When, in the autumn of 1746, Shirley said that for the present Canada was
to be let alone, he bethought him of a less decisive conquest, and proposed
to employ the provincial troops for an attack on Crown Point, which formed
a half-way station between Albany and Montreal, and was the constant
rendezvous of war-parties against New York, New Hampshire, and
Massachusetts, whose discords and jealousies had prevented them from
combining to attack it. The Dutch of Albany, too, had strong commercial
reasons for not coming to blows with the Canadians. Of late, however,
Massachusetts and New York had suffered so much from this inconvenient
neighbor that it was possible to unite them against it; and as Clinton,
governor of New York, was scarcely less earnest to get possession of Crown
Point than was Shirley himself, a plan of operations was soon settled. By
the middle of October fifteen hundred Massachusetts troops were on their
way to join the New York levies, and then advance upon the obnoxious post.
[Footnote: _Memoirs of the Principal Transactions of the Last War._]
Even this modest enterprise was destined to fail.
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