will one day be of more service to my country than a victory, and that the conqueror in aggrandising himself will find a tomb even in that." In 1757 Montcalm had already written that “England will be the first victim of her Colonies,” and in the following year he had added, "the several advices I daily receive assure me England will one day lose her Colonies. As to the English Colonies, one essential point should be known, it is that they are never taxed. They keep that to themselves, an enormous fault this, in the policy of the mother country. She should have taxed them from the foundation, I have certain advice that all the Colonies would take fire at being taxed now." Probably, however, the cunning of such a policy of suspicion would have in any case overreached itself. If the predominance of England over her Colonies could only be maintained by “a balance of power in America," what was to prevent France and the English Colonies coming to terms as against England? In all probability the maintenance of the French power in Canada would not have preserved her Colonies to England while it would have made the remote outlook infinitely more gloomy. To have met the Colonies in such a spirit of petty cunning would have been an insult, which history would have known how to avenge. Be this, however, as it may, the good-will excited by the triumph over France afforded just the needed opportunity for England to set her house in order with regard to Colonial matters. It was, indeed, a pity that Pitt had left the Ministry. The pathetic story, which describes the Great Commoner June. after the failure to form a Ministry in 1765, addressing Temple with the words : "Exstinxti me teque, soror, populumque, patresque covers a deep meaning. But if, even after the mischief of 1 Grenville Corr., Vol. III. Even without Pitt, however, the opportunity was very favourable. It was afterwards said by a shrewd cynic1 that "Mr Grenville lost America because he read the American despatches, which his predecessors had never done." But he must have read history to little purpose who finds in it such excuse for procrastination and inaction. In truth, there was urgent need that the despatches from America should be read, learnt and inwardly digested, and the urgency for some change of policy was very pressing. For what was the state of things revealed in those despatches? From the point of view of English statesmen, by far the most serious question was the continually asserted weakness of the Executive. In the last resort Government must either depend upon consent or coercion; but England went on blindly pursuing a path, which made consent more and more impossible, while, at the same time, it neglected the necessary precautionary methods. In a modern society what are the forces upon which the established state of things depends? As a first line of defence, there are the police, judges, magistrates, soldiers, etc., all of whose interests are closely bound up with those of their employers; while behind you have ranked all those who have anything to lose. But, in the American Colonies, the power of the Executive, as we have again and again seen, tended more and more to fall into the hands of the Assembly, whose interests might very well be contrary to those of the Mother country; while those who would be the natural adherents of the established Government, the owners of property, were seriously alienated by that Mercantile system which either sacrificed their interests to those of the English merchants, or else obliged them to resort to a new morality, wherein smuggling was no longer an offence. To one, then, who should have taken serious stock of the situation, the necessity for doing something must have been apparent. Of course, it may be said that nothing could have availed. The destinies of the United States had to be accomplished, and certainly, in a sense, this is true. But the parting assuredly might have been delayed, and, when it happened, it might 1 Lord Essex. Lord Albemarle's Life of Rockingham, Vol. I. have been unaccompanied by that bitterness which has cast a dark trail along subsequent history. It is a matter of no little difficulty to realise the real feelings of the Colonies at the time. The subject has been largely, of course, dealt with by Americans, who find it difficult to conceive of a time at which American patriotism had not come into existence. I have already quoted the words of the Swede, Kalm; but Kalm wrote, to some extent, under the influence of prejudice. He grudged the loss to Sweden of Delaware. Nor, because a prophecy is fulfilled, does it follow that at the time the prophet was justified. In public and private affairs, the English race loves to grumble, and the foreign observer probably did not make sufficient allowance for the national failing. Probably the truest estimate of the situation is to be found in the language of Franklin1: "The seeds of liberty are universally found there, and nothing can eradicate them. And yet, there remains among the people so much respect, veneration and affection for Britain that, if cultivated prudently, they might be easily governed still for ages without force or even considerable expense." Even as late as 1775 John Adams, who from the first had merited the character of "decided," afterwards2 given him by Lord Howe, could write, "If public principles and motives and arguments were alone to determine this dispute, it might be settled for ever in a few hours." 3 Note, too, the language in the same year of Jefferson, one of the most determined opponents of English rule: "I wish no false sense of honour, no ignorance of our real intentions, no vain hope that partial concessions of right will be accepted, may induce the Ministry to trifle with accommodation, till it shall be put out of our power ever to accommodate . . . to risk our accepting of foreign aid, which may not be obtainable but on a condition of everlasting avulsion from Great Britain.” 4 It must always be remembered that an American patriotism was a plant of slow growth. Indeed it never came to its 2 In 1775. Works, Vol. III. p. 80. 1 Works, Vol. VII. 3 Writing as Novanglus,' Works, Vol. III. Hist. MSS. Com. Dartmouth Cor. full bloom till its roots had been fed on kindred blood shed in the lifetime of men not yet old. It was not merely the burden of Governors and courtiers that the Colonies were more distinct from each other than from England. "Different forms of Government," wrote Franklin,1 " different laws, different interests, and, in some of them, different religious persuasions and different manners. Their jealousy of each other is so great that, however necessary a union of the Colonies has long been for their common defence and security against their enemies, and how sensible soever each Colony has been of that necessity, yet they have never been able to effect such a union among themselves, nor even to agree in requesting the mother country to establish it for them. If they could not agree to unite against the French and Indians, who were perpetually harassing their settlements, burning their villages, and murdering their people, can it reasonably be supposed that there is any danger of their uniting against their own nation . . . with which they have so many connections, and ties of blood intercourse and affections, and which it is well known they all love much more than they love one another?" We may note 2 that even the wise Washington perhaps showed in the first years of his public life some slight traces of this narrow particularism. The pertinacity with which he opposed the route to Fort Duquesne, selected by Forbes, may have been in some measure due to the prejudices of a Virginian, opposing the rival interests of Pennsylvania. The deep-rooted love of England is attested in many ways. "To be an old England man," acknowledged Franklin,3" was of itself a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us." In the life of Otis it is remarked that in American business letters, the word "home" 4 was always used for England. Moreover, at this time the feeling of personal loyalty felt for the King was 1 Canada Pamphlet. Works, Vol. IV. IV., p. 197. something very great. Franklin was a man of the world and a philosopher, but he shows in his letters as late as 1768 a kind of loyalty, which nowadays you would not often find. Mr Greene,1 who writes strongly from the American patriotic standpoint, has himself admitted that it was difficult for people who had wasted such loyalty on King George to take kindly to the rule of King Congress. In truth, the difficulties which beset the infant American Republic are all accounted for by the fact that the American Revolution had owed nothing to national aspirations. It seems to me that a recognition of this truth brings the deepest condemnation on the English politicians, who yet caused that Revolution to become inevitable. To whoever believes in progress, along the slow but sure lines of natural evolution, the breach between the two great branches of the English-speaking race, which never seems thoroughly able to heal, must always appear one of the most calamitous events in the world's history. But it may be said what practical measures could have been taken in 1763? Unhappily the one measure needful could not, in the then state of English public opinion, have been taken. To treat the English across the seas as English men, with all the commercial rights of Englishmen, would have been a policy which would not have secured a single vote in the House of Commons. And yet, at the time of which we are treating, a course was suggested which might have met the difficulty. To Governor Pownall belongs the credit of having proposed in his very able book on Administration of the Colonies an Imperial zollverein. The Navigation Acts regarded English America as mere Plantations, tracts of foreign country, employed in raising certain staple products. But these Plantations had, in fact, become important trading communities. In this state of things two courses were alone possible. Either to 66 narrow the bottom of our commercial interests to the model of our plantation laws, or we must enlarge the spirit of our commercial laws to that latitude to which our commercial empire does extend." In other words, 1 Hist. view of Amer. Rev. |