Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/196

172 on a second expedition. Near the head of the Saco he fell into an ambush, and was shot on the first fire with eight of his men: the survivors fought bravely through the whole day, repulsed the Indians, and at length made good their retreat. The Indians retaliated by burning frontier villages and farms. At the Gut of Canso they seized seventeen fishing vessels, belonging to Massachusetts; but they were speedily compelled to relinquish them with severe loss to the Indian captors. This dispute, which had well nigh involved all the northern colonies and Indians in a fresh war of mutual extermination, was at length found to be so unprofitable to both parties that they gladly agreed to a peace. Every such struggle, however, had but the same result, that of the gradual extermination of the weaker party, and opening their country to the further advance of the white men.

It was at this period, in 1722, that James Franklin started the New England Courant, and had for a contributor Benjamin Franklin, a youth of sixteen at the time. The Courant aspiring to what was considered too great freedom in uttering opinions, the younger Franklin was admonished by the authorities, and his brother was forbidden to publish without license. The paper soon after lost support and was discontinued. The Philadelphia Mercury, the only newspaper in the colonies out of Boston, though it had no great liberty allowed to it, commented severely upon the course of the authorities towards the Courant.

Governor Belcher's enemies succeeded in effecting his displacement in 1 740. William Shirley, a lawyer of Boston, was appointed his successor. Governor Belcher, in accordance with his instructions, had resisted new issues of paper money, which had added very much to his troubles and roused the ire of many against him. "The operation of the Massachusetts banks was cut short by an act of Parliament extending to the colonies that act of the previous reign occasioned by the South Sea and other bubble schemes, which prohibited the formation of unincorporated joint stock companies with more than six partners."

The companies were compelled to wind up; and the partners were held individually liable for the notes. Shirley, who knew the people he had to govern, found it not difficult to attain popularity; and a new issue of paper money was made in order to meet the expenses of the war just broken out. By tacit consent, the General Court made Shirley an annual allowance of £1,000 sterling for salary.

In 1737, a controversy, which had long subsisted between the two colonies of Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire, was heard by commissioners for that purpose appointed by the crown. Various attempts had been made to settle this dispute, and it had been often recommended by the crown to the Assemblies of the two provinces to agree upon arbitrators from neighboring