" The population of
the colonies--some 2,500,000--was about one-third that of the
United Kingdom; and for the British the war was remote from the
base of supply. In those days, considering the means of
transport, America was as far from England as at the present day
is Australia. Sometimes the voyage across the sea occupied two
and even three months, and, with the relatively small ships of
the time, it required a vast array of transports to carry an army
of twenty or thirty thousand men. In the spring of 1776 Great
Britain had found it impossible to raise at home an army of even
twenty thousand men for service in America, and she was forced to
rely in large part upon mercenary soldiers. This was nothing new.
Her island people did not like service abroad and this
unwillingness was intensified in regard to war in remote America.
Moreover Whig leaders in England discouraged enlistment. They
were bitterly hostile to the war which they regarded as an attack
not less on their own liberties than on those of America. It
would be too much to ascribe to the ignorant British common
soldier of the time any deep conviction as to the merits or
demerits of the cause for which he fought. There is no evidence
that, once in the army, he was less ready to attack the Americans
than any other foe.
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