e last
analysis be regulated by Great Britain? The truth is that the colonies
had reached a condition in which they regarded themselves as British
states with their own parliaments, exercising complete jurisdiction in
their own affairs. They intended to use their own judgment and they were
as restless under attempted control from England as England would have
been under control from America. We can indeed always understand the
point of view of Washington if we reverse the position and imagine what
an Englishman would have thought of a claim by America to tax him.

An ancient and proud society is reluctant to change. After a long and
successful war England was prosperous. To her now came riches from India
and the ends of the earth. In society there was such lavish expenditure
that Horace Walpole declared an income of twenty thousand pounds a year
was barely enough. England had an aristocracy the proudest in the world,
for it had not only rank but wealth. The English people were certain of
the invincible superiority of their nation. Every Englishman was taught,
as Disraeli said of a later period, to believe that he occupied a
position better than any one else of his own degree in any other country
in the world. The merchant in England was believed to surpass all others
in wealth and integrity, the manufacturer to have no rivals in skill,
the British sailor to stand in a class by himself, the British officer
to express the last word in chivalry. It followed, of course, that the
motherland was superior to her children overseas. The colonies had no
aristocracy, no great landowners living in stately palaces. They had
almost no manufactures. They had no imposing state system with places
and pensions from which the fortunate might reap a harvest of ten or
even twenty thousand pounds a year. They had no ancient universities
thronged by gilded youth who, if noble, might secure degrees without the
trying ceremony of an examination. They had no Established Church with
the ancient glories of its cathedrals. In all America there was not even
a bishop. In spite of these contrasts the English Whigs insisted upon
the political equality with themselves of the American colonists. The
Tory squire, however, shared Samuel Johnson's view that colonists were
either traders or farmers and that colonial shopkeeping society was
vulgar and contemptible.

George III was ill-fitted by nature to deal with the crisis. The King
was not wholly without