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

‘ [269] have ordered the messenger to wait but forty-eight

chap. XI.} 1757.

hours in Boston; and if, on his return, I find things not settled, I will instantly order into Boston the three regiments from New York, Long Island, and Connecticut; and if more are wanted, I have two in the Jerseys at hand, besides three in Pennsylvania.’

Yet Loudoun yielded to the view of Massachusetts; and the Assembly and Council, won by the condescension, allowed Thomas Hutchinson, then of the Council, to draft for them a memorable message, in which he recommended himself by introducing the doctrines of the Board of Trade. ‘Our dependence on the parliament of Great Britain,’ thus ran the state paper, ‘we never had a desire or thought of lessening.’ ‘The authority of all acts of parliament, which extend to the colonies, is ever acknowledged in all the courts of law, and made the rule of all judicial proceedings in the province. There is not a member of the General Court, and we know no inhabitant within the bounds of the government, that ever questioned this authority.’ And the principles of independence imputed to them by Loudoun they utterly disavowed. Yet the opinion in the provinces was very general, that the war was conducted by a mixture of ignorance and cowardice. They believed that they were able to defend themselves against the French and Indians without any assistance or embarrassments from England. ‘Oh that we had nothing to do with Great Britain forever,’ was then the wish of John Adams in his heart.¹

Everywhere the royal officers actively asserted the authority of the king and the British nation over