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 Historical Overview of: Provincials and Regulars,
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   British officers had little, if any, regard for their provincial brethren, although many other foreign observers had nothing but the highest regard for the American militias. The English could counter that the others did not have to work with the provincials, but if they did, their opinions would change dramatically. The British officers in North America almost universally regarded Americans as cowards who were ill-disciplined, given to following individual preferences over the good of the whole body, and more interested in enforcing their supposed legal rights than in carrying out their obligations to the Crown.
 
   A German professor contradicted the prevailing British view of the New England militia. "The provinces have their own militia, maintained at their own cost . . . . New England has the largest and best body of militia." One of the few sympathetic British officers noted the skill with which the New England militiamen handled their firearms. "Some Lads about 13, 14 and 15 years old . . . can shoot a Bird flying with any man in this Province. This adds to the Martial Spirit which seems to run through the whole of the country people." He judged that many of these young sharpshooters would willingly join in an expedition against the French and their Amerindian allies. A Boston correspondent of the Public Advertiser boasted that four thousand Massachusetts militia marched on Crown Point; two thousand prepared to attack Fort Niagara; and that twenty thousand more militiamen were available to defend the continent against the designs of the French. "This is a right martial spirit and seems to run through the whole of their country people."
 
   Sadly, most British observers generally found exactly the opposite to be true. Some argued that the militia spent too much time in training days at leisure and too little time learning military tactics and marksmanship. Orderly books of the period often show that British officers often remarked on their gross ignorance of basic maneuvers and their lack of comprehension of basic commands. When ordered to perform certain functions that the British army considered basic and fundamental to any army, the provincials responded that they could not follow the orders because they did not understand what was required of them.
 
   One issue that divided colonial militias from their professional British brethren concerned the ranks granted to provincial officers. British Rules and Articles of War stipulated that when any provincial militia served with British regular troops, colonial officers regardless of grade, were subordinate to their British counterparts. Superior colonial officers were, at best, regarded as senior captains when serving with British troops. Hence a colonel, even a general, in the provincial militia was inferior in rank and command to the most junior major in the British army. In order for this rearrangement of rank to occur one had only to add one detachment of British army headed by an officer of the grade of major or above to a large body of militia; the actual number of British troops or militia had nothing to do with the situation.
 
   In 1756 acting British commander in chief for North American, and governor of Massachusetts, Major-General William Shirley appointed Major-General John Winslow, one of the most distinguished and competent New England militia commanders of the pre-Revolutionary period, to recruit New England militia for a campaign into the French-held areas around Lake Champlain. Shirley thought to express confidence in his provincial charges, and to aid in the recruitment of militia, by appointing Winslow, a veteran of the Carthagena Campaign in 1740 and of many campaigns during King George's War (1744-48). When John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, arrived in America in July 1756 he rescinded Shirley's orders and placed the militia and its officers in positions subordinate to the British regulars, thus effectively reducing Winslow in rank from major-general to ranking militia captain.
 
   A related issue involved the responsibility for command of the militiamen. As acting British commander in North America, following Braddock's death, Shirley had promised the New England militiamen that Winslow would be their commander. The men regarded this as a contract between Shirley, acting for the English king, and themselves, and binding in both a legal and a moral sense. When Lord Loudoun and his second in command Major-General James Abercromby decided to place the militiamen under British command and British discipline, the men claimed breech of contract. To Loudoun and Abercromby this was a logical and natural move, and they certainly felt themselves immune to any contractual arrangement Shirley had made since they were now in sovereign command of all His Majesty's forces in North America. Since they regarded the provincials as unruly, contemptuous of discipline and ill-trained, and poorly prepared for war, they thought it their duty to bring them to a state of readiness equal to that expected of the British army and troops recruited from any location serving with that army. British command, in the minds of Loudoun and Abercromby, was far more professional and experienced than any provincial officers could possibly be. And, in their opinions, imposition of the British Mutiny Act and Rules and Articles of War were long overdue. Technically, the provincial laws were probably illegal, or at least superfluous, as the British laws concerned both the homeland and its provinces and Parliament had provided for no exceptions.
 
   The first official notice the colonial officials had that the British government intended to apply to Mutiny Act to their militias came in January 1755. Privy Council Secretary Robinson wrote to the governors of the several New England provinces informing them that Parliament had inserted a clause in the Mutiny Bill "enacting that all troops in America whilst in conjunction with British Forces under the command of an officer bearing His Majesties immediate commission shall be liable to the same martial law and discipline as the British forces are." To the colonials the question was less Parliament's power to make uniform laws and create regulations for the training and discipline of all troops, whether regular army or militia, than it was of contract. The colonials had enlisted for the expedition specifically on the premise that they would be commanded by their own officers and subjected to provincial mutiny and related acts. Shirley defended his actions as reasonable and traditional: reasonable in the sense of making more men enlist; and traditional in the sense that, on previous campaigns, militiamen had been subjected to their own provincial, not British military, law. Winslow argued, in support of Shirley, that his militia was neither unruly nor mutinous and provincial law was more than sufficient to maintain discipline. Indeed, in fulfillment of contract, the men would be more likely to obey their own laws than to obey the much harsher British law, with its emphasis on brutal discipline and more than occasional executions. But Loudoun and Abercromby were adamant. In this campaign the militia was going to do things according to the book, and the British officers were not about to capitulate to the whims and desires of their poor relations in the colonies.
 
   Winslow served as the provincial's advocate, arguing the provincial militias' case as strongly as he knew how. The men had enlisted under provincial law, in response to a provincial governor's call for provincial soldiers, in an army funded by the provincial governments. These men had made a covenant voluntarily, of their own free wills, and Winslow and other officers were "executors in trust" for the contractors. The army was a "properly organized body" under law only because the men had volunteered their services under a certain, definite and specific set of circumstances. If the current British commander changed the contract that had been legally made by his predecessor, the contract was altered and was thus null and void unless the consent of the other parties, the militiamen, was given. Winslow argued that the commander had no legal or moral right to alter a perfectly valid contract. If the commander insisted on having his way, the men could hold the contract to be invalid and were thus free to return to their own homes. Winslow added that the officers had likewise been deprived of their rights under the same contract and, unless they chose voluntarily to serve in inferior positions, their obligation to serve on the expedition was also terminated. But the officers had a moral duty to not resign until the issue of the disposition of their men had been resolved.
 
   Shirley sent Winslow's letter, along with a cover letter of his own, to Loudoun for a response. Loudoun was outraged, holding that Winslow had knowingly and willingly disobeyed his orders. Loudoun looked at the problem from an entirely different perspective and this marks an important difference between provincials and the British officer corps. In Loudoun's opinion since it was Shirley who had negotiated the original contract, it fell to him, not Loudoun, to respond to Winslow. Moreover, Loudoun argued that any man who enlisted in a British cause of any sort, at anytime and at any level, implicit;y agreed to serve, not a political sub-division of the empire, but the Crown. All men served to advance the king's cause and to protect his dominions. The king may command them as he sees fit and the men have no choice but to obey their sovereign. Provinces are dependencies of a sovereign state, and are not themselves sovereign, nor can they ever be, or ever act as, independent contractors. They are, and will always remain, agents of the sovereign state. Using the standard argument of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Shirley reminded Winslow that sovereignty is not, and indeed cannot be, divided and so the provinces had no legal standing to dispute the Crown's best judgment. The king was the only legally constituted authority. The issue, then, was not contractual rights of the men, but of rightful and legal obedience to their king, the only legal authority. Disobedience to lawful orders and lawful authority was nothing short of insurrect, treason, rebellion, and sedition.
 
   Winslow was still unwilling to accept the change in conditions and legal standing of his militiamen that Loudoun required. He discussed it orally with Loudoun in early August. Neither was satisfied with the outcome of their meeting. Loudoun contented himself with extracting from Winslow, on his own behalf and on behalf of his militiamen, an oath of loyalty to the king, but agreed to defer, at least during the campaign at hand, from implementing his initial orders. He allowed Winslow to remain in nominal command of his troops for he knew that the campaign was lost without Winslow's militia. Winslow had won a technical victory, but knew that henceforth Loudoun would have his way and his orders would stand in future campaigns.
 
   At this low point Winslow found an unexpected ally in Thomas Fitch, the popularly elected governor of Connecticut. He understood the position of the provincials and championed their cause. And he understood and endorsed wholeheartedly Winslow's arguments. Fitch was more than willing to stand firm behind Winslow and the militia he commanded.
 
   As an aristocratic conservative, Loudoun had no use for the provincials' contractual arguments. To him Winslow was merely attempting to try to avoid his imposition of military order. It was not that he was incapable of understanding the logic. On the contrary, he understood Winslow's arguments fully. To him these arguments simply represented lawyers' tricks and pointless exercises in rhetoric. The provincials succeeded in accomplishing nothing more than buttressing Loudoun's preconceived opinion that the colonists were a lazy, insubordinate, indolent, argumentative, and mutinous lot.
 
   Still, the provincials had several trump cards to play. The legislatures were still sufficiently independent that they could, and often did, as in this incident, refuse to offer supplies for various expeditions. The process of procuring provisions was one of the more ponderous aspects of colonial administration. Annually, the legislatures set up committees of war which were a curious blend of private initiative and governmental interventionism. These committees procured such supplies, including arms and foodstuffs, as the legislature permitted by their funding by entering into contracts with various civilian suppliers. The committee then contracted with wagoners to haul the supplies to a central supply depot, and then to transport the same to the camp where the officers received the supplies. It was not until this last step was finished that the supplies came under military control. No commandant, provincial or British, could really do more than to make requests of the committees of war for what the provincial troops needed, for commanders had no real authority to exercise over them.
 
   The provincial legislatures could refuse to supply men, as Pennsylvania had done until the time of the French and Indian War. They could assist or impede the recruitment of volunteers and enlistments. The British tax system in the colonies effectively raised little money, often less than the cost of the collection. Most provincial financial support that the British government did get came from the colonial legislatures and here they acted more as independent agents offering a voluntary contribution than dependencies fulfilling a legal obligation to support the home government. The home government was usually displeased with the amount of money contributed and the length of time the provinces required to actually deliver their contributions, but it seems to have imposed no real penalties against the legislatures to bring them into conformity with its wishes. This certainly was not an ideal time for a servant of the Crown to get into a fight with the provinces over supplies, men and money.
 
   As a military man with a sense of the need for regular deliveries and distribution of supplies, Loudoun sought to compromise with the colonial authorities. He offered to purchase all the supplies that were immediately available at a standard rate and then to supply the provincial militiamen with the same items that he gave his own men. The legislatures would then be free to supplement their own men with any items not on his list. Some colonial authorities thought this to be a trick for if the king supplied the militiamen they would have to yield to the king's discipline.
 
   The provinces seemed to have viewed this more as a power struggle between the commissioners of war, who, if the solution had been accepted would have had little to do, and Loudoun, than as a reasonable solution to a recurrent problem. They were also concerned that any reimbursements due the colonies from the home government would not be lost in the shuffling of papers among the several layers of authority. For their part, the enlisted men feared also coming under British control if they ate the king's bread; and they fully supported the contractual arguments of Winslow and Fitch, for, as mostly Puritans, they had been steeped in contractual arguments since birth. The commissioners of war had little difficulty convincing the legislatures of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire to reject Loudoun's proposal.
 
   Loudoun also disliked the apparent provincial disregard for hierarchy and command. As a career soldier in the British army Loudoun had no respect for any challenge to authority. Others should do as he did, which was to give full, unquestioning and complete obedience to orders received from his superiors. The enlisted men formed the base of his hierarchical pyramid and they must never question any order, if only out of fear of punishment. The men must be made to fear their officers even more than the enemy's guns and bayonets. The provincial enlisted men were lower even than their British brethren, and the provincial officers were not much better. Provincial officers were disobedient, independent and, perhaps worst of all, concerned for the welfare of their men. They fraternized with the men and their offices depended upon their election by the men, rather than upon talent, origins, birth or financial ability to purchase offices. All of these things mitigated strongly against their ever functioning as the British officers did, or integrating themselves into the British military machine. The vocabulary of the various New England officials was wasted on Loudoun and his class. Why would he be at all interested in "the rights of soldiers" when all gentlemen knew enlisted men had no rights?
 
   Much of their behavior had to do with the fact that New England society was neither class-conscious nor hierarchical and it had no real experience with an established, professional military organization. The New England militia, as we have seen, was the only real line of defense in the colonies which had no standing armies. On the other side, Loudoun was the product of a society in which class had its privileges and success in the professional military was based on class. The British militia was, at this time, at best a relatively insignificant adjunct to the standing army. Any officer who risked his own career, court-martial or fortune in defense of his men had to be harboring some ulterior motives or democratic designs. Only an American would think of his officers and government as entrepreneurs and the enlisted men as workers and a contractual obligation between the two. And, having admitted an employer to employee relationship, if only for the sake of argument, only an American would assume that there was some reciprocity involved in that contract, or paternalistic obligation of employer to one's employees.
 
   Against this background, and with continuing debate at a most inopportune time for the British commander, Loudoun had little choice but to back off. The main loser was Shirley, not Loudoun. To the minds of the colonists he had apparently broken his word to allow the provincials to fight under their own commanders and rules. In Loudoun's mind Shirley had undermined his orders, meaning legitimate authority, by patronizing of the colonists. Had Shirley not made the deal Loudoun would not have been stuck with trying to contradict and repudiate it. Shirley's actions had made the colonists all the more independence-minded and more likely to rebel against realistic military discipline in the future. Loudoun was a European officer forced to fight a war with a cast of Americans who knew nothing of civilized warfare. He deeply resented Shirlery's laxity for he had to depend on the provincials because his best troops were already committed elsewhere and the role assigned to them was an important and integral part of the overall campaign.
 
   Loudoun never understood the American provincial mind, nor did ever intend to try. His job was not to understand but to coerce the recalcitrant New Englanders. To his mind, and those of most, if not all, his subordinates, it was high time to bring the Americans back into the fold. Shirley understood, if only because he had served for a quarter-century as governor of the most populous colony. He also wanted to understand his charges and that made him, arguably, the most successful and accomplished of the colonial governors.
 
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"Legislation begets Statutory, possibly Rape,
in and of it's purest and original formula."
You have been forewarned. -©2005 David Lee Ion