by force. A few days before the battle took place, Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the army around Boston, and the war had begun in real earnest.

Any summarizing of causes of so complex a movement as the Revolution is somewhat unsatisfactory and the conclusions are generally open to criticism at some point. Perhaps the most important single cause is the growth of the colonies, which gave them a steadily increasing sense of their own importance. This is especially true in connection with the constitutional development centering in the colonial legislatures. By 1760 the Americans had become politically self-sufficient, and any encroachment on the field of their legislatures was bitterly resented. Therefore the change in British policy, with reference to a colonial revenue, ran counter to one of the main lines of colonial development. The formula of "no taxation without representation" was simply the objective statement of this feeling regarding the preeminence of the local assemblies, a genuine political slogan. In the case of Virginia, the causes of ill-feeling were bound up with debts owed to British creditors and with the western policy as expressed in the Proclamation of 1763. The commercial colonies. were complaining of and opposing the Customs service. British policy had given offense, and grave offense, to a number of colonies.

Added to all this were the local controversies, such as that between the western and eastern counties in Pennsylvania, or the one between the ruling and unfranchised classes in New York, Imperial and local questions were closely blended in these, and the leaders in the colonial controversies used the imperial policies as helpful issues. The determining factor seems to have been the work of the colonial political leaders, among whom Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams stand supreme. Rarely if ever will whole communities rise in rebellion against acts of government, no matter how objectionable they may be. The people have to be reached through their emotions, and once these are aroused, they can be directed almost at will by the right man. It is the emotional storm that makes revolution possible, and this is never brought on by any mere discussion of abstruse constitutional questions. For three years, Adams assiduously fostered and cultivated a burning hatred of Great Britain, without which the Revolution would have been a very different kind of movement. British blunders furnished him with his material, but the real driving power came from him.

CHAPTER XVII

THE WAR IN THE NORTH

EARLY MILITARY OPERATIONS

For the war which began on April 19, the Americans could hardly have been more poorly prepared. The leaders who had been instrumental in bringing on the crisis were specialists in the art of arousing the emotions of the people, trained in the methods of politics. It remained to be seen to what extent, if any, they could turn their hands to the infinitely more difficult tasks of organizing the population for war, and of directing that war into successful channels. The country had to find out whether or not revolutionists could be transformed over night into statesmen. The second Continental Congress, which met at Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, was a group "without unity in their instructions, with no power to form a government, without jurisdiction over an acre of territory . . . with no money, no laws, and no means to execute them." The members were as lacking in unanimity as the whole body was in authority. In fighting Great Britain, the greatest naval power in the world, the Americans began without a single war vessel. As for an army, neither the "minute men" who drove Percy's troops from Concord back to Boston, nor their compatriots who flocked to the siege of Boston could measure up to the accepted standard. Carrying the new theory of self-government out to its logical conclusion, the privates elected their own officers, and then treated them as servants of the people are apt to be treated: with contempt. Local jealousies and rivalries, added to the lack of discipline, made carefully planned movements virtually impossible.

On June 15, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief of the army, much to the disappointment of John Hancock, who felt that he alone was really qualified for the position. It often happens in the case of a long war that the real leader is developed by the contest itself, and consequently does not appear at the start. But while the Revolution brought to light the

usual number of incompetent upstarts, of whom the adventurer Charles Lee was perhaps the worst, it produced no one who could compare with Washington in general, all-round ability. A man of sound judgment, endowed with far more than the average allowance of common sense, tenacity, and courage, Washington stands supreme among the whole Revolutionary group. Among all the qualities which mark him as a great man, perhaps none stands out more clearly than his absolute downright sanity, his capacity for living in the world of fact, and for seeing things as they were.

Certainly any ordinary man would have been discouraged by the conditions prevailing around Boston. His army consisted of militia units, which changed rapidly, as their terms of service expired; his paymaster, commissary general, an' quartermaster general all reported absolute bankruptcy. Most of the troops were close to mutiny. Added to all this were the petty rivalries in the ranks and among the officers. It is small wonder that Washington alternately prayed and cursed. "Such a dearth of public spirit, and want of virtue," he wrote, "such stock-jobbing, and fertility in all the low

arts to obtain advantages of one kind or another, . . I never saw before, and pray God I may never be a witness to again. . . . Such a dirty, mercenary spirit pervades the whole that I should not be at all surprised at any disaster that may happen."

1

SCALE OF MILES
2

3

BOSTON AND VICINITY

In the meantime, even before Washington had been appointed commander-in-chief, Massachusetts and Connecticut-separately, not jointly -started expeditions against Crown Point and Ticonderoga, the key forts on the roads from Canada to the Hudson River. On May 10, 1775,

the combined forces under Ethan Allen captured Ticonderoga, while Crown Point was taken by Seth Warren. This venture was followed by the capture of Montreal in November, but the failure of the combined Arnold-Montgomery attack on Quebec made further ventures in Canada impossible. On June 17, 1775, the American forces were driven from their important position in Charlestown,

although their brilliant defense in the battle of Bunker Hill made the British success a Pyrrhic victory.

Washington's kaleidoscopic forces managed to maintain the siege of Boston, and bad as their situation was, that of the city itself, and the British forces in it, was worse. Finally, on March 4, 1776, Washington fortified Dorchester Heights, which commanded the whole city. It could no longer be held, and on March 17, General Howe sailed for Halifax, taking with him some nine hundred Loyalists.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

While Washington was trying to hold his army together around Boston, Congress and the country were gradually working toward a formal separation from the ritish Empire. To take this logical step, however, proved to be even more difficult than bringing on the war. At the beginning of the winter of 1775-1776, not a single colony was ready officially to sanction the break, and even in the following spring, after the British had left Boston, there was still vigorous opposition to be overcome. From the beginning the Tories or Loyalists were determined to prevent a separation, or if that should prove impossible, to stave it off as long as possible, and their influence could not be ignored. In that group were to be found not only office holders under the Crown, and the Anglican clergy, but large numbers of conservative individuals, merchants, professional men, and others, who saw far more to lose in a general overturn than there was to gain in proclaiming independence.

The Loyalists were opposed by the organized radicals, men in charge of the committees of correspondence and provincial congresses, which picked up the reins of government where they had been dropped by officials of the old order. Because these leaders controlled the machinery and the various organs of publicity, they were able to make a deeper impression than the conservatives. Furthermore, the course of events was working on their side. The efforts of the British government to suppress the rebellion led inevitably to acts which roused even the moderate Americans to align themselves with the radicals.

To the gradually growing sentiment in favor of separation a tremendous impetus was added by the publication of Thomas Paine's pamphlet, Common Sense. Somewhat like Voltaire in the clearness with which he phrased his obvious, self-evident criticisms of the

established order, Paine brought the argument for independence down to the level of recently chosen legislators or of privates in Washington's army, the very ones who would shape opinion for months, if not years to come. Himself an English visitor, Paine ridiculed the whole theory of kingship, and at the same time, he made light of the venerated English constitution. Then, appealing to that pride in the coming greatness of the country which characterized every true American of the time, Paine pointed out the absurdity in the control of the continent by an island three thousand miles away. The pamphlet sold by the hundred thousand copies, and the effect of it was soon evident in the more determined stand taken by the promoters of independence. The immediate problem was to win over the Continental Congress, a very difficult matter, as conditions were. The five middle colonies had specifically instructed their delegates in that body to oppose independence, and the winter had passed before a single state officially sanctioned the step.

But during May and June sentiment in behalf of independence developed rapidly. The radicals were able politicians, and arousing public sentiment was the work for which they were best trained. They did this by working through their customary agents, the local committees, and by bringing whatever personal pressure they could upon their hesitant colleagues in Congress. On June 7, in compliance with instructions from his state, Richard Henry Lee made the motion "That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states." Even then the conservative delegates, especially from the middle states, held back, as they knew that public sentiment in their own states was still lagging far behind Virginia and New England. As a result the radicals had to agree to a delay of three weeks, although in the interim a committee was set to work on the form of a declaration.

During this interval, very opportunely for the radicals, news came from England that the king had arranged to buy the services of twenty thousand German troops, to be used in subduing the Americans. Even then, the regular government in Pennsylvania had to be overthrown, and the hitherto unfranchised elements brought to the front, before that state could be won over to independence. After a careful discussion, in which John Adams and John Dickinson took the leading parts on the two sides, on July 2, Congress committed itself definitely to a resolution of independence.