Massachusetts was extremely poor by the standards of the present day, living by fishing, farming, and a trade sorely hampered by the British navigation laws.  Her contributions of money and men were not ordained by an absolute king, but made by the voluntary act of a free people.  Pownall goes on to say that her present war-debt, due within three years, is 366,698 pounds sterling, and that to meet it she has imposed on her self taxes amounting, in the town of Boston, to thirteen shillings and twopence to every pound of income from real and personal estate; that her people are in distress, that she is anxious to continue her efforts in the public cause, but that without some further reimbursement she is exhausted and helpless.[599] Yet in the next year she incurred a new and heavy debt.  In 1760 Parliament repaid her L59,575.[600] Far from being fully reimbursed, the end of the war found her on the brink of bankruptcy.  Connecticut made equal sacrifices in the common cause,—­highly to her honor, for she was little exposed to danger, being covered by the neighboring provinces; while impoverished New Hampshire put one in three of her able-bodied men into the field.[601]

[Footnote 599:  Pownall to Pitt, 30 Sept. 1758 (Public Record Office, America and West Indies, LXXI.) “The province of Massachusetts Bay has exerted itself with great zeal and at vast expense for the public service.” Registers of Privy Council, 26 July, 1757.]

[Footnote 600:  Bollan, Agent of Massachusetts, to Speaker of Assembly, 20 March, 1760. It was her share of L200,000 granted to all the colonies in the proportion of their respective efforts.]

[Footnote 601:  Address to His Majesty from the Governor, Council, and Assembly of New Hampshire, Jan. 1759.]

In June the combined British and provincial force which Abercromby was to lead against Ticonderoga was gathered at the head of Lake George; while Montcalm lay at its outlet around the walls of the French stronghold, with an army not one fourth so numerous.  Vaudreuil had devised a plan for saving Ticonderoga by a diversion into the valley of the Mohawk under Levis, Rigaud, and Longueuil, with sixteen hundred men, who were to be joined by as many Indians.  The English forts of that region were to be attacked, Schenectady threatened, and the Five Nations compelled to declare for France.[602] Thus, as the Governor gave out, the English would be forced to cease from aggression, leave Montcalm in peace, and think only of defending themselves.[603] “This,” writes Bougainville on the fifteenth of June, “is what M. de Vaudreuil thinks will happen, because he never doubts anything.  Ticonderoga, which is the point really threatened, is abandoned without support to the troops of the line and their general.  It would even be wished that they might meet a reverse, if the consequences to the colony would not be too disastrous.”

[Footnote 602:  Levis au Ministre, 17 Juin, 1758.  Doreil au Ministre, 16 Juin, 1758.  Montcalm a sa Femme, 18 Avril, 1758.]