14 HALVDAN KOHT. [No. 3. 



an overwhelming numerical superiority ihat stood against the 

 Revolution. 



It is not necessary here to set forth all the other circum- 

 stances that tended to weaken the Patriots and seemed to render 

 their cause absolutely hopeless. They did not even possess that 

 firm central anthority that you would think indispensable to any 

 energetic rebellion; not till the war was almost at an end, in 1781, 

 the Confederation between the thirteen States became a reality, 

 and even the Confederation did not as yet create a really federal 

 Government. Each of the thirteen States had her own govern- 

 ment, and was not under the obligation to respeet measures tåken 

 by other states. The rebel Congress at Philadelphia was, in 

 consequence, quite impotent for financial as well as military pur- 

 poses; it went confessedly bankrupt, and neither officers nor 

 soldiers received their pay. It may almost be said that the 

 American Revolution was carried on without money, without a 

 government and without an army. It will be necessary to go 

 deep into contemporary letters and acts and study those days 

 very closely, in order to realize fully how desperate the outlook 

 often was. 



The more we learn about these things, the more amazing 

 it appears that such a revolution should actually succeed, and 

 some historians have inferred that the result was a purely for- 

 tuitous one. Historical sense, however, shrinks from believing 

 in fortuity; even that which appears to be accidental is the 

 effect of a cause which it is the task of the historian to find. 

 And it would not seem impossible, through a searching inquiry 

 into the American War of Independence, to find out the circum- 

 stances that made the rebels victorious. 



As to the conditions of Patriots and Loyalists, there is to 

 be noted that the Patriots had the important advantage of 

 being, in the nature of things, the first in the field. They early 

 established their party organizations through which, with un- 

 scrupulous boldness, they possessed themselves of the admi- 

 nistrative power in all the states, and then used this power to 



