of glory which seemed to have been kindled. 66 "England," the king is said to have exclaimed, never signed such a peace before." The king was George III., then in the third year of his reign. The aristocracy, still in power, thought with the king. They were dazzled by their success. It made them believe that their sway was irresistible, that their colonies were to be ruled, burdened, and crushed as they pleased. Only a few, of keener vision and of truer principle, saw that the conquest of the French colonies, if resulting in the issues to which it seemed to be leading, would entail the loss of the English colonies. Tempo unity. But for the moment, the English of England rary and the English of America were one. The exultation of triumph over a common foe, the assurance of prosperity under a common king, just risen in his youth to the throne, blended with the ties of a common law, a common literature, and a common ancestry. New hopes for both were appearing in the west. The Indian humbled, every race from Europe conquered, the English were the undisputed possessors of the far-stretching, the rich-promising land. Old trou bles extended. CHAPTER I. PROVOCATIONS. THE old troubles between the mother country and the colonies remained. They were now extended. To enforce the commercial rule of Great Britain, her fleet upon the American coast was turned into a revenue squadron. To keep up the military rule, the colonies were organized in divisions, with British commander-in-chief, British officers, and British troops, in short, a standing army. To maintain the whole system, commercial and military, the authorities of the mother country soon lent themselves to graver measures. Parties in the mother country. The great majority of the British people regarded the American colonists as countrymen, who could not suffer without their suffering, or prosper without their prospering. But the majority of the people was powerless, or comparatively so. The dominion over 'the mother country, as well as over her colonies, was with the aristocracy, with men who, whether liberal or not, - according to the phrase, whether whig or tory, were of almost one and the same mind in regarding the colonists as their subjects. So thought the king, at this time the head of the aristocracy rather than the sovereign of the nation. So thought the Parliament, at this time the representative assembly of the aristocracy rather than of the nation. So thought the successive ministries, the common representatives of the king and of the Parliament, to whom |