George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 8

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Chapter 63:

The way to restore peace.

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May, 1776.

hope still rested on the royal commissioners for

Chap. LXIII.} 1776. May.

restoring peace; but the British ministers knew nothing of that great science of government which studies the character, innate energies, and dispositions of a people. The statesman, like others, can command nature only by obeying her laws; he can serve man only by respecting the conditions of his being; he can sway a nation only by penetrating what is at work in the mind of its masses, and taking heed of the state of its development; any attempt in that day to produce in Britain republics like those of New England, could have brought forth nothing but anarchy and civil war; the blind resolve to conform American institutions to the pattern of the British aristocracy, led to a revolution.

In its policy towards America, Britain was at war with itself; its own government was distinguished by being a limited one; and yet it claimed for the