Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

"In the middle of November, with an interpreter and four
attendants, and Christopher Gist as a guide, he left Will's
Creek, and following the Indian trace through forest
solitudes, gloomy with the fallen leaves, and solemn sadness
of late autumn, across mountains, rocky ravines, and
streams, through sleet and snows, he rode in nine days to
the fork of the Ohio. How lonely was the spot, where, so
long unheeded of men, the rapid Allegheny met nearly at
right angles 'the deep and still' water of the Monongahela!
At once Washington foresaw the destiny of the place. 'I
spent some time,' said he, 'in viewing the rivers;' 'the
land in the Fork has the absolute command of both.' 'The
flat, well-timbered land all around the point lies very
convenient for building.' After creating in imagination a
fortress and a city, he and his party swam their horses
across the Allegheny, and wrapt their blankets around them
for the night, on its northwest bank. From the Fork the
chief of the Delawares conducted Washington through rich
alluvial fields to the pleasing valley at Logstown. There
deserters from Louisiana discoursed of the route from New
Orleans to Quebec, by way of the Wabash and the Maumee, and
of a detachment from the lower province on its way to meet
the French troops from Lake Erie, while Washington held
close colloquy with the half-king; the one anxious to gain
the west as a part of the territory of the ancient dominion,
the other to preserve it for the Red Men. 'We are brothers,'
said the half-king in council; 'we are one people; I will
send back the French speech-belt, and will make the Shawnees
and the Delawares do the same.' On the night of the
twenty-ninth of November, the council-fire was kindled an
aged orator was selected to address the French the speech
which he was to deliver was debated and rehearsed; it was
agreed that, unless the French would heed this third warning
to quit the land, the Delawares also would be their enemies;
and a very large string of black and white wampun was sent
to the Six Nations as a prayer for aid. After these
preparations, the party of Washington, attended by the
half-king, and envoys of the Delawares, moved onwards to the
post of the French at Venango. The officers there avowed the
purpose of taking possession of the Ohio; and they mingled
the praises of La Salle with boasts of their forts at Le
Boeuf and Erie, at Niagara, Toronto, and Frontenac. 'The
English,' said they, 'can raise two men to our one; but they
are too dilatory to prevent any enterprise of ours.' The
Delawares were intimidated or debauched; but the half-king
clung to Washington like a brother, and delivered up his
belt as he had promised. The rains of December had swollen
the creeks. The messengers could pass them only by felling
trees for bridges. Thus they proceeded, now killing a buck
and now a bear, delayed by excessive rains and snows, by
mire and swamps, while Washington's quick eye discerned all
the richness of the meadows. At Waterford, the limit of his
journey, he found Fort Le Boeuf defended by cannon. Around
it stood the barracks of the soldiers, rude log-cabins,
roofed with bark. Fifty birch-bark canoes, and one hundred
seventy boats of pine, were already prepared for the descent
of the river, and materials were collected for building
more. The Commander, Gardeur de St. Pierre, an officer of
integrity and experience, and, for his dauntless courage,
both feared and beloved by the Red Men, refused to discuss
questions of right. 'I am here,' said he, 'by the orders of
my general, to which I shall conform with exactness and
resolution.' And he avowed his purpose of seizing every
Englishman within the Ohio Valley. France was resolved on
possessing the great territory which her missionaries and
travellers had revealed to the world. Breaking away from
courtesies, Washington hastened homewards to Virginia. The
rapid current of French Creek dashed his party against
rocks; in shallow places they waded, the water congealing on
their clothes; where the ice had lodged in the bend of the
rivers, they carried their canoe across the neck. At
Venango, they found their horses, but so weak, the
travellers went still on foot, heedless of the storm. The
cold increased very fast; the paths grew 'worse by a deep
snow continually freezing.' Impatient to get back with his
despatches, the young envoy, wrapping himself in an Indian
dress, with gun in hand and pack on his back, the day after
Christmas quitted the usual path, and, with Gist for his
sole companion, by aid of the compass, steered the nearest
way across the country for the Fork. An Indian, who had lain
in wait for him, fired at him from not fifteen steps'
distance, but, missing him, became his prisoner. 'I would
have killed him,' wrote Gist, 'but Washington forbade.'
Dismissing their captive at night, they walked about half a
mile, then kindled a fire, fixed their course by the
compass, and continued travelling all night, and all the
next day, till quite dark. Not till then did the weary
wanderers 'think themselves safe enough to sleep,' and they
encamped, with no shelter but the leafless forest-tree. On
reaching the Allegheny, with one poor hatchet and a whole
day's work, a raft was constructed and launched. But before
they were half over the river, they were caught in the
running ice, expecting every moment to be crushed, unable to
reach either shore. Putting out the setting-pole to stop the
raft, Washington was jerked into the deep water, and saved
himself only by grasping at the raft-logs. They were obliged
to make for an island. There lay Washington, imprisoned by
the elements; but the late December night was intensely
cold, and in the morning he found the river frozen. Not till
he reached Gist's settlement, in January, 1754, were his
toils lightened."

Washington reported the state of affairs on the Lakes,--and active measures were consequently adopted. Of the rapid and brilliant development of his military genius, we are not now to trace the progress; but it is scarcely possible to read without a shudder of "the hair-breadth 'scapes" of the young man whose life was of such inestimable consequence to his country. Thus, in the battle fought by Braddock--to whom Washington acted as aide-de-camp--against the French and Indians in 1755, he appeared to others as well as to himself to bear a charmed life. In this action, says Mr. Bancroft,--

"Of eighty-six officers, twenty-six were killed--among them,
Sir Peter Halket,--and thirty-seven were wounded, including
Gage and other field officers. Of the men, one half were
killed or wounded. Braddock braved every danger. His
secretary was shot dead; both his English aids were disabled
early in the engagement, leaving the American alone to
distribute his orders. 'I expected every moment,' said one
whose eye was on Washington, 'to see him fall.' Nothing but
the superintending care of Providence could have saved him.
An Indian chief--I suppose a Shawnee--singled him out with
his rifle, and bade others of his warriors do the same. Two
horses were killed under him; four balls penetrated his
coat. 'Some potent Manitou guards his life,' exclaimed the
savage. 'Death,' wrote Washington, 'was levelling my
companions on every side of me, but, by the all-powerful
dispensations of Providence, I have been protected.' 'To the
public,' said Davis, a learned divine, in the following
month, 'I point out that heroic youth, Colonel Washington,
whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved in so signal
a manner for some important service to his country.' 'Who is
Mr. Washington?' asked Lord Halifax, a few months later. 'I
know nothing of him,' he added, 'but that they say he
behaved in Braddock's action as bravely as if he really
loved the whistling of bullets.'"

Thus opened that career of glory, moderation, and success--thus, at the period of nascent manhood were exhibited the marking traits of that serene and devoted character--which have placed the name of Washington on the noblest and loftiest pedestal in the Temple of Fame.

Leaving for a while the only figure in that scene of miserable and savage warfare on which the mind can dwell with any degree of trust and satisfaction, we will move to the north-east of the English settlements, and follow the story of the unhappy people of Acadia. Mr. Bancroft has drawn a touching picture of the homely virtues and obscure happiness of this rural population before the interference of the British officers changed their joy into wailing, and endowed their simple annals with a dark and tragic interest:--

"After repeated conquests and restorations, the treaty of
Utrecht conceded Acadia, or Nova Scotia, to Great Britain.
Yet the name of Annapolis, the presence of a feeble English
garrison, and the emigration of hardly five or six English
families, were nearly all that marked the supremacy of
England. The old inhabitants remained on the soil which they
had subdued, hardly conscious that they had changed their
sovereign. They still loved the language and the usages of
their forefathers, and their religion was graven upon their
souls. They promised submission to England; but such was the
love with which France had inspired them, they would not
fight against its standard or renounce its name. Though
conquered they were French neutrals. For nearly forty years
from the peace of Utrecht they had been forgotten or
neglected, and had prospered in their seclusion. No
tax-gatherer counted their folds, no magistrate dwelt in
their hamlets. The parish priests made their records and
regulated their successions. Their little disputes were
settled among themselves, with scarcely an instance of an
appeal to English authority at Annapolis. The pastures were
covered with their herds and flocks; and dikes, raised by
extraordinary efforts of social industry, shut out the
rivers and the tide from alluvial marshes of exuberant
fertility. The meadows, thus reclaimed, were covered by
richest grasses, or fields of wheat, that yielded fifty and
thirty fold at the harvest. Their houses were built in
clusters, neatly constructed and comfortably furnished, and
around them all kinds of domestic fowls abounded. With the
spinning-wheel and the loom, their women made, of flax from
their own fields, of fleeces from their own flock, coarse,
but sufficient clothing. The few foreign luxuries that were
coveted could be obtained from Annapolis or Louisburgh, in
return for furs, or wheat, or cattle. Thus were the Acadians
happy in their neutrality and in the abundance which they
drew from their native land. They formed, as it were, one
great family. Their morals were of unaffected purity. Love
was sanctified and calmed by the universal custom of early
marriages. The neighbors of the community would assist the
new couple to raise their cottage, while the wilderness
offered land. Their numbers increased, and the colony, which
had begun only as the trading station of a company, with a
monopoly of the fur trade, counted, perhaps, sixteen or
seventeen thousand inhabitants."

The transfer of this colony from French to English rule could not fail to be productive of some untoward results. The native priests feared the introduction among them of heretical opinions:--the British officers treated the people with insolent contempt. "Their papers and records" says our historian, "were taken from them" by their new masters:--

"Was their property demanded for the public service? 'they
were not to be bargained with for the payment.' The order
may still be read on the Council records at Halifax. They
must comply, it was written, without making any terms,
'immediately,' or 'the next courier would bring an order for
military execution upon the delinquents.' And when they
delayed in fetching firewood for their oppressors, it was
told them from the governor, 'If they do not do it in proper
time, the soldiers shall absolutely take their houses for
fuel.' The unoffending sufferers submitted meekly to the
tyranny. Under pretence of fearing that they might rise in
behalf of France, or seek shelter in Canada, or convey
provisions to the French garrisons, they were ordered to
surrender their boats and their firearms; and, conscious of
innocence, they gave up their barges and their muskets,
leaving themselves without the means of flight, and
defenceless. Further orders were afterwards given to the
English officers, if the Acadians behaved amiss to punish
them at discretion; if the troops were annoyed, to inflict
vengeance on the nearest, whether the guilty one or
not,--'taking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'"

There is no reason to believe that these atrocious orders were not executed in the spirit in which they had been conceived. But worse remained to come:--

"The Acadians cowered before their masters, hoping
forbearance; willing to take an oath of fealty to England;
in their single-mindedness and sincerity, refusing to pledge
themselves to bear arms against France. The English were
masters of the sea, were undisputed lords of the country,
and could exercise clemency without apprehension. Not a
whisper gave a warning of their purpose till it was ripe for
execution. But it had been 'determined upon' after the
ancient device of Oriental despotism, that the French
inhabitants of Acadia should be carried away into captivity
to other parts of the British dominions. * * France
remembered the descendants of her sons in the hour of their
affliction, and asked that they might have time to remove
from the peninsula with their effects, leaving their lands
to the English; but the answer of the British Minister
claimed them as useful subjects, and refused them the
liberty of transmigration. The inhabitants of Minas and the
adjacent country pleaded with the British officers for the
restitution of their boats and their guns, promising
fidelity, if they could but retain their liberties, and
declaring that not the want of arms, but their conscience,
should engage them not to revolt. 'The memorial,' said
Lawrence in Council, 'is highly arrogant, insidious and
insulting.' The memorialists, at his summons, came
submissively to Halifax. 'You want your canoes for carrying
provisions to the enemy,' said he to them, though he knew no
enemy was left in their vicinity. 'Guns are no part of your
goods,' he continued, 'as by the laws of England all Roman
Catholics are restrained from having arms, and are subject
to penalties if arms are found in their houses. It is not
the language of British subjects to talk of terms with the
Crown, or capitulate about their fidelity and allegiance.
What excuse can you make for your presumption in treating
this government with such indignity as to expound to them
the nature of fidelity? Manifest your obedience by
immediately taking the oaths of allegiance in the common
form before the Council.' The deputies replied that they
would do as the generality of the inhabitants should
determine; and they merely entreated leave to return home
and consult the body of their people. The next day, the
unhappy men, foreseeing the sorrows that menaced them,
offered to swear allegiance unconditionally."

But it was now too late. The savage purpose had been formed. That the cruelty might have no excuse, it happened that while the scheme was under discussion letters arrived leaving no doubt that all the shores of the Bay of Fundy were in the possession of the British. It only remained to be fixed how the exportation should be effected:--

"To hunt them into the net was impracticable; artifice was
therefore resorted to. By a general proclamation, on one and
the same day, the scarcely conscious victims, 'both old men
and young men, as well as all the lads of ten years of age,'
were peremptorily ordered to assemble at their respective
posts. On the appointed 5th of September, they obeyed. At
Grand Pre, for example, 418 unarmed men came together. They
were marched into the church, and its avenues were closed,
when Winslow, the American commander, placed himself in
their centre, and spoke:--'You are convened together to
manifest to you His Majesty's final resolution to the
French inhabitants of this his province. Your lands, and
tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts,
are forfeited to the crown, and you yourselves are to be
removed from this his province. I am, through his Majesty's
goodness, directed to allow you liberty to carry off your
money and household goods, as many as you can, without
discommoding the vessels you go in.' And he then declared
them the King's prisoners. Their wives and families shared
their lot; their sons, 527 in number, their daughters, 576;
in the whole, women and babes and old men and children all
included, 1,923 souls. The blow was sudden; they had left
home but for the morning, and they never were to return.
Their cattle were to stay unfed in the stalls, their fires
to die out on their hearths. They had for that first day
even no food for themselves or their children, and were
compelled to beg for bread. The 10th of September was the
day for the embarkation of a part of the exiles. They were
drawn up six deep, and the young men, 161 in number, were
ordered to march first on board the vessel. They could leave
their farms and cottages, the shady rocks on which they had
reclined, their herds and their garners; but nature yearned
within them, and they would not be separated from their
parents. Yet of what avail was the frenzied despair of the
unarmed youth? They had not one weapon; the bayonet drove
them to obey; and they marched slowly and heavily from the
chapel to the shore, between women and children, who
kneeling, prayed for blessings on their heads, they
themselves weeping, and praying, and singing hymns. The
seniors went next; the wives and children must wait till
other transport vessels arrived. The delay had its horrors.
The wretched people left behind were kept together near the
sea, without proper food or raiment, or shelter, till other
ships came to take them away; and December with its
appalling cold had struck the shivering, half-clad,
broken-hearted sufferers before the last of them were
removed. 'The embarkation of the inhabitants goes on but
slowly,' wrote Monckton, from Fort Cumberland, near which he
had burned three hamlets, 'the most part of the wives of the
men we have prisoners are gone off with their children, in
hopes I would not send off their husbands without them.'
Their hope was vain. Near Annapolis, a hundred heads of
families fled to the woods, and a party was detached on the
hunt to bring them in. 'Our soldiers hate them,' wrote an
officer on this occasion, 'and if they can but find a
pretext to kill them, they will.' Did a prisoner seek to
escape, he was shot down by the sentinel. Yet some fled to
Quebec; more than 3,000 had withdrawn to Miramichi and the
region south of the Ristigouche; some found rest on the
banks of the St. John's and its branches; some found a lair
in their native forests; some were charitably sheltered from
the English in the wigwams of the savages. But 7,000 of
these banished people were driven on board ships, and
scattered among the English colonies, from New Hampshire to
Georgia alone; 1,020 to South Carolina alone. They were cast
ashore without resources; hating the poor-house as a shelter
for their offspring, and abhorring the thought of selling
themselves as laborers. Households, too, were separated; the
colonial newspapers contained advertisements of members of
families seeking their companions, of sons anxious to reach
and relieve their parents, of mothers mourning for their
children. The wanderers sighed for their native country; but
to prevent their return, their villages, from Annapolis to
the isthmus, were laid waste. Their old homes were but
ruins. In the district of Minas, for instance, 250 of their
houses, and more than as many barns, were consumed. The live
stock which belonged to them, consisting of great numbers of
horned cattle, hogs, sheep, and horses, were seized as
spoils and disposed of by the English officials. A beautiful
and fertile tract of country was reduced to a solitude.
There was none left round the ashes of the cottages of the
Acadians but the faithful watch-dog, vainly seeking the
hands that fed him. Thickets of forest-trees choked their
orchards; the ocean broke over their neglected dikes, and
desolated their meadows."

Nor were the woes of this ill-treated people ended:

"Relentless misfortune pursued the exiles whereever they
fled. Those sent to Georgia, drawn by a love for the spot
where they were born as strong as that of the captive Jews,
who wept by the side of the rivers of Babylon for their own
temple and land, escaped to sea in boats, and went coasting
from harbor to harbor; but when they had reached New
England, just as they would have set sail for their native
fields, they were stopped by orders from Nova Scotia. Those
who dwelt on the St. John's were torn once more from their
new homes. When Canada surrendered, hatred with its worst
venom pursued the 1,500 who remained south of the
Ristigouche. Once more those who dwelt in Pennsylvania
presented a humble petition to the Earl of Loudoun, then the
British Commander in-Chief in America; and the cold-hearted
peer, offended that the prayer was made in French, seized
their five principal men, who in their own land had been
persons of dignity and substance, and shipped them to
England, with the request that they might be kept from ever
again becoming troublesome by being consigned to service as
common sailors on board ships of war."

And so it was throughout:--"We have been true," said they in one of their petitions, "to our religion, and true to ourselves; yet nature appears to consider us only as the objects of public vengeance."--"I know not," writes Mr. Bancroft, "if the annals of the human race keep the records of wounds so wantonly inflicted, so bitter and so perennial as fell upon the French inhabitants of Acadia."

American history has at least one element of peculiar character. The voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers--the settlement of the Virginia cavaliers--the foundation of Pennsylvania,--though all events of profound moral interest, as well as productive of fine pictorial effects, are not without parallels more or less close in the varied tale of ancient and modern colonization. But that which is distinctive and peculiar in the story of American civilization is, its struggle against the Red Men. Settlers, it is true, have often found themselves in strange company. In Africa the Greek colonizer elbowed the swarthy Ethiop. In South America the Spaniard stood beside the Peruvian and the Carib. Dutchmen have encountered the Malay and the Dyak. For two centuries English settlers have had to deal with the uncivilized races of the East and West--from the Bushmen of the Cape to the savages of New Zealand. But none of these races present the same attractive features as the brethren of the Iroquois and the Mohicans. About these latter there are points of romantic and chivalric interest. Though not free from the vices of the savage, they often exhibit virtues which might shame the European. There is something of dignity in their aspect and bearing. They are seldom without a natural and original poetic sense,--and their language has a wild Ossianic music. They are bold in metaphor and apt in natural illustration. A group of actors on the scene having characteristics so peculiar and so attractive as the Red Skin is invaluable to a historian whose tendency is to see events and note character under their most pictorial aspects.

The part taken by the Indians in that war between the French and English in America which ended in the conquest of Quebec and the expulsion of the Lilies from Canada is narrated at great length by Mr. Bancroft,--and the atrocious nature of the conflict is well brought out. At the commencement of the war, we are allowed a glimpse at a curious war-council:

"'Brothers,' said the Delawares to the Miamis, 'we desire
the English and the Six Nations to put their hands upon your
heads, and keep the French from hurting you. Stand fast in
the chain of friendship with the Government of Virginia.'
'Brothers,' said the Miamis to the English, 'your country is
smooth; your hearts are good; the dwellings of your
governors are like the spring in its bloom.' 'Brothers,'
they added to the Six Nations, holding aloft a calumet
ornamented with feathers, 'the French and their Indians have
struck us, yet we kept this pipe unhurt;' and they gave it
to the Six Nations, in token of friendship with them and
with their allies. A shell and a string of black wampum were
given to signify the unity of heart; and that, though it was
darkness to the westward, yet towards the sun-rising it was
bright and clear. Another string of black wampum announced
that the war-chiefs and braves of the Miamis held the
hatchet in their hand, ready to strike the French. The
widowed Queen of the Piankeshaws sent a belt of black shells
intermixed with white. 'Brothers,' such were her words, 'I
am left a poor, lonely woman, with one son, whom I commend
to the English, the Six Nations, the Shawnees, and the
Delawares, and pray them to take care of him.' The Weas
produced a calumet. 'We have had this feathered pipe,' said
they, 'from the beginning of the world; so that when it
becomes cloudy, we can sweep the clouds away. It is dark in
the west, yet we sweep all clouds away towards the
sun-rising, and leave a clear and serene sky.' Thus, on the
alluvial lands of Western Ohio, began the contest that was
to scatter death broadcast through the world. All the
speeches were delivered again to the Deputies of the
Nations, represented at Logstown, that they might be
correctly repeated to the head Council at Onondaga. An
express messenger from the Miamis hurried across the
mountains, bearing to the shrewd and able Dinwiddie, the
Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, a belt of wampum, the scalp
of a French Indian, and a feathered pipe, with letters from
the dwellers on the Maumee and on the Wabash. 'Our good
brothers of Virginia,' said the former, 'we must look upon
ourselves as lost, if our brothers, the English, do not
stand by us and give us arms.' 'Eldest brother,' pleaded the
Picts and Windaws, 'this string of wampum assures you, that
the French King's servants have spilled our blood, and eaten
the flesh of three of our men. Look upon us and pity us, for
we are in great distress. Our chiefs have taken up the
hatchet of war. We have killed and eaten ten of the French
and two of their negroes. We are your brothers; and do not
think this is from our mouth only; it is from our very
hearts.' Thus they solicited protection and revenge."

The Duke of Newcastle was unequal to the task of driving the soldiers of France from Canada or from the valley of the Mississippi. The North and South were both in the hands of France. The route of the Ohio and the Mississippi had been discovered by adventurers and missionaries of that nation; and a few years of quiet possession of the territory would have allowed French statesmen to consolidate their power in those regions, and to draw a strong cordon around the entire group of English colonies on the Atlantic sea-board. But Pitt's genius was brought to bear at a critical moment on the arrangement of this great question--and he conceived the project of breaking the Mississippi line and attacking the enemy in their strongholds on the St. Lawrence. Three expeditions were fitted out. Amherst and Wolfe were ordered to join the fleet under Boscawen, destined to act against Louisburgh--Forbes was sent to the Ohio Valley--Abercrombie was intrusted with the command against Crown Point and Ticonderoga, though Lord Howe was sent out with the last named as the real soul of the enterprise. Mr. Bancroft writes:

"None of the officers won favor like Lord Howe and Wolfe.
Both were still young. To high rank and great connections
Howe added manliness, humanity, capacity to discern merit,
and judgment to employ it. As he reached America, he entered
on the simple austerity of forest warfare. James Wolfe, but
thirty-one years old, had already been eighteen years in the
army; was at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and had won laurels at
Laffeldt. Merit made him at two-and-twenty a
lieutenant-colonel, and his active genius improved the
discipline of his battalion. He was at once authoritative
and humane, severe, yet indefatigably kind; modest, but
aspiring and secretly conscious of ability. The brave
soldier dutifully loved and obeyed his widowed mother, and
his gentle nature saw visions of happiness in scenes of
domestic love, even while he kindled at the prospect of
glory, as 'gunpowder at fire.'"

On the 28th of May the expedition reached Halifax.--

"For six days after the British forces on their way from
Halifax to Louisburgh, had entered Chapeau Rouge Bay, the
surf, under a high wind, made the rugged shore inaccessible,
and gave the French time to strengthen and extend their
lines. The sun still dashed heavily, when, before daybreak,
on the 8th of June, the troops, under cover of a random fire
from the frigates, attempted disembarking. Wolfe, the third
brigadier, who led the first division, would not allow a gun
to be fired, cheered on the rowers, and, on coming to shoal
water, jumped into the sea; and, in spite of the surf, which
broke several boats and upset more, in spite of the
well-directed fire of the French, in spite of their
breastwork and rampart of felled trees, whose interwoven
branches made one continued wall of green, the English
landed, took the batteries, drove in the French, and on the
same day invested Louisburgh. At that landing, none was more
gallant than young Richard Montgomery; just one-and-twenty;
Irish by birth; an humble officer in Wolfe's brigade; but
also a servant of humanity, enlisted in its corps of
immortals. The sagacity of Wolfe honored him with
well-deserved praise, and promotion to a lieutenancy. On the
morning of the 12th, an hour before dawn, Wolfe, with light
infantry and Highlanders, took by surprise the light-house
battery on the north-east side of the entrance to the
harbor; the smaller works were successively carried. On the
23d, the English battery began to play on that of the French
on the island near the centre of the mouth of the harbor.
Science, sufficient force, union among the officers,
heroism, pervading mariners and soldiers, carried forward
the siege, during which Barre by his conduct secured the
approbation of Amherst and the confirmed friendship of
Wolfe. Of the French ships in the port, three were burned on
the 21st of July; in the night following the 25th, the boats
of the squadron, with small loss, set fire to the Prudent, a
seventy-four, and carried off the Bienfaisant. Boscawen was
prepared to send six English ships into the harbor. But the
town of Louisburgh was already a heap of ruins; for eight
days, the French officers and men had had no safe place for
rest; of fifty-two cannon opposed to the English batteries
forty were disabled. The French had but five ships of the
line and four frigates. It was time for the Chevalier de
Drucour to capitulate. The garrison became prisoners of war,
and, with the sailors and marines, in all 5,637, were sent
to England. On the 27th of July, the English took possession
of Louisburgh, and, as a consequence, of Cape Breton and
Prince Edward's Island. Thus fell the power of France on our
eastern coast. Halifax being the English naval station,
Louisburgh was deserted. The harbor still offers shelter
from storms; the coast repels the surge: but a few hovels
only mark the spot which so much treasure was lavished to
fortify, so much heroism to conquer. Wolfe, whose heart was
in England, returned home with the love and esteem of the
army. His country was full of exultation; the trophies were
deposited with pomp in the cathedral of St. Paul's; the
churches gave thanks; Boscawen, himself a member of
parliament, was honored by a unanimous tribute from the
House of Commons. New England, too, triumphed; for the
praises awarded to Amherst and Wolfe recalled the heroism of
her own sons."

This success inspired Pitt to still greater efforts. He resolved to annex the "boundless north," as it was then called, to the British empire in America; and early in the spring Wolfe again went out,--this time, to conquer Quebec and find a soldier's grave. Many of his companions in arms were then and afterwards famous men:--Jervis, afterwards the renowned Earl St. Vincent, James Cook, the navigator, George Townshend, Barre, and Colonel Howe.

"On the 26th of June, the whole armament arrived, without
the least accident, off the Isle of Orleans, on which, the
next day, they disembarked. A little south of west the cliff
of Quebec was seen distinctly, seemingly impregnable, rising
precipitously in the midst of one of the grandest scenes in
nature. To protect this guardian citadel of New France,
Montcalm had of regular troops no more than six wasted
battalions; of Indian warriors few appeared, the wary
savages preferring the security of neutrals; the Canadian
militia gave him the superiority in numbers; but he put his
chief confidence in the natural strength of the country.
Above Quebec, the high promontory on which the upper town is
built expands into an elevated plain, having towards the
river the steepest acclivities. For nine miles or more above
the city, as far as Cape Rouge, every landing-place was
intrenched and protected. The river St. Charles, after
meandering through a fertile valley, sweeps the rocky base
of the town, which it covers by expanding into sedgy
marshes. Nine miles below Quebec, the impetuous Montmorenci,
after fretting itself a whirlpool route, and leaping for
miles down the steps of a rocky bed, rushes with velocity
towards the ledge, over which, falling two hundred and fifty
feet, it pours its fleecy cataract into the chasm. As Wolfe
disembarked on the Isle of Orleans, what scene could be more
imposing? On his left lay at anchor the fleet with the
numerous transports; the tents of his army stretched across
the island; the intrenched troops of France, having their
centre at the village of Beanport, extended from the
Montmorenci to the St. Charles; the city of Quebec,
garrisoned by five battalions, bounded the horizon. At
midnight on the 28th, the short darkness was lighted up by a
fleet of fire-ships, that, after a furious storm of wind,
came down with the tide in the proper direction. But the
British sailors grappled with them and towed them free of
the shipping. The river was Wolfe's; the men-of-war made it
so; and, being master of the deep water, he also had the
superiority on the south-shore of the St. Lawrence. In the
night of the 29th, Monckton, with four battalions, having
crossed the south channel, occupied Point Levi; and where
the mighty current, which below the town expands as a bay,
narrows to a deep stream of but a mile in width, batteries
of mortars and cannon were constructed. The citizens of
Quebec, foreseeing the ruin of their houses, volunteered to
pass over the river and destroy the works; but, at the
trial, their courage failed them, and they retreated. The
English, by the discharge of red-hot balls and shells, set
on fire fifty houses in a night, demolished the lower town,
and injured the upper. But the citadel was beyond their
reach, and every avenue from the river to the cliff was too
strongly intrenched for an assault."

The summer was going rapidly, and as yet no real progress had been made. Wolfe was eager for action,--and he pursued his researches into the nature of the formidable position with extraordinary eagerness:--

"He saw that the eastern bank of the Montmorenci was higher
than the ground occupied by Montcalm, and, on the 9th of
July, he crossed the north channel and encamped there; but
the armies and their chiefs were still divided by the river
precipitating itself down its rocky way in impassable eddies
and rapids. Three miles in the interior, a ford was found;
but the opposite bank was steep, woody, and well intrenched.
Not a spot on the line of the Montmorenci for miles into the
interior, nor on the St. Lawrence to Quebec, was left
unprotected by the vigilance of the inaccessible Montcalm.
The General proceeded to reconnoitre the shore above the
town. In concert with Saunders, on the 18th of July, he
sailed along the well-defended bank from Montmorenci to the
St. Charles: he passed the deep and spacious harbor, which,
at four hundred miles from the sea, can shelter a hundred
ships of the line; he neared the high cliff of Cape Diamond,
towering like a bastion over the waters, and surmounted by
the banner of the Bourbons; he coasted along the craggy wall
of rock that extends beyond the citadel; he marked the
outline of the precipitous hill that forms the north bank of
the river,--and every where he beheld a natural fastness,
vigilantly defended, intrenchments, cannon, boats, and
floating batteries guarding every access. Had a detachment
landed between the city and Cape Rouge, it would have
encountered the danger of being cut off before it could
receive support. He would have risked a landing at St.
Michael's Cove, three miles above the city, but the enemy
prevented him by planting artillery and a mortar to play
upon the shipping. Meantime, at midnight, on the 28th of
July, the French sent down a raft of five-stages, consisting
of nearly a hundred pieces; but these, like the fire-ships a
month before, did but light up the river, without injuring
the British fleet. Scarcely a day passed but there were
skirmishes of the English with the Indians and Canadians,
who were sure to tread stealthily in the footsteps of every
exploring party. Wolfe returned to Montmorenci. July was
almost gone, and he had made no effective advances. He
resolved on an engagement. The Montmorenci, after falling
over a perpendicular rock, flows for three hundred yards,
amidst clouds of spray and rainbow glories, in a gentle
stream to the St. Lawrence. Near the junction, the river
may, for a few hours of the tide, be passed on foot. It was
planned that two brigades should ford the Montmorenci at the
proper time of the tide, while Monckton's regiments should
cross the St. Lawrence in boats from Point Levi. The signal
was made, but some of the boats grounded on a ledge of rocks
that runs out into the river. While the seamen were getting
them off, and the enemy were firing a vast number of shot
and shells, Wolfe, with some of the navy officers as
companions, selected a landing-place; and his desperate
courage thought it not yet too late to begin the attack.
Thirteen companies of grenadiers, and two hundred of the
second battalion of the Royal Americans, who got first on
shore, not waiting for support, ran hastily towards the
intrenchments, and were repulsed in such disorder that they
could not again come into line; though Monckton's regiment
had arrived, and had formed with the coolness of invincible
valor. But hours hurried by; night was near; the clouds of
midsummer gathered heavily, as if for a storm; the tide
rose; and Wolfe, wiser than Frederic at Colin, ordered a
timely retreat."

In this unsuccessful attempt Wolfe lost 400 men. On the tortures of a body wasted by fever and a mind preyed on by its own restless energy, we will not dwell. Wolfe reckoned on assistance from the corps of Amherst,--but this did not arrive. At last he perceived that his fate rested in his own hands alone,--and he conceived the daring plan of attack which has given to his name the soldier's immortality. We extract Mr. Bancroft's account of the brilliant attack which cost our young hero his life and the French their dominions in Northern America:--

"Every officer knew his appointed duty, when, at one o'clock
in the morning of the 13th September, Wolfe, with Monckton
and Murray, and about half the forces, set off in boats, and
without sail or oars, glided down with the tide. In
three-quarters of an hour the ships followed, and, though
the night had become dark, aided by the rapid current, they
reached the cove just in time to cover the landing. Wolfe
and the troops with him leaped on shore; the light infantry,
who found themselves borne by the current a little below the
intrenched path, clambered up the steep hill, staying
themselves by the roots and boughs of the maple and spruce
and ash trees that covered the precipitous declivity, and,
after a little firing, dispersed the picket which guarded
the height. The rest ascended safely by the pathway. A
battery of four guns on the left was abandoned to Colonel
Howe. When Townshend's division disembarked, the English had
already gained one of the roads to Quebec, and, advancing in
front of the forest, Wolfe stood at daybreak with big
invincible battalions on the plains of Abraham, the
battle-field of empire. 'It can be but a small party come to
burn a few houses and retire,' said Montcalm, in amazement,
as the news reached him in his intrenchments the other side
of the St. Charles; but, obtaining better
information,--'Then,' he cried, 'they have at last got to
the weak side of this miserable garrison; we must give
battle and crush them before mid-day.' And before ten, the
two armies, equal in numbers, each being composed of less
than five thousand men, were ranged in presence of one
another for battle. The English, not easily accessible from
intervening shallow ravines, and rail fences, were all
regulars, perfect in discipline, terrible in their fearless
enthusiasm, thrilling with pride at their morning's success,
commanded by a man whom they obeyed with confidence and
love. The doomed and devoted Montcalm had what Wolfe had
called but 'five weak French battalions,' of less than two
thousand men, 'mingled with disorderly peasantry,' formed on
ground which commanded the position of the English. The
French had three little pieces of artillery, the English one
or two. The two armies cannonaded each other for nearly an
hour; when Montcalm, having summoned Bougainville to his
aid, and despatched messenger after messenger for De
Vaudreuil, who had fifteen hundred men at the camp, to come
up, before he should be driven from the ground, endeavored
to flank the British and crowd them down the high bank of
the river. Wolfe counteracted the movement by detaching
Townshend with Amherst's regiment, and afterwards a part of
the Royal Americans, who formed on the left with a double
front. Waiting no longer for more troops, Montcalm led the
French army impetuously to the attack. The ill-disciplined
companies broke by their precipitation and the unevenness of
the ground; and fired by platoons, without unity. The
English, especially the forty-third and forty-seventh, where
Monckton stood, received the shock with calmness; and after
having, at Wolfe's command, reserved their fire till their
enemy was within forty yards, their line began a regular,
rapid, and exact discharge of musketry. Montcalm was present
every where, braving danger, wounded, but cheering by his
example. The second in command, De Sennezergues, an
associate in glory at Ticonderoga, was killed. The brave but
untried Canadians, flinching from a hot fire in the open
field, began to waver; and, so soon as Wolfe, placing
himself at the head of the twenty-eighth and the Louisburgh
grenadiers, charged with bayonets, they every where gave
way. Of the English officers, Carleton was wounded; Barre,
who fought near Wolfe, received in the head a ball which
destroyed the power of vision of one eye, and ultimately
made him blind. Wolfe, also, as he led the charge, was
wounded in the wrist, but still pressing forward, he
received a second ball; and, having decided the day, was
struck a third time, and mortally, in the breast. 'Support
me,' he cried to an officer near him: 'let not my brave
fellows see me drop.' He was carried to the rear, and they
brought him water to quench his thirst. 'They run, they
run,' spoke the officer on whom he leaned. 'Who run?' asked
Wolfe, as his life was fast ebbing. 'The French,' replied
the officer, 'give way every where.' 'What,' cried the
expiring hero, 'do they run already? Go, one of you, to
Colonel Burton; bid him march Webb's regiment with all speed
to Charles River to cut off the fugitives.' Four days
before, he had looked forward to early death with dismay.
'Now, God be praised, I die happy.' These were his words as
his spirit escaped in the blaze of his glory. Night,
silence, the rushing tide, veteran discipline, the sure
inspiration of genius had been his allies; his battle-field,
high over the ocean-river, was the grandest theatre on earth
for illustrious deeds; his victory, one of the most
momentous in the annals of mankind, gave to the English
tongue and the institutions of the Germanic race the
unexplored and seemingly infinite West and North. He crowded
into a few hours actions that would have given lustre to
length of life; and filling his day with greatness,
completed it before its noon."

In that terrible action fell also "the hope of New France." In attempting to rally a body of fugitive Canadians in a copse near St. John's Gate, Montcalm was mortally wounded.

We have quoted enough from this volume to show how varied and stirring are the subjects with which Mr. Bancroft here deals.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] _History of the American Revolution._ By George Bancroft. Vol. I. Boston, Little & Brown, 1852.

From the London Literary Gazette

LIFE IN CANADA.

BY MRS. MOODIE.[6]

If there be one of life's affairs in which woman has a peculiar right to have her wishes considered and her veto respected, it is that of emigration. For, in the arduous task of establishing a new home in a half-settled country, let man do what he will to alleviate, on her fall the burthen and heat of the day. Hers are the menial toils, the frequent anxieties, the lingering home-sickness, the craving after dear friends' faces and a beloved native land. Hers, too, the self-imposed duty and unselfish effort to hide regret under cheerful smiles, when the weary brother or husband returns at evening from toil in field and forest. Blessed and beautiful are the smiles of the sad-hearted, worn to wile away another's cares!

Love in a cottage has long been jeered at, and depicted as flying out of the window. It seems miraculous to behold the capricious little deity steadfastly braving, for many a long year, the chilly atmosphere of a log-hut in an American forest. In the year 1832, Mrs. Moodie (here better remembered as Miss Susanna Strickland, sister of the well-known historian of the English and Scottish Queens) accompanied her husband, a half-pay subaltern, to the backwoods of Canada. Many were her misgivings, and they did not prove unfounded. Long and cruel was the probation she underwent, before finding comparative comfort and prosperity in the rugged land where at first she found so much to embitter her existence. Nobly did she bear up under countless difficulties and sufferings, supported by an energy rare in woman, and by her devoted attachment to the husband of her choice. For some years her troubles were not occasional, but continual and increasing. Her first installation in a forest home could hardly have been more discouraging and melancholy than it was:

"The place we first occupied was purchased of Mr. C----, a
merchant, who took it in payment of sundry large debts,
which the owner, a New England loyalist, had been unable to
settle. Old Joe H--, the present occupant, had promised to
quit it with his family at the commencement of sleighing;
and as the bargain was concluded in the month of September,
and we were anxious to plough for fall wheat, it was
necessary to be upon the spot. No house was to be found in
the immediate neighborhood save a small dilapidated log
tenement, on an adjoining farm (which was scarcely reclaimed
from the bush), that had been some months without an owner.
The merchant assured us that this could be made very
comfortable until such time as it suited H--to remove."

With singular want of caution, Mr. and Mrs. Moodie neglected to visit this "log tenement" before signing an agreement to rent it. On a rainy September day they proceed to take possession:

"The carriage turned into a narrow, steep path, overhung
with lofty woods, and after laboring up it with considerable
difficulty, and at the risk of breaking our necks, it
brought us at length to a rocky upland clearing, partially
covered with a second growth of timber, and surrounded on
all sides by the dark forest. 'I guess,' quoth our Yankee
driver, 'that at the bottom of this 'ere swell, you'll find
yourself _to hum_;' and plunging into a short path cut
through the wood, he pointed to a miserable hut, at the
bottom of a steep descent, and cracking his whip, exclaimed,
'It's a smart location that. I wish you Britishers may enjoy
it.' I gazed upon the place in perfect dismay, for I had
never seen such a shed called a house before. 'You must be
mistaken; that is not a house, but a cattle-shed, or
pig-sty.' The man turned his knowing keen eye upon me, and
smiled, half humorously, half maliciously, as he said, 'You
were raised in the old country, I guess; you have much to
learn, and more perhaps than you'll like to know, before the
winter is over.'"

The prophet of evil spoke truly. It was a winter of painful instruction for the inexperienced young woman, and her not very prudent husband. We might fill columns with a bare list of their vexations and disasters. Amongst the former, not the least arose from the borrowing propensities of their neighbors. They had 'located' in a bad neighborhood, in the vicinity of a number of low Yankee squatters, "ignorant as savages, without their courtesy and kindness." These people walked unceremoniously at all hours into their wretched dwelling, to criticise their proceedings, make impertinent remarks, and to borrow--or rather to beg or steal, for what they borrowed they rarely returned. The most extraordinary loans were daily solicited or demanded; and Mrs. Moodie, strange and timid in her new home, and amongst, these semi-barbarians--her husband, too, being much away at the farm--for some time dared not refuse to acquiesce in their impudent extortions. Here is a specimen of the style of these miscalled 'borrowings.' On the first day of their arrival, whilst they were yet toiling to exclude wind and rain from the crazy hovel, which their baggage and goods filled nearly to the roof, a young Yankee 'lady' squeezed herself into the crowded room:

"Imagine a girl of seventeen or eighteen years of age, with
sharp, knowing-looking features, a forward impudent carnage,
and a pert flippant voice, standing upon one of the trunks,
and surveying all our proceedings in the most impertinent
manner. The creature was dressed in a ragged, dirty, purple
stuff gown, cut very low in the neck, with an old red cotton
handkerchief tied over her head; her uncombed, tangled locks
falling over her thin, inquisitive face in a state of
perfect nature. Her legs and feet were bare, and in her
coarse, dirty, red hands she swung to and fro an empty glass
decanter."

The mission of this squalid nymph was not to borrow but to lend. She "guessed the strangers were fixin' there," and that they'd want a glass decanter to hold their whisky, so she had brought one over. "But mind--don't break it," said she; "'tis the only one we have to hum, and father says it's so mean to drink out of green glass"--a sentiment worthy of a colonel of hussars. Although quite pleased by such disinterested kindness and attention, Mrs. Moodie declined the decanter, on the double ground of having some of her own, and of not drinking whisky. The refusal was unavailing. The lady in ragged purple set down the bottle on a trunk, as firmly as if she meant to plant it there, and took herself off. The next morning cleared up the mystery of her perseverance. "Have you done with that 'ere decanter I brought across yesterday?" said the 'cute damsel, presenting herself before Mrs. Moodie with her bare red knees peeping through her ragged petticoats, and with face and hands innocent of soap. The English lady returned the bottle, with the remark that she had never needed it.

"'I guess you won't return it empty,' quoth the obliging
neighbor; 'that would be mean, father says. He wants it
filled with whisky.'"

The hearty laugh which this solution of the riddle provoked from the inmates of the log-house offended the female Yankee, who tossed the decanter from hand to hand and glared savagely about her. But the ridicule was insufficient to deter her from the whisky hunt. When assured there was none in the place, she demanded rum, and pointed to a keg, in which she said she smelt it. Her keen olfactories had not deceived her. The rum, she was told, was for the workmen: