nces if their cause should not succeed; but fear of personal
consequences was the feeblest of their motives in persistent efforts for
independence. They were inspired by a loftier sentiment than that, even
an exalted patriotism. It burned in every speech they made, and in every
conversation in which they took part. If they had not the spirit of
martyrdom, they had the spirit of self-devotion to a noble cause. They
saw clearly enough the sacrifices they would be required to make, and
the calamities which would overwhelm the land. But these were nothing to
the triumph of their cause. Of this final triumph none of the great
leaders of the Revolution doubted. They felt the impossibility of
subduing a nation determined to be free, by such forces as England could
send across the ocean. Battles might be lost, like those of William the
Silent, but if the Dutch could overflow their dikes, the Americans, as a
last resort, could seek shelter in their forests. The Americans were
surely not behind the Dutch in the capacity of suffering, although to my
mind their cause was not so precious as that of the Hollanders, who had
not only to fight against overwhelming forces, but to preserve religious
as well as civil liberties. The Dutch fought for religion and
self-preservation; the Americans, to resist a tax which nearly all
England thought it had a right to impose, and which was by no means
burdensome,--a mooted question in the highest courts of law; at bottom,
however, it was not so much to resist a tax as to gain national
independence that the Americans fought. It was the Anglo-Saxon love of
self-government.

And who could blame them for resisting foreign claims to the boundless
territories and undeveloped resources of the great country in which they
had settled forever? The real motive of the enlightened statesmen of the
day was to make the Colonies free from English legislation, English
armies, and English governors, that they might develop their
civilization in their own way. The people whom they led may have justly
feared the suppression of their rights and liberties; but far-sighted
statesmen had also other ends in view, not to be talked about in
town-meetings or even legislative halls. As Abraham of old cast his
inspired vision down the vista of ages and saw his seed multiplying like
the sands of the sea, and all the countries and nations of the world
gradually blest by the fulfilment of the promise made to him, so the
founders