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[319]

In America success depended on union. The

chap. XIV.} 1759.
Board of Trade was compelled to adjourn questions of internal authority; while Pitt won the free services of the Americans by respecting their liberties and alleviating their excessive burdens from the British exchequer. Every colony north of Maryland seconded his zeal. The military spirit especially pervaded New York and all New England, so that there was not one of their villages but grew familiar with war from the experience of its own people. Massachusetts, though it was gasping under the fruitless efforts of former years, sent into the field, to the frontier, and to garrisons, more than seven thousand men, or nearly one sixth part of all who were able to bear arms. Connecticut, which distinguished itself by disproportionate exertions, raised, as in the previous year, five thousand men. To meet the past expense, the little colony incurred heavy debts, and, learning political economy from native thrift, appointed taxes on property to discharge them.

The whole continent was exerting its utmost strength, and eager to prove its loyalty. New Jersey, in which the fencible men in time of peace would have been about fifteen thousand, had already lost one thousand men, and yet voted to raise one thousand more.1 Its yearly expenditure for the service of the war was equal to about five dollars for each living being in the province. Such was the aid willingly furnished to an administration which respected colonial liberty.

To encounter the preparations of England and

1 Gov. Bernard (successor to Belcher) to Secretary W. Pitt, Perth Amboy, 20 March, 1759.

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