George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[26] the inhabitants, already numerous, and doubling their

Chap. XXVI.} 1766. Aug.

numbers every twenty years, were opulent, warlike, and conscious of their strength; how they followed the sea, especially at the north, and engaged in great fisheries; how they built annually one hundred and fifty vessels to sell in Europe and the West Indies, at the rate of seven pounds sterling the ton; and how they longed to throw off the restraints imposed on their navigation. New-York stood at the confluence of two rivers, of which the East was the shelter to merchant vessels; but its roadstead was also a vast harbor where a navy could ride at anchor. The large town of Philadelphia had rope-walks and busy ship-yards; manufactures of all sorts, especially of leather and of iron. In the province to which it belonged, the Presbyterians outnumbered the peaceful Quakers; and Germans, weary of subordination to England and unwilling to serve under English officers against France, openly declared that Pennsylvania would one day be called Little Germany. In all New England there were no citadels, from the people's fear of their being used to compel submission to Acts of Parliament infringing colonial privileges. The garrison at Boston was in the service of the Colony. The British troops were so widely scattered in little detachments, as to be of no account. ‘England,’ reasoned the observer, ‘must foresee a Revolution, and has hastened its epoch by emancipating the Colonies from the fear of France in Canada.’¹

Simultaneously with the reception of these accounts, Choiseul was reading in the Gazette of Leyden the Answer lately made by the Assembly of Massachusetts