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Mapa, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratioa. Thoaa too large to be entirely included in one expoaure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand comer. \mti to right and top to bottom, aa many framea aa required. The following diagrama illuatrate the method: Lee cartea, planches, tableaux, ate. pauvent dtro filmAa A dee taux de reduction diff Arents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour itre reproduit en un seul clichA, il est film* it partir de i'angle aupArieur gauche, de gauche h droite. et de haut en baa, an prenant la nombra d'l. lages nAcessaira. 1.^8 diagrammea suivants illuatrant la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 THE WORKS OP FRANCIS PARKMAN^. CHAMPLATN EDITION. Vol. XIII. Twenty-Jive Copies of the Cbampiain Edition have been printed for Presentation. w^ ii m. 7 'nr'iiir'ifiitiiiiiiiiiliMlnii ■ ■rjy'ir jSoiU lull, Sr^an. Shi: f Ciupi,' H- I 'f_Purui vntr !•/ r^ .'riotnaj oaii i M^Jrqids de Montcalm. .1< c wtitif lit L MONTCAi.M AND WOLFE. FRANCE AND ENGLAND t^ NORTH AMERICA. Part S venth. BY FRANCIS PARKMAN. IN THREE VOLUMES. Vol. I. BOSTON: IJTTLE, IJROWN, AND COMPANY. 1897. Flhliotheque, ^. Scrninairo de Qu6be-: 3, rue de rUniversile, /.^^"'^i^. r Copyright, 188^, By Francis Pakkman. Copyright, 1897, By Littlk, Brown, anu Company. 81ntbcrstt]D Press: John Wilson and Son, CAJinuinGK, U.S.A. *'«*«*M|H Si IlifiiiMiMlH TO HARVARD COLLEGE, TKE ALMA MATER UNDER WHOSE INFLUENCE THE PURPOSE OF WRITING IT WAS CONCEIVED, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. -JWiMiliiiiiiiBg € ( 1 I d i] o tl o T b mmsh ■'»»(teDiwfci< PREFACE. The names on the titlepage stand as repre- sentative of the two nations whose final contest for the control of North America is the subject of the book. A very large amount of unpublished material has been used in its preparation, consisting for the most part of documents copied from the archives and libraries of France and England, especially from the Archives de la Marine et des Colonies, the Archives de la Guerre, and the Archives Nationales at Paris, and the Public Record Office and the British Museum at Lon- don. The papers copied for the present work in France alone exceed six thousand folio pages of manuscript, additional and supplementary'^to the " P^ris Documents " procured for the State of New York under the agency of Mr. Brodhead. The copies made m England form ten volumes, besides many English documents consulted in I a^^MJiiitlkfliiM J' VUl PREFACE. ■ the original manuscript. Great numbers of autograph letters, diaries, and other writings of persons engaged in the war have also been examined on this side of the Atlantic. I owe to the kindness of the present Marquis de Montcalm the permission to copy all the let- ters written by his ancestor, General Montcalm, when in America, to members of his family in France. General Montcalm, from his first ar- rival in Canada to a few days before his death, also carried on an active correspondence with one of his chief officers, Bourlamaque, with whom he was on terms of intimacy. These autograph letters are now preserved in a private collection. I have examined them, and obtained copies of the whole. They form an interesting complement to the official correspondence of the writer, and throw the most curious side-lights on the persons and events of the time. Besides manuscripts, the printed matter in the form of books, pamphlets, contemporary news- papers, and other publications relating to the American part of the Seven Years' War, is varied and abundant ; and I believe I may safely say that nothing in it of much consequence has escaped me. The liberality of some of the older States of the Union, especially New York and it PREFACE. ix Pennsylvania, in printing the voluminous records of their colonial history, has saved me a deal of tedious labor. The whole of this published and unpublished mass of evidence has been read and collated with extreme care, and more than common pains have been taken to secure accuracy of statement. The study of books and papers, however, could not alone answer the purpose. The plan of the work was formed in early youth ; and though various causes have long delayed its execution, it has always been kept in view. Meanwhile, I have visited and examined every spot where events of any importance in connection with the contest took place, and have observed with at- tention such scenes and persons as might help to illustrate those I meant to describe. In short, the subject has been studied as much from life and in the open air as at the library table. These two volumes are a departure from chro- nological sequence. The period between 1700 and 1748 has been passed over for a time. When this gap is filled, the series of « France and England in North America " will form a continuous history of the French occupation of the continent. The portrait in the first volume is from a i\ ?1 f^ X PREFACE. photograph of the original picture in possession of the Marquis de Montcalm ; that in the second, from a photograph of the original picture in possession of Admiral Warde. Boston, Sfcptember 16, 1884. CONTENTS. Introduction Page 3 CHAPTER I. 1745-1755. THE COMBATANTS. England in the Eighteenth Century : her Political and Social Ao'pects; her Military Condition. — France : her Power and Importance. — Sig'is of Decay. - The Court, the Nobles, the Clergy, the People. — The King and Pompadour. —The Philosophers. — Germany. — Prussia. — Frederic II. — Rus- sia.— State of Europe.- War of the Austrian Succession. — American Colonies of France and England. — Contrasted Systems and their Results. - Canada : its Strong Military . Position. — French Claims to the Continent. — British Colo- mes. -New England. — Virginia. - Pennsylvania. - New York. — Jealousies, Divisions, Internal Disputes. — Miiitary Weakness •' CHAPTER II. 1749-1752. CilLORON DE BIENVILTjB. La Galissonifere. - English Encroachment. - Mission of Celoron. -The Groat West: its European Claimants; its Indian Population. -English Fur-traders. - Celoron on the Alle- ghany: his Reception; his Difficulties. - Descent of the Ohio. -Covert Hostility. - Ascent of the Miami. -La Demoiselle. -Dark Prospects for France. - Christopher Gist, George Croghan: their Western Mission. — Picka- willany.- English Ascendency. - English Dissension and Rivalry. — The Key of the Great West ... 39 f :f 1 r Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. 1749-1753. CONFMCT FOR THE WEST. The Five Nations.— Caughimw.igft.— Abbe Piquet : his Schemes ; his Journey. — Fort Frontenac. — Toronto. — Niagara. — Oswego. — Success of Piquet. — Detroit. — La Jonquifere : his Intrigues; his Trials; his Death. — English Intrigues.— Critical State of the West. — Pickawillany destroyed. — Duquesne : his Grand Enterprise Page 67 fpi CHAPTER IV. 1710-1754. CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. Acadia ceded to England. — Acadians swear Fidelity. — Halifax founded.— French Intrigue. — Acadian Priests. — Mildness of English Rule. — Covert Hostility of Acadians. — The New Oath.— Treachery of Versailles. — Indians incited to War. — Clerical Agents of Revolt. — Abbfe Le Loutre. — Acadians impelled to emigrate. — Misery of the Emigrants. — Humanity of Cornwallis and Hopson. — Fanaticism and Violence of Le Loutre. — Capture of the "St. Francois." — The English at Beaubassin. — Le Loutre drives out the Inhabitants. — Mur- der of Howe. — Beaus^jour. — Insolence of Le Loutre: his Harshness to the Acadians. — The Boundary Commission : its Failure. — Approaching War 94 CHAPTER V. 1753, 1754. WASHINGTON. The F»ench occupy the Sources of the Ohio : their Sufferings. — Fort Le Bceuf. — Legardeur de Saint-Pierre. — Mission of Washington. — Robert Diiiwiddie : ho opposes the French; his Dispute with the Burgesses; his Energy; his Ap- peals for Help. — Fort Duquesne. — Death of Jumonville. — Washington at the Great Meadows. — Conlon de Villiers. — Fort Necessity , 183 CONTENTS. xui CHAFi^R VI. 1754, 1755, THE SIGNAL OF BATTLB. Troubles of Dinwiddio. — Gathering of the Burgesses. — Vir- ginian Society. — Refractory Legislators. — The Quaker As- sembly: it refuses to resist the French. — Apathy of Now York.— Shirley and the General Court of Massachusetts.— Shortsighted Policy. — Attitude of Royal Governors. — In- dian Allies waver. — Convention at Albany. — Scheme of Union: it fails. — Dinwiddle and Glen. — Dinwiddio calls on England for Help. — The Duke of Newcastle. — Weak- ness of the British Cabinet. — Attitude of France. — Mutual Dissimulation.- Both Powers send Troops to America.— Collision. — Capture of the "Alcide" and the "Lis" . Pagb 168 CHAPTER VIL 1755. BRADDOCK. Arrival of Braddock : his Character. — Council at Alexandria. — Plan of the Campaign. —Apathy of the Colonists. — Rage of Braddock. — Franklin. — Fort Cumberland. — Composi- tion of the Army. — Offended Friends. — The March. — The French Fort. — Savage Allies —The Captive. — Beaujeu : he goes to meet the English. — Passage of the Monongahela. — The Surprise.- The Battle.— Rout of Braddock: his Death. — Indian Ferocity. — Reception of the 111 News.— Weaknessof Dunbar. — The Frontier abandoned .... 194 CHAPTER vm. 1755. REMOVAL OF THE ACADIAN8. State of Acadia. — Threatened Invasion. — Peril of the English • their Plans.— French Forts to be attacked. _ Beausejour and Its Occupants. — French Treatment of the Acadians — John Winslow. — Siege and Capture of Beausejour. — Atti- xiy CONTENTS. Paob tilde of AcaciianB. — Influence of their Priertf. : thoy refuse the Oath of Allegiance ; their Condition and Character. — I'rotended Neutrals. — Moderation of English Authorities. — The Acadians persist in their Hefusal. — Knoinies or Suh- jects ? — Choice of the Acadians. — The Consequence. — Their Kemoval determined. — Winslow at Grand Prd. — Conference with Murray. — Summons to the Inhabitants: their Sci/.ure; their Embarkation ; their Fate ; their Treatment in Canada! — Misapprehensiou concerning them 243 CHAPTER IX. 1755. DIE8K.VU. Expedition against Crown Point. — William Johnson. — Vau- dreuil. — Dieskau — Johnson and the Indians. — The Pro- vincial Army. — Doubts and Delays. — March to Lake George. — Sunday in Camp. — Advance of Dieskau : he changes Plan. -*- Marches against Johnson. — Ambush. — Rout of Provincials. — Battle of Luke Gef)r^o. — Rout of the French.— Rage of the Mohawks. — Peril of Diesk.iu. — In- action of Johnson. — The Homeward March. — Laurels of Victory 206 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. OLUME ONE. Loiis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm-Gozon de SAiNT-VrfRAN Frontispiece From the orlgtakl painting in tlie possession of Uie Marquis de Montcalm. Bkitisii Colonies and Nouthebn New France. ''''-'''^ Page 9 COMTE DE GaUSSONiIsrb (i ^q From an engraving by Barin, in the Biblioth6que Nation ale. Facsimile op the Inscription on a Lead Plate HtlRIED BY Cl^LORON DE BlENVILLE « sj After a photograpli of the original. Governor James Hamilton « go From the painting by Benjamin West, in the State House, PhUadelphla. Acadia, with Adjacent Islands, 1755 « 34 Robert Dinwiddie ... " 142 From the painting belonging to Mias Mary Dtawiddio, London. Chevalier de lAyis From the painting by Mme. Haudebourt, in the Versailles Gallery. ' Admiral Edward Boscawen "109 ''"' J. Reynolds!"^ '"^'"^"^ ^^ ''■ ^^'^'^'^^^ '^^^ <» Pointing by A Sketch of the Field op Battle, July 9, 1755 . « 221 Sir Peter Halket . . „ "224 The Region of Lake George from Surveys made IN 1762 .... "296 Israel Putnam .... „ „^ "802 From a mezzotint engravirg after a painting by J, Wilkinson. "m'tM'-iy.- MONTCALM AND WOLFE. 3au,-^.i)iMM«£,M« AND 17SO - 1760. .y Ch erdkeii ^ i w ^ Attrikn'ln J^ r v^k a 81 C( N fr m of fr( by Bi MONTCALM AND WOLFE. INTKODUCTION. It is the nature of great events to obscure the great events that came before them. The Seven Yeara' War in Europe is seen but dimly through revolution^ ary convulsions and Napoleonic tempests; and the same contest in America is half lost to sight behind the storm-cloud of the War of Independence. Few at this day see the momentous issues involved in it, or the greatness of the danger that it averted. The strife that armed all the civilized world began here. "Such was the complication of political interests," says Voltaire, "that a cannon-shot fired in America could give the signal that set Europe in a blaze." Not quite. It was not a cannon-shot, but a volley from the hunting-pieces of a few backwoodsmen, com- manded by a Virginian youth, George Washington. To us of this day, the result of the American part of the war seems a foregone conclusion. It was far from being so; and very far from being so regarded by our forefathers. The numerical superiority of the British colonies was offset by organic weaknesses t tj 4 INTRODUCTION. fatal to vigorous and united action. Nor at the out- set did they, or the mother-country, aim at conquer- ing Canada, but only at pushing back her boundaries. Canada — using the name in its restricted sense — was a position of great strength ; and even when her dependencies were overcome, she could hold her own against forces far superior. Armies could reach her only by three routes, — the Lower St. Lawrence on the east, the Upper St. Lawrence on the west, and Lake Champlain on the south. The first access was guarded by a fortress almost impregnable by nature, and the second by a long chain of dangerous rapids ; while the third offered a series of points easy to defend. During this same war, Frederic of Prussia held his ground triumphantly against greater odds, though his kingdom was open on all sides to attack. It was the fatuity of Louis XV. and his Pompadour that made the conquest of Canada possible. Had they not broken the traditionary policy of France, allied themselves to Austria, her ancient enemy, and plunged needlessly into the European war, the whole force of the kingdom would have been turned, from the first, to the humbling of England and the defence of the French colonies. The French soldiers left dead on inglorious Continental battle-fields could have saved Canada, and perhaps made good her claim to the vast territories of the West. But there were other contingencies. The posses- sion of Canada was a question of diplomacy as well as of war. If i^^ngland conquered her, she might INTRODUCTION. 5 restore her, as she had lately restored Cape Breton. She had an interest in keeping France alive on the American continent. More than one clear eye saw, at the middle of the last century, that the subjection of Canada would lead to a revolt of the Biitish colonies. So long as an active and enterprising enemy threatened their borders, they could not break with the mother-country, because they needed her help. And if the arms of France had prospered in the other hemisphere; if she had gained in Europe or Asia territories with which to buy back what she had lost in America, then, in all likelihood, Canada would have passed again into her hands. The most momentous and far-reaching question ever brought to issue on this continent was: Shall France remain here, or shall she not? If, by diplo- macy or war, she had preserved but the half, or less than the half, of her American possessions, then a barrier would have been set to the spread of the Eng- lish-speaking races; there would have been no Revo- lutionary War; and for a long time, at least, no independence. It was not a question of scanty popu- lations strung along the banks of the St. Lawrence; it was — or under a government of any worth it would have been — a question of the armies and generals of France. America owes much to the imbecility of Louis XV. and the ambitious vanity and personal dislikes of his mistress. The Seven Years' War made England what she is. It crippled the commerce of her rival, ruined France I 6 INTRODUCTION. in two continents, and blighted her as a colonial power. It gave England the control of the seas and the mastery of North America and India, made her the first of commercial nations, and prepared that vast colonial system that has planted new Englands in every quarter of the globe. And while it made England what she is, it supplied to the United States the indispensable condition of their greatness, if not of their national existence. Before entering on the story of the great contest, we will look at the parties to it on both sides of the Atlantic. CHAPTER I. 1746-.756. THE COMBATANTS. EmLAHD IN THB EiaHTEENTH CbNTORV : HER POLITICAL AWT> Social Aspects; her Military Conditio>,.- SS^ tZ Power and Importance. -Signs op Decay. - The Court Pompa;:;"? t1 p'"°'' ™^ ^— -The Kino To FredeT tT I Pn'^««o™BR8. _ Germany. - Pbussia. - *REDE„ic II. - Russia. - State op Europe.- War of the Austrian Succession. - American Colonies of France Z clslT ~ ^r'"*"'^'' •^^^^^"^ ^-- -«-H Results - Canada: ITS Strong Military Position. - French ClaJT TO the Cont^nent.- British Colonies. -New ^0.1^ — ViRoiNJA. — Pennsylvania. — Npw Ynp,r ''"I^ngland. Divisions. Internal Disputes. -MiuTA^RTwrAirs'^""' The latter half of the reign of George II. was one ot the most prosaic periods in English histonr. The civil wars and the Restoration had had their enthusi- asms, religion and liberty on one side, and loyalty on the other; but the old fires declined when William 111. came to the throne, and died to ashes under the House of Hanover. Loyalty lost half its inspiration when It lost the tenet of the divine right of kings- and nobody could now hold that tenet with any con- sistency except the defeated and despairing Jacobites. JNor had anybody as yet proclaimed the rival dogma f f 8 THE COMBATANTS. [1746-1765. of the divine right of the people. The reigning monarch held his crown neither of God nor of the nation, but of a parliament controlled by a ruling claas. The Whig aristocrBcy had done a priceless service to English liberty. It was full of political capacity, and by no means void of patriotism ; but it was only a part of the national life. Nor was it at present moved by political emotions in any high sense. It had done its great work when it expelled the Stuarts and placed William of Orange on the throne; its ascendency was now complete. The Stuarts had received their death-blow at CuUoden; and nothing was left to the dominant party but to dispute on subordinate questions, and contend for office among Uiemselves. The Tory squires sulked in their country-houses, hunted foxes, and grumbled against the reigning dynasty, yet hardly wished to see the nation convulsed by a counter-revolution and another return of the Stuarts. If politic^ had run to commonplace, so had morals ; and so too had religion. Besponc'^nt writers of the day even complained that British courage had died out. There was little sign to the common eye that, under a dull and languid surface, forces were at work preparing a new life, material, moral, and intel- lectual. As yet, Whitefield and Wesley had not wakened the drowsy conscience of the nation, nor the voice of William Pitt roused it like a trumpet- peal. It was the unwashed and unsavory England of i I I i 1745-1755.] ENGLAND. 9 Hogarth, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterae; of Tom Jones, Squire Western, Lady Bellaston, and Paraon Adams; of the "Rake's Progress "and "Marriage & la Mode; " of the lords and ladies who yet live in the undying gossip of Horace Walpole, be-powdeied, be-patched, and l)e-rouged, flirting at masked Imllsi playing cards till daylight, rettiiling scandal, and exchanging double meanings. Beau Nash reigned king over the gaming-talles of Bath; tlie ostrich- plumes of great ladies mingled with the peacock- feathers of courtesans in the rotunda at Ranelagh Gardens; and young lords in velvet suits and em- broidered ruffles played away their patrimony at Wliite's Chocolate-House or Arthur's Club. Vice was bolder than to-day, and manners more courtly, perhaps, but far more coarse. The humbler clergy were thought — sometimes with reason — to be r.o fit company for gentlemen, and country pareons drank their ale in the squire's kitchen. The passenger-wagon spent the better part of a fortnight in creeping from London to York. Travellei^ carried pistols against footpads and mounted highwaymen. Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard were popular heioes. Tyburn counted its victims by scores; and as yet no Howard had ap- peared to reform the inhuman abominations of the prisons. The middle class, though fast rising in importance, was feebly and imperfectly represented in Parliament. The boroughs were controlled by the nobility and I 1^ THE COMBATANTS. [1745-1755. gentry, or by corporations open to influence or bribery. Parliamentary corrnption had been reduced to a 8yr.:3m; and offices, sinecures, pensions, and gifts of money were freely used to keep ministers in power. The great offices of State were held by men sometimes oi high ability, but of whom not a few divided their lives among politics, cards, wine, horse- racing, and women, till time and the gout sent them to the waters of Bath. The dull, pompous, and irascible old King had two ruling passions, — money, and his Continental dominions of Hanover. His elder son, the Prince of Wales, was a centre of oppo- sition to him. His younger son, the Duke of Cum- berland, a character far more pronounced and vigorous, had won the day at Culloden, and lost it at Fontenoy'; but whether victor or vanquished, had shown the same vehement bull-headed courage, of late a little subdued by fast-growing corpuhncy. The Duke of Newcastle, the head of the government, had gained power and kept it by his rank and connections, his wealth, his county influence, his control of boroughs, and the extraordinary assiduity and devotion with which he practised the arts of corruption. Henry Fox, grasping, unscrupulous, with powerful talents, a warm friend after his fashion, and a most indulgent father; Carteret, with his strong, versatile intellect and jovial intrepidity; the two Townshends, Mans- field, Halifax, and Chesterfield, — were conspicuous figures in the politics of the time. One man towered above them all. Pitt had many enemies and many 1745-1755.] FRANCE. 11 critics. They called him ambitious, audacious, arro- gant, theatrical, pompous, domineering; but what he has left for posterity is a loftiness of soul, undaunted courage, fiery and passionate eloquence, proud incor- ruptibility, domestic virtues rare in his day, un- bounded faith in the cause for which he stood, and abilities which without wealth or strong connections were destined to place him on the height of power. The middle class, as yet almost voiceless, looked to him as its champion ; but he was not the champion of a class. His patriotism was as comprenensive as it was haughty and unbending. He lived for England, loved her with intense devotion, knew her, believed in her, and made her greatness his own; or rather, he was himself England incarnate. The nation was not then in fighting equipment. After the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the army within the three kingdoms had been reduced to about eigh- teen thousand men. Added to these were the gar- risons of Minorca and Gibraltar, and six or seven independent companies in the American colonies. Of sailors, less than seventeen thousand were left in the Royal Navy. Such was the condition of England on the eve of one of the most formidable wars in which she was ever engaged. Her rival across the Channel was drifting slowly and unconsciously towards the cataclysm of the Revolution; yet the old monarchy, full of the germs of decay, was still imposing and formidable. The H I 12 THE COMBATANTS. [1745-1755. House of Bourbon held the three thrones of France, Spain, and Naples; and their threatened union in a family compact was the terror of European diplomacy. At home France was the foremost of the Continental nations; and she boasted herself second only to Spain as a colonial power. She disputed with Eng- land the mastery of India, owned the islands of Bourbon and Mauritius, held important possessions in the West Indies, and claimed all North America except Mexico and a strip of sea-coast. Her navy was powerful, her army numerous and well appointed ; but she lacked the great commanders of the last reign. Soubise, Maillebois, Contades, Broglie, and Clermont were but wea' successors of Cond^, Turenne, Ven- dome, and Villars. Marshal Richelieu was supreme in the arts of gallantry, and more famous for con- quests of love than of war. The best generals of Louis XV. were foreigners. Lowendal sprang from the royal house of Denmark; and Saxe, the best of all, was one of the three hundred and fifty-four bas- tards of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. He was now, 1750, dying at Cham- bord, his iron constitution ruined by debaucheries. The triumph of the Bourbon monarchy was com- plete. The government had become one great ma- chine of centralized administration, with a king for its head; though a king who neither could nor would direct it. All strife was over between he Crown and the nobles ; feudalism was robbed of its vitality, and left the mere image of its former self, with noth- 1745-1755.] FRANCE. 18 ing alive but its abuses, its caste privileges, its ex- actions, its pride and vanity, its power to vex and oppress. In England, the nobility were a living part of the nation, and if they had privileges, they paid for them by constant service to the State ; in France, they had no political life, and were separated from the people by sharp lines of demarcation. From warrior chiefs, they had changed to courtiers. Those of them who could afford it, and many who could not, left their estates to the mercy of stewards, and gathered at Versp.illes to revolve about the throne as glittering satellites, paid in pomp, empty distinctions, or rich sinecures, for the power they had lost. They ruined their vassals to support the extravagance by which they ruined themselves. Such as stayed at home were objects of pity and scorn. " Out of your Majesty's presence," said one of then , "we are not only wretched, but ridiculous." Versailles was like a vast and gorgeous theatre, where all were actors and spectators at once; and all played their parts to perfection. Here swarmed by thousands this silken nobility, whose ancestors rode cased in iron. Pageant followed pageant. A picture of the time preserves for us an evening in the great i hall of the Chateau, where the King, with piles of louis d'or before him, sits at a large oval green table, throwing the dice, among princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, ambassadors, marshals of France, and a vast throng of courtiers, like an ani- mated bed of tulips; for men and women alike wear 14 THE COMBATANTS. [1745-1755. H ''i I ■ bright and varied colors. Above are the frescoes of Le Brun ; around are walls of sculptured and inlaid marbles, with miiTors that reflect the restless splendors of the scene and the blaze of chandeliers, sparkling with crystal pendants. Pomp, magnificence, profu- sion, were a business and a duty at the Court. Versailles was a gulf into which the labor of France poured its earnings; and it was never full. Here the graces and charms were a political power. Women had prodigious influence, and the two sexes were never more alike. Men not only dressed in colors, but they wore patches and carried muffs. The robust qualities of the old nobility still lingered among the exiles of the provinces, while at Court they had melted into refinements tainted with corrup- tion. Yet if the butterflies of Versailles had lost virility, they had not lost courage. They fought as gayly as they danced. In the halls which they haunted of yore, turned now into a historical picture- gallery, one sees them still, on the canvas of Lenfant, Lepaon, or Vernet, facing death with careless gal- lantry, in their -mall three-cornered hats, powdered perukes, embroidered coats, and lace ruffles. Their valets served them with ices in the trenches, under the cannon of besieged towns. A troop of actors formed part of the army-train of Marshal Saxe. At night there was a comedy, a ballet, or a ball, and in the morning a battle. Saxe^ however, himself a sturdy German, while he recognized their fighting value, and knew well how to make the best of it, 1745-1755.] FRANCE. I5 sometimes complained that they were volatile, excit- able, and difficult to manage. The weight of the Court, with ite pomps, luxuries, and wars, bore on the classes least able to support it. The poorest were taxed most; the richest not at all. The nobles, in the main, were free from imposts. The clergy, who had vast possessions, were wholly free, though they consented to make voluntary gifts to the Crown; and when, in a time of emergency, the minister Machault required them, in common with all others hit^ -to exempt, to contribute a twentieth of their .v . -.. to the charges of govern- ment, they passior c.^lj 1 'used, declaring that they would obey God ru ' ■ than the King. The culti- vators of the soil were ground to the earth by a threefold extortion, — the seigniorial dues, the tithes of the Church, and the multiplied exactions of the Crown, enforced with merciless rigor by the farmers of the revenue, who enriched themselves by wring- ing the peasant on the one hand, and cheating the King on the other. A few great cities shone with all that is most brilliant in society, intellect, and concentred -^^alth; while the country that paid tho costs lay in ignorance and penury, crushed and despairing. On the inhabitants of towns, too, the demands of the tax-gatherer were extreme; but here the immense vitality of the French people bore up the burden. While agriculture languished, and mtolerable oppression turned peasants into beggars or desperadoes; while the clergy were sapped by cor- ill 16 THE COMBATANTS. [1745-1755. ruption, and the nobles enervated by luxury and ruined by extravagance, — the middle class was grow- ing in thrift and strength. Arts and commerce pros- pered, and the seaports were alive with foreign trade. Wealth tended from all sides towards the centre. The King did not love his capital; but he and his f;iv rites amused themselves with adorning it. Some o' tie chief embellishments that make Paris what it is to-day — the Place de la Concorde, the Champs :6lys^es, and many of the palaces of the Faubourg St. Germain — date from this reign. One of the vicious conditions of the time was the separation in sympathies and interests of the four great classes of the nation, — clergy, nobles, burghers, and peasants ; and each of these, again, divided itself into incoherent fragments. France was an aggregate of disjointed parts, held together by a meshwork of arbitrary pov/er, itself touched with decay. A dis- astrous blow was struck at the national welfare when the government of Louis XV. revived the odious persecution of the Huguenots. The attempt to scour heresy out of France cost her the most industrious and virtuous part of her population, and robbed her of those most fit to resist the mocking scepticism and turbid passions that burst out like a deluge with the Revolution. Her manifold ills were summed up in the King. Since the Valois, she had had no monarch so worth- less. He did not want understanding, still less the graces of person. In his youth the people called him 1745-175.3.] FRANCE. 17 the "Well-beloved;" but by the middle of the cen- tury they so detested him that he dared not pass through Paris, lest the mob should execrate him. He had not the vigor of the true tyrant; but his languor, his hatred of all effort, his profound selfish- ness, his listless disregard of public duty, and his effeminate libertinism, mixed with superstitious devo- tion, made him no less a national curse. Louis XIII. was equally unfit to govern; but he gave the reins to the Great Cardinal. Louis XV. abandoned them to a frivolous mistress, content that she should rule on condition of amusing him. It was a hard task; yet Madame de Pompadour accomplished it by methods infamous to liim and to her. She gained and long kept the power that she coveted: filled the Bastille with her enemies; made and unmade ministers; appointed and removed generals. Great questions of policy were at the mercy of her caprices. Through her frivolous vanity, her personal likes and dislikes, aU the great departments of government — army,' navy, war, foreign affairs, justice, finance — changed from hand to hand incessantly, and this at a time of crisis when the kingdom needed the steadiest and surest guidance. Few of the officers of State, excep; perhaps, D'Argenson, could venture to disregard her. She turned out Orry, the comptroller-general, put her favorite, Machault, into his place, then made him keeper of the seals, and at last minister of marine. The Marquis de Puysieux, in the ministry of foreign affairs, and ".a Comte de Saint-Florentin VOL. I. ^5^^i^|^!ai- II 18 THE COMBATANTS. [1745 1755. charged \vith the affairs of the clergy, took their cue from her. The King stinted her in nothing. First and last, she is reckoned to have cost him thirty- six million francs, — answering now to more than as many dollars. The prestige of the monarchy was declining with the ideas that had given it life and strength. A growing disrespect for king, ministry, and clergy was beginning to prepare the catastrophe that was still some forty years in the future. While the valleys and low places of the kingdom were dark with misery and squalor, its heights were bright with a gay society, — elegant, fastidious, witty, — craving the pleasures of the mind as well as of the senses, criticising eyerything, analyzing everything, believ- ing nothing. Voltaire was in the midst of it, hating, with all his vehement soul, the abuses that swarmed about him, and assailing them with the inexhaustible shafts of his restless and piercing intellect. Montes- quieu was showing to a despot-ridden age the prin- ciples of political freedom. Diderot and D'Alembert were beginning their revolutionary Encyclopaedia. Rousseau was sounding the first not3s of his mad eloquence, — the wild revolt of a passionate and dis- eased genius against a world of falsities and wrongs. The salons of Paris, cloyed with other pleasures, alive to all that was racy and new, welcomed the pungent doctrines, and played with them as children play with fire, thinking no danger; as time went on, even embraced them in a genuine spirit of hope and I ! 1715-1755.] THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. 19 good-will for humanity. The Revolution began at lihe top, — in the world of fashion, birth, and intel- lect, — and propagated itself downwards. " We walked on a carpet of flowers," Count S^gur after- wards said, "unconscious that it covered an abyss;" till the gt yawned at last, and swallowed them. Eastward, beyond the Rhine, lay the heterogeneous patchwork of the Holy Roman, or Germanic, Empire. The sacred bonds that throughout the Middle Ages had held together its innumerable fragments had lost their strength. The empire decayed as a whole ; but not so the parts that composed it. In the south the House of Austria reigned over a formidable assem- blage of States; and in the north the House of Brandenburg, promoted to royalty half a century before, had raised Prussia into an importance far beyond her extent and population. In her dissevered rags of territory lay the destinies of Germany. It was the late King, that honest, thrifty, dogged, head- strong despot, Frederic William, who had made his kingdom what it was, trained it to the perfection of drill, and left it to his son, Frederic II., the best engine of war in Europe. Frederic himself had passed between the upper and nether millstones of paternal discipline. Never did prince undergo such an apprenticeship. His father set him to the work of an overseer, or steward, flung plates at his head in the family circle, thrashed him with his rattan in public, bulliea him for submitting to such treatment, li 20 THE COMBATANTS. [1745-1755. and iniprisoiied him for tryinjr to run away from it. Ho camo at last out of purgatoiy; and Europe felt him to her fartliest bounds. This l)()okiHlj, phihiso- phizing, vei-se-niaking cynic and profligate was soon to approve himscilf the lirat warrior of his time, and one of the iirst of all time. Anotlier power had lately risen on the European world. Peter the Great, half hero, half savage, had roused the inert barbarism of Russia into a iitjinic life. His daughter Elizabeth had succeeded to his throne, — heiress of his sensuality, if not of liis talents. Over all the continent the aspect of the times was the same. l\nver had everywliere left the plains and the lower slopes, and gathered at the sunmiits. Popular life was at a stand. No great idea stirred the nations to their depths. The religious convul- sions of the sixteenth and seventeentli centuries were over, and the earthquake of the French Revolution had not begun. At the middle of the eighteenth century the history of Europe turned on the balance of power; the observance of treaties; inheritance and succession; rivalries of sovereign houses struggling to win power or keep it, encroach on neighbors, or prevent neighbors from encroaching; bargains, in- trigue, force, diplomacy, and the musket, in the interest not of peoples but of rulers. Princes, great and small, brooded over some real or fancied wrong 17ir)-1765.] THE STATE OF EUROPE. SI nuraed some dubioiiH cl.-iim bom of a marriage, a will, or an ancient cov(;nant fis^ out of the abyss of time, and vvatclied their moment to make it good. Tlie general o{)portunity came wlien, in 1740, the Emperor Charles VI. died and bequeathed his per- sonal dominions of the House of Austria to his duugliter, Maria Theresa. The chief Powers of Kiiropo had Ixien pledged in advance to sustjiin the will; and pending the event, the vetdan Prince Eugene had said that two hundred thousand soldiers would 1)6 worth all their guaranties together. The two hundred thousand were not there, and not a sov- ereign kept liis word. Tliey flocked to share the spoil, and parcel out the motley heritage of the young Queen. Frederic of Prussia led the way, invaded her province of Silesia, seized it, and kept it. The Elector of Bavaria and the King of Spain claimed their share, and the Elector of Saxony and the King of Sardinia prepared to follow the example. France took part with Bavaria, and intrigued to set the imperial crown on the head of the Elector, think- ing to ruin her old enemy, the House of Austria, and rule Germany through an emperor too weak to dis- pense with her support. England, jealous of her designs, trembling for the balance of power, and anxious for the Hanovprian possessions of her Kino-, threw hei-self into the strife on the side of Austria. It was now that, in the Diet at Presburg, the beauti- ful and distressed Queen, her infant in her arms, made her memorable appeal to the wild chivalry of ■"««6**4-'Sg,k/i THE COMBATANTS. [174&-1765. It! I her Hungarian nobles; and, clashing their swords, tliey shouted with one voice: "Let us die for our king, Maria Theresa ; " Moriamur pro rcge nostro, Mario, Theresia^ — one of the most dramatic scenes in history; not quite true, perhaps, bm- near the truth. Then came that confusion worse confounded called the war of the Austrian Succession, w'th its MoUwitz, its Dettingen, its Fontenoy, and its Scotch episode of Culloden. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle closed the strife in 1748. Europe had time to breathe ; but the germs of discord remained alive. THE AMERICAN COMBATANTS. The French claimed all America, from the Alle- ghanies to the Rocky Mountains, and from Mexico and Florida to the North Pole, except only the ill- defined possessions of the English on the borders of Hudson Bay; and 1^ these vast regions, with adja- cent islands, they gave the general name of New France. They controlled the highways of the con- tinent, for they held it^ two great rivers. First, they had seized the St. Lawrence, and then planted them- selves at the mouth of the Mississippi. Canada at the nortn, and Louisiana at the soath, were the keys of a boundless interior, rich with incalculable possi- bilities. The English colonies, ranged along the Atlantic coast, had no royal road to the great inland, and were, in a manner, shut between the mountains and the sea. At tha middle of the century they |!- *l 1745-1755.] FRENCH COLONIES. 28 numbered in all, from Ocnrcria to Maine, about eleven hundred and sixty thou.sand white inhal a >tb. By the census of 1754 Canada had but fifty-five txiou- sand.i Add those of Louisiana and Acadia, and the whole whil. population under the French flag might be something more than eighty thousand. ITere is an enormous disparity; and hence it has been argued that the success of the English colonies and the failure of the French was not due to difference of religious and political syst. . .. ^>ut simply to numeri- cal preponderance. But i preponderance itself grew out of a difference of syst-ms. We have said before, and it cannot be said too often, that in mak- ing Canada a citadel of the State religion, — a holy of holies of exclusive Roman Catholic orthodoxy, — the clerical monitors of the Crown robbed their coun- tiy of a transatlantic empire. New France could not grow with a pries; on guard at the gato to let in n '.le but such as pleased him. One of the ablest of Canadian governors, La Galissonifere, sooing the feebleness of the colony compared with the vastness of Its claims, advised the King to send ten thousand peasants to occupy the valley of the Ohio, and hold back the British swarm that was just then pushing Its advance-guard over the Aileghanies. It needed no effort of the King to people his waste domain, nor with ten thousand peasants, but with twenty 'C^ensuses of Canada, iv. 01. Kameau (La France an. Colonies, anirl-T " ^'"''^''" population, in 1755, at dxty-six thou- sand, besulos vo,,al 28 THE COMBATANTS. [1745-1755. ft r them were great. Some weio purely English; others were made up of various races, though the Anglo- Saxon was always predominant. , Some had one pre- vailing religious creed; others had many creeds. Some had charters, and some had not. In most cases the governor was appointed by the Crown ; in Penn- sylvania and Maryland he was appointed by a feudal proprietor, and in Connecticut and Rhode Island he was chosen by the people. The differences of dispo- sition and character were still greater than those of form. The four northern colonies, known collectively as New England, were an exception to the general rule of diversity. The smallest, Rhode Island, had feat- ures all its own; but the rest were substantially one in nature and origin. The principal among them, Massachusetts, may serve as the t}'pe of all. It was a mosaic of little village republics, firmly cemented together, and formed into a single body politic through representatives sent to the " General Court " at Boston. Its government, originally theocratic, now tended to democracy, ballasted as yet by strong traditions of respect for established worth and ability, as well as by the influence of certain families prominent in affairs for generations. Yet there were no distinct class-lines, and popular power, like popular educa- tion, was widely diffused. Practically Massachusetts was almost indepen^lent of the mother-country. Its people were purely English, of sound yeoman stock, with an abundant leaven drawn from the best of the 1 ■'■"*»*, :i745-1755. h; others le Anglo- one pre- Y creeds, lost cases in Penn- ' a feudal Island he of dispo- L those of jtively as leral rule had feat- dally one ig them, It was cemented s through t Boston, ended to itions of 5 well as inent in distinct r educa- Lchusetts bry. Its m stock, 5t of the 1745-1755.] NEW ENGLAND. 29 Puritan gentry; but their original character had been somewhat modified by changed conditions of hfe. A harsh and exacting creed, with its stiff for- malism and its prohibition of wholesome recreation ; excess in the pursuit of gain, — the only resource left to energies robbed of their natural play; the struggle for existence on a hard and barren soil; and the iso- lation of a narrow village life, — joined to produce, in the meaner sort, qualities which were unpleasant, and sometimes repulsive. Puritanism was not an unmixed blessing. Its view of human nature was dark, and its attitude towards it one of repression. It strove to crush out not only what is evil, but much that is innocent and salutary. Human nature so treated will take its revenge, and for every vice that it loses find another instead. Nevertheless, Avhile New England Puritanism bore its peculiar crop of faults, it produced also many good and sound fruits. An uncommon vigor, joined to the hardy virtues of a masculine race, marked the New England type. The sinews, it is true, were hardened at the expense of blood and flesh, — and this literally as well as figuratively; but the staple of character was a sturdy conscientiousness, an undespairing courage, patriot- ism, public spirit, sagacity, and a strong good sense. A great change, both for better and for worse, has since come over it, due largely to reaction against the unnatural rigors of the past. That mixture, which is now too common, of cool emotions with excitable brains, was then rarely seen. The New England '\ i j J I ; 30 THE COMBATANTS. [1745-1756. colonies abounded in high examples of public and private virtue, though not always under the most prepossessing forms. They were conspicuous, more- over, for intellectual activity, and were by no means without intellectual eminence. Massachusetts had produced at least two men whose fame had crossed the sea, — Edwards, who out of the grim theology of Calvin mounted to sublime heights of mystical specu- lation; and Franklin, famous already by his discov- eries in electricity. On the other hand, there were few genuine New Englanders who, however person- ally modest, could divest themselves of the notion that they belonged to a people in an especial manner the object of divine approval; and this self -righteous- ness, along with certain other traits, failed to com- mend the Puritan colonies to the favor of their fellows. Then, as now, New England was best known to her neighbors by her worst side. In one point, however, she found general applause. She was regarded as the most military among the British colonies. This reputation was well founded, and is easily explained. More than all the rest, she lay open to attack. The long waving line of the New England border, with its lonely hamlets and scattered farms, extended from the Kennebec to beyond the Connecticut, and was everywhere vulner- able to the guns and tomahawks of the neighboring French and their savage allies. The colonies towards the south had thus far been safe from danger. New York alone was within striking distance of the Cana- 1745-1765.] VIRGINIA. 81 dian war-parties. That province then consisted of a line of settlements up the Hudson and the Mohawk, and was little exposed to attack except at its northern end, which was guarded by the fortified town of Albany, with its outlying posts, and by the friendly and warlike Mohawks, whose "castles" were close at hand. Thus New England had borne the heaviest brunt of the preceding wars, not only by the forest, but also by the sea; for the French of Acadia and Cape Breton confronted her coast, and she was often at blows with them. Fighting had been a necessity with her, and she had met the emergency after a method extremely defective, but the best that circumstances would permit. Having no trained officers and no disciplined soldiers, and being too poor to maintain either, she borrowed her warriors from the workshop and the plough, and officered them with lawyers, merchants, mechanics, or farmers. To compare them with good regular troops would be folly; but they did, on the whole, better than could have been ex- pected, and in the last war achieved the brilliant success of the capture of Louisbourg. This exploit, due partly to native hardihood and partly to good luck, greatly enhanced the military repute of New England, or rather was one of the cliief sources of it. The great colony of Virginia stood in strong con- trast to New England. In both the population was English; but the one was Puritan with Roundhead traditions, and the other, so far as concerned its gov- erning class, Anglican, with Cavalier traditions. In I f 1 S.';l 82 THE COMBATANTS, [1745-1755. the one, every man, woman, and child could read and write; in the other, Sir William Berkeley once thanked God that there were no free schools, and no prospect of any for a centuiy. The hope had found fniition. The lower classes of Virginia were as un- taught as the warmest friend of popular ignorance could wish. New England had a native literature more than respectable under the circumstances, while Virginia had none; numerous industries, while Virginia was all agriculture, with but a single crop; a homogeneous society and a democratic spirit, while her rival was an aristocracy. Virginian society was distinctly stratified. On the lowest level were the negro slaves, nearly as numerous as all the rest to- gether; next, the indented servants and the poor whites, of low origin, good-humored, but boisterous, and sometimes vicious ; next, the small and despised class of tradesmen and mechanics ; next, the farmers and lesser planters, who were mainly o"" j-ood English stock, and who merged insensibly into the ruling class of the great landowners. It was these last who represented the colony and made the laws. They may be described as English country squires trans- planted to a warm climate and turned slave-masters. They sustained their position by entails, and con- stantly undermined it by the reckless profusion which ruined them at last. Many of them were well born, with an immense pride of descent, increased by the habit of domination. Indolent and energetic by turns ; rich in natural gifts and often poor in book- 88 jre as un- 1745-1755.] PENNSYLVANIA. learning, though some, in the lack of good teaching at home, had been bred in the English universities; high-spirited, generous to a fault; keeping open house in their capacious mansions, among vast tobacco-fields and toiling negroes, and living in a rude pomp where the fashions of St. James were somewhat oddly grafted on the roughness of the plantation, — what they wanted in schooling was supplied by an educa- tion which books alone would have been impotent to give, the education which came with the possession and exercise of political power, and the sense of a position to maintain, joined to a bold spirit of inde- pendence and a patriotic attachment to the Old Dominion. They were few in number; they raced, gambled, drank, and swore; they did eveiything that in Puritan eyes was most reprehensible; and in the day of need they gave the United Colonies a body of statesmen and orators which had no equal on the continent. A vigorous aristocracy favors the growth of personal eminence, even in those who are not of it, but only near it. The essential antagonism of Virginia and New England was afterwards to become, and to remain for a centuiy, an element of the first influence in Ameri- can history. Each might have learned much from the other; but neither did so till, at last, the strife of their contending principles shook the continent. Pennsylvania difiPered widely from both. She was a conglomerate of creeds and races, — English, Irish, Germans, Dutch, and Swedes; Quakei-s, Lutherans! VOL. I. — 3 ' fl 34 THE COMBATANTS. [1745-1765. Presbyterians, Romanists, Moravians, and a variety of nondescript sects. The Quakera prevailed in the eastern districts; quiet, industrious, virtuous, and serenely obstinate. The Germans were strongest towards the centre of the colony, and were chiefly peasants; successful farmers, but dull, ignorant, and superstitious. Towards the west were the Irish, of whom some were Celts, ah\ays quarrelling with their German neighbors, who detested them; but the greater part Avere Protestants of Scotch descent, from Ulster; a vigorous border population. Virginia and New England had each a strong distinctive character. Pennsylvania, with her heterogeneous population, had none but tnat which she owed to the sober neutral tints of Quaker existence. A more thriving colony there was not on the continent. Life, if monotonous, was smooth and contented. Trade and the arts grew. Philadelphia, next to Boston, was the largest town in British America ; and was, more- over, the intellectual centre of the middle and southern colonies. Unfortunately, for her credit in the ap- proaching war, the Quaker influence made Pennsyl- vania non-combatant. Politically, too, she was an anomaly ; for, though utterly unfeudal in disposition and character, she was under feudal superiors in the persons of the representatives of William Penn, the original grantee. New York had not as yet reached the relative prominence which her geographical position and inherent strength afterwards gave her. The English, i n M'^l NEW YORK. 85 1745-1756.] joined to the Dutch, the original settlers, were the dominant population; but a half -score of other lan- guages were spoken in the province, the chief among them being that of the Huguenot French in the southern parts, and that of the Germans on the Mohawk. In religion, the province was divided between the Anglican Church, with government support and popular tUslike, and numerous dissenting sects, chiefly Lutherans, Independents, Presbyterians, and mtmbers of the Dutch Reformed Church. The little city of New York, 'ike its great successor, was the most cosmopolitan place on the continent, and probably the gayest. It had, in abundance, balls, concei-ts, theatricals, and evening clubs, with plenti- ful dances and other amusements for the poorer classes. Thither in the winter months came the great hereditary proprietors on the Hudson; for the old Dutch feudality still held its own, and the manors of Van Rensselaer, Cortland, and Livingston, with their seig;iiorial privileges, and the great estates and numerous tenantry of the Schuylers and other leading families, formed the basis of an aristocracy, some of whose membei-s had done good service to the prov- ince, and were destined to do more. Pennsylvania was feudal in form, and not in spirit; Virginia in spirit, and not in form; New England in neither; and New York largely in both. This social ciystal- hzation had, it is true, many opponents. In politics, as in religion, there were sharp antagonisms and fre- quent quarrels. They centred in the city; for in the 86 THE COMBATANTS. it f [1745-1755. well-stocked dwellings of the Dutch farmers along the Hudson there reigned a tranquil and prosperous routine ; and the Dutch border to mi of All)any had not its like in America for nniiitiled conservatism and quaint picturesqueness. Of the other colonies, the briefest mention will suffice: New Jersey, with its wholesome population of farmers; tobacco-growing Maryland, which, but for its proprietary government and numerous Roman Catholics, might pass for another Virginia, inferior in growth, and less decisive in features; Delaware, a modest appendage of Pennsylvania; Wild and rude North Carolina; and, farther on. South Carolina and Georgia, too remote from the seat of war tc take a noteworthy part in it. The attitude of these various colonies towards each other is hardly conceivable to an American of the present time. They had no political tie except a common allegiance to the British Crown. Communication between them was difficult and slow, by rough roads traced often through primeval forests. Between some of them there was less of sympathy than of jealousy kindled by con- flicting interests or perpetual disputes concerning boundaries. The patriotism of the colonist was bounded by the lines of his government, except in the compact and kindred colonies of New England, which were socially united, though politically dis- tinct. The countiy of the New Yorker was New York, and the country of the Virginian was Virginia. The New England colonies had once confederated; ^■■:^ I &l V A- [1745-1753. mere along prosperous Albany had rvatism and ention will population which, but 'ous Roman , irJerior in )elaware, a 1 and rude iarolina and r tc take a lese various iceivable to ey had no the British '■as difficult m through I there was ed by con- concerning lonist was , except in ^ England, tically dis- • was New IS Virginia, nfederated; 1745-1755] COLONIAL DISCORD. 87 %''$ but, kindred as they were, they had long ago dropped apart. William Pemi proposed a plan of colonic' union wholly fruitless. James II. tried to unite all the northern colonies under one government; but the attempt came to naught. Eaoh stood aluof, jealously independ i. Ai rare intervals, under the pressure of an emergency, some of them would tiy to ^ct in concert; and, except in New England, the results had been most discouraging. Nor was it this segre- gation only that unfitted them for war. They were all subject to popular legislatures, through whom alone money and men could be rais- .- and these elective bodies were sometimes factious and selfish and not always ■'fhei- far-dghted or reasonable! Moreover, they were m a state of ceaseless friction with their governors, who represented the King, or, what was worse, the feudal proprietary. These dis- putes, though varying in inters'' , were found every- where excspt in the two smaU colonies which c^-^-se their own governors; and they were premonitions of the movement towards independence which ended in the war of Revolution. The ocnasion of d:., in the stillness and solitude of the leafy hills, till they came to the outlet, and glided down the peaceful current in the shade of the tjili forests that overarched it. This prosperity was short. Ihe stream was low, in spite of lieavy rains that had drenched them on the carrying place. Father Bonnecamp, chaplain of the expedition, wrote in his Journal: "In some places -and they were but too frequent -the water was only two or three inches deep; and we were reduced to the sad necessity of dragging our canoes over the sharp pebbles, which, with all our care and precaution, stripped off larffe s ivei-s of the bark. At last, tired and worn, and almost m despair of ever seeing La Belle RiviOre we entered it at noon of the 29th." The part of' the Ohio or «La Belle Rivic^re," which they liad thus happily reached, is now called the Alleghany. The Great West lay outspread before them, a realm of wild and waste fertility. French America had two heads, -one among the snows of Canada, and one among the canebrakes of Louisiana ; one communicating with the world through tlie Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the other through the Gulf of Mexico. These vital points were feebly 1749-1752.] INDIANS OF THE WEST. 48 connected by a chain of military poHtw, —slender, and often interrupted, —circling through the wilder- ness nearly three thousand miles. Midway between Canada and l^-ouisiana lay the valley of the Ohio. If the English should seize it, they would sever the chain of posts, and cut French America asunder. . If the French held it, and intrenched themselves well along its eastern liniita, they would shut their rivals between the Alleghanies and the sea, control all the tril>es of the West, and turn them, in case of war, against the English borders, —a frightful and insup- portable scourge. The Indian population of the Ohio and its noi">em tributaries was relatively considerable. The upper or eastern half of the valley was occupied by mingled hordes of Delawares, Shawanoes, Wyandots, and Iroquois, or I. dians of the Five Nations, who had migrated thither from their ancestral abodes within the present limits of the State of New York, and who were called Mingoes by the English traders. Along with them were a few wandering Abenakis, Nipissings, and Ottawas. Farther west, on the waters of the Miami, the Wabash, and other neighboring streams, was the seat of a confederacy formed of the various bands of the Miamis and their kindred or affiliated tribes. Still farther west, towards the Mississippi, were the remnants of the Illinois. France had done but little to make good her claims to this grand domain. East of the Miami she had no military post whatever. Westward, on the Ifl 1 IaL-.s ..il tt 44 CfiLORON DE BIENVILLE. [1740-1752. Maumee, there was a small wooden fort, another ou the St. Joseph, and two on the Wabash. On the meaflows of the Mississippi, in the Illinois country, stood tort Chartres, — a much stronger work, and one of the chief links of the chain that connecteJ Quebec with New Orleans. Its four stone bastions were impregnable to muskf.trj-; and, here in the depths of the wilderness, there was no fear that cannon would be brought against it. It was .oe centre and citadel of a curious little forest settlement, the only vestige of civilization through all this region. At Kaskaskia, extended along the borders of the stream, were seventy or eighty French houses; thirty or forty at Cahokia, opposite the site of St.' Louis; and a few more at the intervening hamlets of St. Philippe and Prairie k la Roche, — a nicturesque but thriftless population, mixed with Indians, totaLy ignor,iit, busied partly with the fur-trade, and partly with the raising of corn for the market of New Orleans. They communicated with ii by means of a sort of row galley, of eighteen or twenty oars, which made ^Iie voyage twice a year, and usually spent ten weeks on the return up the river. ^ The Pope and the Bour' ms had claimed this wil- derness for seventy years, and had done scarcely more for it than the Indians, its natural owners. » Gordon, Journal, 1766, appended to Pownall, Topographical Description. In the D^p6t des Cartes de la Marine at Paris, C. 4,040, are two curious maps of the Illinois Colony, made a little after the middle of the century. In 1753 the Marquis Duquesne denounced the colonists as debauched and lazy. 1749-1752.] ENGLISH FUR-TRADERS. 46 Of the western iribes, even of those ving at the Fr'uch p^ts, the Hurons or Wyandots alone were ('imPc^Pii.^ The devote'l zeal of the early niission- r I ud the politic efforts of their successors had iixi ' ^ ilike. The savages oi the Ohio and t'x- Mis^ ssippi, instead of being tied to France by the I uiii nonds of the faith, were now in a state wliich the French called defection or revolt; that is, they received and welcomed the English traders. These traders came in part from Virginia, but chiefly from Pennsylvania. Dinwiddle, governor of Virginia, sayr. of them: "They appear to me to he in general a set of abaruoned wretches; " and Hamilton, governor of Pennsylvania, replies: "I concur with you in opinion that they are a very licenlx )U8 people. "2 Indian traders, of whatever natiuu, are rarely models of virtue; and these, without loubt, were rough and lawless men, with abundant black- guardism and few scruples. Not all of them, how- ever, are to be thus qualified. Some were of a better stamp; among whom were C" dstopher Gist, William Trent, and George Croghan. These and other chief traders hired men on the frontiers, crossed the Alle- ghanies with goods packed on the backs of hoi-ses, descended into the valley of the Ohio, and journeyed ^ " De toutes les nations domiciliees dans les postes des pays d'en haut, il n'y a que '"s hurons du detroit qui aient embrasse la Kuligion chretienne." — Memoire du Roy pour servir d' instruction au Si Marquis de Lajonquiire. " Diuwiddie to Hamilton, 21 May, 1753. Hamilton to Dinwiddie, — May, r.0.3. i ('i \i ;» i I f! I m 46 C^LORON DE BIENVILLE. fi74p. from stream to stream and village to village along the Inaian trails, with whi.h all this wilderness was seamed, and which the traders widened to make them practicable. More rarely, they carried their goods on horses to the upper waters of the Ohio, and em- barked them in large wooden canoes, in which they descended the main river, and ascended sunh of its numerous tributaries as were navigable. They were oold and enterprising; and French writei-s, with alarm and indignation, declare that some of them had crossed the Mississippi and traded Avith the distent Usages. It IS said that about three hundred of them came over the mountains eveij year. On reaching the Alleghany, Cdloron de Bien-ille entered upon the work assigned him, and began by takmg possession of the country. The men were drawn up in order; Louis XV. was proclaimed lord ot all that region, the arms of France, stamped on a sheet of tm, were nailed to a tree, a plate of lead was buried at its foot, and the notary of the expedition drew up a formal act of th' ,diole proceeding. The leaden plate was inscribed as follows: "Year 1749 :n the reign of Louis Fifteenth, King of France.' We, Cdloron, commanding the detachment sent by the Marquis de la Galissoni^re, commander-general of New France, to restore tranquillity in certain villages of these cantons, have buried this plate at the confluence of the Ohio and the Kanaouagon [Coneunngo], this 29th July, as a token of renewal of possession heretofore taken of the aforesaid River 1749.] POSSESSION OF THE OHIO. 47 Ohio, of all streams that fall into it, and all lands on both sides to the source of the aforesaid streams, as the preceding Kings of France have enjoyed or ought to have enjoyed it, and which they have upheld by force of arms and by treaties, notably by those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle." This done, the party proceeded on its way, mov- ing downward with the current, and passing from time to time rough openings in the forest, with clusters of Indian wigwams, the inmates of which showed a strong inclination to run off at their approach. To prevent this, Chabert de Joncaire was sent in advance, as a messenger of peace. He was himself half Indian, being the son of a French officer and a Seneca squaw, speaking fluently his maternal tongue, and, like his father, holding an important place in all dealings between the French and the tribes who spoke dialects of the Iroquois. On this occasion his success was not complete. It needed all his art to prevent the alarmed savages from tak- ing to the woods. Sometimes, however, C^loron succeeded in gaining an audience; and at a village of Senecas called La Faille Couple he read them a message from La Galissoniere couc led in terms suffi- ciently imperati\ e : " My children, since I was at war with the English, I have learned that they have seduced you ; and not content with corrupting your hearts, have taken advantage of my absence to invade lands which are not theirs, but mine ; and therefore I have resolved to send you Monsieur de Ctiloron to *- 48 C^LORON DE BIENVILLE. [174.0. tell you my intentions, which are that I will not ^^idure the English on my land. Listen to me, chil- :u.en; mark well the word that I send you; follow my advice, and iLe sky will always be calm and clear over your villages. I expect from you an answer worthy of true children." And he urged them to stop all trade with the intruders, and send them back to whence they came. They promised compliance; and says the chaplain, Bonnecamp, "we should all have been satisfied if we had thought them sincere ; .at nobody doubted that fear had extorted their answer " Four leagues below French Creek, by a rock scratched with Indian hieroglyphics, they buried another leaden plate. Three days after, they'reached the Delaware village of Attiqud, at the site of Kittannmg, whose twenty-two wigwams were all empty, the owners having fled. A little farther on at an old abandoned village of Shawanoes, they found SIX English traders, whom they warned to begone and return no more at their peril. Being holpless to resist, the traders pretended obedience; and Cdloron charged them with a letter to the governor of Penn sylvania, in which he declared that he was 'Vreatlv surprised "to find Englishmen trespassing on thi dc^nain of France. "I know," concluded the lette. that our Commandant-General would be very sorry to be forced to use violence; but his orders are r pre- cise, to leave no foreign traders within the limits of his government." ^ Cnl ^'^''''''':f "'""[■ Compare the letter as translated in N Y Col. Docs., VI. 5.32 ; also Colonial Records of Pa., y. 425 i * •■.,.- [1740. 1749.] LOGSTOWN. 49 On the next day they j.'eaehed a village of Iroquois under a female chief, called Queen Alequippa by the English, to whom she was devoted. Both queen and subjects had fled; but among the deserted wig- wams were six more Englishmen, whom Cdloron warned off like the othei-s, and who, like them, pre- tended to obey. At a neighboring town they found only two withered ancients, male and female, whose united ages, in the judgment of the chaplain, were full two centuries. They passed the site of the future Pittsburg; and some seventeen miles below approached Chiningue, called Logstown by the Eng- lish, one of the chief places on the river. ^ Both English and French flags were flying over the town, and the inhabitants, lining the shore, greeted their visitors with a salute of musketry, — not wholly wel- come, as the guns were charged with ball. C^loron threatened to fire on them if they did not cease. The French climbed the steep bank, and encamped on the plateau above, betwixt the forest and the village, which consisted of some fifty cabins and wigwams, grouped in picturesque squalor, and tenanted by a mixed population, chiefly of Delawares, St iwan -es, and Mingoes. Here, too, were gathered many fugi- tives from, tl 3 deserted town^ above. C^bron feared a :nght attack. The camp was encircled by a rin? of ser tries; the officers walked the rounds till mom- mg: a part of the men were kept under arm'^ ;M»d ^ There was another Chiningu^, the Shenango of the Euglish, on the Alleghany. VOL. I.— 4 4 j .■; 50 CELORON DE BIENVILLE. I ,4 [1749. the rest ordered to sleep in their clothes. Jr icaire discovered through some women of his acquaintance that an attack was intended. Whatever the danger may have been, the precautions of the French averted It; and instead of a battle, there was a council Cdloron delivered to the assembled chiefs a message from the governor more conciliatory than the former- "Through the love I bear you, my children, I send you Monsieur de Cdloron to open your eyes to the designs of the English against your lands. The estabhshments they mean to make, and of which you are certainly ignorant, tend to your complete ruin. They hiae from you their plans, which are to settle here and drive you away, if I let them. As a good father who tenderly loves his children, and though far away from them bears them always in his heart I must warn you of the danger that threatens you' Ihe English intend to rob you of your country ; and that they may succeed, they begin by corrupting your minds. As ^^ey mean to seize the Ohio, which belongs to me, "■ to warn them to retire. " The reply of iefs, though sufficiently humble was not all that comd be wished. They begged that the intruders might stay a little longer, since the goods they brought were necessary to them. It was m fact, these gocds, cheap, excellent, and abundant as they were, which formed the only true bond between the English and the western tribes. Logs- town was one of the chief resorts of the 'English traders; and at this moment there were ten of them I [1749. Jf icaire juaiiitance the danger ch averted I council, a message le former: !n, I send es to the ds. The i^hich you lete ruin, to settle ■s a good I though is heart, ens you. try; and rrupting 3, which humble, ^ed that nee the It was, jundant e bond Logs- English f them < I ■ ,• r M R f- J ^ V ^ (i^ ^ a ? ^ 5: ^ p lij V w 2 X z: o o -1 < ^ h ,< o < Z P <: p °,^u o U W o 2 ^ :> u o zp; z o > O 2 -I O ""^L < CJ w 3 ^ . J H CJ fij as *-'.-; P o g P- CO U U,^ y ^ ^ S U3 a < ^ /-. h ^ ^.iri b 2: ^ 0> W W W h ^ ptJ 3 Q D ^ U Q s. o CJ ^ p ^ o 2: h M K , ^ t-* w ^ r, f^ O > O iJ W P < tij '^ ^ ^ >- - > Cm ^ CJ o ft p!: CJ ^ ^ < f^ W LJ ^J i^ P q > C O '-I -I :2: fo z f- z < -> hp ^^'>.^ >5h fJ ^ h P^ ^ >: •;; H W ^ < S. ^ < ^ OD 1^ < W k) < =<^ >h Pi ill •I' ^ U P •1 f- (- <-..) , w 14 P cr <0 N Q^ •^ 2i^ t^ -1 f< C^ : ... -^ ;^ i^ = 2 9^ Cj w (0< o> (J) iA Li i?: K Lr' -» 5 ^ '^ -J w OJ o z,^ u > r, ?-. c»? > < O ft, «. ,' •> :^ fj< simile of the inscription on one of the lead plates biirieil hv Ccloron de Bienville. liili ir w Uii m lif m le m la a pr it ha ne ri( re! ca thi ot] Tl pii on of I Th in8( pla 1740.] C^LORON BURIES PLATES. 61 in the place. Cdloron warned them off. "Tliey agreed," Hays the chaplain, " to all tliat was demanded* well resolved, no doubt, to do the co ny as ooon as our backs were turned." Having distributed gifts among the Indians, the French proceeded on their way, and at or near the mouth ol Wlieeling Creek buried another plate of lead. They repeated the smne ceremony at the mouth of the Muskingum. Here, half a century later, when this region belonged to the United States, a party of boys, bathing in the river, saw the plate I)rotruding from the bank where the freshets had laid it bare, knocked it down with a long stick, melted half of it into bullets, and gave what remained to a neighbor from Marietta, who, hearing of this myste- rious relic, inscribed in an unknown tongue, came to rescue it from their hands. ^ It is now in the cabinet of the American Antiquarian Society. ^ On the eighteenth of August, Cdloron buried yet an- other plate, at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. This, too, in the course of a century, was unearthed by the floods, and was found in 1846 by a boy at play, by the edge of the water. » The inscriptions on all these plates were much alike, with variations of date and place. ^ 0. H. Marshall, in Magazine of American History, March, 1878. " For papers relating to it, see Trans. Amer. Antiq. Soc, ii. 8 For a facsimile of the inscription on this plate, see Olden Time, i. 288. Celoron calls the Kanawha, Chinodahichetha. The inscriptions as given in his Journal correspond with those on the plates discovered. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I II 2.5 2.2 (UUu 12.0 18 1.25 -' — 1.4 1= < 6" — -*> Photographic Sdences Corporation # \ 4^ i\ \ % V ^ \ ^^\ >A. u % ^^ ^ 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 % 62 C^LORON DE BIENVILLE. mt 'I > , St [1749. The weather was by tuma rainy and hot; and the men, tired and famished, were fast falling ill On the twenty-second they approaehed Scioto, ealled by the French St. Yotoc, or Sinioto, a large .Shawan^ town at the mouth of the river which beam theTam^ name. Greatly doubting what welcome awated them, they mied their powder-horns and preparedtr to worst. Joncaire was sent forward to propitiate to .nhabltants; but they shot bullets thro'ug^ the flag that he carried, and surrounded him, yelling and brandashmg their knives. Some were for tiUinf Wm at once; others for burning him alive. The inter position of a friendly Iroquois saved him- and at ength they let him go. C«o™n was very unety a the reception of his messenger. "I feew "be ™tes, "the weakness of my parfy, two-thir;is of wmch were young men who had never left home before, and would all have run at the sight of ten Indi^. Still, there wa. nothing for me but to ke^p on for I wa^ short of provisions, my canoes were Wly damaged, and I had no pitch or bark to mend them So I embarked again, ready for whatever ™.ght happen I had good officers, .nd about 8% men who could be trusted." ^ As they near^d the town, the lu .ns swarmed to to shore, and began the usual salute of musketiy. fo^t^^ : u'"^' ^"''™°' "f""" thousand shots; for the En^nsh give them powder for nothing." He prudently pitched his camp on the farther side of the nver, posted guards, and kept close watch. Each 'Hi 1.749.] ASCENT OF THE MIAMI. 63 party distrusted and feared the other. At length, after much ado, many debates, and some threatening moyements on the part of the alarmed and excited Indians, a council took place at the tent of the French commander; the chiefs apologized for the rough treatment of Joncaire, and Cdloron replied with a rebuke, which would doubtless have been less mild, had he felt himself stronger, He gave them also a message from the governor, modified, apparently, t(i suit the circumstances; for while warning them of the wiles of the English, it gave no hint that the King of France claimed mastery of their lands. Their answer was vague and unsat- isfactory. It was plain that they were bound to the enemy by interest, if not by sympathy. A party of English traders were living in the place; and C^Joron summoned them to withdraw, on pain of what might ensue. "My instructions," he says, "enjoined me to do this, and even to pillage the English; but I was not strong enough; and as these traders were established in the village and well supported by the Indians, the attempt would have failed, and put the French to shame." The assembled chiefs having been regaled with a cup of brandy each, — the only part of the proceeding which seemed to please them, — C^loron re-embarked, and continued his voyage. On the thirtieth they reached the Great Miami, called by the French, Riviere k la Roche; and here C^loron buried the last of his leaden plates. They 54 C^ORON DE BIENVILLE. [I749. now bade farewell to the Ohio, or, in the words of the chaplain, to "La Belle Risd^re, - that river so httle known to the French, and unfortunately too well known to the English. " He speaks of the multi- tude of Indian villages on its shores, and still more on Its northern branches. "Each, great or small, has one or more English traders, and each of these has hired men to carry his furs. Behold, then, the English well advanced upon our lands, and, what is worse, under the protection of a crowd of savages whom they have drawn over to them, and whose number increases daily." The course of the party lay up the Miami; and they toiled thirteen days against the shallow current before they reached a village of the Miami Indians lately built at the mouth of the rivulet now called Loramie Creek. Over it ruled a chief to whom the French had given the singular name of La Demoiselle but whom the English, whose fast friend he was' called Old Britain. The English trader who lived here had prudently withdrawn, leaving only two hired men in the place. The object of Ctoon was to induce the Demoiselle and his band to leave this new abode and return to their old villages near the French fort on the Maumee, where they would be safe from English seduction. To this end, he called them to a council, gave them ample gifts, and made them an harangue in the name of the governor The Demoiselle took the gifts, thanked his French father for his good advice, and promised to follow it at a ill 1749.] LA DEMOISELLE. 55 words of b river so ately too )he multi- till more 3r small, of these hen, the , what is savages i whose mi; and current Indians, jv called lom the loiselle, le was, 10 lived ly two :on was ive this Bar the uld be I called I made The father it at a more convenient time.i In vain C^loron insisted that he and his tribesmen should remove at once. Neither blandishments nor threats would prevail, and the French commander felt that his negotiation had failed. He was not deceived. Far from leaving his village, the Demoiselle, who was Great Chief of the Miami Confederacy, gathered his followers to the spot, till, less than two years ufter the visit of Cdloron, its population had increased eightfold. Pique Town, or Pickawillany, as the English called it, became one of the greatest Indian towns of the West, the centre of English trade and influence, and a capital object of French jealousy. C^loron burned his shattered canoes, and led his party across the long and difficult portage to the French post on the Maumee, where he found Ray- mond, the commander, and all his men, shivering with fever and ague. They supplied him with wooden canoes for his V( yage down the river; and, early in October, he reached Lake Erie, where he was detained for a time by a drunken debauch of his Indians, who are called by the chaplain "a species of men made to exercise the patience of those who have the misfortune to travel with them." In a month more he was at Fort Frontenac; and as he descended thence to Montreal, he stopped at the 1 Celoron, Journal. Compare A Message from the Twightwees (Miamis) in Colonial Records of Pa., v. 437, where they say that they refused the gifts. 6« CfiLORON DE BIEXVILLE. [1749. Oswegatchie, in obedience to tI>o governor, who had directed him to report the progress made by the Sulpitian, AbU Piquet, at his new mission. Piquet's new fort had been burned by Indians, prompted, as he thought, by the English of Oswego; but the pnes , buoyant and undaunM, was still resolute for the glory of God and the confusion of the hectics. At length Caoron reached Montreal; and, closing h.s Journal, wrote thus.- "Father Bonnecamp, who Zl T ""f *««"" mathematician, reckons that ri! 1 r"l'^''"^ hundred leagues; I and my offlcei. think we have travelled more. All I can say 18, that the nations of these countries are very iU- disposed tc,wards aie French, and devoted entii^y to It had at least revealed clearly the deplorable conl dition of French interests in the West f>.7^^' "^^'r" ™' ™™'"S English 'traders from the Ohio, apian was on foot in Virginia for a new invasion of the French domain. An association Z fonned to settle the Ohio countiy; and a gi^nt of five hundred thousand acres . « procured from the Kmg on condition that a hundred families should be established upon it within seven yea.^, a fort built, and a garnson maintained. The Ohio Company RdaUon d'un voyage dans la Belle Riviere sous les ordres de M d. C!€loron, par le Pere Bonnecamp, en 1749. ^' '^^ ' ! 1 1750.] THE OHIO COMPANY. 67 numbered among its members some of the chief men of Virginia, including two brothers of Washington; and it had also a London partner, one Hanbury, a person of influence, who acted as its agent in Eng- land. In the year after the expedition of C^loron, its governing committee sent the trader Christopher Gist to explore the country and select land. It must be "good level land," wrote the committee; "we had rather go quite down to the Mississippi than take mean, broken land. " ^ In November Gist reached Logstown, the Chiningu^ of Cdloron, where he found what he calls a "parcel of reprobate Indian traders." Those whom he so stigmatizes were Pennsylvanians, chiefly Scotch-Irish, between whom and the traders from Virginia there was great jealousy. Gist was told that he "should never go home safe." He declared himself the bearer of a message from the King. This imposed respect, and he was allowed to proceed. At the Wyandot village of Muskingum he found the trader George Croghan, sent to the Indians by the governor of Pennsylvania, to renew the chain of friendsbip.2 "Croghan," he says, "is a mere idol among his countrymen, the Irish traders; " yet they met amicably, and the Penn- sylvanian had with him a companion, Andrew Montour, the interpreter, who proved of great service 1 Instructions to Gist, in appendix to Pownall, Topographical Description of North America. 2 Mr. Croghan' s Transactions with the Indians, in N. Y. Col. Docs. vii. 267; Croghan to Hamilton, 16 December, 1750. 58 CfiLORON DE BIENVILLE. [1750. to Gist. As Montour was a conspicuous peraon in his time, and a type of his class, he merit, a passinc^ notice. He was the reputed grandson of a French governor and an Indian squaw. His half-breed mother, Catharine Montour, was a native of Canada whence she was carried off by the Iroquois, and adopted by them. She lived in a village at the head of Seneca Lake, and still held the belief, inculcated by the guides of her youth, that Christ was a l-renchman crucified by the English. 1 Her son Andrew is thus described by the Moravian Zinzendorf who knew him : "His face is like that of a European' but marked with a broad Indian ring of bear's-grease and paint drawn completely round it. He weare a coat of fine cloth of cinnamon color, a black necktie with silver spangles, a red satin waistcoat, trousers over which hangs his shirt, shoes and stockings, a hat, and brass ornaments, something like the hardle of a basket, suspended from his eara."a He was an excellent interpreter, and held in high account by his Indian kinsmen. After leaving Muskingum, Gist, Croghan, and Montour went t^ ler to a village on White Woman s Creek, - so jailed from one Mary Harris, 1 This is stated by Count Zinzendorf, who visited her amonr the Senecas Compare " Frontenac and New France under Louis xfv" Inland f ^^^\"^ '^" "^°"*' "^ *''^ ^^^^*^™ ^"^y" ™ade i'n 1779 and of which a tracing is before me, the village where she lived IS still called " Frencii Catharine's Town " -'Journal of Zinzendorf, quoted in Schweinitz, Life of David Zeisbcrger, 112, note. ' J j 1750, 1751.] PICKAWILLANY. 59 who lived here. She was born in New England, was made prisoner when a child forty years before, and had since dwelt among her captors, finuing such comfort as she might in an Indian husband and a family of young half-breeds. " She still remembers, " says Gist, "that they used to be very religious in New England, and wonders how white men can be so wicked as she has seen them in these woods." He and his companions now journeyed southwestward to the Shawanoe town at the mouth of the Scioto, where they found a reception very different from that which had awaited C^loron. Thence they rode northwest- ward along the forest path that led to Pickawillany, the Indian town on the upper waters of the Great Miami. Gist was delighted with the country, and reported to his employers that " it is fine, rich, level land, well timbered with large walnut, ash, sugar trees and cherry trees; well watered with a great number of little streams and rivulets ; full of beauti- ful natural meadows, with wild rye, blue-grass, and clover, and abounding with turkeys, deer, elks, and most sorts of game, particularly buffaloes, thirty or forty of which are frequently seen in one meadow." A little farther west, on the plains of the Wabash and the Illinois, he would have found them by thousands. They crossed the Miami on a raft, their horses swimming after them ; and were met on landing by a crowd of warriors, who, after smoking with thv i, escorted them to the neighboring town, where they i 60 C^LORON DE BIENVILLE. [176L were greeted by a fusillade of welcome. "We en- tered with English colors before us, and were kindly received by their king, who invited us into his own house and set our colors upon the top of it; then all the white men and traders that were there came and welcomed us." This "king " was Old Brit^tin, or La Demoiselle. Great were the changes here since Cdloron, a year and ., half before, had vainly enticed him to change his abode, and dwell in the shadow of the fleur-de-lis. The town had grown to four hun- dred famihes, or about two thousand souls; and the English traders had built for themselves and their hosts a fort of pickets, strengthened with logs. There was a series of councils in the long house or town-hall. Croghan made the Indians a present from the governor of Pennsylvania; and he and Gist delivered speeches of friendship and good advice which thP auditors received with the usual monosyl- labi" — • . , » - J thrt bot\ all wu^ from Deti >. 8, ejected from the depths of their ^aty of peace was solemnly made -lish and the confederate tribes, and nd joy; till four Ottawas, probably rived with a French flag, a gift of brandy and tobacco, and a message from the French commandant inviting the JVIiamis to visit him. Whereupon the great war-chief rose, and, with "a fierce tone and very warlike air/' said to the envoys- "Brothers the Ottawas, we let you know, by these four strings of wampum, that we will not hear any. thing the French say, nor do anything they bid us." 1761.] MTAMIS AND ENGJJSH. 61 Then addressing the French as if actually present: ** Futheis, we huve made a road to the sun-rising, and have ])een taken by the hand by our brothers the English, the Six Nations, the Del; ,vares, Shavvanots, and Wyandots.i \\re assure you, in that road we will go; and as you threaten us with war in the spring, we tell you that we are ready to receive you." Then, turning again to the four envoys : " Brothers the Ottawas, you hear wnat I say. Tell that to your fi'thers the French, for we speak it fron^ our hearts." The chiefs then took down the French flag which the Ottawas had planted in the town, and dismissed the envoys witli their answer of defiance. On the next day the town-crier came with a mes- sage from he Demoiselle, inviting his English guests to a "feather dance," which Gist dius describes: "It was performed by three dancing-masters, who were painted all or . of various colors, v/ith long sticks in their hands, xpon the ends of which were fastened long feathers of swans and other birds, neatly woven in the shape of a fowl's wing; in this disguise they performed many antic tricks, waving their sticks and feathers about with great skill, to imitate the flying and fluttering of birds, keeping exact time with their music." This music was the measured thumping of an Indian drum. From time to time a warrior would leap up, and the drum and the dancers would cease % i\\ 1 Compare Message of Miamis and Hurons to the Governor of Pennsylvania m N. Y. Col. Docs., vi. 594; and Report of Croghan in Colonial Records of Pa., v. 522, 523. 63 Cl8l >RON DE r-ENVILLE. ■Ik ■fi [1761. as ae stnick a post with hi. ..r.ahawk, and in a loud vcce recounted hi« exploits. Then he ZVZ, the dance began anew till nn,fK ♦r.^ ^- 1 .. ' another warrior cauzht t'.e ,..rt,a! hre, and bounded into the oirele to bin- dish 1„8 tomahawk and vaunt his prowess On the Hrst of March Gist took leave of Pickawil- any, and returned towards the Ohio. He wTld l.ave gone to the Falls, where Uuiavillo now sZd ? but for a tend of French Indians reported to te the e. who would protably have killed hin, Aftel visuing a deposit of n.amraoth hones on the south *o«, long the wonder of the trade™, h tuTned ««tward, crossed with toil and difficult; the ZZ. tarns about the sources of the Kuiawha, and after an absence of seven months reached his Aontler h 1" on the Yadhn, wh ..„ :e p„ceeded to Roanole with the report of his journey.' All looked well for the English in the West; but under tte fa.r outside lurked hidden danger. xTe M-am,s were hearty i„ the Knglish cans!, and"„ ?e hap, were the Shawanoes; but the Delawlres hi ^o forgotten the wrongs that drove them from thet ohi abodes east of the AUeghanies, while the Mingoe York felt the mfluenoe of Joncaire and other FrenI agents, who spared no efforts to seduce them.^ Sail l'-r.Ccl.Poc.Jii''w ^™»»«.«.. mU, ,h, /w;™/i„ 'Oonoaire „'.<,e .nti.E.g,i.h sp..<:he, ,„ the Ohio I.dl.„. I! I i m m 1 i>; i ii 1750-1752.] ENGLISH APATHY. 68 more baneful to British interests were the apathy and dissensions of the British colonies themselves. The Ohio Company had built a trading-house at Will's Creek, a branch of the Potomac, to which the Indians resorted in great numbers; whereupon the jealous traders of Pennsylvania told them that the Virginians meant to steal aAvay their lands. This confirmed what they had been taught by the French emissaries, whose intrigues it powerfully aided. The governors of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia saw the importance of Indian alliances, and felt their own responsibility in regard to them; but they could do nothing without their assemblies. Those of New York and Pennsylvania were largely composed of tradesmen and farmers, absorbed in local interests, and possessed by two motives, — the saving of the people's money, and opposition to the governor, who stood for the royal prerogative. It was Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, who had sent Croghan to the Miamis to "renew the chain of friendship;" and when the envoy returned, the Assembly rejected his report. "I was condemned," he says, "for bringing expense on the Government, and the Indians were neglected." i In the same year Hamilton again sent him over the mountains, with a present for the Mingoes and Delawares. Croghan succeeded in under the eyes of the English themselves, who did not molest him Journal of Geonje Croghan, 1751, in Olden Time, i. 136. ^ Mr. Croghan's Transactions with the Indians, N. Y Col Doro vii. 267. ' !:•! i»! 64 C^LORON DE BIENVILLE. [1750-1752. persuading them that it would be for their good if the English should build a fortified trading-house at the fork of the Ohio, where Pittsburg now stands; and they made a formal request to the governor that It should be built accordingly. But, in the words of Croghan, the Assembly "rejected the proposal, and condemned me for making such a report." Yet thi^ post on the Ohio Avas vital to English inlerestsl' Even the Penns, proprietaries of the province, never lavish of their money, ofPered four hundred pounds towards the cost of it, besides a hundred a year towards Its maintenance; but the Assembly wouM not listen.1 The Indians were so well convinced that a strong English trading-station in their country would add to their safety and comfort, that when Pennsylvania refused it, they repeated the proposal to Virginia; but here, too, it found for the present little favor. The question of disputed boundaries had much to do with this most impolitic inaction. A large part of the valley of the Ohio, including the site of the proposed establishment, was claimed by both Penn- sylvania and Virginia; and each feared that whatever money it might spend there would turn to the profit t nwwtr^n 1'"%^'/ ^«-' ^- 515, 529, r47. At a council at Logs- town (1751), the Indians said to Croghan: "The French want to d.eatus out of our country; but we will stop them, and. Brothers the English, you must help us. We expect that you w il S " strong house on the River Ohio, that in case of war we may have a place to secure our wives r.nd children, likewise our brothersThat come to trade with u.."- Report of Treaty at Lo.sto.n, ij y 538 1750-1752.] ENGLISH APATHY. 66 of the other. This was not the only evil that sprang from uncertain ownership. "Till the line is run between the two provinces," says Dinwiddle, gov- ernor of Virginia, "I cannot appoint magistrates to keep the traders in good order. "^ Hence they did what they pleased, and often gave umbrage to the Indians. Clinton, of New York, appealed to his Assembly for means to assist Pennsylvania in "secur- ing the fidelity of the Tndians on the Ohio," and the Assembly refused. ^ "We will take care of our Indians, and they may take care of theirs : " such was the spirit of their answer. He wrote to the various provinces, inviting them to send commissioners to meet the tribes at Albany, "in order to defeat the designs and intrigues of the French." All turned a deaf ear except Massachusetts, Connecticut, and South Carolina, who sent the commissioners, but supplied them very meagrely with the indispensable presents. 3 Clinton says further: "The Assembly of this province have not given one farthing for Indian affairs, nor for a year past have they provided for the subsistence of the garrison at Oswego, which is the key for the commerce between the colonies and the inland nations of Indians." ^ In the heterogeneous structure of the British 1 Dinwiddie to the Lords of Trade, 6 October, 1752. 2 Journals of New York Assembly, ii. 283, 284. Colonial Records of Pa., V. 466. 3 Clinton to Hamilton, 18 December, 1750. Clinton to Lords of Trade, 13 June, 1751 ; Ibid., 17 July, 1751. * Clinton to Bedford, 30 July, 1750. VOL. I. — 6 ■J ij * ( U-:^ 66 CISLORON DE BIENVILLE. [1750-1762. colonies, their clashing interests, their internal dis- putes, and the misplaced economy of penny-wise and short-sighted assembly-men, lay the hope of France. The rulers of Canada knew the vast numerical pre- ponderance of their rivals; but with their centralized organization they felt themselves more than a match for any one English colony alone. They hoped to wage war under the guise of peace, and to deal with the enemy in detail; and they at length perceived that the fork of the Oliio, so strangely neglected by the English, formed, together with Niagara, the key of the Great West. Could France hold firmly these two controlling passes, she might almost boast herself mistress of the continent. Note. — The Journal of Celoron (Archives de la Marine) is very long and circumstantial, including the proces verbaux, and reports of councils with Indians. The Journal of the chaplain, Bonne- camp (Depot de la Marine), is shorter, but is tlie work of an intelli- gent and observing man. The author, a Jesuit, was skilled in mathematics, made daily observations, and constructed a map of the route, still preserved at the Depot de la Marine. Concurrently with these French narratives, one may consult the English letters and documents bearing on the same subjects, in thr Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, the Archives of Pennsylvania, and the Colonial Documents of New York. Three of Ce'loron's leaden plates have been found, — the two mentioned in the text, and another which was never buried, and which the Indians, who regarded these mysterious tablets as " bad medicine," procured by a trick from Joncaire, or, according to Governor Clinton, stole from him. A Cayuga chief brought it to Colonel Johnson on the Mohawk, who interpreted the "Devilish writing "in such a manner as best to inspire horror of French designs. CHAPTER III. 1749-1753. CONFLICT FOR THE WEST. The Five Nations. - Cauoiinawaoa. — ABnij Piqpet- his bCHEMEs; HIS JoLRNET. — Fort Frontenac. - Toronto — Niagara. — Oswego.— Success of Piquet. - Detroit —La JoNQuiiRE : HIS Intrigues ; his Trials • his Death — English Intrigues. — Critical State o* the West -Pick- awillany destroyed. — Duquesne : kxs Grand Enterprise. The Iroquois, or Five Nations, sometimes called Six Nations after the Tuscaroras joined them, had been a power of high importance in American inter- national politics. In a certain sense they may be said to have held the balance between their French and English neighbors; but their relative influence had of late declined. So many of them had emi- grated and joined the tribes of the Ohio, that the centre of Indian population had passed to that region. Nevertheless, the Five Nations were still strong enough in their ancient abodes to make their alliance an object of the utmost consequence to both the European rivals. At the western end of their " Long House," or belt of confederated villages, Joncaire intrigued to gain them for France; while in the east he was counteracted by the young colonel of militia, I \\l 68 CONFLICT FOR THE WEST. [1749-1758. Iff h William Johnson, who lived on the Mohawk, and was already well skilled in managing Indians. Johnson sometimes lost his temper; and once wrote to Governor Clinton to compliiin of the " confounded wicked things the French had infused into the Indians' heads; among the rest that the English were deter- mined, the first opportunity, to destroy them all. I assure your Excellency I had hard work to beat these and several other cursed villanous things, told them by the French, out of their heads. "* In former times the French had hoped to win over the Five Nations in a body, by wholesale conversion to the Faith ; but the attempt had failed. They had, however, made within their own limits an asylum for such converts as they could gain, whom they collected together at Caughnawaga, near Montreal, to the number of about three hundred warriors. ^ These could not be trusted to fight their kinsmen, but willingly made forays against the English borders. Caughnawaga, like various other Canadian missions, was divided between the Church, the army, and the fur-trade. It had a chapel, fortifications, and store- houses; two Jesuits, an officer, and three chief traders. Of these last, two were maiden ladies, the Demoiselles Desauniers ; and one of the Jesuits, their friend Father Tournois, was their partner in busi- ness. They carried on by means of the Mission 1 Johnson to Clinton, 28 April, 1740. 3 The estimate of a Irench official report, 1736, and of Sir William Johnson, 1763. 1749-1763.] PIQUET. 69 Indians, and in collusion with influantial persons in the colony, a trade with the Dutch at Albany, illegal, but very profitable.* Besides this Iroquois mission, which was chiefly composed of Mohawks and Oneidas, another was now begun farther westward, to win over the Onon- dagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. This was the estab- lishment of Father Piquet, which Cdloron had visited in its infancy when on his way to the Ohio, and again on his return. Piquet was a man in the prime of life, of an alert, vivacious countenance, by no means unprepossessmg ; 2 an enthusiastic schemer, with great executive talents ; ardent, energetic, vain, self-confident, and boastful. The enterprise seems to have been of his own devising; but it found warm approval from the government. ^ La Presentation, as he called the new mission, stood on the bank of the river Oswegatchie where it enters the St. Lawrence. Here the rapids ceased, and navigation was free to Lake Ontario. The place commanded the main river, and could bar the way to hostile war- parties or contraband traders. Rich meadows, forests, and abundance of fish and game, made it attractive 1 La Jonquiere au Ministre, 27 F^vrier, 1750. Ibid., 29 Octobre, 1751. Ordres du Roy et Dgpeckes des Ministres, 1751. Notice bio' graphique de La Jonquiere. La Jonquifere, governor of Canada, at last broke up their contraband trade, and ordered Toumois to Quebec. ^ I once sa'v a contemporary portrait of him at the mission of Two Mountains, where he had been stationed. 3 Rouille a La Jonquiere, 1749. The intendant Bigot gave hini money and provisions. N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 204. I«>' H T^f TO CONFLICT FOR THE WEST. [1749-1763. to Indians, and the Oswegatchie gave access to the Iroquois towns. Piquet liad chosen his site with great skill. His activity was admirable. His first stockade was Imrneu by Indian incendiaries; but it rose quickly from its ashes, and within a year or two the mission of La Prdsentation had a fort of palisades flanked with blockhouses, a chapel, a storehouse, a bam, a stable, ovens, a saw-mill, broad fields of corn and beans, and three villages of Iroquois, containing, in all, forty -nil u; bark lodges, each holding three or four families, more or less converted to the Faith; and, ae time went on, this number increased. The governor had sent a squad of soldiers to man the fort, and five small cannon to mount upon it. The place Wiis as safe for the new proselytes as it was convenient and agreeable. The Pennsylvanian inter- preter, Conrad Weiser, was told at Onondaga, the Iroquois capital, that Piquet had made a hundred converts from that place alone; and that, "having clothed them all in v fine clothes, laced with silver and gold, he took then, down and presented them to the French governor at Montreal, who re- ceived them very kindly, and made them large presents." ^ Such were some of the temporal attractions of La Prdsentation. The nature of the spiritual instruc- tion bestowed by Piquet and hit, rellow-priests may be partly inferred from the words of a proselyte warrior, who declared with enthusiasm that he had 1 Journal of Conrad Weiser, 1750. £ 1740-1753.1 BOASTS OF PIQTJET 71 learned from the Sulpitian missionary thit the King of France was tlie eldest son of the wife of Jesus Christ. 1 This he of course took in a literal sense, the mystic idea of the Church as the spouse of Christ beingr beyond his savage comprehension. The eflfect w.s (-) stimulate his devotion to the Great Onontio beyoi:d the set;, and to the lesser Onontio who repre- sented liini as governor of Canada. Piquet was elated by his success; and early in 1752 he wrote to the governor and intendant: "It is a great miracle that, in .«Yite of envy, contradiction, and opposition from nearly all the Indian villages, I have formed in less than three years one of the most flourishing missions in Canada. I find myself in a position to extend the empire of my good mast«ra, Jesus Christ and the King, even to ibe extreiaities of this new worid; and, with some little help from you, to do more than France and England have been able to do with millions of money and all their troops. "2 The letter from which thi3 is taken was written to urge upon the government a scheme in which the zealous priest could see nothing impra- ' able. He proposed to raise a war-party of thirty-eight hundred »i ' Y""^ ■' f''' ^' ^'"^^^^ ^'■?"^'' ''' ^«"'" ^dijiantes. See also Tas m Reuae Canadienne, 1870, p. 9. 2 Piquet d . x Jonquicre et Bigot, 8 Ffvrier, 1752. See Appendix A In spite of Piquet's seh-i.udation, and in spite also of the detraction of the author of the ' Umoires sur h Canada, 1749-1760 there can be no doubt of his pra .tical capacity and his fertility of resource. Duquesne, when governor of the colony, highly praises ses talents et soa activity pour le service de Sa Majesty." ill I CONFLICT FOR THE WEST. [1751. Indians, eighteen hundred of whom were to be drawn from the Canadian missions, the Five Nations, and the tribes of the Ohio, while the remaining two thousand were to be furnished by the Flatheads, or Choctaws, who were at the same time to be supplied with missionaries. The united force was first to drive the English from the Ohio, and next attack the Dog Tribe, or Cherokees, who lived near the borders of Virginia, with the people of which they were on friendly terms. "If," says Piquet, "the English of Virginia give any help to this last-named tribe, — which will not fail to happen, — they [the loar-party] will do their utmost against them, through a grudge they bear them by reason of some old quarrels." In other words, the missionary hopes to set a host of savages to butchering English settlers in time of peace l^ His wild project never took effect, though the governor, he says, at first approved it. In the preceding year the " Apostle of the Iroquois," as he was called, made a journey to muster recruits for his mission, and kept a copious diary on the way. By accompanying him, one gets a clear view of an important part of the region in dispute between the rival nations. Six Canadians paddled him up the St. Lawrence, and five Indian converts followed in another canoe. Emerging from among the Thousand Islands, they stopped at Fort Frontenac, where Kingston now stands. Once the place was a great ^ Appendix A. 1751.] PIQUET AT TORONTO. 73 resort of Indians; now nono were here, for the Eng- lish post of Oswego, on the other side of the lake, had greater attractions. Piquet and his company found the pork and bacon very bad, and he com- plains that "there was not brandy enough in the fort to wash a wound." They crossed to a neighboring island, where they were soon visited by the chaplain of the fort, the storekeeper, his wife, and three young ladies, glad of an excursion to relieve the monotony of the garrison. "My hunters," says Piquet, "had supplied me with means of giving them a pretty good entertainment. We drank, with all our hearts, the health of the authorities, temporal and ecclesiastical, to the sound of our musketry, which was very well fired, and delighted the islandere. " These islanders were a band of Indians who lived here. Piquet gave them a feast, then discoursed of religion, and at last persuaded them to remove to the new mission. During eight days he and his party coasted the northern shore of Lake Ontario, with various inci- dents, such as an encounter between his dog Cerberus and a wolf, to the disadvantage of the latter, and the meeting with "a very fine negro of twenty-two years, a fugitive from Virginia." On the twenty-sixth of June they reached the new fort of Toronto, which offered a striking contrast to their last stopping- place. " The wine here is of the best; there is noth- ing wanting in this fort; everything is abundant, fine, and good." There was reason for this. The 1 i V i. ■I / «* » i I 74 CONFLICT FOR THE WEST. [1751. northern Indians were flocking with their beaver- skins to the English of Oswego; and in April, 1749 an officer named Portneuf had been sent with soldiers and workmen to build a stockaded trading-house at Toronto, in order to intercept them, —not by force which would have been ruinous to French interests' but by a tempting supply of goods and brandy. 1 Thus the fort was kept well stocked, and with excel- lent effect. Piquet found here a band of Mississagas, who would otherwise, no doubt, have carried their furs to the English. He was strongly impelled to persuade them to migrate to La Presentation; but the governor had told him to confine his efforts to other tribes; and lest, he says, the ardor of his zeal should betray him to disobedience, he re-embarked, and encamped six leagues from temptation. Two days more brought him to Niagara, where he was warmly received by the commandant, the chap- lam, and the storekeeper, — the triumvirate who ruled these forest outposts, and stood respectively for their three vital principles, war, religion, and trade. Here Piquet said mass; and after resting a day, set out for the trading-house at the portage of the cata- ract, recently built, like Toronto, to stop the Irdians on their way to Oswego.^ Here he found Joncaire, and here also was encamped a large band of Senecas; ,! On Toronto. La Jonquiere et Bigot an Ministre, 1749. La Jon- qucereau Ahmstre, 30 Aoiit, 1760. N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 201 246 Co~7f-7n ^r"'^'23 Fevrier, 1750. Ibid.,Q Octohre, 1751. tompare Colonial Records of Pa., v. 508. 'n 1751.] PIQUET AT NIAGARA. 75 though, being all drunk, men, women, and children, they were in no condition tc receive the Faith, or appreciate the temporal advantages that attended it. Or the next morning, finding them partially sober, he invited them to remove to La Presentation; "but as they had still something left in their bottles, I could get no answer till the following day." "I pass in silence," pursues the missionary, "an infinity of talks on this occasion. Monsieur de Joncaire for- got nothing that co-'ld help me, and behaved like a great servant of God and the King. My recruits increased every moment. I went to say my breviary while my Indians and the Senecas, without loss of time, assembled to hold a council with Monsieur de Joncaire." The result of the council was an entreaty to the missionary not to stop at Oswego, lest evil should befall him at the hands of the English. He promised to do as they wished, and presently set out on his return to Fort Niagara, attended by Joncaire and a troop of his new followers. The journey was a triumphal progress. " Whenever we passed a camp or a wigwam, the Indians saluted me by firing their guns, which happened so often that I thought all the trees along the way were chai-ged with gunpowder; and when we reached the fort. Monsieur de Becan- cour received us with great ceremony and the firing of cannon, by which my savages were infinitely flattered." His neophytes were gathered into the chapel for the first time in their lives, and there rewarded with i/il ■Itl k T6 CONFLICT FOR THE WEST. [1751. a few presents. He now prepared to turn homeward, his flock at the mission being left in his absence without a shepherd; and on the sixth of July he embarked, followed by a swarm of canoes. On the twelfth they stopped at the Genesee, and went to visit the Falls, where the city of Rochester now stands. On the way, the Indians found a populous resort of rattlesnakes, and attacked the gregarious reptiles with great animation, to the alarm of the missionary, who trembled for his bare-legged retainers. His fears proved needless. Forty-two dead snakes,' as he avers, requited the efforts of the sportsmen, and not one of them was bitten. When he returned to camp in the afternoon he found there a canoe loaded with kegs of brandy. "The English," he says, "had sent it to meet us, well knowing that this was the best way to cause disorder among my new recruits and make them desert me. The Indian in charge of the canoe, who had the look of a great rascal, offered some to me first, and then to'' my Canadians and Indians. I gave out that it was very probably poisoned, and immediately embarked again." He encamped on the fourteenth at Sodus Bay, and strongly advises the planting of a French fort there "Nevertheless," he adds, " it would be still better to destroy Oswego, and on no account let the English build it again." On the sixteenth he came in sight of this dreaded post. Several times on the way he had met fleets of canoes going thither or returning, in spite of the rival attractions of Toronto and \ ^ 1751.] PIQUET AT OSWEGO. 77 Niagara. No English establishment on the conti- nent was of such ill omen to the French. It not only- robbed them of the fur-trade, by which they lived, but threatened them with military and political, no less than commercial, ruin. They were in constant dread lest ships of war should be built here, strong enough to command Lake Ontario, thus separating Canada from Louisiana, and cutting New France asunder. To meet this danger, they soon after built at Fort Frontenac a large three-masted vessel, mounted with heavy cannon; thus, as usual, fore- stalling their rivals by promptness of action. ^ The ground on which Oswego stood was claimed by the Province of New York, which alone had control of it ; but through the purblind apathy of the Assembly, and their incessant quarrels with the governor, it was commonly left to take care of itself. For some time they would vote no money to pay the feeble little garrison; and Clinton, who saw the necessity of maintaining it, was forced to do so on his own personal credit.^ "Why can't your governor and j'-our great men [the AssemUy] agree?" asked a Mohawk chief of the interpreter, Conrad Weiser.*^ Piquet kept his promise not to land at the English fort; but he approached in his canoe, and closely observed it. The shores, now covered by the city of Oswego, were than a desolation of bare hills and 1 Lteutena) t Lindesay to Johnson, July, 1751. 2 Clinton to Lords of Trr.de, 30 July, 1750. 3 Journal of ti^vrad Weiser, 1760. t^l ir . li" I 78 CONFLICT FOR THE WEST. ^751. fields, studded with the stumps of felled trees, and hedged about with a grim border of forests. Near the strand, by the mouth of the Onondaga, were the houses of some of the traders; and on the higher ground behind them stood a huge blockhouse with a projeetmg upper story. This building was sur- rounded by a rough wall of stone, with flankers at the angles, forming what was called the fort.i Piquet reconnoitred it from his canoe with the eye of a soldier. "It is commanded," he says, "on almost every side; two batteries, of three * twelve- pounders each, would be more than enough to reduce it to ashes." And he enlarges on the evils that arise from it. "It not only spoils our trf^de, but puts the English into communication with a vast number of our Indians, far aftd near. It is true that they like our brandy better than English rum; but they prefer English goods to ours, and can buy for two beaver- skins at Oswego a better silver bracelet than we sell at Niagara for ten." The burden of these reflections was lightened when he approached Fort Frontenac. "Never was reception more solemn. The Nipissings and Algoii- quins, who were going on a war-party with Monsieur Beletre, formed a line of their own accord, and saluted us with three volleys of musketry, and cries of joy without end. All our little- bark vessels replied in the same way. Monsieur de Vercheres and Monsieur de Valtry ordered the cannon of the 1 Compare Doc. Hist. N. Y., i. 463. 1751.] SUCCESS OF riQUET. 79 fort to be fired; and my Indians, transported with joy at the honor done thera, shot off their guns inces- santly, with cries and acclamations that delighted everybo-V-" A g. Hy band of recruits joined him, and he pursued his voyage to La Presentation, while the canoes of his proselytes followed in a swarm to their new home ; " that establishment " — thus in a burst of enthusiasm he closes his Journal — "that establishment which I began two years ago, in the midst of opposition; that establishment which may be regarded as a key of the colony; that establish- ment which officers, interpreters, and traders thought a chimera, — that establishment, I say, forms already a mission of Iroquois savages whom I assembled at first to the number of only six, increased last year to eighty-seven, and this year to three hundred and ninety-six, without counting more than a hundred and fifty whom Monsieur Chabert de Joncaire is to bring me this autumn. And I certify that thus far I have received from His Majesty — for all favor, grace, and assistance — no more than a half pound of bacon and two pounds of bread for daily rations ; and that he has not yet given a pin to the chapel, which I have maintained out of my own pocket, for the greater glory of my masters, God and the King."i 1 Journal qui pent servir de M€moire et de Relation du Voyage que j'aijfait sur le Lac Ontario pour attirer au nouvel ^tablissement de La Presentation les Sauvages Iroquois des Cinq Nations, 1751. The last passage given above is condensed in the rendering, as the original is extremely involved and ungrainraatical. 80 CONFLICT FOR THE WEST [1751. In his late journey he had made the entire circuit of Lake Ontario. Beyond lay four other inland oceans, to which Fort Niagara was the key. As that all-essential post control 13d the passage from Ontario to Erie, so did Fort Detroit control that from Erie to Huron, and Fort Michilimackinac that from Huron to Michigan; while Fort Ste. Marie, at the outlet of Lake Superior, had lately received a garrison, and changed from a mission and trading-station to a post of war.i This immense extent of inland navigation was safe in the hands of Fi-ance so long as she held Niagara. Niagara lost, not only the lakes, but also the Valley of the Ohio was lost with it. Next in importance was Detroit. This was not a military- post alone, but also a settlement; and, except the hamlets about Fort Chartres, the only settlement that France owned in all the West. There were, it is true, but a few families ; yet the hope of growth seemed good; for to such as liked a wilderness home, no spot in Americr. had more attraction. Father Bonnecamp stopped here for a day on his way back from the expedition of Celeron. "The situation," he says, "is charming. A fine river flows at the foot of the fortifications; vast meadows, asking only to be tilled, extend beyond the sight. Nothing can be more agreeable than the climate. Winter lasts hardly two months. European grains and fruits grow here far better than in many parts of France. It is the Touraine and Beauce of Canada. "2 Xhe white flag 1 La Jonquiere au Ministre, 24 Aout, 1750. 2 Relation du Voiage de la Belle Riviere, 1749. * 1750, 1751.] DETROIT. 81 of the Bourbons floated over the compact little pali- saded town, with its population of soldiers and fur- tradere; and from the blockhouses which served as bastions, one saw^ on either hand the small solid dwellings of the habitants^ ranged at intervals along the margin of the water; while at a little distance three Indian villages — Ottawa, Pottawatoamie, and Wyandot — curled their wigwam smoke into the pure summer air.^ When C^loron de Bienville returned from the Ohio, he went, with a royal commission, sent him a year before, to command at Detroit. ^ His late chap- lain, the very intelligent Father Bonnecamp, speaks of him as fearless, energetic, and full of resource; but the governor calls him haughty and insubordinate. Great efforts were made, at the same time, to build up Detroit as a centre of French power in the West. The methods employed were of the debilitating, paternal character long familiar to Canada. All emigrants with families were to be carried thither at the King's expense ; and every settler was to receive in free gift a gun, a hoe, an axe, a ploughshare, a scythe, a sickle, two augers, large and small, a sow, six hens, a cock, six pounds of powder, and twelve pounds of lead; while to these favors were added many others. The result was that twelve families 1 A plan of Detroit is before me, made about this time by the engineer Lery. 2 Le Ministre a La Jonquiere et Bigot, 14 Mat, 1749. Le Ministre a C^/oron, 23 Mai, 1749. VOL. I. — 6 31'''. !' 82 CONFLICT FOR THE WEST. [1750. 1761. were persuaded to go, or about a twentieth part of the number wanted. » ,>etroit was expected to fur- nish supplies to the other posts for five hundred miles around, control the neighboring Indians, thwart English machinations, and drive off English interlopers. La GalissoniSre no longer governed Canada. He had been honorably recalled, and the Marquis de la Jonqui^re sent in his stead. 2 La Jouquifere, like his predecessor, w"s a naval officer of high repute; he was tall and imposing in person, and of undoubted capacity and courage ; but old and, according to his enemies, veiy avaricious.^ The colonial minister gave him special instructions regarding that thorn in the side of Canada, Oswego. To attack it openly would be indiscreet, as the two nations were at peace; but there was a way of dealing with it less hazardous, if not more lawful. This was to attack it vicariously by means of the Iroquois. "If Abbd Piquet succeeds in his mission," wrote the minister to the new governor, " we can easily persuade these * Ordonnance du 2 Janvier, 1760. La Jonquiere et Bigot au Mi- niatre, 1750. Forty-six persons of all ages and both sexes had bejn induced by La Galissoniere to go the year before. Lettres communes de La Jonquiere et Bigot, 1749. The total fixed population of Detroit and its neighborhood in 1760 is stated at four hundred and eighty- three souls. In the following two years, a considerable number of young men came of their own accord, and Celoron wrote to Mont- real to ask for girls to marry them, * Le Ministre a La Galissoniere, 14 Mai, 1749. « M€moires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. The charges made here and elsewhere are denied, somewhat faintly, by a descendant of La Jonquiere in his elaborate Notice biographique of his ancestor. 1760, 17fti.] CLINTON AND LA JONQUlilRE. 88 savages to destroy Oswego. This is of the utmost importance; but act with great caution." » In the next year the minister A^rote again: "The only means that can be used for such an operation in time of peace are those of the Iroquois. If by making these savages regard such an establishment lOswego'] as opposed to their liberty, and, so to speak, a usur- pation by which the English mean to get possession of their lands, they could be induced to undertake its destruction, an operation of the sort is not to be neglected; but M. le Marquis de la Jonquicire should feel with what circumspection such an affair should be conducted, and he should labor to accomplisii it in a manner not to commit himself. "^ Xo this La Jonquiere replies that it will need time; but that he will gradually hrhxg the Iroquois to attack and destroy the English post. He received stringent orders to use every means to prevent the English from encroaching, but to act towards them at the same time "with the greatest politeness." 3 This last injunction was scarcely fulfilled in a correspond- ence which he had with Clinton, governor of New York, who had written to complain of the new post at the Niagara portage as an invasion of English territory, and also of the arrest of four English 1 Le Ministre a La Jonquiere, Mai, 1749. The instructions given to La Jonquifere before leaving France also urge the necessity of destroying Oswego. « Ordres du Roy et D^peches des Ministres ; a MM. de La Jonquiire et Biyot, 15 Avril, 1750. See Appendix A for original. * Ordres du P-^u et Depeches des Ministres, 1750. 84 CONFLICT FOR THE WEST. [1750, 1751. \ii *t t \ f , traders in the country of the Miamis. Niagara, like Oswego, was in thf, oountry of the Five Nations, whom the treaty of Utrecht declared "subject to the dominion of Great Britain." i This declaration, pre- posterous in itself, was binding on France, whose plenipotentiaries had signed the treaty. The treaty also provided that the subjects of the two Crowns "shall enjoy full liberty of going and coming on account of trade," and Clinton therefore demanded that La Jonquifire should disavow the arrest of the four traders and punish its authors. The French governor replied with great asperity, spumed the claim tliat the Five Nations were British subjects, and justified the ar-est.^ He presently went further. Rewards were offered by his officers for the scalps of Croghan and of another trader named Lowry.^ When this reached the ears o^ William Johnson, on the Mohawk, he wrote to Clinton in evident anxiety for his own scalp : " If the French go on so, there is no man can be safe in his own house; for I caa at any time get an Indian to kill any man for a small matter. Their goir..^ on in that manner is worse than open war." The French on their side made counter-accusa- tions. The captive traders were examined en oath before La Jonquidre, and one of them, John Patton, 1 C •aers, Collection of Treaties, i. 382. " La Jonquiere a Clinton, 10 AoiU, 1751. « Deposition of Morris Turner and Ralph Kilgore, in Colonial Records of Pa., v. 482. The deponents had been prisoners at Detroit. I it ir 1780, 1751.] La JONQUifeRES TllOUBLES. 86 is reported to have said thet Croghan had instigated Indians to kiL Frenchmen. ^ French officials declared that other English traders were guilt}' of the same practices; and there is very little doubt that the charge was true. The dispute with the English was not the only 80 irce of trouble to the governor. His superiors at Vereailles would not adopt his viuvvs, and ooked on him with distrust. He advised the building of f jrtd near Lake Erie, and his advice was rejected. "Niag,.m and Detroit," he was told, "will secure forever our communications with Louisiana. " ^ " His Majesty," again wrote the colonial minister, "thought that expenses would diminish after the peace; but, on the contrary, they have increased. There must be great abuses. You and the intendanc must look to H " 3 Great abuses ther'i were ; and of Jho money «out to Canada for the sei ice of the King the larger part fo ind its way into the pockets of peculators. The co'ony was eaten to the heart with official cor- ruptioi.-; r-nd the centre of it was Francois Bigot, the intendant. The minister 'lirected La Jonquidre's attention to certain malpractices which had been rep-n-ted to him; and clie old man, d'- -.ly touched, replied: "I have reached the age of sixty-six vjars, and there is not a drop of blood in my veins the.t does not thrill for the service of my King. I will not 1 Precis ues Faits, avec leurs Pieces fustificatvH^, 100. ** Ordres du Roy et D€peches des Ministres, 1750. 8 ill i., 6 Jidn, 1751. rm» 86 CONFLICT FOR THE WEST. [1750-1752. I conceal from you that the slightest suspicion on your part against me would cut the thread of my days."^ Perplexities increased; affairs in the West grew worse and worse. La Jonqui^re ordered Cdloron to atta,ck the English at Pickawillany; and Cdloron could not or would not obey. "I cannot express," writes the governor, " how much this business troubles me; it robs me of sleep; it makes me ill." Another letter of rebuke presently came from Versailles. " Last year you wrote that you would soon drive the English from the Ohio ; but private letters say that you have done nothing. This is deplorable. If not expelled, they will seem to acquire a right against us. Send force enough at once to drive them off, and cure them of all wish to return." ^ La Jonquifere answered with bitter complaints against C^loron, and then begged to be recalled. His health, already shattered, was ruined by fatigue and vexation; and he took to his bed. Before spring he was near his end.^ It is said that, though very rich, his habits of thrift so possessed his last hours that, seeing wax candles burning in his chamber, he ordered others of tallow to be brought instead, as being good enough to die by. Thus frugally lighted on it'• ri- ^^ ,*' ^ .;■'■ A' ry ^ *; ■^'■• -% ' •:.: ^ A Wl ( pff 'If llii w) 1 it^ CriAlTKH TV. V CADI A. IDKUTV. — 4' fi^ '^ i.i: !"l IliK. -- ACAlrlAN.-, Utn.l.LhU TO bMUjKATK. — > OK TUB Kvil.iHAM8.-~ lIlMlANirV OF ( "oK vau.l.US ANI> lIui-auN. — FaNAHOISM ASO ViOLBNOE OF I.I k — CaP TUKK ..' r.M «,. FnANfoH."-TnK En<,i,j.h a'i" Hpa.. "'^'*'^'''' ■ ^^ iMtivr-* or , TiiK iNiUhit ANTi'rt. - McKiu.i; ^^^ "" " •>>-t: OK Lb LoPTRi I i !| of the Church of Home, aH far uh the Liwh of Great Hritain ao aUow the samo;" but that any who chooito may remove, with their effectw, if they do no within a year. Very fow availed themHelves of *'\n^ r^-rht; and after the end of the yeav those wh iems ^leU were reijuired to Uiiw an oath of allegiance m l\'v\g George. There Ih no donliu that in a little time they wf)uld Imvo complied, hail they lK;en let alone; but the French authori'JcH vi Canada and Cape Hretou did their utmost to prevent them, and employed agents to ^^eep them hosUic to ICnghu; 1. Of tln'se the most ellicwnt -wfbiv, the French priests, who, in spite of the treaty, persuaded ^'leir flocks that they were still ei'bjects of King Louis. Mence rose endless perplexity to the Fnglish convmandei"-' 't Anmipolis, who more than suspected thi»t the ' id.an attucks with which they were L.trassei \vf;re due Miainly to P^rench instiga- tion.^ It was ,.t till seventeen yeai-s after the treaty that the A dirxv dd ' brought to take the oith without qui'Ufioi>tions which made it almost useless. ' See the numerous papers in Selections frvn thz Put.. Docu- ments of the Promnce of Nova Scotia (Halifax, 1809), pp. 1-165; a government publieation of great value. w^mm il' 96 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749. The Ei.jlish authorities seem to have shown through- out an unusual patience and forbearance. At length, about 1730, nearly all the inhabitants signed by crosses, since few of them could write, an oath recog- nizing George II. as sovereign of Acadia, and promis- ing fidelity and ooedience to him.^ This restored comparative quiet f'.l the war of 1745, when some of the Acadians remained neutxal, while some took arms against the English, and many others aided the enemy with information and supplies. English power in Acadia, hitherto limited to a feeble garrison at Annapolis and a feebler one at Canseau, received at this time a great accession. The fortress of Louisbourg, taken by the English during the war, had been restored by the treaty; and the French at once prepared to make it a mili- tary and naval station more formidable than ever. Upon this the British ministry resolved to establish another station as a counterpoise ; and the harl)or of Chebucto, on the south coast of Acadia, was chosen as the site of it. Thither in June, 1749, came a fleet of transports loaded with emigrants, tempted by offers of land and a home in the New World. Some were mechanics, tradesmen, farmers, and laborers; others were sailors, soldiers, and subaltern officei-s thrown out of employment by the peace. Including 1 The oath was literatim as follows : " Je Promets et Jure Sincere- ment en Foi de Chretien que Je serai entiereinent Fldele, et Obeierai Vraiment Sa Majeste' Le Roy George Second, qui [sic] Je reconnoi pour Le Souvrain Seigneur de I'Accadie ou Nourelle Ecosse. Ainsi Dieu me Soit en Aide." '^^h,.^n,f 1749-1754.] HALIFAX. 97 women and children, they counted in all about twenty-five hundred. Alone of all the British colonies on the continent, this new settlement was the offspring, not of private enterprise, but of royal authority. Yet it was free like the rest, with the same popular representation and local self-govern- ment. Edward Cornwallis, uncle of Lord Cornwallis of the Revolutionary War, was made governor and commander-in-chief. Wolfe calls him "a man of approve' -.rage and fidelity;" and even the caustic Horace Walpole speaks of him as " a brave, sensible young man, of great temper and good nature. " Before summer was over, the streets were laid out, and the building-lot of each settler was assigned to him; before winter closed, the whole were under shelter, the village was fenced with palisades and defended by redoubts of timber, and the battalions late^ in garrison at Louisbourg manned the wooden ramparts. Succeeding years broi. ,ht more emigrants, till in 1752 the population was above four thousand. Thus was born into the world the city of Halifax. Along with the crumbling old fort and miserably disciplined garrison at Annapolis, besides six or seven small detached posts to watch the Indians and Acadians, it comprised the whole British force on the peninsula; for Canseau had been destroyed by the French. The French ha I never reconciled themselves to the loss of Acadia, and were resolved, by diplomacy or force, to win it back again; but the building of VOL. I. — 7 f , 98 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. I 1 if 1 Halifax showed that this was to be no easy task, and filled them at the same time with alarm for the safety of Louisbourg. On one point, at least, they saw their policy clear. The Acadians, though those of them who were not above thirty-five had been born under the British flag, must be kept French at heart, and taught that they were still French sub- jects. In 1748 they numbered eighty-eight hundred and fifty communicants, or from twelve to thirteen thousand souls; but an emigration, of which the causes will soon appear, had reduced them in 1752 to but little more than nine thousand. ^ These were divided into six principal parishes, one of the largest being that of Annapolis. Other centres of popula- tion were Grand Prd, on the Basin of Mines ; Beau- bassin, at the head of Chignecto Bay ; Pisiquid, now Windsor; and Cobequid, now Truro. Their priests, who were missionaries controlled by the diocese of Quebec, acted also as their magistrates, ruling them for this world and the next. Being subject to a French superior, and being, moreover, wholly French at heart, they formed in this British province a wheel within a wheel, the inner movement always opposing the outer. Although, by the twelfth article of the treaty of Utrecht, France had solemnly declared the Acadians 1 Description de I'Acadie, avec le Norn des Paroisses et le Nomhre des Habitants, 1748. M€moire a presenter a la Cour sur la Necessity de fixer les Limites de I'Acadie, par I'Abb^ de I'lsle-Dleu, 1753 (1754?). Compare the estimates in Censuses of Canada (Ottawa, 1876). n 1749-1754.] ACADIAN PRIESTS. 99 to be British subjects, the government of Louis XV. intrigued continually to turn them from subjects into enemies. Before me is a mass of English documents on Acadian affairs from the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle to the catastrophe of 1755, and above a thousand pages of French official papers from the archives of Paris, memorials, reports, and secret correspondence, relating to the same matters. With the help of these and some collateral lights, it is not difficult to make a correct diagnosis of the political disease that ravaged this miserable country. Of a multitude of proofs, only a few can be given here , but these will suffice. It was not that the Acadians had been ill-used by the English; the reverse was the case. They had been left in free exercise of their worship, as stipu- lated by treaty. It is true that, from time to time, there were loud complaints from French officials that religion was in danger, because certain priests had been rebuked, arrested, brought before the Council at Halifax, suspended from their functions, or required, on pain of banishment, to swear that they would do nothing against the interests of King George. Yet such action on the part of the pro- vincial authorities seems, without a single exception, to have been the consequence of misconduct on the part of the priest, in opposing the government and stirring his flock to disaffection. La Jonquiere, the determined adversary of the English, reported to the bishop that they did not oppose the ecclesiastics in 100 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. ' ; the exercise of their functions, and an order of Louis XV. admits that the Acadians have enjoyed liberty of religion.^ In a long document addressed in 1750 to the colonial minister at Versailles, Roma, an officer at Louisbourg, testifies thus to the mildness of British rule, though he ascribes it to interested motives. " The fear that the Acadians have of the Indians is the controlling motive which makes them side with the French. The English, having in view the conquest of Canada, wished to give the French of that colony, in their conduct towards the Acadians, a striking example of the mildness of their govern- ment. Without raising the fortune of any of the inhabitants, they have supplied them for more than thirty-five years with the necessaries of life, often on credit and with an excess of confidence, without troubling their debtors, without pressing them, with- out wishing to force them to pay. They have left them an appearance of liberty so excessive that they have not intervened in their disputes or even punished their crimes. They have allowed them to refuse with insolence certain moderate rents payable in grain and lawfully due. They have passed over in silence the contemptuous refusal of the Acadians to take titles from them for the new lands which they chose to occupy. '^ -f ?i . 'f 1 La Jonquikre a I'^veque de Quebec, 14 Juin, 1750. M^moire du Roy pour servir d' Instruction au Comte de Raymond, commandant pour Sa Majesty a I'lsle Royale [Cape Breton], 24 Avril, 1761, 2 See Appendix B. y 11 .m j. I 1749-1754.] ACADIA., HOSTILITY. 101 "We know very well," pursues Roma, "the fruits of this conduct in the last war; and the English know it also. Judge then what will be the wrath and vengeance of this cruel nation." The fruits to which Roma alludes were the hostilities, open or secret, committed by the Acadians against the Eng- lish. He now ventures the prediction that the enraged conquerors will take their revenge by draft- ing all the young Acadians on board their ships-of- war, and there destroying them by slow starvation. He proved, however, a false prophet. The English governor merely required the inhabitants to renew their oath of allegiance, without qualification or evasion. It was twenty years since the Acadians had taken such an oath ; and meanwhile a new generation had grown up. The old oath pledged them to fidelity and obedience; but they averred that Phillips, then governor of the province, had given them, at the same time, assurance that they should not be required to t-^^r arms against either French or Indians. In fact, such service had not been demanded of them, and they would have lived in virtual neutrality, had not many of them broken their oaths and joined the French war-parties. For this reason Cornwallis thought it necessary that, in renewing the pledge, they should bind themselves to an allegiance as com- plete as that required of other British subjects. This spread general consternation. Deputies from the Acadian settlements appeared at Halifax, bringing a 102 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. ;.» paper signed with the marks of a thousand persons. The following passage contains the pith of it. " The inhabitants in general, sir, over the whole extent of this country are resolved not to take the oath which your Excellency requires of us; but if your Excel- lency will grant us our old oath, with an exemption for ourselves and our heirs from taking i\^ arms, we will accept it. "^ The answer of Cornwallis was by no means so stern as it has been represented.^ After the formal reception he talked in private with the deputies; and "they went home in good humor, promising great things. "^ The refusal of the Acadians to take the required oath was not wholly spontaneous, but was mainly due to influence from without. The French officials of Cape Breton and Isle St. Jean, now Prince Edward Island, exerted themselves to the utmost, chiefly through the agency of the priests, to excite the people to refuse any oath that should commit them fully to British allegiance. At the same time means were used to induce them to migrate to the neighboring islands under French rule, and efforts were also made to set on the Indians to attack the English. But the plans of the French will best appear in a despatch sent by La Jonqui^re to the colonial minister in the autumn of 1749. " Monsieur Cornwallis issued an order on the tenth 1 Public Documents of Nova S-.otia, 173. * See Ibid., 174, where the answer is printed. 8 Cornwallis to the Board of Trade, 11 September, 1749. \\ 1749-1754.] COVERT WAR. 108 we of the said month [Auffust], to the effect that if th^ inhabitanbs will remain faithful subjects of the King of Great Britain, he will allow them priests and public exercise of their religion, with the under- standing that no priest shall officiate without his permission or before taking an oath of fidelity to the King of Great Britain. Secondly, that the inhabit- ants shall not be exempted from defending their houses, their lands, and the Government. Thirdly, that they shall take an oath of fidelity to the King of Great Britain, on the twenty-sixth of this month, before officers sent them for that purpose." La Jonqui^re proceeds to say that on hearing these conditions the Acadians were filled with perplexity and alarm, and that he, the governor, had directed Boishdbert, his chief officer on the Acadian frontier, to encourage them to leave their homes and seek asylum on French soil. He thus recounts the steps he has taken to harass the English of Halifax by mf ;;>i3 of their Indian neighbors. As peace had been declared, the operation was delicate ; and when three of these Indians came to him from their missionary, Le Loutre, with letters on the subject, La Jonquidre was discreetly reticent. "I did not care to give them any advice upon the matter, and confined my- self to a promise that I would on no account abandon them; and I have provided for supplying them with everything, whether arms, ammunition, food, or other necessaries. It is to be desired that these savages should succeed in thwarting the designs of iV ri, ^ - m I '\ f I i ^^1. 104 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. the English, and even their settlement at Halifax. They are bent on doing so; and if they can carry out their plans, it is certain that they will pive the English great trouble, and so harass them that they will be a great obstacle in their path. These savages are to act alone ; neither soldier nor French inhabit- ant is to join them ; everything will be done of their own motion, and without showing that I had any knowledge of the matter. This *is very essential; therefore I have written to the Sieur de Boishdbert to observe great prudence in his measures, and to act very secretly, in order that the English may not perceive that we are providing for the needs of the said savages. "It will be the missionaries who will manage all the negotiation, and direct the movements of the savages, who are in excellent hands, as the Reverend Father Germain and Monsieur I'Abbd Le Loutre are very capable of making the most of them, and using them to the greatest advantage for our interests. They will manage their intrigue in such a way as not to appear in it." La Jonquiere then recounts the good results which he expects from these measures: first, the English will be prevented from making any new settlements ; secondly, we shall gradually get the Acadians out of their hands ; and lastly, they will be so discour- aged by constant Indian attacks that they will renounce their pretensions to the parts of the country belonging to the King of France. "I feel, 1750.] COVERT WAR. 105 Monseigneur,"— thus the governor concludes his despatch, — "all the delicacy of this negotiation; be assured that I will conduct it with such precaution that the English will not be able to say that my orders had any part in it."^ He kept his word, and so did the missionaries. The Indians gave great trouble on the outskirts of Halifax, and murdered many ha- '3 settlers; yet the English authorities did not at- Crst suspect that they were hounded on by theii iests, under the direction of the governor of Canada, and with the privity of the minister at Versailles. More than this; for, looking across the sea, we find royalty itself lending its august countenance to the machina- tion. Among the letters read before the King in his cabinet in May, 1750, was one from Desherbiers, then commanding at Louisbourg, saying that he was advis- ing the Acadians not to take the oath of alkgiance to the King of England; another from Le Loutre, declaring that he and Father Germain were consult- ing together how to disgust the English with their enterprise of Halifax ; and a third from the intendant, Bigot, announcing that Le Loutre was using the Indians to harass the new settlement, and that he himself was sending them powder, lead, and mer- chandise, "to confirm them in their good designs. "^ To this the minister replies in a letter to Desher- Uers: "His Majesty is well satisfied with all you 1 La Jonquiere au Ministre, 9 Octohre, 1749. See Appendix B. * R€sum^ des Lettres lues au Travail du Roy, Mai, 1750. i 4 : t W A. i 1 I . Id] if. ■i . . I h 4 !!■ 106 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1750, 1751. have done to thwart the English in their new estab- lishment. If the dispositions of the savages are such as they seem, there is reason to hope that in the course of the winter they will succeed in so harassing the settlers that some of them will become disheart- ened." Desherbiers is then told that His Majesty desires him to aid English deserters in escaping from Halifax. 1 Supplies for the Indians are also promised ; and he is informed that twelve medals are sent him by the frigate "La Mutine," to be given to the chiefs who shall most distinguish themselves. In another letter Desherbiers is enjoined to treat the English authorities with great politeness. ^ When Count Raymond took command at Louis- bourg, he was instructed, under the royal hand, to give particular attention to the affairs of Acadia, especially in two points, — the management of the Indians, and the encouraging of Acadian emigration to countries under French rule. "His Majesty," says the document, "has already remarked that the savages have been most favorably disposed. It is of the utmost importance that no means be neglected to keep them so. The missionaries among them are in a better position than anybody to contribute to this end, and His Majesty has reason to be satisfied with the pains they take therein. The Sieur de :i ^ In 1750 nine captured deserters from Phillips's regiment de- clared on their trial that the French had aided them and supplied them all witli money. Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 193. » Le Ministre a Desherbiers, 23 Mai, 1750 ; Ibid., 31 Mai, 1760. \ I 1749-1764.] COVERT WAR. 107 Kayiv. nd will excite these missionaries not to slacken their efforts; but he will warn theui at the «ame time 80 to contain their zeal as not to compromise them- selves with the English, and give just occasion of complaint." * That is, the King orders his representa- tive to encourage the missionaries in instigating their flocks to butcher English settlers, but to see that they take care not to be found out. The injunction was hardly needed. "Monsieur Desherbiers, " says a letter of earlier date, " has engaged Abb^ Le Loutre to distribute the usual presents among the savages, and Monsieur Bigot has placed in his hands an addi- tional gift of cloth, blankets, powder, and ball, to be given them in case they harass the Englitu at Halifax. This missionary is to indu-^e them to do 80."^ In spite of these efforts, the Indians began to relent in their hostilities; and when Longueuil became provisional governor of Canada, he com- plained to the minister that it was very diflficult to prevent them from making peace with the English, thoiigh Father Germain was doing his best to keep them on the war-path.^ La Jonqui^re, too, had done his best, even to the point of departing from his original policy of allowing no soldier or Acadian to take part with them. He had sent a body of troops under La Corne, an able partisan officer, to watch 1 Memoirs du Roy pour servir d' Instruction au Comte de Raymond, 24 Avril, 1761. 3 Lettre commune de Desherbiers et Bigot au Ministre, 15 AoOt, 1749. 8 Longueuil au Ministre, 26 Avril, 1752. ,3 J ■J ( i \ 'n mm MMM CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1764. the English frontier; and in the same vessel wiu* sent a supply of " merchandise, guns, and munitioas for the savages and the Acadians who may take up arms vith tliem; and the whole is sent under pietext of trading in furs with the savages." ^ On another ooch- sion La Jonquifere wiotc. *ln order that the 8a\ ^ s may do their part courageously, a few Aci» .ns, dressed and painted in their way, could join t' strike the English. I cannot help consenting co what these savages do, because we have our hands tied [hi/ the peace], and co can do ning ou -selves. Besides, I do not think that any inconvenience will come of letting the Acadians mingle among them, because if they [the Acadians] are captured, we shall say that they acted of their own accord. "^ in other words, he will Encourage t'i'-ia to break the peace; and then, by means of a falss^i, »od, have them pun- ished as felons. Many disgur'ed Acadians did in fact join the Indian war-parties ; and their doing so was no secret to the English. " Wha •< we call here an Indian war," wrote Hopson, successor of Com- wallis, "is no other ihan a pretence fnr the Trench to commit hostilities on His Majesty s subjects." At length the Indians made peace,, mt jretended to do so. The chief of Le Loutre's misri'aii. who called himself Major Jean-Baptiste Cor-, came to Halifax with a deputation of his tribe, and liey ali affixed their totems to a solemn treaty. In the next 1 Biffot. an Ministre, 1749. 2 D^p'ches de La Jonquiere, 1 Mai, 1751. See Appendix B. ^ik\ 1749-1754] LE LOUTRE. 109 ounimer thoy returned \/ifh ninety or a h\»nd.'ed warriors, were well enterta led, Presented with gifts, and sent homeward in a school "jr. On the way they 8oi7<»d the vessel and murdered the orew. This is told hy Prdvost, intendant at Louisbourg, who does not say that Fiench instigation had any part in tl a treachery.^ It is nevertheless certain that the IndJms were paid fo»' this <«r some '^ontempoiary mnrt.ei-; for Prlvost, writing just fo' r weeks later, say.i : "Las*, month the snA'ages took eighteen English scalps, and Monsieur Le Loutre was obliged to pay them eighteen hunditd livres, Acadian money, which [ have reimbursed him."* From the first, the services of thw zealous mis- sionary had been be ond price. Provost testifies that, though Cornwa'ilis does his best to induce the Acadians to swear fidelity to King George, Le Loutre keep» them in allegiance to King L-^uis, and threatens to set his Indiaiw upon them unless they declare against th'; English. "I have already," adds Prdvost, "paid him 11,18^ ^ivres for his daily expenses; ynd I never aase au.ising him to be as economical as possible, and always to take care not to compromise himself with the English Govern- ment." 3 In consequence of " good service to religion r .^ the state," Le Loi^tre received a pension of eight » Provost c 1 Mintstre, 12 ilfars,1753 ; Ibid., 17 Juillet, 1753. Pre- vo9t was ordonnateur, or intendant, at Louisbourg. The treaty will be found in full in Public Documeu ? of Nova Scotia, 683. " . 'revost au Ministre, 16 Aout, 1753. Ibid., 22 Juillet, nm. no CONILICT FOR ACADIA. h , f ?, til 'A Ill", I i I* 'f , ill f ti [1749-1754. hundred livres, as did also Maillard, his brother mis- sionary on Cape Breton. "The fear is," writes the colonial minister to the governor of Louisbourg, "that their zeal may carry them too far. Excite them to keep the Indians in our interest, but do not let them compromise us. Act always so as to make the English appear as aggressors. " i All the Acadian clergy, in one degree or another, seem to have used their influence to prevent the inhabitants from taking the oath, and to persuade them that they were still French subjects. Some were noisy, turbulent, and defiant; others were too tranquil to please the officers of the Crown. A mis- sionary at Annapolis is mentioned as old, and there- fore inefficient; while the cur^ at Grand Prd, also an elderly man, was itoo much inclined to confine himself to his spiritual functions. It is everywhere apparent that those who chose these priests, and sent them as missionaries into a British province, expected them to act as enemies of the British Crown. The maxim is often repeated that duty to religion is insei. arable 1 Le Mlnistre au Comte de Raymond, 21 Juillet, 1752. It is curious to compare these secret instructions, given by the minister to the colonial officials, with a letter which tlie same minister, Rouille', wrote ostensibly to La Jonquiere, but which was really meant for the eye of the British minister at Versailles, Lord Albemarle, to whom it was shown in proof of French good faith. It was after- wards printed, along with other papers, in a small volume called P^(fcis des Fails, avec lews Pieces justijicatives, which was sent by the French government to all the courts of Europe to show that the English alone were answerable for the war. The letter, it is needless to s.iy, breathes the highest sentiments of internatif nal honor. 1749-1754.] RESENTMENT OF CORNWALLIS. Ill from duty to the King of France. The Bishop of Quebec desired the Abb^ de I'lsle-Dieu to represent to the Court the need of more missionaries to keep the Acadians Catholic and Fiench; but, he adds, there is danger that they (the missionaries) will be required to take an oath to do nothing contrary to the interests of the King of Great Britain. i It is a wonder that such a pledge was not always demanded. It was exacted in a few cases, notably in that of Girard, priest at Cobequid, who, on charges of insti- gating his flock to disaffection, had been sent prisoner to Halifax, but released on taking an oath in the above terms. Thereupon he wrote to Longueuil at Quebec that his parishioners wanted to submit to the English, and that he, having sworn to be true to the British King, could not prevent them. " Though I don't pretend to be a casuist," writes Longueuil, "I could not help answering him that he is not obliged to keep such an oath, and that he ought to labor in all ..eal to preserve and increase the number of the faithful." Girard, to his credit, preferred to leave the colony, and retired to Isle St. Jean.^ Cornwallis soon discovered to what extent the clergy stirred their flocks to revolt; and he wrote angrily to the Bishop of Quebec : " Was it you who sent Le Loutre as a missionary to the Micmacs? and is it foi' their good that he excites these wretches to ■:i H}\ ^ L'Isle-Dieu, Memoire sur l'£tat actuel des Missions, 1753 (1754?). 2 Lcngueuil au Ministre, 27 4.jril, 1752. t i- r "■if -f -F it * CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. practise their cruelties against those who have sliown them every kindness? The conduct of the priests of Acadia has been sucli that by command of Ilia Majesty I have pubiialied an Ordur dechiring that if any one of them presumes to exercise his functions without my express permission he shnll be dealt with according to the laws of England. "^ The English, bound by treaty to allow the Acadians the exercise of their religion, at length conceived the idea of replacing the French priests by others to l)e named by the Pope at the request of the British gov- ernment. This, becoming known to the French, greatly alarmed them, and the intendant at Louis- bourg wrote to the minister that the matter required srrious attention.^ It threatened, in fact, to rob them of their ohief agents of intrigue; but their alarm proved needless, as the plan was not carried into execution. The French officials would have been oetter pleased had the conduct of Cornwallis been such as to aid their efforts to alienate the Acadians ; and one writer, while confessing the "favorable treatment" of the English towards the inhabitants, denounces it as a snare. 3 If so, it was a snare intended simply to reconcile them to English rule. Nor was it without effect. "We must give up altogether the idea of an . , H\ , ' Cornwallis to the Bishop of Quebec, 1 December, 1749. 2 Daitdin />;. e, it PrSvost, 23 Octobre, 1753. Provost au Ministre 24 iVot'em6r«, 1753. ' » Memoire a prersnter a la Cour, 1753. I m 1749-1754.] UNWILLINCx EMIGRANTS. 118 insun'ection in Acadia," writes an officer of Cape Breton. "The Acadiiins cannot be trusted; they are controlled by fear of the Indians, which leads them to breathe French sentiments, even when their inclina- tions are P^nglish. They will yield to their interests ; and tlie English will make it impossible that they should either hurt them or serve us, unless we take measures different from those we have hitherto pursued." ^ During all this time, constant efforts were made to stimulate Acadian emigration to French territory, and tlius to strengthen the French frontier. In this work the chief agent w?8 Le Loutre. "This priest," says a French writer of the time, "urged the people of Les Mines, Port Royal [Annapolis], and other places, to come and join the French, and promised to all, in the name of the governor, to settle and support them for three years, and even indemnify them for any losses they might incur ; threatening if tliey did not do as he advised, to abandon them, deprive them of their priests, have their wives and children carried off, and their property laid waste bv the Indians."'^ Some passed over the isthmus to the shores of the gulf, and others made their way to the Strait of Canseau. Vessels were provided to convey them, in the one case to Isle St. Jean, now Prince Edward Island, and in the other to Isle Royale, called by the English, Cape Breton. Some were eager to goj some went with reluctance; some would VOL. I. — 8 1 Roma au Ministre, 11 Mars, 1750. '^ Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. 114 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. bV scarcely be persuaded to go at all. "They leave their homes with great regret," reports the governor of Isle St. Jean, speaking of the people of Cobequid, "and they began to move their luggage only when the savages compelled them. " i These savages were the flock of Abbd Le Loutre, who was on the spot to direct the emigration. Two thousand Acadians are reported to have left the peninsula before the end of 1751, and many more followed within the next two years. Nothing could exceed the misery of a great part of these emigrants, who had left pertorce most of their effects behind. They became disheartened and apathetic. The intendant at Louisbourg says that they will not take the trouble to clear the land, and that some of them live, like Indians, under huts of spruce-branches. 2 The governor of Isle St. Jean declares that they are dying of hunger. ^ Girard, the priest who had withdrawn to this island rather than break his oath to the English, writes: "Many of them cannot protect themselves day or night from the s verity of the colo. Most of the children are entirely naked ; and when I go into a house they are all crouched in the ashes, close to the fire. They run off and hide themselves, without shoes, stock- ings, or shirts. They are not all reduced to this extremity, but nearly all are in want."* Mortality \ i * Bonaventure a Desherbiers, 26 Juin, 1751. 2 Provost au Mintstre, 25 Novembre, 1750. * Bonaventure, tit supra, * Girard a {Bonaventure?), 27 Octobre, 1753. \ \.i i l| 1749-1754.] FOUBEARANCE OF CORNWALLIS. 115 among them was great, and would Lave been greater but for rations supplied by the French government. During these proceedings, the English governor, Comwallis, seems to have justified the character of good temper given him by Horace Walpole. His attitude towards the Acadians remained on the whole patient and conciliatory. "My friends," he replied to a deputation of them asking a general per- mission to leave the province, "I am not ignorant of the fact that every means has been used to alienate the hearts of the French subjects of His Britannic Majesty. Great advantages have been promised you elsewhere, and you have been made to imagine that your religion was in danger. Threats even have been resorted to in order to induce you to remove to French territory. The savages are made use of to molest you; they are to cut the throats of all who remain in their native country, attached to their own interests and faithful to the Government. You know that certain officers and missionaries, who came from Canada last autumn, have been the cause of all our trouble during the winter. Their conduct has been horrible, without honor, probity, or conscience. Their aim is to embroil you with the Government. I will not believe that they are authorized to do so by the Court of France, that being contrary to good faith and the friendship established between the two Crowns." What foundation there was for this amiable confi- dence in the Court of Versailles has been seen already. CONFLICT FOR "JADIA. [1749-1754. "When you declared your desire *o submit your- selves to another Government," pursues Cornwallis, " our determination was to hinder nobody from fol- lowing what he imagined to be his interest. We know that a forced service is worth nothing, and that a subject compelled to be so against his will is not far from being an enemy. We confess, however, that your determination to go gives us pain. We are aware of your industry and temperance, and that you are not addicted to any vice or debauchery. This province is your country. You and your fathei's have cultivated it; naturally you ought your- selves to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Such was the design of the King, our master. You know that we have followed his orders. You know that we have done everything to secure to you not only the occupation of your lands, but the ownership of them forever. We have given you also every possible assurance of the free and public exercise of the Roman Catholic religion. But I declare to you frankly that, according to our laws, nobody can pos- sess lands or houses in the province who shall refuse to take the oath of allegiance to his King when required to do so. You know very well that theii are ill-disposed and mischievous persons among you who corrupt the others. Your inexperience, your ignorance of the affairs of government, and your habit of following the counsels of those who have not your real interests at heart, make it an easy matter to seduce you. In your petitions you ask for a general \i 1749-1764.] HOPSOX. 117 \H : leave to quit the province. The only manner in which you can do so is to follow the regulations already established, and provide yourselves with our pass- port. And we declare that nothing shall prevent us from giving such passports to all who ask for them, the moment peace and tranquillity are re-estab- lished. "^ He declares as his reason for not giving them at once, that on crossing the frontier " you will have to pass the French detachments and savages assembled there, and that they compel all the inhabit- ants who go there to take up arms" against the English. How well this reason was founded will soon appear. Hopson, the next governor, described by the French themselves as a "mild and peaceable officer," was no less considerate in his treatment of the Acadians ; and at the end of 1752 he issued the fol- lowing order to his military subordinates : " You are to look on the French inhabitants in the same light as the rest of His Majesty's subjects, as to the pro- tection of the laws and government; for which reason nothing is to be taken from them by force, or any price set upon their goods but what they themselves agree to. And if at any time the inhabitants should obstinately refuse to comply with what His Majesty's service may require of them, you are not to redress ( .1*. • I m ^ The above passages are from two addresses of Cornwallis, read to the Acadian deputies in April and May, 1750. The com- bined extracts here givon convey the spirit of the whole. See Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 185-190. ill iSS ! ( •/ 118 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. yourself by military force or in any unlawful manner, but to lay the case before the Governor and wait his orders thereon."^ Unfortunately, the mild rule of Cornwallis and Hopson was not always maintained under their successor, Lawrence. Louis Joseph Le Loutre, vicar-general of Acadia and missionary to the Micmacs, was the most con- spicuous person in the province, and more than any other man was answerable for the miseries that over- whelmed it. The sheep of which he was the shepherd dwelt, at a day's journey from Halifax, by the banks of the river Shubenacadie, in small cabins of logs, mixed with wigwams of birch-bark. They were not a docile flock ; and to manage them needed address, energy, and money, — with all of which the mis- sionary was provided. He fed their traditional dis- like of the English, and fanned their fanaticism, born of the villanous counterfeit of Christianity wli>h he and his predecessors had imposed on them. Thus he contrived to use them on the one hand to murder the English, and on the other to terrify the Acadians; yet not without cost to the French government ; for they had learned the value of money, and, except when their blood was up, were slow to take scalps without pay. Le Loutre was a man of boundless egotism, a violent spirit of domination, an intense hatred of the English, and a fanaticism that stopped at nothing. Towards the Acadians he was a despot; and this simple and superstitious people, extremely ^ Public Documentu of Nova Scotia, 197. -1754. 1749-1764.] LE LOUTRE. 119 susceptible to the influence of their priests, trembled before hira. He was scarcely less masterful in his dealings with the Acadian clergy; and, aided by his quality of the bishop's vicar-general, he dragooned even the unwilling into aiding his schemes. Three successive governors of New France thought him invaluable, yet feared the impetuosity of his zeal, and vainly tried to restrain it within safe bounds. The bishop, while approving his objects, thought his medicines too violent, and asked in a tone of reproof: " Is it right for you to refuse the Acadians the sacra- ments, to threaten that they shall be deprived of the services of a priest, and that the savages shall treat them as enemies? "i "Nobody," says a French Catholic contemporary, "was more fit than he to carry discord and desolation into a country. " » Com- wallis called him "a good-for-nothing scoundrel," and offered a hundred pounds for his head.^ The authorities at Halifax, while exasperated by the perfidy practised on them, were themselves not always models of international virtue. They seized a French vessel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the charge — probably true — that she was carrying arms and ammunition to the Acadi'ans and Indians. A less defensible act was the capture of the armed brig 1 L'^veque de Quebec a Lc Loutre ; translation in Public Docu- ments of Nova Scotia, 240. 2 Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. 8 On Le Loutre, compare Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 178- 180, note, with authorities there cited ; N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 11 ; Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1700 (Quebec, 1838). ■j' 1.1 < II BS HMMMM 120 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-17W. ^i -»J m I ! 1 m >, »rJ (: "St. Francois," laden with supplies for a fort lately re-established by the French, at the mouth of the river St. John, on ground claimed by both nation' Captain Rous, a New England officer commanding «, frigate in the royal navy, opened fire on the "St. Francois," took her after a short cannonade, aid carried her into Halifax, where she was condemned by the court. Several captures r * small craft, accused of illegal acts, were also made by the English. These proceedings, being all of an overt nature, gave the officers of Louis XV. precisely what they wanted, — an occasion for uttering loud complaints, and denouncing the English as breakers of the peace. But the movement most alarming to the French was the English occupation of Beaubassin, — an act perfectly lawful In itself, since, without reasonable doubt, the place was within the limits of Acadia, and therefore on English ground.^ Beaubassin was a considerable settlement on the isthmus that joins the Acadian paninsula to the mainland. Northwest of the settlement lay a wide marsh, through which ran a stream called the Missaguash, some two miles beyond which rose a hill called Beausdjou j. On and near this hill were stationed the troops and Cana- dians sent under Boishdbert and La Corne to watch the English frontier. This French force excited disaffection among the Acadians through all the 1 La Jonquifere himself admits that he thought so. " Cette partie Ik ^tant, k ce que je crois, dependante de I'Acadie." — £a Jonquiere au Ministre, 3 Octobre, 1750. 1749-1764.] BEAUBASSIN. 121 neighboring districts, and constantly helped them to: emigrate. Cornwallis therefore resolved to send an English force to the spot; and accordingly, towards the end of April, 1750, Major Lawrence landed at Beaubassin with four hundred men. News of their approach had come before them, and Le Loutre was here with his Micmacs, mixed with some Acadians whom he had persuaded or bullied to join him. Resolved thao the people of Beaubassin should not live under English influence, he now with his own hand set fire to the parish church, while his white and red adherents burned the houses of the inhabit- ants, and thus compelled them to cross to the French side of the river, i This was the first forcible removal of the Acadians. It was as premature as it was violent; since Lawrence, being threatened by La Come, whose force was several times greater than his own, presently re-embarked. In the following September he returned with seventeen small vessels and about seven hundred men, and again attempted to land on the strand of Beaubassin. La Jonquiere says that he could only be resisted indirectly, because he was on the English side of the river. This ' 1 ,- i ^ It has been erroneously stated that Beaubassin was burned by its own inhabitants. " Laloutre, ayant vu que les Acadiens ne paroissoient pas fort presse's d'abandonner leurs biens, avoit lui- meme mis le feu k I'^glise, et I'avoit fait mettre aux maisons des habitants par quelques-uns de ceux qu'il avoit gagn^s," etc. M€moires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. "Les sauvages y mirent le feu." Precis des Fails, 85. "Les sauvages mirent le feu aux maisons." Provost au Ministre, 22 Juillet, 1750. I; . 1 i, o.'4.--"« *, ,NliJ 122 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1764. indirect resistance was undertaken by Le Loutro, Tvho had thrown up a breastwork along the sliore a: id manned it with his Indians and his painted and befeathered Acadians. Nevertheless tlie English landed, and, with some loss, drove out the defendei.^. Le Loutre himself seems not to have been among them ; but they kept up for a time a helter-skelter fif ht, encouraged by two other missionaries, Germain and Lalorne, who were near being caught by the English. 1 Lawrence quickly routed them, took possession of the cemetery, and prepared to fortify himself. The village of Beaubassin, consisting, it is said, a hundred uiid forty houses, had been burned in the spring; but there were still in the neighborhood, on the English side, many hamlets and farms, Mith barns full of grain and hay. Le Loutre 's Indians now threatened to plunder and kill the inhabitants if they did not take arms against the English. Few complied, and the greater part fled to the woods. 2 On this the Indians and their Acadian allies set the houses and barns on fire, and laid waste the whole district, leaving the inhabitants xxo choice but to seek food and shelter with the French. 3 * La Valli^re, Journal de ce qui s'est passe a Chsnitou [Chiffnecto] et autres parties des Frontieres de I'Acadie, 1750-1751. La V. Uiere was an officer on the spot. ^ PrSvost att Ministre, 27 Septembre, 1750. ' "Les sauvages et Accadiens mirent le feu dans toutes les maisons et granges, pleines de bled et de fourrages, ce qui a caus^ une grande disette."— La Valliere, ut supra. 174»-1754.] MURDER OF '.(.'WS. The Engl is! I fortified themselves (»n a low hill by the edge of iche marsh, planted palisades, built bar- racks, and named ';he new work Fort Lawrence. Sli<(ht skirmishes between them and the French were fxequent. Neither p^uty respected the dividing line of the Missaguash, and a petty warfare ot aggression and repr ia1 began, and became chronic. Bafore the <;nd of tlu* autumn theio wf* an atrocious act oi treachery- A.raong the Fugiish officers was Captain Edward Howe, an intelligent and agreeable person who spoke French fluently, and had been long sta- tioned in the province. Le Loutve detested him, dreading his influence over t^c Acadians, by many of whon>. he was known and liked. One morning, .it about eight o'clo' k, the inmates of Fort Lawrence saw what seemed an officer from Beaurjjour, carrying h flag, and followed by seveiai men in uniform., wad- ing through the sea of g'-ass that sfcr^tcl od beyond the Missaguash. When the tide was out, this river was but .-xn ugly trench of reddish mud gashed across the face of the marsh, with a thread of half -fluid, slime lazily crawling along the bottom ; but at high tide it was filled to the brim with an opaque torrent that would have overflowed, but foi- the dikes thrown up to confine it. Behind the dike on the farther bank stood the seeming officer, waving his ilag in sign that he desired a parley. He was in reality no officer, but one of Le Loutre's Indians in disguise, "Stienne Le Batard, or, as others say, the great chief, Jean-Baptiste Cope. Howe, carrying a white flag, II \ 1 11 1} 1 Pi ■ i ' i -m •? ' '^'4 ll 11 iM| m N MmmuM '■""-"^■■^ 11119 1 !<^l 124 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. and avcompanied by a few officers and men, went tov/ards the river to hear what he had to say. As they drew near, his looks and language excited their suspicion. But it was too late; for a number of Indians, who had hidden behind the dike during the night, fired upon Howe across the strep i, and mor- tally wounded him. They continued their fire on his companions, but could not prevent them from carry- ing the dying man to the fort. The French officers, indignant at this villany, did not hesitate to charge it upon Le Loutre; "for," says one of them, "what is not a wicked priest capable of doing?" liut Le Loutre's brother missionary, Mailkrd, declares that it was purely an effect of religious zeal on the part of the Micmacs, who, according to him, bore a deadly grudge against Howe because, fourteen years before, he had spoken words disrespectful to the Holy Virgin. 1 Maillard adds that the Indians were mucli pleased with what they hid done. Finding, how- ever, that they could effect little against the English troops, they changed their field of action, repaired to the outskirts of Halifax, murdered about thirty settlers, and carried off eight or ten prisoners. Strong reinforcements came from Canada. The llii * Maillard, Les Missions Micmaques. On the mvrder of Howe Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 194, 195, flO ; Me'moires sur le Canada, 1749-1760, where it is said that Le Loutre was present at the deed j La Vallifere, Journal, wlio says that some Acadians took part in it ; Depeches de La Jongniere, who says " les sauvages de I'A ' (be le Loutre I'ont tue' par trahison;" and Provost au Ministre 27 Octobre, 1760. ' \ t. 1749-1754.] HARSHNESS OF LE LOUTRE. 125 French began a fort on the hill of Beausi^jour, aud the Acadians were required to work at it with no compensation but rations. Thfy were thinly clad, some had neither shoe^ nor stockings, and winter was begun. They became so dejected that it was found absolutely necessary to give them wages enough to supply their most pressing needs. In the following season Fort Beausdjour was in a state to receive a garrison. It stood on the crown of the hill, and a vast panorama stretched below and around it. In front lay the Bay of Chignecto, winding along the fertile shores of Chipody and Memeramcook. Far on the right spread the great Tantemar marsh; on the left lay the marsh of the Missaguash ; and on a knoll beyond ii, not three miles distant, the red flag of England waved over the palisades of Fort Lawrer, e, while hills wrapped in dark forests bounded the horizon. How the homeless Acadians from Beaubassin lived through the winter is not very clear. They probably found sheh'^r at Chipody and its neighborhood, where there were thriving settlements of their countr;yxnen. Le Loutre, fearing that they would return to their lands and submit to the English, sent some of them to Isle St. Jean. "They refused to go," says a French writer; "but he compelled them at last, by threatening to make the Indians pillage them, caii'y off their wives and children, and even kill them before their eyes. Nevertheless he kept about him such as were most submissive to his I -i Li ill PI: 126 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. \vill."i In the spring after the English occupied Bcaubassin, La Jonqui^re issued a strange proclama- tion. It commanded all Acadians to take forthwith an oath of fidelity to the King of France, anr" to enroll themselves in the French militia, on pain of being treated as rebels. 2 Three years after, Law- rence, who then governed the province, proclaimed in his turn that all Acadians who had at any time sworn fidelity to the King of England, and who should be found in arms against him, would be treated as cri ainals.^ Thus were these unfortunates ground 1 otween the r.pper and nether mill-stones. Le Loutre replied to this proclamation of Lawrence by a letter in which he outdid himself. He declared thao any of the inhabitants who had crossed to the French [.ide of the line, and who should presume to return to the English, would be treated as enemies by his Micmacs ; and in the name of these, his Indian adherents, he demanded that the entire eastern half of the Acadian peninsula, including the ground on which Fort Lawrence stood, should be u,c once made over to their sole use and sovereign ownership,* — "which being read nnd considered," says the record of the Halifax Council, "the contents appeared too insolent and absurd to be answered." f f? 1 M^moires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. 2 O'donnance du 12 Avril, 1751. 8 ^crit donn€aux Habitants r^fugi^s a Beaus€jour, 10 Aout, 1754. * Copie de la Lett'' le MA'Ahh€Le Loutre, Pretre Missionnaire des Sauvages de I'Accadie, a M. Lawrence a Halifax, 26 Aout, 1764. There is a translation in PuJic Documents of Nova Scotia. 1749-1754.] COMPLAINTS OF ACADIANS. 127 The number of Aeadians who had crossed the line and were collected about Beausdjour was now large. Their countrymen of Chipody began to find them a burden, and they lived chiefly on government rations. Le Loutre had obtained fifty thousand livres from the court in order to dike in, for their use, the fertile marshes of Memeramcook ; but the relief was distant, and the misery pressing. They complained that they had been lured ov^r the line by false assurances, and they applied secretly to the English aul/horities to learn if they would be allowed to return to their homes. The answer was that they might do so with iuil enjoyment of religion and property, if they woukl take a simple oath of fidelity and loyalty to the Kinp[ of Great Britain, qualifted by an oral inti- mation that they would not be required for the present to bear arms.^ Vhen Le Loutre heard this, he mounted the pulpit, broke into fierce invectives, threatened the terrified people with excommunica- tion, and preached himself into a state of exhaustion.^ The military commandant at Beausdjour used gentler means of pre mention; and the Aeadians, unused for generations to think or act for themselves, remained restless, but indecisi>fe, waiting till fate should settle for them the question, under which king ? Meanwhile, for the past three years, the cominis- sioners appointed under the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle i 1 Public Documents of \ova Scotia, 205, 209. !* Compare M€inoires, 174&-1760, and Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 229, 230. I I id. ■■i 128 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. to settle the question of boundaries between France and England in America had been in session at Paris, waging interminable war on paper; La Galissoniere and Silhouette for France, Shirley and Mildmay for England. By the treaty of Utrecht, Acadia belonged to England; but what was Acadia? According to the English commissioners, it comprised not only the peninsula now called Nova Scotia, but all the im- mense tract of land between the river St. Lawrence on the north, the gulf of the same name on the east, the Atlantic on the south, and New England on the west.i The French commissioners, on their part, maintained that the name Acadia belonged of right only to about a twentieth part of this territory, and that it did not even cover the whole of the Acadian peninsula, but only its southern coast, with an adjoining belt of barren wilderness. When the French owned Acadia, they gave it boundaries as comprehensive as those claimed for it by the English commissioners ; now tnat it belonged to a rival, they cut it down to a paring of its former self. The denial that Acadia included the whole peninsula was dictated by the need of a winter communication between ''^^uebec and Cape Breton, which was pos- sible only with the eastern portions in French hands. So new was this denial that even La Galissoniere |i 1 The commission of De Monts, in 1608, defines Acadia as ex- tending from the fortieth to tho forty-sixth degrees of latitude, — that is, from central New Brunswick to i-oathern Pennsylvania. Neither party cared to produce the document. 1740-1754.] THE BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 129 himself, the foremost in making it, had declared without reservation two years before that Acadia was the entire peninsula. ^ "If," says a writer on the question, " we had to do with a nation more tractable, less grasping, and more conciliatory, it would be well to insist also that Halifax should he given up to us." He thinks that, on the whole, it would be well to make the demand in any case, in order to gain some other point by yielding this one.^ It is curious that while denying that the country was Acadia, the French invariably called the inhabitants Acadians. Innumerable public documents, commissions, grants, treaties, edicts, signed by French kings and minis- ters, had recognized Acadia as extending over New Brunswick and a part of Maine. Four censuses of Acadia while it belonged to the French had recog- nized the mainland as included in it ; and so do also the early French maps. Its prodigious shiinkage was simply the consequence of its possession by an alien. Other questions of limits, more important and equally perilous, called loudly for solution. What line should separate Canada and her western depend- encies from the British colonies ? Various principles of demarcation were suggested, of which the most prominent on the French side was a geographical ^ " L'Aeadie suivant ses anciennes limites est la presquisle bomee par son isthme." La Galissonniere au Ministre, 25 Juillet, 1749. The English commissioners were, of course, ignorant of this admission. 2 M^moire de l'Abb€de I'Isle-Dieu, 1763 (1754?). VOL. I, — 9 ill. Mui' -t1 VS; 180 CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. ill : I one. All countries watered by streams f-^Uing ini-o the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Miysissippi were to belong to her. This would have planted her in the heart of New York and along the crests of the AUeghanies, giving her all the interior of the conti- nent, and leaving nothing to England but a strip of sea-coast. Yet in view of what France had achieved ; of the patient gallantry of her explorei-s, the zeal of her missionaries, the adventurous hardihood of her bushrangers, revealing to civilized mankind the existence of this wilderness world, while her rivals plodded at their workshops, their farms, or their fisheries, — in view of all this, her pretensions were moderate and reasonable compared with those of England. The treaty of Utrecht had declared the Iro-nois, or Five Nations, to be British subjects; therefore it was insisted that all countries conquered by them belonged to the British Crown. But what was an Iroquois conquest? The Iroquois rarely occupied the countries they overran. Their military expeditions were mere raids, great or small. Some- times, as in the case of the Hurons, they made a soli- tude and called it peace ; again, as in the case of the Illinois, they drove off the occupants of the soil, who returned after the invaders were gone. But the range of their war-parties was prodigious; and the English laid claim to every mountain, forest, or prairie where an Iroquois had taken a scalp. This would give them not only the country between the AUeghanies and the Mississippi, but also that 1749-1754.] FAILURE OF COMMISSION. 131 between Lake Huron and the Ottawa, thus reducing Canada to the patch on the American map now represented by the province of Quebec, — or rather, by a part of- it, since the extension of Acadia to the St. Lawrence would cut off the present counties of Gaspd, Rimousid, and Bonaventure. Indeed, among the advocates of British claims there were those who denied that France had any rights whatever on the south side of the St. Lawrence.^ Such being the attitude of the two contestants, it was plain that there was n<\ resort but the last argument of kings. Peace must be won with the sword. The commissioners at Paris broke up their ses- sions, leaving as the monument of their toils four quarto volumes of allegations, arguments, and docu- mentary proofs. 2 Out of the discussion rose also a swarm of fugitive publications in French, English, and Spanish; for the question of American bounda- 1 The extent of British claims is best shown on two maps of the time, Mitchell's Map of the British and French Dominions in North America and Huske's New and Accurate Map of North America ; both are in the British Museum. Dr. John Mitchell, in his Contest in America (London, 1767), pushes the English claim to its utmost extreme, and denies that the French were rightful owners of anything in North America except the town of Quebec and the trading-post of Tadoussac Besides the claim founded on the subjection of the Iroquois to the British Crown, the Eng- lish somewhat inconsistently advanced others founded on titles obtained by treaty from these same tribes, and others still, founded ou the original grants of some of the colouies, which ran indefi- nitely westward across the continent. 2 M€moires des Commissaire^ de Sa Majesty Tres Chr€tienne et de ceux de Sa Majesty Brittaniq'xe. Paris, 1755. Several editions appeared. f i !|i ' CONFLICT FOR ACADIA. [1749-1754. ries had become European. There was one among them worth notice from its amusing absurdity. It is an elaborate disquisition, under the title of Roman politique, by an author faithful to the traditions of European diplomacy, and inspired at the same time by the new philosophy of the school of Rousseau. He insists that the balance of power must be pre- served in America as well as in Europe, because "Nature," "the aggrandizement of the human soul," and the "felicity of man" are unanimous in demand- ing it. The English colonies are more populous and wealthy than the French; therefore the French should have more land, to keep the balance. Nature, the human soul, and the felicity of man require that France should own all the country beyond the AUe- ghanies and all Acadia but a strip of the south coast, according to the "sublime negotiations" of the French commissioners, of which the writer declares himself a "religious admirer." ^ We know already that France had used means sharper than negotiation to vindicate her claim to the interior of the continent ; had marched to the sources of the Ohio to intrench herself there, and hold the passes of the West against all comers. It remains to see how she fared in her bold enterprise. 1 Roman politique sur I'^tat present des Affaires de I'Am^rique (Amsterdam, 1756). For extracts from French Documents, see Appendix B. I CHAPTER V. 1753, 1764. WASHINGTON. The French occdpy the Sources of the Ohio : their Suf- ferings. — Fort Le Bceuf. — Leoardeur de Saint-Pierre. — Mission of Washington. — Robert Dinwiddie : he op- poses THE French ; his Disput ■: with the Burgesses ; HIS Energy ; his Appeals for Help. — Fort Duquesne. — Death of Jumonville. — Washington at the Great Meadows. — Coulon db Villiehs, — Fort Necessity. Towards the end of spring the vanguard of the expedition sent by Duquesne to occupy the Ohio landed at Presqu'isle, where Erie now stands. This route to the Ohio, far better than that which Cdloron had followed, was a new discovery to the French; and Duquesne calls the harbor "the finest in nature.'' Here they built a fort of squared chestnut logs, and when it was finished they cut a road of several leagues through the woods to Riviere aux Bceufs, now French Creek. At the farther end of this road they began another wooden fort and called it Fort Le Bceuf. Thence, when the water was high, they could descend French Creek to the Alleghany, and follow that stream to the main current of the Ohio. 184 WASHINGTON. [1758. I, I IP I ^ It was heavy work to cany the cumbrous load of baggage across the portages. Much of it is said to have been superfluous, consisting of velvets, silks, and other useless and costly articles, sold to the King at enormous prices as necessaries of the expedition.* The weight of the task fell on the Canadians, who worked with cheerful hardihood, and did their part to admiration. Marin, commander of the expedition, a gruff, choleric old man of sixty-three, but full of force and capacity, spared himself so little that he was struck down with dysentery, and, refusing to be sent home to Montreal, was before long in a dying state. His place was taken by P^an, of whose private character there is little good to be said, but whose conduct as an officer was such that Duquesne calls hin; a prodigy of talents, resources, and zeal.' The subalterns deserve no such praise. They dis • liked the service, and made no secret of their discon- tent. Rumuirt of it filled Montreal; and Duquesne wrote to Marin : " I am surprised that you ha-e not told me of this change. Take note of the sullen and discouraged faces about you. This sort are worse than useless. Rid ycurself of them lit once; send them to Montreal, that I may make an example of them." 3 Pdan wrote at the end of September that Marin was in extremity; and the governor, disturbed 1 Pouchot, Memoires sur la derniere Guerre de I'Ame'rique Septen- tn'onale, i. 8. 2 Duguem au Ministre, 2 Novembre, 1753 j compare Memoire pour Michel-Jean Hugues Peait. ' Puquesne a Marin, 27 Aout, 1763. 1 I 1758.] EFFECTS OF EXPEDITION. 186 and alarmeu, for he knew the value of the sturdy old officer, looked anxiously for a successor. He chose another veteran, Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, who had just returned from a journey of exploration towards the Kocky Mountains,! and wl )m Duquesne now ordered to the Ohio. Meanwhile the effects of the expedition had already justified it. At first the Indians of the Ohio had shown a bold front. One of them, a chief whom the English called the Half-King, came to Fort Le Boeuf and ordered the French to leave the countiy, but was received by Marin with such contemptuous haughtiness that he went home shedding tears of rage and mortification. The western tribes were daunted. The Miamis, but yesterday fast friends of the English, made humble submission to the French, and offered them two English scalps to signalize their repentance; while the Sacs, Pottawattamies, and Ojibwas were loud in professions of devotion, a Even the Iroquois, Delawares, and Shawanoes on the Alle- ghany had come to the French camp and offered their help in carrying the baggage. It needed but perse- verance and success in the enterprise to win over every tribe from the mountains to the Mississippi. To accomplish this and to curb the English, Duquesne had planned a tliird fort, at the junction of French/ 1 Memoire au Journal sommaire dti Voyage de Jacques Legardeur de oamt-Pierre. 2 Rappons de Conseils avec les Sauvages h Montreal, Juillet 1753 Z)«7«esne au Ministre, 31 Octohre, 1753. Letter of Dr. Shuckburgl- in iV. r. Col. Docs., vi. 806. ' J .1 . » . .1, '' m ,^4, ^m » H i ■■ '4B ' if ' "+■ m tfC i 1 tm i^.» ^.•^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) l/< / V 4tr .^^ .^'.<^ < . >^^ % A7 ^^'>* .^ '^ Photographic Sdences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14560 (716) 872-4503 &?^ /: & ^ !5^ 136 WASHINGTON. [1753. - IS f p <, !>! ' I, 1 ■?' .1 Creek with the AUeghai^y, or at some point lower down ; then, leaving the thrtre posts well garrisoned, Pdan was to descend the Ohio with the whole remain- ing lorce, impose terror on the wavering tribes, and complete their conversion. Both plans were thwarted ; die fort was not built, nor did P^an descend the Ohio. Fevers, lung diseases, and scurvy made such deadly havoc among troops and Canadians that ^he dying Marin saw with bitterness that his work must be left half done. Three hundred of the best men were kept to garrison Forts Presqu' isle and Le Boeuf; and then, as winter approached, the rest were sent back to Montreal. When they arrived, the gov- ernor was shocked at their altered looks o "I reviewed them, and could not help being touched by the pitiable state to which fatigues and expos- ures had reduced them. Past all doubt, if these emaciated tigures had gone down the Ohio as in- tended, the river would have been strewn with corpses, and the evil-disposed savages would not have failed to attack the survivors, seeing that they were but spectres."^ Legardeur de Saint-Pierre arrived at the end of autumn, and made his quarters at Fort Le Bceuf. The surrounding forests had dropped their leaves, and in gray and patient desolation bided the coming winter. Chill rains drizzled over the gloomy " clear- t 1 Duquesne au Ministre, 29 Novembre, 1753. On this expedition, compare the letter of Duquesne in N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 265, and the deposition of Stephen Coffen, Ibid., vi. 835. 1753.] FORT LE BCEUF. 137 ing," and drenched the palisades and log-built bar- racks, raw from the axe. Buried in the wilderness, the mUitary exiles resigned themselves as they might to months of monotonous solitude; when, just after sunset on the eleventh of December, a tall youth came out of the forest on horseback, attended by a companion much older and rougher than himself and followed by several Indians and four or five white men with pack-horses. OflScera from the fort, went out to meet the strangers; ai.d, wading through mud and sodden sno^, they entered at the gate. On the next day the young leader of the party, with the help of an interpreter, for he spoke no French, had an interview with the commandant, and gave him a letter from Governor Dinwiddle Saint-Pierre and the officer next in rank, who knew a little English, took it to another room to study It at their ease; and in it, all unconsciously, they read a name destined to stand one of the noblest in the annals of mankind; for it introduced xvlajor George Washington, Adjutant-General of the Vir- ginia militia. 1 Dinwiddle, jealously watchful of French aggres- sion, had learned through traders and Indians that a strong detachment from Canada had entered the territories of the King of England, and built orts on Lake Erie and on a branch of the Ohio. He wrote to challenge the invasion and summon the invadera to withdraw; and he could find none so fit to bear 1 Journal of Major Washington. Journal of Mr. Christopher Giit I 1' m IM .I:,., 138 WASHINGTON. [1753. i : ,' ' ( his message as a young man of twenty-one. It was this rough Scotchman who launched Washington on his illustrious career. Washington set out for the trading-station of the Ohio Company on Will's Creek; and thence, at the middle of November, struck into +^e wilderness with Christopher Gist as a guide, Vanbraam, a Dutchman, as French interpreter, Davison, a trader, as Indian interpreter, and four woodsmen as servants. They went to the forks of the Ohio, and then down the river to Logstown, the Chiningud of C^loron de Bienville. There Washington had various parleys with the Indians ; and thence, after vexatious delays, he continued his journey towards Fort Le Bceuf, accompanied by the friendly chief called the Half- King and by three of his tribesmen. For several days they followed the traders' path, pelted with unceasing rain and snow, and came at last to the old Indian town of Venango, where French Creek enters the Alloghany. Here there was an English trading- house ; but the French had seized it, raised their flag over it, and turned it into a military outpost. ^ Jou- caire was in command, with two subalterns; and nothing could exceed their civility. They invited the strangers to supper; and, says Washington, "the wine, as they dosed themselves pretty plentifully 1 Marin had sent sixty men in August to seize the house, which belonged to the trader Fraser. De'peches de Duquesne. They car- ried off two men whom they found here. Letter of Eraser in Colonial Records of Pa., v. 659. !1 . h -I I 1753.] DINWIDDIE'S LETTER. 139 with it, soon banished the restraint which at first appeared in their conversation, and gave a license to their tongues to reveal their sentiments more freely. They told me that it was their absolute design to take possession of the Ohio, and, by G— , they would do it; for that although they were sensible the English could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any undertaking of theirs." i With all their civility, the French officers did their best to entice away Washington's Indians ; and it was with extreme difficulty that he could persuade them to go with him. Through mars! > !\« and swamps, forests choked with snow, and drenched with inces- sant rain, they toiled on for four days more, till the wooden walls of Fort Le Boeuf appeared at last, sur- rounded by fields studded thick with stumps, and half-encircled by the chill current of French Creek, along the banks of which lay more than two hundred canoes, ready to carry troops in the spring. Wash- ington describes Legardeur de Saint-PieiTe as "an elderly gentleman with much the air of a soldier." The letter sent him by Dinwiddle expressed astonish- ment that his troops should build forts upon lands "so notoriously known to be the property of the Crown of Great Britain." "I must desire you," continued the letter, "to acquaint me by whose authority and instructions you have lately marched 1 Journal of Washington, as printed at Williamsbur , just after his return. ir 140 WASHINGTON. [1758. from Canada with an armed force, and invaded the King of Great Britain's territories. It becomes ray- duty to require your peaceable departure; and that you would forbear prosecuting a purpose so inter- ruptive of the harmony and good understanding which His Majesty is desirous to continue and culti- vate with the Most Christian King. I persuade myself you will receive and entertain Major Washing- ton with the candor and politeness natural to your nation ; and it will give me the greatest satisfaction if you return him with an answer suitable to my wishes for a very long and lasting peace between us." Saint-Pierre took three days to frame the answer. In it he said that he should send Dinwiddle's letter to the Marquis Duquesne and wait his orders ; and ihat meanwliile he should remain at his post, accord- ing to the commands of his general. "I made it my particular care," so the letter closed, "to receive Mr. Washington with a distinction suitable to your dig- nity as well as his own quality and great merit. "^ No form of courtesy had, in fact, been wanting. "He appeared to be extremely complaisant," says Washington, " though he was exerting every artifice to set our Indians at variance with ijs. I saw that every jatagem was practised to win the Half-King to their interest." Neither gifts nor brandy were spared; and it was only by the utmost pains that 1 " La Distinction qui convient a votre Dignitt^ k sa Qualite et k son grand M^rite." Copy of original letter sent by Dinwiddie to Governor Hamilton. 1754.] ON THE ALLEGHANY. 141 Washington could prevent his red allies from staying at the fort, conquered by French blandishments. After leaving Venango on his return, he found the horses so weak that, to arrive the sooner, he left them and their drivers in charge of Vanbraam and jjushed forward on foot, accompanied by Gist alone. Each was wrapped to the throat in an Indian " match- coat," with a gun in his hand and a pack at his back. Passing an old Indian hamlet called Murdering Town, they had an adventure which threatened to make good the name. A French Indian, whom they met in the forest, fired at them, pretending that his gun had gone off by chance. They caught him, and Gist would have killed him ; but Washington inter- posed, and they let him go.^ Then, to escape pur- suit from his tribesmen, they walked all night and all the next day. This brought them to the banks of the Alleghany. They hoped to have found it dead frozen ; but it was all alive and turbulent, filled with ice sweeping down the current. They made a raft, shoved out into the stream, and were soon caught helplessly in the drifting ice. Washington, pushing hard with his setting-pole, was jerked into the freez- ing river, but caught a log of the raft, and dragged himself out. By no efforts could they reach the farther bank, or regain that which they had left; but they were driven against an island, where they landed, and left the raft to its fate. The night was 1 Journal of Mr. Christopher Gist, in Mass. Hist. Coll. 3rd Series, v. Ill 142 WASHINGTON. [1768. f.; « excessively cold, and Gist's feet and hands were badly frost-bitten. In the morning, the ice had set, and the river was a solid floor. They crossed it, and succeeded in reaching the house of the trader Eraser, on the Monongahela. It was the middle of January when Washington arrived at Williamsburg and made his report to Dinwiddle. Robert Dinwiddle was lieutenant-governor of Virginia, in place of the titular governor, Lord Albemai.j, whose post was a sinecure. He had been clerk in a government office in the West Indies; then surveyor of customs in the "Old Dominion," — a position in which he made himself cordially dis- liked; and when he rose to the governorship he carried his unpopularity with him. Yet Virginia and all the British colonies owed him much; for, though past sixty, he was the most watchful sentinel against French aggression and its most strenuous opponent. Scarcely had Marin's vanguard appeared at Presqu'isle. when Dinwiddle warned the home government of the danger, and urged, what he had before urged in vain on the V^irginian Assembly, the immediate building of forts on the Ohio. There came in reply a letter, signed by the King, authoriz- ing him to build the forts at the cost of the colony, and to repel force by force in case he was molested or obstructed. Moreover, the King wrote: "If you shall fmd that any number of persons shall presume to erect any fort or forts within the limits of our province of Virginia, you are first to require of them 14. [1768. l!) Gov. Robert Diinciddie. i M! I i il *■■- 1 i ■ M ; > .,m » , ;. i> lit I f L _l m>iiM \X I 'J ■ >v i.tftif lif.'H'H Jf m. m — / -if I Bit: 1763.] DISPUTE WITH BURGESSES. 148 peaceably to depart; and if, notwithstanding your admonitions, they do still endeavor to carry out any such unlawful and unjustifiable designs, we do hereby strictly charge anr" command you to drive them off by force of arms.''^ The order was easily given ; but to obey it needed men and money, and for these Dinwiddle was dependent on his Assembly, or House of Burgesses. He convoked them for the first of November, sending Washington at the same time with the summons to Saint-Pierre. The burgesses met. Dinwiddle ex- posed the danger, and asked for means to meet it.^ They seemed more than willing to comply; but debates presently arose concerning the fee of a pistole, which the governor had demanded on each patent of land issued by him. The amount was trifling, but the principle was doubtful. The aristocratic republic of Virginia was inteneely jealous of the slightest encroachment on its rights by the Crown or its repre- sentative. The governor defended the fee. The burgesses replied that "subjects cannot be deprived of the least part of their property without their con- sent," declared the fee unlawful, and called on Din- widdle to confess it to be so. He still defended it. They saw in his demand for supplies a means of bringing him to terms, and refused to grant money unless he would recede from his position. Dinwiddle 1 Instructions to Our Trusty and Well^eloved Robert Dinwiddle, Esq., 28 August, 1763. 2 Address of Lieutenant-Governor Dinwiddie to the Council and Bur- gesses, 1 November, 1763. 144 WASHINGTON. [1753. ^ 1 rebuked them for "disregarding the designs of the French, and disputing the rights of the Crown; " and he "prorogued them in some anger. "^ Thus he was unable to obey the instructions of the King. As a temporary resource, he ventured to order a draft of two hundred men from the militia. Washington was to have command, with the trader, William Trent, as his lieutenant. His orders ware to push with all speed to the forks of the Ohio, and there build a fort; "but in case any attempts are made to obstruct the works by any persons whatso- ever, to restrain all such offenders, and, in case of resistance, to make prisoners of, or kill and destroy them. "2 The governor next sent messengers to the Catawbas, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Iroquois of the Ohio, inviting them to take up the hatchet against the French, "who, under pretence of embracing you, mean to squeeze you to death." Then he wrote urgent letters to the governors of Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, Maryland, and New Jersey, begging for contingents of men, to be at Will's Creek in March at the latest. But nothing could be done without money; and trusting for a change of heart on the part of the burgesses, he summoned them to meet again on the fourteenth of February. "If they come in good temper," he wrote to Lord Fairfax, a noble- man settled in the colony, "I hope they will lay a fund to qualify me to send four or five hundred men * Dinwiddie Papers. « Ibid. Instructions to Major George Washington, January, 1764. 1753.] DINWIDDIE TO HANBURY. 145 more to the Ohio, which, with the assistance of oui* neighboring colonies, may make some figure." The session began. Again, somewhat oddly, yet forcibly, the governor set before the Assembl- the peril of the situation, and begged them to postpone less pressing questions to the exigency of the hour.^ This time they listened, and voted ten thousand pounds in Virginia currency to defend the frontier. The grant was frugal, and they jealously placed its expenditure in the hands of a committee of their own.2 Dinwiddle, writing to the Lords of Trade, pleads necessity as his excuse for submitting to their terms. "I am sorry," he says, "to find them too much in a republican way of thinking." What vexed him still more was their sending an agent to England to complain against him on the irrepressible question of the pistole fee; and he writes to his London friend, the merchant Hanbuiy: "I have had a great deal of trouble from the factious disputes and violent heats of a most impudent, troublesome party here in regard to that silly fee of a pistole. Surely every thixiking man will make a distinction between a fee and a tax. Poor people! I pity their igno- rance and narrow, ill-natured spirits. But, my friend, consider that I could by no means give up this fee without affronting the Board of Trade and the Council here who established it." His thoughte » Sp^^rh of Lieutenant-Governor Dinwiddie to the Council and Bur- gesses, 14 February, 1754. 2 See the bill in Hening, Statutes of Virginia, vi. 417 VOL. I. — 10 146 WASHINGTON. [1754. Iva }\x * In il i i] f • '/ ; were not all of this harassing nature, and he ends his letter with the following petition : " Now, sir, as His Majesty is pleased to make me a military officer, please send for Scott, my tailor, to make me a proper suit of regimentals, to be here by His Majesty's birthday. I do not much like gayety in dress, but I conceive this necessary. I do not much care for lace on the coat, but a neat embroidered button-hole; though you do not deal that way, I know you have a good taste, that I may show my friend's fancy in that suit of clothes ; a good laced hat and two pair stock- ings, one silk, the other fine thread." ^ If the governor and his English sometimes provoke a smile, he deserves admiration for the energy with which he opposed the public enemy, under circum- stances the most discouraging. He invited the Indians to meet him in council at Winchester, and, as bait to attract them, coupled the message with a promise of gifts. He sent circulars from the King to the neighboring governors, calling for supplies, and wrote letter upon letter to rouse them to effort. He wrote also to the more distant governor, Delancey of New York, and Shirley of Massachusetts, begging them to make what he called a " faint " against Canada, to prevent the French from sending so large a force to the Ohio. It was to the nearer colonies, from New Jersey to South Carolina, that he looked for direct aid ; and their several governors were all more or less active to procure it ; but as most of them 1 Dinwiddie to Hanbury, 12 March, 1764 ; Ibid., 10 May, 1764. mw 1754.] PROVINCIAL APATHY. 147 had some standing dispute with their assemblies, they could get nothing except on terns with which they would not, and sometimes could not, comply. As the lands invaded by the French belonged to one of the two rival claimants, Virginia and Pennsyl- vama, the other colonies had no mind to vote money to defend them. Pennsylvania herself refused to move. Hamilton, her governor, could do nothing against the placid obstinacy of the Quaker non- combatants and the stolid obstinacy of the German farmers who chiefly made up his Assembly. North Carolina alone answered the appeal, and gave money enough to raise three or four hundred men. Two independent companies maintained by the King in New York, and one in South Carolina, had received orders from England to march to the scene of action; and in these, with the scanty levies of his own and the adjacent province, lay Dinwiddle's only hope. With men abundant and willing, there were no means to put them into the field, and no commander whom they would all obey. From the brick house at Williamsburg pompously called the Governor's Palace, Dinwiddle despatched letters, orders, couriers, to hasten the tardy rein- forcements of North Carolina and New York, and push on the raw soldiers of the Old Dominion, who now numbered three hundred men. They were called the Virginia regiment; and Joshua Fry, an English gentleman, bred at Oxford, was made their colonel, with Washington as next in command. i : 148 WASHINGTON. [1754. H; il li P Fry was at Alexandria with half the so-called regi- ment, trying to get it into marching order ; Washing- ton, with the other half, had pushed forward to the Ohio Company's storehouse at Will's Creek, which was to form a base of operations. His men were poor whites, brave, but hard to discipline; without tents, ill armed, and ragged as Falstaff's recruits. Besides these, a band of backwoodsmen under Cap- tain Trent had crossed the mountains in February to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburg now stands, — a spot which Washington had ex- amined when on his way to Fort Le Boeuf, and which he had reported as the best for the purpose. The hope was that Trent would fortify himself before the arrival of the; French, and that Washington and Fry would join him in time to secure the position. Trent had begun the fort, but for some unexplained reason had gone back to Will's Creek, leaving Ensign Ward with forty men at work upon it. Their labors were suddenly interrupted. On the seventeenth of April a swarm of bateaux and canoes came down the Alle- ghany, bringing, according to Ward, more than a thousand Frenchmen, though in reality not much above five hundred, who landed, planted cannon against the incipient stockade, and summoned the ensign to surrender, on pain of what might ensue.* He complied, and was allowed to depart with his men. Retracing his steps over the mountains, he reported his mishap to Washington ; while the French 1 See the summons in Precis des Faits, 101. 1764.] DINWIDDIE'S VEXATION. 149 demolished his unfinished fort, began a much larger and better one, and named it Fort Duquesne. They had acted with their usual promptness. Their governor, a practised soldier, knew the value of celerity, and had set his troops in motion with the first opening of spring. He had no refractorjr assembly to hamper him; no lack of money, for the King supplied it; and all Canada must march at his bidding. Thus, while Dinwiddle was still toiling to muster his raw recruits, Duquesne 's lieutenant, Contrecoeur, successor of Saint-Pierre, had landed at Presqu'isle with a much greater force, in part regu- lars, and in part Canadians. Dinwiddle was deeply vexed when a message from Washington told him how his plans were blighted; and he spoke his mind to his friend Hanbury: "If our Assembly had voted the money in November which they did in February, it 's more than probable the fort would have been built and garrisoned before the French had approached; but these things cannot be done without money. As there was none in our treasury, I have advanced my own to forward the expedition; and if the independent companies from New York come soon, I am in hopes the eyes of the other colonies will be opened; and if they grant a proper supply of men, I hope we shall be able to dislodge the French or build a fort on that river. I congratulate you on the increase of your family. My wife and two girls join in our most sincere respects to good Mrs. Hanbury." i 1 Dinwiddle to Hanhury, 10 May, 1754, w 150 WASHINGTON. [1754. The of a king's fort by planti seizure oi a King s ion oy planting cannon against it and threatening it with destruction was in his eyes a beginning of hostilities on the part of the French; and henceforth both he and Washington acted much as if war had been declared. From their station at Will's Creek, the distance by the traders' path to Fort Duquesne wtis about a hundred and forty miles. Midway was a branch of the Monon- gahela called Redstone Creek, at the mouth of which the Ohio Company had built another storehouse. Dinwiddle ordered all the forces to cross the moun- tains and assemble at this point, until they should be strong enough to advance against the French. The movement was critical in presence of an enemy as superior in discipline as he was in numbers, while the natural obstacles were great. A road for cannon and wagons must be cut through a dense forest and over two ranges of high mountains, besides countless hills and streams. Washington set all his force to the work, and they spent a fortnight in making twenty miles. Towards the end of May, however, Dinwiddle learned that he had crossed the main ridge of the AUeghanies, and was encamped with a hundred and fiftj'- men near the parallel ridge of Laurel Hill, at a place called the Great Meadows. Trent's back- woodsmen had gone off in disgust; Fry, with the rest of the regiment, was still far behind; and Washington was daily expecting an attack. Close upon this, a piece of good news, or what seemed such, came over the mountains and gladdened the 1754.] A BLOW STRUCK. 161 heart of the erovemor. He heard that a French detachment had tried to surprise Washington, and that he had killed or captured the whole. The facts were as follows. Washmgton was on the Youghiogany, a branch of the Monongahela, exploring it in hopes that it might prove navigable, when a raossengor came to him from his old comrade, the Half-King, who was on the way to join him. The message was to the effect that the French had marched from their fort, and meant to attack the first English they should meet. A report came soon after that they were already at the ford of the Youghiogany, eighteen miles distant. Washing- ton at once repaired to the Great Meadows, a level tract of grass and bushes, bordered by wooded hills, and traversed in one part by a gully, which with a little labor the men turned into an intrenchment, at the same time cutting away the bushes and clearing what the young commander called "a charming field for an encounter." Parties were sent out to scour the woods, but they found no enemy. Two days passed; when, on the morning of the twenty-seventh, Christopher Gist, who had lately made a settlement on the farther side of Laurel Hill, twelve or thirteen miles distant, came to the camp with news that fifty Frenchmen had been at his house towards noon of the day before, and would have destroyed everything but for the intervention of two Indians whom he had left in charge during his absence. Washington sent seventy-five men to look for the party; but the \) (1 ■ ( 1 1 . 162 V7ASIIINGT0N. [1754 I I search was vain, the French having hiddc*. them- selves so well as to escape any eye but that of an Indian. In the evening a runner came from the Half-King, who was encamped with a few warriors some miles distant. He had sent to tell Washington that he had found the tracks of two men, and traced them towards a dark glen in the forest, where in his belief all the French were lurking, Washington seems not to have hesitated a moment. Fearing a stratagem to surprise his camp, he left his main force to guard it, and at ten o'clock set out for the Half-King's wigwams at the head cf forty men. The night was rainy, and the forest, to use his own words, "as black as pitch." "The path," he con- tinues, "was hardly wide enough for one man; we often lost it, and could not find it again for fifteen or twenty minutes, and we often tumbled over each other in the dark. " * Seven of his men were lost in the woods and left behind. The rest groped their way all night, and reached the Indian camp at sun- rise. A council was held with the Half-King, and he and his warriors agreed to join in striking the French. Two of them led the way. The tracks of the two French scouts seen the day before were again found, and, marching in single file, the party pushed through the forest into the rocky hollow where the 1 Journal of Washington in Precis des Faits, 109, This Journal, ■whicli is entirely distinct from that befo;e cited, was found by the French among the baggage left on the field after the defeat of Braddock in 1755, and a translation of it was printed by them as above. The original has disappeared. 1764.] .TUMONVILLE. 168 French were supposed to be concealed. They were there in fact; and they snatched their guns the moment they saw the English. Washington gave the word to fire. A short fight ensued. Coulon de Jumc iville, an ensign in command, was killed, with nine others; twenty-two were captured, and none escaped but a Canadian who had fled at the beginning of the fray. After it was over, the prisoners told Washington that the party had been sent to bring him a summons from Contrecoeur, the commandant at Fort Duquesne. Five days before, Contrecoeur had sent Jumonville to scour the country as far us the dividing ridge of the Alleghanies. Under him were another officer, three cadets, a volunteer, an interpreter, and twenty- eight men. He was provided with a written sum- mons, to be delivered to any English he might find. It required them to withdraw from the domain of the King of France, and threatened compulsion by force of arms in case of refusal. But before deliver- ing the summons Jamonville was ordered to send two couriers back with all speed to Fort Duquesne to inform the commandant that he had found the English, and to acquaint him when he intended to communicate with them.i It is difficult to imagine any object for such an order except that of enabling Contrecoeur to send to the spot whatever force might be needed to attack the English on their refusal to ^ The summons and th? instructions to Jumonville are in Pr€cis des Faits. 154 WASHINGTON. [I7n4. ■% '; : »f ,1 withdraw. Jumonville had sent the two couriers, and had hidden himself, apparently to wait the result. He lurked nearly two days within five miles of Washington 8 camp, sent out scouts to reconnoitre it, but gave no notice of his presence; played to perfection the port of a skulking enemy, and brought destruction on hiraselt by conduct which can only be ivscribed to a sinister motive on the one hand, or to extreme folly on the other. French deserters told Washington that the party came as spies, and were to show the summons on'}- if threatened by a superior force. Thib last assertion is confirmed by the French officer Pouchot, who says that Jumonville, seeing himself the weaker party, tried to show the letter he had brought. ^ French writers say that, on first seeing the English, Jumonville '8 interpreter called out that he had some- thing to say to them; but Washington, who was at the head of his men, affirms this to be absolutely false. The French say further that Jumonville was killed in the act of reading the summons. This is also deraed by Washington, and rests only on the assertion of the Canadian who ran off at the outset, and on the alleged assertion of Indians who, if present at all, which is unlikely, escaped like the C inadian before the fray began. Druillon, an officer with J'j moil villa, wrote two letters to Dinwiddie after h-s , v.tn.re, to jialm the privileges of the beare^ l^ ^ summons; but while bringing forward J Pouchot, Memoire sur la derniire Guerre. 1754.] WASHINGTON'S CHAKACTERISTICS. 166 every other circumstance in favor of the claim, he does not pretend that tlie summons was read or shown either before or during the action. The French account of the conduct of Washington's Indians is no less erroneous. "This murder," suys a chronicler of the time, "produced on the minds of the Huvages an effect very different from that wiiich the cruel Vvasinghton had promi'^pd himself. They have a horror of crime ; and they were so indignant at that which had just been perpetrated before their eyes, that they abandoned him, and offered themselves to us in order to take vengeance."* Instead of doing this, they boasted of their part in the fi^ht, scalped all the dead Frenchmen, sent one scalp to the Dela- wares as an invitation to take up the hatchet for the English, and distributed the rest among the various Ohio tribes to the same end. Coolness of judgment, 'x profound sense of public duty, and a strong self-control, were even then the characteristics of Washington; but ho was scarcely twenty-two, was full of military ardor, and was vehement and fiery by nature. Yet it is far from certain that, even when age and experience had ripened him, he would have forborne to act as he did, for there was every reason for believing that the designs of the French were hostile; and though by passively waiting the event he would have thrown upon them the responsibility of striking the first blow, he would have exposed his small party to ^ Poulin de Lumina, Ilistoire de la Guerre contre lea Anglois, 15. ( I 156 WASHINGTON. [1754. capture or destruction by giving them time to gain reinforcements from Fort Duquesne. It was inevi- table that the killing of Jumonville should be greeted in France by an outcry of real or assumed horror; but the Chevalier de L^vis, second in command to Montcalm, probably expresses the true opinion of Frenchmen best fitted to judge when he calls it "a pretended assassination." ^ Judge it as we may, this obscure skirmish began the war that set the world on fire. 2 Washington returned to the camp at the Great Meadows; and, expecting soon to be attacked, sent for reinforcements to Colonel Fry, who ^^^as lying dangerously ill at Will's Creek. Then he set his men to work at an intrenchment, which he named Fort Necessity, and which must have been of tne slightest, as they finished it within three days. 3 The 1 Levis, M€moire sur la Guerre du Canada. '^ On this affair Sparks, Writings of Washington, 11. 25-48, 447. Dinwiddie Papers. Letter of Contrecmir in Precis des Faits. Journal of Washington, Ibid. Washington to Dinwiddie, 3 June, 1754. Dus- sieux, Le Canada sous la Domination Fran^aise, 118. Gaspd, Anciens Canadiens, Appendix, 396. The assertion of Abbd de l'Is!e-Dieu, that Jumonville showed a flag jf truce, is unsupported. Adam Stephen, who was in the fight, says that the guns of the English were so wet that they had to trust mainly to the bayonet. The Half-King boasted that he killed Jumonville with his tomahawk. Dinwiddie highly approved Washington's conduct. In 1755 the widow of Jumonville received a pension of one hun- dred and fifty francs. In 1' .'5, his (.<' I J i I his passionate temper; but the position was untenable, and the presence of the military drones demoralized his soldiers. Therefore, leaving Mackay at the Meadows, he advanced towards Gist's settlement, cutting a wagon road as he went. On reaching the settlement the camp was formed and an intrenchment thrown up. Deserters had brought news that strong reinforcements were ex- pected at Fort Duquesne, and friendly Indians repeatedly warned Washington that he would soon be attacked by overwhelming numbers. Forty Indians from the Ohio came to the camp, and several days were spent in councils with them; but they proved for the most part to be spies of the French. The Half-King stood fast by the English, and sent out three of his young warriors as scouts. Reports Oi attack thickened. Mackay and his men were sent for, and they arrived on the twenty-eighth of June. A council of war was held at Gist's house; and as the camp was commanded by neighboring heights, it was resolved to fall back. The horses were so few that Ihe Virginians had to carry much of the baggage on their backs, and drag nine swivels over the broken and rocky road. The regulars, though they also were raised in the provinces, refused to give the slightest help. Toiling on for two days, they reached the Great Meadows on the first of July. The posi- tion, though perhaps the best in the neighborhood, was very unfavorable, and Washington would have retreated farther, but for the condition of his men. 1754.J COULON DE VILLIERS. 169 They were spent with fatigue, and there was ho choice but to stay and fight. Strong reinforcements had been sent to Fort Duquesne in the spring, and the garrison now con- sisted of about fourteen hundred men. When njws of the death of JumonviUe reached Montreal, Coulon de Villiers, brother of the slain officer, was sent to the spot with a body of Indians from all the tribes in the colony. He made such speed that at eight o'clock on the morning of the twenty-sixth of June he reached the fort with his motley following. Here he found that five hundred Frenchmen and a few Ohio Indians were on the point of marching against the English, under Chevalier Le Mercier; but in view of his seniority in rank and his relationship to JumonviUe, the command was now transferred to Villiers. Hereupon, the march was postponed; the newly-arrived warriors were called to council, and <^ontrecceur thus harangued them: "The English have murdered my children; my heart is sick; to- morrow I shall send my French soldiers to take revenge. And now, men of the Saut St. Louis, men of the Lake of Two Mountains, Hurons, Abenakis, Iroquois of La Presentation, Nipissings, Algonquins, and Ottawas, —I invite you all by this belt of wam- pum to join your French father and help him to crush the assassins. Take this hatchet, and with it two barrels of wine for a feast." Both hatchet and wine wero cheerfully accepted. Then Contrecceur turned to the Delawares, who were also present: 160 WASHINGTON. [1764. M " By these four strings of wampum I invite you, if you are true children of Onontio, to follow the example of your brethren; " and with some hesitation they also took up the hatchet. The next day was spent by the Indians in making moccasons for tlie march, and by the French in pre- paring for an expedition on a larger .^cale than had been at first intended. Contrecceur, Villiers, Le Mercier, and Longueuil, after deliberating together, drew up a paper to the effect that " it was fitting (convenaUe) to march against the English with the greatest possible number of French and savages, in order to avenge ourselves and chastise them iur having violated the most sacred laws of civilized nations;" that, though their conduct justified the French in disregarding the existing treaty of peace, yet, after thoroughly punishing them, and compelling them to withdraw from the domain of the King, they should be told that, in pursuance of his royal orders, the French looked on them as friends. But it was further agreed that should the English have with- drawn to their own side of the mountains, "they should be followed to their settlements to destroy them and treat them as enemies, till that nation should give ample satisfaction and completely change its conduct."! ^ 1 Journal d- Campagne de M. de Villiers depuis son Arrivee au Jf'ort Duquesne jusqu'a son Retour au dit Fort. These and other pas- sages are omitted in the Journal as printed in Prods des Faits. Before me is a copy from the original in the Archives de la Marine. [1754. 1754.] MARCH OF VILLIERS. 161 The pai-ty set at on the next morning, paddled their canoes up the Monongahela, encamped, heard mass; and on the thirtieth reached the deserted store- house of the Ohio Company at the mouth of Redstone Creek. It was i building of solid logs, well loop- holed for musketiy. To please the Indians by asking their advice, YWliera called all the chiefs to council; which being r-ncluded to their satisfaction, he left a se.^eant's guard at the storehouse to watoh the canoes, and began his march through the forest. The path was so rough that at the first halt the chap- lain declared he could go no farther, and turned back for the storehouse, though not till he had absolved the whole company in a body. Thus light- ened of their sins, they journeyed on, constantly sending out scouts. On the second of July they reached the abandoned camp of Washington at Gist's settlement; and here they bivouacked, tired, and drenched all night by rain. At daybreak' they marched again, and passed through the gorge of Laurel Hill. It rained without ceasing; but Villiera pushed his way through the dripping forest to see the place, half a mile from the road, where his brother had been killed, and where several bodies still lay unburied. They had learned from a deserter the position of the enemy, and Villiers filled the woods in front with a swarm of Indian scouts. The crisis was near. He formed his men in column, and ordered every officer to his place. Washington's men had had a full day at Fort TOL. I. — 11 ' 162 WASHINGTON. ri754. m Necessity; but they spent it less in resting from their fatigue than in strengthening their rampart with logs. The fort was a simple square enclosure, with a trench said by a French writer to bo only knee deep. On the south, and partly on the west, there was an exterior embankment, wliich seems to have been made, like a rifle-pit, with the ditch inside. The Virginians had but little ammunition, and no bread whatever, living chiefly on fresh beef. They knew the approach of the French, who were reported to Washington as nine hundred strong, besides Indians. Towards eleven o'clock a wounded sentinel came in with news that they were close at hand ; and they presently appeared at the edge of the woods, yelling, and ^firing from such a distance that their shot fell harmless. Washington drew up his men on the meadow before the fort, thinking, he says, that the enemy, being greatly superior in force, would attack at once ; and choosing for some reason to meet them on the open plain. But Villiers had other v" ^ws. " We approached the English, " he writes, " as near as possible, without dselessly exposing the lives of the King's subjects;" and he and his followers made their way through the forest till they came opposite the fort, where they stationed themselves on two densely wooded hills, adjacent, though sepa- rated by a small brook. One of these was about a hundred paces from the English, and the other about sixty. Their position was such that the Frencl; and Indians, well sheltered by trees and bushes, and with 1754.] FORT NECESSITY. 168 the advantage of higher ground, could cross their fire upon tlie fort and enfih.de a part of it. Wash- ington had meanwhile drawn his followera within the intrenchraent; and the firing now l)egan on both sides. Rain fell all d.y. The .aw earth of the embankment was turned to soft mud, and the men in ^le ditch of the outwork ,stood to the knee in water. The swivels brought back from the cnmp at Gist's farm were mounted on the rampart; but the gunnera were so ill protected that the pieces were almost silenced by the French musketry. The fight lasted nine hours. At times the fire on both sides was nearly qvcnched by the showera, and the bedrenched combatants could do litt'o but gaze at each other through a gray veil of mist and rain. Towards night, however, the fusillade revived, and became sharp again until dark. At eight o'clock the French called out to propose a Darley. ^^ Villiers thus gives his reasons for thase overtures. "As we had been wet all day by the rain, as the soldiers were very tired, as the savages said that they would leave us the next morning, and as there was a report that drums and ihe firing of cannon had been heard in the distance, I proposed to M. Le Mercier to offei the English a conference." He says further that ammunition was falling shoi., ..nd that he thought the enemy might sally in a body and attack him.i The English, on their side, were in a 'Journal de Villiers, original. Omitted in tl7^. Journal as printed by the French government. A short and very incorrect abstract 01 this Journal will be found in N. Y. Col. Docs., x. l V. I'f, H i: lU r liii 164 WASHINGTON. [1754. woi-se plight. They were half starved, their powder was nearly spent, their guns were foul, and among them all they had but two screw-rods to clean them. In spite of his desperate position, Washington declined the parley, thinking it a pretext to introduce a spy; but when the French repeated their proposal and requested that he would send an officer to them, he could hesitate no longer. There were but two men with him who knew French, Ensign Feyroney, who was disabled by a wound, and the Dutchman, Captain Vanbraam. To him the unpalatable errand was assigned. After a long absence he returned with articles of capitulation offered by Villiers ; and while the officers gathered about him in the rain, he read and interpreted the paper by the glimmer of a sput- tering candle kept alight mth difficulty. Objection was made to some of the terms, and they were changed. Vanbraam, however, apparently anxious to get the capitulation signed and the affair ended, mistranslated several passages, and rendered the words Vassassinat du Sieur de Jumonville as the death of the Sieur de Jumonmlle.^ As thus understood, the articles were signed about midnight. They provided that the English should march out with drums beat- ing and the honors of war, carrying with them one of their swivels and all their other property; that 1 See Appendix C. On the fight at Great Meadows, compare Sparks, Writings of Washington, ii. 456-468 ; also a letter of Colonel Innes to Governor Hamilton, written a week after the event, in Colonial Records of Pa., vi. 50, and a letter of Adam Stephen, in Pennsylvania Gazette, 1764. [175i. 1754.] CAPITULATION. 165 they should be protected against insult from French or Indians; that the prisoners taken in the affair of Jumonville should be set free; and that two officers should remain as hostages for their safe return to Fort Duquesne. The hostages chosen were Van- braam and a brave but eccentric Scotchman, Robert Stobo, an acquaintance of the novelist Smollett, said to be the original of his Lismahago. Washington reports that twelve of the Virginians were killed on the spot, and forty-three wounded, while of the casualties in Mackay's company no returns appear. Villiers reports his own loss at only twenty in all.i The numbers engaged are uncertain. The six companies of the Virginia regiment counted three hundred and five men and officers, and Mackay's company one hundred; but many were on the sick list, and some had deserted. About three hundred and fifty may have taken part in the fight. On the side of the French, Villiere says that the detachment as originally formed consisted of five hundred white men. These were increased after his arrival at Fort Buquesne, and one of the party reports that seven hundred marched on the expedition.2 The number 1 Dinwiddle writes to the Lords of Trade that thirty in all were killed, and seventy wounded, on the English side ; and the commis- sary Varin writes to Bigot that the French lost seventy-two killed and wounded. 2 A Journal had from Thomas Forbes, lately a Private Soldier in the Kinff of France's Service. (Public Record Office.) Forbes was one of Villiers's soldiers. The commissary Varin puts the number of French at six hundred, besides Indians. f <« i 1 t 166 WASHINGTON. [1754. of Indians joining them is not given; but as nine tribes and communities contributed to it, and as two barrels of wine were required to give the warriors a parting feast, it must have been considerable. White men and red, it seems clear that the French force was more than twice that of the English, while they were better posted and better sheltered, keeping all day under cover, and never showing themselves on the open meadow. There were no Indians with Washington. Even the Half-King held aloof; though, being of a caustic turn, he did not spare his comments on the fight, telling Conrad Weiser, the provincial interpreter, that the French behaved like covards, and the English like fools. ^ In the early morning the fort was abandoned and the retreat began. The Indians had killed all the horses and cattle, and Washington's men were so burdened with the sick and wounded, whom they were obliged to carry on their backs, that most of the baggage was perforce left behind. Even then they could march but a few miles, and then encamped to wait for wagons. The Indians increased the con- fvsion by plundering, and threatening an attack. They knocked to pieces the medicine-chest, thus 1 Journal of Conrad Weiser, in Colonial Records of Pa., vi. 150. The Half-King also remarked that Washington " was a good- natured man, but had no experience, and would by no means take advice from tlie Indians, but was always driving them on to fight by his directions ; that he lay at one lace from one full moon to the other, and made no fortifications ai all, except that little thing upon the meadow, where he thought the French would come up to him in open field." 1754.] SUCCESS OF VILLIERS. 167 causing great distress to the wounded, two of whom they murdered and scalped. For a time there was danger of panic; bi- order was restored, and the wretched march began along the forest road that led over the Alleghanie., fifty-two miles to the station at Will's Creek. Whatever may have been the feel- mgs of Washington, he has left no record of them His immense fortitude was doomed to severer trials in the future; yet perhaps this miserable morning was the darkest of his life. He was deeply moved by sights of suffering; and all around him were *vounded men borne along in torture, and weaiy men staggering under the living load. His pride was humbled, and his young ambition seeme^i blasted in the bud. It was the fourth of July. He could not foresee that he was to make that day forever glorious to a new-born nation hailing him as its father. The defeat at Fort xs'ecessity was doubly disastrous to the English, since it was a new step and a long one towards the ruin of their interest with the Indians; and when, in the next year, the smoulder- ing war broke into flame, nearly all the western tribes drew their scalping-knives for France. Villiers went back exultant to Fort Duquesne, burmng on his way the buildings of Gist's settlement and the storehouse at Redstone Creek. Not English flag now waved beyond the Alleghanies.i * See Appendix 0. an W. tl if fr\i CHAPTER VI. 1754, 1755. THE SIGNAL OF BATTLE. Troubles of Dinwiddie. — Gathering of the Bdbgessbs. — Virginian Society. — Refractory Legislators. — The Qda- KER Assembly : it refuses to resist the French. — Afathy^ of New York. — Shirley and the General Court of Massachusetts. — Short-sighted Policy. — Attitude of Royal Governors. — Indian Allies waver. — Convention AT Albany. — Scheme of Union: it fails. — Dinwiddie AND Glen. — Dinwiddie calls on England fob Help. — The Duke 6f Newcastle. — Weakness of the British Cabinet. — Attitude of France. — Mutual Dissimulation. — Both Powers send Troops to America. — Collision. — Capture of the " Alcide " and the " Lis." The defeat of Wa.'^hington was a heavy blow to the governor, and he angrily ascribed it to the delay of the expected reinforcements. The King's com- panies from New York had reached Alexandria, and crawled towards the scene of action with thin ranks, bad discipline, thirty women and children, no tents, no blankets, no knapsacks, and for munitions one barrel of spoiled gunpowder. ^ The case was still worse with the regiment from North Carolina. It was commanded by Colonel Innes, a countryman and 1 Dinwiddie to the Lords of Trade, 24 July, 1764. Ibid, to Delancey, 20 June, 1754. 'V : ',t 1754.] THE VIRGINIAN CAPITAL. 169 friend of Dinwiddie, who wrote to him: "Dear James, I now wish that we had none from your colony but yourself, for I foresee nothing but con- fusion among them." The men were, in fact, utterly unmanageable. They had been promised three shil- hngs a day, while the Virginians had only eightpence; and when they heard on the march that their pay was to be reduced, they mutinied, disbanded, and went home. "You may easily guess," says Dinwiddie to a Lonc^on correspondent, "the great fatigue and trouble I ' ^ad, which is more than I ever went through ir ny l ." He rested his hopes on the session of h. i" r t 1^ TIE SIGNAL OF BATTLE. [1754. While to these northern provinces Canada was an old and pestilent enemy, those towards the south scarcely know her by name ; and the idea of French aggression on their bordors was so novel and strange that they admitted it with difliculty. Mind and heart were engrossed i strife with their governors: the univei-sal struggle for virtual self-rule. But the war was often waged v ith a passionate stupidity. The colonist was not then an American; he was simply a provincial, and a narrow one. The time was yet distant when these dissevered and jealous communities should weld themselves into one broad nationality, capable, at need, of the mightiest efforts to purge itself of disaffection and vindicate its com- manding unity. In the interest of that practical independence which they had so much at heart, two conditions were essential to the colonists. The one was a field for expansion, and the other was mutual help. Tlieir first necessity was to rid themselves of the French, who, by shutting them between the Alleghanies and the sea, would cramp them into perpetual littleness. With France on. their backs, growing while they had no room to grow they must remain in helpless ward- ship, dependent on England, whose aid they would always need; but witb the West open before them, their future was their own. King and Parliament would respect perforce the will of a people spread from the ocean to the Mississippi, and united in action as in aims. But in the middle of the last .1 A 1754.) ATTITUDE OF ROYAL GOVERNORS. 177 century the vision of the ordinary colonint rarely reached so far. The i. . diate victory over a gov- ernor, however slight the poin. at issue, was more precious in his eyes than the remote though decisive adva'^tage which he saw but dimly. The governora, representing the central power saw the situation from the national point of view' Several of them, notably Dinwiddle and Shirley, were filled with wrath at the proceedings of the French; and the f n^^^ was exasperated beyond measure at the supih .8 of the provin, ,8. He had spared no effort, to rcase them, and had failed. His instincte were on the side of authority; but, under the cir- cumstances, it is hardly to be imputed to him as a very deep offence against human liberty that he advised the compelling of the colonies to raise men and money for their own defence, and proposed, m virw of their "intolerable obstinacy and disobedi- ence to his Majesty's commands," that Parliament should tax them half-a-crown a head. The approach- mg war offered to the party of authority tempta- tions from which the colonies might have saved it by opening their purse-strings without waiting to be told. The home government, on its part, was but half- hearted in the wish that they should unite in oppo- sition to the common enemy. It was veiy willing that the several provinces should give money and men, but not that they should acquire military h bits and a dangerous capacity of acting together. There "OL. I. — 12 ill j. 178 THE SIGNAL OF BATTLE. .i\ U 'W i^i [1754. was one kind of union, however, so obviously neces- sary, and at the same time so little to be dreaded, that the British Cabinet, instructed by the governors, not only assented to it, but urged it. This was joint action in making treaties with the Indians. The practice of separate treaties, made by each province in its own interest, had bred endless disordei-s. The adhesion of all the tribes had been so shaken, and the efforts of the French to alienate them were so vig- orous and effective, that not a moment was to be lost. Joncaire had gained over most of the Senecas, Piquet was drawing the Onondagas more and more to his mission, and the Dutch of Albany were alienating their best friends, the Mohawks, by encroaching on their lands. Their chief, Hendrick, came to New York with a deputation of the tribe to complain of their wrongs; and finding no redress, went off in ai.ger, declaring that the covenant chain was broken. ^ The authorities in alarm called William Johnson to their aid. He succeeded in soothing the exasperated chief, and then proceeded to the confederate council at Onondaga, where he found the assembled, sachems full of anxieties, and doubts. " We don't know what you Christians, English and French, intend," said one of their orators. " We are so hemmed in by you both that we have hardly a hunting-place lei^ In a little while, if we find a bear in a tree, there will immediately appear an owner of the land to claim the property and hinder us from killing it, by which 1 N. Y. Col, Docs., Yi. 788. Colonial Re<.ords of Pa., v. 625. 1754.] CONVENTION AT ALBANY. ; I79 we live We ai^ so perplexed between you that we hardly know what to say or think."i No man had such power over the Five Nations as Johnson. His dealings with them were at once honest, downright and sympathetu3. They loved and trusted hTm ' much as they detested the Indian commissioner, at Albany, whom the province of New York had charged mth heir affan., and who, being trader., grossly abused their office. s^"»»iy It was to remedy this perilous state of things that the Lords of Trade and Plantations directed the several governoi. to urge on their assemblies the sending of commissionei. to make a joint treaty witii the wavering tribes.^ Seven of the provinces; New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the four New England colonies, acceded to the plan, and sent to Albany, the appointed place of meeting, a body of men who for character and ability had never had an equal on the continent, but whose powers from their respective assemblies were so cautiously limited as to preclude decisive action. They met in the court- house of the little frontier city. A large "chain- belt of wampum was provided, on which the Kins was sjonbolically represented, holding in his embrace the colonies, the Five Nations, and all their allied tribes. This was presented to the assembled war- ^ a: Y. Col. Docs., vi. 813. W^'r"'T.r^o'"''/-^ ^"'^^ '-^ ^^'^^ '^ Go'^rnors in America IS" September, 1763. Lords of Tradp /« i i^m 180 THE SIGNAL OF BATTLE. [1754. 'l '1^ K riors, with a speech in which the misdeeds of the French were not forgotten. The chief, Hendrick, made a much better speech in reply. " We do now solemnly renew and brighten the covenant chain. We shall take the chain-belt to Onondaga, where our council-fire always burns, and keep it so safe that neither thunder nor lightning shall break it." The commissioners had blamed them for allowing so many of their people to be drawn away to Piquet's mission. "It is true," said the orator, "that we live disunited. We have tried to bring back our brethren, but in vain; for the Governor of Canada is like a wicked, deluding spirit. You ask why we are so dispersed. The reason is that you have neglected us for these three years past." Here he took a stick and threw it behind him. " You have thus thrown us behind your back; whereas the French are a subtle and vigilant people, always using their utmost endeavors to seduce and bring us over to them." He then told them that it was not the French alone who invaded the country of the Indians. "The Governor of Virginia and the Governor of Canada are quarrelling about lands which belong to us, and their quarrel may end in our destruction." And he closed with a burst of sarcasm. "We would have taken Crown Point [in the last war], but you pre- vented us. Instead, you burned your own fort at Saratoga and ran away from it, — which was a shame and a scandal to you. Look about your country and see : you have no fortifications ; no, not even in this 1764.] SCHEMES OF UNION. 181 City. It 18 but a step from Canada hither, and the French may come and turn you out of doora. You desire us to speak from the bottom of our hearts, and we shall do it. Look at the French: they are men- they are fortifying everywhere. But you are all like' women, bare and open, without fortifications "i Hendrick's brother Abraham now took up the wo, ., and begged that Johnson might be restored to the management of Indian affairs, which he had fonnerly held; "for," said the chief, "we love him and he us, and he has always been our good and trusty friend." The commissioners had not power to grant the request, but the Indians were assured that it should not be forgotten; and they returned to their villages soothed, but far from satisfied. Nor were the commissioners empowered to take any effective steps for fortifying the frontier. The congress now occupied itself with another matter. Its members were agreed that great danger was impending; that without wise and just treat- ment of the tribes, the French would gain them all bmld forts along the back of the British colonies,' and, by means of ships and troops from France,' master them one by one, unless they would combine for mutual defence. The necessity of some form of union had at length begun to force itself upon the colonial mind. A rough woodcut had lately appeared 1 Proceedings of the Congi-ess at Albany, N. Y. Col. Docs, vi 863 i>. M 182 THE SIGNAL OF BATTLE. [1754. h' I ri in the "Pennsylvania Gazette," figuring the provinces under the not very flattering image of a snake cut to pieces, with the motto, "Join, or die." A writer of the day held up the Five Nations for emulation, oheerving that if ignorant savages could confederate, British colonists might do as much.* Franklin, the leading spirit of the congress, now laid before it his famous project of union, which has been too often described to need much notice here. Its fate is well known. The Crown rejected it because it gave too much power to the colonies ; the colonies, because it gave too much power to the Crown, and because it required each of them to transfer some of its func- tions of self-government to a central council. An- other plan was afterwards devised by the friends of prerogative, perfectly agreeable to the King, since it placed all power in the hands of a council of gov- ernors, and since it involved compulsory taxation of the colonists, who, for the same reasons, would have doggedly resisted it, had an attempt been made to carry it into effect. ^ Even if some plan of union had been agreed upon, long delay must have followed before its machinery could be set in motion; and meantime there was 1 Kennedy, Importance of gaining and preserving the Friendship of the Indians. ^ Or. ;he Albany plan of union, Franklin's Works, i. 177. Shir- ley thought it " a great strain upon the prerogative of the Crown," and was for requiring the colonies to raise money and men " with- out farther consulting them upon any points whatever." Shirley to Robinson, 24 December, 1754. 1754.] DINWIDDIE AND GLEN. 183 need of immediate action. War-parties of Indians from Canada, set on, it was thought, by the governor, were already burning and murdering among the border settlements of New York and New Hampshire. In the south Dinwiddle grew more and more alarmed, "foi the French are like so many locusts; they are collected in bodies in a most surprising manner; their number now on the Ohio is from twelve hun- dred to fifteen hundred." He writes to Lord Gran- ville that, in his opinion, they aim to conquer the continent, and that "the obstinacy of this stubborn generation" exposes the country "to the merciless rage of a rapacious enemy." What vexed him even more than the apathy of the assemblies was the con- duct of his brother-governor, Glen of South Carolina, who, apparently piqued at the conspicuous part DinwMdie was acting, wrote to him in a "very dic- tatorial style," found fault with his measures, jested at his activity in writing letters, and even questione.i the right of England to lands on the Ohio; till he was moved at last to retort: "I cannot help observ- ing that your letters and arguments would have been more proper from a French officer than from one of His Majesty's governors. My conduct has met with His Majesty's gracious approbation; and I am sorry it has not received yours." Thus discouraged, even in quarters where he had least reason to expect it, he turned all his hopes to the home government; again recommended a tax by Act of Parliament, and begged, in repeated letters, for arms, munitions, and L! 184 THE SIGNAL OF BATTLE. [1754. 1^' ,!:' f'v y I; i: two regiments of infantry.^ His petition was not made in vain. England at this time presented the phenomenon of a prime minister who could not command the respect of his own servants. A more preposterous figure than the Duke of Newcastle never stood at the head of a great nation. He had a feverish craving for place and power, joined to a total unfitness for both. He was an adept in personal politics, and was so busied with the arts of winning and keeping office that he had no leisure, even if he had had ability, for the highei work of government. He was restless, quick in movement, rapid and confused in speech, lavish of worthless promises, always in. a hurry, and at once headlong, timid, and rash. "A borrowed importance and real insignificance," says Walpole, who knew him well, "gave him the perpetual air of a solicitor. . . . He had no pride, though infinite self-love. He loved business immoderately; yet was only always doing it, never did it. When left to himself, he always plunged into difficulties, and then shuddered for the consequences." Walpole gives an anecdote showing the state of his ideas on colonial matters. General Ligonier suggested to him that Annapolis ought to be defended. "To which he replied with his lisping, evasive hurry: 'Annapolis, Annapolis! Oh, yes, Annapolis must be defended; to be sure, Annapolis should be defended, — where 1 Dinwiddie Papers; letters to Granville, Albemarle, Halifax, Fox, HoldernesBe, Horace Walpole, and Lords of Trade. H 1764.] THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. 185 is Annapolis ? '" » Another contemporary, Smollett, ridicules him in his novel of "Humphrey Clinker," and tells a similar story, which, founded in fact or not, shows in what estimation the minister was held: "Captain C. treated the Duke's character without any ceremony. 'This wiseacre,' said he, 'is still abed; and I think the best thing he can do is to sleep on till Christmas ; for when he gets up he does nothing but expose his own folly. In the beginning of the war he told me in a great fright that thirty thousand French had marched from Acadia to Cape Breton. Where did they find transports? said I. — Transports! cried he, I tell you they marched by land. — By land to the island of Cape Breton ! — What, is Cape Breton an island ? — Certainly. — Ha ! are you sure of that?— When I pointed it out on the map, he examined it earnestly with his spectacles ; then, taking me in his arms, — My dear C, cried he, you always bring us good news. Egad ! I '11 go directly and tell the King that Cape Breton is an island.' " His wealth, county influence, flagitious use of patronage, and long-practised skill in keeping majori- ties in the House of Commons by means that would not bear the light, made his support necessary to Pitt himself, and placed a fantastic political jobber at the helm of England in a time when she needed a patriot and a statesman. Newcastle was the growth of the decrepitude and decay of a great party, which had fulfilled its mission and done its work. But if 1 Walpole, George II., i. 344. * h \ : ■ ' 186 THE SrGNAL OF BATTLE. [1754. the Whig soil had become poor for a wholesome crop, it was never so rich for toadstools. Sir Thomas Robinson held the Southern Depart- ment, charged with the colonies; and Lord Mahon remarks of him that the duke had achieved the feat of finding a secretary of state more incapable than himself. He had the lead of the House of Commons. " Sir Thomas Robinson lead us ! " said Pitt to Henry- Fox; "the Duke might as well send his jackboot to lead us." The active and aspiring Halifax was at the head of the Board of Trade and Plantations. The Duke of Cumberland commanded the army, — an indifferent soldier, though a brave one; harsh, violent, and headlong. Anson, the celebrated navi- gator, was First Lord of the Admiralty, —a position in which he disappointed everybody. In France the true ruler was Madame Pompadour, once the King's mistress, now his procuress, and a sort of feminine prime mi .ster. Machault d' Amou- ville was at the head of the Marine and Colonial Department. The diplomatic representatives of the two Crowns were more conspicuous for social than for political talents. Of Mirepoix, French ambassa- dor at London, Marshal Saxe had once observed: "It is a good appointment; he can teach the English to dance." Walpole says concerning him: "He could not even learn to pronounce the names of our games of cards, — which, however, engaged most of the hours of his negotiation. We were to be bullied out of our colonies by an apprentice at whist ! " Lord I 1754.] ENGLAND AND FRANCE C3MPARED. 187 Albemarle, English ambassador at Versailles, is held up by Chesterfield as an example to encourage his son in the pursuit of the graces: "What do you think made our friend Lord Albemarle colonel of a regiment of Guards, Governor of Virginia, Groom of the Stole, and ambassador to Paris, — amounting in all to sixteen or seventeen thousand pounds a year? Was it his birth? No; a Dutch gentleman only. Was it his estate? No; he had none. Was it his learning, his parta, his political abilities and appli- cation? You can answer these questions as easily and as soon as I can ask them. What was it then? Many people wondered; but I do not, for I know, and will tell you, — it was his air, his address, his manners, and his graces." The rival nations differed widely in military and naval strength. England had afloat more than two hundred ships -of- war, some of them of great force; while the navy of France counted little more than half the number. On the other hand, England had reduced her army to eighteen thousand men, and France had nearly ten times as many under arms. Both alike were weak in leadership. That rare son of the tempest, a great commander, was to be found in neither of them since the death of Saxe. In respect to the approaching crisis, the interests of the two Powers pointed to opposite courses of action. What France needed was time. It was her policy to put off a rupture, wreathe her face in diplomatic smiles, and pose in an attitude of peace I 1 I; s !U III f ' '=i 188 THE SIGNAL OF BATTLE. [1764. and good faith, while increasing her navy, reinfor- cing her garrisons in America, and strengthening her positions there. It was the policy of England to attack at once, and tear up the young encroachments while they were yet in the sap, before they could strike root and harden into stiff resistance. When, on the fourteenth of November, the King made his opening speech to the Houses of Parliament, he congratulated them on the prevailing peace, and assured them that he should improve it to promote the trade of his subjects, "and protect those posses- sions which constitute one great source of their wealth." America was not mentioned; but his heu^ers understood him, and made a liberal grant for the service of the year.i Two regiments, each of five hundred men, had already been ordered to sail for Virginia, where their numbers were to be raised by enlistment to seven hundred. 2 Major-General Braddock, a man after the Duke of Cumberland's o^vn heart, was appointed to the chief command. The two regiments — the forty-fourth and the forty- eighth — embarked at Cork in the middle of January. The soldiers detested the service, and many had deserted. More would have done so had they fore- seen what awaited them. This movement was no sooner known at Versailles 1 Entick, Late War, i. 118, a Robinson to Lords of the Admiralty, 30 September, 1754. Ibid to Board of Ordnance, 10 October, 1754. Ibid., Circular Letter to Ameri- can Governors, 26 October, 1754. Instructions to our Trusty and Well- beloved Edtvard Braddock, 25 November, 1754. 1755.J THE FRENCH EXPEDITION. 189 than a counter expedition wao prepared on a larger scale. Eighteen ships-of-war were fitted for sea at Brest and Rochefort, and the six battalions of La Reine, Bourgogne, Languedoc, Guienne, Artois, and Bdarn, three thousand men in all, were ordered on board for Canada. Baron Dieskau, a German veteran who had served under Saxe, was made their general; and with him went the new governor of French America, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, destined to succeed Duquesne, whose health was failing under the fatigues of his office. Admiral Dubois dc la Motte commanded the fleet; and lest the English should try to intercept it, another squadron of nine ships, under Admiral Macnamara, was ordered to accompany it to a certain distance from the coast. There was long and tedious delay. Doreil, com- missary of war, who had embarked with Vaudreuil and Dieskau in the same ship, wrote from the harbor of Brest on the twenty ninth of April: "At last I think we are off. We should have been outside by four o'clock this morning, if M. de Macnamara had not been obliged to ask Count Dubois de la Motte to wait till noon to mend some important part of the rigging (I don't know the name of it) which was broken. It is precious time lost, and gives the Eng- lish the advantage over us of two tides. I talk of these things as a blind man does of colors. What is certain is that Count Dubois de la Motte is very impatient to get away, and that the King's fleet destined for Canada is in ver)- able and zealous hands. ; ' t, 190 THE SIGNAL OF BATTLE. I *;' I i j': '• I ;l f I' r [1766. It is now half-past two. In half an hour all may be ready, and we may get out of the harbor before night." He was aguin disappointed ; it was the third of May beforo the fleet put to sea.* During these preparations ther^ was active diplo- matic correspondence between the U\o courts. Mirepoix demanded why British troopu -'Are sent to America. Sir Thomas Robinson answered that there was no intention to disturb the peace or offead any Power whatever; yet the seciet ordei-s to Braddock were the reverse of pacific. Robinson asked on his part the purpose of the French armament at Brest and Rochefort; and the answer, like his own, was a protestation that no hostility \.a8 meant. At the same time Mirepoix in the name of the King proposed that orders should be given to the Americ n governors on both sides to refrain from all acts of aggres- sion. But while making this proposal the French Court secretly sent orders to Duquesne to attack and destroy Fort Halifax, one of the two forts lately built by Shirley on the Kennebec, -- a river which, by the admission of the French themselves, belonged to the English. But, in making this attack, the French governor was expressly enjoined to pretend that he acted without orders.^ He was "Iso told 1 Lettres de Cremille, de Rostaing, et de Doreil au j » . ,, // 18, 24, 28, 29, 1755. Listc des Vaisseaux de Guerre t^ui i^ompoient VEscadre arm€e a Brest, 1765. Journal of M. de Vaudreuil's Voyage to Canada, in N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 297. Pouchot, i. 25. a Machault a Duquesne, 17 F^vrier, 1755. The letter of Mirepoix proposing mutual abstinence Tiom aggression is dated on the sixth 1766.] BOSCAWEN'S EXPEDITION. 191 li that, if necessary, he might make use of the Indians to harass the English. ^ Thus there was good faith on neither part; but it is clear th*.. Ji all the corre- spondence that the English expected to gain by pre- cipitating an open rupture, and the French by postponing it. Projects of convention were proposed on both sides, but there vas no agreement. The English insisted as a preliminary condition that the French should evacuate all the v/estern country as far as the Wabash. Then ensued a long discussion of their respective claims, as futile as the former dis- oubsion at Paris on \cadian boundaries. * The British Court knew perfectly the naval and »nilitary preparations of the French. Lord Albemarle hau died at Paris in December; but the secretary of the embassy, De Cosne, sent to London full informa- tion concerning the fleet at Brest and Rochefort.^ On this, Ar'miral Boscawen, with eleven ships-of- the-lina and one frigate, was ordered to intercept it; and as his force was plainly too small. Admiral Holbourne, with seven m.re ships, was sent, nearly three weeks after, to join him if he could. Their orders were similar, — to capture or destroy any French vessels bound to North America.* Boscawen, of the same month. The French dreaded Fort Halifax, becauBe they thought it prepared the way for an advance on Quebec by way of the Chaudi^re. 1 Machault a Duquesne, 17 F€vrier, 1755. 8 This correspondence is printed among the Pieces justificatives of the PrScis des Fails. « Particulars in Entick, i. 121. * Secret Instructions fv,- our T nsty and Well-beloved Edward Bos- 192 THE SIGNAL OF BATTLE. [1755. , I' I 4 who got to sea before La Motte, stationed himself near the southern coast of Newfoundland to 3ut him off; but most of the French squadron eluded him, and safely made their way, some to Louisbourg, and the others to Quebec. Thus the English expedition was, in the main, a failure. Three of the French ships, however, lost in fog and rain, had become separateo from the rest, and lay rolling and tossing on an angry sea not far from Cape Race. One of them was the "Alcide," commanded by Captain Hocqiart; the othars were the "Lis" and the "Dauphin." The wind fell; but the fogs continued at ini'srvals; till, on the afternoon of the seventh of June, the weather having cleared, the watchman on the maintop saw the distant ocean studded with ships. It was the fleet of Boscawen. Hocquart, who gives the account, says that in the morning th'^y were within three leagues of him, crowding all s..il in pursuit. Towards eleven o'clock one of them, the "Dunkirk," was abreast of him to windward, within short speaking distance ; and the ship of the adniiral, displaying a red flag as - signal to engage, was not far off. Hocquart called out: "Are we at peace, or war?" He declares that Howe, captain of the "Dunkirk," replied in French: "La paix, la paix." Hocquart then asked the name of the British admiral ; and on hearing it said : "I know him; he is a friend cawen, Esq,, Vtce-Admiral of the Blue, 16 April, 1755. Most secret Instructions for Francis Holhourne, Esq., Rear-Admiral of the Blue, 9 May, 1755. Robinson to Lords of the Admiralty, 8 May, 1766. [1755. Ailniiiiil F.JwirJ Hosun,','!! ^■1 ¥ I 4>> i m ■ 1 ij X. ( IP A J' 1 \ k\f J 1 / t I c I 1755.] THE ALCIDE AND THE LIS. 198 Of mine." Being asked his own name in return, he had scarce^^ uttered it when the batteries of the Dunkirk belched flame and smoke, and volleyed a !f ITf ,?^ T "P"'' '^'' ^^"^^^d d««ks of the Alcide. She returned the fire, but was forced at length to strike her coloi^. Rostaing, second in cmnmand of the troops, was killed; and six other officers, with about eighty men, were killed or wounded.1 At the same time the " Lis " was attacked and ove^owered. She had on board eight companies of the battehons of La Reine and Languedoc. The third French ship, the "Dauphin," escaped under cover of a rising fog. 2 Here at last was an enrl to negotiation. The sword was drawn and brandished in the eyes of Europe. ^ J Lhte des Ojficiers tu€s et bkss€s dans le Combat de V Alcide et du J" Hocquart'8 account is given in full by Pichon. Lettres et M,rno^res pour servir a VHistoire du Cap-Breton The «h;rt a coun Al8o Boscawen toRohnson, 22 June, 1755. Vaudreuil au MiniH^e 24 Juillet, 1755. Entick, i. 137. ^^intnre, question Are we at peace, or war ? " returned, "I don't know but you had better prepare for war." Boscawen places Jheactirn on the tenth, instead of the eighth, and puts the English lossat seven kiUed and twenty-seven wounded. VOL. I.— 13 I. i f ' *a* ■A^l'i I ^\M 'Vm , ^ , \ J^ 'S •4 ; !■ i CHAPTER VII. 1756. BRADDOCK. Aerival of Bbaddock : ins Chabactbb. — Council at Alex- andria. —Plan OP THE Campaign. — Apathy op the Colo- NI8TS. — Rage of Bbaddock.— Fbanklin. — Fort Cdmbebland. — Composition op the Army. — Offended Fbiends. — The Mabch. — The French Fort. — Savage Allies. — The Cap- tive. — Beaujec : HE GOES to meet the English. — Pas- sage op the Monongahela. — The Surprise. — The Battle. — Rout of Bbaddock : his Death. — Indian Ferocity. — Reception op the III News. — Weakness of Dunbar.— The Frontier abandoned. " I HAVE the pleasure to acquaint you that General Braddock came to my house last Sunday night, " writes Dinwiddie, at the end of February, to Governor Dobbs of North Carolina. Braddock had landed at Hampton from the ship "Centurion," along with your.v Commodore Keppel, who commanded the American squadron. "I am mighty glad," again writes Dinwiddie, "that the General is arrived, which I hope will give me some easer for these twelve months past I have been a perfect slave." He conceived golden opinions of his guest. "He is, I think, a very fine officer, and a sensible, con- siderate gentleman. He and I live in great harmony. " 1755.] WALPOLE'S SKETCH OF BRADDOCK. 195 Had he known him better, he might have praised him less. William Shirley, son of the governor of Massachusette, was Braddock's secretory; and after an acquaintance of some months wrote to his friend Governor Morris: "We have a general most judi- ciously chosen for being disqualified for the service he IS employed in in almost every respect. He may be brave for aught I know, and he is honest in pecu- niaiy matters. '> i The astute Franklin, who also had good opportunity of knowing him, says: "This general was, I think, a brave man, and might prob- ably have made a good figure in some European war. i!ut he had too much self -confidence; too high an opinion of the validity of regular troops; too mean a one o both Americans .ad Indians." ^ Horace Walpole, in his function of gathering and immorteliz- mg the gossip of his time, has left a sharply drawn sketch of Braddock in two letters to Sir Horace Mann, written in the summer of this year: "I love to give you an idea of our characters as they rise upon the stage of history. Braddock is a very Iro- quois in disposition. He had a sister who, having gamed away all her little fortune at Bath, hanged hei^elf with a truly English deliberation, lea4g only a note upon the table with those lines: ' To die IS landing on some silent shore,' ete. When Brad- dock was told of it, he only said: ' Poor Fanny! I always thought she would play till she would be 1 'S'/«>% the younger to Morris, 23 May, 1755. 2 Franklin, Autobiography. . t iff I 'Hp 196 BRADDOCK. [1755. forced to tuck herself up.' " Under the name of Miss Sylvia S , Goldsmith, in his life of Nash, tells the story of this unhappy woman. She was a rash but warm-hearted creature, reduced to penury and dependence, not so much by a passion for cards as hy her lavish generosity to a lover ruined by his own follies, and with whom her relations are said to have been entirely innocent. Walpole continues : " But a more ridiculous story of Braddock, and which is recorded in heroics by Fielding in his ' Covent Garden Tragedy,' was an amorous discussion he had, formerly with a Mrs. Upton, who kept him. He had gone the greatest lengths with her pin-money, and was still craving. One day, that he was ven pressing, she pulled out her purse and showed him that she had but twelve or fourteen shillings left. He twitched it from her: ' Let me see that.' Tied up at the other end, he found five guineas. He took them, tossed the empty purse in her face, saying, ' Did you mean to cheat me ? ' and never went near her more. Now you are acquainted with General Braddock." "He once had a duel with Colonel Gumley, Lady Bath's brother, who had been his great friend. As they were going to engage, Gumley, who had good- humor and wit (Braddock had the latter), said, 'Braddock, you are a poor dog! Here, take my purse; if you kill me, you will be forced to run away, and then you will not have a shilling to sup- port you.' Braddock refused the purse, insisted on ,■; >■ 1756.] ANECDOTES OF BRADDOCK. : 197 the dud, was disarmed, and would not even ask his ife. However, with all his brutality, he has lately been governor of Gibmltar, where he made himself Lw'i ""^'''''^''^ any governor was endured acttroT ZV 't' '' '^" '^ ^" accomplished Braddock had known from girlhood, and with whom his present relations seem to have been those of an elderly adviser and friend. ''As we were walking m the Park one day, w. heard a poor fellow was to be chastised; when I reque«^^d the General to beg off the offender. Upon his application to the general officer, whose name was Dury, he asked Braddock how long since he had divested himself of the brutal- ity and insolence of his manners? To which the other replied: 'You n.ver knew me insolent to my inferiors It is ouly to such rude men as yourself that I behave with the spirit which I think thev deserve. '" '" Braddock made a visit to the actress on the even- ing before he left London for America. "Before we parted," she says, "the General told me that he should never see me more; for he was going with a iiandful of men to conqi-r whole nations; and to do this they must cut their way through unknown woods. He produced a map of the country, saying BrL?"r "^^"'•"^ ^«'/"''« (1866). ii. 459. 461. It is doubtful if Braddock was ever governor of Gibraltar; though as Mr Sarlnt ehowB. he once commanded a regiment there ^ ' 1\ ! 198 BRADDOCK. [1765. at the same time : * Dear Pop, we aie sent like sacri- fices to the altar, '" ^ — a strange presentiment for i man of liis sturdy temper. Whatever were his failings, he f^^arect nothing, 9r,x his fidelity and honor in the disci orge of p .hlic trusts were nover questioned. "Desperate in his fortune, brutal in his behavior, obstinate in his seia.- ments," again writes Walpole, "^ ^ was still intrepid and capable.'"'^ He was a veteran in years and in service, having entered the Coldstream Guards as ensign in 1710. The transports bringing the two regiments from Ireland all arrived safely at Hampton, and were ordered to proceed up the Potomac to Alexandria, where a camp was to be formed. Thither, towards the end of March, went Braddock himself, along with Keppel and Dinwiddle, m the governor's coach ; while his aide-de-camp, Omie, his secretary, Shirley, and the servants of tLe party followed on horseback. Braddock had sent for the elder Shirley and other provincial governors to meet him in council; and on the fourteenth of April they assembled in a tent of the newly ^ormed encampment. Here was Dinwiddle, who thought his troubles at an end, and saw in the red-coated soldiery the near fruition of his "^opes. Here, too, was his friend and ally, Dobbs of North Carolina; with Morris of Pennsylvania, fresh from 1 Apology for the Life of George Anne Bellamy, written by herself, ii, 204 (London, 1786). 2 Walpole, George II., i. 390. w W. .1 ""•] THE COUNCIL, ; ^99 Assembly quarre.8, Sharpe „: Ma-yUnd, who. hav- ng onco been a ,oWior, had been made a e^t of pro™,o„al commander-in-chief before the arrival of Brad, oek, and the amWio™ Delancey of New York, who had lately led the opposition against Z hmself,- a position that needed all his manifold adroitness. But, next to Bradd.ek, the most not chusetts. There was a fountain of youth in this old lawyer. A few yeai. tefore, when he w- boundary eomm.ss.oner in Paris, he had had the indisctio^ to marry a young Catholie Freneh girl, the daughter ot h.s andlorf; and now. when more than ^ixty yearn old he thi«ted ,. military honors, and dehghted in eontriving -nerations of war. He waa one ofave.y few in th. eolonies who at this time enterta.ned the idea of expelli.,g the Kreneh from the eonhnent. He held that CarU.age must be d^troyed; and. in spite o^ his Parisian maniagt was the .o.^most advocate of the root-ana-braneh poI.cy. He and Lawrence, governor of Nova Seotia. Lad concerted an attack on the French fort of Beaus^jour; a.id. jointly with otliers in New Ens- and he had planned the eapt.,re of Crown Point nd bw .■^"'' ^'"'P'^'"- ^^ ""^^^ t-o «t™kes ■Id by fortify.ng the portage between the Kennebec and tl,e Chandi.re, he thought that the nor^er^ colon.es would be saved from invasion, and placed m a pos.tion to become themselves invaders. Then, ¥ I ' 200 BRADDOCK. [1755. by driving the enemy from Niagara, securing that important pass, and thus cutting off the communica- tion between Canada and her interior depenclsncies, all the French posts in the West would die of inani- tion. ^ In order to commend these schemes to the home government, he had painted in gloomy colors the dangers that beset the British colonies. Our Indians, he said, will all desert us if we submit to French encroachment. Some of the provinces are full of negro slaves, ready to rise against their mas*«rs, and of Roman Catholics, Jacobites, indented servants, and other dangerous persons, who would aid the French in raising a servile insurrection. Pennsylvania is in the hands of Quakers, who will not fight, and of Germans, who are likely enough to join the enemy. The Dutch of Albany would do anything to save their trade. A strong force of French regulars might occupy that place without resistance, then descend the Hudson, and, with the help of a ■'■ ^val force, capture New York and cut the British colonies asunder.'-* The plans against Crown Point and Beaus^jour had already found the approval of the home govern- ment and the energetic support of all the New England colonies. Preparation for them was in full activity; and it was with great difficulty that Shirley had disengaged himself from these cares to attend the Council at Alexandria. He and Dinwiddle stood !l1 1 Correspondence of Shirley, 1764, 1755. '■^ Shirley to Hobinson, 24 January, 1755. [1755. that 1755.] PLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN. 201 in the front of opposition to French designs. As they both defended the royal prerogative and were strong advocates of taxation by Parliament, they have found scant justice from American writers. Yet the British colonies owed them a debt of grati- tude, and the American States owe it still. Braddock laid his instructions before the Council, and Shirley found them entirely to his mind; while the generjil, on his part, fully approved the schemes of the governor. The plan of the campaign was settled. The French were to be attacked at four points at once. The two British regiments lately arrived were to advance on Fort Duquesne; two new regiments, known as Shirley's and Pepperrell's, just raised in the provinces, and taken into the King's pay, were to reduce Niagara; a body of provincials from New England, New York, and New Jersey was to seize Crown Point; and another body of New England men to capture Beausdjour and bring Acadia to complete subjection. Braddock himself was to lead the expedition against Fort Duquesne. He asked Shirley, who, though a soldier only in theory, had held the rank of colonel since the last war, to charge himself with that against Niagara; and Shirley eagerly assented. The movement on Crown Point was intrusted to Colonel William Johnson, by reason of his influence over the Indians and his repu- tation for energy, capacity, and faithfulness. Lastly, the Acadian enterprise was assigned to Lieutenant- Colonel Monckton, a regular officer of merit. : i-W 202 BRADDOCK. [1755. M To strike this fourfold blow in time of peace was a scheme worthy of Newcastle and of Cumberland. The pretext was that the positions to be attacked were all on British soil; that in occupying them the French had been guilty of invasion; and that to expel the invaders would be an act of self-defence. Yet in regard to two of these positions, the French if they had no other right, might at least claim one of prescnption. Crown Point h^ : been twenty-four years in their undisturbed possession, while it was three quarters of a century since they first occu- pied Niagara; and, though New York claimed the ground, no serious attempt had been made to dis- lodge them. Other matters now engaged the Council. Brad- dock, m accordance with his instructions, asked the governors to urge upon their several assemblies the estabhshment of a general fund for the service of the campaign; but che governors were all of opinion that the assemblies would refuse, — each being resolved to keep the control of its money in its own hands; and all present, with one voice, advised that the colonies should be compelled by Act of Parlia- ment to contribute in due proportion to the Gupport of the war. Braddock next asked if, in the judg- in.;nt ox the Council, it would not be well to send Colonel Johnson with full powers to trer.t witi the Five Nations, who had been driven to the ver:,e of an outbreak by the misconduct of the Dutch Tnuif! i commissioners at Albany. The measiuo was cor- 1755.] PREPARATION. 203 dially approved, as was also another suggestion of the general, that vessels should be built at Oswego to command Lake Ontario. The Council then dissolved. Shirley hastened back to New England, burdened with the preparation for three expeditions and the command of one of them. Johnson, who had been in the camp, though not in the Council, went back to Albany, provided with a commission as sole s iperin- tendent of Indian affairs, and chargea, besides, with the enterprise against Crown Point i while aii express was despatched to Monckton at Halifax, with orders to set at once to his work of capture. g BeauRjjour.^ In regard to Braddock's part of the campaign, there had been a serious error. If, instead of landing in Virginia and moving on Fort Duquesne by the long and circuitous route of Will's Creek, the two regiments had disembarked at Philadelphia and marched westward, the way would have been short- ened, and would huve lain through one of the richest and most populous districts on the continent, filled with supplies of every kind. In Virginia, on the other hand, and in the adjoining province of Mary- ^ Mindtes of a Cuncil held at the Camp at Alexandria, in Virginia, April 14, 1765, Instructions to MaJor-Gen?^-al Braddock, 25 November, 1754. Secret Luitructions to Major-G„aeral Braddock, same date. Napier to Braddock, written b/i Order of 7ie Duke of Cumberland 25 November, 1754, in Precis des Fa'''\ ^il es justijicatioes, 168. Cntu^, Journal of Braddock's Expeditio . / 1, struct/ or ■> to Governor Shirley. Correspondence of Shirk/. Vorrfspondence of Braddock (Public Record Office). Johnson Papers. Dinwiddle Papers. Pennsylvania Archives, ii. W ,* f " I ■' I- •'■ ■ f.> 204 BRADDOCK. [1755. land, wagons, horses, and forage were scarce. The enemies of the Administration ascribed this blunder to the influence of the Quaker merchant, John Hanbuiy, whom the Duke of Newcastle had con- sulted as a person familiar with American affairs. Hanbuiy, who was a prominent stockholder in the Ohio Company, and who traded largely in Virginia, saw it for his interest that the troops should pass that way, and is said to have brought the duke to this opinion.! A writer of the time thinks that if they had landed in Pennsylvania, forty thousand pounds would have been saved in money, and six weeks in time.^ Not only were supplies scarce, but the people showed such unwillingness to furnish them, and such apathy in aiding the expedition, that even Washington was provoked to declare that "they ought to be chastised. "3 Many of them thought that the alarm about French encroachment was a '' -^e of designing politicians; and they did not -•a ) to a full consciousness of the peril till it was -- 1 upon them by a deluge of calamities, produced by the purblind folly of their own representatives, who, nstead of frankly promoting the expedition, ^ Shehbeare's Tracts, Letter I. Dr. Shebbeare was a political pamphleteer, pilloried by one xniniatry, and rewarded by the nTxt '^ Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1755 1755.] HIS DIFFICULTIES. 205 displayed a perverse and exasperating narrowness which chafed Braddock to fury. He praises the New England colonies, and echoes Dinwiddie's declaration that they have shown a "fine martial spirit," and he commends Virginia as having done far better than her neighbors; but for Pennsylvania he finds no words to express his wrath. ^ He knew nothing of the intestine war between proprietaries and people, and hence could see no palliation for a conduct which threatened to ruin both the expedition and the colony. Everything depended on speed, and speed was impossible; for stores and provisions were not ready, though notice to furnish them had been given months before. The quartermaster- general. Sir John Sinclair, "stormed like a lion rampant," but with small efPect.a Contracts broken or disavowed, want of horses, want of wagons, want of forage, want of wholesome food, or sufficient food of any kind, caused such delay that the report of it reached England, and drew from Walpole the com- ment that Braddoch was in no hurry to be scalped. In reality he was maddened with impatience and vexation. A powerful ally presently came to his aid in the shape of Benjamin Franklin, then postmaster-general of Pennsylvania. That sagacious personage, — the sublime of common-sense, about equal in his instincts > Braddock to Robinson, 18 March, 19 April, 5 June, 1755, etc. On the attitude of Pennsylvania, Colonial Records of Pa., vi., passim. * Colonial Records of Pa., vi.SaS. ■Hi 206 BBADDOCK. [1765. ¥' I I -.i and motives of character to the respectable average of the New England that produced him, but gifted with a versatile power of brain rarely matched on earth, —was then divided between his strong desire to repel a danger of which he saw the imminence, and his equally strong antagonism to the selfish claims of the Penns, proprietaries of Pennsylvania. This last motive had determined his attitude towards their representative, the governor, and led him into an opposition as injurious to the military good name of the province as it was favorable to its political longings. In the present case there was no such conflict of inclinations i he could help Braddock withou.t hurting Pennsylvania. He and his son had visited the camp, and found the general waiting restlessly for the report of the agents whom he had sent to collect wagons. "I stayed with him," says Franklin, "several days, and dined with him daily. When I was about to depart, the returns of wagons to be obtained were brought in, by which it appeared that they amounted only to twenty-five, and not all of these were in serviceable condition." On this the general and his officers declared that the expedition was at an end, and denounced the ministry for send- ing them into a country void of the means of trans- portation. Franklin remarked that it was a pity they had not landed in Pennsylvania, where almost everv farmer hart his wagon. Braddock caught eagerly at his words, and begged that he Wiul^ use his influence to enable the troops to move. Franklin 1755.] WILL'S CREEK. 207 went back to Pennsylvania, issued an address to the farmei-s appealing to their interest and their fears, and in a fortnight procured a hundred and fift^ wagons, with a large number of horses.^ Braddock, grateful to his benefactor, and enraged at everybody else, ,Dronounced him "Almost the only instance of ability and honesty I have known in these provinces." 2 More wagons and more horses gradually arrived, and at the eleventh hour the march began. On the tenth of May Braddock reached Will's Creek, where the whole force was now gathered, having marched thither by detachments along the banks of the Potomac. This old trading-station of the Ohio Company had been transformed into a military post and named Fort Cumbe..and. During the past winter the independent companies which had failed Washington in his need had been at work here to prepare a base of operations for Braddock. Their axes had been of more avail than their muskets. A broad wound had been cut in the bosom of the forest, and the murdered oaks and chestnuts turned into ramparts, barracks, and magazines. Fort Cum- berland was an enclosure of logs set upright in the ground, pierced with loopholes, and armed with ten small cannon. It stood on a rising ground near the point where WiU's Creek joined the Potomac, and 1 Franklin, Autobiography. Advertisement of B. Franklin for Wagons; Address to the Inhabitants of the Counties of York, Lancas. ter, and Cumberland, in Pennsylvania Archives, ii. 294. 2 Braddock to Robinson, 6 June, 1755. The letters of Braddock here cited are the originals in the Public Record Office. If^i I 11 ',' ' ! i 208 BRADDOCK. [1755. • the forest girded it like a mighty hedge, or rather like a paling of gaunt brown stems upholding a canopy of green. All around spread illimitable woodg, wrapping hill, valley, and mountain. The spot was an oasis in a desert of leaves, — if the name oasis can be given to anything so rude and harsh. In this rugged area, or "clearing," all Braddock's force was now assembled, amounting, regulars, provincials, and sailors, to about twenty-two hundred men. The two regiments, Halket's and Dunbar's, had been completed by enlistment in Virginia to seven hun- dred men each. Of Virginians there were nine companies of fifty men, who found no favor in the eyes of Braddock or his officers. To Ensign Allen of Halket's regiment was assigned the duty of "mak- ing them as much like soldiers as possible," ^ — that is, of drilling them like regulars. The general had little hope of them, and informed Sir Thomas Rob- inson that "th ir slothful and languid disposition renders them very unfit for military service," a point on which he lived to change his mind. Thirty sailors, whom Commodore Keppel had lent him, were more to his liking, and were in fact of value in many ways. He had no;v about six hundred baggage- horses, besides those of the artillery, all weakening daily on their diet of leaves ; for no grass was to be found. There was great show of discipline, and little real order. Braddock's executive capacity seems to have been moderate, and his dogged, imperious 1 Orme, Journal, M H .1^ 1755.] HIS ILL-HUMOR. 209 temper, rasped by disappointments, was in constant irritation. "He looks upon the countiy, I believe," writes Washington, "as void of honor or honesty. We have frequent disputes on this head, which are maintained with warmth on both sides, especially on his, as he is incapable of arguing without it, or giving up any point he asserts, be it ever so incom- patible with reason or common sense."! Braddock's secretary, the younger Shirley, writing to his friend Governor Morris, spoke thus irreverently of his chief: "As the King said of a neighboring governor of yours [Sharpe], when proposed for the command of the American forces about a twelvemonth ago, and recommended as a very honest man, though not remarkably able, ' a little more ability and a little less honesty upon the present occasion might serve our turn better. ' It is a joke to suppose that second- ary officers can make amends for the defects of the first; the mainspring must be the mover. As to the others, I don't think we have much to boast; some are insolent and ignorant, others capable, but rather aiming at showing their own abilities than making a proper use of them. I have a very great love for my friend Orme, and think it uncommonly fortunate for our leader that he is under the influence of so honest and capable a man; but I wish for the sake of the public he had some more experience of business, par- ticularly in America. I am greatly disgusted at see- ing an expedition (as it is called), so iU-concerted 1 Writings of Washington, ii. 77. VOL. I, — 14 J ' iM ■if i! 210 BRADDOCK. I ',K [1755. originally in England, so improperly conducted since in America."^ Captain Robert Orme, of whom Shirley speaks, was aide-de-camp to Braddock, and author of a copi- ous and excellent Journal of the expedition, now in the British Museum. 2 His portrait, painted at full length by Sir Joshua Reynolds, hangs in the National Gallery at London. He stands by his horse, a gallant young figure, with a face pale, yet rather Ir^ndsome, booted to the knee, his scarlet coat, ample waistcoat, and small three-cornered hat all heavy with gold lace. The general had two other aides-de-camp, Cap^iin Roger Morris and Colonel George Washington, whom he had invited, in terms that do him honor, to become one of his military family. It has been said that Braddock despised not only provincials, but Indians. Nevertheless, he took some pains to secure their aid, and complained that Indian affairs had been so ill conducted by the prov- inces that it was hard to gain their conlidence. This was true; the tribes had been alienated by gross neglect. Had they been protected from injustice and soothed by attentions and presents, the Five Nations, Delawares, and Shawanoes would have been retained as friends. But their complaints had been slighted, and every gift begrudged. The trader » Shirley the younger to Morris, 23 May, 1755, in Colonial Records of Pa., vi. 404. 2 Printed by Sargent, in his excellent monograph of Braddock's Expedition. m\ si, n 1766.] INDIAN ALLIES. 211 Croghan brought, however, about fifty warriors, with as many women and cliildren, to the camp at Fort Cumberlar They were objects of great curiosity to the soldiers, who gazed with astonish- ment on their faces, painted red, yellow, and black, their ears slit and hung with pendants, and their heads close shaved, except the feathered soalp-lock at the c ,wn. "In the day," says an officer, "they are in our camp, and in the night they go into their own, where they dance and make a most horrible noise." Braddcck received them several times in his tent, ordered the guurd to salute them, made them speeches, caused cannon to be fired and drums and fifes to play in their honor, regaled them with rum, and gave them a bullock for a feast; whereupon, being much pleased, they danced a war-dance, de- scribed by one spectator as "droll and odd, . liowing how they scalp and fight; " after which, says an- other, "they set up the most horrid song or cry that ever I heard, "i These warriors, with a few others, promised the general to join him on the march; but he apparently grew tired of them, for a famous chief, called Scarroyaddy, afterwards complained: "He looked upon us as dogs, and would never hear any- thing that we said to him." Only eight of them remained with him to the end.^ Another ally appeared at the camp. This was 1 Journal of a Naval Officer, in Sargent. The Expedition of Major- General Braddock, being Extracts of Letters from an Officer (London 1765). ' 2 Statement of George Croghan, in Sargent, Appendix III. . \ IMAGE EVAIUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) V A {•/ ^.% < \ % ^ fL:S «? / 1.0 I.I 14^12.8 M M 18 L2I ii^ 11.6 d ^:^ .^^ 1 llUUJglcipilHj Sciences Corporation ^ o- 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716) 872-4503 % ^ ^ S t> aj C' O rt C2 ^- CC ^ _aj 5 U- f 1 ■*-» ;^ x: .2 H fe w S c j= c 1= -2 2i ^ ^ •- O o C ;_ x: jr Ci, •J: £ B (U U (L> -c x: -c JZ t. o ^ S br O nj S -c Cj- i^ :i: ^ x: 4J ^ w « K TJ ^ .S -^ ns 4J ^ .2, 3 2 -c: ,- c u -5 a. rt r-'-HcCi^^'"^ . "C "O _ -^T- O t = 5 "^^ 5 i ii ij 13 73 jT — M I- r o S -■^ :: jC ■ >" ITT _ (u o /^'^ i I i ■%^, n » . ■ ^im^':-0^''^"'" o-o o ~«C J?.,, O 0.1) " " o " n o " irj « iti ikiy 511 4 il ■' f t M i. I 1 I .«J f " 1755.] THE CRISIS NEAR. 221 Three hundred of them left him, went off in another direction, and did not xejoin him till the English had crossed the river, i Hence perhaps it was that, hav- ing left Fort Duquesne at eight o'clock, he spent half the day in marching seven miles, and ^vas more than a mile from the fording-place when the British reached the eastern shore. The delay, from what- ever cause arising, cost him the opportunity of laying an ambush either at the ford or in the gullies and ravines that channelled the forest through which Braddock was now on the point of marching. Not far from the bank of the river, and close by the British line of march, there was a clearing and a deserted house that had once belonged to the trader Fraser. Washington remembered it well. It was here that he found rest and shelter on the winter journey homeward from his mission to Fort Le Breuf. He was in no less need of rest at this moment; for recent fever had so weakened him that he could hardly sit his horse. From Fraser's house to Fort Duquesne the distance was eight miles by a rough path, along which the troops were now beginning to move after their halt. It ran inland for a little, then curved to the left, and followed a course paral- lel to the river along the base of a line of steep hills that here bordered the valley. These and all the country were btiried in dense and heavy forest, choked with bushes and the carcasses of fallen trees! Braddock has been charged with marching blindly 1 Relation de Godefroy, in Shea, Bataille du MalangueuU. ill 222 BRADDOCK. [1756. i • J r ^ •■ n into an ambuscade; but it was not so. There was no ambuscade; and had there been one, he would have found it. It is true that he did not reconnoitre the woods very far in advance of the head of the column; yet, with this exception, he made elaborate dispositions to prevent surprise. Several guides, with six Virginian light horsemen, led the way.' Then, a musket-shot behind, came the vanguard; then three hundred soldiers under Gage; then a large body of axemen, under Sir John Sinclair, to open the road; then two cannon with tumbrils and tool-wagons; and lastly the rear-guard, closing the line, while flanking-parties ranged the woods on both sides. This was the advance-column. The main body followed with little or no interval. The artil- lery and wagons moved along the road, and the troops filed through the woods close on either hand. Numerous flanking-parties were thrown out a hun- dred yards and more to right and left; while, in the space between them and the marching column, the pack-horses and cattle, with their drivers, made their way painfully among the trees and thickets; since, had they been allowed to follow the road, the line of march would have been too long for mutual support. A body of regulars and provincials brought up the rear. Gage, with his advance column, had just passed a wide and bushy ravine that crossed their path, and the van of the mam column was on the point of entering it, when the guides and light horsemen m [1766. 'here vms le would connoitre d of the elfiborate guides, ;he way. mguard; then a clair, to brils and sing the on both le main he artil- and the 3r hand. a hun- !, in the nn, the , made lickets ; )ad, the mutual wrought assed a :h, and oint of men in 1755.] THE EATTLE. 223 the front suddenly Ml back; and the engineer, Gordon, then engaged in marking out the road, saw a man, dressed like an Indian, but wearing the gorget of an officer, bounding forward along the path.i He stopped when he discovered the head of the column, turned, and waved his hat. The forest behind was swarming with French and savages. At the signal of the officer, who was probably Beaujeu, they yelled the war-whoop, spread themselves to right and left, and opened a sharp fire under cover of the trees. Gage's column wheeled deliberately into line, and fired several volleys with great steadi- ness against the now invisible assailants. Few of them were hurt; the trees caught the shot, but the noise was deafening under the dense arches of the forest. The greater part of the Canadians, to borrow the words of Dumas, "fled shamefully, ciying, ' Sauve qui pent ! '" 2 Volley followed volley, and at the third Beaujeu dropped dead. Gage's two cannon were now brought to bear, on which the Indians, like the Canadians, gave way in confusion, but did not, like them, abandon the field. The close scarlet ranks of the English were plainly to be seen through the trees and the smoke ; they were moving forward, cheering lustily, and shouting, " God save the King! " Dumas, nov/ chief in command, thought that all was lost. "I advanced," he says, "with the assurance 1 Journal of the Proceeding of the Detachment of Seamen, in Sargent. 2 Dumas au Ministre, 24 Juillet, 1766. Contrecceur a Vaudreuil, 14 Juillet, Vlbb. See Appendix D, where extracts are given. am^'\ m \ '■ If 1 ■1 V 1 , f'Hi ■i ^ ^f \ 1: if 1 :jf 224 BRADDOCK. : : f ,r i,. iil [1753. U ' , that comes from despair, exciting by voico and gesture the few soldiem that remained. The fire of my platoon was so sharp that the enemy seemed astonished." The Indians, encouraged, began to rally. The French officers who commanded them showed admirable courage and address; and while Dumas and Ligneris, with the regulara and what was left of the Canadians, held the ground in front, the savage warriors, screeching their war-cries, swarmed through the forest along both flanks of the English, hid behind trees, bushes, and fallen trunks, or crouched in gullies and ravines, and opened a deadly fire on the helpless soldiery, who, themselves completely visible, could see no enemy, and wasted volley after volley on the impassive trees. The most destructive iire came from a hill on the English right, where the Indians lay in multitudes, firing from their lurking-places on the living target below. But the invisible death was everywhere, in front, flank, and rear. The British cheer was heard no more! The troops broke their ranks and huddled together in a bewildered mass, slirinking from the bullets that cut them down by scores. When Braddock heard the firing in the front, he pushed forward with the main body to the support of Gage, leaving four hundred men in the rear, under Sir Peter Halket, to guard the baggage. At the moment of his arrival Gage's soldiers had abandoned their two cannon, and were falling back to escape the concentrated fire of the Indians. Meeting the [1755. oico and 'he fire of J seemed Jegan to led them nd while ind what in front, mr-cries, cs of the I trunks, pened a 3mselves I wasted 'he most ih right, ig from V. But :, flank, 3 more, ether in Bts that :"ont, he »port of , under At the ndoned escape ng the ':m 'i' Sir Peter Halket. I I;. Mj m (i A '•I ^■<'i u . .^ 111 '^- 'I ' i : J ii 1755.] GALLANTRY OF VIRGINIAN^ 225 advancing troops, they tried to find cover behind them. This threw the whole into confusion. The men of the two regiments became mixed together; and in a short time the entire force, except the Virginians and the troops left with Halket, were massed in several dense bodies within a small space of ground, facing some one way and some another, and all alike exposed without shelter to the bullets that pelted them like hail. Both men and officers were new to this blind and frightful warfare of the savage in his native woods. To charge the Indians in their hiding-places would have been useless. They would have eluded pursuit with the agility of wild- cats, and swarmed back, like angry hornets, the moment that it ceased. The Virginians alone 'were equal to the emergency. Fighting behind trees like the Indians themselves, they might have held the enemy in check till order could be restored, had not Braddock, furious at a proceeding that shocked all his ideas of courage and discipline, ordered them, with oaths, to form into line. A body of them under Captain Waggoner made a dash for a fallen tree lying in the woods, far out towards the lurking- places of the Indians, and, crouching behind the huge trunk, opened fire; but the regulars, seeing the smoke among the bushes, mistook their best friends for the enemy, shot at them from behind, killed many, and forced the rest to return. A few of the regidars also tried in their clumsy way to fight behind trees; but Braddock beat them with his VOL. 1. — 15 ■-'I' 226 BllADDOCK. [1755. u sword, and compelled them to stand with the rest an open mark for the Indians. The panic increased; the soldiers crowded together, and the bullets spent themselves in a mass of human bodies. Commands entreaties, and threats were lost upon them. " We would fight," some of them answered, "if we could see anybody to fight with." Nothing was visible but puffs of smoke. Officers and men who had stood all the afternoon under fire afterwards declared that they could not be sure they had seen a single Indian. Braddock ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Burton to attack the hill where the puffs of smoke were thickest, and the bullets most deadly. With infinite difficulty that brave officer induced a hundred men to follow him ; but he was soon disabled by a wound, and they all faced about. The artillerymen stood for some time by their guns, which did great damage to the trees and little to the enemy. The mob of soldiers, stupefied with terror, stood panting, their foreheads beaded with sweat, loading and firino- mechanically, sometimes into the air, sometimes among their own comrades, many of whom they killed. The ground, strewn with dead and wounded men, the bounding of maddened hoi-ses, the clatter and roar of musketry and cannon, mixed with the spiteful report of rifles and the yells that rose from the indefatigable throats of six hundred unseen savages, formed a chaos of anguish and terror scarcely paralleled even in Indian war. -'I cannot describe the horrors of that scene," one of Braddock's [1755. the rest, increased ; lets spent 3mmands, n. "We we could IS visible bad stood ared that e Indian, iirton to »ke were 1 infinite d men to i wound, en stood damage mob of ig, their d firingf metimes )m they TOunded ; clatter nth the >se from unseen , terror cannot ddock's 1755.] HAVOC AMONG OFFICERS. 227 officers wrote three weeks after; "no pen could do it. The yell of the Indians is fresh on my ear, and the terrific sound will haunt me till the hour of my dissolution."^ Braddock showed a furious intrepidity. Mounted on horseback, he dashed to and fro, storming like a madman. Four horses were shot under him, and he mounted a fifth. Washington seconded his chief with equal courage; he too no doubt using strong language, for he did not measure words when the fit was on him. He escaped as by miracle. Two horses were killed under him, and four bullets tore his clothes. The conduct of the British officers was above praise. Nothing could surpass their undaunted self-devotion; and in their vain attempts to lead on the men, the havoc among them was frightful. Sir Peter Halket was shot dead. His son, a lieutenant in his regiment, stooping to raise the body of his father, was shot dead in turn. Young Shirley, Braddock's secretary, was pierced through the brain. Orme and Morris, his aides-de-camp, Sinclair, the quartermaster-general. Gates and Gage, both after- wards conspicuous on opposite sides in the War of the Revolution, and Gladwin, who, eight years later, defended Detroit against Pontiac, were all wounded. Of eighty-six officers, sixty-three were killed or dis- abled; 2 while out of thirteen hundred and seventy- 1 Leslie to a Merchant of Philadelphia, 30 July, 1755, in Hazard's Pennsylvania Register, v. 191. Leslie was a lieutenant of the Forty- fourth. 2 A List of the Officers who vere present, and of those killed and iAiU m I ■■ 228 BRADDOCK. [1755. three non-commissioned officers and privates, only four hundred and fifty-nine came off unharmed. ^ Braddock saw that all was lost. To save the wreck of his force from annihilation, he at last commanded a retreat; and as he and such of his officers as were left strove to withdraw the half-frenzied crew in some semblance of order, a bullet struck him down. The gallant bulldog fell from his horse, shot through the arm into the lungs. It is said, though on evi- dence of no weight, that the bullet came from one of his own men. Be this as it may, there he lay among the bushes, bleeding, gasping, unable even to curse. He demanded to be left where he was. Captain Stewart and another provincial bore him between them to the rear. It was about this time that the mob of soldiers, having been three hours under fire, and having spent their ammunition, broke away in a blind frenzy, rushed back towards the ford, "and when," says Washington, "we endeavored to rally them, it was with as much success as if we had attempted to stop the wild bears of the mountains." They dashed across, helter-skelter, plunging through the water to the farther bank, leaving wounded comrades, cannon, wounded, in the Action on the Banks of the Monongahela, 9 July, 1755 (Public Record Office, America and West Indies, Ixxxii). 1 Statement of the engineer, Mackellar. By another account, out of a total, officers and men, of 1,460, the number of all ranks who escaped was 583. Braddock's force, originally 1,200, was in- creased, a few days before the battle, by detachments from Dunbar. P w 1755.] BATTLE-FIELD ABANDONED. 229 baggage, the military chest, and the general's papers, a prey to the Indians. About fifty of these followed to the edge of the river. Dumas and Ligneris, who had now only about twenty Frenchmen with them, made no attempt to pursue, and went back to the fort, because, says Contrecoeur, so many of the Canadians had "retired at the first fire." The field, abandoned to the savages, was a pandemonium of pillage and murder. ^ James Smith, the young prisoner at Fort Duquesne, 1 "Nous primes lo parti de nous retirer en vue de rallier nctre petJta armee."— Dumas au Ministre, 24 Juillet, 176G. On the defeat of Braddock, besides authorities already cited - ShiTky to Robinson, 5 November, 1755, accompanying the plans of the battle reproduced in this volume (Public Record Om^^, America and\\ est Indies, Ixxxii. ). The plans were drawn at Shirley's request by Patrick Mackellar, chief engineer of the expedition, who was wuh Gage m the advance column when the fight began. They were examined and fully approved by the chief surviving officers, and they closely correspond with another plan made by the aide-de- camp Orme,- which, however, shows only the beginning of the aflair. Report of the Court of Inquiry into the Behavior of the Troops at tho MonongaheJa. Letters of Dimviddie. Letters of Gage. Burd to Mor- ris, Zo Julji, 1755. Sinclair to Robinson, 3 September. Rutherford to - -, 12 July. Writings of Washington, ii. 68-93. Review of Mili. tary Operations in North America. Entick, i. 145. Gentleman's Magazme (1755), 378. 426. Letter to a Friend on the Ohio Defeat (Boston, 1755). "^ Contrecceur a Vaudreuil, 14 Juillet, 1755. Estat de I'Artillerie, etc.. qmsesonttrouves snr la Champ de Bataille. Vaudreuil au Ministr^ Q r v/' ^', '^"^ ""' ^^'«'«"-^ 27 Aout. Relation du Combat du J Juillet Relation depuis le Depart des Trouppes de Qu€bec jusqu'au ^OduMotsdeSeptembre. Lotbiniere a d'Argenson, 24 Octobre. Rela- twn officiell imprimee au Louvre. Relation de Godefrou (Shea) Ex- trms du fegistredu Fort Duquesne (Ibid.). Relation de diverses Mouvements (Ibid.). Pouchot, i. 37, 4 11 f; If 1 p Ji pi I'j ( J I'fit. I i lii 1 i' * L[ f ■ ■= ■ ' i ' ' :i 230 BRADDOCK. [1755. had passed a day of Ruspense, waiting the result. " In tlie afternoon I again olxsorvod a groat noise and connnotion in tho fort, and, though at that time I could not und(usUind French, I found it was the voice of joy and triuinpli, and feared tliat they had received what I called bud news. I had observed some of tho old-country soldiers speak Dutch ; as I spoke Dutch, I went to one of theui and asked liim what was the news. lie told me that a runner had just arrived who said that Braddock would certainly be defeated; that the Indians and French had sur- rounded him, and were concealed behind trees and in gullies, and kept a constant fire upon the English; and that they saw tho English falling in heaps ; and if they did not take the river, which was the only gap, and make their escape, there would not bo one man left alive before sundown. Some time after this, I heard a number of scalp-halloos, and saw a company of Indians and French coming in. I ob- served they had a great number of bloody scalps, grenadiei-s' caps, British canteens, bayonets, t;tc., with them. They brought the news that Braddock was defeated. After that another company came in, which appeared to be about one hundred, and chiefly Indians ; and it seemed to me that almost every one of this company was carrying scalps. After this came another company with a number of wagon- horses, and also a great many scalps. Those that were coming in and those that had arrived kept a constant firing of small arms, and also the great 1756.] AFTEU THE BATTLE. 231 guns in the fort, which wore accompanied with the most hideous HhoutH and yells from all quarters, so that It appeared to me as though the infernal regions liad broke loose. "About sundown T beheld a small party coming in with about a dozen prisoners, stripped naked, with their hands tied behind their backs and their faces and part of their bodies blacked; these prisoners they burned to deatli on the bank of Alleghany River, opposite the fort. I stood on the fort wall until I beheld them begin to burn one of these men; they had him tied to a atake, and kept touching him with firebrands, red-hot irons, etc., and he screaming in a most doleful manner, the Indians in the meantime yelling like infernal spirits. As this scene appeared too shocking for me to behold, I retired to my lodg- ing, both sore and sorry. When I came into my lodgings I saw Russel's Seven Sermons, which they had br.,.ight from the field of battle, which a French- man made a present of to me. " The loss of the French was slight, but fell chiefly on the officers, three of whom were killed, and four wounded. Of the regular soldiers, all but four escaped untouched. The Canadians suffered still less, in proportion to their numbers, only five of them being hurt. The Indians, who won the victory, bore the principal loss. Of those from Canada,* twenty-seven were killed and wounded; while the casualties among the western tribes are not reported, i 1 Liste des Officiers, Soldats, MiUciens, et Sauvag... de Canada mi out etetu^set blesses Ic 9 Juillet, 11 i>;i. e i^anaaa qui M' s s 'J f ill I ' ' " > ll \m f m It > ' w if 1 * !i' 1 '^ii^ 1 i 1 I 232 BRADDOCK. [1755. All of these last went off tlie next morning with their plunder and scalps, leaving Contrecoeur in great anxiety U jt the remnant of Braddock's troops, rein- forced by the division under Dunbar, should attack him again. His doubts would have vanished had he known the condition of his defeated enemy. In the pain and languor of a mortal wound, Brad- dock showed unflinching resolution. His bearers stopped with him at a favorable spot beyond the Monongahela ; and here he hoped to maintain his position till the arrival of Dunbar. By the efforts of the officers about a hundred men were collected around him ; but to keep them there was impossible. Within an hour they abandoned him, and fled like the rest. Gage, however, succeeded in rallying about eighty beyond the other fording-place ; and Washington, on an order from Braddock, spurred his jaded horse towards the camp of Dunbar to demand wagons, provisions, and hospital stores. Fright overcame fatigue. The fugitives toiled on all night, pursued by spectres of horror and despair; hearing still the war-whoops and the shrieks; pos- sessed with the one thought of escape from this wilderness of death. In the morning some order was restored. Braddock was placed on a horse,- then, the pain being insufferable, he was carried on a litter. Captain Orme having bribed the carriers by the promise of a guinea and a bottle of rum apiece. Early in the succeeding night, such as had not fainted on the way reached the deserted farm of Gist. Here 1756.] PANIC. 288 they met wagons and provisions, with a detachment of soldiers sent by Dunbar, whose camp was six miles farther on; and Braddock ordered them to go to the relief of the . ^ragglers left behind. At noon of that day a number of wagoners and pack-horse drivers had come to Dunbar's camp with wild tidings of roui and ruin. More fugitives fol- lowed; and soon «fter a wounded officer wis brought in upon a sheet. The drums beat to arms. The camp was in commotion; and many soldiers and teamsters took to flight, in spite of the sentinels, who tried in vain to stop them.^ There was a still more disgraceful scene on the next day, after Brad- dock, with the vvreck of his force, had arrived. Orders were given to destroy such of the wagons, stores, and ammunition as could not be carMed back at once to Fort Cumberland. Whether Dunbar or the dying general gave these orders is not clear; but it is certain that they were executed with shameful alacrity. More than a hundred wagons were burned; cannon, coehoms, and shells were burst or buried,' barrels of gunpowder were staved, and the contents thrown into a brook; provisions were scattered through the woods and swamps. Then the whole command began its retreat over the mountains to Fort Cumberland, sixty miles distant. This pro- ceeding, for which, in view of the condition of Braddock, Dunbar must be held answerable, excited 1 Depositions of Matthew Laird, Michael Hoover, and Jacob Hoover W agoners, :n Colonial Records of Pa., vi. 482. ' Hm 284 BRADDOCK. [1750. * Is !l i h<. J. «cn 1 the utmost indignation uniong the colonists. If he could not udviince, they thonght, he might at lei.st have fortified himself and held his ground till the provinces could send hiin help; thus covering the frontier, and holding French war-parties in check. Bniddock's hist moment was near. Ormo, who, though himself severely wounded, was with him till his deatli, told Franklin that lie was totally silent all the fii-st day, and at night said only, "Who would have thought it?" that all the next day ho was again silent, till at last he muttered, "We shall better know how to deal with them another time," and died a few minutes after. He had nevertheless found breath to give orders at Gist's for the succor of the men who had dropped on the road. It is said, too, that in Iris last hours "he could not bear the sight of a red coat," but murmured praises of "the blues," or Virginians, and said that he hoped he should live to reward them.^ He died at about eight o'clock in the evening of Sunday, the thirteenth. Dunbar had begun his retreat that monnng, and was then en- camped near the Great ]\Icadows. On Monday the dead commander was buried in the road ; and men, horses, and wagons passed over his grave, effacing every sign of it, lest the Indians should find and mutilate the body. Colonel James Innes, commanding at Fort Cum- berland, where a crowd of invalids with soldiers' 1 Boiling to his Sr»>, 13 Aiujust, 1755. Boiling was a Virginian gentleman whose son was at school in England. Vi \ 1756.] NEWS OF THE ROUT. 286 wives and other women had been left when the expedition inarched, heard of the defeat, only two days after it happened, from a wagoner who had fled from the fiehl on honsehack. lie at once sent a note of six lines to Lord Fairfax: "I have this moment received the most melancholy news of the defeat of our troops, the General killed, and numl)ei-s of our officers ; our whole artillery taken. In short, the ac- count I have received is so very bad, that as, please God, I uitend to make a stand here, 'tis highly necessary to raise the militia everywhere to defend the frontiers." A boy whom he sent out on horse- back met more fugitives, and came back on the four- teenth with reports as vague a ad disheartening as the first. Innes sent them to Dinwiddle.^ Some days after, Dunlar and his train arrived in miserable disorder, and Fort Cuml)€rland was turned into a hospital for the shattered fragments of a routed and ruined army. On the sixteenth a letter was brought in hasto to one Buchanan at Carlisle, on the Pennsylvanian frontier: — Sir, — T thought it proper to let you know that I was in the battle where we were defeated. And we had about eleven hundred and fifty private men, besides officers uid others. And we wee attacked the ninth day about twelve o'clock, and held till about three in the afternoon, and then we were forced to retreat, when I suppose we might bring off about three hundred whole men, besides a vase 1 Lines to Dinwiddle, 14 July, 1755. I k ,1 1, 236 BRADDOCK. ri755. many wounded. Most of our officers were either wounded or kil ed, General Braddock is wounded, but I hope not mortal ; and Sir John Sinclair and many others, but I hope not mortal. All the train is cut off in a manner. Sir Peter Halket and his son, Captain Poison, Captain (xethen, Captain Rose, Captain Tatten killed, and many others. Captain Ord of the train is wounded, but I hope not mortal. We lost all our artillery entirely, and every- thing else. "^ To Mr. John Smith and Buchannon, and give it to the next post, and let him show this to Mr. George Gibson in Lancaster and Mr. Bingham, at the sign of the Ship, and you '11 oblige, ^ Yours to command, John Campbell, Messenger.^ The evil tidings quickly reached Philadelphia where such confidence had prevailed that certain over-zealous persons had begun to collect money for fireworks to celebrate the victory. Two of these brother physicians named Bond, came to Franklin and asked him to subscribe; but the sage looked doubtful. "Wliy, the devil!" said one of them "you surely don't suppose the fort will not be taken?" He reminded them that war is always uncertain; and the subscription was deferred.^ The governor laid the news of the disaster before his Council, telling them at the same time that his oppo- nents in the Assembly would not believe it, and had insulted him in the street for giving it currency.3 ^ Colonial Records of Pa., vi. 481. 2 Autobiographii of Franklin. ^ Colonial Records of Pa., vi. 480. 1755.] ORME AND WASHINGTON. 237 Dinwiddle remained tranquil at Williamsburg, sure that all would go well. The brief note of Innes, forwarded by Lord Fairfax, first disturbed his dream of triumph; but on second thought he took comfort. " I am willing to think that account was from a deserter who, in a great panic, represented what his fears suggested. I wait with impatience for another express from Fort Cumberland, which I expect will greatly contradict the former." The news got abroad, and the slaves showed signs of excitement. "The villany of the negroes on any emergency is what I always feared," continues the governor. " An example of one or two at first may prevent these creatures entering into combinations and wicked designs, "i And he wrote to Lord Hali- fax: "The negro slaves have been very audacious on the news of defeat on the Ohio. These poor creatures imagine the French will give them their freedom. We have too many here; but I hope we shall be able to keep them in proper subjection." Suspense grew intolerable. "It's monstrous they should be so tardy and dilatory in sending down any farther account." He sent Major Colin Campbell for news ; when, a day or two later, a courier brought him two letters, one from Orme, and the other from Washington, both written at Fort Cumberland on the eighteenth. The letter of Orme began thus: "My dear Governor, I am so extremely ill in bed with the wound I have received that I am under the necessity 1 Dinmddie to Colonel Charles Carter, 18 Juhj, 1755. :m i *. M 288 BRADDOCK. [1755. of employing my friend Captain Dobson as my scribe." Then he told the wretched story of defeat and humiliation. "The officers were absolutely sac- rificed by their unparalleled good behavior; advancing before their men sometimes in bodies, and sometimes separately, hoping by such an example to engage the soldiei-s to follow them; but to no purpose. Poor Shirley was shot through the head. Captain Morris very much wounded. Mr. Washington had two horses shoj under liim, and his clothes shot through in several places; behaving the whole time with the greatest courage and resolution." Washington wrote more briefly, saying that, as Orme --as giving a full account of the affair, it was needless for him to repeat it. Like many others in the fight, he greatly underrated the force of the enemy, which he placed at three hundred, or about a third of the actual number, —a natural error, as most of the assailants were invisible. " Our poor Virgmians behaved like men, and died like soldiers; for I believe that out of three companies that were there that day, scarce thirty were left alive. Captain Peronney and all his officers down to a corporal were killed. Captain Poison shared almost as hard a fate, for only one of his escaped. In short, the das- tardly behavior of the English soldiers exposed all those who were inclined to do their duty to almost certain death. It is imagined (I l^elieve with great justice, too) that two tliirds of both killed and wounded received their shots from our own cowardly ^ n 1755.] DINWIDDIE'S REPLIES. 239 dogs of soldiers, who gathered themselves into a body, contrary to orders, ten and twelve deep, would then level, fire, and shoot .^wn the men before them."i To Orme, Dinwiddle replied: "I read your letter with tears in my eyes ; but it gave me much pleasure to see your name at the bottom, and more so when I observed by the postscript that your wound is not dangerous. But pray, dear sir, is it not possible by a second attempt to retrieve the great loss we have sustained? I presume the General's chariot is at the fort. In it you may come here, and my house is heartily at your command. Pray take care of your valuable health; keep your spirits up, and I dcubt not of your recovery. My wife and girls join me in most sincere respects and joy at your being so well, and I always am, with great truth, dear friend, your affectionate humble servant." To Washington he is less effusive, though he had known him much longer. He begins, it is true, "Dear Washington," and congratulates him on his escape ; but soon grows formal, and asks : " Pray, sir, with the number of them remaining, is there no possibility of doing something on the other side of the mountains before the winter months? Surely you must mistake. Colonel Dvmbar will not march to winter-quarters in the middle of summer, and leave the frontiers exposed to the invasions of the ^ These extracts are taken from the two letters preserved in the Public Record Office, America and West Indies, Ixxiv., Ixxxii. i * If ii ! |i i ta ii ■'M 250 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. Shirley wrote to Robinson that the expulsion of the French from the forts on the isthmus was a necessary measure of self-defence; that they meant to seize the whole country as far as Mines Basin, and probably as far as Annapolis, to supply their Acadian rebels with land; that of these they had, without reckoning Indians, fourteen hundred fighting men on or near the isthmus, and two hundred and fifty more on the St. John, with whom, aided by the garrison of Beausdjour, they could easily take Fort Lawrence; that should they succeed in this, the whole Acadian population would rise in arms, and the King would lose Nova Scotia. We should anticipate them, con- cludes Shirley, and strike the first blow.i He opened his plans to his Assembly in secret session, and found them of one mind with himself. Preparation was nearly complete, and the men raised for the expedition, before the Council at Alexandria J jognized it as a part of a plan of the summer campaign. The French fort of Beausdjour, mounted on its 1 Shirley to Robinson, 8 December, 1754. Ibid., 24 January, 1755. The Record Office contains numerous other letters of Shirley on the subject. "I am obliged to your Honor for communicating to me the French Me'moirc, whicii, with other reasons, puts it out of doubt that the French arc determined to begin an offensive war or the peninsula as soon as ever they shall think tiiemselves strength^ ened enough to venture upon it, and that they have thoughts of attempting it in the ensuing spring. I enclose your Honor extracts from two letters from Annapolis Royal, which show that the French inhabitants are in expectation of its being begun in the spring." -- Shirley lo Laicrence, G January, 1705. 1755.] BEAUS^JOUR. 251 hill between the marshes of Missaguash and Tantemar, was a, regular work, pentagonal in form, with solid earthen ramparts, bomb-proofs, and an annament of twenty-four cannon and one mortar. The command- ant, Duchambon de Vergor, a captain in the colony regulars, was a dull man of no education, of stuttering speech, unpleasing countenance, and doubtful char- acter. He owed his place to the notorious intendant Bigot, who, it is said, was in his debt for disreputable service in an affair of gallantry, and who had ample means of enabling his friends to enrich themselves by defrauding the King. Beaus(5jour was one of those plague-spots of official corruption which dotted the whole surface of New France. Bigot, sailing for Europe in the summer of 1754, wrote thus to his confederate: "Profit by your place, my dear Vergor; clip and cut — you are free to do what you please — so that you can come soon to join me in France and buy an estate near me."i Vergor did not neglect his opportunities. Supplies in great quantities were sent from Quebec for the garrison and the emigrant Acadians. These last got but a small part of them. Vergor and his confederates sent the rest back to Quebec, or else to Louisbourg, and sold them for their own profit to the King's agents there, who were also in collusion with him. Vergor, however, did not reign alone. Le Loutre, 1 M€moires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. This letter is also men- tioned in another contemporary dojument, M^moire sur les Fraudes commises duns la Colonie. f I, ' i r 1 I 252 REJVIOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [I755. by force of energy, capacity, and passionate vehe- mence, held him in some awe, and divided his author- ity. The priest could count on the support of Duquesne, who had found, says a contemporary, that "he promised more than he could perform, and that he was a knave," but who nevertheless felt compelled to rely upon him for keeping the Acadians on the side of France. There was another person in the fort worthy of notice. This was Thomas Pichon, commissary of stores, a man of education and intelli- gence, born in France of an English mother. He was now acting the part of a traitor, carrying on a secret correspondence with the commandant of Fort Lawrence, and acquainting him with all that passed at Beausdjour. It was partly from this source that the hostile designs of the French became known to the authorities of Halifax, and more especially the proceedings of "Moses," by which name Pichon always designated Le Loutre, because he pretended to have led the Acadians from the land of bondage. ^ These exiles, who cannot be called self-exiled, in view of the outrageous means used to force most of them from their homes, were in a deplorable condi- tion. They lived in constant dread of Le Loutre, backed by Vergor and his soldiers. The savage mis- sionary, bad as he was, had in him an ingredient of 1 Pichon, called also Tyrrell from the name of his mother, was author of Genuine Letters and Memoirs relating to Cape Breton, — & book of some value. His papers are preserved at Halifax, and some of them are printed in the Public Documents of Nova Scotia. I :i n 1755.] THREATS OF LE LOUTRE. 253 honest fanaticism, both national and religious ; though hatred of the English held a large share in it. He would gladly, if he could, have formed the Acadians into a permanent settlement on the French side of the line, not out of love for them, but in the interest of the cause with which he had identified his own ambition. His efforts had failed. There was not land enou^ for their subsistence and that of the older settlers; and the suffering emigrants pined more and more for their deserted farms. Thither he was resolved that they should not return. " If you go," he told them, "you will have neither priests nor sacraments, but will die like miserable wretches."* The assertion was false. Priests and sacraments had never been denied them. It is true that Daudin, priest of Pisiquid, had lately been sent to Halifax for using insolent language to the commandant, threatening him with an insurrection of the inhab- itants, and exciting them to sedition; but on his promise to change conduct, he was sent back to his parishioners. 2 Vergor sustained Le Loutre, and threatened to put in irons any of the exiles who talked of going back to the English. Some of them bethought themselves of an appeal to Duquesne, and drew up a petition asking leave to return home. Le Loutre told the signers that if they did not efface their marks from the paper they should have neither 1 Pick' 1 to Captain Scott, 14 October, 1754, in Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 229. * Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 223, 224, 228, 227, 238. 'I - 5 f 254 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. sacraments in this life, nor heaven in the next. He nevertheless allowed two of them to go to Quebec as deputies, writing at the same time to the goveri^or, that his mind might be duly prepared. Duquesne replied: "I think that the two rascals of deputies whom you sent me will not soon recover from the fright I gave them, notwithstanding the emollient I administered after my reprimand; and since I told them that they were indebted to you for not being allowed to rot in a dungeon, they have promised me to comply with your wishes." ^ An entire heartlessness marked the dealings of the French authorities with the Acadians. They were treated as mere tools of policy, to be used, broken, and flung away. Yet, in using them, the sole condi- tion of their eihciency was neglected. The French government, cheated of enormous sums by its own ravenous agents, grudged the cost of sending i single regiment to the Acadian border. Thus unsupported, the Acadians remained in fear and vacillation, aiding the French but feebly, though a ceaseless annoyance and menace to the English. This was the state of affairs at Beausdjour while Shirley and Lawrence were planning its destruction. Lawrence had empowered his agent, Monckton, to draw without limit on two Boston merchants, Apthorp and Hancock. Shirley, as commander-in- chief of the province of Massachusetts, commissioned John Winslow to raise two thousand volunteers. 1 Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 239. 1755.] JOHN WINSLOW. 266 Winslow was sprung from the early governors of Plymouth colony; but, though well-born, he was ill-educated, which did not prevent him from being both popular and influential. He had strong military inclinations, had led a company of his own raising in the luckless attack on Carthagena, had commanded the force sent in the preceding summer to occupy the Kennebec, and on various other occasions had left his Marshfield farm to serve his country. The men enlisted readily at his call, and were formed into a regiment, of which Shirley made himself the nominal coloneL It had two battalions, of which Winslow, as lieutenant-colonel, commanded the first, and George Scott the second, both under the orders of Monckton. Country villages far and near, from the western borders of the Connecticut to uttermost Cape Cod, lent soldiers to the new regiment. The muster-rolls preserve their names, vocations, birth- places, and abode. Obadiah, Nehemiah, Jedediah, Jonathan, Ebenezer, Joshua, and the like Old Testa- ment names abound upon the list. Some are set down as "farmers," "yeomen," or " husbandn- 3n ; " others as "shopkeepers," others as "fishermen," and many as "laborers;" while a great number were handicraftsmen of various trades, from blacksmiths to wig-makers. They mustered at Boston early in April, where clothing, haversacks, and blankets were served out to them at the charge of the King; and the crooked streets of the New England capital were filled with staring young rustics. On the next I ] i Ml (■( 4i n I If 7: 256 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. Saturday the following mandate went forth: "The men will behave very orderly on the Sabbath Day, and either stay on board their transports, or else go to church, and not stroll up and down the streets." The transports, consisting of about forty sloops and schooners, lay at Long Wharf; and here on Monday a grand review took place, — to the gratification, no doubt, of a populace whose amusements were few. All was ready except the muskets, which were expected from England, but did not come. Hence the delay of a month, threatening to ruin the enter- prise. Whe.i Shirley returned from Alexandria he found, to his disgust, that the transports still lay at the wharf where he had left them on his departure.^ Th^ muskets arrived at length, and the fleet sailed on the twenty-second of ?Iay. Three small frigates, the "Success," the "Mermaid," and the "Siren," commanded by the ex-privateei-sman. Captain Rous, acted as convoy ; and on the twenty-sixth the whole force safely reached Annapolis. Thence after some delay they sailed up the Bay of Fuudy, and at sunset on the first of June anchored within five miles of the hill of Beausdjour. At two o'clock on the next morning a party of Acadians from Chipody roused Vergor with the news. In great alarm, he sent a messenger to Louisbourg to beg for help, and ordered all the fighting men of the neighborhood to repair to the fort. They counted in 1 Shirley to Robinson, 20 June, 1755. 1755.] MONCKTON'S ARRIVAL. 257 all between twelve and fifteen hundred ;i but they had no appetite for war. The force of the invaders daunted them; and the hundred and sixty regulara who formed the garrison of Beausdjour were too few to revive their confidence. Those of them who had crossed from the English side dreaded what might ensue should they be caught in arms; and, to prepare an excuse beforehand, they begged Vergor to threaten them with punishment if they disobeyed his order. He willingly complied, promised to have them kiUed if they did not fight, and assured them at the same time that the English could never take the fort a Three hundred of them thereupon joined the garvi- son, and the rest, hiding their families in the woods prepared to wage guerilla war against the invaders Monckton, with all his force, landed unopposed, and encamped at night on the fields around Fort Lawrence, whence he could contemplate Fort Beau- sdjour at his ease. The regulars of the EngHsh gar- rison joined the New England men; and then, on the morning of the fourth, they marched to the attack. Their course lay along the south bank of the Missaguash to where it was crossed by a bridge called Pont-^-Buot. This bridge had been destroyed ; and on the farther bank there was a large block- house and a breastwork of timber defended by four 1,400. -^""^ '^^°^'«» says 1,200 to " Mgmoires sur le Canada. 1749-1760 VOL. I. — 17 >-^o-i.iW}. \\ •i} 258 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS, [1755. hundred regulars, Acadians, and Indians. They lay silent and unseen till the head of the column reached the opposite bank; then raised a yell and opened fire, causing some loss. Three field-pieces were brought up, the defenders were driven out, and a bridge was laid under a spattering fusillade from behind bushes, which continued till the English had crossed the stream. Without further opposition, they marched along the road to Beausdjour, and, turning to the right, encamped among the woody hills half a league from the fort. That night there was a grand illumination, for Vergor set fire to the church and all the houses outside the ramparts.^ The English spent some days in preparing their camp and reconnoitring the ground. Then Scott, with five hundred provincials, seized upon a ridge within easy range of the works. An officer named Vannes came out to oppose him with a hundred and eighty men, boasting that h would do great things ; but on seeing the enemy, quietly returned, to become the laughing-stock of the garrison. The fort fired furiously, but with little effect. In the night of the thirteenth, Winslow, with a part of his own battalion, relieved Scott, and planted in the trenches two small mortars, brought to the camp on carts. On the next day they opened fire. One of them was disabled by the French cannon, but Captain Hazen brought up 1 Winslow, Journal and Letter Book. M€moires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. Letters from officers on the spot in Boston Evening Post and Boston News Letter. Journal of Surgeon John Thomas. * »j 1755.] SIEGE OF BEAUSEJOUR. 269 two more, of larger size, on ox-wagons; and, in spite of heavy rain, the fire was brisk on both sides. Captain Uous, on board his ship in the harbor, watched the bombardment with great interest. Hav- ing occasion to write to Winslow, he closed his letter in a facetious strain. "I often hear of your success in plunder, particularly a coach, i I hope you have some fine horses for it, at least four, to draw it, that it may be said a New England colonel [rode m] his coach and four in Nova Scotia. If you have any good saddle-horses in your stable, I should be obliged to you for one to ride round the ship's deck on for exercise, for I am not likely to have any other." Within the fort there was little promise of a strong defence. Le Loutre, it is true, was to be seen in his shirt-sieeves, with a pipe in his mouth, directing the Acadians in their work of strengthening the fortifica- tions.2 They, on their part, thought more of escape than of fighting. Some of them vainly begged to be allowed to go home; others went ofP without leave, — which was not difficult, as only one side of the place was attacked. Even among the officers there were some in whom interest was stronger than honor, and who would rather rob the King than die for him. The general discouragement was redoubled when, on the fourteenth, a letter came from the commandant ^ " 11 June. Capt. Adams went with a Company of Eaingers and Returned at 11 Clock with a Coach and Sura other Plunder." — Journal of John Thomas. 2 Journal ofPichon, cited by Beamish Murdoch. ' >i I M 'if. 'f 260 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. of Louisbourg to say that he could send no help, aa British ships blocked the way. On the morning of the sixteenth, a mischance l)efell, recorded in these words in the Diary of Surgeon John Thomas : " One of our large shells fell through what they called their bomb-proof, where a number of their officers were sitting, killed six of them dead, and one Ensign Hay, which the Indians had took prisoner a few days agone and carried to the fort." The party was at breakfast when the unwelcome visitor burst in. Just opposite was a second bomb-proof, where was Vergor himself, with Le Loutre, another priest, and several officers, who felt that they might at any time share the same fate, i'he effect was immediate. The English, who had not yet got a single cannon into position, saw to their surprise a white flag raised on the ram- part. Some officers of the garrison protested against surrender; and Le Loutre, who thought that he had everything to fear at the hands of the victors, exclaimed that it was better to be buried under the ruins of the fort than to give it up ; but all was in vain, and the valiant Vannes was sent out to propose terms of capitulation. They were rejected, and others offered, to the following effect: the garrison to march out with the honors of war and to be sent to Louisbourg at the charge of the King of England, but not to bear arms in America for the space of six months ; the Acadians to be pardoned the part they had just borne in the defence, "seeing that they had been compelled to take arms on pain of death." 1765.] FLIGHT OP LE LOUTRE. 261 Confusion reigned all day at Beaus^jour. The Acadians went home loaded with plunder. The French officers were so busy in drinking and pillag- ing that they could hardly Ije got away to sign the capitulation. At the ai)pointed hour, seven in the evening, Scott marched in with a body of provincials, raised the British flag on the ramparts, and saluted it by a general discharge of the French cannon, while Vergor as a last act of hospitality gave a supper to the officers. 1 Le Loutrc was not to be found; he had escaped in disguise with his box of papers, and fled to Baye Vei-te to join his brother missionary, Manach. Thence he made his way to Quebec, where the bishop received him with reproaches. He soon embarked for France; but the English captured him on the way, and kept him eight years in Elizabeth Castle, on the Island of Jersey. Here on one occa- sion a soldier on guard made a dash at the father, tried to stab him with his bayonet, and was prevented Avith great difficulty. He declared that, when he was with his regiment in Acadia, he had fallen into the hands of Le Loutre, and narrowly escaped being scalped alive, the missionary having doomed him to this fate, and with his own hand drawn a knife round his head as a beginning of the operation. The man swore so fiercely that he would have his revenge .^a ^^^^^ capture of Beausejour, Me'moires sur le Canada 1749- 1760; Pichon, Cape Breton, 318; Journal of Pichon, cited by Mur- doch ; and the Englis^i accounts already mentioned. VI! ki ii 'ill I ■ 1 i 262 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1766. that the officer in command transferred him to another post.* Throughout the siege, the Acadians outside the fort, aided hy Iiul ans, luid constantly attacked the English, but were always beaten off with loss. There was an affair of this kind on the morning of the si > render, during which a noted Micmac chief v/as .hot, and being brought into the cami), recounted the losses of his tribe; "after which, and taking a dram or two, he quickly died," writes Winslov in his Journal. Fort Gaspereau, at Baye Verte, twelve miles distant, was summoned by letter to surrender. Vil- leray, its commandant, at once complied; and Winelow went with a detachment to take possession. ^^ Nothing remained but to occupy the French post at the mouth of the St. John. Captain Rous, relieved at last from inactivity, was charged with the task; and on the thirtieth he appeared off the harbor, manned his boats, and rowed for shore. The French burned their fort, and withdrew beyond his reach. ^ A hundred and fifty Indians, suddenly converted from enemies to pretended friends, stood on the strand, firing their guns into the air as a salute, and declaring themselves brothers of the English. M' Acadia was now in British hands. Fort Beau, ir tr 1 Knox, Campanjns in North America, i. 114, note. Knox, who was stationed in Nova Scotia, says that Le Loutre left behind him " a most remarkable character for inhumanity." 8 Winslow, Jourtial. Villeray an Ministre, 20 Septembre, 1755. 8 Drucour au Ministre, 1 D^cpinbre, 1755. 1755.] VERGOR ACQLTITTED. 268 became Fort Cumberland, —the second fort in America that boro the name of the real duke. The defence had Iwen of the feeblest, .wo years later, on pressing demands from Vei-sailles, Vergor was brought to trial, as ..as also Villeray. The govexnor, Vaudreuil, and the intendant, Bigot, wlio had returned to Canada, were in 1ie interest of the chief defendant. The court-martial was packed; adverse evidence was shuffled out of sight; and Vergor, acquitted and restored to his rank, lived to inflict on New France another and a greater injuiy.i Now began the first ac of a deplorable drama. Monckton, with his small body of regulars, had pitchec^ ^heif tent^ under the walls of Beausdjour. Winslow and Scott, with the New England troops, lay not far off. There was little intercourse between the two camps. The British officers bore themselves towards those of t^^ provincials with a supercilious coldness common enough on their p?rt throughout the war. July had passed in what Winslow calls "an indolent manner," with prayers everj^ day in the Puritan camp, when, ^arly in August, Monckton sent for him, and made an ominous declaration. "The said Monckton was so free as to acquaint me that it was determined to remove all the French inhabitants out of the province, and that he should send for all the adult males from Tantemar, Chipody, AuJac, Beaus^jour, and Baye Verte to read the Governor's ' M^moire sur les Fraudes commises dens la Colonie, 1779. J/^- moires surte Canada, 1749-17(50. 11^' I J m\ \i: 264 REMOVAL 01' THE ACADIANS. [1755. :l i orders ; and when that was done, was determined to retain them all prisoners in the fort. And this is the first conference of a public nature I have had with the colonel since the reduction of Beausdjour; and I apprehend that no officer of either corps has been made more free with." Monckton sent accordingly to all the neighboring settlements, commanding the male inhabitants to meet him at Beaus^jour. Scarcely a third part of their number obeyed. These arrived on the tenth, and were told to stay all night under the guns of the fort. What then befell them will appear from an entry in t 'e diary of Winslow under date of August eleventh: "This day was one extraordinary to the inhabitants of Tantemar, Oueskak, Aulac, Baye Verte, Beausdjour, and places adjacent; the male inhabitants, or the principal of them, being collected together in Fort Cumberland to hear the sentence, which determined their property, from the Governor and Council of Halifax; which was that they were declared rebels, their lands, goods, and chattels for- feited to the Crown, and their '-^odies to be imprisoned. Upon which the gates of the fort were shut, and they all confined, to the amount of four hundred men and upwards." Parties were sent to gather more, but caught very few, the rest escaping to the woods. Some of the prisoners were no doubt among those who had joined the garrison at Peausdjour, and had been pardoned for doing so by the terms of the capitulation. It was held, however, that, though 1755.] ITS MOTIVES. 265 forgiven this special offence, they were not exempted from the doom that had gone forth against the great body of their countrymen. We mast look closely at the motives and execution of this stern sentence. At any time up to the spring of 1755 the emigrant Acadians were free to return to their homes on tak- ing the ordinary oath of allegiance required of British subjects. The English authorities of Halifax used every means t( persuade them to do so; yet the greater part refused. This was due not only to Le Loutre and his brother priests, backed by the mili- tary power, but also to the bishop of Quebec, who enjoined the Acadians to demand of the English cer- tain concessions, the chief of which were that the priests should exercise their functions without being required to ask leave of the governor, and that the inhabitants should not be called upon for military service of any kind. The bishop added that the provisions of the treaty of Utrecht were insufficient, and tLat others ought to be exacted.^ The oral declaration of the English authorities, that for the present the Acadians should not be required to bear arms, was not thought enough. Tliey, or rather their prompters, demanded a written pledge. The refusal to take the .th without reservation was not confined to the ^migrants. Those who remained in the peninsula equally refused it, though most of them were born and had always lived under 1 L'^veque de Quebec a Le Loutre, Novembre, 1754, in Public Docu- ments of Nova Scotia, 240. i > £ ^^Q REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. the British flag. For from pledging themselves to complete allegiance, they showed continual signs of hostility. In May three pretended French deserters were detected among them inciting them to take arms against the English, i On the capture of Beausdjour the British authori- ties found themselves in a position of great diflficulty. The New England troops were enlisted for the year only, and could not be kept in Acadia. It was likely that the French would make a strong effort to recover the province, sure as they were of support from the great body of its people. The presence of this dis- affected population was for the French commanders a continual inducement to invasion; and Lawrence was not strong enough to cope at once with attack from without and insurrection from within. Shirley had held for some time that there was no safety for Acadia but in ridding it of the Acadians. He had lately .proposed that the lands of the district of Chignecto, abandoned by their emigrant owners should be given .: English settlers, who would act as a check and a counterpoise to the neighboring French population. This advice had not been acted upon. Nevertheless Shirley and his brother governor of Nova Scotia were kindred spirits, and inclined to similar measures. Colonel Chzrles Lawrence had not the good-nature and conciliatory temper which marked his predecessors, Cornwallis and Eopson His energetic will was not apt to relent unde. the 1755.] VIEWS OF ENGLISH AUTHORITIES. 267 softer sentiments, and the behavior of the Acadians was fast exhausting his patience. More than a year before, the Lords of Trade had instructed him that they had no right to their lands if they persisted in refusing the oath.^ Lawrence replied, enlarging on their obstinacy, treachery, and "ingratitude for the favor, indulgence, and protection they have at all times so undeservedly received from His Majesty's Government;" declaring at the same time that, "while they remain without taking the oaths, and have incendiary French priests among them, there are no hopes of their amendment;" and that "it would be much better, if they refuse the oaths, that they were away." 2 "We were in hopes," again wrote the Lords of Trade, "that the lenity which had been shown to those people by indulging them in the free exercise of their religion and the quiet possession of their lands, would by degrees have gained their friendship and assistance, and weaned their affections from the French ; but we are sorry to find that this lenity has had so little effect, and that they still hold the same conduct, furnishing them with labor, provisions, and intelligence, and conceal- ing their designs from us." In fact, the Acadians, while calling themselves neutrals, were an enemy encamped in the heart of the province. These are the reasons which explain and palliate a measure ',oc harsh and indiscriminate to be wholly justified. Abb^ Raynal, who never saw the AcadHns, has 1 Lords of Trade to Lawrence, 4 March, 1754. * Lawrence to Lords of Trade, 1 August, 1754. %4 w't L mm Lif-'i N \i\ li I i ( i 268 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. made an ideal picture of them,i since copied and improved in prose and verse, till Acadia has become Arcadia. The plain realities of their condition and fate are touching enough to need no exaggeration They were a simple and very ignorant peasantry, mdustrious and frugal till evil days came to discour- age them; Hving aloof from the world, with little of that spirit of adventure which an easy access to the vast fur-bearing interior had developed in their Canadian kindred; having few wante, and those of the rudest; fishing a little and hunting in the winter but chiefly employed in cultivating the meadows along the river Annapolis, or rich marshes reclaimed ./ dikes from the tides of the Bay of Fundy The British government left them entirely free of taxa- tion. They made cloohing of flax and wool of their own raising, hats of similar materials, and shoes or moccasons of moose and seal skin. They bred cattle, sheep, hogs, and horses in abundance; and the valley of the Annapolis, then as now, was known for the profusion and excellence of its apples. For drink they made cider or brewed spruce-beer. French officials descnbe their dwellings as wretched wooden boxes without ornaments or conveniences, and scarcely supplied with the most necessary furniture.^ Two or more families often occupied the same house; and their way of life, though simple and virtuous, 1 Bistoire philosophigue et politique, vi. 242 (ed. 1772) 1745. aocqmn au Comte de Maurepas, 12 Septembre, 1755.] THEIR CHARACTER. 269 was by no means remarkable for leanliness. Such as it was, contentment reigned among them, undis- turbed by what modern America calls progress. Marriages were early, and population grew apace. This humble society had its disturbing elements ; for the Acadians, like the Canadians, were a litigious race, and neighbors often quarrelled about their boundaries. Nor were they without a bountiful share of jealousy, gossip, and backbiting, to relieve the monotony of their lives ; and every village had its turbulent spirits, sometimes by fits, though rarely long, contumacious even toward the cur(5, the guide, counsellor, and ruler of his flock. Enfeebled by hereditary mental subjection, and too long kept in leading-strings to walk alone, they needed him, not for the next world only, but for this ; and their sub- mission, compounded of love and fear, was commonly without bounds. He was their true government ; to him they gave a frank and full allegiance, and dared not disobey him if they would. Of knowledge he gave them nothing; but he taught them to be true to their wives and constant at confession and mass, to stand fast for the Church and King Louis, and to resist heresy and King George ; for, in one degree or another, the Acadian priest was always the agent of a double-headed foreign power, — the bishop of Quebec allied with the governor of Canada.^ When Monckton and the Massachusetts men laid 1 Franquet, Journal, 1751, says of the Acadians : " lis aiment I'argent, n'ont dans toute leur conduite que leur inte'ret pour objet, 'Mm I' i '3; 'ill m i1 SI \i t 1 ' f' 270 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. siege to Beaus^jour, Governor Lawrence thought the moment favorable for exacting an unqualified oath of allegiance from the Acadians. The presence of a superior and victorious force would help, he thought, to bring them to reason; and there were some indica- tions that this would be the result. A number of Acadian families, who at the promptings of Le Loutre had emigrated to Cape Breton, had lately returned to Halifax, promising to be true subjects of King George if they could be allowed to repossess their lands. They cheerfully took the oath; on which they were reinstated in their old homes, and supplied with food for the winter. 1 Their example unfortu- nately found few imitators. Early in June the principal inhabitants of Grand Pr6 arid other settlements about the Basin of Mines brought a memorial, signed with their crosses, to Captain Murray, the military commandant in their district, and desired him to send it to Governor Lawrence, to whom it was addressed. Murray reported that when they brought it to him they behaved with the greatest insolence, though just before they had been unusually submissive. He thought that this change of demeanor was caused by a report which had lately got among them of a French fleet in the Bay of Fundy ; for it had been observed 8ont, indiff^remment des deux sexes, d'une inconsideration dans leurs diseours qui denote de la raechanceie." Another observer, Diere'ville, gives a more favorable picture. * Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 228. wm 1755.] THEIR MEMORIAL. 271 that any rumor of an approaching French force alwaj's had a similar effect. The deputies who brought the memorial were sent with it to Halifax, where they laid it before the governor and Council. It declared that the signers had kept the qualified oath they had taken, "in spite of the solicitations and dreadful threats of another power," and that they would continue to prove "an unshaken fidelity to His Majesty, provided that His Majesty shall allow us the same liberty that he has [hitherto] granted us." Their memorial then demanded, in terms highly offensive to the Council, that the guns, pistols, and other weapons, which they had lately been required to give up, should be returned to tV ui. They were told in reply that they had been protected for many years in the enjoyment of their lands, though they had not complied with the terms on which the lands were granted; "that they had always been treated by the Government with the greatest lenity and tenderness, had en- joyed more privileges than other English subjects, and had been indulged in the free exercise of their religion j " all which they acknowledged to be true. The governor then told them that their conduct had been undutiful and ungrateful ; " that they had dis- covered a constant disposition to assist His Majesty's enemies and to distress his subjects; that they had not only furnished the enemy with provisions and ammunition, but had refused to supply the [Unglish'] inhabitants or Government, and when they did supply >jj? IT ) r 272 REMOVAL OP THE ACADIANS. [1755. them, had exacted three times the price for which they were sold at other markets." The hope was then expressed that they would no longer obstruct the settlement of the province by aiding the Indians to molest and kill English settlers; and they were rebuked for saying in their memorial that they would be faithful to the King only on certain conditions. The governor added that they had some secret reason for demanding their weapons, and flattered them- selves that French troops were at hand to support their insolence. In conclusion, they were told that now was a good opportunity to prove their sincerity by taking the oath of allegiance, in the usual form, before the Council. They replied that they had not made up their mirds on that point, and could do nothing till they had consulted their constituents. Being reminded that the oath was personal to them- selves, and that six years had already been given them to think about it, they asked leave to retire and confer together. This wls granted, and at the end of an hour they came back with the same answer as before; whereupon they were allowed till ten o'clock on the next i^orning for a final decisit)n.i At the appointed time the Council again met, and the deputies were brought in. They persisted stub- bornly in the same refusal. "They were then in- formed," says the record, "that the Council could no longer look on them as subjects to His Britannic 'fnutes of Council at Hallfa., 3 July, 1755, in Puhlic Documents of Nova Scotia, 247-255. 1755.] THEY REFUSE THE OATH. 273 Majesty, but as subjects to the King of France, and as such they must hereafter be treated; and they were ordered to withdraw." A discussion followed in the Council. It was determined that the Acadians should be ordered to send new deputies to Halifax, who should answer for them, once for all, whether they would accept the oath or not; that such as refused it should not thereafter be permitted to take it; and ''that effectual measures ought to be taken to remove all such recusants out of the province." The deputies, being then called in and told this decision, became alarmed, and offered to swear allegiance in the terms required. The answer was that it was too late ; that as they had refused the oath under persuasion, they could aot be trusted when they took it under compulsion. It remained to see whether the people at large would profit by their example. "I am determined," wrote Lawrence to the Lords of Trade, " to bring the inhabitants to a compliance, or rid the province of such perfidious subjects. "^ First, in answer to the summons of the Council, the deputies from Annapolis appeared, declaring that they had always been faithful to the British' Crown, but flatly refusing the oath. They were told that, far from having been faithful subjects, they had always secretly aided the Indians, and that many of them had been in arms against the English ; that the French were threatening the province; and that its 1 Lawrence to Lords of Trade, 18 July, 1756. VOL. I. — 18 % I 274 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. affairs had reached a crisis when its inhabitants must either pledge tliemselves without equivocation to be true to the British Crown, or else must leave the country. They all declared that they would lose their lands rather than take the oath. The Council urged them to consider the matter seriously, warning them that, if they now persisted in refusal, no farther choice would be allowed them; and they were given till ten o'clock on tlie following Monday to make their final answer. When that day came, another body of deputies had arrived from Grand Prd and the other settlements of the Basin of Mines; and being called before the Council, both they and the former deputation abso- lutely refused to take the oath of allegiance. These two bodies represented nine-tenths of the Acadian population within tlie peninsula. "Nothing," pur- sues the record of the Council, " now remained to be considered but what measures should be taken to send the inhabitants away, and where they should be sent to." If they were sent to Canada, Cape Breton, or the neighboring islands, they would strengthen the enemy, and still threaten the province. It was therefore resolved to distribute them among the various English colonies, and to hire vessels for the purpose with all despatch. ^ 1 Minutes of Council, 4 July-2S July, in Public Documents of Nova iScotia, 266-207. Copies of these and other parts of the record were sent at the time to England, and are now in the Public Record Office along with the letters of Lawrence. 1755.] MOTIVES OF THEIR CONDUCT. 275 The oath, the refusal of which had brought such consequences, was a simple pledge of fidelity and allegiance to King George II. and his successors. Many of the Acadians had already taken an oath of fidelity, though with the omission of the word "alle- giance," and, as they insisted, with a saving clause exempting them from bearing arms. The effect of this was that they did not regard themselves as British subjects, and claimed, falsely as regards most of them, the character of neutrals. It was to put an end to this anomalous state of things that the oath without reserve had been demanded of them. Their rejection of it, reiterated in full vir ^ of the conse- quences, is to be ascribed partly to u fixed belief that the English would not execute their threats, partly to ties of race and kin, but mainly to superstition. Thty feared to take part with heretics against the King of France, whose cause, as already stated, they had been taught to regard as one with the cause of God; they were constrained by the dread of perdi- tion. "If the Acadians are miserable, remember that the priests are the cause of it," writes the French ofiQcer Boishdbert to the missionary Manach.^ 1 On the oath and its history, compare a long note by Mr. Akin in Public Bocuw nts of Nova Scotia, 263-267. Winslow in Ids Jour- nal gives an abstract of a memorial sent him by the Acadians, in which they say that they had refused the oath, and so forfeited their lands, from motives of religion. I have shown in a former chapter that the priests had been the chief instruments in prevent- ing them from accepting the English government. Add the following : — " Les malheuTB des Accadiens sont beaucoup moius leur ouvrage 11 1 1 If 1 1 |i m L |i 1 1 J iitli i|lk 276 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1756. The Council having come to a decision, Lawrance acquainted Monckton with the result, and ordered him to seize all the adult males in the neie^hborhood of Beausdjour; and this, as we have seen, ae picn^ptly did. It remuins to observe how the res. of the sentence was carrifd Into effect. Instructions wexe sent to VVinslow to secure the inhabitants on or ne? / the Basin of Mii^s and place them on board transports, which, he was toid, \vould soon arrive from Boston. His orders were stringent: " If you find that fair means will not do with them, you must proceed by the most vigorous measures possible, not only in compelling them to embark, but in depriving those who shall escape of all means of shelter or support, by burning their houses and by destroying everything that may afford them the means of subsistence in the country." Similar orders were given to Major Handfield, the regular officer in command at Annapolis. m ¥ que le fruit des soUicltatlons et des d-marches des missionnaires." — Vaudreuil au Ministre, 6 Mai, 1760. " Si nous avons la guerre, et si ies Accadiens sont miserables, souvenez-vous que ce sont ies prfitres qui en .ont la cause." — Boish^bert it Manach, 21 F(fvr>er, 1760. Both these writers had en- couraged the priests in their intrigues so long as these were likely to profit the French government, and only blamed them after they failed to accomplish what was expected of them. " Nous avons six missionnaires dont I'occupation perpetuelle est de porter Ies esprits au fanatisme et h, la vengeance. . . . Je ne puis supporter dans nos prStres ces odieuses de'clamations qu'ils font tons Ies jours aux sauvages: 'Les Anglois sont Ies enuemis de Dieu, les compagnons du Diable.' " — Pichon, Lettres et Memoires pour servir a I'Histoire du Cap-Breton, 160, 161. (La Haye, 1700.) 1755.] MISSION OF WINSLOW. 277 On the fourteenth of Aug 9t Winslow ' •■ out from his camp at Fort Beausdjour, or Curaberiard, on his unenviable errand. He had with him but two hun- dred and ninety-seven men. His mood of mind was not serene. He was chafed because th . regulars had charged his men with stialing sheep; and he was doubly vexed by an untoward incident that \appened on the morning of his departure. He had sent for- ward his detachment under Adams, the senior cap- tain, and they were marching by the fort with drums beating and colors flying, when Monckton sent out his aide-de-camp with a curt demand that the coh should be given up, on the ground that they ouglit to remain \nth the regiment. Whatever the sound- ness of the reason, there was no courtesy in the manner of enforcing it. " This tnuisaction raised my temper some," writes Winslow ir his Diary; and he proceeds to record his opinion that "it is the most ungenteel, ill-natured thing that ever I saw." He sent Monckton a quaintly indignant note, in which he observed th. the affair "looks odd, and will appear so in future history;" but his commander, reckless of the judgments of posterity, gave him little satisfaction. Thus ruffled in spirit, he embarked with his men and sailed down Chignecto Channel to the Bay of Fundy, Here, while they waited the turn of the tide to enter the Basin of Mines, the shores of Cum- berland lay before them dim in the hot and hazy air, and the promontory of Cape Split, like some mis- Id « ' ^ I' i^ I n 1,1 ir i " n 278 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. ' \ i shapeii monster of primeval chaos, stretched its por- tentous length along the glimmering sea, with head of yawning rock, and ridgy back bristled with forests. Borne on the rushing flood, they soon drifted through the inlet, glided under the rival promontory of Cape Blomedon, passed die red sandstone cliffs of Lyon's Cove, and descried the mouths of the rivei's Canard and Des Habitants, where fertile marshes, diked against the tide, sustained a numerous and thriving population. Before them spread the boundless meadows of Grand Prd, waving with harvests or alive with grazing cattle; the green slopes behind were dotted with the simple dwellings of the Acadian farmers, and the spire of the village church rose against a background of woody hills. It was a peaceful, rural scene, soon to become one of the most wretched spots on earth. Winslow did not land for the present, but held his course to the estuary of the river Pisiquid, since called the Avon. Here, where the town of W-U'dsoi now stands, there was a stock- ade called F^x o Edv^ard, where a garrison of regulars under Captain Alexander Murray kept watch over the surrounding settlements. The New England men pitched their tents on shore, while the sloops that had brought them slept on the soft bed of tawny mud left by the fallen tide. Winslow found a warm reception, for Murray and his officers had been reduced too long to their own society not to welcome the coming of strangers. The two commanders conferred together. Both had bf.en . I 1755.] WINSLOW AT GRAND PR]g. 279 ordered by Lawrence to "clear the whole countiy of such bad subjects ; " and the methods of doing so had been outlined for their guidance. Having come to some understanding with his brother officer concern- ing the duties imposed on both, and begun an acquaintance which soon grew cordial on both sides, Winslow embarked again and retraced his course to Grand Pr^, the station which the governor had assigned him. " Am pleased, " he wrote to Lawrence, " with the place proposed by your Excellency for our reception {the village church']. I have sent for the elders to remove all sacred things, to prevent their bemg denied by heretics." The church was used as a storehouse and place of arms ; the men pitched their tents between it and the graveyard ; v/hile Winslow took up his quarters in the house of the priest, where he could look from his window on a tranquil scene. Beyond the vast tract of grassland to which Grand Prd owed its name, spread the blue glistening breast of the Basin of Mines ; beyond this again, the distant mountains of Cobequid basked in the summer sun; and nearer, on the left. Cape Blomedon reared its bluff head of rock and forest above the sleeping waves. As the men of the settlement greatly outnumbered his own, Winslow set his followers to surrounding the x'lamp with a stockade. Card-playing was for- bidden, because it encouiaged idleness, and pitching quoits in camp, because it spoiled the grasa. Pres- ently there came a letter from Lawrence expressing a y 1 iV'rt 1 li m M i» 'i :^,;--:^'.ir::'j : 280 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. fear that the fortifying of the camp might alarm the iPxhabitants. To which Winslow replied that the making of the stockade had not alarmed them in the least, Siuoe they took it as a proof that the detach- ment was to i:;pend the winter with them; and he added, that as the harvest was not yet got in, he and Murray had agreed not to publish the governor's commands till the next Friday. He concludes: " Although it is a disagreeable part of duty we are put upon, I am sensible it is a necessary c j, and shall endeavor strictly to obey your Excellency's orders." On the thirtieth, Murray, whose post was not many miles distant, made him a visit. They agreed that Winslow should summon all the male inhabitants about Grand Prd to meet him at the church and hear the King's orders, and that Murray should do the same for those around Fort Edward. Winslow then called in his three captains, — Adams, Hobbs, and ' Osgood, — made them swear secrecy, and laid before them his instructions and plans: which latter they approved. Murray then returned to his post, and on the next day sent Winslow a note containing the following: "I think the sooner we strike the stroke the better, therefore will be glad to see you here as soon as conveniently you can. I shall have the orders for assembling ready written for your approba- tion, only the day blank, and am hopeful everything will succeed according to our wishes. The gentle- men join me in our best compliments to you and the Doctor." ■;• ■;:-'^«n., ", '(Ill 1755.] THE SUMMONS. 281 On the nt xt day, Sunday, Winslow and the Doctor, whose name was Whitworth, made the tour of the neighborhood, with an escort of fifty men, and found a great quantity of wheat still on the fields. On Tuesday Winslow "set out in a whale-boat with Dr. Whitworth and Adjutant Kennedy, to consult with Captain Murray in this critical conjuncture." They agreed that three in the afternoon of Friday should be the time of assembling ; then between them they drew up a summons to the inhabitants, and got one Beauchamp, a merchant, to "put it into French. " It ran as follows : — By John Winslow, Esquire, Lieutenant-Colonel and Commander of His Majesty's troops at Grand Pre, Mines, River Canard, and places adjacent. To the inhabitants of the districts above named, as well ancients as young men and lads. Whereas His Excellency the Governor has instructed us of his last resolution respecting the matters proposed lately to the inhabitants, and has ordered us to communi- cate the same to the inhabita its in general in person, His Excellency being desirous thai each of them should be fully satisfied of His Majesty's intentions, which he has also ordered us to communicate to you, luch as i-iiey have been given him. We therefore order and strictly enjoin b^ these presents to all the inhabitants, as well of the above-named districts as of all the other distr.'cts, both old men Aid yuuag men, as well as all the lads of ten years of age, • attend at the church in Grand Pre on Fr-day, the fivih .nstant, at three of the clock in the afternoon, that .-j May impa.t v^hat we ara ordered to communicate tu them; declaring that uo ii 1 ''^' 282 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. m [1755. excuse will be admitted on any pretence whatsoever, on pain of forfeiting goods and chattels in default. Given at Grand Pre, the second of September, in the twenty-ninth year of His Majesty's reign, a.d. 1755. A similar summons was drawn up in the name of Murray for the inhabitants of the district of Fort Edward. Captain Adams made a reconnoissance of the rivers Canard and Des Habitants, and reported "a fine country and full of inhabitants, a beautiful church, and abundance of the goods of the world." Another reconnoissance by Captains Hobbs and Osgood among the settlements behind Grand Prd brought reports equally favorable. On the fourth, another letter came from Murray; "All the people quiet, and very busy at their harvest; if this day keeps fair, all will be in here in their barns. I hope to-morrow will crown all our wishes." The Acadians, like the bees, were to gather a harvest for others to enjoy. The summr as sent out that afternoon. Powder and ball w rved to the men, and all were ordered to keep Wic. . the lines. On the next day the inhabitants appeared at the hour appoin 3d, to the number of four hundred and eighteen men. Winslow ordered a table to be set in the middle of the church, and placed on it his instructions and the address he had prepared. Here he took his stand in his laced uniform, with one or two subalterns from the regulars at Fort Edward, and such of the Massachusetts officers as were not oa 1755.] SCENE IN THE CHURCH. 283 guard duty; strong, sinewy figures, bearing, no doubt, more or less distinctly, the peculiar stamp with which toil, trade, and Puritanism had imprinted the features of New England. Their commander was not of the prevailing type. He was fifty-three years of age, with double chin, smooth forehead, arched eyebrows, close powdered wig, and round, rubicund face, from which the weight of an odious duty had probably banished the smirk of self-satis- faction that dwelt there at other times. ^ Neverthe- less, he had manly and estimable qualities. The congregation of peasants, clad in rough homespun, turned their sunburned faces upon him, anxious and intent; and Winslow "delivered them by interpret- ers the King's orders in the following words," which, retouched in orthography and syntax, ran thus : — Gentlemen, — T have received from His Excellency, Governor Lawrence, the King's instructions, which I have in my hand. By his orders you are called together to hear His Majesty's final resolution concerning the French inhabitants of this his pro\^nce of Nova Scotia, who for almost half a century have had more indulgence granted them than any of his subjects in any part of his dominions. What use you have made of it you yourselves best know. The duty I am now upon, though necessary, is very disa- greeable to my natural make and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you, who are of the same species. But it is not my business to animadvert on the orders I have received, but to obey them ; and therefore without hesita- 1 See his portrait, at the rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Sf)ciety. M i i i i i •■, iH m 'U m ^'^^^^^gffM ^ 'i^^^- ^= T;""-^l:'"i^ra^'; r^ 'I iH^ it 1/ m ' 284 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. tion I shall deliver to you His Majesty's instructions and commands, which are that your lands and tenements and cattle and live-stock of all kinds are forfeited to the Crown, with all your other effects, except money and household goods, and that you yourselves are to be removed from this his province. The peremptory orders of His Majesty are that all the French inhabitants of these districts be removed; and through His Majesty's goodness I am directed to allow you the liberty of carrying with you your money and as many of your household goods as you can take without overloading the vessels you go in. I shall do everything in ray power that all these goods be secured to you, and that you be not molested in carrying them away, and also that whole families shall go in the same vessel; so that this removal, which I am sensible must give you a great deal of trouble, may be made as easy as His Majesty's service will admit; and I hope that in whatever part of the world your lot may fall, you may be faithful subjects, and a peaceable and happy people. I must also inform you that it is His Majesty's pleasure that you remain in security under the inspection and direc- tion of the troops that I have the honor to command. He then declared them prisoners of the King. "They were greatly struck," he says, "at this deter- mination, though I believe they did not imagine that they vfere actually to be removed." After delivering the address, he returned to his quarters at the priest's house, whither he was followed by some of the elder prisoners, who begged leave to tell their families what had happened, "since they were fearful that the surprise of their detention would quite overcome 1755.] AN ENGLISH REVERSE, 285 them." Winslow consulted with his officers, and it was arranged that the Acadians should choose twenty of tneir number each day to revisit their homes, the rest being held answerable for their return. A letter, dated some days before, now came from Major Handheld at Annapolis, saying that he had tried to secure the men of that neighborhood, but that many of them had escaped to the woods. Murray's report from Fort Edward came soon after, and was more favorable: "I have succeeded finely, and have got a hundred and eighty-three men into my possession." To which Winslow replies: "I have the favor of yours of this day, and rejoice at your success, and also for the smiles that have attended the party here." But he adds mournfully: "Things are now very heavy on my heart and hands." The prisoners were lodged in the church, and notice was sent to their families to bring thjm food. "Thus," says the Diary of the commander, " ended the memo- rable fifth of September, a day of great fatigue and trouble." There was one quarter where fortune did not always smile. Major Jedediah Preble, of Winslow's battalion, wi'ote to him that Major Frye had just returned from Chipody, whither he had gone with a party of men to destroy the settlements and bring off the women and children. After burning two hun- dred and fifty-three buildings he had re-embarked, leaving fifty men on shore at a place called Peticodiac to give a finishing stroke to the work by burning the ir 'I '■ -I ( il: 286 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. "Mass House," or church. While thus engaged, they were set upon by three hundred Indians and Acadians, led by the partisan officer Boishebert. More than half their number were killed, wounded, or taken. The rest ensconced themselves behind the neighboring dikes, and Frye, hastily landing with the rest of his men, engag3d the assailants for three hours, but was forced at last to re-embark, i Captain Speakman, who took part in the affair, also sent Winslow an account of it, and added: "The people here are much concerned for fear your party should meet with the same fate (being in the heart of a numerous devilish crew), which I pray God avert." Winslow had indeed some cause for anxiety. He had captured more Acadians since the fifth; and had now in charge nearly five hundred able-bodied men, with scarcely three hundred to guard them. As they were allowed daily exercise in the open air, they might by a sudden rush get possession of arras and make serious trouble. On the Wednesday after the scene in the church some unusual movements were observed among them, and Winslow and his officers became convinced that they could not safely be kept in one body. Five vessels, lately arrived from Boston, were lying within the mouth of the neigh- boring river. It was resolved to place fifty of the prisoners on board each of these, and keep them 1 Also BoiihSbert a Drucour, 10 Octobre, 1V55, an exaggerated account. Vaudrexiil au Ministre, 18 Octobre, 1755, sets Boishe'bert's force at one hundred and twenty-five men. i 1755.] A MEASURE OF PRECAUTION. 287 anchored in the Basin. The soldiers were all ordered under arms, and posted on an open space heside the church and behind the priest's house. The prisoners were then drawn up before them, ranked six deep, — the young unmarried men, as the most dangerous, being told off and placed on the left, to the number of a hundred and forty-one. Captain Adams, with eighty men, was then ordered to guard them to the vessels. Though the object of the movement had been explained to them, they were possessed with the idea that they were to be torn from their families and sent away at once ; and they all, in great excitement, refused to go. Winslow told them that there must be no parley or delay; and as they still refused, a squad of soldier? advanced towards them with fixed bayonets ; while he himself, laying hold of the fore- most young man, commanded him to move forward. "He obeyed; and the rest followed, though slowly, and went off praying, singing, and crying, being met by the women and children all the way (which is a mile and a half) with great lamentation, upon their knees, praying." When the escort returned, about a hundred of the married men were ordered to follow the first party; and, "the ice being broken," they readily complied. The vessels were anchored at a little distance from shore, and six soldiers were placed on board each of them as a guard. The prisoners were offered the King's rations, but preferred to be supplied by their families, who, it was arranged, should go iu boats to visit them every day; "and il M I 288 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [I755. thus," says Winslow, "ended this troublesome job." He was not given to effusions of feeling, but he wrote to lajor Handfield: "This affair is more grievous to me than any service I was ever emi)loyed in "1 m Murray sent him a note of congratulation: "I am extremely pleased that things are so clever at Grand Prd, and that the poor devils are so resigned. Here they are more patient than I could have expected for people in their circumstances; and what surprises me still more is tli.j indifference of the women, who really are, or seem, quite unconcerned. I long much to see the poor wretches embarked and our affair a little settled; and then I will do myself the pleasure of meeting you and drinking their good voyage." This agreeable consummation was still distant. There was a long and painful delay. The provisions for the vessels which were to carry the prisonei-s did not come; nor did the vessels themselves, excepting the five already at Grand Pr^. In vain Winslow wrote urgent letters to George Saul, the commissary, to bring the supplies at once. Murray, at Fort Edward, though with less feeling than his brother officer, was q-^ite as impatient of the burden of suffering humanity on his hands. "I am amazed what can keep the transports and Saul. Surely our » Haliburton, who knew Winslow's Journal only by imperfect extracts, erroneously states that the men put on board the vessels were sent away immediately. They remained at Grand Pr^ several weeks, and were then sent off at intervals with their families 1755.] EMBARKATION. 289 friend at Chignecto is willing to give us as much of our neighbors' compahy as he well can." * Saul came at last with a shipload of pr-'usions; but the lagging transports did not appear. nslow grew heartsick at the daily sight of miseries which he himself had occasioned, and wrote to a friend at Halifax: "I know they deserve all and more than they feel; yet it hurts me to heat- their weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I am in hopes our affairs will '•■oon put on another face, and we get transports, and I rid of the worst piece of service that ever I was in." After weeks of delay, seven transports came from Annapolis; and Winslow sent three of them to Murray, who joyfully responded: "Thank God, the transports are come at last. So soon as I have shipped off my rascals, I will come down and settle matters with you, and enjoy ourselves a little." Winslow prepared for the embarkation. The Acadian prisoners and their families were divided into groups answering to their several villages, in order that those of the same village might, as far as possible, go in the same vessel. It was also provided that the members of each family should remain together; and notice was given them to hold them- selves in readiness. "But even now," he writes, "I could not persuade the people I was in earnest." Their doubts were soon ended. The first embarka- tion took place on the eighth of October, under whicli date the Diary contains this entry : " Began to embark 1 Murray to Winslow, 26 September, 1755. VOL. I. — 19 m mh IM i,"i/ I - 'M 1 .11 rm IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) z/. o 1.0 If Ui 1^ I.I I? 2 1.8 1.25 1.4 1 1.6 M 6" ► V] & /a ^m ^ * <^ -u •^ \\ ^\ ^ rv «* ^% % w L($> 5^ O^ ^ 290 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. the ruhabitants, who went off very solentarily [sid] and unwillingly, the women in great distress, carry- ing off their children in their arms ; others carrying their decrepit parents in their carts, with all their goods; moving in great confusion, and appeared a scene of woe and distress."^ Though a large number were embarked on this occasion, still more remained; and as the transports slowly arrived, the dismal scene was repeated at intervals, with more order than at first, as the Aca- dians had learned to accept their fate as a certainty. So far as Winslow was concerned, their treatment seems to have been as humane as was possible under the circumstances ; but they complained of the men, who disliked and despised them. One soldier received thirty lashes for stealing fowls from them; and an order was issued forbidding soldiers or sailors, on pain of summary punishment, to leave their quarters without permission, " that an end may be put to distressing this distressed people." Two of the pris- oners, however, while trying to escape, were shot hy a reconnoitring party. At the beginning of November Winslow reported that he had sent off fifteen hundred and ten persons, in nine vessels, and that more than six hundred still remained in his district. ^ The last of these were not embarked till late in December. Murray finished 1 In spite of Winslow's care, some cases of separation of fami- lies occurred ; but they were not numerous. * Winslow to Morrkton, 3 November, 1766. Ijf m 1755.] CONJUGAL DEVOTION. 291 his part of the work at the end of October, having sent from the district of Fort Edward eleven hundred persons in four frightfully crowded transports.* At the close of that month sixteen hundred and sixty- four had been sent from the district of Annapolis, where many others escaped to the woods.^ A detachment which was ordered to seize the inhabit- ants of the district of Cobequid failed entirely, find- ing the settlements abandoned. In the country about Fort Cumberland, Monckton, who directed the operation in person, had very indifferent success, catching in all but little more than a thousand. ^ Le Guerne, missionary priest in this neighborhood, gives a characteristic and affecting incident of the embarka- tion. "Many unhappy women, carried away by excessive attachment to their husbands, whom they had been allowed to see too often, and closing their ears to the voice of religion and their missionary, threw themselves blindly and despairingly into the English vessels. And now w s seen the saddest of spectacles; for some of these women, solely from a religious motive, refused to take with them their grown-up sons and daughters. " * They would expose their own souls to perdition among heretics, but no those of their children. W n all, or nearly all, had been sent off from the 1 Winslo?v to Monckton, 3 November, 1765. 2 Captain Adams to Window, 29 November, 1756 ; see also Knox, i. 85, who exactly confirms Adams's figures. 8 Monckton to Winslow, 7 October, 1765. * Le Guerne a Provost, 10 Mars, 1756. 292 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [1755. :. A I;" various points of departure, such of the houses and bams as remained standing were burned, in obedience to the orders of Lawrence, that those who had escaped might be forced to come in and surrender themselves. The whole number removed from the province, men. women, and children, was a little above six thousand. Many remained behind; and while some of these withdrew to Canada, Isle St. Jean, and other dis- tant retreats, the rest iurked in the woodw«» or re- turned to their old haunts, whence they waged, for several years, a guerilla warfare against the Eng- lish. Yet their strength was broken, and they were no longer a danger to the province. Of their eiiled countrymen, one party overpowered the crew of the vessel that carried them, ran her ashore at the mouth of the St. John, and esca;[. '.^ The rest were distributed among the colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia, the master of eavjh trans- port having been pro\ ided with a letter from Lawrence addressed to the governor of the province to which he was bound, and desiring him to receive the imwelcome strangers. The provincials were vexed at the burden imposed upon them; and though the Acadians were not in general ill-treated, their lot was a hard one. Still more so was that of those among them who escaped to Canada. The chronicle of the Ursulines of Quebec, speaking of these last, says that their misery was indescribable, and at- 1 Lettre commune de Drucour et Prevost au Mtnistre, 6 Avril, 1756. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 1 Juin, 1756. 1755.] THEIR FATE. 298 tributes it to the poverty of the colony. But there were other causes. The exiles found Ic s pity from kindred and fellow-Catholics than from the heretics of the English colonies. Some of them who had made their way to Canada from Boston, whither they had been transported, sent word to a gentleman of that place who had befriended them that they wished to return. ^ Bougainville, the celebrated navigator, then aide-de-camp to Montcalm, says concerning them: "They are dying by wholesale. Their past and present misery, joined to the rapacity of the Canadians, who seek only to squeeze out of them all the moTioy they can, and then refuse them the help so dearly bought, are the cause of this mortality." "A citizen of Quebec," he says farther on, " was in debt to one of the partners of the Great Company [Government officials leagued for plunder]. He had no means of paying. They gave him a great number of Acadians to board and lodge. He starved them with hunger and cold, got out of them what money they had, and paid the extortioner. Quel pays ! Quels mceurs / " ^ Many of the exiles eventually reached Louisiana, where their descendants now form a numerous and distinct population. Some, after incredible hardship, made their way back to Acadia, where, after the peace, they remained unmolested, and, with those 'M i I ^ Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., iii. 42, note. '^ Bougainville, Journal, 1756-1758. His statements are sustained by Me'moires sitr le Canada, 1749-1700. 294 REMOVAL OF THE ACADIANS. [I755. who had escaped seizure, became the progenitors of the present Acadians, now settled in various parts of the British maritime provinces, notably at Madawaska, on the upper St. John, and at Clare, in Nova Scotia. Others were sent from Virginia to England; and others again, after the complete conquest of the country, found refuge in France. In one particular the authoi-s of the deportation were disappointed ui its results. They had hoped to substitute a loyal population for a disaffected one; but they failed for some time to find settlers for the vacated lands. The Massachusetts soldiers, to whom they were offered, would not stay in the province; and it was not till five yeai-s later that families of British stock began to occupy the waste fields of the Acadians. This goes far to show that a longing to become their heirs had not, as has been alleged, any considerable part in the motives for their removal. New England humanitarianism, melting into sen- timentality at a tale of woe, has been unjust to its own. Whatever judgment may be passed on the cruel measure of wholesale expatriation, it was not put in execution till every resource of patience and persuasion had been tried in vain. The agents of the French court, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, had made some act of force a necessity. We have seen by what vile practices they produced in Acadia a state of things intolerable, and impossible of con- tinuance. They conjured up the tempest; and when it burst on the heads of the unhappy people, they 1755.] THEIR FATE. 295 gave no help. The government of Louis XV. began with making the Acadians its tools, and ended with making them its victims. ^ I It may not be remembered that the predecessop of Louis XV., without the slightest provocation or the pretence of s^ny, gave orders that the whole Protestant population of the colony of New York, amounting to about eighteen thousand, should be seized, despoiled of their property, placed on board his ships, and dis- persed among the other British colonies in such a way that they could not reunite. Want of power alone prevented the execution of the order. See " Prontenac and New France under Louis XIV.," i. 198, 199. t. A u CHAPTER IX. 1766. DIESKAU. Expedition aoainbt Crown Point. — "Villiam Johnson. — Vau- DREUIL. — DiESKAU. — JOHNRON AND THE INDIANS. — ThE TbO- TiNCiAL Army. — Doubts and Delays. — March to Lake George. — Sdnday in Camp. — Advance op Diebkau: he CHANGES Plan. — Marches against Johnson. — Ambdbh. — Rout of Provincials. — Battle of Lake George. — Rout OP THE French. — Rage of the Mohawks. — Peril op Dies- KAu. — Inaction of Johnson. — The Homeward March. — Laurels op Victory. The next stroke of the campaign was to be the capture of C^own Point, that dangerous neighbor which, for a quarter of a century, had threatened the northern colonies. Shirley, in January, had proposed an attack on it to the ministry; and in February, without waiting their reply, he laid the plan before his Assembly. They accepted it, and voted money for the pay and maintenance of twelve hundred men, provided the adjacent colonies would contribute in due proportion. 1 Massachusetts showed a military ^ Governor Shirley's Message to his Assembly, 13 February, 1755. Resolutions of the Assembly of Massachusetts, 18 February, 1755. Shir- ley's original idea was to build a ton on a rising ground near Crown Point, in order to command it. This was soon abandoned for the more honest and more practical plan of direct attack. THE REGION OF / ^fi' { WilliJiiaHf.i.v 4 kit a II ' a ^ - <>i] fc !< i» iji-imjii ui|,iLi|g^i^|p|f|| ^'K^mmmm CHAPTKII IX. ]iti Kxpbd; J)RE ^ I l..>,-. - J Ml. r - M/VKOH TO ( •V DiKHKAlI ■ vrrtK or Lake GEOitoi - Uaui; or the Mohawks. — Pkril ot )■ OF Johnson. — The Ho.wi;waui. Mak' . VlCTOHV. Tm- 'U.^t :,. wliich, r. ^uigftrous neigh- d thrcatene'l : iry, hatl proj>- •nfl in Febrn . piOVid 1 ■ . ' t ]inndn*(j > would contril>u! (>tts sh6r«ar//, 1765. ley's original idea was to build a ft>rt on a rising groi\' Pr,,wT: p-,;nt ;,! -,^.^(^r to tomtuand it. Thig was Boon nb md more j ^t'cHl plan of dirt'Cl attu. I p'ortWIlinm n 1 » A^ 1 ■ I Jl t 1765 acti For adu enli of I rera eiit( doc lost the Ma of 1 api gra Fi^ wit rep dre Isli Ne mo at Sh of th( ga CO] au mu 1765.] EXPEDITION AGAINST CRO.v N POINT. 297 activity worthy of the reputation she had won. Forty-five hundred of her men, or one in ♦^Ight of Icr adult n^ales, volunteered to fight the French, and enlisted for the various expeditions, some in tlie pay of the province, aTid 3omo in that of the King* It remained to nanis a commander for tiie Cro'"n Point enteiprise. Nobody had power to do so, for Brad- dock was not yet come; but that timu might not be lost, Shirley, at the request of his Assembly, took the responsibility on himself. If he had named a Massachusetts officer, it would have roused the jealouny of the other Nen' England colonies ; and hs therefore appointed William Johnson of New York, thus gratiiymg that important ].rovince and pleasing the Five Nations, who at this time look- , ^n Johnson with even more than usual favor. Herv upon, in reply to his request, Connecticut voted twelve hun- dred men. New Hampshire five hundred, and Rhode Island four hundred, all at their own charge ; while New York, a Hitie later, promised eight hundred more. When, in April, Braddock and the Council at Alexandria approved the plan and the commander, Shirley gave Johnson the commission of major-general of the levies of Massachusetts ; and the governors of the other provinces contributing to the expedition gave him similar commissions for their respective contingents. Never did general take the field with authority so heterogeneous. 1 Correspondence of Shirleij, February, 1765. The number was much increased later in the season. •i ^0 if; SI I 298 DIESKAU. [1755. He had never seen service, and knew nothing of war. By birth he was Irish, of good family, being nephew of Admiral Sir Peter Warren, who, owning extensive wild lands on the Mohawk, had placed the young man in charge of them nearly twenty years before. Johnson was born to prosper. He had ambition, energy, an active mind, a tall, strong person, a rough, jovial temper, and a quick adapta- tion to his surroundings. He could drink flip with Dutch boors, or Madeira with royal governors. He liked the society of the great, would intrigue and flatter when he had an end to gain, and foil a rival without looking too closely at the means ; but com- pared with the Indian traders who infested the border, he was a model of uprightness. He lived by the Mohawk iii a fortified house which was a stronghold against foes and a scene of hospitality to friends, both white and red. Here — for his tastes were not fastidious — presided for many years a Dutch or German wench whom he finally married; and after her death a young Mohawk squaw took her place. Over his neighbors, the Indians of the Five Nations, and all others of their race with whom he had to deal, he acqi .red a remarkable influence. He liked them, adopted their ways, and treated them kindly or sternly as the case required, but always with a juFtice and honesty in strong contrast with the ras- calities of the commission of Albany traders who had lately managed their affairs, and whom they so detested that one of their chiefs called them "not II 1755.] WILLIAM JOHNSON. 299 men, but devils." Hence, when tTohnson was made Indian superintendent there was joy through all the Iroquois confederacy. When, in addition, he was made a general, ho assembled the warriors in council to engage them to aid the expedition. This meeting took place at his own house, known as Fort Johnson ; and as more than eleven hundred Indians appealed at his call, his larder was sorely taxed to entertain them. The speeches were intermi- nable. Johnson, a master of Indian rhetoric, knew his audience too well not to contest with them the palm of insufferable prolixity. The climax was reached on the fourth day, and he threw down the war-belt. An Oneida chief took it up ; Stevens, the interpreter, began the war-dance, and the assembled warriors howled in chorus. Then a tub of punch was brought in, and they all drank the King's health. 1 They showed less alacrity, however, to fight his battles, and scarcely three hundred of them would take the war-path. Too many of their friends and relatives were enlisted for the French. While the British colonists were preparing to attack Crown Point, the French of Canada were preparing to defend it. Duquesne, recalled from his post, had resigned the government to the Marquis de Vaudreuil, who had at his disposal the battalions of regulars that had sailed in the spring from Brest under Baron Dieskau. His first thought was to use » Report of Conference between Major-General Johnson and the Indians, June, 1766. H \i ' I Si! 'It 300 DIESKAU. [1755. them for the capture of Oswego; but the letters of Braddock, found on the battle-field, warned him of the design against Crown Point; while a reconnoitring party which had gone as far as the Hudson brought back news that Johnson's forces were already in the field. Therefore the plan was changed, and Dieskau was ordered to lead the main body of his troops, not to Lake Ontario, but to Lake Champlain. He passed up the Richelieu, and embarked in boats and canoes for Crown Point. The veteran knew that the foes with whom he had to deal were but a mob of country- men. He doubted not of putting them to rout, and meant never to hold his hand till he had chased them back to Albany. 1 "Make all haste," Vaudreuil wrote to him ; " for when you return we shall send you to Oswego to execute our first design. "^ Johnson on his part was preparing to advance. In July about three thousand provincials were en- camped near Albany, some on the " Flats " above the town, and some on the meadows below. Hither, too, came a swarm of Johnson's Mohawks, — warriors, squaws, and children. They adorned the general's face with war-paint, and he danced the war-dance; then with his sword he cut the first slice from the ox that had been roasted whole for their entertainment. "I shall be glad," wrote the surgeon of a New Eng- land regiment, " if they fight as eagerly as the " ate their ox and drank their wine." 1 Bigot au Ministre, 27 Aout, 1765. Ibid., 5 Septembre, 1755. ^ Mifmoire pour servir d' Instruction a M. le Baron de Dieskau, Marechal des Camps et Armies du Roy, 15 Aovt, 1755. I'fl 1755.] DELAYS. 801 Above all things the expedition needed prompt- ness; yet everything moved slowly. Five popular legislatures controlled the troops and the supplies. Connecticut had refused to send her men till Shirley promised that her commanding officer should rank next to Johnson. The whole movement was for some time at a deadlock because the five governments could not agree about their contributions of artillery and stores.* The New Hampshire regiment had taken a short cut for Crown Point across the wilder- ness of Vermont, but had been recalled in time to save them from probable destruction. They were now with the rest in the camp at Albany, in such distress for provisions that a private subscription was proposed for their relief.^ Johnson's army, crude as it was, had in it good material. Here was Phineas Lyman, of Connecticut, second in command, once a tutor at Yale College, and more recently a lawyer, — a raw soldier, but a vigorous and brave one ; Colonel Moses Titcomb, of Massachusetts, who had fought with credit at Louis- bourg; and Ephraim Williams, also colonel of a Massachusetts regiment, a tall and portly man, who had been a captain in the last war, member of the General Court, and deputy sheriff. He made his will in the camp at Albany, and left a legacy to ( (1 i The Conduct of Afajor-General Shirley briefly stated (London, 1758). a Blanchard to Wentworth, 28 August, 1755, in Provincial Papers of New Hampshire, vi. 429. 802 DIESKAU. [1755. I ( J! ! • hi!- -I p. ; ; ruu' found the school which has since become Williams College. His relative, Stephen Williams, was chap- lain of his regiment, and his brother Thomas was its surgeon. Seth Pomeroy, gunsmith at Northampton, who, like Titcomb, had seen service at Louisbourg, was its lieutenant-colonel. He had left a wife at home, an excellent matron, to whom he was con- tinually writing affectionate letters, mingling house- hold cares with news of the camp, and charging her to see that their eldest boy, Seth, then in college at New Haven, did not run off to the army. Pomeroy had with him his brother Daniel ; and this he thought was enough. Here, too, was a man whose name is still a household word in New England, — the sturdy Israel Putnam, private in a Connecticut regiment; and anoither as bold as he, John Stark, lieutenant in the New Hampshire levies, and the future victor of Bennington. The soldiers were no soldiers, but farmers and farmers' sons who had volunteered for the summer campaign. One of the corps had a blue uniform faced with red. The rest wore their daily clothing. Blankets had been served out to them by the several provinces, but the greater part brought their own guns ; some under the penalty of a fine if they came without them, and some under the inducement of a reward.^ They had no bayonets, but carried hatchets in their belts as a sort of substitute. ^ At their sides 1 Proclamation of Governor Shirlei/, 1755. '■^ Second Letter to a Friend on the Battle of Lake George. !■ ' M *'''I^BI ■ m Lci-u'iaht /iV/ ttiluiU B'-juin, S: upU sS- L '' Pa.n^ 1756.] were of th point plain unpa bams kitch sqnai them As confl be ] stole on tl toC Masi arni^ troo; then take peoj in ] praj the us Cas lie, Poi 1756.] THE PROVINCIAL ARMY. 803 1 were slung powder-honiH, on which, in the leisure of the camp, they carved quaint devices with the points of their jack-knives. They came chiefly from plain New England homesteads, — rustic abodes, unpainted and dingy, with long well-sweeps, capacious bams, rough fields of pumpkins and com, and vast kitchen chimneys, above which in winter hung squashes to keep them from frost, and guns to keep them from rust. As to the manners and morals of the army there is conflict of evidence. In some respects nothing could be more exemplary. "Not a chicken has been stolen," says William Smith, of New York; while, on the other hand, Colonel Ephraim Williams writes to Colonel Israel Williams, then commanding on the Massachusetts frontier: "We are a wicked, profane army, especially the New York and Rhode Island troops. Nothing to be heard among a great part of them but the language of Hell. If Crovvn Point is taken, it will not be for our sakes, but for those good people left behind." ^ There was edifying regularity in respect to form. Sermons twice a week, daily prayers, and frequent psalm-singing alternated with the much-needed military drill.^ "Prayere among us night and morning," writes Private Jonathan Caswell, of Massachusetts, to his father. "Here we lie, knowing not when we shall march for Crown Point; but I hope not long to tarry. Desiring your 1 Papers of Colonel Israel Williams. 2 Massachusetts Archives. i*- H) 804 DIESKAU. [1763. prayers to God for me as I am agoing to war, I am Your Ever Dutiful Son." » To Pomeroy and some of his brothoi^ in anns it seemed that they were engaged in a kind of crusade against the myrmidons of Rome. "As you have at heart the Protectant cause," he wrote to his friend Israel Williams, " so I ask an interest in your prayers that the Lord of Hosts would go forth with us and give us v^ictory over our unreasonable, encroaching, barbarous, murdering enemies." Both Williams the surgeon and Williams the colonel chafed at the incessant delays. " The expe- dition goes on veiy much as a snail runs," writes the former to his wife; "it seems we may possibly see Crown Point this time twelve months. " The colonel was vexed because everything was out of joint in the department of transportation: wagoners mutirous for want of pay; ordnance stores, camp-kettles, and provisions left behind. "As to rum," he complains, "it won't hold out nine weeks. Things appear most melancholy to me." Even as he vras writing, a report came of the defeat of Braddock ; and, shocked at the blow, his pen traced the words: "The Lord have mercy on poor New England ! " Johnson had sent four Mohawk scouts to Canada. They returned on the twenty-first of August with the report that the French were all astir with prepa- rai.ioii, and tliat eight thousand men were coming to defend Crown Point. On this a council of war was * Jonathan Caswell, to John Caswell, 6 July, 1755. 1785.J MARCH FOR LAKE GEORGE. 806 called; and it was resolved to send to the several colonies for reinforcements.^ Meanwhile the main body had moved up the river t(t the spot called the Great Carrying Place, where Lyman had begun a fortified storehouse, which his men called Fort Lyman, but v/hich was afterwards named Fort Edward. Two Indian trails lod from this point to the watei*s of Lake Ohamplain, one by way of Lake George, and the other by way of Wood Creek. There was doubt which course the army should take. A road was begun to Wood Creek; then it was countermanded, and a party was sent to explore the path to Lake George. "With submission to the general officers," Surge rn Williams again writes, "I think it a very grand mistake that the business of reconnoitring was not done months agone." It was resolved at last to march for Lake George ; gangs of axemen were sent to hew out the way; and on the twenty-sixth two thousand men were o~'^'^red to the lake, while Colonel Blanchard, of Nev.^ ilan^^^shire, remained with five hundred to finish and defend Fort Lyman. The train of Dutch wagons, guarded by the homely soldic-y, jolted slowly over the stumps and roots of the newly made road, and the regiments followed at their leisure. The hardships of the way were not without their consolations. The jovial Irishman who held the chief command made himself very agreeable 1 Minutes of Council of War, 22 August, 1755. Ephraim Williams to Benjamin Dwight, 22 August, 1755. VOL. I. — 20 m ■f 306 DIESKAU. [1755. »'/ i it !' w * 1 f ) Ib I h nil' 1 ^K i ^M I Ifflf ' f if if ' ; i< ' i III r to the New England officers. " We went on about four or five miles," says Pomeroy in his Journal, " then stopped, ate pieces of broken bread and cheese, and drank some fresh lemon-punch and the best of wine with General Johnson and some of the field- officers." It was the same on the next day. " Stopped about noon and dined with General Johnson by a small brook under a tree ; ate a good dinner of cold boiled and roast venison; drank good fresh lemon- punch and wine." That afternoon they reached their destination, fourteen miles from Fort Lyman. The most beauti- ful lake in America lay before them; then more beautiful than now, in the wild charm of untrodden mountains and virgin forests. " I have given it the name of Lake George," wrote Johnson to the Lords of Trade, "not only in honor of His Majesty, but to ascertain his undoubted dominion here." His men made their camp on a piece of rough ground by the edge of the water, pitching their tents among the stumps of the newly felled trees. In their front was a forest of pitch-pine ; on their right, a mai-sh, choked with alders and swcimp-maples ; on their left, the low hill where Fort George was afterwards built; and at their rear, the lake. Little was done to clear the forest in front, though it would give excellent cover tc an enemy. Nor did Johnson take much pains to learn the movements of the French in the direction of Crown Point, though he sent scouts towa- ""s South Bay and Wood Creek. Every day stores and bateaux, u 1755.] SUNDAY IN CAMP. 307 or flat boats, came on wagons from Fort Lyman; and preparation moved on with the leisure that had marked it from the first. About three hundred Mohawks came to the camp, and were regarded by the New England men as nuisances. On Sunday the gray-haired Stephen Williams preached to these savage allies a long Calvinistic sermon, which must have sorely perplexed the interpreter whose business it was to turn it into Mohawk ; and in the afternoon young Chaplain Newell, of Rhode Island, expounded to the New England men the somewhat untimely text, "Love your enemies." On tlie next Sunday, September seventh, Williams preached again, this time to the whites from a text in Isaiah. It was a peaceful day, fair and warm, with a few light showers; yet not wholly a day of rest, for two hun- dred wagons came up from Fort Lyman, loaded with bateaux. After the sermon there was an alarm. An Indian scout came in about sunset, and reported that he had found the trail of a body of men moving from South Bay towards Fort Lyman. Johnson called for a volunteer to carry a letter of warning to Colonel Blanchard, the commander. A wagoner named Adams offered himself for the perilous service, mounted, and galloped along the road with the letter. Sentries were posted, and the camp fell asleep. While Johnson lay at Lake George, Dieskau pre- pared a surprise for him. The German baron had reached Crown Point at the head of three thousand five hundred and seventy-three men, regulars, Cana- ! li. if I |:| 1 308 DIESKAU. [1755. ill "? 1 ' 'I H. /'i dians, and Indians.* He had no thought of waiting tliere to be attacked. The troops were told to hold themselves ready to move at a moment's notice. Officers — so ran the order — will take nothing with them but one spare shirt, one spare pair of shoes, a blanket, a bearskin, and provisions for twelve days ; Indians are not to amuse themselves by taking scalps till the enemy is entirely defeated, since vhey can kill ten men in the time required to scalp one.^ Then Dieskau moved on, with nearly all his force, to Carillon, or Ticonderoga, a promontory commanding both the routes by which alone Johnson could advance, that of Wood Creek and that of Lake George. The Indian allies were commanded by Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, the officer who had received Wash- ington on his embassy to Fort Le Bceuf. These unmanageable warriors were a constant annoyance to Dieskau, being a species of humanity quite new to him. "They drive us crazy," he says, "from morn- ing till night. There is no end to their demands. They have already eaten five oxen and as many hogs, without counting the kegs of brandy they have drunk. In short, one needs the patience of an angel to get on with these devils ; and yet one must always force himself to seem pleased with them."^ They would scarcely even go out as scouts. At U '. I 1 Vaudreuil au Ministre, 25 Septembre, 1755. 2 Livre d'Ordres, Aout, Septembre, 1755. 8 Dieskau a Vaudreuil, 1 Septembre, 1756. 1755.] THE ADVANCE, 309 last, however, on the fourth of September, a recon- noitring party came in with a scalp and an English prisoner caught near Fort Lyman. He was ques- tioned under the threat of being given to the Indians for torture if he did not tell the truth; but, noth- ing daunted, he invented a patriotic falsehood; and thinking to lure his captors into a trap, told them that the English army had fallen back to Albany, leaving five hundred men at Fhrt Lyman, which he represented as indefensible. Dieskau resolved on a rapid movement to seize the place. At noon of the same day, leaving a part of his force at Ticonderoga, he embarked the rest in canoes and advanced along the narrow prolongation of Lake Champlain that stretched southward through the wilderness to where the town of Whitehall now stands. He soon came to a point where the lake dwindled to a mere canal, while two mighty rocks, capped with stunted forests, faced each other from the opposing banks. Here he left an officer named Roquemaure with a detachment of troops, and again advanced along a belt of quiet water traced through the midst of a deep marsh, green at that season with sedge and water-weeds, and known to the English as the Drowned Lands. Beyond, on either hand, crags feathered with birch and fir, or hills mantled with woods, looked down on the long procession of canoes.^ As they neared the site of Whitehall, a passage opened on the right, the I • 1 yt 1 I passed this way three weeks ago. There are some points "where the scene is not much changed since Dieskau saw it. 810 DIESKAU. [1755. '■i i. entrance to a sheet of lonely water slumbering in the shadow of woody mountains, and forming the lake then, as now, called South Bay. They advanced to its head, landed where a small stream enters it, left the canoes under a guard, and began their march through the forest. They counted in all two hundred and sixteen regulars of the battalions of Languedoc and La Reine, six hundred and eighty-four Canadians, and abou^ six hundred Indians.^ Every officer and man carried provisions for eight days in his knapsack. They encamped at night by a brook, and in the morning, after hearing mass, marched again. The evening of the next day brought them near the road that led to Lake George. Fort Lyman was but three miles distant. A man on horseback galloped by; it was Adams, Johnson's unfortunate messenger. The Indians shot him, and found the letter in his pocket. Soon after, ten or twelve wagons appeared in charge of mutinous drivers, who had left the English camp without orders. Several of them were shot, two were taken, and the rest ran off. The two captives declared that, contrary to the assertion of the prisoner at Ticonderoga, a large force lay encamped at the lake. The Indians now held a council, and presently gave out that they would not attack the fort, which they thought well supplied with cannon, but that they were willing to attack the camp at Lake George. Remonstrance was lost upon them. Dieskau was not young, but he was 1 M€jnoire sur l' Affaire du 8 Septembre. 1755.] MARCH AGAINST JOHNSON. 311 I daring to rashness, and inflamed to emulation by the victory over Braddock. The enemy were reported greatly to outnumber him; but his Canadian advisers had assured him that the English colony militia were the worst troops ' on the face of the earth. " The more there are," he said to the Canadians and Indians, "the more we shall kill;" and in the morn- ing the order was given to march for the lake. They moved rapidly on through the waste of pines, and soon entered the rugged valley that led to Johnson's camp. On their right was a gorge where, shadowed in bushes, gurgled a gloomy brook; and beyond rose the cliffs that buttressed the rocky heights of French Mountain, seen by glimpses between tlj boughs. On their left rose gradually the lower slopes of West Mountain. All was rock, tliicket, and forest; there was no open space but the road along which the regulars marched, while the Canadians and Indians pushed their way through the woods in such order as the broken ground would permit. They were three miles from the lake, when their scouts brought in a prisoner who told them that a column of English troops was approaching. Dieskau's preparations were quickly made. While the regulars halted on the road, the Canadians and Indians moved to the front, where most of them hid in the forest along the slopes of West Mountain, and the rest lay close among the thickets on the other side. Thus, when the English advanced to attack the regulars in .' 1 r 812 DIEf^KAU. [1755. li i I J- front, they would find themselves caught in a double ambush. No sight or sound betrayed the snare ; but behind every bush crouched a Canadian or a savage, with gun cocked and eai-s intent, listening for the tramp of the approaching column. The wagoners who escaped the evening before had reached the camp about midnight, and reported that there was a war-party on the road nc ar Fort Lyman. Johnson ha(' at this time twenty-two hundred effec- tive men, besides his three hundred Indians. ^ He called a council of war in the morning, and a resolu- tion was taken which can only be explained by a complete misconception as to the force of the French. It was determined to send out two detachments of five hundred men each, one towards Fort Lyman, and the other towards South Bay, the object being, according to Johnson, " to catch the enemy in their retreat. "2 Hendrick, chief of the Mohawks, a brave and sagacious warrior, expressed his dissent after a fashion of his own. He picked up a stick and broke it; then he picked up several sticks, and showed that together they could not be broken. The hint was taken, and the two detachments were joined in one. Still the old savage shook his head. " If they are to be killed," he said, "they are too many; if 1 Wraxall to Lieutenant-Governor Delancey, 10 September, 1755. Wraxall was Johnson's aide-de-camp and secretary. The Second Letter to a Friend says twenty-one hundred whites and two hundred or three hundred Indians. Blodget, who was also on the spot, sets the whites at two thousand. 2 Letter to the Governors of the Several Colonies, 9 September, 1755. ^ 1755.] THE AMBUSH. 313 they are to fight, they are too few." Nevertheless, he resolved to share their fortunes ; and mounting on a gun-carriage, he harangued his warriors with a voice so animated and gestures so expressive that the New England officers listened in admiration, though they understood not a word. One difficulty remained. He was too old and fat to go afoot; but Johnson lent him a horse, which he bestrode, and trotted to the head of the column, followed by two hundred of his warriors as fast as they could grease, paint, and befeather themselves. Captain Elisha Hawley was in his tent, finishing a letter which he had just written to his lirother Joseph ? and these were the last words: "I am this minute agoing out in company with five hundred men to see if we can intercept 'em in their retreat, or find their canoes in the Drowned Lands; and therefore must conclude this letter." He closed and directed it; and in an hour received his death-wound. It was soon after eight o'clock when Ephraim Williams left the camp with his regiment, marched a little distance, and then waited for the rest of the detachment under Lieutenant-Colonel Whiting. Thus Dieskau had full time to lay his ambush. When Whiting came up, the whole moved on to- gether, so little conscious of danger that no scouts were thrown out in front or flank; and, in full security, they entered the fatal snare. Before they were completely involved in it, the sharp eye of old Hendrick detected some sign of an enemy. At that .Ui 'V 314 DIESKAU. [1755. instant, whether by accident or design, a gun was fired from the bushes. It is said that Dieskau's Iroquois, seeing Mohawks, their relatives, in the van, wished to warn them of danger. If so, the warning came too late. The thickets on the left blazed out a deadly fire, and the men fell by scores. In the words of Dieskau, the head of the column "was doubled up like a pack of cards." Hendrick's horse was shot down, and the chief was killed with a bayo- net as he tried to rise. Williams, seeing a rising ground on his right, made for it, calling on his men to follow ; but as he climbed the slope, guns flashed from the bushes, and a shot through the brain laid him dead. The men in the rear pressed forward to support their comrades, when a hot fire was suddenly opened on them from the forest along their right flank. Then there was a panic ; some fled outright, and the whole column recoiled. The van now became the rear, and all the force of the enemy rushed upon it, shouting and screeching. There was a moment of total confusion; but a part of Williams's regiment rallied under command of Whiting, and covered the retreat, fighting behind trees like Indians, and firing and falling back by turns, bravely aided by some of the Mohawks and by a detachment which Johnson sent to their aid. " And a very handsome retreat they made," writes Pomeroy; "and so con- tinued till they came within about three quarters of a mile of our camp. This was the last fire our men gave our enemies, which killed great numbers of ■i»' 1755.] PREPARATIONS FOR DP] FENCE. 315 them; they were seen to drop as pigeons." So ended the fray long known in New Enghvnd fireside story as the " hloody morning scout. " Dieskau -^ow oir* ^red a halt, and sounded his trumpets to collect his scat- tered men. His Indians, however, were sullen and unmanageable, and the Canadians also showed signs of wavering. The veteran who commanded them all, Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, had been killed. At length they were persuaded to move again, the regulars leading the way. About an hour after Williams and his men had begun their march, a distant rattle of musketry was heard at the camp ; and as it grew nearer and louder, the listeners knew that their comrades were on the retreat. Then, at the eleventh hour, preparations were begun for defence. A sort of barricade was made along the front of the camp, partly of wagons, and partly of inverted bateaux, but chiefly of the trunks of trees hastily hewn down in the neighboring forest and laid end to end in a single row. The line extended from the southern slopes of the hill on the left across a tract of rough ground to the marshes on the right. The forest, choked with bushes and clumps of rank ferns, was within a few yards of the barricade, and there was scarcely time to hack away the intervening thickets. Three cannon were planted to sweep the road that descended through the pines, and another was dragged up to the ridge of the hill. The defeated party began to come in; first, scared fugitives both white and red; then, gangs of men 816 DIESKAU. [1755 bringing the wounded ; and at last, an hour and a half after the fii-Ht fire was heard, the main detach- ment was seen marching in compact bodies down the road. Five hundred men were detailed tc guard the flanks of the camp. The rest stood behind the wagons or lay flat behind the logs and inverted bateaux, the Massachusetts men on the right, and the Connecticut men on the left. Besides Indians, this actual fighting force was between sixteen and seventeen hundred rustics, very few of whom had been under fire before that m.^Aag. They were hardly at their posts when they saw ranks of white- coated soldiers moving down the road, and bayonets that to them seemed innumerable glittering between the boughs. At the same time a terrific burst of war-whoops rose along the front; and, in the words of Pomeroy, "the Canadians and Indians, heltcT- skelter, the woods full of them, came running with undaunted courage right down the hill upon us, expecting to make us flee." i Some of the men grew uneasy; while the chief officers, sword in hand, threatened instant death to any who should stir from their posts.^ If Dieskau had made an assault at that instant, there could be little doubt of the result. This he well knew; but he was powerless. He had his small force of regulars well in hand; but the rest, red and white, were beyond control, scattering ^ Seth Pomeroy to his Wife, 10 September, 1755. 2 Dr. Perez Marsh to William Williams, 25 September, 1755. 1755.] BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE. 817 through the woods and swamps, sho;. ,ng, yelling, and firing from jehind trees. The regulars advanced with intrepidity towards the camp where the trees were thin, dei)loyLd, and lu-ed by platoons, till Cap- tain Eyre, who commanded the artillery, opened on them with grape, broke their ranks, and compelled them to take to cover. The fusillade was now general on both sides, and soon gijw furious. "Per- haps," Seth Pomeroy wrote to his wife, two days after, "the hailstones from heaven were never much thicker than their bullets came; but, blessed be God! that did not in the least daunt or disturb us." Johnson received a flesh-wound in the thigh, and spent the rest of tlu; day in his tent. Lyman took command; and it is a marvel that he escap-^d alive, for he was four hours in the heat of the fire, directing and animating the men. "It was the most awful day my eyes ever beheld," wrote Surgeon Williams to his wife ; " there seemed to be nothing but thunder and lightning and perpetual pillars of smoke." To him, his colleague Doctor Pynchon, one assistant, and a young student called " Billy, " fell the charge of the wounded of his regiment. " The bullets flew about our ears all the time of dressing them; so we thought best to leave our tent and retire a few rods behind the shelter of a log-house." On the adjacent hill stood one Blodget, who seems to have been a sutler, watching, as well as bushes, trees, and smoke would let him, the progress of the fight, of which he soon after made and published a curious bird's-eye i 11 m 818 DIESKAU. [1765. I 'ii 1 i, If ' : II V t view. As the wounded men wore carried to the rear, tlie wagoners about the camp took their gunu and powder-horns, and joined in the fray. A Mohawk, seeing one of these men still unarmed, leaped over the barricade, tomahawked the nearest Canadian, snatched his gun, and darted back unliurt. The bravo savage found no imitators among his tribes- men, most of whom did notliing but utter a few wa> whoops, saying that they had come to see tlieir English brothere fight. Some of the French Indians opened a distant flank fire from die high ground beyond the swamp on the right, but were driven off by a few shells dropped among ther; Dieskau had directed his first attack against the left and centre of Johnson's position. Making no impression here, he tried to force the right, where lay the regiments of Titcomb, Ruggles, and Williams. The fire was hot for about an hour. Titcomb was shot dead, a rod in front of the barricade, firing from behind a tree like a common soldier. At length Dies]-nu, exposing himself within short range of the English line, was hit in the leg. His adjutant, Montreuil, himself wounded, came to his aid, and was washing the injured limb with brandy, when the unfortunate commander was again hit in the knee and thigh. He seated himself behind a tree, while the adjutant called two Canadians to carry him to the rear. One of them was instantly shot down. Montreuil took his place ; but Dieskau refused to be moved, bitterly denounced the Canadians and Indians, 1756.] ROUT OF THE FRENCH. 819 and ordered the adjutant to leave 1 n and lead tJie regulars in a last effort against the camp. It was too late. Johnson's men, singly or in small squads, were already crossing their row of logs; and in a few moments the whole dashed forward with a shout, falling upon the enemy with hatchets and the butte of their guns. The vVench and their allies fled. The wounded general still sat helpless by the tree, when he saw a soldier aiming at him. He signed to the man not to fire ; but he pulled trigger, shot him across the hips, leaped upon him, and ordered him in French to surrender. "I said,"' writes Dieskau, " ' You rascal, why did you fire ? You see a man lying in his blood on the ground, and you shoot hiral ' He answered: 'How did I know that you had not got a pistol ? I had rather kill the devil than have %e devil kill me.' 'You are a Frenchman?' I asked. ' Yes,' he replied; ' it is more than ten years since I left Canada ; ' where- upon several others fell on me and stripped me. I told them to carry me to their ger.eral, which they did. On learning who I was, he sent for surgeons, and, though wounded himself, refused all assistance till my wounds were dressed. " ^ It was near five o'clock when the final rout took place. Some time ^ -ore, several hundred of the ^ Dialofjue entre le Mar€chal de Saxe et le Baron de Dieskau aux Champs l5lys€es. This paper is in the Archives de la Guerre, and was evidently written or inspired by Dieskau himself. In spite of its fanciful form it if a sober statement of the events of the cam- paign. There is a translation of it in N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 340. li ).il 820 DIESKAU. [1755. Canadians and Indians had left the field and returned to the scene of the morning fight, to plunder and scalp the dead. They were resting themselves near a pool in the forest, close beside the road, when their repose was interrupted by a volley of bullets. It was fired by a scouting party from Fort Lyman, chiefly backwoodsmen, under Captains Folsom and McGinnis. The assailants were greatly outnumbered; but after a hard fight the Canadians and Indians broke and fled. McGinnis was mortally wounded. He continued to give orders till the firing was over; then fainted, and was carried, dying, to the camp. The bodies of the slain, according to tradition, were thrown into the pool, which bears to this day the name qf Bloody Pond. The various bands of fugitives rejoined each other towards night, and encamped in the forest, then made their way round the southern shoulder of P'rench Mountain, till, in the next evening, they reached their canoes. Their plight was deplorable; for they had left their knapsacks behind, and were spent with fatigue and famine. Meanwhile their captive general was not yet out of danger. The Mohawks were furious at their losses in the ambush of the morning, and above all at the death of Hendrick. Scarcely were Dieskau's wounds dressed, when several of them came into the tent. There was a long and angry dispute in their own language between them and Johnson, after which they went out very sullenly. Dieskau asked Iff 1755.] MOHAWK FEROCITY. 321 what they wanted. " What do they want ? " returned Johnson. "To burn you, by God, eat you, and smoke you in their pipes, in revenge for three or four of their chiefs that were killed. But never fear; you shall be safe with me, or else they k hall kill us both."i The Mohawks soon came back, and another talk ensued, excited at fii-st, and then more calm; till at length the visitors, seemingly appeased, smiled, gave Dieskau their hands in sign of friendship, and quietly went out again. Johnson warned him that he was not yet safe ; and when the prisoner, fearing that his presence might incommode his host, asked to be removed to another tent, a captain and fifty men were ordered to guard him. In the morning an Indian, alone and apparently unarmed, loitered about the entrance, and the stupid sentinel let him pass in. He immediately drew a sword from under a sort of cloak which he wore, and tried to stab Dieskau, but was prevented by the colonel to whom the tent belonged, who seized upon him, took away his sword, and pushed him out. As soon as his wounds would permit, Dieskau was carried on a litter, strongly escorted, to Fort Lyman, whence he was sent to Albany, and ai^terwards to New York. He is profuse in expressions of gratitude for the kindness shown him by the colonial officers, and especially by Johnson. Of the provincial soldiers he V 11 If .1 I i 1 See the story as told by Uieskau to the celebrated Diderot, at Paris, in 1700. M€moires de Diderot, i. 402 (1830). Compare N. Y. Col. Docs., X. 343. VOL. I. — 21 I ! r 322 DIESKAU. [1755. i.V remarked soon after the battle that in the morning they fought like good boys, about noon like men, and in the afternoon like devils. ^ In the spring of 1757 he sailed for England, and was for a time at Fal- mouth; whence Colonel Matthew Sewell, fearing that he might see and learn too much, wrote to the Earl of Holdernesse: "The Baron has great penetra- tion and quickness of apprehension. His long ser- vice under Marshal Saxe renders him a man of real consequence, to be cautiously observed. His cir- cumstances deserve compassion, for indeed they are very melancholy, and I much doubt of his being ever perfectly cured." He was afterwards a long time at Bath, for the benefit of tlie waters. In 1760 the famous Diderot met him at Paris, cheerful and full of anecdote, though wretchedly shattered by his wounds. He died a few years later. On the night after the battle the yeomen warriors felt the truth of the saying that, next to defeat, the saddest thing is victory. Comrades and friends by scores lay scattered through the forest. As soon as he could snatch a moment's leisure, the overworked surgeon sent the dismal tidings to his wife: "My dear brother Ephraim was killed by a ball through his head; poor brother Josiah's wound I fear will prove mortal; poor Captain Hawley is yet alive, though I did not think he would live two hours after bringing m in." Daniel Pomeroy was shot dead ; and his brother Seth wrote the news to his wife 1 Dr. Perez Marsh to William Williams, 25 September, 1755. h. 1755.] AFTER THE B.' TTLE. 828 Rachel, who was just delivered of a child: "Dear Sister, this brings heavy tidings; but let not your heaH sink at the news, though it be your loss of a dear husband. Monday the eighth instant was a memorable day; and truly you may say, had not the Lord been on our side, we must all have been swal- lowed up. My brother, being one that went out in the first engagement, received a fatal shot through the middle of the head." Seth Pomeroy found a moment to write also to his own wife, whom he tells that another attack is expt. ted; adding, in quaintly pious phrase: "But as God hath begun to show mercy, I hope he will go on to be gracious. " Pomeroy was employed during the next few days with four hundred men in what he calls "the melancholy piece of business " of burying the dead. A letter-writer of the time does not approve what was done on this occi^sion. "Our people," he says, "not only buried the French dead, but buried as many of them as might be without the knowledge of our Indians, to prevent their being scalped. This I call an excess of civility;" his reason being that Braddock's dead soldiers had been left ^o the wolves. The English loss in killed, wounded, and missing was two hundred and sixty-two ;i and that of the French by their own account, two hundred and twenty-eight, 2 — a somewhat modest result of five 1 Return of Killed, Wounded, and Missing at the Battle of Lake George. 2 Doreil au Ministre, 20 Octohre, 1755. Surgeon Williams gives m 824 DIESKAU. [1755. hours' fighting. The English loss was chiefly in the ambush of the morning, where the killed greatly outnumbered the wounded, because those who fell and could not be carried away were tomahawked by Dieskau's Indians. In the fight at the camp, both Indians and Canadians kept themselves so well under cover that it was very difficult for the New England men to pick them off, while they on their part lay close behind their row of logs. On the French side, the regular officers and troops bore the brunt of the battle and suffered the chief loss, nearly all of the former and nearly half of the latter being kiUed or wounded. Johnson did not follow up his success. He says that hi^ men were tired. Yet five hundred of them had stood still all day, and boats enough for their transportation were lying on the beach. Ten miles down the lake, a path led over a gorge of the moun- tains to South Bay, where Dieskau had left his canoes and provisions. It needed but a few hours to reach and destroy them; but no such attempt was made. Nor, till a week after, did Johnson send out scouts to learn the strength of the enemy at Ticon- deroga. Lyman strongly urged him to make an effort to seize that important pass; but Johnson thought only of holding his own position. " I think, " he wrote, "we may expect very shortly a more the English loss aa two hundred and sixteen killed, and ninety-six wounded. Pomeroy thinks that the French lost four or five hun- dred. Johnson places their loss at four hundred. 1755.] INACTION OF JOHNSON. 825 formidable attack." He made a solid breastwork to defend his camp; and as reinforcements arrived, set them at building a fort on a rising ground by the lake. It is true that just after the battle he was deficient in stores, and had not bateaux enough to move his whole force. It is true, also, that he was wounded, and that he was too jealous of Ljnnan to delegate the command to him ; and so the days passed till, within a fortnight, his nimble enemy were in- trenched at Ticcnderoga in force enough to defy him. The Crown Point expedition was a failure dis- guised under an incidental success. The northern provinces, especially Massachusetts and Connecticut, did what they could to forward it, and after the battle sent a herd of raw recruits to the scene of action. Shirley wrote to Johnson from Oswego; declared that his reasons for not advancing were insufficient, and urged him to push for Ticonderoga at once. Johnson replied that he had not wagons enough, and that his troops were ill-clothed, ill-fed, discontented, insubordinate, and sickly. He com- plained that discipline was out of the question, because the officers were chosen by popular election ; that many of them were no better than the men, unfit for command, and like so many "heads of a mob."^ The reinforcements began to come in, till, in October, there were thirty-six hundred men in the camp; and as most of them wore summer clothing 1 Shirley to Johnson, 19 September, 1755. Ibid., 24 September, 1755. Johnson to Shirley, 22 September, 1756. Johnson to Phipps, 10 October, 1765 (Massachusetts Archives). 326 DIESKAU. [1755. and had but one thin domestic blanket, they were half frozen in the chill autumn nights. Johnson called a council of war; and as he was suffering from inflamed eyes, and was still kept in his tent by his wound, he asked Lyman to preside, — not unwilling, perhaps, to shift the responsibility upon him. After several sessions and much debate, the assembled officers decided that it was inexpedient to proceed.^ Yet the army lay more than a month longer at the lake, while the disgust of the men increased daily under the rains, frosts, and snows of a dreary November. On the twenty-second, Chandler, chaplain of one of the Massachusetts regiments, wrote in the interleaved almanac that served him as a diary:* "The men just ready to mutiny. Some clubbed their firelocks and marched, but returned back. Very rainy night. Miry water standing in the tents. Very distressing time among the sick," The men grew more and more unruly, and went off in squads without asking leave. A difficult question arose: .*ho should stay for the winter to garrison the new forts, and who should command them? It was settled at last that a certain number of soldiers from each province should be assigned to this un- grateful service, and that Massachusetts should have the first officer, Connecticut the second, and New York the third. Then the camp broke up. " Thurs- day the 27th," wrote the chaplain in his almanac, " we set out about ten of the clock, marched in a 1 Reports af Council of War, 11-21 October, 1765. 1755.] THE LAURELS OF VICTORY. 827 body, about three thousand, the wagons and baggage in the centre, our colonel much insulted by the way." The soldiers dispersed to their villages and farms, where in blustering winter nights, by the blazing logs of New England hearthstones, they told their friends and neighbors the story of the campaign. The profit of it fell to Johnson. If he did not gather the fruits of victory, at least he reaped its laurels. He was a courtier in his rough way. He had changed the name of Lac St. Sacrement to Lake George, in compliment to the King. He now changed that of Fort Lyman to Fort Edward, in com- pliment to one of the King's grandsons; and, in com- pliment to another, called nis new fort at the lake, William Heniy. Of General Lyman he made no mention in his report of the battle, and his partisans wrote letters traducing that brave officer; though Johnson is said to have confessed in private that he owed him the victory. He himself found no lack of eulogists; and, to quote the words of an able but somewhat caustic and prejudiced opponent, "to the panegyrical pen of his secretary, Mr. Wraxall, and the sic volo sic juheo of Lieutenant-Go\ .mor Delancey, is to be ascribed that mighty renown which echoed through the ->nies, reverberated to Europe, and elevated a raw, inexperienced youth into a kind of second Marlborough, "i Parliament gave him five 1 Review of Military Operations in North America, in a Letter to a .Nobleman (ascribed to William Livingston). On the Battle of Lake George a mass of papers will be f v^und in r 828 )IE8KAU. [1755. d V thousand pounds, and the King made him a baronet. the N. Y. Col. Docs., vols. vi. and x. Those in Vol, VI., taken chiefly from the archives of New York, consist of oflcial and pri- vate letters, reports, etc., on the English side. Those in Vol. X. are drawn chiefly from the archives of the French War D-^part- ment, and include the correspondence of Dieskau and his ai*, tant Montreuil. I have examined most of them in the original. Besides these I have obtained from the Archives de la Marine and other sources a number of important additional papers, which have never been printed, including Vaudreuil's reports to the Minister of War, and his strictures on Dieskau, whom he accuses of disobeying orders by dividing his force; also the translation of an English journal of the campaign found In the pocket of a captured officer, and a long account of the battle sent by Bigot to the minister of marine, 4 October, 1755. I owe to the kindness of Theodore Pomeroy, Esq., a copy of ihe Journal of Lieutenant-Colonel Seth Pomeroy, whose letters also are full of intei-est ; as are those of Surgeon Williams, from the collec- tion of William L. Stone, Esq. The papers of Colonel Israel Wil- liams, in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, con- tain many other curious letters relating to the campaign, extracts from some of which are given in the text. One of the most curious records of the battle is A Prospective-Plan of the Battle nea- Lake George, with an Explanation thereof, containing a full, though short, His- tory of that important Affair, hy S~muel Blodget, occasionally at the Camp when the Battle was fought. It is an engraving, printed at Boston soon after the fight, of which it gives a clear idea. Four years after, Blodget opened a shop in Boston, where, as appears by his advertisements in the newspapers, he sold " English Goods, also English Hatts, etc." The Engraving is reproduced in the Docu- mentary History of New York, iv., and elsewhere. The Explanation thereof is only to be found complete in the original. This, as well as the anonymous Second Letter to a Friend, also printed at Boston in 1755, is excellent for the information it gives as to the condition of the ground where the conflict took place, and the position of the combatants. The unpublished Archives of Massachusetts; the correspondence of Sir William Johnson ; the Review of Military Operations in North America ; Dwight, Travels in New England and New York, iii. ; and Hoyt, Antiquarian Researches on Indian n ars, 1; 1765.] A COLONIAL POET. 829 — should alao be mentioned. Dwight and Hoyt drew their informa- tion from aged survivors of the battle. I have repeatedly examined the localities. In the odd effusion of the colonial muse called Tilden's Poems, chiefly to Animate and Rouse the Soldiers, printed 1756, is a piece styled The Christian Hero, or New England's Triumph, beginning with the invocation, — " O Heaven, indulge my feeble Muse, Teach her what numbers for to choose! " and containing the following stanza, — " Their Dieskau we from them detain, While Canada aloud complains And counts the numbers of their slain And makes a dire complaint ; The Indians to their demon gods; And with tlie French there 's little odds, While images receive their nods, Invoking rotten saints." END OF VOL. I.