see Hanna, _The Scotch-Irish_ (2
vols. 1902). The best account of the characteristics of frontier
society in this period is in Turner, _The Old West_, in
_Proceedings of the Wisconsin Historical Society_, 1908, p. 184. Of
considerable importance for understanding colonial society in this
period are the observations of foreign travelers, notably Kalm and
Burnaby whose narratives are printed in Pinkerton, _Voyages_
(London, 1808-14), vol. XIII. For understanding the temper and
ideals of America in the eighteenth century, no writings are of
equal importance with those of John Adams and Benjamin Franklin,
especially the _Diary_ of the former (_Works of John Adams_, 10
vols. Boston, 1856) and the _Autobiography_ of the latter, in his
collected works and separately printed in many editions. See
Bigelow edition. _The Life of Benjamin Franklin written by
Himself._

CHAPTER VI

THE WINNING OF INDEPENDENCE

_If they accept protection, do they not stipulate obedience?_

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

_The decree has gone forth, and cannot now be recalled, that a more
equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth, must be
established in America._

JOHN ADAMS.

I

As Chateaubriand said of the Revolution in France, that it was complete
before it began, so may it be said that America was free before it won
independence. The strict letter of the law counts for less in times of
emotional stress than the strong sense of prescriptive right, and formal
allegiance is in no way incompatible with a deep-seated feeling that
submission must be voluntary to be honorable. Before the outbreak of the
French war such a feeling was common throughout the colonies. The state
of mind which conditioned the formal argument for colonial rights and
drove the colonists into revolution is revealed in a sentence which
Franklin wrote in 1755: "British subjects, by removing to America,
cultivating a wilderness, extending the domain, and increasing the
wealth, commerce, and power of the mother country, at the hazard of
their lives and fortunes, ought not, and in fact do not thereby lose
their native rights." It was as much as to say that Americans were in
fact free because they ought to be free, and that they ought to be free
because they had made for themselves a new country.

The issue between England and America is therefore not be resolved