is not to be presumed that Englishmen were wholly blind to this
danger. There were advocates who maintained that it would be wiser to
restore Canada and retain Guadaloupe, with perhaps Martinico and St.
Lucia. This view was supported with distinguished ability in an
anonymous paper, said to have been written by William Burke, the friend
and kinsman of the great orator. The views therein set forth were said
to have been countenanced by lord Hardwicke. The tide of English opinion
was, however, very strongly in the opposite direction.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 136: Stewart's Sketches of the Highlanders, Vol. II, p. 66.]

[Footnote 137: Sketches of the Highlanders, Vol. I, p. 289.]

[Footnote 138: The Olden Time, Vol. I, p. 181.]

[Footnote 139: Spark's Writings of Washington, Vol. II, p. 332.]

[Footnote 140: Stewart's Sketches of the Highlanders, Vol. II, p. 61.]

[Footnote 141: See Appendix, Note L.]

[Footnote 142: Pinkerton's Travels, Vol. XIII.]

CHAPTER XII.

SCOTCH HOSTILITY TO AMERICA.

The causes which led to the American Revolution have been set forth in
works pertaining to that event, and fully amplified by those desiring to
give a special treatise on the subject. Briefly to rehearse them, the
following may be pointed out: The general cause was the right of
arbitrary government over the colonies claimed by the British
parliament. So far as the claim was concerned as a theory, but little
was said, but when it was put in force an opposition at once arose. The
people had long been taught to act and think upon the principle of
eternal right, which had a tendency to mould them in a channel that
looked towards independence. The character of George III. was such as to
irritate the people. He was stubborn and without the least conception of
human rights; nor could he conceive of a magnanimous project, or
appreciate the value of civil liberty. His notions of government were
despotic, and around him, for advisers, he preferred those as
incompetent and as illiberal as himself. Such a king could not deal with
a people who had learned freedom, and had the highest conceptions of
human rights. The British parliament, composed almost entirely of the
ruling class, shared the views of their master, and servilely did his
bidding, by passing a number of acts destructive of colonial liberty.
The first of these was a strenuous attempt to enforce in 1761 THE
IMPORTATION ACT, which gave to petty constables the authorit