militarism was largely due to the 
 old dread of a standing army, which had been perpetuated 
 by Tory policy under Anne, and Whig policy under 
 Walpole, and had even outlived the victories of the Seven 
 Years' War. 
 
 1 In 1733 it was asked whether an excise or an army was 
 the worse abuse, while in 1742 2 David Hume considered 
 a standing army as " a mortal distemper in the British 
 government," and " Opposition not Faction," a tract of 
 1743, described it as 3 " dreadful and dangerous." Walpole 
 preferred that creed to one which might sacrifice economy, 
 and his Tory opponent, Shippen denounced the army 
 yearly in what he called his 4 " anniversary oration." 
 5 A Whig bishop described a standing force in 1763 as a 
 
 1 Appeal to Landowners (1733), p. 15. 
 
 2 Hume's Essays (ed. 1903), p. 513. 
 
 3 Opposition not Faction (1743), p. 61. 
 
 4 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xi. 250. 
 
 5 Butler's Serious Consultations (1763), pp. 15, 16, 20. 
 
156 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 prop of royal despotism and a haven for Scottish 
 adventurers, and in 1770 when England possessed only 
 20,000 soldiers and 30,000 militia, ^ord Chesterfield re- 
 gretted the existence of the latter force as being "full as 
 dangerous to the constitution" as the former. In 1774 a 
 writer called Burgh told 2 how soldiers had destroyed 
 freedom in Holland, Sweden and Turkey, and quoted 
 3 Carteret and Chesterfield in support of the inference that 
 the country needed no other defenders than the militia. 
 In 1775 4 a Whig pamphleteer protested against increasing 
 the resources of the Crown by transforming labourers out 
 of work into soldiers and sailors. In 1784 Stevens' popular 
 lecture on " heads " styled the army the 5 " caterpillars of 
 the nation," and in 1786 Thomas Seddon, minister of 
 Stretford, warned his readers against its 6 " duellists and 
 macaronis." Such fears were perhaps not wholly ground- 
 less at a time when the rights of the executive had not yet 
 been fully reconciled with parliamentary sovereignly by 
 the growth of the cabinet system. 
 
 Consequently, the army was always neglected, even when 
 a passing wave of imperial sentiment did something for 
 7 the sister service. It was debated in 8 1748 whether 15,000 
 or 18,800, and in 9 1752 whether 16,000 or 20,000 would be 
 its most proper size. Even in 1759 its numbers were kept 
 down in order to encourage the more 10 " constitutional 
 
 1 Chesterfield's Letters to Faulkner etc. (1777), p. 17. 
 
 2 Burgh's Political Disquisitions (1774), ii. 370. 
 
 3 ibid, ii. 448, 451. 
 
 4 Short Tour in the Midland Counties (1775), p. 33. 
 
 5 Stevens' Lecture (1784), p. 26. 
 
 6 Seddon's Letters to an Officer in the Army (1786), pp. 225, 227. 
 
 7 The Politics on Both Sides (1734), p. 71. 
 
 8 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xiv. 1087. 
 
 9 A Treatise concerning the Militia (1752), p. 11. 
 10 Gibbon's Autobiography, i. 181-2. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 157 
 
 force," the militia. In spite of the systematic use of the 
 press, recruiting was extraordinarily difficult. The 
 limitation of recruiting to Protestants made l Ireland a 
 most barren field for the recruiting sergeant, while in the 
 summer of 1775, only four hundred men enlisted in 
 England. Though soldiers were 2 better paid than in 
 France, the vocations just opened by the industrial revolu- 
 tion were far more lucrative, and already the factory 
 system was drawing recruits from the country districts, 
 which might have sent thousands to the army. Arkwright's 
 mill had been built at Cromford near Derby in 1770, and 
 within twenty years, one hundred and fifty cotton spinning 
 factories were established in the neighbourhood of 
 Manchester. Mining industries were progressing with 
 equal rapidity, and in 1777 Bray described the road 
 between Wakefield and Leeds as running 3 " through a 
 country black with coal pits." The increase of trade within 
 the decade preceding 1776 was said by 4 Wesley to have 
 been unparalleled, and wages rose proportionately, to the 
 detriment of the service. The government was therefore 
 driven to extraordinary shifts, and in 1778 5 the gaols were 
 cleared of all felons who could possibly be made to handle 
 a weapon, physique and morale being considered negligible 
 qualities. Of 150 recruits from London and Dublin, 
 despatched from Chatham in 1779 to fill gaps in the ranks 
 of the Royal Highland regiment, 16 died on the voyage, 
 and 75 were sent to the hospital immediately on dis- 
 embarkation. The 2372 recruits, drafted to join Cornwallis 
 
 1 Bedford Correspondence, ii. 387. 
 
 2 Chantreau, Voyage dans les Trois Eoyaumes (1792), p. 296. 
 
 3 Wm. Bray!s Sketch of a Tour in Derbyshire and Yorkshire (ed. 1783), 
 
 p. 260. 
 
 4 Wesley's Journal (ed. 1902), p. 407. 
 
 5 Cochrane's Thoughts concerning the Brit. Navy and Army (1791), 
 
 pp. 13-4. 
 
158 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 in South Carolina in 1780, were reported to have been 
 1 "very sickly and spread contagion through the army." 
 By that time, volunteers for the navy had become as scarce, 
 and when it was proposed to subscribe for a warship in 
 1781 to present to the government, 2 Keppel asked what 
 was the good of ships without sailors to man them. 
 
 Moreover, there was no encouragement to join the army. 
 Its punishments were horribly cruel. In 1757 when a 
 grenadier was shot at Chatham for desertion, 3 another 
 deserter was made to attend his execution, but had "only" 
 to receive 500 lashes by way of caution. 4 That number 
 represented the standard penalty for drunkenness. 5 In 
 1788 a deserter of eighteen died under a sentence of 650 
 lashes, and in 1801 6 three seamen were flogged and ran 
 the gauntlet till they died. It was also 7 unfortunate that 
 the exclusive spirit of the corporations, and the arbitrary 
 Statute of Apprentices gave the ex-soldier little chance of 
 a career after seeing service, while the custom of enlisting 
 for life was often a cause of hardship. The army was 
 aristocratic, and except in a few cases like that of Colonel 
 Preston, who rose from being a kettledrummer to lead the 
 Scots Grey Dragoons at Minden, valour was rarely more 
 than its own reward. 8 0fficers had no means of learning 
 military science at home, and had to be content with 
 9 "dancing, fencing and a smattering of French," unless 
 
 1 Cornwallis Correspondence (ed. 1859) ; schedule. 
 
 2 A. Young's Autobiography, p. 108. 
 
 3 Gent. Mag. (1757), p. 478; cf. the horrible details in R. v. Wall, 
 
 28 S.T. at p. 56. 
 * J. Long's Voyages of an Indian Interpreter (1791), p. 164. 
 
 5 Dibdin's Musical Tour (1788), p. 233. 
 
 6 Romilly's Memoirs (1840), ii. 133. 
 
 7 A. Smith's Wealth of Nations, p. 116. 
 
 8 Brown's Estimate of the Manners of the Times (1757), p. 80. 
 
 9 The Polite Philosopher (1750), p. 26. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 159 
 
 they went abroad. It was not unusual for subalterns to be 
 attached to schools of instruction in French fortresses like 
 1 Metz; Eliott learnt the art of war at the French college 
 of la Fere, and 2 Cornwallis, when an ensign, was sent to 
 Turin in the charge of a Prussian captain, for England 
 herself gave no such facilities. The pay of captains and 
 subalterns forced them to 3 " genteel beggary," and their 
 murmurs against " starving in embroidery " remind one of 
 "the splendid misery" of later day German officers. 
 t Wolfe made Shelburne devote his pay to a fund for dis- 
 tressed officers, when he heard that the latter' s private 
 income was considerable, but the defects in the system 
 were ineradicable; they outlived the century itself, and 
 survived even their later masterly exposure in Cobbett's 
 Political Register. Cumberland, although beloved by the 
 Guards as 5 " the hero of Culloden," had not the brains to 
 throw new life into the bad system of his day. His mistake 
 was to treat the army 6 " more like Germans than English- 
 men," and his favourite officers were the slow Loudon, and 
 the inept Braddock. Everything conduced to starve in- 
 itiative. Braddock had despised the help of 7 " George 
 Croghan our Indian interpreter with one hundred Indian 
 scouts," and had preferred to advance in line firing at 
 random and in close order formation, against picked 
 marksmen fighting under cover. He explained to Franklin 
 that 8 " these savages may be a formidable enemy to your 
 own American militia, but upon the King's regular and 
 
 1 Hume's Private Correspondence (1820), p. 283. 
 
 2 Cornwallis Correspondence (ed. 1859), p. 4. 
 
 3 Observations upon the Pay of Subaltern Officers (1773), p. 39. 
 
 4 Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 93. 
 
 5 Letter to Wm. Pitt Esq. (1746), p. 28; Harris's Hardwicke, ii. 228. 
 
 6 Waldegrave's Memoirs, p. 22. 
 
 7 Bigelow's Franklin, i. 324. 
 
 8 ibid, i. 325. 
 
160 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make 
 any impression.' 7 In a few hours, he had lost 63 of his 
 86 officers, and 714 of his 1,200 men, the rest naturally 
 breaking away l " with more cowardice/' said Washington, 
 " than it is possible to conceive," instead of fighting under 
 cover like their ally, 2 "the uncorrupted American." 
 "Who would have thought it?" were the dying words of 
 Braddock's aide-de-camp, Colonel Orme. 3 It was said that 
 no man with brains would ever have sent such a general 
 against such a foe, but the pompous and prolix Burgoyne 
 was certainly as incompetent in the next war. In 1742 
 Pitt had expressed the wish that the army could appear 
 4 '"'more like soldiers and less like beaus," but he had not 
 enough time to transform the zest for brilliancy in equip- 
 ment into zest for efficiency in action, and no other 
 minister possessed his genius to single out the best men to 
 lead the forces of Great Britain. 
 
 We cannot therefore wonder why recruiting was 
 difficult, and why the government had recourse to foreign 
 mercenaries. 5 " Conquering America without foreign 
 troops is entirely impossible," wrote Storer, one of the 
 " King's friends " in 1775. During the Jacobite rising of 
 1745 6 General Wade had five Dutch regiments and three 
 battalions of Swiss under his command, and 7 6000 
 Hessians were shipped to Edinburgh from Antwerp. Pitt 
 bought such troops all over Europe in the Seven Years' 
 
 1 Sparks' Washington, ii. 87. 
 
 2 A Letter to the People of England (1755), p. 48. 
 ^ ibid, p. 27. 
 
 4 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xi. 1432. 
 
 5 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xv. ; pt. 6, 315. 
 
 o Cumberland's Memoirs (1767), pp. 298, 325; Harris's Hardwicke, ii. 
 
 199, 221; H. Walpole's Memoirs (ed. 1851), i. 462. 
 7 H. Walpole's Memoirs, i. 465. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 161 
 
 War, especially Germans and Swiss. In 1755, 1 166,000 
 foreign troops were in England's pay. 2 It was alleged 
 that every alien employed meant the gain of one man's 
 industry to the country, as our population was thus enabled 
 to stay at home instead of being " dragged from the plough 
 and the loom." The force of 2,000 men, which won 
 Manila under Draper's leadership in 1762, 3 included 
 Sepoys, Kaffirs, Lascars, Topasees, and French and German 
 deserters. There was therefore nothing at all novel in the 
 purchase of German hirelings in the War of Independence. 
 This incident has sometimes been allowed to throw a 
 sinister shadow upon England's conduct of the war, but 
 the conditions of the age entirely negative the idea that it 
 was immoral according to contemporary ethics. Those 
 who recognized that to hire German troops to fight against 
 Britons in America was a repulsive system stood ahead of 
 their age. 
 
 The practice was then universal in Europe, to whom it 
 has bequeathed the proverb, " point d'argent point de 
 suisse." 4 In 1756 the French army included 15,400 Swiss, 
 12,201 Germans, 2,976 Irish, 1,114 Italians, 992 Scots, and 
 1,056 foreign cavalry. In 1754 the French actually 
 enlisted recruits in 5 Scotland in spite of the imminence of 
 the war with Great Britain, and their prisoners confined at 
 Winchester in 1759 6 included men of every nation, from 
 Turkey to Ireland. One Wiltshire militiaman found his 
 own brother among them. 7 The Irish regiment in the 
 
 1 A Second Letter to the People of England (1755), p. 34. 
 
 2 Reasons in Support of the War in Germany (1762), pp. 1-2. 
 
 3 Annual Register (1764), p. 140. 
 
 4 Conway's Military Arguments (1758), pp. 14-5. 
 
 5 Prior's Life of Goldsmith (1837), i. 160. 
 
 6 Grenville Papers, i. 315. 
 
 7 Segur's Memoirs (1825), p. 238. 
 
162 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 service of Louis XV. was dressed in scarlet, and was mis- 
 taken for an English corps by our garrison in St. Eustacius, 
 when surprised by Bouille. The Dutch employed several 
 Scotch regiments, while in 1760 l Spain had no less than 
 3,600 Irish soldiers, 3,600 Italians and Walloons, and 
 9,600 Swiss. 2 The officers of the Irish corps had to be of 
 British blood. The King of Prussia bought a dragoon 
 regiment from the Elector of Saxony for 3 " forty blue and 
 white metal jars." 4 Many Swiss and German officers 
 served in Turkey. 
 
 In view therefore of the inadequacy of the British 
 theory of empire on the point of imperial defence, the use 
 of mercenary troops offered three great advantages without 
 in the least offending the current canons of European 
 taste. In the first place, it avoided the necessity of taking 
 the wives and children of the soldiery to the campaign. 
 The English armies were notoriously liable to be hampered 
 by such useless impediments; such at all events was 
 6 Marbot's opinion delivered only thirty years afterwards, 
 and it is corroborated by the letters of General von 
 Riedesel and his wife, who showed her good sense by 
 taking 6 " only a small summer wardrobe " with her on 
 the Saratoga campaign. 7 Of the 16,445 men, who 
 returned from service in Germany in 1763, 1666 had taken 
 their wives with them to the war. Secondly, the system 
 8 obviated the necessity of granting pensions and half -pay, 
 which legacies of war are always unwelcome to a thrifty 
 
 1 Annual Register (1760), p. 76. 
 
 2 Baretti's Journey from London to Genoa (1770), iv. 45. 
 
 3 H. Walpole's Last Journal, i. 404 (note). 
 
 *' Memoirs of the Bashaw Count Bonneval (1750), p. 190. 
 
 5 Marbot's Memoirs (ed. 1894), p. 281. 
 
 6 Riedesel Brief e und Berichte (ed. 1851), pp. 146-7. 
 
 7 Annual Register (1763), p. 52. 
 
 8 Correspondence of Geo. III. with North, ii. 45. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 163 
 
 people. Thirdly, the Hessians were bought "ready 
 made," l to be delivered at Hamburg or Rotterdam, and 
 therefore required none of the lengthy and expensive 
 impressing and drilling, needed by British recruits, who 
 were usually ignorant as to the use of arms before enlist- 
 ment a grave defect in view of the urgent want of 
 soldiers in America. 2 New levies were sent out almost 
 as quickly as they were enrolled, after a hurried and some- 
 times merely perfunctory medical examination. Thus 
 shortness of time necessitated teaching Scottish recruits 
 the handling of firelocks by candle-light at Glasgow before 
 embarking in April 1776. 
 
 A further reason to have recourse to Germany was that 
 3 the Swiss cantons would not allow their subjects to serve 
 across the Atlantic, and 4 Hussia refused to hire out the 
 20,000 troops applied for in 1775, whereas the German 
 princes had no such scruples. Moreover their country had 
 the reputation of being the best centre of military skill. 
 Assuming that the old colonial system was so wholly un- 
 sentimental as to treat a colonist as a compulsory customer 
 rather than as a brother and an equal, it followed that no 
 scruples would deter a government from using as many 
 soldiers as it could buy in Hesse Cassel or Brunswick. 
 5 All Germans were then deemed born soldiers. 6 Their 
 discipline was the model of Europe, and Pyrch, a Prussian 
 major, taught the French army its drill. Frederick the 
 Great was the ideal general of the day, and 7 travellers 
 
 1 ibid, i. 266. 
 
 2 Hist. MSS. Comm. Eep. on Amer. MSS., vol. i. 253. 
 
 3 Chatham's Speeches (ed. 1853), p. 168. 
 
 * Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xi. j pt. 5, 395; ibid on Amer. MSS. 
 vol. i. 7. 
 
 5 Annual Register (1759), p. 6. 
 
 6 Segur's Memoirs, p. 121. 
 
 7 Sherlock's Letters from an English Traveller (1780), p. 9. 
 
164 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 delighted to watch him manoeuvre his glittering army in 
 the parade ground of Potsdam. Every nation copied the 
 Prussians, and the famous order given to the defenders of 
 Bunker Hill to withhold their fire until they could see 
 their enemies' eyes, was 1 "borrowed deliberately from the 
 Prussian orders at the battle of Jagerndorf in 1745. 2 The 
 French accepted the Germans' habit of inflicting corporal 
 punishment ; the English imitated their custom of firing 
 by divisions and platoons, and their formations of columns 
 and squares. The use of light cavalry and of the bayonet 
 were both perfected by Frederick. 3 The Prussians alone 
 could fire as quickly as four times per minute, and all 
 armies tried to imitate such despatch. 4 "As ready as a 
 Prussian soldier," was a current phrase of 1756, and the 
 British army tried to vie with his mechanical precision. 
 They were so far successful in that their neat woollen 
 cloth breeches, their spatter dashes, and their uniformity 
 even to their shoe buckles left nothing to be desired, 
 though 5 the Spanish snuff, which was allowed to spoil 
 Frederick's own simple blue coat and red and yellow waist- 
 coat, might have taught the larger lesson that a soldier's 
 equipment is less essential than his efficiency. Indeed, all 
 England looked for guidance to Prussia. Military teachers 
 like 6 Lochee of the Little Chelsea academy and 7 J. 0. 
 Vandeleur of the school of field artillery, used her methods, 
 and the standard model for entrenched camps was that 
 constructed by Frederick in 1761 at Buntzelwitz near 
 Breslau. 
 
 1 Memorial History of Boston (1881), iii. 85. 
 
 2 Segur's Memoirs, p. 120. 
 
 3 Gibbon's Autobiography, i. 229. 
 
 4 Grenville Papers, i. 189. 
 
 5 Sherlock's Letters, p. 17. 
 
 6 Lochee's Essay on Military Education (1776), p. 72. 
 
 7 Vandeleur's Duty of Officers (1801), p. 65. 
 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 165 
 
 For the present purpose however, it is only necessary to 
 realise that England's recourse to Germany for troops to 
 serve against her colonies was then in the natural order 
 of things. The policy in fact illustrates the peculiarly 
 unsentimental nature of the imperial theory, upon which 
 Greater Britain had been erected. It does not do more 
 than this; in itself it was neither strange nor immoral. 
 The Briton felt no nearer in spirit to the Yankee than to the 
 Hessian, and when the garrison of Yorktown marched out 
 with the honours of war, it was stipulated that the drums 
 might beat x "a British or a German march." The cupidity 
 of the princes who sold their subjects may well seem 
 disgraceful, but unless we are ready to judge all past 
 policies by present codes of ethics, we cannot pass a similar 
 judgment on the ministers who bought them. As states- 
 manship, their action was possibly bad, but it was a most 
 natural result of the political conditions of the age. The 
 Americans welcomed every foreign adherent Lafayette, 
 Rochambeau, Steuben, Kosciuszko, Kowatch, Pulaski, 
 Bosen and England found her alien troops of similar 
 service. In June 1777 she had no less than 2 14,749 
 Germans in the field. Their green coats made them bad 
 targets for the enemy's fire, and there were many 3 game- 
 keepers and other good shots among the Jager corps. 
 Biedesel, on arriving in Canada in 1776, insisted on the 
 uses of taking cover, and taught his men to move in snow 
 shoes. Galloway, while severely criticising the operations 
 of 1780, praised Kniphausen almost alone as 4 "a truly 
 gallant and great officer." 5 Burgoyne was unappreciative, 
 
 1 Cornwallis's Answer to Clinton (1783), p. 221. 
 
 2 Sparks' Washington, v. 542. 
 
 3 E. J. Lowell's Hessians in the Kevolutionary War (1884), p. 108. 
 
 4 Letter to a Nobleman on the Conduct of the War (1780), p. 73. 
 
 5 Riedesel Briefe und Berichte (ed. 1851), p. 301. 
 
166 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 and 1 complaints were made in 1777 that Waldeck was 
 selling raw and undeveloped boys instead of men, but 
 Cornwallis referred to 2 "the discipline, alacrity and 
 courage" of the Hessians and Anspachers in 1781, when 
 Bose and Buy helped to put the American militia to flight 
 in the woods near Guildford Court House. Gibbon 
 welcomed the idea of purchasing troops even from bar- 
 barian Russia. 
 
 The same oblivion to the claims of brotherhood led the 
 government to employ Indian auxiliaries. No one will 
 justify this unnatural alliance, but on the other hand, the 
 time has passed when such policy could be treated as a sign 
 of the depravity of British statesmanship under George III. 
 and of a general hideousness in the national standard of 
 morals. Assuming that the recognition of close kindred 
 ties between the belligerents was utterly dim, the men of 
 the time could scarcely have set up a different code for the 
 American War than for the late campaigns against the 
 French. The chief opponents of Indian alliances in 1776 
 had been their chief promoters twenty years earlier. Just 
 as Chatham's denunciation of the hiring of 20,000 3 " boors 
 and cut-throats" from Germany was inconsistent with 
 4 his own policy of 1757, so his indignation upon the news 
 of the league with the barbarians against the rebels was 
 inconsistent with his earlier tenets. In 1755 he had 
 exhorted the House of Commons to join with 5 " our Indian 
 allies" against the French. 6 His excuse that their enlist- 
 ment had never received his official sanction is far from 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. on Amer. MSS., vol. i. 121. 
 
 2 Cornwallis' Answer to Clinton, p. 141. 
 
 3 Gent. Mag. (1777), p. 251. 
 
 4 Harsh Truths (1757), p. 11. 
 
 5 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xv. 604. 
 
 6 Chatham's Speeches, p. 165. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 167 
 
 convincing. The Iroquois were old friends of the British 
 government. In 1759 ^elawares tried to induce 
 Twightwee Indians to help England against France. 
 Certainly French allegations as to the horrible nature of 
 England's Indian policy under Lord North are very hollow, 
 for the influence of France had always been directed 
 towards the furtherance of savage raids upon the frontiers 
 of British colonies. In 2 1749 a mixed horde of 2,500 
 French and Indians ravaged our settlements on the Bay of 
 Fundy, a measure repeated in 3 1754. In 1755 the 
 Canadian government stirred up the Shawnees and 
 Delawares against English settlers. It was 4 an old com- 
 plaint that French Jesuits were at the bottom of every 
 Indian depredation, a tendency 5 supposed to be heightened 
 by the similiarity of their superstitions. Ogden referred 
 in 1762 to the union of 6 " the fierce Indian and perfidious 
 Gaul," and said of France, 
 
 "Yet baffled in her schemes she seeks again 
 To spirit up the Cherokees in vain," 
 
 while Patrick described the enemy in 1759 as 
 
 7 "Leagued with savages, more savage made, 
 
 By Gallic perfidy and gilded lies." 
 
 In 1754 Waldegrave ascribed French success to their 
 influence over the natives. The defeats of that year were 
 said to be due to the adherence of the Norridgwalk Indians 
 and some of the Five Nations to the French, while 
 
 1 Gent. Mag. (1759), p. 109. 
 
 2 Mundy's Rodney, i. 47. 
 
 3 Patrick's Quebec, p. 26. 
 
 4 Interest of Gt. Britain Considered (1759), p. 5. 
 
 5 ibid, p. 5. 
 
 6 Ogden's British Lion Roused, p. 204. 
 
 7 Patrick's Quebec, p. 3. 
 
168 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 pointed very truly to the assimilation of 
 Canadians to the Indian type. Nor was this tendency to 
 ! " spirit the Indians up to massacre and scalp the English" 
 denied by candid Frenchmen. Bossu, a captain of French 
 marines, has left us a narrative of travels in Louisiana 
 between 1750 and 1757, in which 3 he urged that the 
 Choctaws should be persuaded to make a foray into Georgia 
 and Carolina, and to burn as many crops as possible during 
 the absence of the local militia in the Louisburg expedi- 
 tion. 4 He wanted to attract the Chicsaws, dwelling 
 between the Mississippi and the Apalachian mountains, to 
 a French alliance. With such ideas in the air in 1775, we 
 can hardly wonder that the British ministry was very 
 willing to avail itself of such powerful allies in arduous 
 forest warfare, for which regular troops were little fitted. 
 The inhuman aspect of the alliance could not readily 
 strike men educated in the unsentimental colonial system 
 of the day, and the savages who followed Burgoyne 
 5 shouting "war, war" were treated as useful friends. 
 It must also be remembered that the American forces 
 included many men of colour, red and black. Even 6 their 
 earliest levies included negroes, and in time few volunteers 
 were rejected. 7 Impartial Americans now admit that the 
 Massachusetts Congress of 1775 gathered Red Indian 
 adherents before a shot had been fired, notably Mohawks 
 and the Christian converts at Stockbridge, and that their 
 army was never averse to using such savage auxiliaries. 
 
 1 Pownall's Adminstration of Brit. Colonies (1774), ii, 187; Kalm's 
 
 Travels, ii. 379. 
 
 2 Letter addressed to Two Great Men (1760), p. 14. 
 
 3 Bossu's Travels through Louisiana (1771), i. 293. 
 
 4 ibid, i. 310. 
 
 5 Riedesel Briefe und Berichte (ed. 1851), p. 151. 
 
 6 Washington's Official Correspondence, i. 7. 
 
 7 Sparks' Washington, iii. 495. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 169 
 
 Washington, for instance, described them in 1778 as being 
 lu of excellent use as scouts and light troops mixed with 
 our own parties," and even 2 missionaries were employed to 
 bring in Cherokee and Oneida recruits. In 1780 3 the 
 Richmond smiths were busy making axes and tomahawks 
 for Gates. Lauzun tells us of 4 his Indian allies' horrid 
 habit of eating British prisoners, and writes of Washington's 
 army, 5 " There are whole squads of negroes, and the out- 
 posts of black men with white shirts such as they wear in 
 this country, look exactly like the negro harlequins on the 
 stage." 
 
 In view of this not unnatural, but still odious reliance 
 upon foreign and barbarian troops, we cannot hold a high 
 opinion of the old colonial system's provision for imperial 
 defence. Men appear to have expected to maintain a great 
 empire without any adequate safeguards. A tradition 
 which dated from the time when Cromwell's Ironsides were 
 the terror of Britain, but which was strengthened by the 
 new fear of royal despotism, prevented the army acquiring 
 either size or efficiency. In spite of the long struggle to 
 win America, England hoped to keep it by a peace 
 establishment, of which economy was the only virtue. A 
 sound belief in the excellence of the navy and in the 
 fighting capacity of a very small army, made the nation 
 self-confident on every imperial question. War was 
 hardly considered as a science, and high commands were 
 entrusted to parliamentary soldiers like Howe and 
 Burgoyne. The difficulties in the way of success in the 
 War of Independence were immense, but no struggle was 
 
 1 ibid, v. 273. 
 
 2 ibid, v. 274. 
 
 3 Jefferson's Memoirs (1829), i. 176. 
 
 * Lauzun's Memoirs (ed. 1896), ii. 208. 
 5 ibid, ii. 204. 
 
170 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 entered into with greater lightness of heart. The effects 
 of the colonial theory of the time had been to obscure the 
 true character of British colonies, and also the arduous 
 character of a great war, when undertaken by an empire 
 divided within itself. 
 
 The disadvantages under which Great Britain laboured 
 cannot be over-estimated. In the first place, the nature 
 of the ground upon which military operations were con- 
 ducted was quite unsuited to the prevailing practice of 
 British manoeuvres. Wolfe and Amherst had only over- 
 come this obstacle by dint of patience and expert advice, 
 but few of their successors in the next war had their 
 talent or forbearance. Hence the heroic frontal attack on 
 Bunker Hill, where close lines of troops, burdened by a 
 load of three days' provisions and a heavy knapsack apiece, 
 were sent across open country against entrenched marks- 
 men on a hill top. It is true that they x "trod the rugged 
 path where glory led " with brilliant courage and ultimate 
 success, but their losses were enormous 1,054 casualties 
 in a force of 2,200. 2 In one company every man was 
 either killed or wounded. Such methods of attack were 
 not repeated, but the improvement in British tactics was 
 not accompanied by improvement in strategy. Our 
 generals failed signally to develope a definite and con- 
 tinuous scheme of warfare. They alternated between a 
 policy of mere raids and descents, and one of penetrating 
 invasion. The first course made thorough conquest an 
 impossibility; the second was largely nullified by the 
 absence of an enemy's capital, the fall of which might end 
 the war. It entailed also long lines of communication, 
 which were liable to interception and involved considerable 
 dispersion of strength. More than eighty years later, in 
 
 1 Gent. Mag. (1775), p. 396. 
 
 2 Memorial History of Boston (1881), iii. 89. 
 

 BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 171 
 
 an era of railways and turnpike roads, armies found the 
 wildernesses of Virginia and the south extraordinary 
 obstacles to penetrate. The soldiers of George III. had to 
 co-operate in the heart of this hostile country under even 
 greater difficulties. As early as the retreat from Lexington 
 they realised the uses of l " flying parties from behind stone 
 walls along the road," and even in the New York district 
 they found the country 2 " incredibly strong." Some 
 officers indeed rose to the occasion. Major Ferguson, who 
 was killed at the decisive battle of King's Mountain in 
 1780, was the most capable British tactician in wild 
 terrain. The best shot in the army, he taught his corps 
 of marksmen the wisdom of firing, 3 " lying upon the back 
 or belly," and 4 Lord Eawdon, who had been among the 
 first to scale the redoubt at Bunker Hill, utilised his 
 musicians and drummers as riflemen; but many 
 regulars never relished such departures from the orthodox 
 Prussian school. Certainly nothing could be more galling 
 than the colonial practice of harassing outposts at night, 
 and we cannot wonder at the soldiers' complaint that they 
 were 5 " fired upon by a skulking peasantry, whom no laws 
 or usage of European war could justify." 6 Their own 
 plans of campaign were singularly wanting in the silence 
 and secrecy, which are essential to success. Thus men, 
 who were irresistible in the open, came to be entangled in 
 rugged country, and baffled by far less dashing militiamen, 
 a fact clearly understood by topical verses of the day like 
 the ballad of 7 "the Sick Queen." It is really surprising 
 
 1 Gibbon's Autobiography, i. 258. 
 
 2 ibid, I 299. 
 
 3 Annual Register (1781), p. 52. 
 
 4 Tarleton's History of the Campaigns (1787), p. 462. 
 
 5 Remarks on the Travels of Chastellux (1787), p. 11. 
 
 6 Riedesel Briefe und Berichte, p. 147. 
 
 7 The Sick Queen (1784), p. 10. 
 
172 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 that the light cavalry, which acted as a screen for 
 Cornwallis' movements during the campaigns of 1780 and 
 1781 should have for several months so triumphed over 
 l ihe difficulties of fighting in the hot regions of Georgia 
 and South Carolina, where the theatre of war was made 
 almost impassable by swamps and forests, and where such 
 staple wants as bread and salt were alike unobtainable. 
 2 Nathaniel Greene himself said that the greater part of 
 that country was a wilderness, and partisans like Thomas 
 Sumter and Francis Marion availed themselves of its 
 features in order to baffle the strategy of Cornwallis and 
 the tactics of Eawdon and Tarleton. The royal armies 
 having to fight at great distances from their base, had to 
 rely on precarious lines of communication, and these were 
 constantly troubled by raids from the western backwoods, 
 which were peopled principally by Scottish and Ulster 
 Presbyterians, uncompromising rebels and direct ancestors 
 of the unconquerable " valley army " of Stonewall Jackson. 
 Pownall had justly described the Americans as 3 " the best 
 of any forces in the world" for such irregular warfare, and 
 in view of their alliance with great maritime powers like 
 France and Holland, they were really far more powerful 
 antagonists to the small British forces of the time than the 
 Boers were to the infinitely stronger England of 1899. 
 
 Another ill effect of the nature of the country was the 
 impossibility of feeding an army, without carrying with it 
 a very large transport. The resources of many districts 
 were entirely insufficient to sustain an invading force. In 
 1778 Clinton's baggage train was twelve miles long. The 
 distress of the soldiery when at a distance from their base, 
 
 1 Tarleton's History of the Campaigns, pp. 16, 113, 155, 225, 507; Hist. 
 
 MSS. Comm. Rep. on Amer. MSS., vol. i. 473-4. 
 
 2 ibid, pp. 314-5. 
 
 3 Pownall's Administration etc. (1774), ii. 232. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 173 
 
 was consequently frequent and acute. The troops under 
 Cornwallis, who won the battle at Guildford Court House 
 in March 1781, had no bread for two days afterwards. 
 1 Tarleton fed his legion on wild cattle and on potatoes, 
 gathered under fire. The heat in Florida prostrated the 
 garrison of Pensacola ; in Virginia it was little less desolat- 
 ing, and half the army which surrendered at Yorktown 
 was too ill to bear arms. All the gallantry in the world 
 cannot save a force from physical exhaustion. 
 
 Another reason for England's failure to maintain her 
 old colonial system by force of arms lay of course in the 
 incapacity of her generals, who wholly failed to appreciate 
 the advantages of their unusual freedom from civilian 
 control. It is easy to imagine how differently a Wellington 
 would have acted in their place, for the American Tories 
 were numerous, and nine-tenths of the colonial population 
 distrusted Congress. Washington's army was often dis- 
 united and depressed in spirit; a Salamanca or Yittoria 
 would have dissolved it. Again and again, vigour might 
 have saved the existing government, at all events for a 
 period, but initiative was left to the enemy by Gage and 
 Howe, and Burgoyne was quite as incompetent. On the 
 eve of his capitulation at Saratoga, the last-named com- 
 mander, in the words of an eye-witness, 2 " spent half the 
 night singing and drinking, and amused himself with the 
 wife of a commissary who was his mistress, and who (like 
 him) loved champagne." In 1777 when the American 
 forces numbered barely 18,000 men and Howe had 40,000, 
 the latter neglected the campaign, and allowed his forces 
 to ill-treat their own supporters. His feebleness and 
 lethargy contrasted badly with the dash of Arnold and 
 
 1 Tarleton's History of the Campaigns, pp. 507, 511. 
 
 2 Riedesel Briefe und Berichte, p. 158. 
 
174 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 Greene. In 1778 lie wasted opportunities by frittering 
 time and money upon regattas and festivals at Phila- 
 delphia, his officers taking part in a long tourney before 
 "seven of the principal young ladies of the city, dressed 
 in Turkish habits and wearing favours." 2 It was a great 
 pity, said Galloway, that such a general was paid by the 
 day and not by the job. Burgoyne's pompous description 
 of himself as 3 "dictating" terms at Saratoga was character- 
 istic of the man, and it is amazing to find 4 that his 
 " surrender value " was that of 1,040 privates. Only 
 Cornwallis and Carleton displayed any aptitude for 
 strategy; 5 the former was also a tactician and raised 
 sensible objections to the practice of volley-firing. 
 
 It would seem however more in keeping with the 
 philosophic spirit in history to attribute the loss of America 
 not so much to the blunders of a few individuals, as to the 
 breakdown of a great theory. It is quite questionable 
 whether Clive and Wolfe together could have preserved 
 the empire. Great Britain's failure was by no means 
 primarily due to want of military efficiency, for the men 
 and indeed 6 a large proportion of the subordinate officers 
 were good enough. In the open, they were generally 
 victorious, and even at Yorktown their gallant sortie, four 
 days before the surrender, fully upheld the old traditions 
 of the country. Twenty years later, 7 an adversary described 
 the British army as the best scouts and the best marksmen 
 in Europe, and within so short an interval there had been 
 
 1 Annual Kegister (1778), p. 266 cf. Letter to Et. Hon. Lord Howe 
 
 (1781), p. 13. 
 
 2 Galloway's Considerations upon the Am. Enquiry (1779), p. 18. 
 
 3 Fox's Memoirs, i. 164. 
 
 4 Sparks' Washington, viii. 15. 
 
 5 Windham's Diary (ed. 1866), p. 362. 
 
 6 Stair's Facts and their Consequences (1782), pp. 2931. 
 
 7 Marbot's Memoirs (ed. 1894), p. 423. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 175 
 
 no revolution in the military system. In the American 
 War our soldiers fought through many years of most 
 trying warfare with consistent spirit. On the famous day 
 at Lexington, when the whole countryside was panting for 
 rebellion, and the minute guns were steadily beating up 
 the most skilful shots in the world for attack, the light- 
 hearted English troops, in the words of Captain Gould, 
 an eye-witness, l " rushed on shouting and huzzaing "to 
 meet the embattled farmers first at Lexington green, and 
 afterwards on the bridge at Concord. 2 During 1776 they 
 took nearly 5,000 American prisoners. Indeed success is 
 not the touchstone of valour, and the men who stormed 
 Bunker Hill in 1775 and defended the Ebenezer redoubt 
 at Savannah in 1779 were worthy of the purest cause. 
 When the dragoons broke at the battle of Cowpens in 1780, 
 8 the artillerymen refused to leave their guns, and all died 
 at their posts. Victories like those of Guildford and 
 Camden were often as brilliant as they were barren. 
 
 We should therefore find the chief cause of the break- 
 down of the empire not in the passing inefficiency of 
 commanders, but in the permanent defects of the old 
 colonial theory itself. Its intense commercial selfishness 
 alienated the colonies, and hence the Revolution. Its 
 pugnacity embittered all Europe, and hence the 
 alliance between France, Spain and Holland with 
 America, and hence also the armed neutrality of the 
 northern powers. Later experience has taught that a 
 comparatively "open door" is the only way to reconcile 
 one state to another's expansion. The empire of 
 George III. had no such key to the art of reconciliation. 
 
 1 Gent. Mag. (1775), p. 294; Cowper's Keports, ii. 677-8. 
 
 2 Sparks' Washington, iv. 549. 
 
 3 Tarleton's History of the Campaigns, p. 218. 
 
176 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 France burned to avenge the losses of the Seven Years' 
 War. Other nations longed to efface from International 
 Law the stringent rules, devised by England to strengthen 
 her supremacy in maritime warfare. Treating the law 
 of nations as but a question of expediency and opinion, 
 exponents of the British colonial system refused to admit 
 the rebels' claim to recognition as belligerents, and availed 
 themselves of such maxims as " enemy ship, enemy goods," 
 and " free ships do not make free goods," in order to keep 
 all foreigners aloof from her intestine conflicts. The 
 whole tenor of English political science was one of 
 exclusiveness towards other states, and of monopoly at 
 home. Hence Franklin's appeal to France to admit the 
 natural rights of Americans and neutrals under a more 
 liberal version of International Law, won first sympathy, 
 and then actual intervention. John Adams was similarly 
 successful in persuading the Dutch that the interest of 
 America was also the interest of Europe. 
 
 No one can doubt the immense value of European help 
 to the struggling republic. In 1775 1 Franklin asked 
 Dumas to send him two good engineers from Holland, and 
 in 1776 2 he procured 200 brass field pieces and 15,000 
 firelocks from France. 3 Lafayette was valued by 
 Washington above all his foreign subordinates, but most 
 of them were useful. Eochambeau, for instance, did great 
 work with French contingents, and Lauzun has left us a 
 pretty sketch of the advent of the brilliant French 
 soldiers among the quiet Quakers of Ehode Island. The 
 rose-colour facings and white feathers of the Soissons 
 brigade were alluring to the ladies of Philadelphia, while 
 its own patrician officers fell victims to the charms of 
 
 1 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 352. 
 
 2 ibid, ii. 371. 
 
 3 Sparks' Washington, vi. 14. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 177 
 
 Polly Layton, the Quaker belle of Newport, whom Segur 
 calls ia that angel" and the Prince de Broglie, 2 " Minerva 
 in person, a masterpiece of nature." Such cavaliers were 
 efficient in the field, while on sea the French alliance was 
 extremely valuable, and prevented Cornwallis' escape 
 from Yorktown in 1781. Nor have the United States for- 
 gotten the services of other European haters of the British 
 policy of monopoly and repression, such as Kosciuszko, 
 who came to help them in 1776, and the Prussian Steuben 
 who came in 1777, or such guerilla leaders as the Pole 
 Pulaski who was killed by a swivel-shot before Savannah 
 in 1779, and the Bavarian de Kalbe who was mortally 
 wounded in the rout at Camden in 1780. The rebel cause 
 attracted 3 plenty of British deserters whose zeal was 
 heightened by their knowledge that they were fighting 
 with halters about their necks, and probably no less than 
 4 5,000 of the German hirelings. Indeed the popularity of 
 the American cause in Europe and the successive loans 
 raised in France, Holland and Spain in its support attest 
 to the universal detestation of the British imperial theory. 
 There was nothing accidental in the tendency to connive 
 at obvious breaches of neutrality by subjects of neutral 
 states. The French playwright, Beaumarchais made a 
 fortune by unlawful shipments of military stores to 
 America from Bordeaux, as did the firm of Penet and 
 Pliarne by similar shipments from Nantes. 
 
 Thus American success has often been ascribed in a 
 large measure to 5 foreign help, and under the exasperating 
 
 1 Segur's Memoirs (1825), pp. 358-9. 
 
 2 Lauzun's Memoirs, ii. 214. 
 
 3 Sparks' Washington, viii. 384. 
 
 4 Lowell's Hessians in the Revolutionary War (1884) p. 300; Washing- 
 
 ton's Official Correspondence, i. 146; ii. 293; Hist. MSS. Comm. 
 Rep. on Amer. MSS., vol. i. 199, 250. 
 
 5 Remarks on the Travels of Chastellux (1787), p. 2. 
 
178 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 old colonial system, such help was inevitable. It was by 
 nature simply part and parcel of the Revolution itself. 
 Apart from merely accidental causes of war like Lord 
 North's specific fiscal policy, George III.'s ambition to be 
 despot, the coercive measures against Massachusetts and 
 the special grievances of Boston, the real creative force of 
 the Revolution was the feeling against the whole imperial 
 system of Great Britain. Franklin realised that France 
 and Spain felt the same irritating influence of the British 
 world empire as the Americans, though in a different way, 
 and from the first, he laboured to draw these countries 
 towards an alliance by proving the identity of their 
 interests with those of the colonists. In 1775 he sent to 
 Holland for a copy of Yattel, and he says himself, l " it 
 came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a 
 rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the 
 law of nations." The new learning enabled the Americans 
 to assert that the acceptance of cartels for the exchange of 
 prisoners implied a British recognition of themselves as 
 belligerents, and to justify the enlistment of allies abroad. 
 Stationing himself at Passy, an object of ecstatic homage 
 to the French in spite of his ignorance of their fashions, 
 his long grey locks and uncouth fur hat, Franklin con- 
 ducted American maritime policy in a manner calculated 
 to identify the spirit of their resistance with that of the 
 Continental opposition to English doctrines in prize law. 
 Thus in 1780 2 he wrote from Passy that the American 
 government should not condemn any British goods other 
 than contraband when shipped in Dutch vessels, as all the 
 neutral states in Europe considered the old International 
 Law modified in that respect. In December 1781 
 
 1 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 349. 
 
 2 Hid, ii. 506-7. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 179 
 
 International Law l " according to the general usages of 
 Europe" was declared to be part of American law. 
 
 Thus the exclusive claim put forward by British 
 political theorists with regard to the wide dominions added 
 to the empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 
 made renewed war with France as inevitable as colonial 
 opposition. A time was bound to come when the Briton 
 over sea would object to having his land exploited for the 
 benefit of monopolists at home, and then the adherence to 
 his cause of the excluded and supplanted foreigner was 
 equally certain. The Emperor Joseph II. said, 2 "My 
 business is to be a royalist," and gave no countenance to 
 the Americans, but all other European princes were zealous 
 for their cause, and allowed their subjects to commit 
 obvious breaches of neutrality for their sake. Yet apart 
 from their hatred of the English colonial theory and their 
 desire for revenge, there could be no real sympathy 
 between these despots and the young democracy. What 
 had Marie Antoinette in common with the men, whom 
 she described as 3 " the good Americans, our dear 
 republicans " ? What had the ladies of the French Court, 
 who wore head-dresses 4 "aux Insurgens," or the French 
 priests, who stamped their sacramental bread with the 
 word " Liberte," in common with the sceptical and sober 
 Franklin? The French soldier Segur was asked by Polly 
 Layton why France fought for America. 5 "The English 
 have done thee no harm, and as for our liberty, what con- 
 cern is it of thine? It is always wrong to interfere in 
 other people's concerns except to make peace, and prevent 
 
 1 Kent's Commentaries, p. 1. 
 
 2 Lauzun's Memoirs (ed. 1896), ii. 144. 
 
 3 ibid, ii. 191. 
 
 4 ibid, ii. 142. 
 
 5 ibid, ii. 215. 
 
180 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 bloodshed." The genuine explanation lay in the general 
 desire to retaliate for the former triumphs of the British 
 colonial system. The very patriotism of that system had 
 injured its efficiency by leading to the sacrifice of colonial 
 interests for an ideal of s'elf-sufficiency, which no American 
 appreciated, and by leading at the same time to the 
 alienation of every European state. Hence the energy and 
 spirit with which first France (after the surrender at 
 Saratoga in 1777) and afterwards other Continental powers 
 embarked upon war with Great Britain during the latter's 
 struggle with her revolted colonies. France spent over 
 fifty millions sterling on the war. England's usual 
 superiority over her foes at sea, and the dissensions among 
 the rebels themselves, enabled her to hold out for several 
 years against all comers. Charleston, with a garrison of 
 over 5,600 soldiers and nearly 1,000 seamen, was captured 
 in 1780. However, the French won the upper hand for 
 the moment on the ocean, and so assisted materially in 
 bringing about the surrender of Cornwallis with 8,000 men 
 at Yorktown in 1781. Rodney won back maritime 
 ascendency after 1 " a long day of obstinate fight over the 
 seas of Martinico" in April 1782, when Grasse was 
 captured with eight warships. 2 Lauzun called this battle 
 "a fearful blow to our navy" ; 3 Rodney himself, writing to 
 Lord George Germain, described it as "the most important 
 victory I believe ever gained against our perfidious 
 enemies the French." Yet on land ultimate success was 
 clearly impossible, notwithstanding England's financial 
 superiority, and the peace of 1783 was an admission that 
 the moral influence of our old colonial system was fatal to 
 the successful conduct of any war, in which men of British 
 
 1 Bigelow's Franklin, iii. 60. 
 
 2 Lauzun's Memoirs, ii. 253. 
 
 3 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. ix. ; pt. 3, 116. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 181 
 
 blood were driven to co-operate with the ancient enemies 
 of the empire. 
 
 The political ideals, for which Great Britain fought in 
 the American War, were not by any means sinister, not- 
 withstanding the use of mercenaries, but they were 
 lamentably lacking in the sense of brotherhood, which we 
 now connect with our conception of colonial relations. 
 To the English troops, the struggle never seemed a civil 
 war, and the Americans' indignant anxiety to show that 
 their courage was no less than that of British-born 
 soldiery proves the power of that English delusion. Thus 
 Washington exulted in the news of Lexington as showing 
 Sandwich lu how Americans will fight for their liberties 
 and property," and Henry Dearborn, a captain who served 
 in the ill-fated army, which struggled under Montgomery 
 and Arnold through the wilderness then barring the way 
 to Quebec, wrote in his Journal a passage that illustrates 
 the same feeling. He is describing the attack on Quebec 
 in the grey dawn of New Year's Eve 1775 when the snow 
 was falling heavily, and the storming parties were being 
 everywhere repelled. He was suddenly challenged by a 
 picquet. "I answered a friend. He asked me who I was 
 a friend to. I answered ' to liberty.' He then replied 
 ' God damn you,' " and Dearborn, whose gun would not go 
 off, had to surrender to the English 3 "and their brothers 
 the savages." He adds characteristically, 4 "But we had 
 something more at stake than fighting for sixpence a day. 
 We have convinced the British butchers that the cowardly 
 Yankees can, and when there is a call for it, will fight." 
 In wars between men of the same blood one would expect 
 
 1 Sparks' Washington, iii. 406. 
 
 2 Dearborn's Journal (ed. 1886), i. 20. 
 
 3 ibid, ii. 4. 
 
 4 ibid, ii. 7. 
 
182 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 combatants to treat each other with more mutual respect. 
 Joseph Warren, who was killed at the very moment when 
 his men broke at Bunker Hill, said of the British, "These 
 fellows say we won't fight; by heaven I hope I shall die 
 up to my knees in blood." 
 
 The actual conduct of the war was not indeed marked by 
 unusual inhumanity on England's part. As America was 
 the scene of hostilities, she naturally suffered most, and 
 sometimes the recollection of the horrors of conflict has 
 led to many charges against British methods of warfare. 
 It must indeed be admitted that the entire absence of 
 racial sentiment from the old colonial theory led to the 
 encouragement of ravages, which all must condemn. To 
 loyalists like Bishop Inglis, the forays which took place 
 during the last years of the struggle were 1 useful descents, 
 deserving of support, but in actual fact they left a dis- 
 astrous effect upon American thought. 2 The depredations 
 of Governor Tryon and of Arnold in the southern states, 
 and of John Butler in Wyoming, and 3 the misconduct of 
 British troops in New York in 1777, wiped out much of 
 the Anglo-Saxon sentimentality which had previously been 
 far stronger in America than England. Since then, the 
 warmth of that feeling has been chiefly on the British side 
 of the Atlantic. 
 
 On the other hand, apart from these lapses from good 
 policy, the British armies seem to have been 4 humane. 
 Washington admitted that General Carleton treated 
 American prisoners in Canada 5 " with kindness and 
 
 1 M. L. Davis' Memoirs of Aaron Burr, ii. 30. 
 
 2 Ramsay's Hist. Am. Rev., ii. 104, 141. 
 
 3 Letters to a Nobleman on the Conduct of the War (1780), p. 43. 
 
 4 Tarleton's History of the Campaigns, p. 110, but see Jefferson's 
 
 Memoirs (1829), i. 428. 
 
 5 Sparks' Washington, iii. 264. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 183 
 
 humanity." la We were carried to the guard house," 
 says Dearborn in his Journal, " where we had a good 
 dinner, and a plenty of several sorts of wine." 2 Hichard 
 Montgomery, the rebel general who fell along with his 
 two aides-de-camp in the attack on Quebec, was buried 
 with full military honours. When 3 Segur was captured 
 by Nelson, then a young captain of 24, he was generously 
 treated. In view of the customary embezzlement of 
 prisoners' supplies by fraudulent intermediaries, 4 charitable 
 people in Liverpool took precautions for their welfare. 
 Upon the capture of Mark Moore, captain of an American 
 privateer by the Eurydice in the channel, the commander 
 of that vessel was chivalry itself. 5 "He treated me very 
 genteely," says Moore, "and ordered me to mess with the 
 officers in the gunroom." 
 
 In discussing such questions as that of clemency in this 
 war, it must always be remembered that the contemporary 
 standard of ethics was, on this point, extremely low. 
 6 Prisoners were often treated with scandalous neglect. 
 In action, humanity was exceptional. 7 The French had 
 used broken nails and slugs as bullets in defending 
 Ticonderoga in 1759, so that every soldier, wounded in the 
 attempt to storm it, was hurt incurably. In 1764 General 
 Draper alleged that 8 " it is a known and universal rule of 
 war amongst the most civilized nations that places taken 
 by storm without any capitulation are subject to all the 
 miseries that the conquerors may chuse to inflict," a canon 
 
 1 Dearborn's Journal (ed. 1886), i. 22. 
 
 2 Remarks on Travels of Chastellux (1787), p. 46. 
 
 3 Segur's Memoirs (1825), p. 427. 
 
 4 Wakefield's Memoirs (1804), i. 190. 
 
 5 Moore's Memoirs (1795), p. 179. 
 
 6 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 404-5. 
 
 7 Annual Register (1759), p. 77. 
 
 8 ibrd (1764), p. 139. 
 
184 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 followed by the Russians on storming the Turkish fortress 
 of Ismail in 1790. The French behaved with r " indescrib- 
 able kindness " to Cornwallis on his surrender, but their 
 treatment of captured crews during the American War 
 was not always exemplary. Lauzun says, 2 "a horrible scene 
 of pillage, and men even fought with each other," when 
 mentioning the capture of an English herring ship in 1780. 
 The French had left the bodies of Braddock's army to lie 
 unburied from 1754 to 1759, when the Ohio valley was 
 reconquered. The same implacable spirit entered into the 
 more legitimate province of traps and ruses. 3 Bossu 
 hoisted British colours in 1757 to entrap an English ship, 
 and 4 Lauzun sailed to conquer Senegal in 1778 under the 
 Union Jack, while in one case, 5 a French frigate availed 
 herself of Venetian colours in chasing a neutral snow 
 bound for London. Spying was very common, and one 
 American, who had once served in the royal navy, had no 
 scruples in using Flemish colours and an Austrian pass- 
 port in order to watch the English coast, and to anchor 
 even 6 " in Brighthelmstone Bay, at a time when the 
 London comedians were there." The identity of the 
 language of both armies, and apparently 7 their similarity 
 in dress made spying easy. 
 
 Impartial critics will therefore be slow to condemn the 
 conduct of those who fought on behalf of the imperial 
 theory of George III/s reign. Perhaps it was less excep- 
 tionable than that of the colonists themselves, whose 
 
 1 Gcrnwallis' Answer to Clinton, p. 212. 
 
 2 Lauzun's Memoirs, ii. 198. 
 
 3 Bossu's Travels through Louisiana, ii. 13. 
 
 4 Lauzun's Memoirs, ii. 165. 
 
 5 Douglas' Reports, p. 576. 
 
 6 Moore's Memoirs, p. 175. 
 
 7 1 Dallas Rep. 33; Tarleton's History, p. 265. 
 
BRITAIN'S CONDUCT OF THE WAR 185 
 
 persecutions of loyalists were often appalling, and whose 
 attitude towards the Indians, though not without some 
 justification, nevertheless reveals the wide gulf between 
 colonial and British feeling. To the Englishmen at home, 
 they were regarded as brothers in theory and as partisans 
 in practice, and Hhe government had always protected 
 them against the rapacity of civilisation's pioneers. One 
 Iroquois told Burgoyne in 1778 of his tribe's readiness to 
 serve against the Bostonians, 2 "at the voice of our great 
 father beyond the great lake." The Americans, on the 
 other hand, had far more knowledge of Red Indian bar- 
 barity, and never spared the savage. During the War of 
 Independence, the rebels punished the Six Nations and 
 the Creeks for their adherence to the Crown by 3 general 
 slaughter. Washington wrote coolly of Sullivan's warfare 
 in 1779, 4 "He had by my last advice burned between 
 fifteen and twenty towns, destroyed all their crops, and 
 was advancing to their exterior villages, the Indians, men 
 women, and children, flying before him to Niagara in the 
 utmost consternation, distress and confusion." 5 Colonial 
 violence was often bitter, and Washington and Gage inter- 
 changed recriminations as to their respective treatment of 
 prisoners. Burgoyne's army was badly treated in cap- 
 tivity, and Governor Hamilton, a leader of British and 
 Red Indian irregulars, was put in irons when captured. 
 The guerilla troops on both sides fought with a touch of 
 ferocity during the campaign in the southern colonies, and 
 grave charges were made against the victors at King's 
 Mountain in 1780, Cornwallis remonstrating against 
 
 1 Annual Eegister (1763), pp. 32, 212. 
 
 2 Gent. Mag. (1778), p. 123. 
 
 3 Kamsay's Hist. Am. Rev., ii. 147; Jefferson's Memoirs (1829), i. 209. 
 
 4 Spark's Washington, vi. 356. 
 
 5 Remarks on Travels of Chastellux, pp. 18, 22-3. 
 
186 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 Gates's 1U scarcely credible inhumanity." The cases of 
 Andre and Asgill do not need citation, nor does the 
 counter-case of Nathan Hale. The only point, in fact, of 
 recalling these long-forgotten grievances on either side, 
 is to show that Great Britain's conduct of the War of 
 Independence was not below the customary standard of 
 the day. The old colonial system was of the earth earthy, 
 but if its champions rarely rose from worldliness, they 
 need not be accused on the other hand of having acted like 
 devils. David Hartley, for instance, who was the Whig 
 member for Hull, alleged that the army was waging war 
 on 2 " defenceless women and children." Such polemics 
 are best buried. They, and the wars by which they were 
 inspired, have passed into history long ago, symbolising 
 the fate of a great scheme of colonial government, and 
 leaving it to us to draw the moral. It is a far better task 
 to give judgment on a policy, than to draw an indictment 
 against men long since forgiven. 
 
 1 Cornwallis Correspondence, i. 144; cf. ibid, i. 67, 75. 
 
 2 Hartley's Letters on the American War (1779), p. 25. 
 
COLONIAL THEORY IN 1783 187 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 COLONIAL THEORY IN 1783. 
 
 loss of America caused an intense reaction in British 
 colonial theory. For two centuries, the country had fought 
 for supremacy in America. She had struggled long and 
 arduously with Spain, Holland and France in turn. She 
 had buried thousands of her bravest sons and much capital 
 across the Atlantic. Yet at the acme of the imperial 
 system for which she had made such exertions, her own 
 colonists had revolted, and justified Turgot's oft-quoted 
 dictum as to the likeness of daughter states to fruit which 
 drops from the tree when ripe. In the face of such seem- 
 ing ingratitude, men threw off their old belief in the 
 utility of expansion, and acquired the new faith of 
 "laisser faire." A customer was a customer still, even if 
 he traded under another flag, and most Britons accepted 
 J Adam Smith's view that colonies which admitted no 
 obligations towards the Mother Country, were worse than 
 useless. 2 The nation regretted the increase of the national 
 debt far more than its loss of territory.^ 
 
 It is to be observed also that the state of the colonies 
 still retained by Great Britain was in no way conducive to 
 optimism. Even at the height of the imperial enthusiasm 
 of Chatham's day, Canada had been regarded as of 
 doubtful value; 3 the colonies which rebelled had been 
 
 1 Wealth of Nations, p. 760. 
 
 2 Remarks on the Travels of Chastellux, p. 63 ; Tucker's Life of Jefferson 
 
 (1837), p. 220. 
 
 3 Candid Examination (1775), p. 44. 
 
188 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 twenty times as populated and a hundred times as wealthy. 
 Its future development was not dreamed of by the wisest. 
 It was thought to have been iu only a place of arms for 
 the French, or a factory for the fur trade." 2 The only 
 post in the whole country was that between Montreal and 
 Quebec, and its exports to England in 1787 amounted to 
 3 but 1 / 119 of the sum of the exports to England from the 
 United States. 4 The reports as to Liverpool shipping show 
 that British ships of 21,870 tonnage plied between that 
 port and the United States in 1785, but ships of only 2,948 
 tonnage between it and British North America. lt was 
 therefore most natural for Englishmen to suggest its 
 abandonment in view of the probability that the great 
 expense of its maintenance would be followed by ultimate 
 separation^ In 1784 James Allen, a typical pamphleteer 
 of the new school, 5 alleged that British trade with Canada 
 must needs be profitless, that her wheat and lumber were 
 of inferior quality, and that her population only consisted 
 of 6 100,000 backward Frenchmen. The sprinkling of 
 British settlers and loyalist refugees was too insignificant 
 to necessitate the maintenance of so useless a possession. 
 Unlike Lafayette, 7 who held a high opinion of the value 
 of Halifax, 8 Turgot thought that it was even to the interest 
 of France that Great Britain should retain her possessions, 
 and great weight was attached to his views in England. 
 John Nicholls, a Whig member of Parliament who has 
 
 1 Present State of Gt. Britain and N. America (1767), pp. 171, 308. 
 
 2 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xvi. 138. 
 
 3 Beawes' Lex Mercatoria (ed. 1813), ii. 91, 104. 
 
 4 Report on Slave Trade (1789), Part iv. 
 
 5 Allen's Considerations on the Present State of Intercourse between 
 
 Sugar Colonies and U.S.A. (1784), p. 26. 
 
 6 ibid, p. 30. 
 
 7 Sparks' Washington, vii. 480. 
 
 8 Soulavie, Memoires, iii. 99. 
 
COLONIAL THEORY IN 1783 189 
 
 left us Eecollections, l argued that the fur trade alone was 
 not a sufficient source of wealth to justify the retention of 
 Canada, and that it was absurd to prefer its timber to the 
 cheaper and better timber of Norway. In case of war too, 
 we might hire Norwegian sailors quite as profitably as 
 Canadian. 
 
 Nova Scotia and Newfoundland were then equally un- 
 remunerative dependencies. 2 One vessel used to make two 
 voyages a year to the former colony from England ; other- 
 wise it enjoyed no communication with Europe, and though 
 praised by 3 Little in 1748, it was yet in its infancy. 4 It 
 had no ships of its own, and only 5 16,000 inhabitants of 
 whom G four-fifths were immigrant loyalists, and the re- 
 maining fifth was hostile to England and addicted to "rum 
 and idle habits." Halifax had been founded in 1749 but 
 was not allowed self-government. 7 Newfoundland did not 
 possess a single coast road, and its fishermen were wretchedly 
 poor. 8 "All government is alike to them" runs a govern- 
 ment report of 1775, "when they have bread, pork and 
 peas sufficient/' Hence many patriotic Britons wanted 
 nothing more than to be free again from such unproductive 
 possessions. Colonies had been tested and found wanting, 
 and the repudiation of the recent policy of expansion was 
 immediate and sincere. The office of Secretary of State 
 for the Colonies, and the Council of Trade and Plantations 
 were alike abolished in 1782, and after certain makeshifts 
 the concerns of Greater Britain were handed over to the 
 
 1 Nicholls' Eecollections (1822), ii. 87-8. 
 
 2 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xi. ; pt. 5, 355. 
 
 3 Little's State of Trade in the Northern Colonies, p. 36. 
 > Allen's Considerations, p. 31. 
 
 5 Beawes' Lex Mercatoria, ii. 102. 
 
 6 Cornwallis Correspondence, i. 279. 
 
 7 Cobbett's Parl. Hist. xvi. 138. 
 
 8 Hist. MSS. Comm. Eep. xi. ; pt. 5, 384. 
 
190 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 keeping of the Secretary of State for War in 1801. The 
 debates in Parliament in 1783 were marked rather by relief 
 than regret. 1 Yiscount Howe said that the greatness of 
 England did not lie on the sands of America, and 2 Onslow 
 alleged that the colonies had always hung like a dead 
 weight on the neck of Great Britain. Shelburne had been 
 at enmity with Burke and the Buckingham branch of the 
 Whig party for many years, and though he had acted as 
 colonial minister from 1766 to 1768, he did not feel a pang 
 at the severance of the imperial tie. He found his most 
 congenial allies in the philosophic circle of Price and 
 Priestley, and from the first, he had inclined strongly in 
 the direction of free trade and British insularity. Thus 
 he was quite consistent in 3 minimising the advantages 
 accruing from the ownership of the lost dependencies of 
 Florida and Tobago. 4 Most Whigs indeed prided them- 
 selves upon having asserted the futility of the late scheme 
 of empire from the first moment of colonial resistance, and 
 5 argued that emigration and imperial wars alike im- 
 poverish a mother country. The government with singular 
 irony entrusted the peace negotiations to David Hartley, a 
 hater of militarism and empire, and an intimate of 
 Franklin and Price. He was hardly the man to hold out 
 for British claims to the unappropriated lands lying north 
 and west of the seceded states. 
 
 The only misgiving that accompanied English com- 
 placency on the loss of her colonies was that the nation's 
 lucrative trade with America might be stopped. As yet 
 however, the resources of the United States were so un- 
 
 1 Gent. Mag. (1783), p. 6. 
 
 2 ibid, p. 21. 
 
 3 ibid, p. 300. 
 
 4 Bigelow's Franklin, iii. 86. 
 
 5 Consolatory Thoughts on American Independence (1782), pp. 3, 11. 
 
COLONIAL THEORY IN 1783 191 
 
 that the danger was thought remote, and the 
 fear that commerce only followed the flag was ably com- 
 bated by numbers of economists. Thus a clever writer of 
 this school, Alexander Brown, l argued that Great Britain 
 was never personally benefited by the welfare of a colony 
 merely because it was a colony. Newfoundlanders catch 
 fish for themselves, not for us. There is no need to spend 
 twice as much on our timber as we need do, simply because 
 the more expensive market happens to be a British 
 province. 2 Free trade was better for the consumer at 
 home. It would be wrong to prefer colonial importers to 
 the former American producers, who probably would sell 
 more cheaply. 3 The wish to relieve the West Indies did 
 not warrant the doubling of the price of sugar. He asked 
 with persuasive eloquence, 4 "How much more are we 
 enriched by the wealth of a man who lives in Nova Scotia, 
 than of one who lives in Massachusetts? Does the corn 
 of Canada produce us a greater revenue than that of 
 Pennsylvania?" We are thus brought very near to the 
 unsentimental economics of the Manchester school; the 
 contrast to the prevailing theory of but twenty years 
 earlier is most striking. Brown proved that the effect of 
 regulating trade within the empire was simply 5 " mutual 
 oppression." 
 
 The new doctrine was calculated to win over a people 
 just emerging from a burdensome war for empire. While 
 French doctrinaires were teaching that the Greek plan of 
 colonisation, with its loose ties of 6 " reason and good 
 offices," was alone effective, Englishmen like Lord Stair 
 
 1 A. C. Brown's Colony Commerce, p. 19. 
 
 2 ibid, p. 31. 
 
 3 ibid, p. 74. 
 
 4 ibid, p. 83. 
 
 5 ibid, p. 74. 
 
 6 Grosley's Tour to London, i. 133. 
 
192 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 considered x every penny ever spent on colonial wars as 
 squandered. Lord Sheffield's tracts tried to show that loss 
 of sovereignty could not lead to loss of markets, and won 
 considerable popularity. 2 " Some great Frenchman," 
 writes his daughter Maria Josepha Holroyd, "talking of 
 Papa's work, said if he should live to see a French noble- 
 man write thus on commerce he should be quite content 
 and satisfied." Sheffield argued that 3 the United States 
 would still have to depend on Great Britain for wool, 
 porcelain, earthenware, glass, shoes, buttons and hats. No 
 foreign rival could compete with us as yet; 4 Manchester 
 goods were twenty per cent, cheaper than those of Houen, 
 and 5 English shipping merchants gave longer credits to 
 customers than did the French. Like Washington and 
 
 6 John Adams, Sheffield thought that the new republic 
 would never be anything but an agricultural community, 
 
 7 that emigrants would never be anything but farmers, and 
 
 8 that therefore the demand for British manufactures in 
 America would continue for ever to expand. 9 Seabury 
 had said in 1774 that it would need a conjuror to convert 
 the American sailor or shipwright into a spinner or weaver. 
 According to this view, the States now burdened by a 
 national debt mainly bearing interest at 5 per cent., and 
 destitute also of capital and technical skill, would sadly 
 miss the 370,000 previously expended annually therein 
 
 1 Stair's Facts and their Consequences (1782), p. 4. 
 
 2 Adeane's Girlhood of M. J. Holroyd (1896), p. 11. 
 
 3 Sheffield's Observations on the Commerce of the American States 
 
 (1783), pp. 7, 12, 19. 
 
 4 ibid, p. 20. 
 
 5 Consolatory Thoughts on American Independence (1782), p. 16. 
 
 6 Adams' Twenty-one Letters (1789), p. 60. 
 
 7 Sheffield's Observations, p. 105. 
 
 8 ibid, p. 101. 
 
 9 A. W. Farmer's View of the Contest (1774), p. 25. 
 
COLONIAL THEORY IN 1783 193 
 
 by the British military establishment, and the loss 
 accruing from separation would be all on the colonial side. 
 The dependence of Lancashire upon the American cotton 
 supply was a thing of the future, as only l one twenty-fifth 
 of the world's cotton was produced in the United States in 
 1791. To-day they provide the bulk of that supply and 
 export yearly to Great Britain nearly forty million pounds 
 worth, but in the light of earlier days we can well under- 
 stand why both Washington and Henry Laurens feared 
 the effect of these derogatory tenets upon American 
 thought; certainly in England, they helped to strengthen 
 the new idea that a colony was never more than 2 " a mill- 
 stone lying about the neck of this country." The repeal 
 of all prohibitory acts made English ports again the 
 principal European depots for American produce, while 
 the Americans on the other hand experienced 3 the dis- 
 advantages of being outside the empire by being excluded 
 from trade with the British West Indies until the year 
 1793, 4 and by having to face a prohibitive duty on the 
 importation of those Boston oils, which had in previous 
 years illuminated the streets of London. 
 
 Even Tories acquiesced in the opinion that empire 
 entailed more sacrifices than benefits. Josiah Tucker, 
 dean of Gloucester, an old antagonist of Franklin and 
 persistent depreciator of the revolutionaries, was an able 
 exponent of this view, and though his claim to have 
 5 "demolished" Locke was not convincing, he gave 
 adequate expression to the country's disgust with the 
 apparently inevitable fruits of empire-building. Entirely 
 
 1 Quarterly Review (1861), pp. 422-3. 
 
 2 Tucker's Four Letters on Important National Subjects (1783), p. 7. 
 
 3 Nelson's Dispatches, i. 9; Ann. Register (1776), p. 205; Cornwallis 
 
 Correspondence, i. 280. 
 
 4 Jefferson's Memoirs (1829), i. 352. 
 
 5 Teignmouth's Life of Sir Win. Jones (1806), i. 330. 
 
 N 
 
194 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 distrusting the monopolist tendency of the old colonial 
 system, and believing in the new creed of "laisser faire," 
 he was almost the first Englishman to infer that all 
 colonies would show the same spirit as America, when 
 they reached a certain stage of development. Tucker was 
 a thinker of great independence ; he had favoured the Jew 
 Act of 1753 in spite of much clerical bigotry around him, 
 and a peace policy in 1756 in spite of the prevailing belief 
 in wars of trade. In sympathy with the opinions of 
 Turgot, who appreciated him, he held that England only 
 spent millions on her colonies with the future prospect of 
 being abandoned by them. 1 The tobacco of Virginia and 
 Maryland would still come first to England as their best 
 market. Possessions were only entanglements. 2 Gibraltar 
 was useless and 3 America had been valueless. Its loss was 
 therefore 4 "one of the happiest events" in disguise, and 
 we should properly have cut the bond which bound her to 
 us ourselves ; the war had simply been waged on behalf of 
 " cormorants and contractors here." It was remarkable 
 that the rebels had been forced to buy English goods even 
 during the struggle, in spite of their being forty per cent, 
 above normal price, and with such eager customers 
 awaiting us, 5 Tucker regarded the prolongation of the war 
 
 C Quixotic insanity. 
 The consequent apathy of the government towards 
 colonial interests, and towards any idea of expansion was 
 great and long-lived. In the negotiations of 1783, the 
 claims of the Newfoundland fishermen were disregarded 
 as irrelevant to England's purpose of obtaining peace, and 
 
 1 Tucker's Cui Bono (1781), p. 76. 
 
 2 ibid, p. 137. 
 
 3 ibid, p. 127. 
 
 4 Tucker's Four Letters (1783), pp. 7-8. 
 
 5 Cui Bono, pp. 41, 87. 
 
COLONIAL THEORY IN 1783 195 
 
 a private undertaking not to annoy the French fishermen 
 by competing with them on the French shore led to a 
 century of friction. At the same time, l Minorca was 
 abandoned as useless, and 2 Gibraltar was nearly ceded to 
 Spain. After 1793 United States traders were allowed to 
 compete on equal terms with British Americans in the 
 West India trade. Firmly believing with 3 Paine in the 
 uselessness of every possession from Halifax to Gibraltar, 
 ministers acted consistently upon that assumption and 
 became entirely engrossed in the new political and social 
 reforms at home. For fifty years, British North America 
 was 4 decried as a field for emigration, and settlers were 
 encouraged to drift in thousands to the United States, 
 where they became aliens. In Queen Victoria's reign 
 this tendency was strengthened for some years by 
 the want of a direct line of steamers to Canada, and the 
 absence of an emigration agency. Everywhere the govern- 
 ment floundered between such irreconcilable motives as 
 philanthropy and self-interest, expediency and altruism, 
 ultimate advantage and immediate economy. Australia 
 was considered to be simply suitable for convicts; New 
 Zealand all but fell into the hands of France; South 
 Africa was treated with habitual inconsistency and weak- 
 ness. Canada's boundaries were permitted to be whittled 
 down by the surrenders to her southern neighbours, known 
 in diplomacy as the Ashburton Treaty of 1842 and the 
 Oregon Treaty of 1846. CJn every part of the world, Great 
 Britain pursued a negligent policy of non-intervention in 
 questions involved by expansion. The empire, which was 
 
 1 Considerations on the Provisional Treaty with America (1783), p. 10. 
 
 2 ibid, p. 18; Pasquin and Marforio (1783), p. 31. 
 
 3 Paine's Letter to Raynal (1782), pp. 69-71. 
 
 4 J. Knight's Extracts from Letters written by Englishmen in the U.S.A. 
 
 (1818), p. 25. 
 
196 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 predicted in 1763 Ho vie one day with that of Russia or 
 China in extent, and that of Rome in glory, had proved 
 itself, in Franklin's phrase, but a 2 "fine and noble China 
 vase," which broke at the first emergency. We cannot 
 wonder that in the first moments of disillusion, men 
 reversed their opinions as completely as did their ancestors 
 when they found the rule of the saints impracticable in 
 1660. The step to the absolute insularity of early Victorian 
 politics was easy and short, and the doctrines of Poleden 
 and Bright hark back to those of 1783. The/<me great 
 redeeming feature of the "laisser faire" system was its 
 free gift to the colonies of the boon of self-government, 
 which earned for Britain a loyalty impossible in her day 
 of self-conscious empire ; so the extravagance of the 
 " laisser Jaire " policy in its early phase worked at last its 
 own cure./ 
 
 It is clear too that the older belief in the virtues of a 
 Greater Britain never entirely died out. In 1783 one 
 writer of " Political Memoirs with regard to French 
 Policy' 7 deprecated the current 3 "zeal for a peace on any 
 terms," and 4 the government eventually helped loyalist 
 refugees to settle in Canada, New Brunswick and Nova 
 Scotia, and gave them three million pounds to compensate 
 for their sufferings. 5 Some four hundred free negro 
 loyalists were planted in Sierra Leone. The Napoleonic 
 wars were breasted with a courage, much recruited by a 
 sense of the value of England's remaining possessions. 
 Napoleon fully realised that a maritime and colonial 
 empire was worth more than what was suggested by Turgot, 
 
 1 Annual Register (1763), p. 15. 
 
 2 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 364; Priestley's Memoirs (1806), p. 450. 
 
 3 Political Memoirs (1783), p. xl. 
 
 4 Sheffield's Observations on Commerce (1783), p. 97. 
 
 5 Hoare's Memoirs of G. Sharp (1820), p. 274. 
 
COLONIAL THEORY IN 1783 197 
 
 and accepted by the " laisser f aire " school. In the opinion 
 of many Britons, the individualist illusion had to be 
 tempered by Napoleon's epigrams. " The east is worth a 
 turban and a pair of trousers." " Egypt once in possession 
 of the French,, farewell India to the British." " There are 
 only two nations, the French and English; the rest are 
 nothing." The great Emperor fought avowedly to recover 
 supremacy at sea and in the east, and his ambitions thus 
 forced England into a new struggle for dominion. The 
 value of the West Indies was indeed almost over-estimated, 
 while the East India Company was induced by "Wellesley 
 to pursue a forward policy in Hindustan/^We can there- 
 fore trace the roots of the imperialist revival in our own 
 times to a very early date in the history of the preceding 
 school of political thought. 1 Hugh Gray's "Letters from 
 Canada," written in 1806, 1807 and 1808 proved that even 
 if it were not. a colony's interest, to remain within the 
 empire, there was no doubt that such was England's interest. 
 Better preserve a smaller market than further the rise of a 
 foreign nation, which could always vex the country with 
 threats of trade embargoes and boundary quarrels. In 
 January 1800 the laureate Pye, heralding what he con- 
 sidered to be the opening of a new century, had predicted 
 that 2 "The realms which God has joined shall never man 
 divide," a conceit somewhat liable to the Gladstonian 
 criticism that man cannot join realms which God has 
 divided by oceans. It attests nevertheless to the rise of a 
 tendency to identify an active foreign policy with renewed 
 colonial aspirations, which tendency grew in strength as 
 Napoleon was slowly defeated. Open as their domestic 
 policy was to criticism, the governments of Pitt and 
 Castlereagh and Liverpool at all events handed on some- 
 
 1 Gray's Letters from Canada (1809), pp. 76, 370. 
 
 2 H. J. Pye's Carmen Seculare (1800). 
 
198 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 thing of the old tradition of the uses of empire to practical 
 pioneers of expansion like Lord Durham and Edward 
 Gibbon Wakefield, and finally, almost in our days, a new 
 imperial theory came into being, which revived what was 
 most valuable in the old colonial system, while retaining 
 all that was best in the " laisser f aire " reaction of 1783. ^ 
 
" HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 199 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 "HANDS ACROSS THE SEA." 
 
 THE fall of the old colonial system had little influence 
 upon British feelings towards America. Sentiment had 
 never animated imperial policy before the Revolution, and 
 consequently in England, there had been little brotherly 
 love to destroy. When the next generation sprang up, 
 believing in the new principle of nationality, and 
 accustomed in a measure at least to the liberal ideal of 
 cosmopolitanism, the heat of the American war was soon 
 forgotten. Two causes helped to create a novel affection 
 for the revolted colonists. In the first place, trade increased 
 between the two peoples to an extent amazing to former 
 adherents of the older economic school, and for several 
 years after the beginning of the nineteenth century British 
 exports to the United States we;re x twice or thrice as valu- 
 able as United States exports to Great Britain. The 
 Americans found England 2 a cheaper and better market 
 than France, and were 3 excellent customers for half a 
 century. 4 The export of woollen goods rose with a bound 
 after 1783 while 5 our cotton trade became for the first 
 time a wonder to the world. 6 The scarcity of labour still 
 made the cost of production in the States comparatively 
 
 1 Hugh Gray's Letters from Canada (1809), pp. 380-1. 
 
 2 Speeches of Mr. Smith of S. Carolina (1794), pp. 31-2; Brissot's 
 
 Travels in U.S.A. in 1788 (1794), p. 65-6. 
 
 3 Beawes' Lex Mercatoria, ii. 88. 
 
 4 Question of Wool truly Stated (1788), p. 3. 
 
 5 Crisis in Calico and Muslin Manufacture Explained (1788), p. 5. 
 
 6 Jefferson's Memoirs (1829), i. 367. 
 
200 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 high. Indeed 1 it was suggested that the economic in- 
 dependence of America had lost them the former bounties, 
 without enabling them to manufacture for themselves, 
 and that the 4th of July should be treated as a 2 "day of 
 repentence." Of course, such doubts soon passed away 
 along with American free trade; even as early as 3 1788 the 
 progress of the States gave rise to a disavowal of Lord 
 Sheffield's optimism, but its prevalence at the time made 
 Britons more inclined to forget the past bloodshed. 
 
 Secondly, the close connection between the Whig party 
 and the American revolutionaries had had at all events one 
 abiding advantage. It had lessened the impression that 
 the struggle was international. It had preserved to some 
 extent the idea of racial affinity between leaders of thought 
 on both sides of the Atlantic. At the time of his victory 
 at Saratoga, 4 Gates sent a message of friendship to an 
 English Whig. Franklin was devoted to 5 "our dear good 
 friend, Doctor Price," and while hating the government, 
 he never wavered in his sympathy with its opponents. 
 6 "But to be serious my dear old friend," he wrote to 
 Joseph Priestley in 1782, " I love you as much as ever, and 
 I love all the honest souls that meet at the London Coffee- 
 House. ... I long to see them and you once more, and I 
 labor for peace with more earnestness that I may again be 
 happy in your sweet society." 7 Granville Sharp received 
 honorary degrees from no less than three American univer- 
 sities in 1787. For several generations, the Whigs looked 
 on the States as an ideal republic where the poor man 
 
 1 Kamsay's Hist. Am. Rev., ii. 339. 
 
 2 Isaac Weld's Travels in N. America (1799), p. 156. 
 
 3 Brissot's Travels in U.S.A. in 1788 (1794), p. xi. 
 
 4 Chatham Correspondence, iv. 489. 
 
 5 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 347. 
 
 6 ibid, iii. 61. 
 
 7 Hoare's Memoirs of G. Sharp (1820), p. 253. 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 201 
 
 could live in happiness and plenty, unhampered by peers 
 and prelates. 
 
 Hence in England, large classes of men were free from 
 the resentment so often lingering after a great war. They 
 had not tasted of the bitter fruit of campaigns upon their 
 own countryside, and they sank old jealousies in reviving 
 brisk trade with America and in facing the entirely fresh 
 problems presented by the French Revolution. l Burke 
 and 2 Romilly both expected to see the natural alliance 
 between England and the United States succeed the un- 
 natural connection between the latter and France. In 
 1793 3 'Talleyrand expressed the same opinion. 4 An English 
 writer pointed out that such an alliance would be founded 
 on the highest principles, for if old foes like England and 
 France could join in the commercial treaty of 1787 5 " shall 
 America retain the resentment of a day?" Moreover the 
 new colonial theory of 1783 was of so pacific a nature, that 
 the birth of the idea of nationality and of race in politics 
 might well have stimulated both peoples to friendship. 
 6 Many Englishmen seem to have been proud of Washington 
 as a compatriot, while 7 Thomas Erskine in his defence of 
 Paine on his trial for seditious libel in 1792 dared to call 
 the Revolution glorious, just and happy. 
 
 Some Americans responded to the changed spirit of 
 British imperial policy, like John Jay, who said he 
 8 "should prefer a connexion with her to a league 
 
 1 Burke's Correspondence, iv. 509. 
 
 2 Romilly's Memoirs, i. 183. 
 
 3 Holland's Foreign Reminiscences (1850), p. 39. 
 
 4 Remarks on Travels of Chastellux (1787), p. 73. 
 
 5 ibid, p. 75. 
 
 6 Sparks' Washington, xi. 210; Correspondence of H. Walpole and 
 
 Mann, ii. 222. 
 
 7 22 State Trials, p. 428. 
 
 8 Life of John Jay by his Son (1833), ii. 23. 
 
202 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 with any powers on earth/' and who looked with 
 something of the new sentimentality on l "Old 
 England, which afforded my ancestors an asylum from 
 persecution." He negotiated a treaty between the two 
 countries in 1794, which was ratified by the senate in 1795 
 in spite of much opposition in the States ; while the excesses 
 of the French Revolution gave Britain a new opportunity. 
 The sober and commercial elements of the American people 
 had a profound dread of Jefferson's radical propaganda, 
 and were drawn back to conservative sentiment by the 
 prospect of attacks on property. A very large number of 
 New Englanders, successors of the Federalist party of 
 1783, deprecated the War of 1812 as between 2 men who 
 ought to feel and love like brethren," and borrowing for 
 the occasion the constitutional theories of their opponents, 
 denied that they were under any legal liability to help the 
 central government in a war of which they disapproved. 
 
 Unfortunately, the old colonial system had so dominated 
 the relations between Great Britain and America for two 
 centuries, that its iron had entered into the soul of the 
 United States. Many years had to pass before new con- 
 ditions could obliterate the recollection of the past. In 
 dealing therefore, with such a subject as British colonial 
 policy in the reigns of George II. and George III., it is 
 quite relevant to examine the legacy which it bequeathed 
 directly to international thought. Policy is judged by its 
 fruits, and the system under which England won North 
 America ended not merely in the loss of thirteen colonies, 
 but in a long period of ill feeling among the people whom 
 she had endeavoured to suppress. The extraordinary bitter- 
 ness, which prevailed in the United States for some genera- 
 
 1 ibid, ii. 24. 
 
 2 M. Carey's Olive Branch (1815), pp. 255, 313-15, 320-3. 
 
" HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 203 
 
 tioiis after the War of Independence, attests to the total 
 failure of the old colonial system to engender any of the 
 true imperial spirit, that is to say, the appreciation of a 
 common brotherhood among men of the same race all over 
 the world. The Wars of the Roses were forgotten in half 
 a century, and the Cromwellian struggles passed into mere 
 history in 1688, because in each case, conflict had not been 
 preceded by any sense of radical alienation between the 
 great masses of combatants on either side. In the American 
 War, the revolutionaries had a far more personal cause. 
 The old colonial system affected every hearth and home 
 in the colonies, and consequently its downfall in 1783 did 
 not involve an immediate end to the sense of feud in the 
 United States, as it did in Great Britain. For this reason, 
 just as we deem colonial co-operation with the home 
 country in 1899 a test of the newer school of imperial 
 policy, so we are forced to consider the American attitude 
 towards England after 1783 as a factor to be dealt with 
 in estimating the worth of its less fortunate fore-runner. 
 
 Throughout the War of Independence, the actual pre- 
 sence of warfare on their own soil, and the feeling that the 
 struggle involved the personal welfare of every individual 
 partisan, inspired Americans with a deeper animosity than 
 that which prevailed in England. With them, the causes 
 of the war and the issues at stake were alike far nearer to 
 the personality of every citizen. Great Britain fought for 
 empire, but America fought for the Americans. Its ardour 
 was more thorough, its hate deeper, its intolerance more 
 bitter. l "A Tory has been properly defined to be a traitor 
 in thought but not in deed," wrote Jefferson, and the 
 revolutionaries persecuted the loyalists with relentless zeal. 
 In New York they were stigmatised as enslavers of their 
 
 1 Jefferson's Notes on Virginia (1782), p. 285. 
 
204 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 own country, guilty of l " felony, murder, and every otlier 
 act of high treason." Such intemperance struck old 
 believers in the imperial creed of Chatham's wars with 
 amazement. 2 "Good God!" exclaimed an American 
 writer in 1774, " Can we look forward to the ruin of the 
 whole British empire without one relenting thought?" 
 Was the new republican ideal to be built upon fanaticism 
 and mob law? 3 "0 rare American freedom!" Many 
 moderate colonists shrank from the burning zeal of the 
 enthusiasts, who alleged that Toryism was 4 " grievous to 
 all honest men," and they feared that " these delectable 
 provinces" would fall 5 " under the harrow of oppressive 
 demagogues." The Irish element in the States had 
 too fresh a recollection of the bad English government 
 in Ireland to abstain from fanning the fire. The earnest 
 recommendation of Congress to the several provincial 
 legislatures at the end of the war to show mercy towards 
 the loyalists was consistently ignored. 
 
 Thus the general feeling against Britain in the United 
 States proved that the steps actually leading to the out- 
 break of the Revolution, had been but of an incidental 
 nature, and that the old colonial system would have led in 
 any event to separation and hate. Franklin was the 
 coolest of men, but his belief in the inherent tyranny of 
 that system made him deny that the two nations would 
 ever feel again the glow of kinship. 6 Priestley tells a 
 story that on the day when Wedderburn insulted Franklin 
 before the Privy Council in 1773 as having stolen 
 
 1 Gent. Mag. (1783), p. 884. 
 
 2 A Farmer's Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of Congress (1774), p. 6 
 
 3 ibid, p. 36. 
 
 4 Tyranny Unmasked (1775), p. 5. 
 
 5 Candidas' Plain Truth (1776), p. 38. 
 
 6 Priestley's Memoirs, p. 454. 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 205 
 
 Hutchinson's letters, Franklin put aside his suit of spotted 
 Manchester velvet, and never wore it again until the day 
 when American independence was acknowledged. The 
 incident is not without its moral. Franklin would not 
 accept Hartley's suggestion that Great Britain would be 
 for ever l " the home " of the Americans, and said that they 
 would never forget 2 "your bloody and insatiable malice 
 and wickedness," words which contrast strikingly with the 
 cheerful optimism of British amity in 1783. When the 
 anniversary of the French alliance was celebrated by 
 Washington's army in the February of that year, the pass- 
 words of the day were 3 "America and France," and "United 
 for ever," mottoes little calculated to further England's 
 hold upon American sentiment, and which, in the opinion 
 of 4 Frenchmen, ought to have been followed by an 
 abandonment of Jamaica rum for French brandy. 5 Otis 
 left one of his daughters but five shillings under his will, 
 to punish her for marrying a British officer, while no 
 greater bitterness was ever displayed than that which 
 Samuel Quincey's family expressed when he espoused the 
 loyalist cause. Jefferson and the democratic party, burn- 
 ing with the anti-monarchical fanaticism engendered by 
 the French Revolution, tried to make hatred of England a 
 cardinal tenet of American patriotism, and delighted to 
 vex 6 "the proudest nation on earth." 
 
 Three causes contributed to strengthen this lamentable 
 legacy of the abandoned colonial theory. In the first 
 place, the actual presence of war made it harder for 
 
 1 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 412. 
 
 2 ibid, ii. 499. 
 
 3 Sparks' Washington, viii. 381. 
 
 4 Brissot's Travels in U.S.A. in 1788 (1794), p. 398. 
 
 5 Tudor's Otis (1823), p. 483. 
 
 6 Jefferson's Memoirs (1829), i. 153. 
 
206 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 Americans to forget. 1 Paine said that the sight of smoking 
 homesteads and schools would live forever in the memories 
 of the youngest. When General von Biedesel's wife asked 
 an American woman for food, she was scolded in return, 
 "Why have you come from your own land to kill us and 
 drive us out of hearth and home?" John Adams always 
 
 / 
 
 said that a nation fighting, like his own, 3 " for her altars 
 and firesides," could never be wholly conquered, and that 
 such a struggle was of necessity impressed for ever upon 
 her imagination. 
 
 Secondly, the history of the United States must necess- 
 arily start with the dramatic annals of the War of 
 Independence, and therefore those annals must always 
 loom more largely upon the thought of the young republic 
 than upon that of Great Britain. To Englishmen the war 
 would never be more than an incident in a long history; 
 to Americans it would be never less than a national epic. 
 The consequent tendency to emphasise the country's 
 wrongs, to exalt the "patriot" heroes, to depict the con- 
 stitutions and declarations of the revolutionary period as 
 monuments of creative genius, and to darken the offences, 
 of which the British government was guilty, would 
 necessarily be great. Paine justly argued that the children 
 of that generation in America would be England's foes for 
 all time under the instruction that they would inevitably 
 receive. 4 Washington hated the idea of sending children 
 to Europe for their education, and thus prevented the 
 softening influence of more tolerant schools. One-sided 
 books like Paine's "Common Sense" had 5 prodigious 
 
 1 Paine's Letter to Raynal (1782), p. 63. 
 
 2 Riedesel Briefe und Berichte , p. 189. 
 
 3 Adams' Twenty-one Letters, pp. 19, 31. 
 
 4 Sparks' Washington, xii. 3. 
 
 5 Bigelow's Franklin, iii. 374. 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 207 
 
 effects upon American thought. The absence of any real 
 wish in England to inflict injustice upon her colonies was 
 always ignored. It was assumed that acts which seemed 
 oppressive raised necessarily the imputation of a "mens 
 rea," and fallacies in British theory were treated as crimes 
 in fact. 
 
 The third motive power in stimulating this hostility 
 among Americans was derived from the effect produced by 
 the contemptuous disregard for their capacity under the 
 old colonial system. In Great Britain the delusion that 
 the Yankees were cowards had been the folly of a day. In 
 America it was taken bitterly to heart, and national vanity 
 prompted much of the self-assertion, which has since 
 hampered the hopes of the enlightened to join "hands 
 across the sea." So large a number of the vaunts of that 
 day justified themselves afterwards by passing into sober 
 fact, that this trait even now needs mitigation. While 
 1 Raynal, in view of the extreme depression in American 
 finance at the close of the war expressed the doubt whether 
 ten millions of people could ever find subsistence in the 
 United States, Americans already boasted of the future 
 glories of their republic, and looked forward to constituting 
 an immense agricultural community. 2 0tis had predicted 
 that in a century, its population would be greater than 
 that of the British Isles ; 3 Chauncey thought that this 
 event would come to pass in twenty-five years. 4 Burgh 
 and 5 Jefferson held that its population would double every 
 twenty years; 6 Franklin every twenty-five. The Americans 
 
 1 Raynal's Revolution in America (1781), p. 179. 
 
 2 Otis' Vindication of the Brit. Colonies, p. 20. 
 
 3 J. Adams' Works (ed. 1850), ii. 305. 
 
 * Burgh's Political Disquisitions (1774), ii. 287. 
 
 5 Tucker's Jefferson (1837), i. 229. 
 
 6 Cobbett's Parl. Hist., xvi. 141. 
 
208 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 married more generally and at a younger age than Britons 
 at home, and l possibly lived longer. Truly, as 2 Washington 
 told Lauzun, the rising generation in the colonies formed 
 an unconquerable army. 3 Franklin said that they would 
 one day rule the whole of North America, and 4 Galloway, 
 though a loyalist, anticipated their sway over Mexico and 
 Brazil, Chili and Peru. The French traveller Brissot de 
 Warville flattered such dreamers by prophesying 5 the 
 construction of a Nicaragua canal, and the rise of a great 
 pastoral state untainted by the lures of commerce. 
 
 6 "America," he said, "will never have enormous cities like 
 London and Paris." These hopes made many Americans 
 affect to treat every pretension of other countries as a 
 slur on their own national merits, and Sir Samuel Eomilly, 
 himself a great believer in their future, had to reflect upon 
 
 7 " the American mania of pretending to philosophize upon 
 everything, and to treat all nations but his own with 
 contempt." The Americans were too prone to Franklin's 
 habit of being unable to exalt 8 "our rising country" 
 except at the expense of "this old rotten state" of 
 England. Their morbid sensitiveness to any conduct, 
 which might conceivably be due to want of appreciation of 
 American greatness, can be reasonably attributed to the 
 tendency under the old colonial system to regard colonists 
 as but* a conquered race, and of inferior metal. This 
 
 1 Bossu's Travels (1771), p. 406; Brissot's Travels in U.S.A. in 1788 
 
 (1794), p. 302; but see Kalm Travels (1772), i. 81, Robin and 
 Paw. 
 
 2 Lauzun's Memoirs, ii. 224. 
 
 3 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 449. 
 
 4 Cool Thoughts on the Consequences of Am. Independence (1780), 
 
 p. 13. 
 
 5 Brissot's Travels in U.S.A. in 1788 (1794), p. 407. 
 
 6 ibid, p. 415. 
 
 7 Romilly's Memoirs, ii. 37-8. 
 
 8 Bigelow's Franklin, ii. 250. 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 209 
 
 delusion irritated the revolutionaries above all other 
 charges, and made Washington insist upon the necessity 
 of keeping *"an American character/' independent of the 
 favour of any European state. 
 
 Upon such grounds therefore as have been here set 
 forth, we are obliged to condemn the old colonial system 
 as a working policy. It is true that some of its principles 
 can still be cherished, and that it inspired sufficient interest 
 and ambition in the minds of Englishmen to win North 
 America for Great Britain, and to give the nation that gift 
 of expansion, upon which the future of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race depends. To that extent it was indeed a fruitful 
 factor in our history, but it had no further potentialities, 
 and its 'downfall led to a long estrangement, which was a 
 worse result than loss of mere territory. Consolation (if 
 any) can only lie in the lessons taught by its disastrous 
 end. 
 
 l Sparks' Washington, xi. 83; xii. 392. 
 
210 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LESSONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 DURING the last century, the lessons taught by the 
 downfall of the old colonial system have been stated in 
 various manners according to the imperial theory of the 
 hour/To one generation the chief inference to be deduced 
 from the loss of our first American colonies was the in- 
 trinsic futility of our empire; to another, it has been the 
 immense importance of preserving it. One age has 
 regarded " laisser f aire " as the best agent to effect separa- 
 tion; another as the best agent of unity. The modern 
 liability to be excluded forcibly by tariffs from commerce 
 with foreign possessions has led recently to an appreciation 
 by all the great powers of the virtues of the national flag 
 as a safeguard of trade, and this has combined with 
 political influences at work in England since Disraeli's 
 accession to power in 1874 to foster the imperialist theory 
 at the expense of quietism^ The experiences of Australia 
 and New Zealand have refuted the fallacy that democracy 
 is incompatible with empire, while the great work which 
 Britons have accomplished throughout the world in 
 furthering the prosperity and contentment of subject 
 peoples has made the nation realise the vast moral 
 advantages arising from the exercise of the governing 
 f aculty/^Meanwhile it is clear that the intense commercial 
 jealousy and monopolist greed, which so alienated colonies 
 under the old system, have quite disappeared from 
 modern British policy, except perhaps in India, which is 
 no colony at all. The tendency is rather in the direction 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 211 
 
 of giving them advantages out of proportion to their 
 natural weight and to the scanty sacrifices they make for 
 the support of the common empire. A most painstaking 
 observer has laid down that the drift of the empire is to- 
 day towards alliance not l federation, towards a phase of 
 friendly con'tract not towards the status of the old-time 
 loyalty^ So far then, one obvious lesson of the American 
 Revolution has been taken to heart. Since Lord North's 
 Act of 1778 it has been illegal to impose direct taxation 
 upon the colonies from Westminster, and few statesmen 
 would dream of meddling in their internal affairs. In 
 this sense, the suggested interference of Australian and of 
 some English politicians with the internal policy of the 
 executive government in the Transvaal colony would be 
 pure reaction. With regard to the self-governing colonies, 
 the tendency is to make their independence merely 
 nominal. Her experiences in 1871 and 1903 are not cal- 
 culated to induce Canada to follow any future projects of 
 arbitration that emanate from Downing Street, and this 
 idea of limiting British interference to the Crown's power 
 of appointing governors, and to the unimpressive and 
 2 unpopular power of the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
 Council to hear appeals from colonial courts in certain 
 cases, can be clearly traced to the general perception of 
 one of the morals of the War of Independence. Its wisdom 
 is as palpable as that of the larger lesson that love of 
 freedom is the greatest moral force in political life. 
 
 Is there nothing more to be learnt than such now 
 commonplace characteristics of practical politics? Those 
 who aim at making history a science aspire to dazzle the 
 world with brilliant deductions from any group of cor- 
 relative facts, and it might well be thought disappointing 
 
 1 E. Jebb's Studies in Colonial Nationalism (1905), p. viii. 
 
 2 ibid, pp. 80-1, 302-3. 
 
212 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 to have to content ourselves with such a plain and currently 
 accepted idea as that of colonial internal independence; 
 or are historical lessons of a wider sort like legal maxims, 
 mere ' minims' in practice, often misleading and never 
 conclusive ? 
 
 In reality, history is very far from being an exact 
 science, and no one who sifts its evidence judiciously will 
 deem postulates of greater weight than actual phenomena. 
 Admitting however, the many special circumstances of the 
 case of the American War of Independence, it does seem 
 possible to construct some narrower doctrine than the 
 general principle that it is wrong to shackle fellow citizens 
 over sea, from the facts attendant to the downfall of the 
 eighteenth century theory of colonial government. Its 
 failure was primarily due to the absence of any community 
 of interests between the Mother Country and her colonies. 
 There were still some sentimental ties between them in 
 1763, and men like Franklin and Pownall were devoted to 
 the imperial ideal. The former said that the colonies could 
 be led by a mere thread, and both made proposals to 
 establish a closer union. Certainly in America, there was 
 a true sense of affinity to Great Britain. It was neverthe- 
 less too weak to maintain the love of the common empire 
 when the conquest of Canada broke the only bond of 
 positive advantage which knit the colonists to England. 
 Kindred blood and common ideas can bind two peoples 
 together as strongly as links of iron, but each must feel 
 that its material privileges are associated with the union. 
 Such was not the case under our old colonial system, and 
 hence its failure. By ignoring the lesson of its unsuccess, 
 Spain lost her trans-Atlantic possessions, and Portugal, 
 Brazil. We have now to show that membership of the 
 British empire conduces to the material good of Canada 
 and Australia, and requires from each a consideration 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 213 
 
 more tangible than an airy claim to loyalty. Heally strong 
 material ties of union accrue to-day from the influence of 
 the British connection in lightening the incidence of the 
 burden of self-defence, in providing security against 
 foreign aggression, and in enabling a colony to obtain the 
 loan of capital at more moderate rates of interest than 
 independent countries of the same standing. But for such 
 advantages, no such loose aggregation of states as our own 
 could outlive the disintegrating influences of climate and 
 distance. If compact federation is impossible, we can 
 secure at all events a working partnership between 
 sympathetic and independent peoples. " Civis Eomanus 
 sum" becomes an empty catchword when citizenship is 
 barren. Man will not live politically on the principle of 
 nationality alone. 
 
 In a secondary degree, we can also infer that community 
 of feeling is essential to the maintenance of an empire. 
 Alone, it will not secure its continuance, but it is still a vital 
 ingredient. Belief in the higher character of British ideals 
 and the natural antagonism of United States patriotism 
 keep Canada prima facie loyal, and without such national 
 sentiment union may become a mere question of cal- 
 culating self-interest. The idea of racial unity was un- 
 discovered in the eighteenth century, when Germany and 
 Italy were still but geographical expressions. Pitt's most 
 eager partisans never used the phrase "Anglo-Saxon," and 
 we have seen how the Americans were treated habitually 
 as an absolutely alien people. We have learnt now that 
 the tie of blood, however delusive historically, is the most 
 powerful political fiction in the world. In the chief move- 
 ments of later-day history, it has been treated as a rallying 
 point, and this alleged natural bond has proved a stronger 
 keystone of empire than all the artifices of diplomacy. 
 Modern science has aided its capacity to join people who 
 
214 THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 
 
 are divided by seas, by facilitating inter-communication, 
 and every step towards closer intimacy is good. It is easy 
 to imagine how Chatham would have delighted in Rhodes's 
 dream of grafting the memories of Oxford upon the youth 
 of the colonies, and of emphasising the historical identity 
 of the " island race." It is clearly necessary that the 
 settler in lands beyond the sea must be able to glory in the 
 name of Briton in common with his brothers in the Mother 
 Country, and in a far wider and more generous manner 
 than did George III. British statesmanship has to respect 
 the sensibilities as well as the material interests of outlying 
 portions of the empire, and if the necessary unity of ideals 
 be thus encouraged, imperial defence will rest ultimately 
 upon a sounder basis than the system which broke down in 
 the American Revolution. 
 
 It is not within the historian's province to apply these 
 two principles to later-day controversy. Academics end 
 and pure politics begin when we raise the practical 
 questions of the hour. The use of history is simply to 
 furnish the records of past experience for present use, and 
 in that capacity its value is genuine though limited. One 
 who understands the growth of the empire, and who comes 
 also in contact with the practical side of life, is in the 
 position of an expert witness in political controversy; he 
 has materials analogous to the latter' s information, even 
 if he has perhaps something of his bias. Yet some 
 historical lessons like those indicated above stand beyond 
 the sphere of partisanship. For instance, the current fiscal 
 dispute raises the issue whether or no the existing relations 
 between Great Britain and her colonies provide sufficient 
 community of interest and sentiment to enable the empire 
 to endure the stress of conflicting aims and principles 
 without the additional tie of preferential tariffs, but as a 
 nation of optimists we may perhaps be justified in assuming 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 215 
 
 that the best adherents of both the affirmative and negative 
 answers have accepted the lesson of 1783, as to the urgent 
 necessity of such a community. So long as Parliament 
 and Press are not drowned by parochialism, not over- 
 whelmed by the growing pressure of domestic problems, 
 the British people will not drop back into mid-Yictorian 
 indifference. For a day at least, it has passed out of the 
 " l laisser faire " delusion into a clearer appreciation of the 
 uses of colonisation. Tkua-ike-Dld colonial system was not 
 wholly planned in vain, for it bequeathed a great racial 
 objective to later-day British politics. The deeds of our 
 empire-builders were no mere essays in powers, and the 
 rise of Greater Britain has been part of God's " increasing 
 purpose." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adams, John. Views of, on Stamp Act, 81; on Paine, 84; on War of 
 Independence, 90, 206 ; on West Indies, 98 ; on English affinity, 99 ; 
 on the future of America, 192. Opposed by Leonard, 123. Work 
 in Holland, 176. 
 
 Adams, Samuel, 85, 97. 
 
 Akenside, Mark, 17. 
 
 Albany. Its quietism during Seven Years' War, 76. Congress, 120. 
 
 Alien immigration. In England, 51 ; In the colonies, 59, 63, 65. 
 
 Allen, James. Arguments of, against expansion, 188. 
 
 America. See under various colonies, under " colonial," and under 
 "United States." 
 
 American War. See under " War of Independence." 
 
 Amherst, General, 8, 25, 170. 
 
 Anne, princess of Orange, 18. 
 
 Anti-Gallican association, 16. 
 
 Antigua. Cotton in, 42. 
 
 Army, British. Strength of, in 1762, 13. Cost after 1763, 74. Troops 
 stationed in America, 79. Its opinion of American forces, 91, 99, 
 171. Manoeuvres of, 17736, 135. Ordnance, 74, 136, 152. Toryism 
 of, 140. Distrust of, 1557, 169. Difficulties in recruiting, 15760. 
 Hard discipline of, 158. Education in, 159-60. Employment of 
 mercenaries, 160 6. Tactics in American War, 170 2. Strategy, 
 170. Difficulties in the war, 1713. General capacity of, 173-4. 
 Marbot's opinion of, 162, 174. Humanity of, 182-3. 
 
 Arnold, Benedict, 148, 173, 181, 182. 
 
 Ashley, John. Views of, on American timber, 46 ; on colonies, 53. 
 
 Australia. Convict transportation to, 60, 61, 195. Present position of, 
 210, 213. 
 
 Austria, 54. 
 
 "Balance of trade," 38, 50. 
 
 Baltimore, Lord. Selfishness of, 76. 
 
 Banstead Downs, 135. 
 
 Barbados. Demand for goods, 39. Productiveness of, 62. Character 
 
 of inhabitants, 99. 
 Baretti, Joseph, 14, 17. 
 Barnard, Sir J., 51. 
 Barre, John, 13, 148, 151. 
 Beaumarchais, Pierre, 177. 
 
218 INDEX 
 
 Beaver hats. Price of, 16. American manufacture of, 37. Trade in, 
 58, 67. 
 
 Beawes, Windham, 52. Views of, on Navigation Act, 55. 
 
 Bedford, Duke of, 31, 71. 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy. Opinion of, on American taxation, 138. 
 
 Berkeley, Bishop, 10, 48. 
 
 Berkeley, Sir W., 56. 
 
 Berlin, 73. 
 
 Bermuda. Fishermen of, 54. 
 
 Bernard, Governor, 68, 75. 
 
 Berwick. Bounties to recruits offered by, 13. 
 
 Birmingham. Growth of, 5, 136. In favour of colonial restrictions, 68. 
 Opinion of, on Stamp Act, 131 ; on American War, 136. 
 
 Blackfriars Bridge, 34, 108. 
 
 Bland, Richard. Opinion of, on bounties, 83. 
 
 Boscawen, Admiral, 8, 13, 25. 
 
 Bossu, M., 168, 184. 
 
 Boston, 62. Tea riot, 71. Address to Wilkes, 88. "Gazette," 89. 
 Puritan character of, 97. Separatism of, 101, 129. Port Act, 101. 
 Chatham's opinion of, 112. Burke's admiration for, 113. Oils, 193. 
 
 Boswell, James, 131. 
 
 Boucher, Jonathan. Sermons of, 88. Loyalty of, 119. 
 
 Bounties, considered, 38, 39, 47, 78, 83. 
 
 Braddock, General, 2, 76, 91, 103, 159, 160. 
 
 Brazil. Cotton in, 42. 
 
 Breslau, battle of, 29. 
 
 Brissot de Warville. Anticipations of, 208. 
 
 Bristol. Colonial trade of, 65. Opinion of, on American War, 137. 
 
 Brown, Alexander. Arguments of, against expansion, 191. 
 
 Brown, John. Views of, on national deterioration, 4 ; on mercenaries, 26. 
 
 Bruce, P. H. Opinion of, on Carolina timber, 46. 
 
 Bunbury, Lady S., 92, 139. 
 
 Bunker Hill, battle of, 92, 164, 170, 171, 182. 
 
 Burgh, J. Remarks of, on American population, 207. 
 
 Burgoyne, General, 34, 140, 160, 165, 173. 
 
 Burke, Edmund. Contemplated emigration of, 64. Views of, on 
 colonial policy, 69, 116-7. Distrust of Chatham, 106-7. Opinions 
 of, on American taxation, 113 5, 122, 149; on loyalists, 119; on 
 British politics in 1775, 133 136-7; on Quebec Act, 148; on an 
 Anglo-American alliance, 201. Eloquence of, 117. 
 
 " Calm Addresses," John Wesley's, 143. 
 Camden, battle of, 175, 177. 
 Camden, Lord, 107, 135, 138, 148. 
 
INDEX 219 
 
 Canada. French aims in, 1, 2. Ceded to Britain, 9. Its oak, 47, 189; 
 hemp, 49. Retention of, in 1763, 66. Its resources, 67. Army in, 
 79. Emigrants to, 146, 196. Loyalty of, 148, 149. State of, in 
 1783, 187-9. Ignored by British government, 195. Position of, to- 
 day, 211-3. 
 
 Canterbury, 144. 
 
 Cape Breton. Ceded to Great Britain, 9. Its coal, 41 ; hardwood, 47. 
 
 Carleton, General, 152, 174, 182. 
 
 Carolina. See under "North" and "South Carolina." 
 
 Carthagena, 5, 80. 
 
 Casanova de Seingalt. Remarks of, on port wine, 50. 
 
 Chandler, Doctor, 120. 
 
 Charleston. Captured by the British, 139, 180. 
 
 Charlotte, Queen, 52. 
 
 Chatham. See under "Pitt." 
 
 Chauncey, Charles. Views of, on American population, 207. 
 
 Chesterfield, Lord. His dislike to standing army, 156. 
 
 Child, Josiah. Opinions of, on Navigation Act, 59; on emigration, 64. 
 
 China. Trade with, 61. 
 
 Church of England. Its position in America, 96, 119, 129. Politics of, 
 136. 
 
 Churchill, Charles. Lines by, on transportation, 61. 
 
 Clare, Lord. Supports home industries, 52. His relations with Franklin, 
 103. 
 
 Clinton, Sir H., 172. 
 
 Clive, Lord, 9, 16, 27, 140. 
 
 Coal duties, 49. 
 
 "Cobbler's Letter," 10. 
 
 Cochineal bounty, 39. 
 
 Colonial, policy considered, 18, 3769, 91104, 147, 154, 165, 175-6, 
 18798, 2024, 20815 ; waterways, 39 ; disabilities, 37, 58 ; wealth, 
 64, 80; markets, 646; charters, 67; taxation, 7385; share in 
 Seven Years' War, 76 80; soldiery, 91, 168 72; sensitiveness to 
 British criticism, 91 2, 181, 207-8; want of homogenity, 97; 
 separatist tendencies, 97 102; conduct of the War of Independence, 
 185-6. 
 
 Congregationalists. Their share in the American Revolution, 101, 129. 
 
 Connecticut. Cotton in, 44. Constitution of, 67. Gift to, 79. 
 
 Continental Congress, 71, 95. 
 
 Convict emigration considered, 59-60, 210. 
 
 Copper, an "enumerated article," 37. 
 
 Cornwallis, Lord. Supports North, 145. His army, 157; education, 
 159. Strategy and tactics of, 170, 172, 174. Surrender of, at York- 
 town, 177, 180, 185. 
 
220 INDEX 
 
 Cotton, an "enumerated article," 37. Grown in West Indies, 42; in 
 Connecticut, 44. Manchester trade in, 65, 199. Supply of, in 
 United States, 193. 
 
 Cowpens, battle of, 175. 
 
 Cowper, William, 139. 
 
 Crefeld, battle of, 29. Emigrants from, 59. 
 
 Cumberland, Duke of, 3, 27, 159. 
 
 Gumming, Thomas. A fighting Quaker, 21. 
 
 Curwen, Samuel. Sensitiveness of, to English arrogance, 92. Opinion 
 of, on Burke, 117; on English feeling during the war, 145. 
 
 Dantzig, 38, 47. 
 
 Dartmouth, Lord, 142, 145. 
 
 Dearborn, Henry. His account of the American attack on Quebec, 181, 
 
 183. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 45, 85. 
 De Lancey family, 96, 128. 
 Demerara, 42. 
 Denmark,^, 134. 
 Dickenson, John, 82, 110. 
 Dinwiddie, Governor, 25, 94. 
 Dissenters. Attitude of, during Seven Years' War, 66; as to Stamp 
 
 Act, 131; during War of Independence, 142 4. 
 Dobbs, Governor, 25. 
 
 Dominica. Ceded to Great Britain, 9. Cotton in, 42. Free ports in, 57. 
 Draper, General, 140, 183. 
 Dresden, 51. 
 
 Dubos, Abbe. Predicts American Revolution, 100. 
 Dulaney, Daniel, 94, 102. 
 Dundee, 73. 
 Dunstable, 52. 
 Dutens, Louis, 25. 
 Dyer, John. Verses of, on the rise of towns, 5; on colonies, 39. 
 
 East India Company, 67, 115. 
 
 Edinburgh. Effect of Seven Years' War on, 73. Attitude of, during 
 
 War of Independence, 137. 
 Effingham, Lord, 152. 
 Egyptian rice, 57. 
 
 Eldon, Lord. Opinion of, on American taxation, 138. 
 Emigration considered, 58 66, 195. 
 England. See under " Great Britain." 
 "Enumerated articles," 37, 49. 
 Erskine, Lord. His description of War of Independence, 201. 
 
INDEX 221 
 
 Ferdinand of Brunswick, 27, 29. 
 
 Ferguson, Major. His tactics, 171. 
 
 Finance. Pitt's, 32; Grenville's, 70, 74-5. 
 
 Fisheries, 41, 54. 
 
 Flax bounty, 39. 
 
 Florida. Ceded to Great Britain, 9. Climate of, 173. Lost, 190. 
 
 Forbes, General, 8, 77. 
 
 Fox, Charles James. Leads the Whigs, 116. Criticisms of Storer on, 
 146. Want of patriotism of, 151. 
 
 Fox, Henry, 7. 
 
 France. See under "French." 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin. Opinion of, on British colonial policy, 68. Share 
 of, in Seven Years' War, 78, 120. Views of, on American taxation, 
 80. Attitude of, during War of Independence, 83, 91, 95, 102-3. 
 His publication of Hutchinson's letters 132, 204. Appeals to France, 
 176, 178-9. Opinion on British empire, 196. Friendship with 
 English Whigs 200. His later attitude towards England, 205. 
 Theory of, as to American population, 207. His anticipations, 208. 
 
 Frederick, King of Prussia, 20, 31, 64, 163-4. 
 
 French, aims in America, 1. Advantages, 2. Disadvantages, 3. Hated 
 in England, 10-1, 25, 50-1, 144. Jesuits, 2. Prizes, 12. Silks, 41. 
 Cotton, 42. Indigo, 43. Brandy, 48, 205. Rice supply, 57. 
 Emigrants to America, 63. Interference in War of Independence, 
 134, 146, 17680, 205. Attitude as to International Law, 134, 178. 
 Use of mercenaries, 161-2. Red Indian alliances, 167-8. Breaches 
 of neutrality, 177. Conduct of the war (177783), 184. Opinion 
 on colonisation, 191-2. 
 
 Gage, General, 128, 173, 185. 
 
 Galloway, Joseph. His plan of union, 88, 118, 125 7. Sensitive to 
 English arrogance, 92. Opinions of, on Chatham, 107 ; on the 
 empire, 120 2; on Kniphausen, 165. His sacrifices, 130. 
 
 Gambia. Convict scheme in, 60. 
 
 Garrick, David, 11, 12. 
 
 Gates, Horatio, 78, 200. 
 
 Gee, Joshua. Opinions of, on a self-sufficing empire, 43, 48 ; on colonies, 
 101. 
 
 George II., 27. 
 
 George III. His political aims, 36. Aids colonial silk industry, 44. 
 Views of, on American taxation, 71, 89, 146. Not sole author of 
 War of Independence, 71, 90, 132. His relations with Chatham, 
 106, 145-6. His dislike to Pownall, 125. Attitude of, to rebels, 
 128. Loyal addresses to, 136-7. Eagerness of, for war, 145. 
 Knowledge of America, 146. His persistency, 146-7. 
 
222 INDEX 
 
 Georgia. Its rice, 37. Silk, 39, 40, 44. Wine, 39. Indigo, 43. 
 Slavery, 45. Immigrants, 59. Eesources, 62. 
 
 Germain, Lord G., 152, 153, 180. 
 
 German, soldiers, 13, 161 6. Emigrants to America, 59, 63, 65. 
 Loyalty during the war, 95-6. 
 
 Germanstown, founded, 59. 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, 13. Opinions of, on Navigation Act, 55 ; on American 
 taxation, 82; on the treatment of Noailles, 144. Supports Lord 
 North, 114. His attitude during War of Independence, 140, 166. 
 
 Gibraltar, 194, 195. 
 
 Ginger, an "enumerated article," 37. 
 
 Glasgow. Thread from, 43. Opinion of, as to Stamp Act, 131, Attitude 
 of, during War of Independence, 137. 
 
 Gloucester, 54. 
 
 Gold Coast. Convict scheme on the, 60. 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 6, 17, 117. 
 
 Gordon Riots, 154. 
 
 Grafton, Lord, 70, 71. 
 
 Grant, Colonel. Opinion of, on American soldiers, 91. 
 
 Grant, Sir W. Experiences of, in Canada, 63. 
 
 Granville, Lord, 7, 156. 
 
 Grasse, Admiral de, 141, 180. 
 
 Gray, Hugh. Views of, as to Canadian hemp, 49. Advocates expansion, 
 197. 
 
 Great Britain. Its commercialism, 4. Love of excitement, 5. Views 
 on trade wars, 10; on Seven Years' War, 21, 31. Complacency, 26. 
 Its hatred of France, 50-1, 144. Maritime ambitions, 53. Smuggling, 
 57. Appreciation of empire, 62 6. Self-denial, 67. Opinion on 
 American taxation, 78-9, 859. Want of sentiment, 96, 103, 165, 
 181. Ignorance of America, 98. Conduct during War of Independ- 
 ence, 131, 140, 144, 155 86. Subsequent relations with the United 
 States, 199 209. See also under " Colonial Policy." 
 
 Greene, Nathaniel, 172, 174. 
 
 Grenada. Ceded to England, 9. 
 
 Grenville, George. Partisan of peace in 1756, 19. His views on Naviga- 
 tion Act, 55 ; on American taxation, 57, 70, 72 5, 88. Disliked by 
 Chatham, 106. 
 
 Grosley, P. J., 66. 
 
 Guildford Court House, battle of, 166, 175. 
 
 Halifax (N. S.), 188, 189. 
 
 Hamburg, 38, 39, 47, 73. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 118. 
 Hanover, 23, 31. 
 
INDEX 223 
 
 Hanway, Jonas, 12. 
 
 Hardwicke, Lord, 2, 18, 22, 110. 
 
 Harrington, Lord, 135. 
 
 Hartley, David. Views of, on War of Independence, 186. Negotiates 
 peace, 190. His desire for American friendship, 205. 
 
 Hats. See under "Beaver." 
 
 Havannah. Conquest of, 9. 
 
 Hawke, Lord, 9, 13, 27, 30. 
 
 Hemp bounty, 39. 
 
 Hessians. See under "German soldiers." 
 
 Highland, Regiments, 27, 34, 141. Emigrants, 64. 
 
 Hillsborough, Lord, 19, 103. 
 
 Holderness, Lord, 13. 
 
 Holland. Its attitude as to International Law, 17, 18, 134, 178. Com- 
 mercial competition, 38, 52. Aids smugglers, 57. Panic in, 73. 
 
 Holroyd. See under "Sheffield, Lord." 
 
 Honduras, 9. 
 
 Hops, in America, 44. 
 
 House of Commons. Report of, on timber, 47. 
 
 Howe, General, 92, 152, 173, 174. 
 
 Hull, 131. 
 
 Hume, David. Views of, on Seven Years' War, 20; on balance of 
 trade, 38; on a standing army, 155. 
 
 Hungarian, wine, 40. Timber, 43. 
 
 Hunter, John. Ideas of, as to New South Wales, 48. 
 
 Hutchinson, Governor, 68, 89, 128, 132, 146. 
 
 Indented servants, 61, 76. 
 
 India, 4, 5, 33, 140, 197. 
 
 Indigo, American experiments as to, 38, 39, 43. 
 
 International Law considered, 17-8, 134, 176, 178. 
 
 Irish, enlistments, 15, 157. Linen, 39, 43, 74. China, 48. Emigration 
 
 to America, 63. Separatism, 101, 204. Attitude towards the 
 
 colonies, 131. 
 
 Iron, in the colonies, 37, 39, 48. 
 Isle of Man. Smuggling in, 57. 
 
 Jamaica, molasses and rum, 50, 58, 205. Free ports, 57. Productive- 
 ness, 62. 
 
 Jay, John. Opinion of, on England, 201-2. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas. Remarks of, on American freedom from beggars, 
 64; on the Tories, 203; on American population, 207. His hatred 
 of England, 85, 205. Extreme views, 147, 202. 
 
 Jesuits, in Canada, 2. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Johnson, Samuel. Opinions of, on American taxation, 86, 100; on 
 
 American population, 87; on Burke, 117. 
 Jones, Paul, 133. 
 
 Jones, Sir W. Opposes North's government, 153. 
 Joseph II. Epigram of, 179. 
 Judges. Frame the "Rule of 1756," 17. Their powers of transportation, 
 
 59, 60. 
 Junius, 30, 88. 
 
 Kalm, Peter. Views of, on American timber, 46. Predicts War of 
 
 Independence, 101. 
 Kendal, 65. 
 Kenmure, Lord, 135. 
 
 Keysler, John. Eemarks of, as to silk trade, 41. 
 King's Mountain, battle of, 171, 185. 
 Kniphausen, General, 165. 
 Konigsberg, 38. 
 Kosciuszko, Thaddeus, 165. 
 
 Lafayette, Marquis de, 165, 188. 
 
 Lancaster, 65, 131. 
 
 Lauzun, Due de. Opinions of, on the American army, 169; on the 
 
 French troops in America, 176 ; on Rodney's victory, 180. His 
 
 conquest of Senegal, 184. 
 Layton, Polly. Her fascination, 177. Observations of, to Count Segur, 
 
 179. 
 
 Leeds, 12, 131, 157. 
 Leonard, Daniel, 123. 
 Lexington, battle of, 71, 152, 175. 
 Liege, 49. 
 
 Linen trade, 38, 39. 
 
 Little, James, Remarks of, on American iron, 48; on Nova Scotia, 189. 
 Liverpool, American trade of, 65. Opinion of, as to Stamp Act, 131. 
 
 Attitude of, during War of Independence, 137. Shipping statistics 
 
 in 1785, 188. 
 London. Animosity of, against aliens, 10. Zeal of, for Seven Years' 
 
 War, 5, 12, 15. Opinion of, as to Stamp Act, 131. Attitude of, 
 
 during War of Independence, 136, 153. 
 Long Island, battle of, 152. 
 Lotteries, 6. 
 
 Loudon, General, 3, 159. 
 Louisburg, 8, 76, 79, 93. 
 Louisiana, 1, 9. 
 
 Loyalists. See under "Tories (American)." 
 Lyttelton, Lord, 32. 
 
INDEX 225 
 
 Macgregor, Malcolm, 153. 
 
 Madder, experiment in America, 44. 
 
 Manchester. Growth of, 5, 157. Cotton trade of, 5, 65, 192. Opinion 
 
 of, as to Stamp Act, 131. Attitude of, during American Revolution, 
 
 136-7. 
 
 "Manchester School" considered, 191, 1946, 210. 
 Manila. Conquest of, 9, 161. 
 
 Mansfield, Lord, 18. Views of, on American taxation, 82, 138, 150. 
 Marblehead fishermen, 54. 
 
 Marbot, General. Opinions of, on the British army, 162, 174. 
 Marie Antoinette. Her description of the American rebels, 179. 
 Maryland. Tobacco, 41, 56, 194. Constitution, 67. Quietism during 
 
 Seven Years' War, 76-7. 
 Massachusetts. Timber, 41. Constitution, 67, 80. Charter annulled, 
 
 71. Gift to, 79. Character of, 97. Separatism in, 101. "Gazette," 
 
 123. 
 
 May hew, Jonathan, 101. 
 Methodists. See under "Dissenters." 
 Methuen Treaty, 50. 
 
 Militia. Engaged in Seven Years' War, 13. Opinion as to, 157. 
 Minden, battle of, 9, 29, 154. 
 Minorca, 195. 
 
 Molasses, in Jamaica, 37, 50. 
 Montgomery, Richard, 78, 148, 181, 183. 
 Moore, Mark, 52, 184. 
 Mosquito territory, 48. 
 Mulberries in America, 44. 
 
 "Nabobs," 16, 34. 
 
 Napoleon. Opinion of, as to expansion, 196, 197. 
 Naval, officers, 6. Stores, 39, 41. Recruiting, 158. 
 
 749 528. 
 
 Nevis cotton, 42. 
 
 New Brunswick. Loyalist settlers in, 196. 
 
 New England. Alkalies, 43. Fisheries, 54. Dissabilities, 37, 58. Its 
 
 share in Seven Years' War, 78. Gift to, ib. Austerity of, 97. Its 
 
 policy in 1812, 202. 
 New Hampshire. Timber in, 41. 
 New South Wales. Wine and limestone in, 49. 
 New York. Fishermen, 41, 54. Timber, 46. Dutch trade with, 52, 
 
 102. Wealth, 62, 64. Criticised by Chatham, 112. Its treatment 
 
 of Tories, 203. 
 New Zealand, 195, 210. 
 Newcastle. Bounties offered to recruits by, 12. Coal, 49. 
 
226 INDEX 
 
 Newcastle, Duke of, 7, 16. 
 
 Newfoundland. Fisheries, 41, 54. State in 1783, 189. Ignored by the 
 British government, 194. 
 
 Newgate. Emigrants from, 60. 
 
 Nicaragua canal. Prophecy as to, 208. 
 
 Nicholls, John. Opposition of, to expansion, 188-9. 
 
 Nivernois, Due de, 25. 
 
 Noailles, Due de, 144. 
 
 Non-importation policy, 81, 102. Supported by Galloway, 121. Critic- 
 ised by Seabury, 122. Effect of, on England, 131. 
 
 Norfolk shipyards, 46. 
 
 North, Lord, 71. Act of, regarding colonial taxation, 135, 211. Pro- 
 motes Adam Smith, 139. Conduct of, after Yorktown, 147. 
 
 North Carolina. Naval stores, 41. Silk, 42. Timber, 46-7. Gift to, 
 79. 
 
 Norway, 41, 189. 
 
 Norwich, 12. 
 
 Nova Scotia. State of, in 1783, 189, 196. 
 
 Ogden, James, 14, 167. 
 
 Oglethorpe, General. His colonisation of Georgia, 39, 65. Resistance 
 
 of, to slave trade, 45. 
 Ohio Company, 2. 
 Ostend cotton, 42. 
 Otis, James. Views of, on American taxation, 81 3, 110; on British 
 
 ignorance, 98 ; on American population, 207. His loyalty, 83. 
 
 Paine, Thomas. His "Common Sense," 84, 206. Hatred of England, 
 
 99, 206. His extreme views, 147. Defended by Erskine, 201. 
 Panama canal, suggested, 16. 
 Paris, 9, 148. 
 
 Parliament considered, 35, 81-2, 109-10, 117. 
 Party system considered, 35, 36, 154. 
 Patrick, James, 15, 167. 
 Pearl bounty, 39. 
 Pelham, Henry, 7. 
 
 Penn, William. Remarks of, on West Indian productiveness, 62. 
 Pennington, William, 46. 
 Pennsylvania. Its vines, 40. Timber, 46. Quietism of, during Seven 
 
 Years' War, 76. Expenditure during that war, 80. Loyalty of, 95. 
 
 Congress, ib. " Chronicle," 99. 
 Philadelphia. Its shipyards, 46. Races, 62. Toryism, 96. Quakers in, 
 
 98. Separatism in, 101. Captured by the British, 136. Occupied 
 
 by Howe, 174. 
 
INDEX 227 
 
 Piedmont silk, 40. 
 
 Pines in North America, 46-7. 
 
 Pipestaves, bounty on, 39. 
 
 Pitch, bounty on, 39. 
 
 Pitt, Lord, His actions during War of Independence, 139, 152. 
 
 Pitt, William (Earl of Chatham). Opinion of, on the outlook in 1756, 
 3. His opportunity, 7 ; ministry, 8. Policy during Seven Years' 
 War, 18-19, 22, 28-30. Inconsistencies, 23, 166. Talents and 
 limitations, 24, 36, 68, 111. Hatred of France, 25. Raises Highland 
 regiments, 27. His finance, 32. Pvemarks on Wolfe, 33. Personal 
 character, 33-4. Influence of, on colonial policy, 35-6, 73. Views 
 on Navigation Acts, 55. Peerage, 70, 106. Political isolation, 105. 
 Unpopularity, 106. Attitude towards George III., 106. Opinions 
 of, on American taxation, 108 13, 134. Opposition of, to Quebec 
 Act, 112. Attitude of, during War of Independence, 139, 152, 166. 
 Remarks of, as to the army, 160. 
 
 Port wine, 50. 
 
 Portugal, 50. 
 
 Potash, bounty on, 39. 
 
 Potters in South Carolina, 52. 
 
 Pownall, Governor. Opinions of, on pines, 46 ; on Navigation Act, 56 ; 
 on the empire, 94, 118, 120; on American representation in England, 
 1235. 
 
 Preferential duties, 38, 191. 
 
 Price, Richard, 143. Remarks of, on Canadian loyalty, 148. Honoured 
 by London, 153. 
 
 Priestley, Joseph, 116. His opposition to the government, 142, 153. 
 His anecdote of Franklin, 204. 
 
 Privy Council. Slavery report, 45. Treatment of Franklin, 204. 
 
 Prussian, share in Seven Years' War, 28-9. Alliance with Pitt, 29, 37. 
 Views on International Law, 134. Army, 163-4. 
 
 Pulaski, Casimir, 165, 177. 
 
 Pye, Henry James. Prophecy of, as to the British empire, 197. 
 
 Quakers. Opposed to trade wars, 10. Colonisation by, 59. Their 
 
 quietism, 76-7. Loyalty, 95-6. 
 Quebec. Captured by Wolfe, 8, 21, 32. Oak of, 47. Attacked by 
 
 American rebels, 181. 
 
 Quebec Act. Opposed by English Whigs, 112, 148. Its effects, 149. 
 Quiberon. battle of, 9. 
 Quincey, Samuel, 205. 
 
 Raisins. Bounty on, 39. 
 Rawdon, Lord, 171, 172. 
 Raynal, Abbe. His views on American population, 207. 
 
228 INDEX 
 
 Bed Indians. Six Nations, 2. Iroquois, 2, 167. Their needs, 06. 
 Senecas, 102. George III.'s views as to their employment, 145 \s 
 British allies, 159, 1669. As allies of the rebels, 168, 169. Treat- 
 ment of, by the Americans, 185. 
 
 Republicanism. Growth of, in America, 83, 85, 204. 
 
 Revenue Act (1767), 70. 
 
 Rhode Island. Seamanship, 54. Constitution, 67. Occupied by the 
 French, 176. 
 
 Rice. Laws as to, 37. 
 
 Richmond, Duke of, 107, 109, 133. 
 
 Riedesel, General von, 162, 165, 206. 
 
 Riga, 43. 
 
 Rochambeau, Jean, 165, 176. 
 
 Roche, Sir B., 135. 
 
 Rockingham, Lord, 70, 106, 107, 116, 150. 
 
 Rodney, Admiral. Opinions of, on slavery, 45 ; on free ports, 57 ; on 
 American courage, 92; on the War of Independence, 141. His 
 successes, 141, 180. Attacked by the Whigs, 154. 
 
 Rosin bounty, 39. 
 
 "Rule of 1756," 17-8. 
 
 Rum in West Indies, 52, 205. 
 
 Russian, iron, 39. Naval stores, 41. Views on International Law, 134. 
 Mercenaries, 163, 166. 
 
 Salzburg emigrants, 65. 
 
 Sandwich, Lord, 152. Opinion of, on Americans, 92. Honoured by 
 Bristol, 137. 
 
 Saratoga. Capitulation of, 151, 173-4. 
 
 Savannah. Silk from, 44. Defence of, 175, 177. 
 
 Scotland, 34. Feeling in, during American War, 136, 141, 163. French 
 enlistments in, 161. 
 
 Scott, John. See under "Eldon, Lord." 
 
 Scott, Sir W. See under " Stowell, Lord." 
 
 Sea power considered, 54-5, 177, 180. 
 
 Seabury, Samuel. Tracts of, 88, 120. His imperialism, 122-3; sacri- 
 fices, 130. Views of, on American agriculture, 192. 
 
 Self-sufficiency. Ideal of, considered, 3845, 48. 
 
 Selwyn, G., 6. 
 
 Senegal, 9, 20, 184. 
 
 Seven Years' War. Considered, 11, 14, 18, 21, 29. Its effects on 
 colonial policy, 35, 72 4. Sacrifices during, 66. Colonial part in, 
 76-7, 80. 
 
 Sharp, Granville, 152, 200. 
 
 Shebbeare, John, 4, 19, 50. 
 
INDEX 229 
 
 Sheffield, Growth of, 5. 
 
 Sheffield, Lord. Opinion of, on Navigation Act, 55. Raises dragoon 
 
 regiment, 135. His tracts considered, 192, 200. 
 Shelburne, Lord. Opposed by Burke, 116, 150. Attitude of, towards 
 
 loyalists, 119. His opposition to expansion, 152, 153, 190. Relations 
 
 with Wolfe, 159. 
 Shippen, William, 155. 
 Sierra Leone, founded, 196. 
 Silk, 39. In Georgia, 40; North Carolina, 42; Savannah, 44; Virginia, 
 
 41; Pennsylvania, ib.; Spitalfields, ib. Failure of industry in 
 
 America, 44. In New Jersey, ib. 
 Slave trade, 44, 86. Horrors, 45. Causes of, 45, 67. Effect on cotton 
 
 trade, 65. Supported by Burke, 115. 
 Smith, Adam. Views of, on " enumerated articles," 37 ; on Navigation 
 
 Act, 55-6; on colonial policy, 79, 88, 139, 187. Promotion of, 139. 
 Smuggling, 74. 
 Smyrna cotton, 42. 
 "Sons of Liberty," 85. 
 Soulavie, J. L. Quoted, 154. 
 South Carolina. Indigo in, 43-4. Silk, 44. Slavery, 45. Timber, 46. 
 
 Foreign immigration, 59, 63. Climate, 62. Gift to, 79. 
 Spain. War with, 9, 30. Its Indies, 42; interference in War of In- 
 dependence, 134. Views of, on International Law, ib., 178. Army 
 
 of, 162. 
 
 St. Fond, Faujas de. Remarks of, on port wine, 50. 
 St. Malo, descent on, 32. 
 
 St. Vincent. Ceded to England, 9. Cotton in, 42. 
 Stair, Lord. Views of, on colonisation, 191. 
 
 Stamp Act, 70, 131, 136. Considerations on, 72 80. Legality of, 81-2. 
 Stanley, Hans, 25. 
 Steel furnaces in America, 37, 68. 
 Stettin timber, 47. 
 Steuben, Frederick, 165, 177. 
 Stiles, Ezra, 129. 
 
 Stirling, Lord. Remarks of, on American pines, 46. 
 Stockport, 43. 
 
 Storer, Adam. Views of, on C. J. Fox, 145-6 ; on mercenaries, 160. 
 Stowell, Lord. Opinions of, on the "Rule of 1756," 17; on Burgoyne's 
 
 disaster, 138. 
 
 Suffolk, Lord. Honoured by Bristol, 137. 
 Sugar, Laws as to, 37, 42, 82. 
 Sunderland, 49. 
 Sweden, 39, 41, 134. 
 Swiss, settlers, 63. Mercenaries, 161. 
 
-30 INDEX 
 
 Talleyrand, 201. 
 
 Tar bounty, 39. 
 
 Tarleton, Col. B. ; 172, 173. 
 
 Taxation, of beer and cider. 32; of land. 135. American, considered, 
 
 7385. North's Act as to, 135, 211. 
 "Taxation no Tyranny," 86. 
 Taylor, G., 46, 62. 
 Tea duty, 67, 71. 
 Temple, Lord. Alienated from Chatham, 107. Supports American 
 
 War, 134. 
 
 Thurlow, Lord, 150. 
 Timber in America, 46 8. 
 Tobacco, Cultivation of. Encouraged in America, 45; prohibited in 
 
 Great Britain, 67. Export of, 56. 
 Tobago. Ceded to England, 9. Lost, 190. 
 Tooke, Home. Proceedings of, during American War, 152-3. 
 Tories (American). Treatment of, by revolutionaries, 85, 147, 203, 205. 
 
 Arguments of, 88-9, 117-21, 204. Strength of, 96. Causes of 
 
 failure, 128 30. Helped by British government, 1%. 
 Tories (British). Strength of, 1357. Dislike to Burke, 151. 
 Townshend, Charles, 32, 70, 97, 135. 
 Trade wars considered, 10, 140, 150. 
 Tucker, Josiah. Views of. on American taxation, 86; on Red Indian 
 
 alliance, 103. Opposed by Galloway, 121. Attacked by Whigs, 153. 
 
 His tracts considered, 193-4. 
 Turgot, A. R. J., 187, 188, 194. 
 Turkey, Company, 10. Cotton, 42. 
 Turpentine bounty, 39. 
 
 "United Empire." Phrase, 96. Sentiment, 11830. 
 
 United States of America. Navigation Act of, 55. Difficulties in way 
 of federation, 118, 123. Debt of, to foreign allies, 177, 192. Anti- 
 cipations as to future of, 192-3, 207-8. Relations of, with Great 
 Britain since 1783, 199209. 
 
 Van, Charles. Remarks of, on Boston, 91. 
 
 Veal, George, 99, 100. 
 
 Verhon. Admiral, 5. 
 
 Vines. In Georgia, 39, 44; Pennsylvania, 40; Virginia, 44. Causes of 
 
 failure in America, ib. 
 Virginia. Its silk, 41. Vines, 44. Tobacco, 4, 56, 194. Timber, 46, 
 
 47. As a field for emigration, 59. Convicts in, 60. As a theatre 
 
 of war, 171, 173. 
 
INDEX 231 
 
 Wade, General, 160. 
 
 Wakefield, 157. 
 
 Wakefield, Gilbert. Views of, on American War, 137. 
 
 Waldegrave, Lord, 34, 167. 
 
 Walker, Fowler, 12. 
 
 Walpole, Horace. Observations of, on the Seven Yean* War, 20; OB 
 oratory, 117; on Birmingham, 136; on public opinion as to the 
 American War, 137; on the decline of Britain, 150. Opposed to 
 Quebec Act, 148. 
 
 Walpole, Robert, 6, 10, 155. 
 
 War of Independence, 71. Considered, 30, 132141, 154-S6, 203. 
 Effect of, on American thought, 206-7. 
 
 Warren, Joseph, 85. 
 
 Washington, George. Views of, on the Seven Years' War, 21; on 
 colonial disabilities, 58; on "corners," 77; on Stamp Act, 81; on 
 Braddock's disaster, 160; on French help, 176; on Lexington, 181; 
 on Carleton, 182; on future of America, 192, 208; on education, 
 206. His part in Seven Years' War, 78. Sensitiveness, 91. Federal 
 policy, 104. Attitude to loyalists, 147; to Catholics, 149; to Bed 
 Indians, 169, 185. Appreciated by English Whigs, 201. 
 
 Wedderbura, Alexander. His opinion of the Whigs, 151. Treatment 
 of Franklin, 204. 
 
 Wedgwood, Josiah, 62. 
 
 Welsh, Settlers in America, 59, 63. Patriotism, 141. 
 
 Wesley, John. Views of on Georgia, 40; on American **r****** f 85, 87, 
 142; on trade, 157. His position during War of Independence, 
 143-4, 154. 
 
 West Indies. Trade of, 38, 39, 42, 48, 52, 56, 58, 67. Slavery, 45. 
 Character of inhabitants, 98. Possible secession of, 121. v^-**r-T 
 of, with United States, 193. 
 
 Whale bounties, 39. 
 
 Whigs. Strength of, in 1775, 133. Policy of, during War of Independ- 
 ence, 139, 144, 149-50, 154, 186. Friendship of, with United States, 
 200-1. Dislike of, to expansion, 1503, 190-1, 1946. 
 
 Whitehead, William, 17. 
 
 Wilkes, John, 88, 131. 
 
 Wimbledon Common, 135, 145. 
 
 Winchester, 51. 
 
 Woad, 44. 
 
 Wolfe, General, 8, 13, 170. Views of, on army comforts, 12. Kstrptnpd 
 by Pitt, 25, 33. Opinion of, on American troops, 91 ; on army pay, 
 159. 
 
 Woodburn, Prof., 82. 
 
 Wool trade, 37, 42, 199. 
 
232 INDEX 
 
 Worcester, 43, 100. 
 
 Wraxall, Sir N. W. Remarks of, on Lord North, 147. 
 
 Writs of assistance, 74. 
 
 "Yankee Doodle," 100. 
 Yarn trade, 38. 
 Yorkshire, 57. 
 
 Yorktown. Surrender of, 146, 165, 173-4, 177, 180. 
 Young, Arthur. Contemplated emigration of, 64. His attitude during 
 War of Independence, 139. 
 
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