He acts the General,
the Briton, the Conqueror, and the Christian. What fair hopes
arise from the peaceful and undisturbed enjoyment of this
good land, and the blessing of our gracious God with it! Methinks
I see towns enlarged, settlements increased, and this howling
wilderness become a fruitful field which the Lord hath blessed;
and, to complete the scene, I see churches rise and flourish in
every Christian grace where has been the seat of Satan and Indian
idolatry."
Nathaniel Appleton, of Cambridge, hails the dawning of a
new era. "Who can tell what great and glorious things God
is about to bring forward in the world, and in this world of
America in particular? Oh, may the time come when these
deserts, which for ages unknown have been regions of darkness
and habitations of cruelty, shall be illuminated with the
light of the glorious Gospel, and when this part of the world,
which till the later ages was utterly unknown, shall be the
glory and joy of the whole earth!"
On the American continent the war was ended, and the
British colonists breathed for a space, as they drifted unwittingly
towards a deadlier strife. They had learned hard and useful lessons.
Their mutual jealousies and disputes, the quarrels of their governors
and assemblies, the want of any general military organization, and
the absence, in most of them, of military habits, joined to narrow
views of their own interest, had unfitted them to the last degree for
carrying on offensive war.
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