New York was not much behind her sisters in contentious stubbornness. In answer to the Governor's appeal, the Assembly replied: "It appears that the French have built a fort at a place called French Creek, at a considerable distance from the River Ohio, which may, but does not by any evidence or information appear to us to be an invasion of any of His Majesty's colonies." [171] So blind were they as yet to "manifest destiny!" Afterwards, however, on learning the defeat of Washington, they gave five thousand pounds to aid Virginia. [172] Maryland, after long delay, gave six thousand. New Jersey felt herself safe behind the other colonies, and would give nothing. New England, on the other hand, and especially Massachusetts, had suffered so much from French war-parties that they were always ready to fight. Shirley, the governor of Massachusetts, had returned from his bootless errand to settle the boundary question at Paris. His leanings were strongly monarchical; yet he believed in the New Englanders, and was more or less in sympathy with them. Both he and they were strenuous against the French, and they had mutually helped each other to reap laurels in the last war. Shirley was cautious of giving umbrage to his Assembly, and rarely quarrelled with it, except when the amount of his salary was in question. He was not averse to a war with France; for though bred a lawyer, and now past middle life, he flattered himself with hopes of a high military command. On the present occasion, making use of a rumor that the French were seizing the carrying-place between the Chaudière and the Kennebec, he drew from the Assembly a large grant of money, and induced them to call upon him to march in person to the scene of danger. He accordingly repaired to Falmouth (now Portland); and, though the rumor proved false, sent eight hundred men under Captain John Winslow to build two forts on the Kennebec as a measure of precaution. [173]
[171] Address of the Assembly to Lieutenant-Governor Delancey, 23 April, 1754. Lords of Trade to Delancey, 5 July, 1754.
[172] Delancey to Lords of Trade, 8 Oct. 1754.
[173] Massachusetts Archives, 1754. Hutchinson, III. 26. Conduct of Major-General Shirley briefly stated. Journals of the Board of Trade, 1754.
While to these northern provinces Canada was an old and pestilent enemy, those towards the south scarcely knew her by name; and the idea of French aggression on their borders was so novel and strange that they admitted it with difficulty. Mind and heart were engrossed in strife with their governors: the universal struggle for virtual self-rule. But the war was often waged with a passionate stupidity. The colonist was not then an American; he was simply a provincial, and a narrow one. The time was yet distant when these dissevered and jealous communities should weld themselves into one broad nationality, capable, at need, of the mightiest efforts to purge itself of disaffection and vindicate its commanding unity.
In the interest of that practical independence which they had so much at heart, two conditions were essential to the colonists. The one was a field for expansion, and the other was mutual help. Their first necessity was to rid themselves of the French, who, by shutting them between the Alleghanies and the sea, would cramp them into perpetual littleness. With France on their backs, growing while they had no room to grow, they must remain in helpless wardship, dependent on England, whose aid they would always need; but with the West open before them, their future was their own. King and Parliament would respect perforce the will of a people spread from the ocean to the Mississippi, and united in action as in aims. But in the middle of the last century the vision of the ordinary colonist rarely reached so far. The immediate victory over a governor, however slight the point at issue, was more precious in his eyes than the remote though decisive advantage which he saw but dimly.
The governors, representing the central power, saw the situation from the national point of view. Several of them, notably Dinwiddie and Shirley, were filled with wrath at the proceedings of the French; and the former was exasperated beyond measure at the supineness of the provinces. He had spared no effort to rouse them, and had failed. His instincts were on the side of authority; but, under the circumstances, it is hardly to be imputed to him as a very deep offence against human liberty that he advised the compelling of the colonies to raise men and money for their own defence, and proposed, in view of their "intolerable obstinacy and disobedience to his Majesty's commands," that Parliament should tax them half-a-crown a head. The approaching war offered to the party of authority temptations from which the colonies might have saved it by opening their purse-strings without waiting to be told.
The Home Government, on its part, was but half-hearted in the wish that they should unite in opposition to the common enemy. It was very willing that the several provinces should give money and men, but not that they should acquire military habits and a dangerous capacity of acting together. There was one kind of union, however, so obviously necessary, and at the same time so little to be dreaded, that the British Cabinet, instructed by the governors, not only assented to it, but urged it. This was joint action in making treaties with the Indians. The practice of separate treaties, made by each province in its own interest, had bred endless disorders. The adhesion of all the tribes had been so shaken, and the efforts of the French to alienate them were so vigorous and effective, that not a moment was to be lost. Joncaire had gained over most of the Senecas, Piquet was drawing the Onondagas more and more to his mission, and the Dutch of Albany were alienating their best friends, the Mohawks, by encroaching on their lands. Their chief, Hendrick, came to New York with a deputation of the tribe to complain of their wrongs; and finding no redress, went off in anger, declaring that the covenant chain was broken. [174] The authorities in alarm called William Johnson to their aid. He succeeded in soothing the exasperated chief, and then proceeded to the confederate council at Onondaga, where he found the assembled sachems full of anxieties and doubts. "We don't know what you Christians, English and French, intend," said one of their orators. "We are so hemmed in by you both that we have hardly a hunting-place left. In a little while, if we find a bear in a tree, there will immediately appear an owner of the land to claim the property and hinder us from killing it, by which we live. We are so perplexed between you that we hardly know what to say or think." [175] No man had such power over the Five Nations as Johnson. His dealings with them were at once honest, downright, and sympathetic. They loved and trusted him as much as they detested the Indian commissioners at Albany, whom the province of New York had charged with their affairs, and who, being traders, grossly abused their office.
[174] N. Y. Col. Docs., VI. 788. Colonial Records of Pa., V. 625.