The War of Independence | Page 4

boy, but there were the other
worlds of languages and science to conquer. It is almost discouraging
merely to write down the fact that at thirteen he had read a large part of
Livy, Cicero, Ovid, Catullus, and Juvenal, and all of Virgil, Horace,
Tacitus, Sallust, and Suetonius,--to say nothing of Cæsar, at seven.
Greek was disposed of in like manner; and then came the modern
languages, --German, Spanish,--in which he kept a diary,--French,
Italian, and Portuguese. Hebrew and Sanskrit were kept for the years of
seventeen and eighteen. In college, Icelandic, Gothic, Danish, Swedish,
Dutch, and Roumanian were added, with beginnings in Russian. The
uses to which he put these languages were not those to which the weary
schoolboy puts his few scraps of learning in foreign tongues, but the
true uses of literature,--reading for pleasure and mental stimulus.
It is needless to relate the rapid course of Mr. Fiske's first studies in
science; it is no whit less remarkable than that of his other intellectual
enterprises. As mathematics is akin to music, it will be enough to say
that when he was fifteen a friend's piano was left in his grandmother's
house, and, without a master, the boy soon learned its secrets well
enough to play such works as Mozart's Twelfth Mass. Later in life Mr.
Fiske studied the science of music. He has printed many musical
criticisms, and has himself composed a mass and songs.
Few boys can hope to take to college with them, or, for that matter,
even away from it, a mind so well equipped as Mr. Fiske's was when he
went to Cambridge. Three years of stimulating university atmosphere,

and of indefinitely wide opportunities for reading, left him prepared as
few men have been for just the work he has done. He has had the
wisdom to see what he could do, and being possessed of the qualities
that lead to accomplishment, he has done it; and any reader who
understands more than the mere words he reads will be very likely to
discover in this small volume, "The War of Independence," something
of the spirit, and some suggestions of the method which, in this sketch,
we have endeavored to point out as characteristic of one of the
foremost living historians.

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
Since the year 1875 we have witnessed, in many parts of the United
States, public processions, meetings, and speeches in commemoration
of the hundredth anniversary of some important event in the course of
our struggle for national independence. This series of centennial
celebrations, which has been of great value in stimulating American
patriotism and awakening throughout the country a keen interest in
American history, will naturally come to an end in 1889. The close of
President Cleveland's term of office marks the close of the first century
of the government under which we live, which dates from the
inauguration of President Washington on the balcony of the Federal
building in Wall street, New York, on the 30th of April, 1789. It was on
that memorable day that the American Revolution may be said to have
been completed. The Declaration of Independence in 1776 detached the
American people from the supreme government to which they had
hitherto owed allegiance, and it was not until Washington's
inauguration in 1789 that the supreme government to which we owe
allegiance to-day was actually put in operation. The period of thirteen
years included between these two dates was strictly a revolutionary
period, during which it was more or less doubtful where the supreme
authority over the United States belonged. First, it took the fighting and

the diplomacy of the revolutionary war to decide that this supreme
authority belonged in the United States themselves, and not in the
government of Great Britain; and then after the war was ended, more
than five years of sore distress and anxious discussion had elapsed
before the American people succeeded in setting up a new government
that was strong enough to make itself obeyed at home and respected
abroad.
It is the story of this revolutionary period, ending in 1789, that we have
here to relate in its principal outlines. When we stand upon the crest of
a lofty hill and look about in all directions over the landscape, we can
often detect relations between distant points which we had not before
thought of together. While we tarried in the lowland, we could see blue
peaks rising here and there against the sky, and follow babbling brooks
hither and thither through the forest. It was more homelike down there
than on the hilltop, for in each gnarled tree, in every moss-grown
boulder, in every wayside flower, we had a friend that was near to us;
but the general bearings of things may well have escaped our