substantial truth in our favor, and in saying that, he has said very much. In his prefatory remarks, after referring to their deficiency of knowledge of the “Tories” he says, “The reason is obvious. Men who, like the Loyalists, separate themselves from their friends and kindred, who are driven from their homes, who surrender the hopes and expectations of life, and who become outlaws, wanderers, and exiles,—such men leave few memorials behind them. Their papers are scattered and lost, and their very names pass from human recollections.” Before considering the question, whether the American colonies were justified in taking an extreme step; it is most necessary to state that, at the first there were but an insignificant number of the colonists who held the belief that armed rebellion was demanded. Even among those who, with no mild-toned language denounced the mother country for enacting laws oppressive to the commerce and industry of the Americans, no one was found to advocate separation; on the contrary to use the words of Sabine “The denial that independence was the final object, was constant and general.” To obtain concessions and preserve the connection with England, was affirmed everywhere; and John Adams, years after the peace, went further than this, for he said ‘_There was not a moment during the Revolution, when I would not have given everything I possessed for a restoration to the state of things before the contest began, provided we could have had a sufficient security for its continuance_.’ Again, Franklin’s testimony, a few days before the affair at Lexington, was, that he had “more than once travelled from one end of the continent to the other, and kept a variety of company, eating, drinking, and conversing with them freely, and never _had heard in any conversation from any person drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for separation, or a hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America_.” Mr. Jay is quite as explicit. “During the course of my life and until the second petition of Congress in 1775, _I never did hear an American of any class, of any description, express a wish for the independence of the colonies_. It has always, and still is, my opinion and belief, that our country was prompted and impelled to independence by _necessity_, and not by _choice_.” Says Mr. Jefferson, “What, eastward of New York, might have been the dispositions toward England before the commencement of hostilities, I know not, but _before that_ I never heard a whisper of a disposition to separate from Great Britain, _and after that_, _its possibility_ was contemplated with affliction by all.” Washington, in 1774, sustained these declarations, and, in the “Fairfax County Resolves” it was complained, that “_malevolent falsehoods_” were propagated by the ministry to prejudice the mind of the king; _particularly_ that there is an intention in the American colonies to _set up for independent States_; and Washington expressed a