Chapter VIII (3)

Wolfe was now ill,—not so prostrate, however, but he could propose various new plans to a council of his brigadiers, but his suggestions were all rejected as too hazardous. They recommended, in the end, an attempt to gain the heights somewhere above the town, and force Montcalm to fight for his communications. Wolfe was ready to try it; but it was the first of September before he was able to undertake it.[1173] He saw no other hope, slight as this one was. The letter which Amherst had sent to him by the Kennebec route had just reached him, and he felt there was to be no assistance from that quarter. On the 3d of September he evacuated the camp at Montmorenci, Montcalm being prevented from molesting him by a feint which was made by boats in front of his Beaufort lines. Other troops were now marched above Quebec, and when Wolfe himself joined Admiral Holmes, who commanded that portion of the fleet which was above the town, he found he had almost 3,600 men, beside what he might draw from Point Levi, for his adventurous exploit. The French were deceived, and thought that the English were to go down the river, as indeed, if the scheme to scale the banks failed on the first attempt, they were. Bougainville’s corps of observation was increased, and it was its duty to patrol a long stretch of the river shore.

After a cut in Bonnechose’s _Montcalm_, 5th ed., 1882, p. 138.]

Wolfe with a glass had discovered a ravine,[1174] up which it seemed possible for a forlorn hope to mount, and the number of tents at its top did not indicate that there was a numerous guard there to be overcome. Robert Stobo, who had been a prisoner in Quebec after the fall of Fort Necessity, had recently joined the camp, and his biographer says that his testimony confirmed Wolfe in the choice, or rather directed him to it.[1175] While the preparations were going on, the English ships perplexed Bougainville by threatening to land troops some distance up the river, near his headquarters; and by floating up and down with the tide, the English admiral kept the French on the constant march to be abreast of them.

The plan was now ripe. Wolfe was to drop down the river in boats with the turn of the tide, having with him his 3,600 men, and 1,200 were to join him by boat from Point Levi. As night came on, Admiral Saunders, who commanded the fleet in the basin below Quebec, made every disposition as if to attack the Beauport lines, and Montcalm thought the main force of the British was still before him.

As the ships opposite Bougainville began to swing downward with the tide, the French general took pity on his weary men, and failed to follow the moving vessels. This kept the main part of his troops well up the river. This French general had, as it happened, informed the shore guards and batteries towards the town that he should send down by water a convoy with provisions, that night, which was to creep along to Montcalm’s camp under the shadow of the precipice. Wolfe heard of this through some deserters, and he seized the opportunity to cast off his boats and get ahead of the convoy, in order that he might answer for it if hailed. He was hailed, and answered in the necessary deceitful French. This quieted the suspicion of the sentries as he rowed gently along in the gloom.

Reduced fac-simile of a cut in J. Luard’s _Hist. of the Dress of the British Soldier_, London, 1852, p. 95. This shows a heavy and light dragoon and two guardsmen of about the time of Wolfe’s attack, 1759. The cap of the guardsmen is of German origin, and was in general use by the English grenadiers of this period. The heavy dragoon is on the right. The one on the left is a light dragoon of the 15th regiment. The breeches are of leather; the coat is of scarlet.]

As it happened, the Canadian officer, Colonel de Vergor, who commanded the guard at the top of the ravine, where Wolfe’s advanced party clambered up, was asleep in his tent, and many of his men had gone home, by his permission, to hoe their gardens. The English forlorn hope made, therefore, quick work, when they reached the top, as they rushed on the tents. Their shots and huzzas told Wolfe, waiting below, that a foothold was gained, and he led his army up the steeps with as much haste as possible. While the line of battle was forming, detachments were sent to attack the batteries up the river, which, alarmed by the noise, were beginning to fire on the last of the procession of boats. The celerity of the movement accomplished its end, and the French were driven off and the batteries taken.

Sheer good luck, quite as much as skill and courage, had at last placed Wolfe in an open field, where Montcalm must fight him, if he would save his communications and prevent the guns of Quebec, in the event of its capture,[1176] being turned upon his camp.

Not a mile from Quebec, and fronting its walls, Wolfe had formed his final line, but he had turned its direction on the left, and there the line faced the St. Charles. In the early morning he saw the French form on a ridge in front of him, when some skirmishing ensued, as also in his rear, where a detachment sent by Bougainville began to harass him. With a foe before and behind, quick and decisive work was necessary.

After a portrait, “une gravure du temps,” in Charles de Bonnechose’s _Montcalm et le Canada Français_, 5th ed., Paris, 1882. Cf. the likeness in Daniel, _Nos Gloires_, ii. 273, and in Martin, _De Montcalm en Canada_.

The portrait given in Parkman (_Montcalm and Wolfe_, vol. i.) is after a photograph from an original picture, representing him at 29, now in the possession of the present Marquis de Montcalm. Cf. the likeness in Higginson’s _Larger Hist. of the United States_, p. 190.]

Montcalm, whom Admiral Saunders had been deceiving all night, hurried over to Vaudreuil’s headquarters in the morning to learn what the firing above the town meant. From this position he saw the seriousness of the situation at once. The red coats of the British line were in full view beyond the St. Charles. He hastened across the bridge, and was soon on the ground, bringing the regiments into line as they came up. But all the help he had a right to expect did not come. Ramezay made excuses for not sending cannon. Vaudreuil kept back the left wing at Beaufort, for fear that Saunders meant something, after all.

Montcalm’s impetuosity, now that it was unshackled, could not brook delay. It would take time to concert with Bougainville an attack on the front and rear of the British simultaneously, and that time would give Wolfe the chance to entrench and bring up reinforcements, if he had any. So the decision in Montcalm’s council was for an instant onset.

It was ten o’clock when Wolfe saw it coming. He advanced his line to meet it, and when the French were close upon them the fire burst from the English ranks. Another volley followed; and as the smoke passed away, Wolfe saw the opportunity and gave the word to charge. As he led the Louisbourg grenadiers he was hit twice before a shot in the breast bore him to the ground. He was carried to the rear, and as he was sinking he heard those around him cry that the enemy was flying. He turned, praised God, and died.[1177]

After a plan in Miles’s _Hist. of Canada_, p. 363, which is mainly the same as the large folding map by Jefferys, published Jan. 15, 1760, which also makes part of the _Hist. of the French Dominion in America_, London, 1760, and of his _General Topog. of North America and the West Indies_, London, 1768, no. 19. There is another plan in the _Nouvelle Carte de la Province de Québec selon l’edit du Roi d’Angleterre du 8 Sep^{bre}, 1763, par le Capitaine Carver et autres, traduites de l’Anglois, à Paris_, 1777. One is annexed to Joseph Hazard’s _Conquest of Quebec_, a poem, London, 1769; and another to Lemoine’s _Picturesque Quebec_, 1882. Cf. _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Apr., 1884, p. 280.

Richard Short made some drawings of the condition of Quebec after the bombardment, which were engraved and published in 1761.

The French plans of Quebec of this period, to be noted, are those of Bellin in Charlevoix, viz.: _Plan du bassin de Québec et de les environs_, 1744 (vol. iii. p. 70); _Plan de la ville de Québec_, 1744 (_Ibid._, p. 72); and _Carte de l’isle d’Orléans, et du passage de la traverse dans le Fleuve St. Laurent_, 1744 (_Ibid._, p. 65); beside the plan of Quebec in Bellin’s _Petit Atlas Maritime_, vol. i., 1764.

In vol. lxiv. of the _Shelburne MSS._ there are various plans of the fortifications and citadel, made after the surrender. Edw. Fitzmaurice reported on these in the _Hist. MSS. Commission’s Fifth Report_, p. 231.

Such books as Hawkins’s _Picturesque Quebec_ and Lossing’s paper in _Harper’s Magazine_, xviii. 176, give pictures of most of the points of historical interest in and about the town. Cf. J. M. Lemoine’s “Rues de Québec,” in the _Revue Canadienne_, xii. 269.

Various views connected with the siege of Quebec are given in _Picturesque Canada_, Toronto, 1884, showing the present condition of Wolfe’s Cove and the ascent from it (pp. 25, 47), the martello towers (p. 27), as well as the monuments to commemorate Wolfe and Montcalm (pp. 27, 46).]

Montcalm, mounted, borne on by the panic, was shot through the breast just before he entered the town, and was taken within to die.

Part of the fugitives got into Quebec with their wounded general; part fled down the declivity towards the St. Charles, and, under cover of a stand which some Canadian bushrangers made in a thicket, succeeded in getting across the river to the camp, where everything was in the confusion which so easily befalls an army without a head. It was necessary for the English to cease from the pursuit, for Townshend,[1178] who had come to the command (Monckton being wounded), feared Bougainville was upon his rear, as indeed he was. When that general, however, found that the English commander had recalled his troops, and was forming to receive him, he withdrew, for he had only 2,000 men,—probably all he could collect from their scattered posts,—and seeing the English were twice as many, he did not dare attack. So Townshend turned to entrenching, and working briskly he soon formed a line of protection, and had a battery in position confronting the horn-work beyond the St. Charles, which commanded the bridge.

Vaudreuil was trying to get some decision, meanwhile, out of a council of war at Beaufort. They sent to Quebec for Montcalm’s advice, and the dying man told them to fight, retreat, or surrender. The counsel was broad enough, and the choice was promptly made. It was retreat. That night it began. Guns, ammunition, provisions,—everything was left. The troops by a circuitous route flocked along like a rabble, and on the 15th they went into camp on the hill of Jacques Cartier, thirty miles up the St. Lawrence.

The morning after the fight, the tents still standing along the Beaufort lines were a mockery; for Ramezay knew that Vaudreuil had gone, since he had received word from him to surrender the town when his provisions failed.

Bougainville was still at Cap Rouge, and undertook to send provisions into Quebec. Lévis had joined Vaudreuil at Jacques Cartier,[1179] and inspired the governor with hope enough to order a return to his old camp. On the evening of the 18th the returning army had reached St. Augustine, when they learned that Ramezay had surrendered and the British flag waved over Quebec.

Preparations for the departure of the fleet were soon made, and munitions and provisions for the winter were landed for the garrison, which under Murray was to hold the town during the winter. The middle of October had passed, when Admiral Saunders, one of his ships bearing the embalmed body of Wolfe, sailed down the river. Montcalm lay in a grave, which, before the altar of the Ursulines, had been completed out of a cavity made by an English shell.[1180]

The winter passed with as much comfort as the severe climate and a shattered town would permit. There were sick and wounded to comfort, and the sisters of the hospitals devoted themselves to French and English alike. A certain rugged honesty in Murray won the citizens who remained, and the hours were beguiled in part by the spirits of the French ladies. There was an excitement in November, when a fleet of French ships from up the river tried to run the batteries, and seven or eight of them which did so carried the first despatches to France which Vaudreuil had succeeded in transmitting. There was rough work in December, in getting their winter’s wood from the forest of Sainte-Foy, for they had no horses, and the merriment of companionship, checkered with the danger of the skulking enemy, was the only lightening of the severities of the task. Deserters occasionally brought in word that Lévis was gathering and exercising his forces for an attack, so vigilance was incessant. Both sides preserved the wariness of war in onsets and repulses at the outposts, and the English usually got the better of their enemies. Captain Hazen and some New England rangers merited the applause which the regular officers gave them when they buffeted and outwitted the enemy in a series of skirmishes.

By April it became apparent that Lévis was only waiting for the ice in the river to break up, when he could get water carriage for his advance. Murray knew that the enemy could bring much greater numbers against him, for his 7,000 men of the autumn, by sickness and death, had been reduced to about 3,000 effectives, and the spies of Lévis kept the French general well informed of the constant weakening of the English forces.

This follows a map in Miles’s _Hist. of Canada_, p. 427; also in Lemoine’s _Picturesque Quebec_, p. 419.]

The French placed their cannon and stores on the frigates and smaller vessels which had escaped up the river in the autumn, and with their army in bateaux they started on the 21st April for the descent from Montreal. With the accessions gained on the way, by picking up the scattered garrisons, Lévis landed between eight and nine thousand men at Cap Rouge, and advanced on Sainte-Foy. The English at the outposts fell back, and the delay on the part of the French was sufficient for Murray to learn of their approach. He resolved to meet them outside the walls. It must be an open-field fight for Murray, since the frozen soil still rendered entrenching impossible in the time which he had. He led out about three thousand men, and at first posted himself on the ridge, where Montcalm had drawn up his lines the year before. He pushed forward till he occupied Wolfe’s ground of the same morning, when, with his great superiority of cannon, he found a position that gave him additional advantage, which he ought to have kept. The fire of the English guns, however, induced Lévis to withdraw his men to the cover of a wood, a movement which Murray took for a retreat, and, emulous of Wolfe’s success in seizing an opportune moment, he ordered a general advance. His cannon were soon stuck in some low ground, and no longer helped him. The fight was fierce and stubborn; but after a two hours’ struggle, the greater length of the enemy’s line began to envelop the English, and Murray ordered a retreat. It was rapid, but not so disordered that Lévis dared long to follow.

From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual surveys_, 1763, published in London.]

The English had lost a third of their force; the French loss was probably less. Murray got safely again within the walls, and could muster about 2,400 men for their defence.[1181] There was sharp work, and little time left further to strengthen the walls and gates. Officer and man worked like cattle. A hundred and fifty cannon were soon belching upon the increasing trenches of Lévis, who finally dragged some artillery up the defile where Wolfe had mounted, and was thus enabled to return the fire.

Both sides were anxiously waiting expected reinforcements from the mother country. On the 9th of May a frigate beat up the basin, and to the red flag which was run up at Cape Diamond she responded with similar colors. It was ominous to Lévis, for he felt she was the advanced ship of a British squadron, as she proved to be. It was a week before others arrived, when some of the heavier vessels passed up the river and destroyed the French fleet. As soon as the naval result was certain, Lévis deserted his trenches, left his guns and much else, with his wounded, and hastily fled. This was in the night; in the morning the French were beyond Murray’s reach.

A sample of the popular graphic aids of the day, which is taken from _Father Abraham’s Almanac_, 1761 (Philadelphia). “Key: A, river St. Lawrence; B, the governor’s house and parade; C, arsenal and yard for canoes and battoes; D, Jesuits’ Church and Convent; E, the fort, a cavalier, without a parapet; F, the Parish Church; G, the nunnery hospital and gardens; H, Sisters of the Congregation, and gardens; I, Recollects’ convents and gardens; K, the Seminary; L, the wharf.”

Cf. view and plan published in _London Mag._, Oct., 1760. Parkman (ii. 371) refers, as among the king’s maps in the Brit. Mus., to an east view of Montreal, drawn on the spot by Thomas Patten. Cf. Lossing’s _Field-Book of the Revolution_, i. 179.]

Their loss of cannon and munitions was a serious one, and the stores from France which might have replaced them were already intercepted by the English cruisers. Vaudreuil and Lévis made their dispositions to defend Montreal, their last hope; yet it was not a place in itself capable of successful defence, for its lines were too weak. It soon became evident that it was to be attacked on three sides; and the French had hopes that so dangerous a combination of armies, converging without intercommunication, would enable them to crush the enemy in detail.

Amherst was directing the general advance on the English side. He kept the largest force with him, and passed from Oswego, across Ontario, and down the St. Lawrence. If Lévis sought to escape westward and hold out at Detroit, Amherst intended to be sure to intercept him. He had about 11,000 men, including a body of Indians under Johnson. Near the head of the rapids he stopped long enough to capture Fort Lévis, now under Pouchot, and because they could not kill the prisoners, three fourths of Johnson’s Indians mutinied and went home. Amherst now shot the rapids with his flotilla, not without some loss, and on September 6th he reached Lachine, nine miles above Montreal.

From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual surveys_, 1763, published in London. There is a plan of Montreal, and of Isle Montreal in a _Carte de la Province de Quebec ... par le Capitaine Carver, etc., traduites de l’Anglois, à Paris_, 1777. The isle of Montreal as surveyed by the French engineers is mapped in the _London Mag._, Jan., 1761.]

Meanwhile, the other commanders had already approached the city so near as to open communication with each other. Murray had sailed up the river with about 2,500 men, but was soon reinforced by Lord Rollo with 1,300 others from Louisbourg. The English had some skirmishes along the banks, but Bourlamaque, who was opposing them, fell back with a constantly diminishing force, as the Canadians, despite all threats and blandishments, deserted him. Murray was ahead of the others, when he stopped just before reaching Montreal, and encamped on an island in the river. He was not without apprehension that he might have to bear the brunt of an attack alone.

Bougainville, meanwhile, was trying to resist Haviland’s advance at the Isle-aux-Noix, for this English general now commanded on the Champlain route. The two sides were not ill-matched as to numbers; but the English advance was skilfully conducted, and the French found themselves obliged to retreat down the river and unite with Bourlamaque. It was now that Haviland, pushing on, opened communication by his right with Murray, and both stood on the defensive, waiting to hear of Amherst’s approach above the town.

Follows a plan in Miles’s _Hist. of Canada_, p. 297. It is mainly the same as the large folding map by Thomas Jefferys, published Jan. 30, 1758, and making part of the _Hist. of the French Dominion in America_, London, 1760, p. 12. This last is in the F. North Collection in Harvard College Library, vol. iii. no. 22; and was again used by Jefferys in his _General Topog. of No. America and the West Indies_, London, 1768, no. 22.

These other plans belonging to the 18th century may be noted:—

MS. plans of 1717 and 1721 recorded in the _Catalogue of the Library of Parliament_, Toronto, 1858, p. 1618, nos. 58 and 59.

Map of 1729, made by Chaussegros de Léry, in the Paris Archives.

_Carte de l’isle de Montreal et de ses environs, par N. Bellin_, 1744, in Charlevoix, i. p. 227, and reproduced in Dr. Shea’s edition of Charlevoix; as well as the plan of the town, in Charlevoix, ii. 170.

A MS. plan of 1752, giving details not elsewhere found, is noted in the _Library of Parliament Catal._, p. 1620, no. 81.

A plan of 1756, and one of 1762 by Patten, engraved by Canot, are marked in the _Catal. of the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), ii. 54.

A plan of Montreal and its neighborhood by Bellin, in his _Petit Atlas Maritime_, 1764.]

The delay was brief. Amherst, advancing from Lachine, encamped before Montreal, above it, while Murray ferried his men from the island and encamped below. What there was left of the force which opposed Haviland withdrew across the river into the town, and Haviland’s tents dotted the shore which the French had left. The combined French army now numbered scarce 2,500; Amherst held them easily with a force of 17,000.

Follows map in Miles’s _Hist. of Canada_, p. 293.

Other contemporary maps showing the country, brought within the campaigns about Lakes Champlain and Ontario, are the following:—

_A chorographical map of the country between Albany, Oswego, Fort Frontenac, and Les Trois Rivières, exhibiting all the grants by the French on Lake Champlain_, which was included by Jefferys in his _General Topog. of North America and the West Indies_, London, 1768. It is, in fact, the northerly sheet of Jefferys’ _Provinces of New York and New Jersey, with part of Pensilvania, drawn by Capt. Holland_. The same _General Topography_, no. 32, etc., contains also in Blanchard and Langdon’s _Map of New Hampshire_ (Oct. 21, 1761) a corner map, showing “The River St. Lawrence above Montreal to Lake Ontario, with the adjacent country on the west from Albany and Lake Champlain.”]

Vaudreuil saw there was no time for delays, and at once submitted a plan of capitulation. A few notes were exchanged to induce less onerous conditions; but Amherst was not to be moved. On September 8th the paper was signed, and all Canada passed to the English king; the whole garrison to be sent as prisoners to France in British ships.

From the _Geschichte der Kriege in und ausser Europa, Elfter Theil_, Nürnberg, 1777. This follows a print published in London, Oct. 1, 1776, described in Smith’s _Brit. Mezzotint Portraits_, and in Parkman’s _Pontiac_, i. p. 164.]

This stipulation was adhered to, and during the autumn the principal French officers were on their way to France. The season for good weather on the ocean was passed, and the transportation was not accomplished without some wrecks, accompanied by suffering and death. Vaudreuil, Bigot, Cadet, and others found a dubious welcome in France after they had weathered the November storms. The government was not disposed that the loss of Canada should be laid wholly to its account, and the ministry had heard stories enough of the peculations of its agents in the colony to give a chance of shifting a large part of the responsibility upon those whose bureaucratic thefts had sapped the vitals of the colony. Trials ensued, the records of which yield much to enable us to depict the rotten life of the time; and though Vaudreuil escaped, the hand of the law fell crushingly on Bigot and Cadet, and banishment, restitution, and confiscation showed them the shades of a stern retribution. They were not alone to suffer, but they were the chief ones.

The war was over, and a new life began in Canada. The surrender of the western posts was necessary to perfect the English occupancy, and to receive these Major Rogers was despatched by Amherst on the 13th of September. On the way, somewhere on the southern shore of Lake Erie,[1182] he met (November 7) Pontiac, and, informing him of the capitulation at Montreal, the politic chief was ready to smoke the calumet with him. Rogers pushed on towards Detroit.[1183] There was some apprehension that Belêtre, who commanded there, would rouse his Indians to resist, but the French leader only blustered, and when (November 29) the white flag came down and the red went up, his 700 Indians hailed the change of masters with a yell; and it was with open-eyed wonder that the savages saw so many succumb to so few, and submit to be taken down the lake as prisoners. An officer was sent along the route from Lake Erie to the Ohio to take possession of the forts at Miami and Ouatanon; but it was not till the next season that a detachment of the Royal Americans pushed still farther on to Michillimachinac and the extreme posts.[1184]

English power was now confirmed throughout all the region embraced in the surrender of Vaudreuil.

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

THE ninth volume of the _N. Y. Col. Docs._ richly illustrates the French movements near the beginning of the century to secure Indian alliances.[1185]

A number of papers from the archives of the Marine, respecting the founding of Detroit (1701), is given by Margry (_Découvertes_, etc.) in his fifth volume (pp. 135-250), as well as records of the conferences held by La Motte Cadillac with the neighboring Indians (p. 253, etc.). These papers come down to 1706.[1186]

The contracts made at Quebec in 1701 and later, respecting the right to trade at the straits, are given in Mrs. Sheldon’s _Early Hist. of Michigan_ (N. Y., 1856, pp. 93, 138). In Shea’s _Relation des affaires du Canada, 1696-1702_ (N. Y., 1865), there is a “Relation du Destroit,” and other papers touching these Western parts.[1187]

Mrs. Sheldon’s _Early History of Michigan_ contains various documents on the condition of the colony at Detroit and Michilimackinac.[1188]

On the attack on Detroit in 1712, made by the Foxes, in which, as confederates of the Iroquois, they acted in the English interest, we find documents in the _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. pp. 857, 866; and the Report of Du Buisson, the French commander, is in W. R. Smith’s _Hist. of Wisconsin_, iii. 316.[1189]

The report of Tonti, on affairs at Detroit in 1717, is given by Mrs. Sheldon (p. 316).

In Margry’s _Découvertes et Établissements des Français dans l’Amérique Septentrionale_ (vol. v. p. 73) is a “Relation du Sieur de Lamothe Cadillac, capitaine en pied, ci-devant commandant de Missilimakinak et autres postes dans les pays élorgnés, où il a été pendant trois années” (dated July 31, 1718).

In the third volume of the _Wisconsin Historical Collections_ there are other documents among the Cass papers.[1190]

* * * * *

There is in another chapter some account of preparations at Boston for the fatal expedition of 1711, under Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker, with its contingent of Marlborough’s veterans.[1191] An enumeration of the forces employed was printed in the _Boston Newsletter_, no. 379 (July 16-23, 1711), and is reprinted in what is the authoritative narrative, the _Journal or full account of the late expedition to Canada_, which Walker printed in London in 1720,[1192] partly in vindication of himself against charges of peculation and incompetency. The failure of the expedition was charged by constant reports in England to the dilatoriness of Massachusetts in preparing the outfit. Walker does not wholly share this conviction, it is just to him to say; but Jeremiah Dummer, then the agent of the province in London, thought it worth while to defend the provincial government by printing in London, 1712 (reprinted, Boston, 1746), a _Letter to a noble lord concerning the late expedition to Canada_,[1193] in which he contended that this expedition was wisely planned, and that its failure was not the fault of New England. There is another tract of Dummer’s to a similar purpose: _A letter to a friend in the country, on the late expedition to Canada_, London, 1712.[1194] Palfrey[1195] says that he found various letters and documents among the British Colonial Papers, including a “Journal of the expedition, by Col. Richard King.”[1196]

After a water-color sketch in the _Mass. Archives: Documents collected in France_, vi. p. 1. The coat is red, faced with blue.]

After a water-color sketch in the _Mass. Archives: Documents collected in France_, viii. p. 1. The coat is blue, faced with red. Cf. sketches in Gay’s Pop. _Hist. United States_, ii. 545.]

We have the French side in Charlevoix (Shea’s),[1197] with annotations and references by that editor. Walker, in his _Journal_, gives a rough draft in English of a manifesto intended to be distributed in Canada. Charlevoix gives the French into which it was translated for that use.[1198]

The recurrent interest taken, during Alexander Spotswood’s term of office (1710-1722) as governor of Virginia, in schemes for occupying the region beyond the mountains is traceable through his _Official Letters_, published by the Virginia Historical Society in 1882-5.[1199]

The journey of Spotswood over the mountains in 1716 is sometimes called the “Tramontane Expedition;” it was accomplished between Aug. 20 and Sept. 17.[1200]

At the time when Spotswood was urging, in 1718, that steps should be taken to seize upon the Ohio Valley,[1201] James Logan was furnishing to Gov. Keith, to be used as material for a memorial to the Board of Trade, a report on the French settlements in the valley (dated Dec., 1718).[1202]

Previous to 1700 the Iroquois had scoured bare of their enemies a portion, at least, of the Ohio country; but during the first half of the last century, the old hunting grounds were reoccupied in part by the Wyandots, while the Delawares centred upon the Muskingum River, and the Shawanoes, or Shawnees, coming from the south, scattered along the Scioto and Miami valleys,[1203] and allied themselves with the French. The Ottawas were grouped about the Sandusky and Maumee rivers in the north.[1204]

Respecting the Indians of the Ohio Valley we have records of the eighteenth century, in a _Mémoire_ on those between Lake Erie and the Mississippi, made in 1718.[1205]

Among the Cass MSS. is a paper on the life and customs of the Indians of Canada[1206] in 1723, which has been translated by Col. Whittlesey.[1207]

A report (1736) supposed to be by Joncaire, dated at Missilimakinac, is called, as translated, “Enumeration of the Indian tribes connected with the government of Canada.”[1208]

Conrad Weiser’s notes on the Iroquois and the Delawares (Dec., 1746) have been also translated.[1209]

An account of the Miami confederacy makes part of a book published at Cincinnati in 1871, _Journal of Capt. William Trent from Logstown to Pickawillany in 1752_, edited by Alfred T. Goodman, secretary of the Western Reserve Hist. Soc. It includes papers from the English archives, secured by John Lothrop Motley.[1210] In 1759 Capt. George Croghan made “a list of the Indian nations, their places of abode and chief hunting.”[1211]

The subject of the dispersion and migrations of the Indians of the Ohio Valley has engaged the attention of several of the Western antiquaries.[1212] The most exhaustive collation of the older statements regarding these tribal movements is in Manning F. Force’s lecture before the Historical and Philosophical Soc. of Ohio, which was printed at Cincinnati in 1879 as _Some Early Notices of the Indians of Ohio_. “In the latter half of the seventeenth century, after the destruction of the Eries in 1656 by the Five Nations,” he says, “the great basin, bounded north by Lake Erie, the Miamis, and the Illinois, west by the Mississippi, east by the Alleghanies, and south by the headwaters of the streams that flow into the Gulf of Mexico, seems to have been uninhabited except by bands of Shawnees, and scarcely visited except by war parties of the Five Nations.” He then confines himself to tracing the history of the Eries and Shawnees. He tells the story of the destruction of the Eries, or “Nation du Chat,” in 1656; and examines various theories about remnants of the tribe surviving under other names. The Chaouanons of the French, or Shawanoes of the English (Shawnees), did not appear in Ohio till after 1750. Parkman[1213] says: “Their eccentric wanderings, their sudden appearances and disappearances, perplex the antiquary and defy research.” Mr. Force adds to the investigations of their history, but still leaves, as he says, the problem unsolved. The earliest certain knowledge places them in the second half of the seventeenth century on the upper waters of the Cumberland, whence they migrated northwest and northeast, as he points out in tracking different bands.

The claim of the English to the Ohio Valley and the “Illinois country,” as for a long series of years the region east of the upper Mississippi and north of the Ohio was called,[1214] was based on a supposed conquest of the tribes of that territory by the Iroquois in 1672 or thereabouts. No treaty exists by which the Iroquois transferred this conquered country to the English, but the transaction was claimed to have some sort of a registry,[1215] as expressed, for instance, in a legend on Evans’ map[1216] (1755), which reads: “The Confederates [Five Nations], July 19, 1701, at Albany surrendered their beaver-hunting country to the English, to be defended by them for the said Confederates, their heirs and successors forever, and the same was confirmed, Sept. 14, 1728 [1726], when the Senecas, Cayugaes, and Onondagoes surrendered their habitations from Cayahoga to Oswego and six miles inland to the same for the same use.” The same claim is made on Mitchell’s map[1217] of the same year (1755), referring to the treaty with the Iroquois at Albany, Sept., 1726, by which the region west of Lake Erie and north of Erie and Ontario, as well as the belt of land from Oswego westward, was confirmed to the English.[1218]

Not much is known of the Indian occupation of the Ohio Valley before 1750,[1219] and any right by conquest which the Iroquois might have obtained, though supported at the time of the struggle by Colden,[1220] Pownall,[1221] and others,[1222] was first seriously questioned, when Gen. W. H. Harrison delivered his address on the _Aborigines of the Ohio Valley_.[1223] He does not allow that the Iroquois pushed their conquests beyond the Scioto.

The uncertainty of the English pretensions is shown by their efforts for further confirmation, which was brought about as regards westerly and northwesterly indefinite extensions of Virginia and Pennsylvania by the treaty of Lancaster in 1744 (June 22-July 4).[1224]

In 1748 Bollan in a petition to the Duke of Bedford on the French encroachments, complains that recent English maps had prejudiced the claims of Great Britain.[1225] Since Popple’s map in 1732, of which there had been a later edition, maps defining the frontiers had appeared in Keith’s _Virginia_ (1738), in Oldmixon’s _British Empire_ (1741) by Moll, and in Bowen’s _Geography_ (1747).

There is in the _Penna. Archives_ (2d series, vi. 93) a paper dated Dec., 1750, on the English pretensions from the French point of view. On the English side the claims of the French are examined in the _State of the British and French Colonies in North America_, London, 1755.[1226]

J. H. Perkins, in the _North American Review_, July, 1839, gave an excellent sketch of the English effort at occupation in the Ohio Valley from 1744 to 1774, which later appeared in his _Memoir and Writings_ (Boston, 1852, vol. ii.) as “English discoveries in the Ohio Valley.” His sketch is of course deficient in points, where the publication of original material since made would have helped him.

* * * * *

The rivalry in the possession of Oswego and Niagara, beginning in 1725, is traced in the _N. Y. Col. Docs._ (ix. 949, 954, 958, 974), and in a convenient form an abstract of the French despatches for 1725-27 is found in _Ibid._, ix. 976, with a French view (p. 982) of the respective rights of the rivals.[1227]

There had been a stockade at Niagara under De Nonville’s rule, and the fort bore his name; but it was soon abandoned.[1228] The place was reoccupied in 1725-26, and the fort rebuilt of stone.[1229]

* * * * *

In 1731 the French first occupied permanently the valley of Lake Champlain,[1230] but not till 1737 did they begin to control its water with an armed sloop, and to build Fort St. Frederick.[1231]

Beauharnois’ activity in seeking the Indian favor is shown in his conference with the Onondagas in 1734 and in his communications with the Western tribes in 1741.[1232] The condition of the French power at this time is set forth in a _Mémoire sur le Canada_, ascribed to the Intendant Gilles Hocquart (1736).[1233]

In 1737 Conrad Weiser was sent to the Six Nations to get them to agree to a truce with the Cherokees and Catawbas, and to arrange for a conference between them and these tribes.[1234]

The expedition to the northwest, which resulted in Vérendrye’s discovery of the Rocky Mountains in Jan., 1743, is followed with more or less detail in several papers by recent writers.[1235]

The first settlement in Wisconsin took place in 1744-46 under Charles de Langlade.[1236]

The Five Years’ War (1744-48) so far as it affected the respective positions of the combatants in the two great valleys was without result. The declaration of war was in March, 1744, on both sides.[1237]

In 1744 the Governor of Canada sent an embassy to the Six Nations, assuring them that the French would soon beat the English.[1238]

In 1744 Clinton proposed the erection of a fort near Crown Point, and of another near Irondequot “to secure the fidelity of the Senecas, the strongest and most wavering of all the six confederated tribes.”[1239]

The scalping parties of the French are tracked in the _N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. 32, etc., with the expedition against Fort Clinton in 1747 (p. 78) and a retaliating incursion upon Montreal Island by the English (p. 81).

In 1745 both sides tried by conferences to secure the Six Nations. In July, August, and September. Beauharnois met them.[1240] Delegates from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania convened under the New York jurisdiction at Albany, in October, 1745, and did what they could by treaty to disabuse the Indian mind of an apprehension which the French are charged with having raised, that the English had proposed to them to dispossess the Iroquois of their lands.[1241]

Upon the abortive Crown Point expedition of 1746,[1242] as well as the other military events of the war, we have _Memoirs of the Principal Transactions of the last War between the English and French in North America_, London, 1757 (102 pp.).[1243] It is attributed sometimes to Shirley, who had a chief hand in instigating the preparations of the expedition. This will be seen in the letters of Shirley and Warren, in the _R. I. Col. Rec._, v. 183, etc.; and in _Penna. Archives_, i. 689, 711, as in an _Account of the French settlements in North America ... and the two last unsuccessful expeditions against Canada and the present on foot_. _By a gentleman._ Boston, 1746.[1244]

A letter of Col. John Stoddard, May 13, 1747, to Governor Shirley, showing how the Six Nations had been enlisted in the proposed expedition to Canada, and deprecating its abandonment, is in _Penna. Archives_, i. 740; as well as a letter of Shirley, June 1, 1747 (p. 746).

A letter of Governor Shirley (June 29, 1747) respecting a congress of the colonies to be held in New York in September is in _Penna. Archives_, i. 754; and a letter of Conrad Weiser, doubting any success in enlisting the Six Nations in the English favor, is in _Ibid._, p. 161.

Clinton (November 6, 1747) complains to the Duke of Bedford of De Lancey’s efforts to thwart the government’s aims to secure the assistance of the Six Nations for the invasion of Canada.[1245]

In February, 1749-50, a long report was made to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury on the expenses incurred by the colonies during the war for the attempts to invade Canada. It is printed in the _New Jersey Archives_, 1st ser., vii. 383-400. The annual summaries on the French side, 1745-48, are in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. 38, 89, 137.

A stubborn fight in 1748 with some marauding Indians near Schenectady is chronicled in Pearson’s _Schenectady Patent_, p. 298.

In 1749 came Céloron’s expedition to forestall the English by burying his plates at the mouths of the streams flowing into the Ohio. A fac-simile of the inscription on one of these plates has been given already (_ante_, p. 9).[1246]

While Céloron was burying his plates, and La Galissonière was urging the home government to settle 10,000 French peasants on the Ohio, the kinsmen of Washington and others were forming in 1748 the Ohio Company, which received a royal grant of half a million acres between the Monongahela and the Kenawha rivers, on condition of settling the territory;[1247] “which lands,” wrote Dinwiddie,[1248] “are his Majesty’s undoubted right by the treaty of Lancaster and subsequent treaties at Logstown[1249] on the Ohio.” Colonel Thomas Cresap was employed to survey the road over the mountains,—the same later followed by Braddock.

Of the subsequent exploration by Christopher Gist, in behalf of the Ohio Company, and of George Croghan and Montour for the governor of Pennsylvania, note has been taken on an earlier page.[1250] A paper on Croghan’s transactions with the Indians previous to the outbreak of hostilities has been printed.[1251] Referring to the Ohio region in 1749, Croghan wrote: “No people carry on the Indian trade in so regular a manner as the French.”[1252]

Reference has already been made (_ante_, pp. 3, 4) to the movement in 1749 of Father Piquet to influence the Iroquois through a missionary station near the head of the rapids of the St. Lawrence, on the New York side, at the site of the present Ogdensburg. The author of the _Mémoires sur le Canada_, whence the plan of La Présentation (_ante_, p. 3)[1253] is taken, gives an unfavorable account of Piquet.[1254]

The new French governor, Jonquière, had arrived in Quebec in August, 1749. Kalm[1255] describes his reception, and it was not long before he was having a conference with the Cayugas,[1256] followed the next year (1751) by another meeting with the whole body of the Iroquois.[1257] His predecessor, La Galissonière,[1258] was busying himself on a memoir, dated December, 1750,[1259] in which he shows the great importance of endeavoring to sustain the posts connecting Canada with Louisiana, and the danger of English interference in case of a war.

William Johnson, meanwhile, was counteracting the French negotiation with the Indians as best he could;[1260] and both French and English were filing their remonstrances about reciprocal encroachments on the Ohio.[1261] Cadwallader Colden was telling Governor Clinton how to secure (1751) the Indian trade and fidelity,[1262] the Privy Council was reporting (April 2, 1751) on the condition of affairs in New York province,[1263] and the French government was registering ministerial minutes on the English encroachments on the Ohio.[1264]

What instructions Duquesne had for his treatment of the Indians on the Ohio and for driving out the English may be seen in the _N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. 242.

Edward Livingston, in 1754, writing of the French intrigues with the Indians, says, “They persuade these people that the Virgin Mary was born in Paris, and that our Saviour was crucified at London by the English.”[1265]

The English trading-post of Picktown, or Pickawillany, at the junction of the Great Miami River and Loramie’s Creek, was destroyed by the French in 1752.[1266] This English post and the condition of the country are described in the “Journal of Christopher Gist’s journey ... down the Ohio, 1750, ... thence to the Roanoke, 1751, undertaken on account of the Ohio Company,” which was published in Pownall’s _Topographical Description of North America_, app. (London, 1776). Gist explored the Great Miami River.[1267]

Parkman[1268] tells graphically the story of the incidents, in which Washington was a central figure, down to the retreat from Fort Necessity.[1269] The journal of Gist, who accompanied Washington to Le Bœuf,[1270] is printed in the _Mass. Hist. Coll._, xxv. 101.[1271]

The _Dinwiddie Papers_ (vol. i. pp. 40-250) throw full light on the political purposes and other views during this interval. Parkman had copies of them, and partial use had been made of them by Chalmers. Sparks copied some of them in 1829, when they were in the possession of J. Hamilton, Cumberland Place, London, and these extracts appear among the Sparks MSS. in Harvard College library as “Operations in Virginia, 1754-57,” accompanied by other copies from the office of the Board of Trade, “Operations on the Frontier of Virginia, 1754-55.”[1272]

The Dinwiddie papers later passed into the hands of Henry Stevens, and are described at length in his _Hist. Collections_, i. no. 1,055; and when they were sold, in 1881, they were bought by Mr. W. W. Corcoran, of Washington, and were given by him to the Virginia Historical Society, under whose auspices they were printed in 1883-4, in two volumes, edited, with an introduction and notes, by R. A. Brock.[1273]

Very soon after Washington’s return to Williamsburgh from Le Bœuf, his journal of that mission was put to press under the following title: _The Journal of Major George Washington, sent by the Hon. Robert Dinwiddie, Esq., his Majesty’s Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Virginia, to the Commandant of the French forces in Ohio; to which are added the Governor’s letter and a translation of the French Officer’s answer_, Williamsburgh, 1754. This original edition is so rare that I have noted but two copies.[1274] It has been used by all the historians,—Sparks, Irving, Parkman, and the rest.

Sparks[1275] says he found the original sworn statement of Ensign Ward, who surrendered to Contrecœur, in the Plantation Office in London, which had been sent to the government by Dinwiddie. The French officer’s summons is in De Hass’s _West. Virginia_, p. 60, etc.

There is another journal of Washington, of use in this study of what a contemporary synopsis of events, 1752-54, calls the “weak and small efforts” of the English.[1276] It no longer exists as Washington wrote it. It fell into the hands of the French at Braddock’s defeat the next year (1755), and, translated into French, it was included in a _Mémoire contenant le précis des faits, avec leurs pièces justificatives pour servir de réponse aux Observations envoyées par les ministres d’Angleterre dans les cours de l’Europe_.[1277] There were quarto and duodecimo editions of this book published at Paris in 1756;[1278] and the next year (1757) appeared a re-impression of the duodecimo edition[1279] and an English translation, which was called _The Conduct of the late ministry, or memorial containing a summary of facts, with their vouchers, in answer to the observations sent by the English ministry to the Courts of Europe_, London, 1757.[1280] Sparks says that the edition appearing with two different New York imprints (Gaine; Parker & Weyman), as _Memorial, containing a summary of the facts, with their authorities, in answer to the observations sent by the English ministry to the Courts of Europe_, was translated from a copy of the original French brought by a prize ship into New York. He calls the version “worthy of little credit, being equally uncouth in its style and faulty in its attempts to convey the sense of the original.”[1281] Two years later (1759) the English version again appeared in London, under the title of _The Mystery revealed, or Truth brought to Light, being a discovery of some facts, in relation to the conduct of the late ministry.... By a patriot_.[1282]

This missing journal of Washington, and other of these papers, are given in their re-Englished form in the second Dublin edition (1757) of a tract ascribed to William Livingston: _Review of the military operations in North America from the commencement of the French hostilities on the frontiers of Virginia in 1753 to the surrender of Oswego, 1756 ... to which are added Col. Washington’s journal of his expedition to the Ohio in 1754, and several letters and other papers of consequence found in the cabinet of General Braddock after his defeat_.[1283]

There is also in this same volume, _Précis des Faits_, a “Journal de compagne de M. de Villiers (en 1754),” which Parkman[1284] says is not complete, and that historian used a perfected copy taken from the original MS. in the Archives of the Marine.[1285] The summons which Jumonville was to use, together with his instructions, are in this same _Précis des Faits_. The French view of the skirmish, of the responsibility for it, and of the sequel, was industriously circulated.[1286] On the English side, the _London Magazine_ (1754) has the current reports, and the contemporary chronicles of the war, like Dobson’s _Chronological Annals of the War_ (1763) and Mante’s _Hist. of the Late War_ (1772), give the common impressions then prevailing. Sparks, in his _Washington_ (i. p. 46; ii. pp. 25-48, 447), was the first to work up the authorities. Irving, _Life of Washington_, follows the most available sources.[1287]

The Indian side of the story was given at a council held at Philadelphia in December, 1754.[1288] The transaction, in its international bearings, is considered as Case xxiv. by J. F. Maurice, in his _Hostilities without Declaration of War_, 1700-1870, London, 1883.

* * * * *

For the battle of Great Meadows and surrender at Fort Necessity,[1289] the same authorities suffice us in part, particularly Sparks;[1290] and Parkman points out the dependence he puts upon a letter of Colonel Innes in the _Colonial Records of Pennsylvania_, vi. 50, and a letter of Adam Stephen in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ (no. 1,339), 1754, part of which he prints in his Appendix C.[1291] The provincial interpreter,[1292] Conrad Weiser, kept a journal, which is printed in the _Col. Rec. of Penna._, vi. 150; and Parkman found in the Public Record Office in London a _Journal_ of Thomas Forbes, lately a private soldier in the French service, who was with Villiers.[1293] That the French acted like cowards and the English like fools is given as the Half-King’s opinion, by Charles Thomson, then an usher in a Quaker grammar-school in Philadelphia, and later the secretary of Congress, in his _Enquiry into the Causes of the Alienation of the Delaware and Shawanese Indians_, London, 1759,—a volume of greater rarity than of value, in Sargent’s opinion.[1294]

_A map of the most inhabited part of Virginia, drawn by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson in 1751_, as published later by Jefferys, and included by him in his _General Topography of North America and the West Indies_, 1768 (no. 53), shows the route of Washington in this campaign of 1754.

In Pittsburgh, 1854, was published _Memoirs of Major Robert Stobo of the Virginia Regiment_,[1295] with an introduction by Neville B. Craig, following a copy of a MS., procured by James McHenry from the British Museum. The publication also included, from the Pennsylvania Archives, copies of letters (July 28, 1754), with a plan of Duquesne which Stobo sent to Washington while himself confined in that fort as a hostage, after the capitulation at Fort Necessity, as well as a copy of the articles of surrender.[1296] These letters of Stobo were published by the French government in their _Précis des Faits_, where his plan of the fort is called “exact.”

* * * * *