George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition.

His service in America was preceded by a public parade of his principles. ‘I am confident,’ said the new devotee in the house of commons, ‘there is not an officer or soldier in the king's service who does not think the parliamentary right of Great Britain a cause to fight for, to bleed and die for.’ The assertion was extravagant; many of the best would not willingly bear arms against their kindred in America.

In reply to Burgoyne, Henry Temple Luttrell, whom curiosity once led to travel many hundreds of miles along the flourishing and hospitable provinces of the continent, bore testimony to their temperance, urbanity, and spirit, and predicted that, if set to the proof, they would evince the magnanimity of republican Rome. He saw in the aspect of infant America, features which at maturer years denoted a most colossal force. ‘Switzerland and the Netherlands,’ he reminded the house, ‘demonstrate what extraordinary obstacles a small band of insurgents may surmount in the cause of liberty.’

While providing for a reinforcement to its army, England enjoined the strictest watchfulness on its consuls and agents in every part of Europe, to intercept all munitions of war destined for the colonies. To check the formation of magazines on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius, which was the resort of New England mariners, the British envoy, with dictatorial menaces, required the States General of Holland to forbid their subjects from so much as transporting military stores to the West Indies, beyond the abso