The second manifestation of the impulse for a more immediate and local governmental unity was called out by the French and Indian invasion of the colony of New York in 1690, and the so-called Schenectady Massacre. Massachusetts then proposed a Congress of the colonies to meet at New York, to agree upon a unified plan of defence. The governmental unity which then came into existence was in the form of an agreement between New York, Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Maryland, for a common military force of 855 men to serve under a commanding officer appointed by the lieutenantgovernor of New York, for the defence of those colonies against the Indians.

The third attempt of the same kind was initiated by the crown itself, for the nominal purpose of placing the colonies in a state of defence against the French in 1754, just before the outbreak of the Seven Years' War. The colonies were to draft a plan for governmental unity, which was to be submitted to Parliament for approval. It may be that the purpose behind this suggestion was to bring the colonies to a more immediate sense of their dependence on England. At all events seven of the colonies responded and sent delegates to a convention at Albany. As a result, a plan of colonial union and co-operation, drafted by Benjamin Franklin, was adopted, but it satisfied neither the crown nor the colonies.

The fourth evidence of the existence of a national impulse towards governmental unity was the result of the attempt of Parliament to levy an internal tax on the colonies. This took the form of a Protesting Congress, in which nine colonies were represented, which met at New York in October, 1765. Its only act was to adopt an address to the king and Parliament, and it adjourned shortly without bringing into existence anything resembling a national institution.

Finally, the fifth and last attempt to create governmental unity among the colonies was seen in the meeting of the First Continental Congress, which has already been described. It was this Congress and its successor, the Second Continental Congress, which, although organised only to protest and to petition, created a military system as its executive arm, and thus became a government. It undertook the task of expelling from the colonies by force the sovereign power of the British Parlia

ment.

What is essential to bear in mind is that national union and national feeling were not first created by the Declaration of Independence; they preceded that declaration, made it possible, and secured its realisation.

It is important to distinguish the occasion of declaring American independence from its underlying cause. Unless this distinction be observed, a cor

rect understanding of the revolution is impossible. It may perhaps be said that the Declaration of Independence itself confuses its occasion with its underlying cause; but if so it is all the more important to make and observe the distinction. The ́underlying cause of American independence was the fact that the people of the thirteen colonies were in effect a complete and separate nation, capable of managing all their own affairs, both external and internal, far better than any foreign power could do it for them. It will hardly be denied that it is the moral and political right of a people so circumstanced to expel a foreign government by force and to accept full responsibility for the management of their own affairs.

There were European observers who long before the revolution pointed out that American independence was inevitable. As a matter of fact, it made no difference what policy England might follow towards the colonies. By geographic and ethnic considerations they had all the elements for a separate and complete nation, and it could only be a matter of time when they endeavoured to become such in form as well as in fact. It may not be easy to define or even actually to describe nationality, but nationality is a stubborn fact, whose significance men often feel before they can fully comprehend or explain it. The great speeches of Burke on conciliation with America are even now read more eagerly

and more widely in the United States than in England; but in so far as they did not draw the distinction between the underlying cause of American independence and the occasion that was being sought for it, they could not hope to stem the tide of revolution.

From the very beginning the established English customs and traditions of local self-government were to be found in the American colonies. Before 1774 it had become the custom in all the colonies that no law should be passed affecting their internal concerns and that no tax should be laid directly upon them without the consent of the popular branch of the appropriate legislature; that those who were to execute the laws were responsible to the legislature through its power over their salaries, and sometimes over their tenure as well; and that the personal liberty of the individual citizen might not be violated save after a verdict by a jury of his peers. The colonists submitted nominally to the king's orders in council and to the acts of Parliament in regard to their external relations. They made no formal protest against the commercial policy which England imposed upon them from the outset, by forbidding direct trade with any foreign nation and by prohibiting the employment of any but English and American ships. Nevertheless, the regulations to enforce this policy were not obeyed, and wide-spread smuggling grew up without incurring

any moral reproach from the community at large. The king was led to strengthen his admiralty jurisdiction at the colonial ports, to demand from the colonies life salaries for his admiralty judges, and to command procedure in the admiralty courts. without jury, as an alternative to the transference of the trial to England. Against these demands every colony protested, and to them every colony offered more or less formal resistance. Usually this resistance was peaceable or passive, but sometimes it took on a threatening aspect.

As all these events progressed the English Government came to the conclusion that its differences with the colonists were rapidly resolving themselves into a question of sovereignty, and that of course the English Government could not yield. Measures which might have succeeded half a century earlier were, after 1765, too late to have effect. Many of the colonists, and among them some important leaders of opinion, were not yet ready to renounce allegiance to the crown as their nominal executive head; but all the colonies had become substantially united in the conviction as to their right to national unity and as to their right to independence in respect of their own internal affairs. It is true that Parliament yielded to this opposition, sometimes to a degree that could not have been anticipated. The moving causes of American independence, however, were silently and steadily operating, and the Boston