George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

[321] Spain would make advantage of the crisis. If they

chap. XVI.} 1765. Sept.

are pursued, the dear patrimony of our fathers must pass to taskmasters here, or the men of ease and wealth in Great Britain, who have schemed them away for nought. This people cannot bear it till they have lost the memory of their dear fathers, and their affection to their posterity. The Americans will call to mind revolution principles, such as, ‘where there is a right there is a remedy.’ Their uneasiness is not the sudden heat of passion, from the novelty of the tax, but is the more deep rooted, the more attentively it is considered.

‘The advocates for these measures seem to be counsellors of Rehoboam's stamp. Instead of hearing the cries, and redressing the grievances of a most loyal and injured people, they are for adding burden upon burden, till they make the little finger of his present majesty a thousand times heavier than the loins of his good grandfather; and would bind all fast with a military chain. Such counsels ended in Israel in such a revolt and wide breach as could never be healed. That this may end in a similar event is not impossible to the providence of God, nor more improbable to Britons than five years ago this Stamp Tax was to Americans.’¹