He accordingly
repaired to Falmouth (now Portland); and, though the rumor proved false,
sent eight hundred men under Captain John Winslow to build two forts on
the Kennebec as a measure of precaution.[173]
[Footnote 171: _Address of the Assembly to Lieutenant-Governor Delancey,
23 April, 1754. Lords of Trade to Delancey, 5 July, 1754_.]
[Footnote 172: _Delancey to Lords of Trade, 8 Oct. 1754_.]
[Footnote 173: _Massachusetts Archives, 1754_. Hutchinson, III. 26.
_Conduct of Major-General Shirley briefly stated. Journals of the Board
of Trade, 1754_.]
While to these northern provinces Canada was an old and pestilent enemy,
those towards the south scarcely knew her by name; and the idea of
French aggression on their borders was so novel and strange that they
admitted it with difficulty. Mind and heart were engrossed in strife
with their governors: the universal struggle for virtual self-rule. But
the war was often waged with a passionate stupidity. The colonist was
not then an American; he was simply a provincial, and a narrow one. The
time was yet distant when these dissevered and jealous communities
should weld themselves into one broad nationality, capable, at need, of
the mightiest efforts to purge itself of disaffection and vindicate its
commanding unity.
In the interest of that practical independence which they had so much at
heart, two conditions were essential to the colonists.
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