Volume VI Part 9 (1/2)

The union with the mother-country was as yet close and potent: at the instigation of Mr. Fox, soon afterwards Lord Holland, and at the time Prime Minister of England, Parliament voted twenty-five millions for the American war. The bounty given to the soldiers and marines who enlisted was doubled by private subscription; fifteen thousand men were thus raised to invade the French colonies.

Canada and Louisiana together did not number eighty thousand inhabitants, whilst the population of the English colonies already amounted to twelve hundred thousand souls; to the twenty-eight hundred regular troops sent from France, the Canadian militia added about four thousand men, less experienced but quite as determined as the most intrepid veterans of the campaigns in Europe. During more than twenty years the courage and devotion of the Canadians never faltered for a single day.

Then began an unequal, but an obstinate struggle, of which the issue, easy to foresee, never cowed or appeased the actors in it. The able tactics of M. de Vaudreuil, governor of the colony, had forced the English to scatter their forces and their attacks over an immense territory, far away from the most important settlements; the forts which they besieged were scarcely defended. ”A large enclosure, with a palisade round it, in which there were but one officer and nineteen soldiers,” wrote the Marquis of Montcalm at a later period, ”could not be considered as a fort adapted to sustain a siege.” In the first campaign, the settlements formed by the Acadian emigrants on the borders of the Bay of Fundy were completely destroyed: the French garrisons were obliged to evacuate their positions.

This withdrawal left Acadia, or neutral land, at the mercy of the Anglo-Americans. Before Longfellow had immortalized, in the poem of Evangeline, the peaceful habits and the misfortunes of the Acadians, Raynal had already pleaded their cause before history. ”A simple and a kindly people,” he said, ”who had no liking for blood, agriculture was their occupation.

They had been settled in the low grounds, forcing back, by dint of dikes, the sea and rivers wherewith those plains were covered. The drained marshes produced wheat, rye, oats, barley, and maize. Immense prairies were alive with numerous flocks; as many as sixty thousand horned cattle were counted there. The habitations, nearly all built of wood, were very commodious, and furnished with the neatness sometimes found amongst our European farmers in the easiest circ.u.mstances. Their manners were extremely simple; the little differences which might from time to time arise between the colonists were always amicably settled by the elders.

It was a band of brothers, all equally ready to give or receive that which they considered common to all men.”

War and its horrors broke in upon this peaceful idyl.

The Acadians had constantly refused to take the oath to England; they were declared guilty of having violated neutrality. For the most part the accusation was unjust; but all were involved in the same condemnation.

On the 5th of September, 1755, four hundred and eighteen heads of families were summoned to meet in the church of Grand Pre. The same order had been given throughout all the towns of Acadia. The anxious farmers had all obeyed. Colonel Winslow, commanding the Ma.s.sachusetts militia, repaired thither with great array. ”It is a painful duty which brings me here,” he said. ”I have orders to inform you that your lands, your houses, and your crops are confiscated to the profit of the crown; you can carry off your money and your linen on your deportation from the province.” The order was accompanied by no explanation; nor did it admit of any. All the heads of families were at once surrounded by the soldiers. By tens, and under safe escort, they were permitted to visit once more the fields which they had cultivated, the houses in which they had seen their children grow up. On the 10th they embarked, pa.s.sing, on their way to the s.h.i.+ps, between two rows of women and children in tears.

The young people had shown a disposition to resist, demanding leave to depart with their families: the soldiers crossed their bayonets. The vessels set sail for the English colonies, dispersing over the coast the poor creatures they had torn away from all that was theirs. Many perished of want while seeking from town to town their families, removed after them from Acadia; the charity of the American colonists relieved their first wants. Some French Protestants, who had settled in Philadelphia after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, welcomed them as brothers, notwithstanding the difference of their creed; for they knew all the heart-rending evils of exile.

Much emotion was excited in France by the woes of the Acadians. In spite of the declaration of war, Louis XV. made a request to the English cabinet for permission to send vessels along the coasts of America, to pick up those unfortunates. ”Our navigation act is against it,” replied Mr. Grenville; ”France cannot send s.h.i.+ps amongst our colonies.” A few Acadians, nevertheless, reached France; they settled in the outskirts of Bordeaux, where their descendants still form the population of two prosperous communes. Others founded in Louisiana settlements which bore the name of Acadia. The crime was consummated: the religious, pacific, inoffensive population, which but lately occupied the neutral land, had completely disappeared. The greedy colonists, who envied them their farms and pasturage, had taken possession of the spoil; Acadia was forever in the power of the Anglo-Saxon race, which was at the same moment invading the valley of the Ohio.

General Braddock had mustered his troops at Wills Creek, in the neighborhood of the Alleghany Mountains. He meditated surprising Fort Duquesne, erected but a short time previously by the French on the banks of the Ohio. The little army was advancing slowly across the mountains and the forests; Braddock divided it into two corps, and placing himself with Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton, who was at that time serving on his staff at the head of twelve hundred men, he pushed forward rapidly. ”Never,” said Was.h.i.+ngton afterwards, ”did I see a finer sight than the departure of the English troops on the 9th of July, 1755; all the men were in full uniform, marching in slow time and in perfect order; the sun was reflected from their glittering arms; the river rolled its waves along on their right, and on their left the vast forest threw over them its mighty shadows. Officers and soldiers were equally joyous and confident of success.”

Twice the attacking column had crossed the Monongahela by fording; it was leaving the plain which extended to some distance from Fort Duquesne, to enter the wood-path, when the advance-guard was all at once brought up by a tremendous discharge of artillery; a second discharge came almost immediately from the right. The English could not see their enemy; they were confused, and fell back upon General Braddock and the main body of the detachment who were coming up to their aid. The disorder soon became extreme. The regular troops, unaccustomed to this kind of warfare, refused to rally, in spite of the efforts of their general, who would have had them manoeuvre as in the plains of Flanders; the Virginia militia alone, recurring to habits of forest warfare, had dispersed, but without flying, hiding themselves behind the trees, and replying to the French or Indian sharpshooters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Death of General Braddock----203]

Before long General Braddock received a mortal wound; his staff had fallen almost to a man; Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton alone, reserved by G.o.d for another destiny, still sought to rally his men. ”I have been protected by the almighty intervention of Providence beyond every human probability,” he wrote to his brother after the action. ”I received four b.a.l.l.s in my clothes, and I had two horses killed under me; nevertheless I came out of it safe and sound, whilst death was sweeping down my comrades around me.” The small English corps was destroyed; the fugitives communicated their terror to the detachment of Colonel Dunbar, who was coming to join them. All the troops disbanded, spiking the guns and burning the munitions and baggage; in their panic the soldiers asked no question save whether the enemy were pursuing them. ”We have been beaten, shamefully beaten,” wrote Was.h.i.+ngton, ”by a handful of French whose only idea was to hamper our march. A few moments before the action we thought our forces almost a match for all those of Canada; and yet, against every probability, we have been completely defeated and have lost everything.” The small French corps, which sallied from Fort Duquesne under the orders of M. de Beaujeu, numbered only two hundred Canadians and six hundred Indians. It was not until three years later, in 1758, that Fort Duquesne, laid in ruins by the defenders themselves, at last fell into the hands of the English, who gave to it, in honor of the great English minister, the name of Pittsburg, which is borne to this day by a flouris.h.i.+ng town.

The courage of the Canadians and the able use they had the wits to make of their savage allies still balanced the fortunes of the war; but the continuance of hostilities betrayed more and more every day the inferiority of the forces and the insufficiency of the resources of the colony. ”The colonists employed in the army, of which they form the greater part, no longer till the lands they had formerly cleared, far from clearing new ones,” wrote the superintendent of Canada; ”the levies about to be made will still further dispeople the country. What will become of the colony? There will be a deficiency of everything, especially of corn; up to the present the intention had been not to raise the levies until the work of spring was over. That indulgence can no longer be accorded, since the war will go on during the winter, and the armies must be mustered as early as the month of April. Besides, the Canadians are decreasing fast; a great number have died of fatigue and disease. There is no, relying,” added the superintendent, ”on the savages save so long as we have the superiority, and so long as all their wants are supplied.” The government determined to send re-enforcements to Canada under the orders of the Marquis of Montcalm.

The new general had had thirty-five years' service, though he was not yet fifty; he had distinguished himself in Germany and in Italy. He was brave, amiable, clever; by turns indolent and bold; skilful in dealing with the Indians, whom he inspired with feelings of great admiration; jealous of the Canadians, their officers and their governor, M. de Vaudreuil; convinced beforehand of the uselessness of all efforts and of the inevitable result of the struggle he maintained with indomitable courage. More intelligent than his predecessor, General Dieskau, who, like Braddock, had fallen through the error of conducting the war in the European fas.h.i.+on, he, nevertheless, had great difficulty in wrenching himself from the military traditions of his whole life. An expedition, in 1756, against Fort Oswego, on the right bank of Lake Ontario, was completely successful; General Webb had no time to relieve the garrison, which capitulated. Bands of Canadians and Indians laid waste Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Montcalm wrote to the minister of war, Rouille, ”It is the first time that, with three thousand men and less artillery, a siege has been maintained against eighteen hundred, who could be readily relieved by two thousand, and who could oppose our landing, having the naval superiority on Lake Ontario. The success has been beyond all expectation. The conduct I adopted on this occasion and the arrangements I ordered are so contrary to the regular rules, that the boldness displayed in this enterprise must look like rashness in Europe.

Therefore, I do beseech you, monseigneur, as the only favor I ask, to a.s.sure his Majesty that, if ever he should be pleased, as I hope, to employ me in his own armies, I will behave differently.”

The same success everywhere attended the arms of the Marquis of Montcalm.

In 1757 he made himself master of Fort William Henry, which commanded the lake of Saint-Sacrement; in 1758 he repulsed with less than four thousand men the attack of General Abercrombie, at the head of sixteen thousand men, on Carillon, and forced the latter to relinquish the sh.o.r.es of Lake Champlain. This was cutting the enemy off once more from the road to Montreal; but Louisbourg, protected in 1757 by the fleet of Admiral Dubois de la Motte, and now abandoned to its own resources, in vain supported an unequal siege; the fortifications were in ruins, the garrison was insufficient notwithstanding its courage and the heroism of the governor, M. de Drucourt. Seconded by his wife, who flitted about the ramparts, cheering and tending the wounded, he energetically opposed the landing of the English, and maintained himself for two months in an almost open place. When he was at last obliged to surrender, on the 26th of July, Louisbourg was nothing but a heap of ruins; all the inhabitants of the islands of St. John and Cape Breton were transported by the victors to France.

Canada had by this time cost France dear; and she silently left it to its miserable fate. In vain did the governor, the general, the commissariat demand incessantly re-enforcements, money, provisions; no help came from France. ”We keep on fighting, nevertheless,” wrote Montcalm to the minister of war, ”and we will bury ourselves, if necessary, under the ruins of the colony.” Famine, the natural result of neglecting the land, went on increasing: the Canadians, hunters and soldiers as they were, had only cleared and cultivated their fields in the strict ratio of their daily wants; there was a lack of hands; every man was under arms; dest.i.tution prevailed everywhere; the inhabitants of Quebec were reduced to siege-rations; the troops complained and threatened to mutiny; the enemy had renewed their efforts: in the campaign of 1758, the journals of the Anglo-American colonies put their land forces at sixty thousand men.

”England has at the present moment more troops in motion on this continent than Canada contains inhabitants, including old men, women, and children,” said a letter to Paris from M. Doreil, war commissioner.

Mr. Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, who had lately, come to the head of the English government, resolved to strike the last blow at the French power in America. Three armies simultaneously invaded Canada; on the 25th of June, 1759, a considerable fleet brought under the walls of Quebec General Wolfe, a young and hopeful officer who had attracted notice at the siege of Louisbourg. ”If General Montcalm succeeds again this year in frustrating our hopes,” said Wolfe, ”he may be considered an able man; either the colony has resources that n.o.body knows of, or our generals are worse than usual.”

Quebec was not fortified; the loss of it involved that of all Canada; it was determined to protect the place by an outlying camp; appeal was made to the Indian tribes, lately zealous in the service of France, but now detached from it by ill fortune and diminution of the advantages offered them, and already for the most part won over by the English. The Canadian colonists, exhausted by war and famine, rose in ma.s.s to defend their capital. The different encampments which surrounded Quebec contained about thirteen thousand soldiers. ”So strong a force had not been reckoned upon,” says an eye-witness, ”because n.o.body had expected to have so large a number of Canadians; but there prevailed so much emulation among this people that there were seen coming into the camp old men of eighty and children of from twelve to thirteen, who would not hear of profiting by the exemption accorded to their age.” The poor cultivators, turned soldiers, brought to the camp their slender resources; the enemy was already devastating the surrounding country.

”It will take them half a century to repair the damage,” wrote an American officer in his journal of the expedition on the St. Lawrence.

The bombardment of Quebec was commencing at the same moment.

For more than a month the town had stood the enemy's fire; all the buildings were reduced to ruins, and the French had not yet budged from their camp of Ange-Gardien. On the 31st of July, General Wolfe, with three thousand men, came and attacked them in front by the River St. Lawrence, and in flank by the River Montmorency. He was repulsed by the firm bravery of the Canadians, whose French impetuosity seemed to have become modified by contact with the rough climates of the north.

Immovable in their trenches, they waited until the enemy was within range; and, when at length they fired, the skill of the practised hunters made fearful havoc in the English ranks. Everywhere repulsed, General Wolfe in despair was obliged to retreat. He all but died of vexation, overwhelmed with the weight of his responsibility. ”I have only a choice of difficulties left,” he wrote to the English cabinet. Aid and encouragement did not fail him.

The forts of Carillon on Lake Champlain and of Niagara on Lake Ontario were both in the hands of the English. A portion of the Canadians had left the camp to try and gather in the meagre crops which had been cultivated by the women and children. In the night between the 12th and 13th of September, General Wolfe made a sudden dash upon the banks of the St. Lawrence; he landed at the creek of Foulon. The officers had replied in French to the _Qui vive_ ( Who goes there?) of the sentinels, who had supposed that what they saw pa.s.sing was a long-expected convoy of provisions; at daybreak the English army was ranged in order of battle on the Plains of Abraham; by evening, the French were routed, the Marquis of Montcalm was dying, and Quebec was lost.