of the English Government in governing a colonial empire so far removed from the seat of central authority. It produced that tendency towards defection which, an American writer has discovered, is “characteristic of all peripheral holdings." The great wealth of America, present and prospective, Englishmen were now to begin to realize, and it was obvious to even the most short-sighted statesman that when the time was opportune France would make an attempt to recover what she had lost. French statesmen, indeed, consoled themselves for the loss of Canada by predicting that it was a sure prelude to the independence of the colonies; and there were some English statesmen who advocated the surrender of Canada and the retention of the sugar islands.2 Franklin, clear-visioned as ever, was not deluded by the attentions shown him by the French ambassador. "I fancy that intriguing nation," he writes, in 1767, "would like very well to meddle on occasion, and blow up the coals between Britain and her colonies; but I hope we shall give them no opportunity." Heretofore the colonists had been left to themselves to concert measures for their defense and the power of the Crown was represented by a governor; now it was necessary to provide government, both civil and military, for a vast extent of territory over which no colony exer

1 Semple: American History and its Geographic Conditions, p. 87.

2 Cf. Lecky: A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. I, p. 268; Bancroft: History of the United States, vol. II, p. 564.

• Franklin: Works, vol. iv, p. 32.

cised jurisdiction. Forts must be erected and garrisoned, a permanent army of occupation maintained, judges and other civil officers appointed. This involved a heavy expense, estimated at not less than £300,000 a year. It was proposed that a third of this sum should be raised in America, and that the whole amount should be expended in America for the benefit of the colonies.

On the face of it the proposal seemed reasonable and fair, and any other people than the English colonists in America would undoubtedly have accepted it as an equitable arrangement; probably they would have acquiesced had they not for a hundred and fifty years been trained in a school that, as Burke declared, made their love of liberty fixed and attached on this specific point of taxing. They submitted with ill grace to repressive legislation in the interest of the English manufacturer because they could not help themselves, but they could resist the payment of taxes levied without their consent, and they had no hesitation in making the British Government understand their opposition. In 1764, while Englishmen in America are contesting with Pontiac and his allies for the possession of the Far Western frontier, so that America shall be the undisputed possession of Englishmen, Englishmen in England begin that policy that is to lead to separation and America for the Americans. George Grenville, now become Prime Minister, introduces a bill, which Parliament passes, laying fresh taxes on

American importations, extending the always objectionable Navigation Acts, and still further discriminating against the colonists in favor of the English manufacturer; and notice is given that next year an act will be passed requiring the colonists to make additional contributions to the Exchequer by requiring them to stamp their commercial paper.

The Stamp Act has been popularly regarded as inciting the Revolution. It was no such thing; for it cannot be too often repeated that the Revolution was the result of no one cause; its roots drew far deeper from history. It is an equal popular delusion that the Stamp Tax was an unjust tax, and that it was proposed to pay the revenue accruing from its operation into the British Treasury, and that the colonies would gain nothing by it. In the interest of truth, and to correct a popular fallacy, it is permissible to give the final section of the Act:

Section 55 - Finally, the produce of all the aforementioned duties shall be paid into His Majesty's Treasury; and there will be held in reserve, to be used, from time to time, by the Parliament, for the purpose of defraying the expenses necessary for the defense, protection, and security of the said colonies and plantations.

Grenville and his colleagues had been warned that the Stamp Act would arouse discontent. Franklin, then in London, and the other agents of the colonies, urged the Ministry not to resort to this form of taxation, as it was contrary to American ideas; and they pledged themselves that the

colonies would out of their own treasuries pay into the Exchequer more than the sum produced by the Stamp Act. The Ministry expected the usual opposition that always follows the imposition of new taxation, although they were not prepared for open defiance. Stamp taxes were not a discovery intended to irritate the American colonies, nor did they seem to be a particularly oppressive form of excise. Stamps were in use in England, they were not regarded as burdensome or unjust, and they were considered a convenient method of bringing money into the Exchequer; the colonies had themselves used stamps. In London everybody took it for granted that while the Act would be resented, it would be submitted to as the expression of legitimate authority.

The historian can find proof in support of his argument that the British Government acted with moderation, fairness, and scrupulous regard for the welfare of the colonies; that the means it employed to raise taxes to pay for the expenses of a long and costly war and to provide for the future administration of the country were not revolutionary, but simply an extension of the system then in force in England, and of all forms of taxation the most equitable and the least likely to press with undue severity upon the mass of the people; that it could not anticipate that such a moderate exercise of imperial authority would make loyal colonists rebels; that the colonists were not justified in their resistance; and

that, having been pampered and coddled and allowed too great a control of their own affairs, they were unmindful of all that England had done for them or that they owed their freedom and safety to the statesmanship of the mother-country no less than to her arms and her treasure. The historian who holds a brief for the other side can show with equal plausibility that the colonists very properly resisted "taxation without representation"; that after these years of what was practically autonomy so far as domestic taxation was concerned, the British Government now attempted to reverse its policy and take out of the hands of the colonists the taxing power, which men trained to freedom must oppose. An argument equally good can be made on either side, convincing according to the ability with which it is presented and the dexterity with which the facts of history are colored to sustain it.

There has seldom been a more striking illustration of a great historian led to a wrong conclusion, because he failed to interpret historical events by the light of national psychology, than Lecky's statement that "every grievance the Americans had put forward as a reason for taking up arms had been redressed; every claim they had resented had been abandoned from the time when the English Parliament surrendered all right of taxation and internal legislation in the colonies; and when the English Commissioners laid their propositions before the Americans, the character of the war had wholly