"So strong is their aversion to despotic power," says the author, "that force will never do; they will yield to nothing but persuasion. Though they know nothing of precepts or subordination, yet they enjoy almost every advantage derived from well-regulated authority. Their laws and customs appear impressed on their hearts. In order to gain an ascendancy over them, you must gain their esteem, for they never confide in a person whom they do not value, and this esteem is very difficult to obtain." The savages were exasperated against the English by a speech delivered by Count Raymond, at a meeting of the chiefs, in which, to suit his own purposes, he depicted the most frightful cruelties perpetrated by the English. During the Indian hostilities, opposition on the part of the Colonists was altogether of a defensive nature. The regular troops, as well as the undisciplined militia, proving unfit for such warfare, it was found necessary to employ the New England Rangers. These were volunteers from the New England provinces, accustomed to Indian warfare, many of them Indians and half-bloods. They ascended the rivers, penetrated into the heart of the province, and attacked the enemy in their strongholds. The Indians finding they were opposed by men equally accustomed to the forest with themselves, soon found it their interest to make peace with the British.[30] [Footnote 30: Governor Cornwallis reduced the Rangers. He thought Goreham very incompetent to command them.] In 1758, it was found necessary to procure the services of 250 of these Rangers from New England, by promises of high pay and other advantages. Long accustomed to the border war with the Indians and French of Canada, they had become well disciplined, and accustomed to hardships and fatigue, and were perhaps at this time superior to all other provincial troops in America. The Provincials were troops raised in the Colonies at the expense of the Provincial Government, and were distinct from the Rangers, who were independent companies paid by the British Government. They served at Havannah, at Louisburg in the first siege under Pepperell, and with Wolfe at Louisburg and Quebec, and afterwards served to form the groundwork of Washington's army in 1775. After the fall of Fort William Henry in 1758, it was said that the Marquis de Montcalm sent a number of prisoners taken at that place, in a vessel to Halifax. They were Provincial soldiers, chiefly from the New England provinces. This was said to have been an attempt to introduce the small pox into Halifax, many of the men being ill of the disorder on their embarkation. Providence, however, frustrated this benevolent design. The prisoners being kept on low diet, half starved, and exposed to the cold, soon recovered, while the French in charge of the vessel, having indulged in the use of wine and strong fare, were thrown down with the disease, and nearly all perished. The vessel was brought into port by the prisoners.[31]