George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[14] through every sea, engaging in battle now near the

chap. I.} 1748.

region of icebergs, now among the islands of the tropics. Inventive art was summoned to make war more destructive, and to signalize sieges by new miracles of ability and daring. Africa was invaded and, in part, appropriated by rival nations of white men. Asia was subjected to the influence and dominion of the higher culture of Europe, and an adventurous company of British traders succeeded by conquest to the empire of the Great Mogul.

For America, the period abounded in new forms of virtue and greatness. Fidelity to principle pervaded the masses. An unorganized people of their own free will suspended commerce by universal assent. Poverty rejected bribes. Heroism, greater than that of chivalry, burst into action from lowly men. Citizens, with their families, fled from their homes and wealth in towns, rather than yield to oppression. Battalions sprung up in a night from spontaneous patriotism. Where eminent statesmen hesitated, the instinctive action of the multitude revealed the counsels of magnanimity. Youth and genius gave up life freely for the liberties of mankind. A nation without union, without magazines and arsenals, without a treasury, without credit, without government, fought successfully against the whole strength and wealth of Great Britain. An army of veteran soldiers capitulated to insurgent husbandmen.

The world could not watch with indifference the spectacle. The oldest aristocracy of France, the proudest nobles of Poland, the bravest hearts of Germany, sent their representatives to act as the peers of plebeians, to die gloriously, or to live beloved, as the champions of humanity and freedom. Russia and the