Even in the brief outline of the course of events which I have given, it must appear that the American Revolution was almost the most hare-brained enterprise in history.

After the first days of Lexington and Concord, when the farmers and country-folk rushed to the centres to check the British invaders, the British had almost continuously a large advantage in position and in number of troops.

And in those early days the Colonists fought, not for Independence, but for the traditional rights which the British Crown threatened to take from them.

Now they had their freedom, but what a freedom! There were thirteen unrelated political communities bound together now only by the fact of having been united in their common struggle against England.

Each had adopted a separate constitution, and the constitutions were not uniform nor was there any central unifying power to which they all looked up and obeyed.