the American Colonies have suffered at the hands of the British Crown. They have also been discussing what to do about the Revolution which, contrary to the present-day misconception held by many, was not started as a result of their action but was already under way.
Nearly forty years later, when John Adams was eighty years old, he was to write that even the war with Britain was "no part of the Revolution." And he added: "The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington."
It is possible that Adams, in retrospect, misjudged the minds and hearts of the people during that fifteen year period. What they really wanted, probably, was simply to be let alone. Maybe he endowed them with the sentiments of his own stout heart and flaming spirit. At any rate, it is clear that the representatives of those people, in Congress assembled, were reluctantly revolutionary and not by any means strong for independence. Most of the delegates believed it was their duty to work for "the restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and the Colonies"-a harmony that was, by the greater number of them, "most ardently desired."
And so there had been a succession of "humble petitions" to the Crown, with protestations of loyalty and desire for accommodation. There had even been an "address to the British People." The Adamses, John and Sam, and some others, had protested that all such gestures were in vain-and ·so it had proved. The humble
