cumstances, such a move was quite out of the question.

It would materially change the circumstances, undoubtedly, if Americans
could ever be induced to undertake, in any systematic and adequate
manner, to provide for their own defense in their own way. In that case
the mother country would be only too glad to withdraw her troops, of
which indeed she had none too many. But it was well known what the
colonists could be relied upon to do, or rather what they could be
relied upon not to do, in the way of cooperative effort. Ministers had
not forgotten that on the eve of the last war, at the very climax of the
danger, the colonial assemblies had rejected a Plan of Union prepared
by Benjamin Franklin, the one man, if any man there was, to bring the
colonies together. They had rejected the plan as involving too great
concentration of authority, and they were unwilling to barter the
veriest jot or tittle of their much prized provincial liberty for any
amount of protection. And if they rejected this plan--a very mild and
harmless plan, ministers were bound to think--it was not likely they
could be induced, in time of peace, to adopt any plan that might be
thought adequate in England. Such a plan, for example, was that prepared
by the Board of Trade, by which commissioners appointed by the governors
were empowered to determine the military establishment and to apportion
the expense of maintaining it among the several colonies on the basis
of wealth and population. Assemblies which for years past had
systematically deprived governors of all discretionary power to expend
money raised by the assemblies themselves would surely never surrender
to governors the power of determining how much assemblies should raise
for governors to expend.

Doubtless it might be said with truth that the colonies had voluntarily
contributed more than their fair share in the last war; but it was also
true that Pitt, and Pitt alone, could get them to do this. The King
could not always count on there being in England a great genius like
Pitt, and besides he did not always find it convenient, for reasons
which could be given, to employ a great genius like Pitt. A system
of defense had to be designed for normal times and normal men; and in
normal times with normal men at the helm, ministers were agreed,
the American attitude towards defense was very cleverly described by
Franklin: "Everyone cries, a Union is absolutely necessary, but when
it comes to the ma