First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

by Thomas E. Ricks

There was, he wrote, “in 1760 and 1761, An Awakening and a Revival of American Principles and Feelings, with an Enthusiasm which went on increasing till in 1775 it burst out in open Violence, Hostility and Fury.” He considered Mayhew to be among the five leading figures in this movement, the people who were “the most conspicuous, the most ardent and influential.”