determine the military establishment and to apportion the expense
of maintaining it among the several colonies on the basis of
wealth and population. Assemblies which for years past had
systematically deprived governors of all discretionary power to
expend money raised by the assemblies themselves would surely
never surrender to governors the power of determining how much
assemblies should raise for governors to expend.

Doubtless it might be said with truth that the colonies had
voluntarily contributed more than their fair share in the last
war; but it was also true that Pitt, and Pitt alone, could get
them to do this. The King could not always count on there being
in England a great genius like Pitt, and besides he did not
always find it convenient, for reasons which could be given, to
employ a great genius like Pitt. A system of defense had to be
designed for normal times and normal men; and in normal times
with normal men at the helm, ministers were agreed, the American
attitude towards defense was very cleverly described by Franklin:
"Everyone cries, a Union is absolutely necessary, but when it
comes to the manner and form of the Union, their weak noddles are
perfectly distracted."

Noddles of ministers, however, were in no way distracted but saw
clearly that, if Americans could not agree on any plan of
defense, there was no alternative but "an interposition of the
authority of Parliament." Such interposition, recommended by the
Board of Trade and already proposed by Charles Townshend in the
last ministry, was now taken in hand by Grenville. The troops
were to remain in America; the Mutiny Act, which required
soldiers in barracks to be furnished with provisions and utensils