2. The character of the colonists. Character is the product largely of ancestry and circumstances.  The ancestors of these people, after a struggle lasting hundreds of years, had established liberty in England and intrenched it in guarantees the wisest ever devised by man.  From them the colonists inherited the right of freedom from arbitrary arrest; of giving bail in ordinary offenses; of a speedy, public trial by jury, near the place where the crime was alleged to have been committed; of the writ of habeas corpus; of established rules of evidence; and, indeed, of nearly all the rights mentioned in the first ten amendments to the constitution of the United States.  Their ancestors had, in the war between Cromwell and Charles I., laid down their lives to establish the principle that taxes can be laid only by the people or by their representatives.  The colonists themselves had been compelled to face difficulties incident to life in a new country, and had developed the power to act independently in matters pertaining to their individual good.  And in the management of their several commonwealths they had gained considerable experience in governmental affairs.  With such ancestry and such experience they would not tamely endure being imposed upon.

3. The character of the king. On the death of Queen Anne without an heir, George I., elector of Hanover, had become king of England, and he had been succeeded by his son, George II.  To both of these kings England was really a foreign country, of whose institutions, and of whose language even, they were profoundly ignorant.  As a consequence, their personal influence in England was small.  When, in 1760, young George III. ascended the throne, he resolved to be king in fact as well as in name.  This determination, which he adhered to, coupled with his unfamiliarity with English institutions, explains many things otherwise difficult to understand. (See Fiske’s War of Independence, pp. 58-70.)

4. The prevailing mode of colonization. Many of the colonies had been founded for commercial reasons merely, with no intention of forming governmental institutions, Chartered companies and individuals planted settlements for the profit there was supposed to be in doing so.  These colonies were designed to be merely “self-supporting trading outposts of England.”  Money had been put into these enterprises, and in the effort to secure a profitable return many unjust commercial restrictions were imposed upon the colonists.

Immediate Causes.—­Among the immediate causes of the Revolutionary War may be mentioned: