"Stephen Harding" wrote in message
...
Vince Brannigan wrote:

Stephen Harding wrote:
Brian Sharrock wrote:

Slight semantic problem; the loyalists(sic) _were_ British.
They didn't 'side with' the British, they were British, remained
British and refused to follow the rebellious smugglers, slave-owners,
land-owner and lawyer clique into an armed French-funded
insurrection. History _does_ record that they were treated badly
by the revolting colonists.

So is this the current Euro spin on the American Revolution?


From your side of the Atlantic, I suppose everybody over the
horizon seems to be 'Euro', but to me, a Briton, the idea that
there'' some kind of "Euro spin" over the rebellion of some British
colonists funded by the French Kingdom in the furtherance of a
republic is laughable. I know it's probalby hard to examine the
underlying myths and shillobeths that you've been taught since
Kindergarden but perhaps not everything you've be taught is true?
Most folks get older, I nearly said mature, on along the way towards
the grave cope, or adjust, to the reality of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy
and other props ...


Just a bunch of criminal, low life types, cajoled by the perfidious
French, into breaking away from "The Empire", where most wanted to
stay?
My, my how the politics of anti-Americanism spins its web.

It is the historical record, not current spin
See for example

http://www.uelac.org/loyalist.pdf

snip

And of course, the French were originally content to watch from the
sidelines
until there was actually some possibility of success. That didn't happen
until at least Saratoga. The French had nothing to do with starting the
American Revolution except in providing theory from philosophical types.


I was somewhat startled to read in "Rebels & Redcoats", Hugh Bicheno,
Harper Collins, 2003;-

(Page 22);- Gage ... received a reply ... (Page 23)ordered him to arest
the members of the illegal Provincial Congress, which he knew from
several _well placed informers_ (emphasis mine) was meeting in Concord
.... Gage's spies had also told him aconsiderable supply of arms and
military stores was cahed at Concord including three 24 pounder cannon
whose significance has gone strangely unremarked by historians.
These were 5,600 pound monsters requiring eight to ten men to
serve themand a team of six horses to pull them ... they were seige guns ...
how they came to be uried in the courtyard of Concord jail is a mystery.
....
The cannon fitted the jigsaw in another way. The conspirators were
desperate to provoke some bloody event to plarize opinion, and the
French would have regarded a brace and a half of 24-ponders as seedcorn.
Pages 24-25 are maps
(Page 26) ... The existance of such powerful weapons at such a place
and time is one of those ugly facts so harmful to beautiful theories,
in this case the myth of peace-loving farmers spontaneously rising up
against unprovoked aggression. They also provide an explanation why
the cautious Gage was suddenly inspired to undertake a high-risk
operation deep into territory where he had many informers and
_must have known_ (my emphasis) the local Militia had been drilling
for just such an eventuality.

I'm sorry for the length of this extract from the book, but _I_ had
never been aware of this ordnance before; I could never really understand
the march route particularly when one considers the practise of line
infantry in those days, these guys could march up escarpments,
through swamps across dunes etc ... in step all the way. The forestation
that apparently presented no problem to their harassers should have
been as easy for them to traverse. Was there an overarching reason
to stay on the road/track?

Elsewhere, I'm sure the author says that 'the British' had _not_ shipped
this size of ordnance to the American landmass ... I might be wrong here ...
where did they originate?

Curiously the four-part accompanying documentary WGBH / BBC
presented by Richard Holmes elided over this ordnance, Richard Holmes
seemed to prefer riding on contemporary buses ...

I highly recommend the book, although it 'accompanies the TV series its
'slant' seems different.

Meanwhile, the French will deny the provenance of this ordnance, along
with the supply of commissioning expertise to the Fuerzas Argentinas
and any missiles that the Polish Army finds in Iraq ... plus ca change?

--

Brian