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

[268] his system, and again and again urged taxation by

chap. XI.} 1757.

parliament. From every royal province complaints having the same tendency were renewed. From New Hampshire, Wentworth wrote that ‘the prerogative of the crown was treated with contempt; the royal commission and instructions were rendered useless;’ ‘the members of both houses were all become Commonwealth's men.’¹ There were not royalists enough in New Hampshire to form a council. ‘I cannot prevail with this republican assembly,’ said Dobbs, of North Carolina, ‘to submit to instructions. If they raise the money, they name the persons for public service.²’ William Smith, the semi-republican historian of New York, insisted that ‘the Board of Trade did not know the state of America,’ and he urged a law for an American union with an American parliament. ‘The defects of the first plan,’ said he, ‘will be supplied by experience. The British constitution ought to be the model; and, from our knowledge of its faults, the American one may rise with more health and soundness in its first contexture than Great Britain will ever enjoy.’

But Loudoun still adhered to the plan of overawing colonial assemblies by a concentrated military power. Recruiting officers from Nova Scotia, asking the justices of peace at Boston to quarter and billet them, as provided by the British mutiny act, were refused; for the act, it was held, did not extend to America; and the general, in November, demanded immediate submission. ‘He would prevent the whole continent from being thrown into confusion.’ ‘I have ordered,’ these were the words of his message, ‘I ’