The American Revolution
England and America : Rivals in the American Revolution, By C. H. Van Tyne. (Cambridge University Press. 66.) SIB GEORGE WATSON did a great thing when he founded the lectureship that has enabled British and American scholars since 1921 to deliver lectures here on American history and institutions. The latest holder of the chair, Professor Van Tyne, of Michigan, gave six addresses last May, now printed, which alone would justify the founder's generosity. For in these wise and witty lectures Professor Van Tyne denounced the obscurantism of American politicians like Chicago's Mayor, and endeavoured to state the plain truth about the American revolution of 1776. Like Professor Pollard and the late Professor Egerton, he views that epoch-making event not as an American revolt against English tyranny, but as a civil war and a conflict of ideas, in which each side included both Englishmen and Americans. A great many English Whigs openly sympathized with the revolt ; half the Americans, including most of the wealthy and educated people, detested it. Professor Van Tyne shows that American Episcopalians, except in Virginia, were usually loyalists, whereas the Non- conformists were mostly for secession. He explains clearly how the " Boston tea-party " came about, through the hostility of New England merchants to the East India Com- pany which wanted to monopolize the retail trade in tea and undersell the established dealers. His criticism of the English generals is fair and sympathetic ; he recognizes fully the overwhelming difficulties with which they were confronted through lack of transport and supplies in a wild and vast country. His account of Washington's motley and unstable army greatly increases our respect for the American leader. Indeed, the truth about the American revolution, which silly people try to suppress or distort, is really much more interest. ing and much more creditable to all parties concerned than the old fairy tales.
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