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

On the surrender of Louisburg, the season was too far advanced to attempt Quebec. Besides, a sudden message drew Amherst to Lake George.

The summons of Pitt had called into being a numerous and well equipped provincial army. Massachusetts, which had entered upon its alarm list more than forty-five thousand men, of whom more than thirty-seven thousand were by law obliged to train and in case of an invasion to take the field, had ten thousand of its citizens employed in the public service; but it kept its disbursements for the war under the control of its own commissioners. Pownall, its governor, complained of the reservation, as an infringement of the prerogative, predicted confidently the nearness of American independence; and after vain appeals to the local legislature, repeated his griefs to the Lords of Trade. The Board, in reply, advised dissimulation. ‘The dependence which the colony of Massachusetts Bay ought to have upon the sovereignty of the crown,’ thus they wrote Pownall, ‘stands on a very precarious foot; and unless some effectual remedy be applied at a proper time, it will be in great danger of being totally lost.’ The letter was sent without the knowledge of Pitt, who never invited a province to the utmost employment of its resources with the secret purpose of subverting its liberties, as soon as victory over a foreign foe should have been achieved with its concurrence. Such a policy belonged only to the Board of Trade, where Halifax still presided, and Oswald, Soame Jenyns, Rigby, and William Gerard Hamilton sat as members.