Thus things looked to foreigners, both in 1775 and in 1854, while in both cases our people were yielding only step by step to the inevitable current which swept events along. It is the penalty of caution, that it sometimes appears, even to itself, like irresolution, or timidity. Not a foolish charge has been brought against Northern energy in this contest, that was not urged equally in the time of the Revolution. The royal troops thought Massachusetts as easy to subdue as the South Carolinians affect to think, and expressed it in almost the same language:--"Whenever it comes to blows, he that can run the fastest will think himself best off." The revolutionists admitted that "the people abroad have too generally got the idea that the Americans are all cowards and poltroons." A single regiment, it was generally asserted, could march triumphant through New England. The people took no pains to deny it. The guard in Boston captured thirteen thousand cartridges at a stroke. The people did not prevent it. A citizen was tarred and feathered in the streets by the royal soldiery, while the band played "Yankee Doodle." The people did not interfere. "John Adams writes, there is a great spirit in the Congress, and that we must furnish ourselves with artillery and arms and ammunition, but avoid war, if possible,--if possible." At last, one day, these deliberate people finally made up their minds that it was time to rise,--and when they rose, everything else fell. In less than a year afterwards, Boston being finally evacuated, one of General Howe's mortified officers wrote home to England, in words which might form a Complete Letter-Writer for every army-officer who has turned traitor, from Beauregard downward,--"Bad times, my dear friend. The displeasure I feel in the small share I have in our present insignificancy is so great, that I do not know the thing so desperate I would not undertake, in order to change our situation."