All the while, Johnson, who was to be rewarded for doing nothing, lingered at the head of Lake George, employing his men in the construction of Fort William Henry.

The student of American history will observe that there had already sprung up a rivalry between the provincial soldiers and the British regulars. At times, even during the hottest fighting, this hatred threatened to break out into open insurrection. A jealousy which had long existed between the royal party and the colonial party was greatly intensified by the royal governor's attempts to force the colonists to pay the expense of the regulars.

"If we send our soldiers to America to protect Americans, they should pay them,” argued the royalists.

On the other hand, the Americans saucily declared:

66 We are able with our own men and officers to

protect our homes. The uninhabited portion of the country belongs to England, and should be protected at England's expense.

Although the year 1755 had been a stormy one in America, and the French and English had been shedding each other's blood, France and England were still at peace. The British cabinet was, at this time, composed of men who were likely, by their folly and dishonesty, to involve the nation in

a foolish and useless war. Secret orders were suddenly issued to the commanders of all British menof-war to seize all French vessels, public or private. It is reported that the king's share of the spoils accruing from these unlawful seizures would amount to three and a half millions of dollars, while eight thousand French marines and sailors were made captives. The French minister, when notified of what had taken place, indignantly exclaimed:

“What has taken place is nothing but a system of piracy on a grand scale unworthy of civilized people." The French monarch was at last aroused by the indignities offered his people and declared: "Never will I forgive the piracies of this insolent nation."

In an autograph letter to the British king, he demanded full reparation for the insults offered to the French flag, and the injury done to the French people.

Thus the home government of the two nations took up the quarrel. The campaigns of 1755 had assumed all the features of a regular war between the respective subjects. The Acadians had been driven from home; Braddock had been slain, and Dieskau was dying from a mortal wound. On the 17th of May, 1756, a declaration of war went forth from the British cabinet. The French cabinet re

sponded with a similar declaration, June 9th, and thus the peace, solemnly guaranteed at Aix-laChapelle, was rudely broken to gratify the ambition of politicians longing for power. While the two chief powers of Europe had been preparing for the great contest for supremacy in the New World, the thoughtful men among the English-American colonists, who loved liberty more than power, had been musing on the glorious probabilities of the future. A school teacher in Worcester named John Adams, in a letter to Nathan Webb in 1755, among other things wrote:

Mighty States are not exempted from change. . Soon after the Reformation, a few people came over into this new world for conscience sake. This apparently trivial incident may transfer the great seat of empire into America. If we can remove the turbulent Gallics, our people, according to the exactest calculations, will, in another century, become more numerous than in England itself. The united force of Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves, is to disunite us."

History records how this golden dream became a reality.

Shirley, the new commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, called a convention of royal governors at New York, late in 1755, where

a splendid campaign was planned. It included the capture of Quebec, Forts Du Quesne, Frontenac, Niagara, Detroit, and other French posts in the northwest. Parliament was again urged to take vigorous measures for compelling the colonists, by a tax, to furnish a general fund for military purposes in America, and that body felt disposed to do so; but at this moment more grave questions demanded the attention of parliament and the royal governors.

The Indians were threatening the frontier settlements of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania with desolation, and very soon whole families were flying back to the older settlements, leaving dwellings and farms to the fury of the savages. The authorities of those colonies took action to stay the flood of desolation surging along the border. In Virginia, Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of all the colonial forces, and Noah Stevens was commissioned colonel of a regiment of provisional militia. In Pennsylvania, Dr. Franklin was commissioned colonel, with instructions to raise troops and construct a line of forts or blockhouses along the frontier, which he did. land joined in measures of common defence.

Mary

Before Shirley had an opportunity to show what he could do, he was superseded by the Earl of Loudon, a cold-hearted, bilious, indolent and in

efficient peer, who was a zealous advocate of the prerogatives of the crown and most heartily despised anything in the nature of republicanism. As the attempt to establish centralized royal government in America had failed, he determined to place the colonies under absolute military rule. Procrastination and inefficiency marked every step of the campaign conducted by Loudon. He did not send his Lieutenant-General James Abercrombie with troops until near the close of April. The ship with money to defray the expenses of campaign was not dispatched until the middle of June, at which time Abercrombie arrived. It was long past mid-summer when the commander-in-chief reached the American shores. The plan of the campaign called for ten thousand men to assault Crown Point, six thousand to march against Niagara, three thousand against Fort Du Quesne, and two thousand to cross the country from the Kennebec to the Chaudiere. Many of the troops destined for Crown Point and Niagara were already in Albany when Abercrombie arrived. The general loved his ease and was a great stickler for the assertion of royal authority. Seven thousand troops under General Winslow were there, impatient to be led to Lake Champlain, and another party anxiously awaited orders to hasten to Oswego, for alarming rumors came in almost every day that the