New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode
Island followed well. New York and New Jersey did less
in proportion. Maryland did less still. Virginia would
only pass a lukewarm vote for a single hundred men.
Pennsylvania, as usual, refused to do anything at all.
The legislature was under the control of the Quakers,
who, when it came to war, were no better than parasites.
upon the body politic. They never objected to enjoying
the commercial benefits of conquest; any more than they
objected to living on land which could never have been
either won or held without the arms they reprobated. But
their principles forbade them to face either the danger
or expense of war. The honour of the other Pennsylvanians
was, however, nobly saved by a contingent of four hundred,
raised as a purely private venture. Altogether, the new
Provincial army amounted to over 8,000 men.
The French in Canada were thoroughly alarmed. Rumour had
magnified the invading fleet and army till, in July, the
Acadians reported the combined forces, British regulars
included, at somewhere between forty and fifty thousand.
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