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

‘ [170] rabble, if they had stood.’ ‘All the good we have

chap. VII.} 1754.

done,’ he wrote to Newcastle, ‘has been a little bloodletting.’¹ His attendant, George Townshend, afterwards to be much connected with American affairs, promised his friends still ‘more entertainment’ in the way of beheading Scotchmen on Tower Hill; and he echoed Cumberland, as he wrote, ‘I wish the disaffection was less latent, that the land might be more effectually purged at once.’²

For the American major-general and commanderin-chief, Edward Braddock was selected, a man in fortunes desperate, in manners brutal, in temper despotic; obstinate and intrepid; expert in the niceties of a review; harsh in discipline.³ As the duke had confidence only in regular troops, it was ordered⁴ that the general and field officers of the provincial forces should have no rank, when serving with the general and field-officers commissioned by the king. Disgusted at being thus arrogantly spurned, Washington retired from the service, and his regiment was broken up.

The active participation in affairs by Cumberland again connected Henry Fox with their direction. This unscrupulous man, having ‘privately foresworn all connection with Pitt,’ entered the cabinet without appointment to office, and, as the most efficient man in the ministry, undertook the conduct of the House of Commons. Desiring to introduce into the English service the exactness of the German discipline, and to