Noah Webster
Dragoon
DRAGOON, noun [G., L, an ensign bearer; dragon; an appellation given to horsemen, perhaps for their rapidity or fierceness.] A soldier or musketeer who serves on horseback or on foot, as occasion may require. Their arms are a sword, a musket and a bayonet.
DRAGOON, verb transitive
1. To persecute by abandoning a place to the rage of soldiers.
2. To enslave or reduce to subjection by soldiers.
3. To harass; to persecute; to compel to submit by violent measures; to force. [This is the more usual sense.]
The colonies may be influenced to any thing, but they can de dragooned to nothing.