Note i-292 — INTRODUCTION (continued 2)

Apropos of many colonial ferments, not unlike the one we have considered above, Carl Becker writes: "Throughout the eighteenth century, little colonial aristocracies played their part, in imagination clothing their governor in the decaying vesture of Old-World tyrants and themselves assuming the homespun garb, half Roman and half Puritan, of a virtuous republicanism.... It was the illusion of sharing in great events rather than any low mercenary motive that made Americans guard with jealous care their legislative independence" (The Eve of the Revolution, New Haven, 1918, 60). Also see C. H. Lincoln, The Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania, 1760-1776.