At the close of that long day of fighting (April 19, 1775) it was plain that war had begun, and the Massachusetts politicians who had pushed matters to that stage may well have had misgivings. A single colony could have no hope of success, and there was little in the past to make one believe that the thirteen colonies would unite even to defend their political liberties. Franklin gave a vivid picture of their different forms of government, different laws, different interests, and, in some instances, different religious persuasions and different manners.[78] Their jealousy of one another was, he declared, “so great that, however necessary a union of the colonies has long been for their common defence, ... yet they have never been able to effect such a union among themselves.” They were more jealous of each other than of England, and though plans for union had been proposed by their ablest statesmen, they had refused to consider them.[79] There were long-standing disputes between neighboring colonies over boundaries, over relations with the Indians, and over matters of trade. The greatest danger, however, that confronted the American cause was political division on the subject of the relations with England. As the quarrel with the mother-country grew more bitter, it was seen that the British government had many friends in America who, if they did not defend the action of the ministry, at least frowned upon the violent opposition to it. They believed that America’s best interests lay in the union with Great Britain. The aristocracy of culture, of dignified professions and callings, of official rank and hereditary wealth tended to side with the central government.[80] The more prosperous and contented men had no grievances, and conservatism was the character one would expect in them. They denounced the agitators as demagogues and their followers as “the mob.” Through the long ten years of unrest preceding the Revolution, these Tories, as they were called, had suffered at the hands of mobs, and now, when Gage was powerless outside of Boston, an active persecution of them began.[81] Millers refused to grind their corn, labor would not serve them, and they could neither buy nor sell. Men refused to worship in the same church with them. They were denounced as “infamous betrayers of their country.” Committees published their names, “sending them down to posterity with the infamy they deserve.” After the siege of Boston had begun, those who were even suspected of Toryism, as their support of the king was called, were regarded as enemies in the camp. The Massachusetts committees compelled them to sign recantations or confined them in jails for refusal. If they escaped they were pursued with hue and cry.