CHAPTER XX — THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
122. The Question of Colonial Independence (1748)
BY PROFESSOR PETER KALM
This is one of many contemporary suggestions that there was danger of independence. — On Kalm, see No. 1 12 above. Bibliography of independence : Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, 145-157; George Bancroft, United States (10 vol. ed.), IV, ch. i; Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, III, ch. xii; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VI, ch. iii.
. . . IT is to be observed that each English colony in North America is independent of the other, and that each has its proper laws and coin, and may be looked upon in several lights, as a state by itself. From hence it happens, that in time of war, things go on very slowly and irregularly here : for not only the sense of one province is sometimes directly opposite to that of another ; but frequently the views of the governor, and those of the assembly of the same province, are quite different : so that it is easy to see, that, while the people are quarrelling about the best and cheapest manner of carrying on the war, an enemy has it in his power to take one place after another. It has commonly happened that whilst some provinces have been suffering from their enemies, the neighbouring ones were quiet and inactive, and as if it did not in the least concern them. They have frequently taken up two or three years in considering whether they should give assistance to an oppressed sister colony, and sometimes they have expresly declared themselves against it. There are instances of provinces who were not only neuter in these circumstances, but who even carried on a great trade with the power which at that very time was attacking and laying waste some other provinces.
The French in Canada, who are but an inconsiderable body, in comparison with the English in America, have by this position of affairs
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