THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION PART I. 1766-1776 BY THE RIGHT HON. SIR GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN, BART. AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE and letters of lorD MACAULAY" SECOND EDITION NEW YORK LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. LONDON AND BOMBAY 1899 All rights reserved COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED First edition printed December, 1898. ANDOVER THEOL SEMINARY APP 30 1900 LIBRARY Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 50,765- PREFACE THE author of this volume is aware that an expectation exists, among those who have read "The Early History of Charles James Fox," that he would carry on the account of that statesman's life from the point at which he dropped it eighteen years ago. When the consideration of the project was seriously approached, it became evident that the difficulties of writing a political biography, as distinguished from a political history, were in this case insuperable. The story of Fox, between 1774 and 1782, is inextricably intertwined with the story of the American Revolution. That immense event filled his mind, and consumed his activities; while all the circumstances about him worth relating may find a natural place in the course of the narrative which bears upon it. During that portion of the great drama which was enacted within the walls of Parliament, Fox was never off the stage; and, when there, he played a conspicuous, and (as time went on) confessedly the leading, part. What was done and spoken at Westminster cannot be rightly explained, nor can the conduct of British public men be fairly judged, without a clear and |