Towards the end of June Abercromby and Webb arrived at Albany, bringing a reinforcement of nine hundred regulars, consisting of Otway’s regiment, or a part of it, and a body of Highlanders.  Shirley resigned his command, and Abercromby requested him to go to New York, wait there till Lord Loudon arrived, and lay before him the state of affairs.[411] Shirley waited till the twenty-third of July, when the Earl at length appeared.  He was a rough Scotch lord, hot and irascible; and the communications of his predecessor, made, no doubt, in a manner somewhat pompous and self-satisfied, did not please him.  “I got from Major-General Shirley,” he says, “a few papers of very little use; only he insinuated to me that I would find everything prepared, and have nothing to do but to pull laurels; which I understand was his constant conversation before my arrival."[412]

[Footnote 411:  Shirley to Fox, 4 July, 1756.]

[Footnote 412:  Loudon (to Fox?), 19 Aug. 1756.]

Loudon sailed up the Hudson in no placid mood.  On reaching Albany he abandoned the attempt against Niagara and Frontenac; and had resolved to turn his whole force against Ticonderoga, when he was met by an obstacle that both perplexed and angered him.  By a royal order lately issued, all general and field officers with provincial commissions were to take rank only as eldest captains when serving in conjunction with regular troops.[413] Hence the whole provincial army, as Winslow observes, might be put under the command of any British major.[414] The announcement of this regulation naturally caused great discontent.  The New England officers held a meeting, and voted with one voice that in their belief its enforcement would break up the provincial army and prevent the raising of another.  Loudon, hearing of this, desired Winslow to meet him at Albany for a conference on the subject.  Thither Winslow went with some of his chief officers.  The Earl asked them to dinner, and there was much talk, with no satisfactory result; whereupon, somewhat chafed, he required Winslow to answer in writing, yes or no, whether the provincial officers would obey the commander-in-chief and act in conjunction with the regulars.  Thus forced to choose between acquiescence and flat mutiny, they declared their submission to his orders, at the same time asking as a favor that they might be allowed to act independently; to which Loudon gave for the present an unwilling assent.  Shirley, who, in spite of his removal from command, had the good of the service deeply at heart, was much troubled at this affair, and wrote strong letters to Winslow in the interest of harmony.[415]

[Footnote 413:  Order concerning the Rank of Provincial General and Field Officers in North America.  Given at our Court at Kensington, 12 May, 1756.]

[Footnote 414:  Winslow to Shirley, 21 Aug. 1756.]

[Footnote 415:  Correspondence of Loudon, Abercromby, and Shirley, July, Aug. 1756.  Record of Meeting of Provincial Officers, July, 1756.  Letter and Order Books of Winslow.]