Countering the arguments of loyalty to Great-Britain, Thomas Paine writes that "France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be our enemies as Americans, but as our being the subjects of Great-Britain." (13) He goes on to claim that "Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America." and that "we claim brotherhood with every European christian." (13)
After reading about how "English-ness" defined the identities of the American colonists just 100 years before, was Paine describing common sentiment, or prescribing it? Given that, as Byrd points out in his Introduction, in previous conflicts "many colonists believed they were fighting evil on a massive scale, an alliance of the French Catholic influences of "Antichrist" and devilish "savagery" that threatend God's Protestant, British forces," (5) it sounds like ousting the "British" identity of American colonists was a hard sell.
The comparison of America to Israel seemed to function as the mediating narrative to accommodate the transition from "British" to "American." Was this a new construct? Were Europeans or colonists already comparing themselves to Israel? Or did this argument spawn from the unique position of having to turn on your "parent or mother country?"
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