Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Shirley, however, remained undaunted and pressed on the plan for a
massive attack on Quebec, the key to Canada. Pelham at first used a
French offer of peace to veto such aggression, but Newcastle and Pelham
were soon forced to agree, in order to appease the war-minded at home.
However, resistance to the heavy taxes needed for the campaign grew
rapidly in the Massachusetts legislature. Again, a heavily inflationary issue
of paper money was put through. Voluntary enlistment dried up from the
dread example of Louisbourg, but Shirley quickly drafted a frontier garrison,
and other colonies supplied men: New York furnished 1,600 and
Connecticut 1,000. The promised British troops never arrived, thus ending
the prospective expedition, and unhappy soldiers and sailors began to
desert en masse in the summer of 1746. When constables tried to arrest the
deserters, they were assaulted by the local populace. And frontier posts,
stripped by Shirley for the epic expedition, were overrun by the French
and their Indian allies.
Shirley was still fanatically eager to press the attack in December,
even without British aid, but was overruled by the good prudence of his
associates and the other New England governors. Finally, Shirley's dream
of a great 1747 expedition was destroyed by Newcastle's firm canceling
of all British plans for the attack. Shirley would have pressed on regardless,
but neither the other colonies nor Massachusetts would go along.
There was method in the madness of Shirley's persistent and almost frenzied
zeal for more and bigger wars. His ties of friendship and political alliance
were held together only by the tenuous band of continuing mutual
profit. The end or even the slackening of war meant lower government
spending, diminished war contracts, lower patronage, slackened inflation,
and tighter credit. And almost immediately, Shirley's plundering friends
—the Waldos, Hancocks and Kilbys—grew sullen and restive.
By November 17, 1747, the British fleet was ready to sail out of Boston
for Jamaica; it still faced the problem of replacing its numerous deserters.
A massive British press-gang swooped down upon the Boston docks, seized
almost fifty laborers, and dragged them to the ships. An angry Boston
crowd of several hundred quickly gathered and began looking for British
officers. The sheriff and his deputies were severely beaten. The mob captured
several British officers as hostages for the impressed Americans and
then marched on Governor Shirley himself, who was harboring several
other officers. The mob denounced Shirley for supporting the impressment.
For a while, Shirley was able to cow the crowd into releasing a few officers
but then the mob regained its courage and began to attack the governor's
house. A deputy sheriff was beaten and put into the stocks. The mob shifted
their attack to the Council room and Shirley was particularly disturbed
to find that the local militia refused to obey orders to assemble and
put down the riot. The mob's courage finally faltered, however, in attacking
the Council and governor himself, but they did burn an oil barge and they
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