"The quarrel in which the French and English now engaged was exclusively a colonial one. The possession and defence of the Americans had already cost, over and over again, a larger sum than the whole produce of their trade would have produced. The English had the mortification of observing that the colonists claimed an the security of Englishmen against attack, and repudiated their obligation to take a share of the burdens which their defence occasioned. Were they attacked by the French,—they were Englishmen, and had a right to the ægis which that name throws over all subjects of the crown; were they called upon for a subscription in aid of the war,—they were men who would not submit to be taxed without their own consent; were they taken at their word, and requested through their own assemblies to tax themselves,—they sometimes refused, and sometimes doled out a minute supply, taking care to mix up with their money bill some infringement on the royal prerogative, which rendered it impossible, except under severe exigency of the public service, for the governor to accept the terms offered. … The action of the colonies at this crisis was in accordance with their invariable policy. As soon as they perceived that the French meditated a war of aggression in America, a chorus of complaint and apprehension came at once from the colonists. Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts, and Clinton, Governor of New York, had convened an assembly at Albany during the last year of the last war, to concert measures for uniting an the colonies for common defence; Massachusetts and the other New England States were, of course, anxious that the union should be carried out. They were the barrier between the Canadas and the southern colonies, and if any attack was made they must bear the brunt of it. … The Congress of Albany, and especially the Legislature of Massachusetts, advocated the erection of a line of detached forts which might be so arranged as to overawe the French frontier, and defend the New England colonies from attack. … It was all in vain; every colony, with the exception of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and South Carolina, refused to contribute one farthing towards the expense. … Even in 1753, when the French were actually on the Ohio, and Washington had brought back certain intelligence of their intentions and views, the Virginians refused supplies to Dinwiddie because they declared themselves 'easy on account of the French.' When at last the French had actually established themselves in fortified posts at Niagara, at Le Bœuf, and at Venango, when Contrecœur had driven a colonial officer out of a post which he held on the forks of the Monongahela, when Fort du Quesne had arisen on the ruins of an English stockade, they could no longer close their eyes to the danger which was actually