English, it forbade the smiths of America to erect any mill for slitting or rolling iron, or any plating forge to work with a tilt-hammer, or any furnace for making steel. "The restriction," said Penn, "is of most dangerous consequence to prevent our making what we want for our own use. It is an attack on the rights of the king's subjects in America." William Bollan, the agent of Massachusetts, pleaded its inconsistency with the natural rights of the colonists. But, while England applauded the restriction, its owners of iron mines grudged to America a share of the market for the rough material; the tanners, from the threatened inaction of the English furnaces, feared a diminished supply of bark; the clergy and gentry foreboded injury to the price of woodlands. The importation of bar iron from the colonies was therefore limited to the port of London, which already had its supply from abroad. The ironmongers and smiths of Birmingham thought well of importing bars of iron free; but, from "compassion" to the "many thousand families in the kingdom" who otherwise "must be ruined," they prayed that "the American people" might be subject not to the proposed restrictions only, but to such others " as may secure for ever the trade to this country." Some would have admitted the raw material from no colony where its minute manufacture was carried on. The house even divided on the proposal that every slitting-mill in America should be demolished. The clause failed only by a majority of twenty-two; but an immediate return was required of every mill already existing, and the number was never to be increased.

The royalist Kennedy, a member of the council of New York, and an advocate for parliamentary taxation, publicly urged on the ministry that "liberty and encouragement are the basis of colonies." "To supply ourselves," he urged, "with manufactures is practicable; and where people in such circumstances are numerous and free, they will push what they think is for their interest, and all restraining laws will be thought oppression, especially such laws as, according to the conceptions we have of English liberty, they have no hand in controverting or making. . . . . . They cannot be kept

dependent by keeping them poor;" and he quoted to the ministry the counsel of Trenchard in 1722, that the way to keep them from weaning themselves was to keep it out of their will. But the mother country was more and more inclined to rely on measures of restraint and power. It began to be considered that the guard-ships were stationed in the colonies not so much for their defence as to preserve them in their dependence and prevent their illicit trade.

In the same year, Turgot, then prior of the Sorbonne, and but three-and-twenty years of age, mingled with zeal for Christianity hope in the destiny of the western world. "Vast regions of America!" he exclaimed to the assembled clergy of France, just twenty-six years before the Declaration of Independence. 'Equality keeps from them both luxury and want, and preserves to them purity and simplicity with freedom. Europe herself will find there the perfection of her political societies, and the surest support of her well-being." "Colonies," added the young philosopher, are like fruits, which cling to the tree only till they ripen : Carthage declared itself free as soon as it could take care of itself; so likewise will America." England's colonial policy was destroying itself. The same motive which prevailed to restrain colonial commerce and pursuits urged England to encroach on the possessions of France, that the future inhabitants of still larger regions might fall under English rule and pay tribute to English industry. In the mercantile system lay the seeds of a war with France for territory, and with America for independence.

But the attempt to establish that system of government, which must have provoked immediate resistance, was delayed by jealousies and divisions in the cabinet. "It goes to my heart," said the Duke of Newcastle, "that a new, unknown, factious young party is set up to rival me and nose me everywhere;" and he resolved to drive out of the administration the colleague whom he disliked, envied, and feared. The affairs of Nova Scotia served, at least, his purposes intrigue.

of

The French saw with extreme anxiety the settlement at Halifax. To counteract its influence, a large force, under

the command of the sanguinary partisan, La Corne, had through the winter held possession of the isthmus of the peninsula; and found shelter among the Acadians south of the Messagouche, in Chiegnecto, or Beaubassin, now Fort Lawrence. The inhabitants of that village, although it lay beyond the limits which La Corne was instructed to defend, were compelled to take the oaths of allegiance to the French king; and, in the name of three chiefs of the Micmac Indians, orders had been sent to the Acadians, of the remoter settlements, to renounce subjection to England, and take refuge with the French.

Cornwallis, who had received the first notice of the movement from La Jonquière himself, desired immediately to recover the town. He sought aid from Massachusetts; but received for answer, that, by the constitution of that province, the assembly must first be convinced of the necessity of raising supplies; that, to insure co-operation, compulsory measures must be adopted by the British government towards all the colonies. He was therefore able to send from Halifax no more than a party of four hundred men, who, just at sunset on the twentieth of April, arrived at the entrance of what is now called Cumberland Basin. The next day the transports sailed near the harbor; the flag of the Bourbons was raised on the dikes to the north of the Messagouche; while, to the south of it, the priest La Loutre himself set fire to the church in Chiegnecto; and its despairing inhabitants, attached to their homes which stood on some of the most fertile land in the world, yet bound to France by their religion and their oaths, consumed their houses to ashes, and escaped across the river which marks the limit of the peninsula.

On Sunday, the twenty-second, Lawrence, the English commander, having landed north of the Messagouche, had an interview with La Corne, who avowed his purpose, under instructions from La Jonquière, to hold at all hazards every post as far as the river Messagouche, till the boundaries between the two countries should be settled by commissaries. He had under his command Indians, Canadians, regu lar troops, and Acadian refugees, to the number, it was

thought, of twenty-five hundred. The English officer was therefore compelled for his safety to embark on the very day on which he landed.

A swift vessel was despatched expressly from Halifax to inform the government that La Corne and La Loutre held possession of the isthmus; that a town, which was within the acknowledged British limits, had been set on fire; that its inhabitants had crossed over to the French side; that the refugees, able to bear arms, were organized as a military force; that the French Acadians, remaining within the peninsula, unanimously wished to abandon it, rather than take the oath of allegiance to the English king; that the savages were incited to inroads and threats of a general massacre; that the war was continued on the part of the French by all open and secret means of violence and treason. At the same time, the governments of New Hampshire and the Massachusetts Bay were informed of "the audacious proceedings" of the French, and invited to join in punishing La Corne as "a public incendiary;" but they showed no disposition to undertake dislodging the French.

In England, the Earl of Halifax insisted that the colony, of which the settlement was due to his zeal, should be supported. New settlers were collected to be carried over at the public expense; and an Irish regiment was sent, with orders that Chiegnecto should be taken, fortified, and, if possible, colonized by Protestants. Yet a marked difference of opinion existed between the lords of trade and their superior. Bedford was honorably inclined to a pacific adjustment with France; but Halifax was ready to accept all risks of war. Impatient at his subordinate position, he "heartily hated" his patron; and aspired to a seat in the cabinet, with exclusive authority in the department.

Newcastle was sure to seize the occasion to side against the Duke of Bedford. Even Pelham began to complain of that secretary's "boyishness" and inattention to business. "His office is a sinecure," said the king, who missed the pedantry of forms. It seemed as if Halifax would at once obtain the seals of the southern department, with the entire charge of the colonies. "Amongst the young ones, Halifax,”

"He would

wrote Pelham, "has the most efficient talents." be more approved by the public," thought Hardwicke, "than either Holdernesse or Waldegrave." But Newcastle interposed, saying: "Halifax is the last man, except Sandwich, I should think of for secretary of state. He is so conceited of his parts, he would not be in the cabinet one month without thinking he knew as much or more of business than any one man. He is impracticable; . . . the most odious man in the kingdom. . . . A man of his life, spirit, and temper, will think he knows better than anybody." Newcastle would have none of "that young fry;" and yet he would be rid of Bedford. "I am, I must be an errant cipher of the worst sort," said he in his distress, "if the Duke of Bedford remains coupled with me as secretary of state." To get rid of Bedford was still to him "the great point," "the great point of all," more than the choice of the next emperor of Germany, and more than a war with the Bourbons.

The two dukes remained at variance, leaving Cornwallis to "get the better in Nova Scotia without previous concert with France." In August, a second expedition left Halifax to take possession of Chiegnecto. Indians and Acadian refugees, aided, perhaps, by French in disguise, altogether very few in number, had intrenched themselves strongly behind the dikes, and opposed its landing; nor were they dislodged without an intrepid assault, in which six of the English were killed and twelve wounded. Thus was blood first shed after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Fort Lawrence was now built on the south of the Messagouche; but the French had already fortified the opposite bank at Fort Beau Séjour as well as at Bay Verte. Having posts also at the mouth of the St. John's River and the alliance of the neighboring Indians, they held the continent from Bay Verte to the borders of the Penobscot.

Such was the state of occupancy, when in September, at Paris, Shirley, who had been placed at the head of the British commission, presented a memorial, claiming for the English all the land east of the Penobscot and south of the St. Lawrence, as constituting the ancient Acadia. The claim,