Was not the
British Parliament supreme over the whole Empire? Did not the
colonies themselves admit that it had the right to control their
trade overseas? And if men shirk their duty should they not come
under some law of compulsion?
It was thus that many a plain man reasoned in England. The plain
man in America had his own opposing point of view. Debts and
taxes in England were not his concern. He remembered the recent
war as vividly as did the Englishman, and, if the English paid
its cost in gold, he had paid his share in blood and tears. Who
made up the armies led by the British generals in America? More
than half the total number who served in America came from the
colonies, the colonies which had barely a third of the population
of Great Britain. True, Britain paid the bill in money but why
not? She was rich with a vast accumulated capital. The war,
partly in America, had given her the key to the wealth of India.
Look at the magnificence, the pomp of servants, plate and
pictures, the parks and gardens, of hundreds of English country
houses, and compare this opulence with the simple mode of life,
simplicity imposed by necessity, of a country gentleman like
George Washington of Virginia, reputed to be the richest man in
America.
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