There was a great change, however, in the manner in which the war was conducted. In the years 1776 and 1777 the British had pursued a definite plan for conquering New York and thus severing the connection between New England and the southern states. During the remainder of the war their only definite plan was for conquering the southern states. Their operations at the north were for the most part confined to burning and plundering expeditions along the coast in their ships, or on the frontier in connection with Tories and Indians. The war thus assumed a more cruel character. This was chiefly due to the influence of Lord George Germaine, the secretary of state for the colonies. He was a contemptible creature, weak and cruel. He had been dismissed from the army in 1759 for cowardice at the battle of Minden, and he was so generally despised that when in 1782 the king was obliged to turn him out of office and tried to console him by raising him to the peerage as Viscount Sackville, the House of Lords protested against the admission of such a creature. George III. had made this man his colonial secretary in the autumn of 1775, and he had much to do with planning the campaigns of the next two years. But now his influence in the cabinet seems to have increased. He was much more thoroughly in sympathy with the king than Lord North, who at this time was really to be pitied. Lord North would have been a fine man but for his weakness of will. He was now keeping up the war in America unwillingly, and was obliged to sanction many things of which he did not approve. In later years he bitterly repented this weakness. Now the truculent policy of Lord George Germaine began to show itself in the conduct of the war. That minister took no pains to conceal his willingness to employ Indians, to burn towns and villages, and to inflict upon the American people as much misery as possible, in the hope of breaking their spirit and tiring them out. [Sidenote: The Conway Cabal.]