Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

still held several British officers. Shirley finally found it best to flee to the
safety of the island fortress of Castle William. The British naval commander
Charles Knowles reacted as a true military man, threatening to shell Boston
until his men were released, but the wiser Shirley finally prevailed upon
him to agree to the mob's demands and release the impressed colonists.
The rioting was over, and the rebellious citizens of Boston had won their
vital point.
Governor Shirley, considerably shaken, termed the riots an "insurrection."
The Assembly had given him no trouble, but he railed against various
democratic town meetings and especially against the "mobbish factious spirit
of Boston." Shirley complained that Boston was being run by the "lower
orders"—poverty and a low status in life being common charges to hurl
against one's political enemies.
The successful riot had brought home their power to the people of
Boston, and brought to a head the mounting opposition to the Shirley
regime. After the riot, the opposition became far more vocal than before.
The Boston Independent Advertiser led a determined attack on Knowles
and on Shirley's war policies, including the inflation. Dr. William Douglass,
the great hard-money economic theorist, denounced Knowles as a tyrant
and a "monster of wickedness." Shirley, smarting under the criticism of the
Independent Advertiser, asked the General Court to censure the paper. The
subservient Council agreed, but the Assembly rejected the proposal overwhelmingly.
Governor Shirley, longing for the good old days of all-out war, again
projected a great intercolonial expedition for 1748, this time against the
French fort of Crown Point at Lake Champlain. But Massachusetts had
issued an enormous amount of paper money in the three years of war and
the money was already depreciating rapidly. Tax monies were pledged
far in advance for redemption of the paper. Shirley realized that the neighboring
colonies would have to join the expedition, and he proposed quotas
of aid from each colony. But the other governors—even in New York,
which bordered on Crown Point—summoned no enthusiasm for the scheme.
Furthermore, peace was nearing, at last, in Europe under the clever guidance
of the Pelhams, and once more Shirley's grandiose vision of aggression
and conquest had to be abandoned.
In the meanwhile, sensing the approaching end of their joint bonanza,
the faithful Waldo began to loot with might and main, deducting perquisites
from the soldiers' meager pay for deigning to supply them with
arms and clothing. Waldo also pocketed the assets of dead soldiers and
sold their muskets. At Shirley's request for an accounting, Waldo flatly and
indignantly refused. Shirley, fearful of breaking with the machine of
Waldo's friends and relatives that had been his political support, did nothing.
But Waldo broke with Shirley for his slackening of enthusiasm for
the former's speculations.
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