For such a far-reaching result, the temporary humiliation of Massachusetts was a small price to pay.  But it was not until long after the accession of William III. that things could be seen in these grand outlines.  With his coronation began the struggle of seventy years between France and England, far grander than the struggle between Rome and Carthage, two thousand years earlier, for primacy in the world, for the prerogative of determining the future career of mankind.  That warfare, so fraught with meaning, was waged as much upon American as upon European ground; and while it continued, it was plainly for the interest of the British government to pursue a conciliatory policy toward its American colonies, for without their wholehearted assistance it could have no hope of success.  As soon as the struggle was ended, and the French power in the colonial world finally overthrown, the perpetual quarrels between the popular legislatures and the royal governors led immediately to the Stamp Act and the other measures of the British government that brought about the American revolution.  People sometimes argue about that revolution as if it had no past behind it and was simply the result of a discussion over abstract principles. [Sidenote:  Seeds of the American Revolution already sown]

We can now see that while the dispute involved an abstract principle of fundamental importance to mankind, it was at the same time for Americans illustrated by memories sufficiently concrete and real.  James Otis in his prime was no further distant from the tyranny of Andros than middle-aged men of to-day are distant from the Missouri Compromise.  The sons of men cast into jail along with John Wise may have stood silent in the moonlight on Griffin’s Wharf and looked on while the contents of the tea-chests were hurled into Boston harbour.  In the events we have here passed in review, it may be seen, so plainly that he who runs may read, how the spirit of 1776 was foreshadowed in 1689.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

An interesting account of the Barons’ War and the meeting of the first House of Commons is given in Prothero’s Simon de Montfort, London, 1877.  For Wyclif and the Lollards, see Milman’s Latin Christianity, vol. vii.

The ecclesiastical history of the Tudor period may best be studied in the works of John Strype, to wit, Historical Memorials, 6 vols.; Annals of the Reformation, 7 vols.; Lives of Cranmer, Parker, Whitgift, etc., Oxford, 1812-28.  See also Burnet’s History of the Reformation of the Church of England, 3 vols., London, 1679-1715; Neal’s History of the Puritans, London, 1793; Tulloch, Leaders of the Reformation, Boston, 1859.  A vast mass of interesting information is to be found in The Zurich Letters, comprising the Correspondence of Several English Bishops, and Others, with some of the Helvetian Reformers, published by the Parker Society, 4 vols., Cambridge, Eng., 1845-46.  Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity was published in London, 1594; a new edition, containing two additional books, the first complete edition, was published in 1622.