Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Shirley's greater interest in the northern frontier with Canada than in the
Ohio Valley. Shirley managed to whip New England and New York into
providing thirty-six hundred men for the march on Fort St. Frederic. But
the William Johnson expedition in the fall of 1755 bogged down because
of a lack of supplies and because of the increasing restiveness of the soldiers,
who were able to keep the usual tyranny of an army at a minimum by
electing their own officers. The expedition finally had to be abandoned.
Shirley, in the meanwhile, was able to mobilize about fifteen hundred men
for his own campaign to seize Fort Niagara, but this too had to be abandoned.
Indeed, the only British victory during 1755 was the capture of
Fort Beauéjour in New Brunswick (then part of Nova Scotia). And this victory
led to problems with the American colonials. During King George's War,
Britain had forced Massachusetts soldiers to remain in Louisbourg beyond
their terms of enlistment. To forestall a repetition of this disaster, Massachusetts
forced the British to issue certificates to the soldiers guaranteeing discharge
at the end of their enlistment. The British were hardly content to leave
matters like that, however; during the Nova Scotia campaign they subjected
the Americans to special harassment to induce them to enlist in British regiments.
This treatment infuriated both the American troops, who began to
desert en masse, and the Massachusetts house, which demanded that the men
be sent home.
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