esort, the English Government
would never press the matter to a conclusion.

In February, 1775, Lord North had, indeed, offered resolutions of
conciliation. The measure amazed his own followers and was greeted by
the Whigs with Homeric laughter. Offers of conciliation could scarcely
have arrived in America at a more inopportune time,--the very moment
almost when the battle of Lexington came like an alarm-bell in the night
to waken men from the dream of peace. And the resolutions themselves had
all the appearance of being a clever ruse designed to separate the
Middle colonies from New England and Virginia, in order to destroy that
very union which Americans believed to be the best hope of obtaining
real concession. Such the Whigs in England asserted them to be; and
generally so regarded in America, they were everywhere rejected with
contempt. In November, after the non-exportation agreement became
effective, when an American army was endeavoring to drive the British
troops out of Boston, Lord North declared in Parliament that whereas
former measures were intended as "civil corrections against civil
crimes," the time was now come for prosecuting war against America as
against any foreign enemy; and with the opening of the new year it was
at last becoming clear, even to the most optimistic, that the English
Government was prepared to exact submission at the point of the sword.

As the vain hope of conciliation died away, the radicals, under the able
lead of John Adams and Richard Henry Lee, pushed on to a formal
declaration of independence. This was now, indeed, the only way out for
them. The non-intercourse policy, injuring America more than it injured
England, had proved a hopeless failure. During the year 1775 imports
fell from, L2,000,000 to L213,000; and after the non-exportation
agreement became effective, business stagnation produced profound
discontent and diminished the resources necessary for carrying on war.
So drastic a self-denying ordinance could not be maintained, for "people
will feel, and will say, that Congress oppresses them more than
Parliament." Unable "to do without trade," they were "between Hawk and
Buzzard"; and on April 6, 1776, the ports of America were opened to the
world. "But no state will treat or trade with us," said Lee, "so long as
we consider ourselves subjects of Great Britain." A declaration of
independence was therefore recognized, gladly by some, with profound
regret by many more, as