On the whole the conclusion seems so be, that success could not have been accomplished, unless Howe had been more enterprising, or England more powerful. That America was a country so impracticable and so distant, that, considering the spirit of resistance which had been shown, no reasonable hope could be entertained of ultimately controlling the inhabitants by force of arms.

Marshall, in his Life of Washington, probably speaks the general opinion of intelligent men in America. He conceives that Sir William Howe might, on some occasions, have acted more efficiently, but in doing so, that he would have risked much. Victories like those of Bunker's Hill, or that claimed by Burgoyne in September, 1777, would have ruined the royal cause. Howe's system he conceives to have been, to put nothing to hazard, and to be very careful of his troops. "Howe probably supposed," he says, "that the extreme difficulties under which America labored, the depreciation of the poper money, the dispersions of the army on the expiration of the terms of enlistment, the privations to which every class of society had to submit, would in themselves create a general disposition to return to the ancient state of things, if the operation of these causes should not be counteracted by brilliant successes obtained over the British by Washington."

Now it is very possible that Howe did reason in this manner; but the train of reasoning would have been more solid, if it had concluded in a manner exactly opposite for instance, that these causes would not create a general disposition in the Americans to return to the ancient state of things, unless he could assist their operation by obtaining some brilliant successes over Washington.

There is a summary account given in the twenty-second volume of the Annual Register it is full of matter and very concise, though too long to be quoted here. The reader is left to infer, that the force was inadequate, and the ministers were told so; that the country, on the whole, was too hostile and too impracticable, to leave it possible for the army to carry on its operations at any distance from the fleet; that, according to the rules of military prudence, there was no enterprise from time to time, that appeared likely to be attended with success; that so far the fault is clearly with the ministry;

that on the other hand, in the midst of all these difficulties, the general should have seen the necessity of striking some blow immediately, and if he did not choose to risk it, should have resigned his command.

I must now repeat, that I have adverted to this subject on the merits of General Howe, not only to furnish some general answer to one of the first questions which the student will naturally ask, but to remind him, that while he is gratifying his curiosity, he must necessarily place before his view (and that he ought to observe them) two of the most important points connected with the American dispute; whether, for instance, the original idea of conquering America by force, was ever reasonable on our part; and again, whether the resolution of the principal men of America at all events to hazard rebellion against the mother country, was properly justified at the time by their probable means of resistance. Finally, it is in this manner that the student can best be taught, in some degree, to comprehend the extraordinary merit of Washington.

LECTURE XXXV.

AMERICAN WAR.

HITHERTO I have alluded chiefly to the origin of this unhappy civil war; the causes of which, as they operated on each side of the Atlantic, you will even now be able, in a general manner, to estimate. Of these general causes, too many of those that operated with us, those that I have enumerated, for instance, may, I think, be held up to the censure and avoidance of posterity. The more they are analyzed, the less can they be respected; and it was very fit and even desirable, that the haughty and selfish sentiments, the unworthy opinions, by which the people of Great Britain and their rulers were led astray, should not only be resisted, but successfully resisted.

And yet it is not so easy to come to a decision on the American part of the case. The colonies were from the first connected with the British empire. They had grown up under its influence, to unexampled strength and prosperity; a principle was no doubt on a sudden brought forward by the British minister, which might have been carried to an extent, and if unresisted, would probably have been carried to an extent materially injurious to their liberties; but it had not been carried to any such extent when acts of fury and outrage were committed in the province of Massachusetts; and we assent to, rather than enter into the reasonings of the Americans. We are surprised and struck with the fervor of their resistance rather than sympathize with it; certainly we do not feel the glow of indignation against the mother country which, on other occasions, of Switzerland and the Low Countries for instance, we have felt against the superior state. That the British nation was wrong, and deserved to be severely punished, must be allowed; but to lose half its empire,

and to have America and Europe rejoicing in its humiliation and misfortunes, as in the fall of tyranny and oppression, is more than a speculator on human affairs (in this country at least) can be well reconciled to. The punishment seems disproportioned to the fault; the fault, however, must not be denied. It was one totally unworthy of the English people, the very essence of whose constitution, its safeguard, its characteristic boast, its principle from the earliest times, the very object of all its virtuous struggles, and for which its patriots had died on the scaffold, and in the field, was this very principle of representative taxation. I must now, I must now, therefore, recall to your minds my observation, that the causes which led to the American war, were not all of them, in their feeling and principle, discreditable to our country. For instance; a particular notion of political right had a great effect in misleading our ministers and people, and hurrying them into measures of violence and coercion. It was of the following nature; all general principles of legislation and national law seem to lead to the conclusion, that the sovereignty must remain with the parent state, and that the power of taxation was involved in the idea of sovereignty. Even Burke seems to have been of this opinion, and the Rockingham part of the Whigs. But this was a point much contested at the time. The reverse was loudly insisted upon by Lord Chatham and his division of the Whigs; that the general powers of sovereignty were one thing, and the particular power of taxation another, that this species of sovereignty, taxation, could not be exercised without representa

tion.

And thus much must at least be conceded to Lord Chatham, that, in practice, this distinction had always existed in the European governments, derived from the barbarian conquerors of the Roman empire. This power of taxation was always supposed to be the proper prerogative of the people, or of the great assemblies that were quite distinct from the wearer of the crown. The granting or refusing of supplies was always considered as a matter of grace and favor to the sovereign, — not of duty; and as something with which they were enabled to come (if I may so speak) into the market with their rulers, and truck and barter for privileges and immunities. But however this original point of the right of taxation being included

in sovereignty be determined; whether it be admitted, or not, in the abstract and elementary theory of government, which is the first question; and whether it be admitted, or not, in any ideas we can form of our feudal governments of Europe, which is the second question; still the same point assumed a very different appearance, and became another and a third question, when this sovereign right of taxation was to be practically applied to colonies, situated as were those of America, and by a mother country, enjoying the kind of free constitution which Great Britain at the time enjoyed. The question of taxation, under these circumstances, became materially and fundamentally altered; and for the rulers and people of Great Britain to set up a right, one, if it existed at all, certainly of a very general and abstract kind; and even to carry it into practical effect, without the slightest accommodation to the feelings of freemen, and the descendants of freemen, -without offering the slightest political contrivance, the slightest form of representation, by which the property of the Americans could be rendered as secure as is the property of the inhabitants of Great Britain; without the slightest attempt to avail themselves of the colonial governments existing in America at the time; for the rulers and people of Great Britain to be so totally deaf and insensible to all the reasonings and feelings which had dignified the conduct of their ancestors from the earliest period, and which at that moment continued to dignify their own, show a want of genuine sympathy with the first principles of the English constitution, and the first principles of all relative justice; was to show such carelessness of the happiness and prosperity of others, and such haughty contempt and disregard of the most obvious suggestions of policy and expediency, that it is not at all to be lamented, that the ministers and people of this country should fail in their scheme of unconditionally taxing America; should be disgraced and defeated in any such unworthy enterprise. And it is ardently to be hoped, that all nations, and all rulers of nations, and all bodies of men, and all individuals, should eternally fail and be discomfited; and, according to the measure of their offences, be stigmatized and made to suffer, whenever they show this kind of selfish or unenlightened hostility to such great principles as I have alluded

was to