final consequences might have been prevented. Unfortunately the
majority in Parliament were unable to recognize that the colonists
had any rights upon their side. Taxation was so heavy at home that
men felt indignant that they should be called upon to pay for the
keeping up of the army in America, to which the untaxed colonists,
with their free farms and houses, would contribute nothing. The plea
of the colonists that they were taxed by a chamber in which they were
unrepresented was answered by the statement that such was also the
case with Manchester, Leeds, and many other large towns which were
unrepresented in Parliament.

In England neither the spirit nor the strength of the colonists was
understood. Men could not bring themselves to believe that these
would fight rather than submit, still less that if they did fight it
would be successfully. They ignored the fact that the population of
the States was one-fourth as large as that of England; that by far
the greater proportion of that population were men trained, either in
border warfare or in the chase, to the use of the rifle; that the
enormous extent of country offered almost insuperable obstacles to
the most able army composed of regular troops, and that the vast
forests and thinly populated country were all in favor of a
population fighting as guerrillas against trained troops. Had they
perceived these things the English people would have hesitated before
embarking upon such a struggle, even if convinced, as assuredly the
great majority were convinced, of the fairness of their demands. It
is true that even had England at this point abandoned altogether her
determination to raise taxes in America the result would probably
have been the same. The spirit of disaffection in the colony had gone
so far that a retreat would have been considered as a confession of
weakness, and separation of the colonists from the mother country