They found a leader in Pontiac, a chief of the Ottawas. A dozen powerful tribes heeded him when he counselled secret confederacy, and, when all should be ready, sudden war; and the English presently had reason to know how able an enemy they had to fear,—a man of deep counsel, astute and masterful. In June, 1763, the first blow was struck,—from end to end of the open border,—even the Senecas, one of the Six Nations, joining in the bitter work. Every frontier fort except Detroit, Niagara, and Pitt was in their hands at the first surprise: smoking ruins and the bodies of white men slain marked all the borders where the French had been. The English rallied, stubborn and undaunted. Three forts at least were saved. There were men at hand like Colonel Bouquet, the gallant officer who went to the relief of Fort Pitt, who knew the strategy of the forest as well as the redskins did, and used steadfast English, not fickle savages, in the fighting; and, though the work was infinitely hard and perilous and slow in the doing, within two years it was done. Before the year 1765 was out, Pontiac had been brought to book, had acknowledged himself beaten, and had sued for peace. [Illustration: PONTIAC, CHIEF OF THE OTTAWAS] But by that time the English ministers knew the nature of the task which awaited them in America. It was plain that they must strengthen the frontier posts and maintain a force of soldiers in the colonies, if English power was to be safe there, and English lives. Not fewer than twenty thousand men would be needed; and it would be necessary to organize government, civil as well as military, in a more effective way. It might be necessary to pay the colonial judges and even the colonial governors out of the general treasury of the empire, rather than leave them always dependent upon the uncertain grants of the colonial legislatures. The new plans would, taken all together, involve, it was reckoned, the expenditure of at least £300,000 a year. Mr. Grenville, now at the head of the government in England, was a lawyer and a man of business. “He took public business not as a duty which he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy,” and, unfortunately, he regarded American affairs as ordinary matters of duty and of business. England had spent £60,000,000 sterling to put the French out of America; £140,000,000 had been added to the national debt. Her own sources of revenue were quite run dry. Mr. Grenville and his colleagues did not know where else to turn for another penny, if not to America. They therefore determined that, since heavy additional expenditures must be undertaken for the proper administration and defence of the colonies, America must be made to supply at least a part of the money to meet them. Not all of it. It was the ministers’ first idea to raise only £100,000 out of the £300,000 by taxes directly derived from the colonies: and every farthing of that, with twice as much more, was to be spent, of course, in America. The