1756.]

ECLIPSE OF SHIRLEY.

71

the same time, while the earl came in July; and meanwhile it devolved on Shirley to make ready for them. Unable to divine what their plans would be, he prepared the campaign in accordance with his own.

His star, so bright a twelvemonth before, was now miserably dimmed. In both his public and private life he was the butt of adversity. He had lost two promising sons; he had made a mortifying failure as a soldier; and triumphant enemies were rejoicing in his fall. It is to the credit of his firmness and his zeal in the cause that he set himself to his task with as much vigor as if he, and not others, were to gather the fruits. His chief care was for his favorite enterprise in the direction of Lake Ontario. Making Albany his headquarters, he rebuilt the fort at the Great Carrying Place destroyed in March by the French, sent troops to guard the perilous route to Oswego, and gathered provisions and stores at the posts along the way.

Meanwhile the New England men, strengthened by the levies of New York, were mustering at Albany for the attack of Crown Point. At the end of May they moved a short distance up the Hudson, and encamped at a place called Half-Moon, where the navigation was stopped by rapids. Here and at the posts above were gathered something more than five thousand men, as raw and untrained as those led by Johnson in the summer before.1 The four New England colonies were much alike in their way of raising 1 Letter and Order Books of Winslow, 1756.

and equipping men, and the example of Massachusetts may serve for them all. The Assembly or "General Court" voted the required number, and chose a committee of war authorized to impress provisions, munitions, stores, clothing, tools, and other necessaries, for which fair prices were to be paid within six months. The governor issued a proclamation calling for volunteers. If the full number did not appear within the time named, the colonels of militia were ordered to muster their regiments, and immediately draft out of them men enough to meet the need. A bounty of six dollars was offered this year to stimulate enlistment, and the pay of a private soldier was fixed at one pound six shillings a month, Massachusetts currency. If he brought a gun, he had an additional bounty of two dollars. A powderhorn, bullet-pouch, blanket, knapsack, and "wooden bottle," or canteen, were supplied by the province; and if he brought no gun of his own, a musket was given him, for which, as for the other articles, he was to account at the end of the campaign. In the next year it was announced that the soldier should receive, besides his pay, "a coat and soldier's hat." The coat was of coarse blue cloth, to which breeches of red or blue were afterwards added. Along with his rations, he was promised a gill of rum each day, a privilege of which he was extremely jealous, deeply resenting every abridgment of it. He was enlisted for the campaign, and could not be required to serve above a year at farthest.