That Washington foresaw the course of events may be readily gathered from a letter he wrote at this time to a very close friend, Captain Robert Mackenzie, who had severely criticised the colonies from the British point of view. Like too many who are now charged with the destiny of the great American republic by their votes, Mackenzie could reason only on the visible results, and could not give any attention to the causes of the events. He had no spiritual valuation. He could reason only from material interests. Washington closed a very emphatic and radical letter to him with the warning and prophecy, “and give me leave to add, as my opinion, that more blood will be spilled on this occasion, if the ministry are determined to push matters to extremity, than history has ever yet furnished instances of in the annals of North America.” England had been what might be termed good to the Southern colonies. As for harsh measures, the worst from a political point of view was in dissolving the Virginia legislatures. The Southern Colonies were under the business management of descendants from the royalist cavaliers who had been driven from England by the forefathers of the descendants making up the colonies of New England. There was thus an inherited tradition of antagonism, which many well-meaning patriots assume as their basis of justice and judgment. Political welfare must be estimated from present conditions. Avengers of the ancient wrong want to punish history rather than make history. They assume that it is better to begin with what was than with what is. But in the common need, all such differences were forgotten. The differences were remembered only by the great grand-children of the revolutionary heroes.