A History of the American People

various discontented tribes, and ravaged over a thousand miles of the frontier, destroying every
fort except Detroit and Pittsburgh. The violence ranged from Niagara to Virginia and was by far
the most destructive Indian uprising of the century. Over 200 traders were slaughtered. It took
three years to put down the uprising, which was achieved only thanks to regular British units,
deployed at considerable expense. Only four colonies, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and
Virginia, made any attempt to assist. On top of this came the violent refusal to pay the Stamp
Tax, which many rightly saw as a triumph of mob rule.
There were other outbreaks, some trivial, some serious, but all constituting a threat to a system
of government which was clearly outmoded and in need of fundamental reconstruction. For
instance, at the end of 1763 a gang of Scotch-Irish frontiersmen, from Paxton and Donegal
townships, carried out an atrocious massacre of harmless Indians, some of them Christians, and
many of whom had taken refuge in the workhouse at Lancaster. They slaughtered another group
of 140 Indians, converted by the Moravians, who had been taken for safety to Province Island on
the Schuylkill River. They threatened to march on Philadelphia and slaughter the Quakers too,
for they saw them as 'Indian-lovers' who would prevent the development of the frontier and the
freeing of land for settlement. Franklin was asked to organize the defence of the city against the
'Paxton Boys,' mustered the militia-six companies of foot, two of horse, and a troop of artillery-
and eventually persuaded the rioters to disperse. But there was not the will to punish even the
ringleaders, and Franklin, no friend of the Indians but disgusted by what had happened, had to
content himself with writing a bitter pamphlet denouncing the Christian White Savages.’ There was yet more violence when Charles Townshend, on behalf of the British government, returned to the financial attack (he was Chancellor of the Exchequer) with a new series of duties, on glass, lead, paint, and tea, in 1767. The colonies responded with what they called Nonimport Agreements, in effect a boycott of British goods. But a considerable amount of tax was collected this time-£30,000 a year, at a cost of £r3,000-and this encouraged the British authorities to press on. The port and town of Boston became the center of resistance, which was increasingly violent, with individual attacks on customs officials, and mob raids on customs warehouses and vice- admiralty courts. The effect of these outrages on British opinion was disastrous. There was a call forfirmness.'
Even those generally sympathetic to the colonists' case called for a strong government line, not
ruling out force. Pitt, now Earl of Chatham, laid down: The Americans must be subordinate ... this is the Mother Country. They are children. They must obey, and we prescribe.' The Earl of Shelburne, cleverest and wiliest of the London politicians, wanted the civilian governor of New York, Sir Henry Moore, replaced bya Man of a Military Character, who would act with Force
or Gentleness as circumstances might make necessary."' The view of the British military men,
especially of the foreign mercenary commanders, like Colonel Henri Boughet, who put down the
Pontiac Rising, was that the American militias were useless and that, however gifted the
colonists might be at playing noisy politics, they were no good at fighting. By the late 1760s
Britain had about 10,000 troops in the theater, regulars and German mercenaries, based in
Jamaica, Halifax, and the mainland colonies, and costing about £300,000 a year. Why not use
them?
Just as the British despised the colonial militias, so they refused to recognize the constitutional
or moral legitimacy of the colonial assemblies. Lord North, Prime Minister from 1770, a man
dismissed by Dr Johnson in the words He fills a chair' witha mind as narrow as the neck of a
vinegar-cruet,' criticized the Massachusetts constitution as a whole because it depended on `the
democratik part.' His minister in charge of colonial matters, Lord George Germaine, took an