George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

‘ [256] weighed, well considered, and amended, if

chap. XI.} 1757.

necessary, by the wisdom of that body; and when received by the Governors, they are the laws of the land; for the king is the legislator of the colonies.’ This doctrine which Franklin received soon after his arrival in London, fell on him as new;¹ and was never effaced from his memory. In its preceding session parliament had done little, except in the hope of distressing Canada and the French islands by famine, to lay grievous restrictions on the export of provisions from the British colonies.² The act produced a remonstrance. ‘America,’ said Granville, the Lord President, to the complaint of its agents, ‘America must not do any thing to interfere with Great Britain in the European markets.’ ‘If we plant and reap, and must not ship,’ retorted Franklin, ‘your Lordship should apply to parliament for transports to bring us all back again.’

But in America the summer passed as might have been expected from ‘detachments under commanders whom a child might outwit or terrify with a popgun.’

To Bouquet was assigned the watch on the frontiers of Carolina. Stanwix, with about two thousand men, had charge of the West, while Webb was left highest in command, with nearly six thousand men, to defend the avenue of Lake George; and on the twentieth day of June, the Earl of Loudoun, having first incensed all America by a useless embargo, and having, at New York, at one sweep, impressed four hundred men, weighed anchor for Halifax. Four