The acceptance of the Revolution in America marks an epoch of American history. All the New England colonies had been established, and had either proved themselves sturdy enough to stand alone, or had been forced to find shelter beneath the wing of the more powerful Connecticut or Massachusetts. The New England Confederation had been tried and found wanting. The time for union was evidently not ripe, but this embryo of the United States ceased to exist at identically the hour it was most wanted. A union of all the colonies was what might have been expected when French aggression and Canadian pluck taxed all the resources of the colonists; the scheme of union, however, failed, and the French had to be met in that haphazard and unprepared way in which, it would appear from history, Englishmen are accustomed not only to meet supreme danger, but to come through it with success. FOOTNOTES: [141] Bryce, _American Commonwealth_. [142] Underhill, _Newes from America_ (1638). [143] _Ibid._ [144] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1661-1668, p. 88. [145] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1677-1680, p. 577. [146] _Ibid._ [147] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1685-1688, p. 472. [148] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1677-1680, p. 398. [149] Quoted by Doyle, _Puritan Colonies_ (1887), vol. i. p. 249. [150] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1661-1668, p. 343. [151] Arnold, _History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations_ (1859). [152] _Ibid._ [153] Winthrop, _History of New England_ (1853), vol. i. p. 226. [154] Johnson, _A History of New England_, etc. (1654). [155] _Ibid._ [156] _Mass. Hist. Col._, Series iii., vol. viii. p. 171. [157] _American Historical Review_, vol. iv, No. 4, p. 683. [158] Josselyn, _An Account of Two Voyages to New England_ (1675). [159] _Ibid._ [160] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1661-1668, p. 315. [161] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1661-1668, p. 348. [162] _Ibid._, 1669-1674, p. 579. [163] Josselyn, _ut supra._ [164] _Calendar of State Papers_, 1677-1680, p. 211. [165] _Calendar of State Papers_, 1677-1680, p. 488. CHAPTER VI THE FIGHT WITH THE DUTCH FOR THEIR SETTLEMENT OF NEW NETHERLAND