contributed almost nothing to the Revolution in any practical way during its actual progress. Perhaps they could not; but certainly they did not. Washington and his officers and soldiers deserve all the credit for making independence a reality instead of an assertion. They were not very strenuously or generously backed by the mass of the people after the first fervor was over. The truth is that that grand event was the work of a small body of heroes, who presented freedom and nationality to the people of the thirteen colonies. John Adams and Congress said that the colonists were free, and there left the matter, functi officio. Washington and the troops took up the business, and actually made colonists into freemen. Those upon whom this dignity and advantage were conferred were, for the most part, content somewhat supinely to allow the new condition to be established for them.

JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

September, 1898.

CONTENTS