364 WORK IN WAR-TIME CHAP. 



But because certain events, and certain courses pursued, 

 led to a particular result, we must not conclude that this 

 result was inevitable. Had the courses, the counsels 

 adopted been different, the result might have been 

 different, or if the eventual result was inevitable, being 

 just and necessary, it might have been attained by 

 different methods. The thoughtful historian will reflect 

 on what might have been, or on what probably would 

 have come at a later time, without force or strife. There 

 was talent enough in the world to devise a scheme of 

 partnership between Britain and America, ensuring their 

 mutual rights. 1 



Was war then a necessary condition of gaining freedom ? 

 Time softens hard memories, even as nature clothes old 

 ruins with smiling verdure, so that the awful reality of 

 war is half -forgotten. Five or six years of waste and 

 slaughter over a continent ; the patient growth of a 

 century turned into desolation ; the clock put back, in 

 arts, in science, in morals, in religion ; 2 commercial ruin, 

 financial collapse worst of all, waste of men, the true 

 wealth of nations. These were the fruits of war. 



The attitude of Fothergill was that of one animated 

 by the spirit of justice and of liberty, and confident of its 

 victory in the end. He would have the colonists oppose 

 with unending patience and firmness an united front of 

 reasoned protest and remonstrance to the oppression of 

 the home government. In temperate but not servile 

 language they should demand again and again the 

 restoration of their rights and liberties. They might 

 decline to import British goods but not resort to any 

 violent means. 3 It was thus he counselled his own 

 friends in Pennsylvania. Was the outlook along these 

 lines a hopeless one ? A large party in England was 

 already convinced of the rights of America ; and a sub- 

 servient ministry could not last for ever. The coming 



1 See Prof. D. P. Heatley, Studies in British History and Politics, 1913, 

 pp. 36, 38. 



3 " We are eight years behind you in everything " Dr. Rush, Philadelphia, 

 Letter to Dr. Cullen, 1783, in Carson, Hist. Med. Dept. Univ. Penn. p. 85. 



3 Letter to J. Pemberton, 16.9.1768, Etting MSS. ; and to T. Fisher, 

 20,9.1770, J. M. Fox MSS. 



