Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Indian tribes to join the French side. At about the same time, Shirley was
replaced as commander of American forces by the Earl of Loudoun, who
soon sent Shirley packing out of the country in disgrace. The Earl, however,
did little better than Shirley. During the 1757 summer campaign,
while the Earl was mobilizing a huge force of fifteen thousand men for an
assault on Louisbourg (an assault that he had to abandon), Montcalm
swept down, and captured and destroyed Fort William Henry, the English
stronghold at the southern tip of Lake George.
Loudoun had his troubles on the American homefront as well. New
Yorkers, particularly in New York City and Albany, strenuously objected to
Loudoun's compulsory quartering of English troops in their private homes.
The Pennsylvania militia bill was finally driven through, but the New
Jersey Assembly sturdily refused Loudoun's demand that it draft one
thousand men for the war effort. New Jersey was a colony with heavy
Quaker influence, and it was not and would not be part of the theater of
war. Thus self-interest, pacifist philosophy, and a natural instinct for
liberty all combined to resist a draft. Instead, New Jersey offered a handsome
bounty for voluntary enlistments. Quaker justices of the peace, indeed,
used their position to persuade recruits not to join up and even
imprisoned them on fictitious charges until their military outfits had gone.
Desertions from the army were frequent and generally went unpunished.
In 1756 and 1757, the French, having repulsed the attacks of the English
under the great generalship of Montcalm, were able to take the initiative
and to win signal victories on Lake Ontario and on the upper New York
frontier. In the meanwhile, a grave and fateful turn of affairs was under
way in Britain itself. With the war, especially in America, going badly,
England again faced the choice of retreating or redoubling its efforts. It
chose charisma and William Pitt, the half-crazed arch warmonger of them
all.
In malevolent contrast to his confreres, Pitt was the harbinger of a modern
war leader. Other European statesmen were content to fight for limited
objectives and to indulge in an unedifying but at least a not fatally destructive
jockeying over the balance of power. But Pitt, in his appetite for
power, plunder, and imperial glory, was satisfied with nothing less than
total victory, pursued by total mobilization and an all-out drive to crush
the enemy without quarter. His particular interest for many years had
been the eradication of New France. Backed by the London merchants and
financiers eager for conquest and plunder, and by the English masses
swayed by his imperialistic demagogy, Pitt rode to power in late 1756.
After some faltering in early 1757, Pitt finally agreed to add Cumberland's
desire to pursue the war in Europe to his own plans for colonial conquest.
Pitt was then firmly ensconced as virtually absolute war dictator by July
1757. A chastened Newcastle stayed to lend his important support as prime
minister.
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