Choiseul warned Stanley, as Parkman tells us, that the Colonists in America "would not fail to shake off their dependence the moment Canada should be ceded." Thirteen years before-again we quote Parkman "the Swedish traveller Kalm declared that the presence of the French in America gave the best assurance to Great Britain that its own colonies would remain in due subjection." Benjamin Franklin's was the one dissentient voice. For a reason little flattering to the Americans, he did not believe in the likelihood of revolt. "If the Colonies could not agree to unite against the French and Indians," he wrote, can it reasonably be supposed that there is any danger of their uniting against their own nation, which it is well known they all love much more than they love one another. I will venture to say union amongst them for such a purpose is not merely improbable, but impossible." Thus Franklin, and the event proved that he had a far dimmer view of the future than Kalm or Choiseul.

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In truth, the apathy and disunion of the Colonists had hampered the British, fighting in their defence, at every step. Provincials in character as in name, they had cherished no other thoughts than of their own ease and prosperity. They were incapable of taking a larger, wider view of their imperial responsibility. There is abundance of evidence to this effect in the pages of

Parkman and elsewhere for those who are willing to accept it. And if the Colonists were careless of their duty before the conquest of Canada, they fell far deeper into the pit of apathy when Wolfe's victory had saved them from immediate danger. In 1764 Bouquet delivered delivered Virginia and Maryland from the Indians who harried them. Virginia and Maryland rewarded him by a refusal of aid and by base ingratitude. They

made it clear to him "that they would take no burden upon themselves which they could lay upon the British soldier-that, in fact, they would even allow sick Highlanders to be dragged out of hospital to the front to defend able-bodied Americans."

As the Colonies were not disposed to protect themselves, it did not seem unreasonable that they should be asked for a contribution to be used in their defence. Here, indeed, we may discover the origin and propriety of the Stamp Act. It was not a crime against man; it was not an outrage upon virtue. There was nothing in it to stagger "humanity" or to inflame the Whigs. Only by an indirect stroke was it designed to save the British Treasury from expense. The sum which it was expected to raise-£100,000— was to be spent in the Colonies and for their protection alone. "The measures on the part of the mother country which aroused the resentment of the British provinces," writes

fitting subject for the ponderous ridicule of Mr Burke. Nor did that eminent Whig think it worth while to mention that the Americans had fought side by side with Indians two years before, and had incurred no blame. He preferred to believe that his country was always in the wrong, and he finds in Sir George Trevelyan a devout disciple. That there were cruelties and barbarities either side may be acknowledged. War, especially civil war, is not made with gloved hands, and though a historian may have his preferences, he may not exclude even his own countrymen wholly from the light of truth. "There can be no doubt," says an American writer, "that the Tory wrongdoings have been grossly exaggerated, or at least have been dwelt upon as dreadful scenes of depravity to form a background for the heroism and fortitude of the patriotic party whose misdeeds are passed over very lightly." And perhaps the time has come when, for their own self-respect and for the respect they owe to the Americans, our historians will cease from these acts of political cannibalism, which, however much they may indulge their pride, appear ridiculous to enlightened readers on either side the Atlantic.

There is less excuse for the exposition of Whiggish prejudice, because, as we have said, the historians of America have long looked upon the history of

of impartiality. Here, for instance, is an extract from Professor Tyler's 'Literary History of the American Revolution,' which which we oppose with confidence to Sir George Trevelyan's traditional condemnation of Great Britain. "Hardly have we known," writes Professor Tyler, "seldom have we been reminded, that the side of the Loyalists, as they called themselves, of the Tories, as they were scornfully nicknamed by their opponents, was even in argument not a weak one, and in motive and sentiment not a base one, and in devotion and self-sacrifice not an unheroic one. . . . May we not now hope that it will not any longer cost us too great an effort to look calmly, even considerately, at least fairly, upon what, in the words and acts of the Tories, our fathers and grandfathers could hardly endure to look at at all? And surely our willingness to do this can hardly be lessened by the consideration that, 'in dealing with an enemy, not only dead, but dead in exile and defeat, candour prescribes the fullest measure of generous treatment.' At any rate, the American Revolution affords no exemption from the general law of historic investigation, that the truth is to be found only by him who searches for it with an unbiassed mind. Until we shall be able to take, respecting the problems and the parties of our own Revolution, the same attitude which we freely and easily take

respecting the problems and parties of other revolutions, that is, the attitude not of hereditary partisans, but of scientific investigators,-will it be forbidden us to acquire a thoroughly discriminating and just acquaintance with that prodigious epoch in our history."1 Sir George Trevelyan is unable to deal with an enemy, especially when that enemy is his own land, with "the fullest measure of generous treatment." An hereditary partisan of Charles James Fox, he clings fast to the prejudices of his hero, and rejects the knowledge of all facts that were not acceptable to his hero and his hero's friends.

And as in Sir George Trevelyan's view the Americans are always right, so they were supported by one who, also in Sir George Trevelyan's view, was the noblest of his kind. Sir George's panegyric of Charles James Fox is fantastic in its extravagance. He has laid aside the humour and sense of proportion which gave some verisimilitude to his 'Early Life' of that wayward demagogue. His praise increases vastly as the reason for it disappears. Charles Fox, as a young man, careless and irresponsible, may be an attractive figure. But he should never have grown up. He developed with the passing years a capacity for public mischief, which not even his valiant

exploits at the gaming-table can excuse. We do not know upon what facts Sir George Trevelyan bases his eulogy, but such a passage as follows cannot be read without astonishment. "His mind," writes Sir George, "was tending to nobler instincts; and the time gradually approached when, in his own peculiar way, he became 8 reformed character. He ceased to gamble." His way was assuredly peculiar, and in the period covered by the present volume he did not cease to gamble. At the very moment that he took office in 1782 he was holding a bank at Brooks's. No doubt it seemed an excellent joke to the Whigs, as indeed it was. But there is no touch of the "nobler instinct" about it, nor is it a proof of cessation from gambling. "From a Pharo table to the headship of the Exchequer," wrote George Selwyn, "is a transition which appears to me de tenir trop au Roman, and those who will oppose it the most are those whom he has been voting with and assisting to ruin this country for the last ten years at least." As for Fox, he had no scruples, and instantly admitted Hare and Fitzpatrick, his colleagues in pillage, to a fair share in the spoils of office.

Had Fox proved himself a patriotic statesman, we should have had no right and no

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