At that juncture the English people themselves did not apprehend rightly the merits of the dawning struggle, nor resent the imposition by Parliament, of unjust, unequal, and unconstitutional laws upon their brethren in America. Dr. Franklin thus described their servile attitude toward the Crown: “Every man in England seems to consider himself as a piece of a sovereign; seems to jostle himself into the throne with the King; and talks of ‘_our_ subjects in the Colonies.’” The ferment of patriotic sentiment was deep, subtle, intense, and ready for deliverance. The sovereignty of the British crown and the divine rights of man were to be subjected to the stern arbitrament of battle. One had fleets, armies, wealth, prestige, and power, unsustained by the principles of genuine liberty which had distinguished the British Constitution above all other modern systems of governmental control; while the scattered two millions of earnest, patriotic Englishmen across the sea, who, from their first landing upon the shores of the New World had honored every principle which could impart dignity and empire to their mother country, were to balance the scale of determining war by the weight of loyalty to conscience and to God. CHAPTER III. THE OUTBREAK OF REPRESSED LIBERTY. British authority, which ought to have gladly welcomed and honored the prodigious elasticity, energy, and growth of its American dependencies, as the future glory and invincible ally of her advancing empire, was deliberately arming to convert a natural filial relation into one of slavery. The legacies of British law and the liberties of English subjects, which the Crown did not dare to infringe at home, had been lodged in the hearts of her American sons and daughters, until resistance to a royal decree had become impossible under any reasonable system of paternal care and treatment. Colonial sacrifices during Indian wars had been cheerfully borne, and free-will offerings of person and property had been rendered without stint, upon every demand. But it seemed to be impossible for George the Third and his chosen advisers to comprehend in its full significance, the momentous fact, that English will was as strong and stubborn in the child as in the parent. Lord Chatham said that “it would be found impossible for freemen in England to wish to see three millions of Englishmen slaves in America.” Respecting the attempted seizure of arms rightly in the hands of the people, that precipitated the “skirmish,” as the British defined it, which occurred at Lexington on the nineteenth day of April, 1775, Lord Dartmouth said: “The effect of General Gage’s attempt at Concord will be fatal.” Granville Sharpe, of the Ordnance Department, resigned rather than forward military stores to America. Admiral Keppel formally requested not to be employed against America. Lord Effingham resigned, when advised that his regiment had been ordered to America.