Bradford felt keenly the numerical loss of Plymouth colonists who went out to form new communities. Everywhere the pioneer mood was for expansion. In this way he was also deprived of a group of able men. Yet they remained mostly in the Old Colony, except Edward Winslow, who finally returned to England. In the year of colonial union Elder Brewster passed away, who had been not only a most worthy and acceptable preacher and virtual pastor at Plymouth, but a close adviser to the Governor, even as he had been the counsellor of his youth. The efficient military head, Myles Standish, was released by death from further responsibilities in 1656; and Bradford survived him only into the next year, having still the company of the public-spirited and helpful John Howland, of the remaining Mayflower Pilgrims. Many of the best people of England were leaving for America. Much alarm was felt by the home government on this account, in whose eyes colonial New England always represented protest. The former vacillated between aggression and hesitating aloofness toward this uncomfortable element of dissent, exceedingly vexed at such persistent survival and vigorous increase, and yet recognizing its most promising contribution to the strength of the realm. But always again, where royalty wavered, or on the other hand in desperation leaped to violent opposition, the prelacy was close behind it with an urgency which often bordered upon dictation. Of course the exception to this otherwise uniformly uncongenial Anglo-American interrelation was the regime of the Commonwealth. Had Cromwell sat on the throne of George IV, we would undoubtedly have been a lower Canada for a period of time difficult to delimit. It has been aptly stated that the Oriental idea of conquest was without incorporation, the Roman idea was conquest with incorporation but without representation, and the English idea of empire building was incorporation with representation. This is eminently true as regards England, to her credit be it said. And herein was her folly in forcing the American Revolution, because at that time she fell from her own ideals, which have so signally succeeded in the policy of practical colonial autonomy, vastly promoting her beneficent power.