d abandon the place. It seems likewise to have been
unnecessary to exhort the general to keep his garrison as alert as
possible, during that critical time; inasmuch as it would have been
impossible for the men to have enjoyed the least repose or intromission
of duty, had the orders been punctually and literally obeyed. What other
assistance it might have been in the governor's power to give for
the relief of Minorca, or in what manner he could avoid fatiguing his
garrison, while there was an impossibility of relieving the guards,
it is not easy to comprehend. Be that as it may, when the trial was
finished, and the question put to acquit or suspend for one year, the
court was equally divided; and in such cases the casting vote being
vested in the president, he threw it into the scale against the
prisoner, whom his majesty thought fit to dismiss from his service.

{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}

AFFAIRS OF AMERICA.

The expectation of the public was now eagerly turned towards America,
the chief, if not the sole scene of our military operations. On the
twenty-fifth day of June, Mr. Abercrombie arrived at Albany, the
frontier of New York, and assumed the command of the forces there
assembled, consisting of two regiments which had served under Braddock,
two battalions raised in America, two regiments now transported from.
England, four independent companies which had been many years maintained
in New York, the New Jersey regiment, four companies levied in North
Carolina, and a body of provincial forces raised by the government of
New England. Those to the southward, including Pennsylvania, Maryland,
and Virginia, had not yet determined on any regular plan of operation,
and were moreover hard pressed in defending their western frontier
from the French and Indians, who, in skulking parties, made sudden
irruptions upon their unguarded settlements, burning, plundering, and
massacring with the most savage inhumanity. As for South Carolina, the
proportion of negro slaves to the number of white inhabitants was so
great in that colony, that the government could not, with any regard
to the safety of the province, spare any reinforcement for the general
enterprise. The plan of this undertaking had been settled in the
preceding year in a council of war, held at New York. There it was
resolved to attack the fort of Niagara, situated between the lakes
Ontario and Erie, in order to cut off the communication between
Canada and Louisiana,