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UNDER THE GENERAL SUPERVISION OF

SIR ALMERIC W. FITZROY, K.C.V.O.,

CLERK OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

PUBLISHED BY THE

AUTHORITY OF THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF HIS MAJESTY'S TREASURY.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.

To be purchased, either directly or through any Bookseller, from
WYMAN & SONS, LTD., FETTER LANE, E.C.; or

OLIVER & BOYD, TWEEDDALE COURT, EDINBURGH; or
E. PONSONBY, LTD., 116, GRAFTON STREET, DUBLIN.

PRINTED BY

THE HEREFORD TIMES LIMITED, MAYLORD STREET, HEREFORD.

1911.

Price Ten Shillings.

L 5187

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PREFACE

The period covered by this volume begins with the 1745-66. formal resumption of war with France after the lull that followed the Treaty of Utrecht. It closes with the fall of the Rockingham Ministry at the end of the first struggle about Parliamentary taxation. Of the twenty-one years included, half were years of peace; by the end of the period France had been ousted from North America; and while the new Empire was being organised, the problems of the old had been intensified by the absence of the common enemy. The Indians who remained could not be so described to the frontier settlers they might seem deadly foes to be exterminated; by the by the British Government they were reckoned actual or potential allies to be conciliated (cf. p. 496). The records of tension and stress in every bond of empire have a cumulative force that makes it impossible to explain their dissolution by a merely economic reference. From the beginning the American colonies were of necessity democratic in essence, and with great determination and success they ignored or evaded the dictates of the British Government. In the absence of more sympathetic statesmanship than was forthcoming in the eighteenth century, passive obstruction would probably sooner or later have culminated in active resistance. The colonists had early developed local self-consciousness and a measure of self-reliance: the wider outlook and a sense of responsibility had not been evoked even by the French wars. A common grievance against the protecting but interfering power of Britain was destined to inspire a greater measure of political union than the provinces could have achieved under tutelage. When the crisis did arrive, it was in accordance with human nature and with historical precedent that the occasion was one of financial interest.

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