In the war which resulted from the resistance to the acts specified, was involved a great principle of self-government, which the British government has since fully acknowledged in the treatment of all her other colonies, but it must be confessed that there was a good deal of turbulence and violence exhibited by American colonists in the first stages of the contest. Without depreciating the public spirit displayed by the people of Massachusetts during the war which ensued, there can be no question but that by violence and rashness the conflict was precipitated, and that much forbearance was show by some of the British military officials. A candid review of the history of the difficulties preceding actual hostilities must lead any honest mind to the conclusion that while the British ministers acted unconstitutionally and unwisely, as the quarrel approached its crisis, the people of Massachusetts, with whom the conflict began, exhibited a very turbulent spirit and often acted with unwarranted violence. The settlers of Massachusetts, on account of their peculiar religious theories, had from the very beginning, been impatient of all control from the mother country and anxious to thrown it off. They had hailed the Commonwealth with joy, had been greatly chagrined at the restoration of the royal authority and had been very much embittered by the vacation of their charter and the loss of the theocratic form of government, and their ministry kept alive the fires of discontent and fanned them into a flame on all occasions. The same feeling existed throughout New England. Virginia on the contrary had been always a loyal colony and had not acknowledged the Parliament or the Commonwealth in Cromwell's time, until compelled to do so by a force sent for its conquest. Its people had hailed the restoration with delight and there was no sentiment in the colony demanding a separation from the mother country which was not engendered by actual or supposed infringement of their rights as British subjects. Though the people of that colony had little direct interest in the grievances complained of against the British government, as the articles taxed entered very little into their consumption, and no troops had been quartered among them in an offensive manner since the Parliamentary expedition, they made common cause with the people of Massachusetts, as it was a question of power which involved the rights of all the colonies. The difference was that the people of Massachusetts and New England were anxious to bring on a separation, while those of Virginia were not, unless it was necessary for the protection of the rights of all of the colonies. The statesmen of Virginia entered warmly into the dispute both by speaking and writing, and when the actual collision took place the people sprang to arms and sent to Massachusetts aid in both men and provisions.