1144 MISCELLANEOUS. 



dians and negroes. More than four hundred privateers were fitted out 

 during the contest to ravage the French West Indies and distress the 

 commerce of France in all parts of the world ; and it was asserted in 

 the House of Commons, without contradiction, that, of the seamen 

 employed in the British navy, ten thousand were natives of America. 

 For the attack on Louisbourg and Quebec alone, the number furnished 

 by the single colony of Massachusetts was five hundred, besides the 

 fishermen who were impressed.* A single example of the pecuniary 

 burdens of those who personally bore no part in hostile deeds will 

 suffice. A Boston gentleman of fortune sent one of his tax-bills to a 

 friend in London for his opinion, and received for answer that ' ' he did 

 not believe there was a man in all England who paid so much, in pro- 

 portion, for the support of government." I find it stated that the 

 amount assessed, in taxes of every kind, was nearly half of the payer's 

 income. 



In this rapid notice of the events which preceded and led to the ex- 

 tinction of French power, I have not exaggerated the importance at- 

 tached to the fisheries. Few of the far-sighted saw, even in the distant 

 future, as we really see, in New France, and that half-fabulous coun- 

 try, Acadia, the building of ships to preserve and increase the maritime 

 strength of England, wheat-lands to rival our own, the great lakes 

 united with the ocean, and upon the St. Lawrence and St. John some of 

 the principal timber-marts of the world. Nay, among the wisest, the 

 Indian was forever to glide in his canoe on the waters forever to roam 

 the dark, limitless forest. In a word, the vision of most was bounded 

 by the fur trade on the soil, and by the fish trade on the sea. 



A single remark upon the influence of these events in producing the 

 Revolution, limited as is the plan of this report, cannot be omitted . In 

 the "paper stuff" emitted by Massachusetts to pay off " Phips's men," 

 we see the germ of the "continental money." In the levying of taxes, 

 in the raising of troops, and the general independence of the colonial 

 assemblies during periods of war, we find explanation* of the wonder- 

 ful ease of the transition of these bodies into "provincial congresses." 

 In the many armies embodied and fleets fitted at Boston, we learn why 

 the people, familiar with military men and measures, almost reck- 

 lessly provoked collision with the troops sent by their own sovereign to 

 overawe and subdue them. 



In truth, the prominent actors in the wars of 1744 and of 1756 were 

 the prominent actors in the struggle of freedom. Thus, with Pepper- 

 ell at the siege of Louisbourg were Thornton, who became a signer of 

 the Declaration of Independence; Bradford, who commanded a conti- 

 nental regiment; and Gridley, who laid out the works on Bunker's 

 Hill. On the frontiers of Virginia and in the west, in the last-men- 

 tioned war was the illustrious Washington . Engaged in one or both of 

 the French wars were Lewis, Wolcott, Williams, and Livingston, who 

 were signers of the Declaration of Independence; and Prescott, who 

 commanded on the memorable 17th of June. Among those who 



* "The Massachusetts forces," in 1759, says Hutchinson, "were of great service. 

 Twenty-five hundred served in garrison at Louisbourg and Nova Scotia, in the room of 

 the regular troops taken from thence to serve under General Wolfe. Several hundred 

 served on board the king's ships as seamen, and the remainder of the six thousand five 

 hundred men voted in the spring served under General Amherst. Besides this force, 

 upon application of General Wolfe, three hundred more were raised and sent to Quebec 

 by the lieutenant governor, in the absence of the governor at Penobscot." 



