ting by Vanderlyn at the New York Historical
Society)

STEPHEN DECATUR

LIEUTENANT DECATUR ON THE TURKISH VESSEL DURING THE BOMBARDMENT OF
TRIPOLI

JAMES MADISON (From a painting by Gilbert Stuart--property of T.
Jefferson Coolidge)

TECUMSEH

OLIVER H. PERRY

PERRY TRANSFERRING HIS COLORS FROM THE LAWRENCE TO THE NIAGARA

LIST OF MAPS

THE UNITED COLONIES AT THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION

PLAN OF BUNKER HILL

MAP OF MANHATTAN ISLAND IN 1776, SHOWING THE AMERICAN DEFENCES, ETC.

MAP SHOWING THE PROGRESSIVE ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY BY THE UNITED
STATES

PERIOD III.

REVOLUTION AND THE OLD CONFEDERATION

1763-1789

CHAPTER I.

RESULTS OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

[1763]

The results of the French and Indian War were out of all proportion to
the scale of its military operations. Contrasted with the campaigns
which were then shaking all Europe, it sank into insignificance; and the
world, its eyes strained to see the magnitude and the issue of those
European wars, little surmised that they would dictate the course of
history far less than yonder desultory campaigning in America. Yet here
and there a political prophet foresaw some of these momentous indirect
consequences of the war. "England will erelong repent," said Vergennes,
then the French ambassador at Constantinople, "of having removed the
only check that could keep her colonies in awe. They no longer stand in
need of her protection. She will call on them to contribute toward
supporting the burdens they have helped to bring upon her, and they will
answer by striking off all dependence." This is, in outline, the history
of the next twenty years.

The war in Europe and America had been a heavy drain upon the treasury
of England. Her national debt had doubled, amounting at the conclusion
of peace to 140,000,000 Pounds sterling. The Government naturally
desired to lay upon its American subjects a portion of this burden,
which had been incurred partly on their behalf. The result was that new
system of taxation which the king and his ministers sought to impose
upon the colonies, and which was the immediate cause of the Revolution.
The hated taxes cannot, of course, be traced to the French and Indian
War alone as their source. England had for years shown a growing purpose
to get revenue out of her American dependencies; but the debt incurred
by the war gave an animus and a momentum to this policy which carried it
forward in the face of