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British Historians and the American Revolution1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Richard Middleton
Richard Middleton
Affiliation:
The Queen's University, Belfast
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Extract

In the year of Lexington, the irascible Dr Johnson wrote to a correspondent: ‘The Americans, sir, are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.’ Extreme in his Tory views, Johnson nevertheless reflected popular sentiment concerning the American colonies and their pretensions to independence, and his bias was to be reflected in many of the writings of the first historians who attempted to account for the late destruction of the first British empire.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , April 1971 , pp. 43 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

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3 Chalmers had practised as a lawyer in the city of Baltimore for a number of years, and so was well qualified to comment on American topics. In his writings on the colonies, however, he seems to have lacked stamina. An Introduction to the History of the Revolt of the American Colonies (London, 1782)Google Scholar, failed to carry the story beyond the age of George I. Similarly incomplete were the Political Annals of the Present United Colonies from their Settlement to the Peace of 1763 (London, 1780)Google Scholar, which ended with the Revolution of 1688.

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8 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 167.

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17 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 295.

18 Ibid., vol. 1, p. ix. Concerning George III, Adolphus suggested that the King had always ‘sought the love of his subjects through the means of public spirit and private virtue’, tempering his desire ‘to preserve from degradation the authority he inherits with a firm and just regard to our constitution and liberties’.

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55 SirFortescue, J. (ed.), The Correspondence of King George III from 1760–1783 (6 vols., London, 1927–1928), vol. 1, pp. xiv–xvi.Google Scholar In his earlier History of the British Army (London, 1899), vols. 1–2Google Scholar, Fortescue had shown himself to be no admirer of the Whigs.

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