7477. REVOLUTION (American), Change of government.—
With respect to
the State of Virginia in particular, the people
seem to have laid aside the monarchical, and
taken up the republican government, with as
much ease as would have attended their throwing
off an old, and putting on a new suit of
clothes. Not a single throe has attended this
important transformation. A half-dozen aristocratical
gentlemen, agonizing under the loss
of preeminence, have sometimes ventured their
sarcasms on our political metamorphosis. They
have been thought fitter objects of pity, than
of punishment.—
To Benjamin Franklin. Washington ed. i, 204.
Ford ed., ii, 131.
(1777)
