George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition.

But duty is bolder than theory, more confident than the understanding, older and more imperative than speculative science; existing from eternity, and recognised in its binding force from the first morning of creation. Prudent statesmanship would have asked anxiously for time to ponder, and would have missed the moment for decision by delay. Wise philosophy would have compared the systems of government, and would have lost from hesitation the glory of opening a new era on mankind. The humble trainbands at Concord acted, and God was with them. ‘I never heard from any person the least expression of a wish for a separation,’ Franklin, not long before, had said to Chatham. In October, 1774, Washington wrote, ‘No such thing as independence is desired by any thinking man in America.’ ‘Before the nineteenth of April, 1775,’ relates Jefferson, ‘I never had heard a whisper of a disposition to separate from Great Britain.’ Just thirtyseven days had passed, since John Adams in Boston published to the world: ‘That there are any who pant after independence, is the greatest slander on the province.’

The American revolution did not proceed from precarious intentions. It grew out of the soul of the people, and was an inevitable result of a living affection for freedom, which actuated harmonious effort as certainly as the beating of the heart sends warmth and color and beauty to the system. The rustic heroes of that hour obeyed the simplest, the highest, and the surest instincts, of which the seminal principle