Search -
Beacon Lights of History: American statesmen. [1894] (v. 7)
Beacon Lights of History American statesmen - 1894 - v. 7 Author:John Lord Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of charters, the popular orators made a good point in magnifying the injustice of " taxation without representation." The Colonies had been marvellously prosp... more »ered, and if not rich they were powerful, and were spreading toward the indefinite and unexplored West. The Seven Years' War had developed their military capacity. It was New England troops which had taken Louisburg. The charm of British invincibility had been broken by Braddock's defeat. The Americans had learned self-reliance in their wars with the Indians, and had nearly exterminated them along the coast without British aid. The Colonists three thousand miles away from England had begun to feel their importance, and to realize the difficulty of their conquest by any forces that England could command. The self-exaggeration common to all new countries was universal. Few as the people were, compared with the population of the mother country, their imagination was boundless. They felt, if they did not clearly foresee, their inevitable future. The North American continent was theirs by actual settlement and long habits of self-government, and they were determined to keep it. Why should they be dependent on a country that crippled their commerce, that stifled their manufactures, that regulated their fisheries, that appointed their governors, and regarded themwith selfish ends, — as a people to be taxed in order that English merchants and manufacturers should be enriched ? They did not feel weak or dependent; what new settlers in the Western wilds ever felt that they could not take care of their farms and their Hocks and everything which they owned ? Doubtless such sentiments animated far-reaching men, to whom liberty was so sweet, and power so enchanting. They could not openly avow them without danger of arrest, until resi...« less