THE REVOLT OF THE COLONIES 585 
such a cause, and they were careful to guard themselves AD, 
against being called on to bear a direct share in the cost. ’ 
Comparatively slight economic grievances sufficed to 
rouse the colonists to throw off their allegiance, not only be- 
cause the ties with English authority were being weakened, 22 
but because they were learning to cherish positive political the J ot 
ambitions of their own. The plantations had grown up into gems 
vigorous communities with an active life, and they desired enough 
to stand alone. The northern colonies had been forced in 
self defence to rely to some extent on local industries, and 
they could see their way to a position of economic inde- 
pendence. It was because of the healthy activity, which they 
had developed under British tutelage, that they cherished 
aspirations after a freedom from control which should give 
them the opportunity of realising their own ideals. The 
Pilgrim Fathers had gone to the New World in the hope of 
carrying out their own views of what religious life ought 
to be'; by joining in the Declaration of Independence, 
their descendants in New England seized an opportunity of 
claiming the right to work out their own ideals of political 
life, apart from the conflicts and entanglements of the Old 
World. This was the positive aim in the minds of the leading 
men of the time, and any economic grievance sinks into in- 
significance by its side. In so far as economic causes affected 
them at all, it was chiefly because the extent and resources 
of their country rendered the colonists self-reliant. The men 
of Massachusetts had a consciousness of their own economic 
independence as a community, which gave them confidence 
in asserting a claim to follow their own political destiny 
for themselves. The New Englanders had little sense of 
obligation? to the Mother Country. In the early days the 
pioneers had cleared the ground, and fought against the 
Indians; bit by bit their descendants had pushed farther 
into the continent; they had taken an active part in the 
struggle with France, and had proved their capacity in 
* Religious ideas did not enter very largely into the struggle, though the fear 
that they would lose their uncontrolled position by the introduction of an episco- 
pate was a motive which influenced the ministers to take the side of independence, 
in a way that the educated classes generally were loth to do. 
3 On the other hand the people of England were very much impressed by tLe 
sacrifices they had made for the plantations. 
to work out 
their own 
political 
destiny