the other New England provinces consented to lend their assistance; and
the next point was to select a commander from among the gentlemen of the
country, none of whom had the least particle of scientific soldiership,
although some were experienced in the irregular warfare of the
frontiers. In the absence of the usual qualifications for military
rank, the choice was guided by other motives, and fell upon Colonel
Pepperell, who, as a landed proprietor in three provinces, and popular
with all classes of people, might draw the greatest number of recruits
to his banner. When this doubtful speculation was proposed to the
prudent merchant, he sought advice from the celebrated Whitefield, then
an itinerant preacher in the country, and an object of vast antipathy to
many of the settled ministers. The response of the apostle of
Methodism, though dark as those of the Oracle of Delphos, intimating
that the blood of the slain would be laid to Colonel Pepperell's charge,
in case of failure, and that the envy of the living would persecute him,
if victorious, decided him to gird on his armor. That the French might
be taken unawares, the legislature had been laid under an oath of
secrecy while their deliberations should continue; this precaution,
however, was nullified by the pious perjury of a country member of the
lower house, who, in the performance of domestic worship at his
lodgings, broke into a fervent and involuntary petition for the success
of the enterprise against Louisburg. We of the present generation,
whose hearts have never been heated and amalgamated by one universal
passion, and who are, perhaps, less excitable in the mass than our
fathers, cannot easily conceive the enthusiasm with which the people
seized upon the project. A desire to prove in the eyes of England the
courage of her provinces; the real necessity for the destruction of this
Dunkirk of America; the hope of private advantage; a remnant of the old
Puritan detestation of Papist idolatry; a strong hereditary hatred of
the French, who, for half a hundred years, had shed the blood of the