Note 388 — Chapter XXV

Mr. Bancroft, writing under date of October, 1775, says: "The Americans had not designed to establish an independent government; of their leading statesmen it was the desire of Samuel Adams alone; they had all been educated in the love and admiration of constitutional monarchy; and even John Adams and Jefferson so sincerely shrank back from the attempt at creating another government in its stead, that, to the last moment, they were most anxious to avert a separation, if it could be avoided without a loss of their inherited liberties." (History of the United States, Vol. VIII., Chap. li., p. 161.)