Note 279 — Chapter XV · THE CAROLINA FRONTIER.

Spotswood to the Lords of Trade and to Lord Dartmouth, December 28, 1711, Official Letters, i. 129-138. This was one of the early instances of the extreme difficulty of obtaining money from “whimsical” legislatures for the common defence, which in later years led Parliament to the attempt to cure the evil by means of the Stamp Act. Even in what he did accomplish on the border, Spotswood had to depend upon voluntary contributions, just as money was raised by Franklin in 1758 for the expedition against Fort Duquesne, and by Robert Morris in the great crisis of Washington’s Trenton-Princeton campaign.