not
to be taxed without their legitimate representatives. The disaffection
of the northern provinces extended to those of the south, and, as a
strong measure of resistance, all engaged to abstain from the use of
those luxuries which had hitherto been imported from Great Britain. They
also made colonial taxation a subject of their petitions to king, lords,
and commons, and thus firmly established the principle of resistance to
such a measure. Their resistance was confirmed by an unwise measure of
Grenville, who determined to intrust the execution of his prohibitory
orders to military and naval officers, who were disposed to act with
rigour. Government, also, had increased the salaries of judges, which
gave rise to an opinion that it was desirous of diminishing their
independence; and the governors had recently acted very arbitrarily, and
when complaints were made no attention was paid to them, or if a reply
was given, it was accompanied with rebuke. The colonists, moreover, were
encouraged in their spirit of resistance by the emigration of numbers
who had lately left England, and who being disaffected persons, diffused
republican sentiments in all the provinces. The seeds of discontent
were, in fact, sown far and wide before this new system of taxation
was projected, and it had the effect of causing them to germinate and
flourish.

WAR WITH THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

It unfortunately happened, that the news of colonial taxation arrived in
America when the colonists were in no very pleasant humour. On quitting
Canada, the French government still retained some slight connexion with
the native Indians, and partly by their agents, and in part through
encroachments made by the British on their hunting-grounds, they
were incited to war. The tribes flew to arms, designing to make a
simultaneous attack on all the English back-settlements in harvest-time,
and though their secret was made known, and their intentions prevented
in some places, yet the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and
Virginia were mercilessly ravaged by them, and the inhabitants in those
parts utterly destroyed. The Indians also captured several forts in
Canada, and massacred the garrisons; and their flying parties frequently
intercepted and butchered the troops that were marching from place to
place, and plundered and murdered the traders in the upper part of the
country. Success made them more bold, and it seems probable, from the
display of cour