On the 10th of February, 1763, at Paris, was signed the treaty that recognized the extinction of the French empire in North America. This treaty marks an epoch in the history of America, as well as in that of England and of France. To the latter it was a period of humiliation, not only in the loss of colonies upon which, for nearly a century, she had expended vast sums without any adequate return, but also in the frustration of her purpose of gaining sole possession of the continent.
By England it was regarded as the close of a contest to maintain her power on the same continent, and make it subservient to her commercial and manufacturing interests, which had lasted for nearly a hundred years. Yet there was a well-founded apprehension, expressed at the time, that her colonies, relieved from the fear of French aggressions, would throw off the authority of the mother country.[38] What was the fear of the mother country, on the other hand, was the hope and expectation, more or less remote, of the colonies. For the experience gained in the French wars was of great value to them in the revolutionary struggle. Officers had become familiar with the direction of large bodies of troops, and with the means of their transport and supply; and soldiers had learned that efficiency depended upon discipline. Provincial assemblies also had been taught to look for safety in strategic operations remote from their own territory. But at no time before the assembling of the congress of 1754 had the colonies been called to consider such a union of all as would give unity to military operations, and secure the semblance, at least, of a general government. The union proposed at that time would have involved some loss of independence, without securing any efficient means of enforcing the recommendations of the congress, and so the colonies hesitated, and finally laid it aside. But there can be no doubt that the consideration given to it by the several colonies led them more readily to come together for concerted action in the congress of 1765.
The year 1763 is usually regarded as the beginning of the American Revolution, because in that year the English ministry determined to raise a revenue from the colonies. This led to a contest, which, like most civil wars, was long and embittered. It engendered feelings which have not yet passed away,—feelings which interfere with a calm and dispassionate review of the motives of the parties concerned, and of the circumstances which attended their controversy. It was a war between Britons and the descendants of Britons, who, with a common ancestry, laws, and manners, retained their essential race characteristics in spite of the lapse of time or the change of place: everywhere and always lovers of liberty, but in power haughty, insolent, and aggressive on the weak, and in subjection turbulent and impatient of restraint; proud of ancestry, partial to old customs and precedents, but quick to resist laws which impede the course of equity, and never permitting forms to prevent the accomplishment of substantial justice. Such was the parent and such was the child: and in the light of these facts we are to read the history of the Revolution. It exhibited the race in no new light, nor did the contest involve any new principle. Its sentiments were expressed in the old idiomatic language,—petition, remonstrance, riot, war.