son's Transylvania Company. (23) Contemporary accounts of Bunker Hill. (24) The Mecklenburg (N.C.) Declaration of 1775. (25) Expulsion of the royal governors of the colonies. (26) Why did the invasion of Canada fail? (27) Facts which justify some of the charges in the Declaration of Independence.

Geography Secondary authorities

Sources

Illustrative works

Pictures

REFERENCES

See maps, pp. 131, 168, 181.

Hart, Formation of the Union, §§ 31-39; Sloane, French War and Revolution, 173-237; Channing, United States, 67-87; Van Tyne, American Revolution, chs. i.-v., Loyalists; Fiske, Revolution, I. 100-146; Trevelyan, American Revolution, pt. i. 193– 411, pt. ii. I. 1-171; Gay, Bryant's History, III. 377-450, 470–489; Larned, History for Ready Reference, III. 2337, IV. 2375, V. 3214, 3244, 3635; Cambridge Modern History, VII. 160-174, 207-210, 235-243; Greene, Revolution, 67-136; McCrady, South Carolina, II. 733–798, III. 1-185; Tyler, Revolution (literary), I. 267-521, - Patrick Henry, 101-213; Sparks, Men who made the Nation, 72-118; Morse, John Adams, 1-127, — Benjamin Franklin, 204– 219; Hosmer, Samuel Adams, 260-337; Lodge, George Washington, I. 128-157; Thwaites, Daniel Boone, 113-128.

Hart, Source Book, §§ 54–58, — Contemporaries, II. §§ 153-158, 184-192, - Source Readers, II. §§ 51-54, 56-58, 77, 78; MacDonald, Select Charters, nos. 72-80, Select Documents, nos. 1, 2; Hill, Liberty Documents, chs. xiii.-xv. ; American History Leaflets, nos. 11, 14, 20; Old South Leaflets, nos. 2, 3, 47, 86. See N. Eng. Hist. Teachers' Ass'n, Syllabus, 325-330, - Historical Sources, $ 77.

Matthews, Poems of American Patriotism, 8-45; Eggleston, American War Ballads, I. 23-39; Moore, Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution, 65–129, 139–149; Raymond, Ballads of the Revolution, 55-87; Longfellow, Paul Revere's Ride; Lowell, Concord Ode. Ode for the Fourth of July, 1876; Bryant, Green Mountain Boys; Holmes, Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill; Hawthorne, Septimus Felton (Concord), -- My Kinsman, Major Molineux (mob), — Howe's Masquerade, — Grandfather's Chair, pt. iii. chs. vii.-xi.; Cooper, Lionel Lincoln (Boston); J. E. Cooke, Henry St. John, Gentleman (Valley of Virginia), — Stories of the Old Dominion, 205–218.

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Winsor, America, VI., Memorial History of Boston, III.; Wilson, American People, II.

CHAPTER XI.

THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE (1776-1783)

A

128. The

WHEN war came, Great Britain seemed to have an overwhelming superiority over America in men and resources. small and vigorous governing class, consisting only of a few hundred families of landholders, furnished almost all members of Parliament and officers of the army and navy. In this aristocracy the central figure was King George III., who, from day to day, gave his personal directions to Lord North, the prime minister, for the management of Parliament. A good husband and father in an age of vice, a kindhearted friend, a king who meant well by his subjects, George III. was still a narrow, obstinate, and ill-informed man. The aggressive force of England was, moreover, weakened because several liberal statesmen sided with the colonies. Among them the Earl of Chatham solemnly demanded of his countrymen "a formal acknowledgement of our errors, and a renunciation of our unjust, ill-founded, and oppressive claims."

rival

peoples

Against the might of Great Britain was opposed a poor country, with no manufactures of iron or cloth, unable to make a musket or cast a cannon. Yet America was a land of comfort and prosperity. Lafayette wrote of it, "Sim- Contemporaplicity of manners, kindness, love of country and of lib- ries, II. 486 erty, and a delightful equality everywhere prevails. ... All the citizens are brethren. In America there are no poor, or even what we call peasantry." Even during the war the colonists made money from privateering and West Indian and European trade, and bought the necessary materials of war with their exports.

The serious weakness of the Americans was that they were divided; John Adams later estimated that fully a third of

129. The

American

the people were opposed to war, and still more strongly opposed to independence. The years 1775 and 1776 loyalists were full of commotion, tumult, and violence against the loyalists. Those Americans who still maintained that the British government was not tyrannical were intimidated, arrested, imprisoned, tarred and feathered, and in some cases executed. As the struggle grew fiercer, the colonists passed laws banishing the loyalists or confiscating their property. In many districts the struggle was a civil war in which hundreds of the Tories, as the loyalists were called, were kept down by force. The Tories included in the New England and middle commonwealths most of the well-to-do classes, the former colonial officials and their friends, old officers of the British army, many of the clergy and of the graduates of colleges. In some states nearly half the people were loyalists. Thousands of them entered the British army and fought against their brethren; and thousands of families removed to Nova Scotia, Quebec, and other British colonies.

130. The

The British were overwhelmingly superior in the size of their military and naval forces, although much hampered by the necessity of transporting men and materials across rival forces a stormy sea. In 1776 they had 200 ships of war, and for men they drew on 11,000,000 people in Great Britain and Ireland, besides the loyalists. Yet Lord North committed the stupid blunder of hiring 30,000 Hessians, who had no personal interest in the struggle, and were leased by their princes like so many cattle. "Were I an American," said Chatham," as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms never never- never"; and Franklin wrote grimly, "The German auxiliaries are certainly coming; it is our business to prevent their returning."

Out of the 3,000,000 people in the colonies, the Tories and negroes numbered at least 1,200,000. There were from 300,000 to 400,000 able-bodied patriots, of whom perhaps 150,000 served in the army at one time or another; but they probably never numbered more than 40,000 men under arms at one time, and sometimes the total force available for striking a blow was not above 5000. Besides troops of English descent, there were many Germans, Irish, and Scotch, some Dutch, Jews, French, and Welsh, and several thousand negroes, especially from Rhode Island. Both sides made the moral and military mistake of enlisting Indian allies; the Americans were first to seek this dubious aid; the British used it most effectively.

The main difficulty with the army was that the states insisted on furnishing militia on short terms of service, instead of allowing Congress to form a sufficient regular force with national officers, enlisted for the war. Washington said of the militia, "The system appears to have been pernicious beyond description. . . . It may be easily shown, that all the misfortunes we have met with in the military line are to be attributed to this cause."

Many soldiers of fortune drifted over from Europe to seek employment, besides Lafayette, a French nobleman, who brought his own enthusiasm and the silent support of the French government; the German Baron von Steuben, an excellent soldier, skillfully drilled the troops and introduced improved tactics; the Poles Kosciusko and Pulaski and the French general De Kalb were gallant soldiers.

131. Long

After a year of preparation, the British dispatched a fleet to take Charleston, but it was beaten off (June 28, 1776) by the gallantry of Colonel Moultrie, in a fight signalized by the heroism of Sergeant Jasper. The main attack was on New York, near which Sir William Howe landed (1776-1777) with 20,000 men on Long Island (August 22). Washington

Island to

Trenton