Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/143

Rh Although what has been called the war of argument ended with the battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775, and that date, as Professor Tyler says, becomes the divisional point in any history of America or American development, it is, nevertheless, not true that the journalism of the colonies stopped in its development or its importance. The picture of an entire country engaged in battle for seven years is a companion piece to another equally false; that of an entire country fighting the British troops and their paid support. The truth is that the difficulty of holding the patriots themselves in line was the principal cause of the prolongation of the war.

The Tories asserted that they were numerically superior to the patriots. Lecky declares that the American Revolution was "the work of an energetic minority, who succeeded in committing an undecided and fluctuating majority to courses for which they had little love, and led them step by step to a position from which it was impossible to recede."

The greatest number of Tories was found in New York, while in South Carolina and Georgia they outnumbered the patriots. John Adams, in a letter written in 1813, declared that New York and Pennsylvania were evenly divided, and that only Virginia and New England kept them in line. He also stated that fully one-third of the people were averse to the Revolution and, in general, to the idea of rebellion and separation. Until the opening of hostilities, it was a war of argument, but it became necessary to keep up the argument by propaganda and printing after hostilities had begun. Such action was necessary in order to hold those who were already in sympathy with the American cause, to increase the