George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[32] reported as a general rising against the execution of

Chap. XXVII.} 1766. Oct.

the Laws of Trade. But the chief reliance of the cabal rested on personal importunity; and the untiring Paxton, who had often visited England, and was known to possess as much of the friendship of Charles Townshend as a selfish client may obtain from an intriguing patron, was sent over as the representative of the colonial Crown Officers¹, with special authority to appear as the friend of Oliver² and of Hutchinson.³

We are drawing near the measures which compelled the insurrection of the colonies; but all the stars in their courses were harbingers of American Independence. No sooner were the prairies of Illinois in the possession of England than Croghan, a deputy Indian Agent, who from personal observation knew their value, urged their immediate colonization. Sir William Johnson; William Franklin, the royalist Governor of New Jersey; several fur-traders of Philadelphia; even Gage⁴ himself eagerly took part in a project by which they were to acquire vast estates in the most fertile valley of the world.⁵ Their proposal embraced the whole Western territory bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio, a line along the Wabash and Maumee to Lake Erie, and thence across Michigan,