"There is agitation, there are meetings, there is mutual encouragement to the struggle, the provinces concert opposition together, the wrath against Great Britain grows and the abyss begins to yawn; but such are the habits of order among this people, that, in the midst of this immense ferment among the nation, it is scarcely possible to pick out even a few acts of violence here and there; up to the day when the uprising becomes general, the government of George III.
can scarcely find, even in the great centres of opposition, such as Boston, any specious pretexts for its own violence" [M.

Cornelis de Witt, _Histoire de Washington_].

The declaration of independence was by this time becoming inevitable when Washington and Jefferson were still writing in this strain: Washington to Capt.

Mackenzie.
"You are taught to believe that the people of Massachusetts are a people of rebels in revolt for independence, and what not.

Permit me to tell you, my good friend, that you are mistaken, grossly mistaken.