322 FOTHERGILL AND FRANKLIN CHAP.XXV 



or intention, " but merely from that kind of disposition which 

 leads John Bull always to think of his own importance in the 

 first place, and to hate most heartily any other person who 

 dare think he may be mistaken." The people in this country 

 are strangers to the power, usefulness and loyalty of the 

 Americans. The legislature is imbued with an opinion that 

 it can do what it will, " and that a people so contumacious 

 ought to be chastised and restrained. Hence a series of acts 

 which will everlastingly disgrace the annals of the present 

 time." But " they begin to find the infant grown too much 

 a man to be whipped like a schoolboy " a nation of two 

 millions of people, which can muster 50,000 men well trained 

 in arms, and led by officers who fought at Louisburg and 

 Martinico. Who, he adds, can " quite command himself 

 when he sees the foundation of a most glorious fabric [of 

 empire], rising fast to meridian splendour, dug up by piecemeal, 

 through insufferable ignorance and pride ? Cast an eye upon 

 the distant possessions of our neighbours ; are they not so 

 many pledges for their good behaviour, whilst we and America 

 are one ? Shall we dismember such a part of the British 

 Empire for moonshine ? " 1 



1 J. F. to G. Ironside (?), Dec. 22, 1774, perhaps Edw. Ironside, later of 

 Twickenham, who died 1803 ; C. Roberts Collection, Haverford Coll. Pa. ; 

 printed in Bulletin Frds. Hist. Soc. Amer. v. 2. The sources of this chapter 

 have been mostly stated in the footnotes. MS. letters of Fothergill have 

 been freely used. 



