Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

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or be rebellious to the equitable and constitutional orders of the British parliament.
Yet let all to a man determine, with an immovable stability, i(^ sacrifice their lives and
fortunes before they willpart with their invaluable Freedom ; and let us all, with a spirited
unbroken fortitude, act up to these resolutions. It is the most likely way to keep
you both loyal and free. It will give you a happy peace in your own breasts, and
secure you the most indearing affection, thanks and blessing of your posterity ; it
will give you the esteem of all true patriots and friends of Liberty, thro' the whole
realm; yea, and, far as your case is known, it will gain you the esteem and admira-
tion of the whole world. Amen."
All the papers from which we have given these extracts show famil-
iarity with English history ; a full knowledge of the situation of affairs, at
the time, in England and in the colonies, and of their bearing on the
interests of the mother-country ; a fervent patriotism tempered by consid-
erations of prudence ; and clear foresight of a dread crisis in the future,
only too possible if the voice of reason should not be heeded. The style
of writing is forcible, and well adapted for popular effect, but with no
attempt at graces of rhetoric.
While making these extracts we have happened to be reading a recent
work of the historian Froude, " Oceana, or England and her Colonies ;"
and have been struck with the altered relations between the home-
government and the English colonies of the present day, while yet the
same false view that the colonies exist for the benefit of the mother-
country seems to be entertained, as of old, by the British Ministers of
State. The policy dictated by that view, however, now that the colonies
are becoming more and more independent, is a policy of neglect instead
of a policy of interference. Says Mr. Froude :
" The Sibyl tore the pages from her book, and the American provinces were lost.
We have boasted loudly that we will not repeat the same mistake—that we will never
try to coerce a British colony into remaining with us against its will. But the spirit
has continued absolutely unaltered ; the contempt has been the same ; we
have
opened our trade with the rest of the world ; and, the sole value of the colonies
being still supposed to lie in their being consumers of English goods, it has been
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