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

[222] him, ‘acts of parliament must be made to tax the

chap. IX.} 1756.

provinces, in proportion to what each is able to bear; to make one common fund and pursue one uniform plan for America.’¹ ‘You,’ said Sir Charles Hardy, the new governor of New York to the Lords of Trade, ‘you will be much more able to settle it for us, than we can ourselves.’²

From the Old Dominion, Dinwiddie continued to urge a general land-tax and poll-tax for all the colonies. ‘Our people,’ said he, ‘will be inflamed, if they hear of my making this proposal;’ but he reiterated the hopelessness of obtaining joint efforts of the colonies by appeals to American assemblies. He urged also the subversion of Charter governments; ‘for,’ said he to the Secretary of State, ‘I am full of opinion we shall continue in a most disunited and distracted condition, till his majesty takes the proprietary governments into his own hands. Till these governments are under his majesty's immediate direction, all expeditions will prove unsuccessful. These dominions, if properly protected, will be the Western and best empire in the world.’³

With more elaborateness and authority, Shirley,⁴ by his military rank as commander-in-chief, taking precedence of all the governors, renewed his plans, and still pleading for ‘a general fund,’ he assured the ministers that the several assemblies would not agree among themselves upon such a fund; that, consequently, it must be done in England; and that the only effectual way of doing it there would be