eral court provided barracks for the
accommodation of one thousand men at Castle Island. Soon afterwards,
several officers arrived from Nova Scotia to recruit their regiments.
Finding it impracticable to perform this service while in the barracks
at the castle, they applied to the justices of the peace to quarter
and billet them, as provided by act of parliament. The justices
refused to grant this request, on the principle that the act did not
extend to the colonies. When informed of this refusal, lord Loudoun
addressed a letter to the justices, insisting peremptorily on the
right, as the act did, in his opinion, extend to America, and to every
part of the King's dominions, where the necessities of the people
should oblige him to send his troops. He concluded a long dissertation
on the question in the following decisive terms, "that having used
gentleness and patience, and confuted their arguments, without effect,
they having returned to their first mistaken plan, their not complying
would lay him under the necessity of taking measures to prevent the
whole continent from being thrown into a state of confusion. As
nothing was wanting to set things right, but the justices doing their
duty (for no act of the assembly was necessary or wanting for it) he
had ordered the messenger to remain only forty-eight hours in Boston;
and if on his return he found things not settled, he would instantly
order into Boston the three battalions from New York, Long Island, and
Connecticut; and if more were wanting, he had two in the Jerseys at
hand, besides those in Pennsylvania. As public business obliged him to
take another route, he had no more time left to settle this material
affair, and must take the necessary steps before his departure, in
case they were not done by themselves."

The general court passed a law for the purpose of removing the
inconveniences of which the officers complained; but, this law not
equalling the expectations of lord Loudoun, he communicated his
dissatisfaction in a letter to the governor, which was laid before the
assembly, who answered by an address to his excellency in which the
spirit of their forefathers seemed to revive. They again asserted that
the act of parliament did not extend to the colonies; and that they
had for this reason enlarged the barracks at the castle, and passed a
law for the benefit of recruiting parties, as near the act of
parliament as the circumstances of the country would admit; tha