ere playing a game
of hypocrisy may be tested in the case of Washington, whose sterling
patriotism was not more conspicuous than his irreproachable integrity.
The New York Provincial Congress, in an address to him (June 26th,
1775), on his way from Philadelphia to the American camp around Boston,
say that accommodation with the mother country was 'the fondest wish of
each American soul.' Washington, in reply, pledged his colleagues and
himself to use every exertion to re-establish peace and harmony. 'When
we assumed the soldier,' he said, 'we did not lay aside the citizen; and
we shall most sincerely rejoice with you in that happy hour when the
establishment of American liberty on the most solid and firm foundations
shall enable us to return to our private stations, in the bosom of a
free, peaceful, and happy country.'[387] There was no incompatibility in
the position of military leader of a great uprising with a desire to
preserve the old political ties. When the Barons of Runnymede,
surrounded by their retainers, wrested from King John the great Charter,
they meant not to renounce their allegiance, but simply to preserve the
old government. Though an act of apparent rebellion, yet it was in the
strictest sense an act of loyalty. So the popular leaders, in their
attitude of armed resistance, were loyal to what they conceived to be
essential to American liberty. They were asserting the majesty of
constitutional law against those who would have destroyed it, and thus
were more loyal to the Constitution than was George III. There really is
no ground on which justly to question the sincerity of declarations like
those of Congress and Washington. They aimed at a redress of grievances;
and the idea was quite general, of a Bill of Rights, or an American
Constitution, embodying the conditions on which the integrity of the
empire might be preserved. This was their last appeal for a settlement
on such a basis." (Frothingham's Rise of the Republic of the United
States, Chap. xi., pp. 438, 439.)]

[Footnote 387: "The London Chronicle of August 8th, 1775, has the speech
of the New York Provincial Congress, and the reply of Washington of the
26th of June, 1775."]

[Footnote 388: Mr. Bancroft, writing under date of October, 1775, says:
"The Americans had not designed to establish an independent government;
of their leading statesmen it was the desire of Samuel Adams alone; they
had all been educated in the love and admiration of con