The Wars Between England and America

e criminal admixture, who had been helped and allowed to build up some unruly and not very admirable communities. Nor did the English middle classes look upon the colonists with much interest, or regard them as, on the whole, their equals. The prevailing colonial political habits, as seen from England, suggested only unwarrantable wrangling indicative of political incompetence and a spirit of disobedience. Loyalty, to an {20} Englishman, meant submission to the law. To men trained in such different schools, words did not mean the same thing. The time had come when the two peoples were scarcely able to understand each other.

A second cause for antagonism, scarcely less fundamental and destined to cause equal irritation, is to be found in the conflict between the economic life of the American communities and the beliefs of the mother country concerning commercial and naval policy. Great Britain, in 1763, was predominantly a trading country. Its ships carried goods for all the nations of Europe and brough