serve,--these men cannot so transform themselves, merely by crossing the sea, as to behold with love and reverence, and submit with profound obedience to the very same things in Great Britain which in America they had been taught to despise, and had been accustomed to awe and humble.... We deprecate the effect of the doctrines which must support and countenance the government over conquered Englishmen."[92] {86} The matter was indeed worse than a mere corruption of the army. The people who used the army would be as much demoralized as the army itself, and every Tory civilian would be converted into an active enemy of his own freedom. Burke, whose speeches on this subject are a treasure-house of political wisdom, saw straight into the heart of the matter. "There are many whose whole scheme of freedom is made up of pride, perverseness, and insolence. They feel themselves in a state of thraldom, they imagine that their souls are cooped and cabined in unless they have some man, or some body of men, dependent on their mercy. This desire of having some one below them descends to those who are the very lowest of all, and a Protestant cobbler, debased by his poverty, but exalted by his share of the ruling Church, feels a pride in knowing it is by his generosity alone that the peer, whose footman's instep he measures, is able to keep his chaplain from a jail. This disposition is the true source of the passion which many men in very humble life have taken to the American war. _Our_ subjects in America; _our_ colonies; _our_ dependants."[93] It was not argument, but a habit of mind, which Burke encountered. Even without a victory in America, the corruption of the Tory mind was bad enough. It was precisely in the temper of the American War that Tory statesmen, after the French Revolution, afflicted their own countrymen. But from the utter loss of the temper of independence England was saved by the loss of the Colonies. The power of the Crown seemed to be strong even after the war. But a train of events in the mind had been started which could not be stopped, and in feet, when George III abandoned his hold over the Americans, he abandoned also his hold over the English.