History of the United States, Volume 2 | Page 3

JOHN STARK
GENERAL HORATIO GATES
JOHN PAUL JONES'S MEDAL
JOHN PAUL JONES'S MEDAL. (Reverse)
GENERAL SULLIVAN
GENERAL LINCOLN
GENERAL MARION IN CAMP
MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE
BENEDICT ARNOLD
ARNOLD'S ESCAPE
GENERAL NATHANIEL GREENE
THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS AT YORKTOWN
GENERAL DANIEL MORGAN
LORD CORNWALLIS
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
FACSIMILE OF SIGNATURES TO TREATY OF PEACE
JOHN PAUL JONES
FIGHT BETWEEN THE BON HOMME RICHARD AND THE SERAPIS
GENERAL ANTHONY WAYNE
THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN TARLETON AND COLONEL WASHINGTON
DeKALB WOUNDED AT CAMDEN
THE FRANKLIN PENNY
DOLLAR OF 1794. (The first United States coin)
A SCENE AT SPRINGFIELD DURING SLAYS' REBELLION, WHEN THE MOB ATTEMPTED TO PREVENT THE HOLDING OF THE COURTS OF JUSTICE
JOHN WESLEY CELEBRATING THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION IN NEW YORK
ALEXANDER HAMILTON (From a painting by John Trumbull in the Trumbull Gallery at Yale College)
ILLICIT DISTILLERS WARNED OF THE APPROACH OF REVENUE OFFICERS
JOHN JAY. (From a painting by S. F. B. Morse in the Yale College Collection)
JOHN ADAMS. (From a copy by Jane Stuart, about 1874, of a painting by her father, Gilbert Stuart, about 1800-in possession of Henry Adams)
GEORGE CLINTON. (From a painting by Ezra Ames)
JOHN MARSHALL
ELERIDGE GERRY
GENERAL ARTHUR ST. CLAIR
JOSEPH BRANT OR THAYENDANEGEA
DUGOUT OF A SOUTHWESTERN PIONEER
ROBERT FULTON
FULTON'S FIRST EXPERIMENT WITH PADDLE-WHEELS
DEPARTURE OF THE CLERMONT ON HER FIRST VOYAGE
JOHN FITCH'S STEAMBOAT AT PHILADELPHIA
MASSACHUSETTS BILL OF THREE SHILLINGS IN 1741
NEW HAMPSHIRE BILL OF FORTY SHILLINGS IN 1742
MASSACHUSETTS TWOPENCE OF 1722
PINE TREE TWOPENCE
PINE TREE THREEPENCE
PINE TREE SIXPENCE
PINE TREE SHILLING
POSTAL PROGRESS, 1776-1876
COTTON PLANT
THE COTTON GIN. (From the original model)
ELI WHITNEY
THOMAS JEFFERSON. (From the painting by Gilbert Stuart--property of T. Jefferson Coolidge)
AARON BURR. (From a painting by Vanderlyn at the New York Historical Society)
STEPHEN DECATUR
LIEUTENANT DECATUR ON THE TURKISH VESSEL DURING THE BOMBARDMENT OF TRIPOLI
JAMES MADISON (From a painting by Gilbert Stuart--property of T. Jefferson Coolidge)
TECUMSEH
OLIVER H. PERRY
PERRY TRANSFERRING HIS COLORS FROM THE LAWRENCE TO THE NIAGARA
LIST OF MAPS
THE UNITED COLONIES AT THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION
PLAN OF BUNKER HILL
MAP OF MANHATTAN ISLAND IN 1776, SHOWING THE AMERICAN DEFENCES, ETC.
MAP SHOWING THE PROGRESSIVE ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY BY THE UNITED STATES

PERIOD III.
REVOLUTION AND THE OLD CONFEDERATION
1763-1789
CHAPTER I.
RESULTS OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
[1763]
The results of the French and Indian War were out of all proportion to the scale of its military operations. Contrasted with the campaigns which were then shaking all Europe, it sank into insignificance; and the world, its eyes strained to see the magnitude and the issue of those European wars, little surmised that they would dictate the course of history far less than yonder desultory campaigning in America. Yet here and there a political prophet foresaw some of these momentous indirect consequences of the war. "England will erelong repent," said Vergennes, then the French ambassador at Constantinople, "of having removed the only check that could keep her colonies in awe. They no longer stand in need of her protection. She will call on them to contribute toward supporting the burdens they have helped to bring upon her, and they will answer by striking off all dependence." This is, in outline, the history of the next twenty years.
The war in Europe and America had been a heavy drain upon the treasury of England. Her national debt had doubled, amounting at the conclusion of peace to 140,000,000 Pounds sterling. The Government naturally desired to lay upon its American subjects a portion of this burden, which had been incurred partly on their behalf. The result was that new system of taxation which the king and his ministers sought to impose upon the colonies, and which was the immediate cause of the Revolution. The hated taxes cannot, of course, be traced to the French and Indian War alone as their source. England had for years shown a growing purpose to get revenue out of her American dependencies; but the debt incurred by the war gave an animus and a momentum to this policy which carried it forward in the face of opposition that might otherwise have warned even George III. to pause ere it was too late.
[1765]
While the war thus indirectly led England to encroach upon the rights of the colonies, it also did much to prepare the latter to resist such encroachment. It had this effect mainly in two ways: by promoting union among the colonies, and by giving to many of their citizens a good training in the duties of camp, march, and battle-field.
The value to the colonists of their military experience in this war can hardly be overestimated. If the outbreak of the Revolution had found the Americans a generation of civilians, if the colonial cause had lacked the privates who had seen hard service at Lake George and Louisburg, or the officers, such as Washington, Gates, Montgomery, Stark, and Putnam, who had learned to fight successfully against British regulars by fighting with them, it is a question whether the uprising would not have been stamped out, for a time at least, almost at its inception. Especially at the beginning of such a war, when the