[colorado tanker]

This is a very difficult topic because of what the great historian Jacques Barzun termed "the great switch." In the 20th Century the major political parties of the West switched their ideology, conservatives becoming the parties of reform and change and liberals becoming the parties of the status quo and governmental power. That is why so many conservatives refer to themselves as "classical liberals."

So, it is true that the American revolutionaries should be viewed as members of a conservative movement as we define conservatism today. They were prepared to overthrow a monarchy and replace it with democratic government. They were in favor of trade (and later industrialization) and minimal taxes and government interference.

In the politics of their time, however, the revolutionaries were liberals. It was no coincidence that the American army adopted the colors of buff and blue because they were the colors of the English Whigs, who were the descendants of the men who engineered the Glorious Revolution, overthrowing James II and securing constitutional monarchy. They were the heirs of Cromwell, although loyal to the monarchy. The New Englanders of Bunker Hill were, like Cromwell, presbyterian (with a small "p") in religion, Whig in political outlook but prepared to overthrow the monarchy if that's what it took to secure the liberties they perceived to be their right.

[Pharmboy]

Yes...thank you for your clarifying comments. I would have thought that the bulk of the Bunker Hill patriots were Congregationalists, Unitarians (both of these being the heirs to Puritanism), Anglicans and Presbyterians. Interesting that you make the bulk of them Prsbyterians.