Washington

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1840 edition. Excerpt: ... APPENDIX A. Page 22. AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. The following remarks are appended by the American Editor of the Washington Papers to the letter quoted in the text; and they materially elucidate the designs of the principal colonial statesmen before the outbreak of the war. It is not easy to determine at what precise date the idea of independence was first entertained by the principal persons in America. English writers, arguing from the conduct of the colonists, have commonly charged them with secretly harbouring such designs at a very early period. This is not probable. The spirit and form of their institutions, it is true, led them to act frequently as an independent people, and to set up high claims in regard to their rights and privileges; but there is no sufficient evidence to prove that any province or any number of prominent individuals entertained serious thoughts of separating entirely from the mother-country till very near the actual commencement of the war of the Revolution. Washington in his letter to Captain Mackenzie denies in very strong terms that such was the design of any persons, so far as his knowledge extended. No man, perhaps, was better informed on the subject by mingling in the society of others; and it may hence be confidently inferred, that the topic of independence was not openly broached by the members of the first Congress even in their private discourse among themselves. That he and his immediate friends had no such object in view, is manifest from a clause in-the Fairfax County Resolves, passed on the 18th July preceding at a public meeting over which he presided. It is there stated as a cause of complaint, "that the British ministry are artfully prejudicing our sovereign and inflaming the minds of our...