In February, 1755, Braddock, with two British regiments, arrived in Chesapeake Bay, the colonies having levied forces in preparation, and a tax being already imposed on wine and spirituous liquors, spite of the general opposition to such imposts, and which excited a very general discontent, each family being required on oath to state the quantity consumed by themselves each year, and thus either to perjure or to tax themselves. This unpopular tax gave rise to several newspapers, the first newspaper of Connecticut dating from this time. Braddock having arrived, a convention of colonial governors met at Alexandria, in Virginia, to concert the plan of action, when four expeditions were determined upon. Lawrence, the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, was to reduce that province; General Johnson, from his long acquaintance with the Six Nations, was selected to enrol the Mohawk warriors in British pay, and conduct an army of Indians and provincial militia against Crown Point; Governor Shirley was to do the same against Niagara; while Braddock was to attack Fort Du Quesne, and thus recover the Ohio Valley and take possession of the North West. Soon after Braddock sailed, the French sent out a fleet with a large body of troops under the veteran Baron Dieskau, to reinforce the army in Canada. Although England at this time had avowed only the design of resisting encroachment on her territory, Boscawen was sent out to cruise on the banks of Newfoundland, where he took two of the French ships; of the remainder, some aided by fog, and others by altering their course, arrived safely at Quebec and Louisburg; at the same time, De Vaudreuil, a Canadian by birth, and formerly governor of Louisiana, arrived and superseded Du Quesne as governor of Canada. Three thousand men sailed from Boston under Lieutenant-colonel Winslow, on the 29th of May, for the expedition against Nova Scotia. This Winslow was the great-grandson of the Plymouth patriarch, and grandson of the commander of the New England forces in King Philip’s war; he was a major-general in the Massachusetts militia, and now, under the British commander-in-chief, was reduced to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. At Chignecto, in the Bay of Fundy, he was joined by Colonel Monckton with 300 British regulars, and advancing against the French forts at Beau Sejour and Gaspereau, took possession of them in five days, after slight resistance; and no sooner did the English fleet appear in the St. John’s, than the French, setting fire to their fort at the mouth of that river, evacuated the country. The English thus, with the loss of about twenty men, found themselves in possession of the whole of Nova Scotia: when great difficulty arose, what was to be done with the people?