nsignificant conquered islands, than as very extensive settlement on
the continent," with a future of unlimited development in store. This,
too, was the spirit of Hawley, when, with a boldness outstripping that
of Otis himself, he said, "The Parliament of Great Britain has no right
to legislate for us." The latter sentence is memorable as being the
first instance in which the power of the British Parliament was
distinctly denied in a colonial legislature.

Still, side by side with these strong assertions of independence, there
existed curiously enough an almost equally strong feeling of reluctance
to sever the long-standing relation between the colonies and the mother
country. England was still "home," even in the language of James Otis,
as is clear from his correspondence, in which he speaks of certain legal
decisions as being "sent _home_ for approbation." Though all were agreed
as to the character and tendency of such acts of the imperial
legislature as the Stamp Act, the Revenue Act, the Port Bill, and the
Billeting Bill, hopes were entertained to the last that some method of
solution would be eventually discovered that would avert the disaster of
revolution. "In America," said Rev. Andrew Elliot, a popular and
much-respected minister in Boston, "the people glory in the name, and
only desire to enjoy the liberties of England." And he added,
significantly enough, "Oppression makes wise men mad." Even Thomas
Jefferson, in a letter to John Randolph, as late as 1775, expressed his
decided preference "to be dependent on England under proper limitation,
to being dependent on any other nation, or on no nation whatsoever." "We
strongly enjoin you," said the Pennsylvania Assembly, November 9, 1775,
largely influenced by Farmer Dickenson, in its instructions to its
delegates, "that you, in behalf of this colony, dissent from and utterly
reject any proposition, should such be made, that may cause or lead to
a separation from our mother country, or a change of the form of this
government." In almost identical words the Assembly of New Jersey
expressed its dread of "separation from England." "For what are we to
encounter the horrors of war?" asked a writer in the _New York Gazette_,
April 8, 1776, as quoted by Mr. Oscar Straus, in his admirable little
work on "The Origin of the American Republic." "It is a form of
government which Baron Montesquieu, and the best writers on the subject,
have shown to be attended with many mischief