chap. XI.} 1765. Feb. |
A dispute had arisen in West Florida between the fiery and half frantic governor, Johnstone2, and the commanding officer. Johnstone insisted on the subordination of the military. The occasion was seized to proclaim its supremacy in America. The continent was divided into a northern and southern district, each with its brigadier, beside a commander-in chief for the whole; and on the morning of Wednesday, the sixth of February, Welbore Ellis,3 Secretary of War, who, at the request of Halifax, had taken the king's pleasure on the subject, made known his intention, ‘that the orders of his commander-in-chief, and under him of the brigadiers general commanding in the northern and southern departments, in all military matters, should be supreme, and be obeyed by the troops as such in all the civil governments of America.’ In the absence, and only in the absence, of the general and of the brigadiers, the civil governor might give the word. And these instructions, which concentrated undefined power in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief, rested, as was pretended, on the words of the commission which Hardwicke had prepared for governing the troops in time of war.
