John Paul Jones, the “founder of the American navy,” was born in this cottage at Kirkbean, in Scotland, in 1747. He died in Paris in 1792.] All that seems natural to us; for we have been brought up on the tyranny of George III, and the misgovernment and plunder of the colonies by the British government. We realize the bad state of things much better than did the Americans at the beginning of the Revolution. In truth the colonies were freer from harsh and arbitrary government than England, Scotland, and Wales, to say nothing of what was then the separate kingdom of Ireland. Every colony had its local assembly: not a single English county had one. In every colony any freeman who had the necessary pluck and health could acquire land and become a voter: in England not a twentieth part of the adult men could vote. The colonists laid their own taxes and expended them for their own purposes: Englishmen paid taxes levied by a Parliament over which only a few of them had control. Apparently the main cause of the Revolution was that the colonists could do so much for themselves that there was no reason why they should not do substantially everything for themselves. They had a personal attachment for England, the king, and the English system of government, very like that now felt by the Canadians, and would have been quite satisfied with the degree of self government that England has since freely given to Canada. John Adams says, “That there existed a general desire of independence of the Crown in any part of America before the Revolution, is as far from the truth as the zenith is from the nadir.” [Illustration: OLD BELFRY, LEXINGTON MASSACHUSETTS From this belfry was rung out the alarm on the morning of April 19, 1775, calling the minute men to assemble on the common.] [Illustration: PAUL REVERE’S HOME IN BOSTON The tablet that may be seen between the second and third stories of the house was placed there by the Paul Revere Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.] [Illustration: PAUL REVERE From the painting by the famous American artist, Gilbert Stuart.]