HISTORY

OF THE

AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

THE discovery of the new world, as the American Continent has been emphatically called, may very properly be said to have produced an instant revolution, in the condition of all Europe, and an important change in the affairs of the rest of the world. To Spain, France, and Great Britain, more particularly, the extension of commercial connexion, to which this event gave rise, led to consequences, which, but for the subsequent independence of the Colonies, would, in a little time, have utterly subverted the liberties and happiness of those three kingdoms. Nor will this opinion appear extraordinary to those, who are accustomed to look beyond the occurrences of the day, into the slow but certain operation of remote causes. An intercourse with new governments, and new peo ple, must necessarily introduce new ideas, new habits of thinking and of acting; and a correspondent change will be produced in manners, customs and

laws. New desires will be excited, and new passions called into existence. Avarice will seize upon new sources of accumulation: envy will seek to destroy the happiness beyond its own reach; and fraud and oppression, must follow in their train. It is not our design, however, to write a history of the discovery of America; and we shall, therefore, confine our views to one of the many important events, to which that discovery led-leaving it to the philosopher, and general historian, to settle the question, whether the sum of human happiness has been augmented or diminished, by the adventurous spirit of Columbus.

It has been well said, by one of the fathers of our independence, that the revolution was finished, before the war commenced; and the reader will find more than one occasion, in the following pages, to observe the truth of this remark. But before we enter upon the immediate execution of our task-a record of the events of our Revolution, in its broad and common acceptation-we must beg permission to detain the reader with a few general observations, such as the occasion seems to demand. It is a delicate, and perhaps a presumptuous task, to attempt to fix the causes, which have produced the revolutions of kingdoms and empires. The various and conflicting motives, which may be supposed to influence the historian, should be carefully examined and ascertained, before confidence is given to the truth of his narration, or reliance placed on the soundness of his judgment. If, like Bishop Burnett, he is the recorder of events, in which he was, himself, a conspicuous actor, he may naturally be supposed to sit down to the task, with a mind under the influence of the selfish and stormy passions of a party. He may be

honest and upright in his own character, and his general conduct may have evinced a sound and sober judgment; but it is not in the nature of man to be cool and dispassionate in speaking of the merits of his own cause, or altogether honest and impartial in judging the motives of his opponents, and contemporary actors in the same scenes. Under every form of gov ernment, the people are more or less divided into friends and foes of the supreme power; and during the existence of that power, it would be vain to look for a correct and faithful history of passing events, The writer, under such circumstances, must, more or less, be wrought upon by the turbulence of party feelings he must be more or less sprinkled by the foam of the political effervescence,

The difficulty attending all attempts to give a correct narration of the events of one's own time, has been so forcibly felt, and so universally acknowledged, that the saying is now become proverbial, that a generation must have passed away before its history can be written with fidelity. But it may be questioned, whether even the succeeding generation can be altogether free from the objections which have been pointed out. Those who have looked deeply into human nature-who have seen how often the prejudices of the parent are transmitted to the child, how prone we are to tread in the footsteps of our fathers, to inherit opinions as we do property-must acknowledge, that the violent and agitating passions of the human heart do not always sleep in the grave, and that the same objections which rendered the father unfit to become the impartial historian of his own actions, may be urged, with equal justice, against the son.

In republicks, notwithstanding the unbounded freedom allowed to research, investigation and inquiry, the difficulty of arriving at the truth, in regard to great political commotions, exists perhaps in the same degree as in more arbitrary governments. We are ever prone to abuse the freedom which we enjoy. We are too ready to ascribe motives for actions, which perhaps never existed-we, unconsciously, act under the warp of Party, and give currency to falsehood, while we fondly flatter ourselves, that truth is the only object of our devotion. In popular governments every man is an actor; every man has a personal interest in political measures-and the views and opinions of every man, therefore, must be more or less governed by the degree of that interest.-He has full opportunities of seeing and of learning the truth; but our confidence in his veracity must depend upon our knowledge of the share he bore in the scenes which he undertakes to describe. Before we can regard the opinions of any man, we must be certain that his mind was in a proper state for accurate perception and cool deliberation; for as Lord Kames has judiciously observed, passion hath such influence over us as to give a false light to all its objects. And in republicks there is a wider scope for the operation of passion in all its varieties, than in more arbitrary governments. In the latter, the popular machinery, if the expression can be allowed, is moved by one man. The mass of people, having no agency in publick affairs, have no inducements to make themselves acquainted with, nor can they be presumed to know any thing of, the motives or secret springs which actuate their rulers, in publick measures.— The historian, therefore, who belongs to such governments, must be supposed to be taken into the confi