594. Trumbull, _Hist. Connecticut_, II. 370.]
Unfortunately for him, he had fallen out with Johnson, whom he had made
what he was, but who now turned against him,--a seeming ingratitude not
wholly unprovoked. Shirley had diverted the New Jersey regiment,
destined originally for Crown Point, to his own expedition against
Niagara. Naturally inclined to keep all the reins in his own hands, he
had encroached on Johnson's new office of Indian superintendent, held
conferences with the Five Nations, and employed agents of his own to
deal with them. These agents were persons obnoxious to Johnson, being
allied with the clique of Dutch traders at Albany, who hated him because
he had supplanted them in the direction of Indian affairs; and in a
violent letter to the Lords of Trade, he inveighs against their
"licentious and abandoned proceedings," "villanous conduct," "scurrilous
falsehoods," and "base and insolent behavior."[328] "I am considerable
enough," he says, "to have enemies and to be envied;"[329] and he
declares he has proof that Shirley told the Mohawks that he, Johnson,
was an upstart of his creating, whom he had set up and could pull down.
Again, he charges Shirley's agents with trying to "debauch the Indians
from joining him;" while Shirley, on his side, retorts the same
complaint against his accuser.[330] When, by the death of Braddock,
Shirley became commander-in-chief, Johnson grew so restive at being
subject to his instructions that he declined to hold the management of
Indian affairs unless it was made independent of his rival.
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