""The militia trained hard. This time, in contrast to their unpreparedness when British troops earlier occupied Boston, the people of Massachusetts would be ready to counter any further invasion. All the militia of the colony were soon directed to train according to Colonel Timothy Pickering's new book, Easy Plan of Discipline for a Militia (1775). From Salem, Pickering imaginatively simplified the stodgy and ritualistic rules of British army drill and emphasized the American woodsman's habit of individual marksmanship, a practice particularly suited to an armed people's guerrilla war. Political philosophy and military tactics blended as one, for Pickering stressed that the American soldier was an individualist, a freeman, and a property owner, in contrast to professional European soldiers trained as obedient 'machines.' Pickering wrote that 'men must see the reason and the use of any action or movement. 'Tis the boast [of European commanders] that their men are mere machines. . . . God forbid that my countrymen should be thus degraded.'""