his few but decisive words, or seen his benign but forcible smile,
you would have said to yourself--"This man is equal to any fate that
destiny may allot to him."




CHAPTER III

THE FIRST GUN


Meanwhile the course of events was leading toward a new and unexpected
goal. Chief Justice Marshall said, as I have quoted, that 1763, the
end of the French-Indian War, marked the greatest friendship and
harmony between the Colonies and England. The reason is plain. In
their incessant struggles with the French and the Indians, the
Colonists had discovered a real champion and protector. That
protector, England, had found that she must really protect the
Colonies unless she was willing to see them fall into the hands of
her rival, France. Putting forth her strength, she crushed France in
America, and remained virtually in control not only of the Colonies
and territory from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, but also of
British America. In these respects the Colonies and the Mother Country
seemed destined to be bound more closely together; but the very spirit
by which Britain had conquered France in America, and France in India,
and had made England paramount throughout the world, prevented the
further fusion, moral, social, and political, of the Colonies with the
Mother Country.