have been expected to regard with especial favor their association with England. If there had been differences between the two countries for long enough, no moment could have been apter for the adoption of a policy calculated to lessen and ultimately to abolish those differences than the moment when the weary and wearing Seven Years' War came to its close. A far-seeing monarch, advised and encouraged by far-seeing statesmen, might have soldered close the seeming impossibilities and made them kiss. Had the throne even been filled by a sovereign slightly less stubborn, had the throne been surrounded by servants slightly less bigoted, the arrogant patronage of the one part and the aggressive protestation of the other part might have been judiciously softened into a relationship wisely paternal and loyally filial. The advantage of an enduring union between the mother country and her colonies was obvious to any reasonable observer. A common blood, a common tongue, a common pride of race and common interests should have kept them together. But the relations were not amicable. The colonies were peopled by men who were proud indeed of being Englishmen, but by reason of that very pride were jealous of any domination, even at the hands of Englishmen. The mother country, on the other hand, regarded the colonies, won with English hands and watered with English blood, as being no less portion and parcel of English soil because three thousand miles of stormy ocean lay between the port upon the Severn and the port upon {80} the Charles River. She came to regard as mere ingratitude those assertions of independence which most characteristically proved the colonies to be worthy of it and of her. The theory of the absolute dominion of England over the American colonies might have died a natural death, a harmonious settlement of grievances and adjustment of powers might have knitted the two peoples together in an enduring league, if it had not been for George the Third. [Sidenote: 1765--England and her colonial governors]