nds. But even
this sum, small as it was, even to a degree of ridicule, considering the
richness of the province and the extent of its frontier, could not be
obtained; the governor positively refusing to give his assent to the
act of the assembly, because they had taxed the proprietaries estates
equally with those of the inhabitants, which, he said, he was ordered
by his instructions, not to consent to, nor indeed any new tax upon the
proprietaries: and the assembly, consisting chiefly of members whose
estates lay in the eastern or interior parts of the province, as
positively refusing to alter their bill. One would be apt to think,
that, in a case of such urgent necessity, the governor might have
ventured to give his assent to the bill under a protest, that it should
not prejudice the rights of the proprietaries upon any future occasion;
but as he did not, the bill was dropped, and the province left
defenceless; by which means it afterwards suffered severely, to the
destruction of many of the poor inhabitants upon the western frontier,
and to the impressing the Indians with a contemptible opinion of the
English, and the highest esteem of the French.

{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}

EXPEDITION AGAINST CROWN POINT AND NIAGARA RESOLVED ON.

Our colonies to the north of Pennsylvania were more active, and more
successful in their preparations for war. New York, following the
example of New England, passed an act to prohibit the sending of
provisions to any French port or settlement on the continent of North
America, or any of the adjacent islands; and also for raising forty-five
thousand pounds, on estates real and personal, for the better defence of
their colony, which lay more exposed than any other to a French invasion
from Crown Point. However, this sum, great as it might seem to them,
was far from being sufficient; nor, indeed, could they have provided
properly for their security, without the assistance of our other
colonies to the east of them; but with their help, and the additional
succour of the small body of regular troops expected under Colonel
Dunbar, they boldly resolved upon offensive measures, which when
practicable are always the safest; and two expeditions, one against the
French fort at Crown Point, and the other against their fort at Niagara,
between the lakes Ontario and Erie, were set on foot at the same time.
The former of these expeditions was appointed to be executed under the
command of general John