COLONIAL GOVERNMENT	191
house of the provincial Legislature, which  held
the purse strings.
Under Sloughter, Fletcher, Bellomont, and
Cornbury the Assembly had voted revenues for a
term of years. But when Cornbury appropriated
to his own uses £1000 out of the £1800 granted for
the defense of the frontiers and when in addition
he pocketed £1500 of the funds appropriated for
the protection of the mouth of the Hudson, the
Assembly grew wary. Thereafter for four succes-
sive years it made only annual appropriations, and,
wiser still by 1739, it voted supplies only in definite
amounts for special purposes. Short-sighted the
Assembly often was, sometimes in its parsimony
leaving the borders unprotected and showing a
disposition to take as much and to give as little as
possible — a policy that was fraught with grave
peril as the French and Indian War drew on apace.
The^ growing insubordination of ^the province
gave more than one governor anxious thought.
Governor Hunter wrote warningly to friends in
England: "The colonies are infants at their
mother's breasts and will wean themselves when
they become of age." And Governor Clinton was
so incensed by the contumacy of the Assembly
that he said bluntly: "Every branch of this