e and destiny.
It was doubtless a liberalizing as well as a sobering revelation to
be told that he was the "heir apparent of the Romans," with the
responsibilities that are implied in having a high mission in the
world. Now that his attention was called to the matter, it seemed to the
average Briton that in meeting the obligation of this high mission and
in dealing with this far-flung empire, a policy of efficiency such as
that advocated by Mr. Grenville might well replace a policy of salutary
neglect; and if the national debt had doubled during the war, as he was
authoritatively assured, why indeed should not the Americans, grown rich
under the fostering care of England and lately freed from the menace of
France by the force of British arms, be expected to observe the Trade
Acts and to contribute their fair share to the defense of that new world
of which they were the chief beneficiaries?

If Americans were quite ready in their easy going way to take chances in
the matter of defense, hoping that things would turn out for the best
in the future as they had in the past, British statesmen and right
honorable members of the House, viewing the question broadly and without
provincial illusions, understood that a policy of preparedness was the
only salvation; a policy of muddling through would no longer suffice
as it had done in the good old days before country squires and London
merchants realized that their country was a world power. In those days,
when the shrewd Robert Walpole refused to meddle with schemes for taxing
America, the accepted theory of defense was a simple one. If Britain
policed the sea and kept the Bourbons in their place, it was thought
that the colonies might be left to manage the Indians; fur traders,
whose lure the red man could not resist, and settlers occupying the
lands beyond the mountains, so it was said, would do the business. In
1749, five hundred thousand acres of land had been granted to the Ohio
Company "in the King's interest" and "to cultivate a friendship with
the nations of Indians inhabiting those parts"; and as late as 1754 the
Board of Trade was still encouraging the rapid settling of the West,
"inasmuch as nothing can more effectively tend to defeat the dangerous
designs of the French."

On the eve of the last French war it may well have seemed to the Board
of Trade that this policy was being attended with gratifying results.
In the year 1749, La Galissomere, the acting Governor of C