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

[231] never for a moment doubting that the power of

Chap. XXI.} 1775. Feb.

Great Britain would trample down, repress, and overwhelm every movement of insurrection. To crush the spirit of resistance by terror, and to diffuse a cowardly panic, Daniel Leonard, of Taunton, speaking for them all, held up the spectres of ‘high treason,’ ‘actual rebellion,’ and ‘anarchy.’ He ran through the history of the strife; argued that it was reasonable for America to share in the national burden as in the national benefit; that there was no oppressive exercise of the power of parliament; that the tax of threepence on tea was no tyranny, since a duty of a shilling, imposed as a regulation of trade, had just been taken off; that the bounties paid in England on American produce exceeded the American revenue more than fourfold; that no grievance was felt or seen; that in the universal prosperity, the merchants in the colonies were rich, the yeomanry affluent, the humblest able to gain an estate; that the population doubled in twenty-five years, building cities in the wilderness, and interspersing schools and colleges through the continent; that the country abounded with infallible marks of opulence and freedom; that even James Otis had admitted the authority of parliament over the colonies, and had proved the necessity and duty of obedience to its acts; that resistance to parliament by force would be treason; that rebels would deservedly be cut down like grass before the scythe of the mower, while the gibbet and the scaffold would make away with those whom the sword should spare; that Great Britain was resolved to maintain the power of parliament, and was able to do so; that the colonies south of Pennsylvania had