History of the United States, Volume 2 | Page 5

the hands of France.
And the cession of Canada, besides removing an enemy, helped to transform that enemy into an active friend. Had France retained her possessions in America, she would still have had an interest in maintaining the colonial system, and it is doubtful if even her hatred of England would have induced her to aid the rebellious colonies. But, her dream of a great Western empire forever dispelled, she had much to gain and nothing to lose by drawing sword for the American cause. The British defeated the French at Quebec only to meet them again at Yorktown.
One more result remains to be noted, without which what has preceded would lose half its significance. By the Peace of Paris England succeeded to all of France's possessions in America east of the Mississippi; but the most valuable part of this great territory she won only to hold in trust a few years for her colonial children. The redcoats under Amherst and Wolfe, who thought they were fighting for King George, were in reality winning an empire for the Young Republic. It is not easy to feel the full significance of this. The colonies might, indeed, have won independence even if France had retained her grasp on the valley of the Mississippi; but so long as the new-born nation was shut up to a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast, it would have been a lion caged. The "conquest of Canada," says Green, "by ... flinging open to their energies in the days to come the boundless plains of the West, laid the foundation of the United States."
CHAPTER II.
GEORGE III. AND HIS AMERICAN COLONIES
[1760]
The year after the capture of Quebec a young king ascended the throne of England, whose action was to affect profoundly the fortunes of the American colonies. Of narrow mental range and plebeian tastes, but moral, sincere, and stout-hearted, George III. assumed the crown with one dominant purpose--to rule personally; and the first decade of his reign was a constant struggle to free himself from the dictation of cabinet ministers. In 1770, during the premiership of North, who was little more than his page, the king gained the day; and for the next dozen years he had his own way perfectly. All points of policy, foreign and domestic, even the management of debates in Parliament, he was crafty enough to get into his hands. To this meddling of his with state affairs, his impracticable and fickle plans, and the stupidity of the admirers whom his policy forced upon him, may be traced in very large measure the breach between England and the colonies.
The Revolution, however, cannot be wholly accounted for by any series of events which can be set down and labelled. The ultimate causes lie deeper. Three thousand miles of ocean rolled between England and the colonies. A considerable measure of colonial self-government was inevitable from the first, and this, by fostering the spirit of independence, created a demand for more and more freedom. The social ties which had bound the early Pilgrims to their native land grew steadily weaker with each new generation of people who knew no home but America. The colonists had begun to feel the stirrings of an independent national life. The boundless possibilities of the future on this new continent, with its immense territory and untold natural wealth, were beginning to dawn upon them. Their infancy was over. The leading-strings which bound them to the mother-country must be either lengthened or cast off altogether.
[Illustration: Portrait.] King George III.
But England did not see this. Most Englishmen at the beginning of George III.'s reign regarded the colonies as trading corporations rather than as political bodies. It was taken for granted that a colony was inferior to the mother-country, and was to be managed in the interests of the commercial classes at home. Conflict was therefore inevitable sooner or later. We have to trace briefly the chief events by which it was precipitated.
[Illustration: Portrait.] James Otis, Jr.
[1764]
In 1760-61 England tried to enforce the navigation laws more strictly. Writs of assistance issued, empowering officers to enter any house at any time, to search for smuggled goods. This measure aroused a storm of indignation. The popular feeling was voiced, and at the same time intensified, by the action of James Otis, Jr., a young Boston lawyer, who threw up his position as advocate-general rather than defend the hated writs, which he denounced as "instruments of slavery." "Then and there," said John Adams, "the trumpet of the Revolution was sounded."
In May, 1764, a report reached Boston that a stamp act for the colonies had been proposed in Parliament, to raise revenue by forcing the use in America of stamped forms for all sorts of public papers, such as deeds, warrants, and the like. A feeling of mingled rage