Part 8 (2/2)
The young Virginian and his riflemen leaped behind trees and rocks and fought the Indians in their own way. All was confusion. Braddock acted bravely. He had five horses killed under him. He did all that a valiant man in such a situation could do; but it was in vain.
=116. Was.h.i.+ngton saves Braddock's Army from Destruction.=--Was.h.i.+ngton and his Virginia rangers saved Braddock's army from destruction. The French and the Indians knew well the tall figure of Was.h.i.+ngton, who was in the thickest of the fight, and they kept firing at him. Two horses were shot under him. Four bullets pa.s.sed through his clothing, but he did not receive a scratch.
Many years afterwards an old Indian chief came to see Was.h.i.+ngton, and told him that he had fired from ambush on the dreadful day of Braddock's defeat, and both he and his young warriors had often aimed at him as he rode about delivering the general's orders; but as they could not hit him, they had concluded that he was under the protection of the Great Spirit and could not be slain in battle.
Braddock was at last hit. He sank to the ground mortally wounded. ”What is to be done now?” he faintly asked. ”We must retreat,” replied Was.h.i.+ngton.
A retreat was ordered, and Was.h.i.+ngton and his riflemen defended the rear so well that what was left of the routed army at last reached a place of safety. More than seven hundred of them had fallen, including Braddock himself and three-fourths of his officers. What a penalty the proud British general paid for refusing to take good advice!
=117. The Virginians fight desperately for their Homes.=--The French were now left in full possession of all the region west of the Alleghanies.
The Indians took advantage of the situation to make fresh attacks upon the Virginia colonists.
The Virginians fought with desperation for their homes. Was.h.i.+ngton was put in command of the forces. He wrote that ”the supplicating tears of the women and the moving pet.i.tions of the men melted him into deadly sorrow.” Three years after the Braddock calamity, Was.h.i.+ngton again marched his men through the woods against Fort Du Quesne and recaptured it.
The capture of this stronghold was an important event to the colonists, for a highway which was never afterwards closed was then opened to the great West. The name of the fort was changed to Pittsburgh, in honor of England's ill.u.s.trious prime minister, William Pitt, who had planned the expedition.
It was just this experience in hard fighting against the French and Indians that providentially aided in fitting Was.h.i.+ngton to win success as commander-in-chief of the American forces in the fast approaching war of the Revolution.
=118. Quebec, the carefully guarded Stronghold.=--We must remember that there had been fighting for nearly two years in America before England really declared war against France in 1756. During this time the French had held the mastery, and the English had met with sad reverses. A new leader had now come into power in England, the great statesman, William Pitt.
The influence of this remarkable man changed the course of affairs as if by magic. He fully understood America's greatest needs. From this time the English were everywhere successful. Important forts were taken from the French, such as Niagara, Ticonderoga, and Crown Point.
There was only one great stronghold left to the French. This was Quebec on the St. Lawrence. It was not only one of the strongest fortresses in the world, but it was commanded by the Marquis de Montcalm, one of the ablest generals of his time.
=119. How Quebec was taken.=--A brave young officer, General Wolfe, was sent out from England to command the attack on Quebec. The outlook was enough to discourage any one, however experienced and skillful. The fort itself is on a high point of land overlooking the city. The English troops were on the river-bank, hundreds of feet below.
Every movement of the English was reported at once to the French. Wolfe was at first repulsed at every point. One day, as he was reconnoitering, he discovered a steep and narrow path which led up the precipitous bluff to a level spot known as the Plains of Abraham. He made up his mind to climb it with his men.
Soon afterwards the English troops were quietly rowed down the river, under the cover of darkness, to a little bay since known as Wolfe's Cove. As the young English general glided along in his boat, he quoted extracts from Gray's ”Elegy in a Country Churchyard.” As he repeated the stanza beginning, ”The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,” he said that he would rather have written that poem than take Quebec. The little pathway was reached. Wolfe leaped first on sh.o.r.e. Under his leaders.h.i.+p the English soldiers climbed the steep.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WOLFE'S MEN CLIMBING TO THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM.]
At sunrise on the morning of Sept. 13, 1759, the British army, five thousand strong, stood on the Plains of Abraham. Great was the amazement of the French general, for he thought it impossible for any one to scale the cliffs. Montcalm chose to come out of the fortress and fight the English on the open ground. This was a fatal mistake, for after a fierce struggle the French were defeated.
In the hour of victory Wolfe was fatally wounded. While dying he heard the cry, ”They run! they run!” Rousing himself he asked, ”Who run?” Upon being told it was the French he exclaimed: ”Now G.o.d be praised; I will die in peace!” Montcalm was also fatally wounded. When told he could not live, the gallant Frenchman cried out, ”So much the better; I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec!”
The French retired within their fortifications, but in a few days Quebec was surrendered into the hands of the English. The fate of Canada was decided by the fall of this city.
=120. The End of the War and the Result.=--Although the victory at Quebec practically ended the French and Indian War, it was not until 1763 that peace was declared. By the treaty France gave up to England the whole of Canada, together with all the territory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, except the city of New Orleans. She retained a few barren islands near Newfoundland as a shelter for her fishermen. The vast region spreading westward from the Mississippi towards the Pacific, under the name Louisiana, together with the city of New Orleans, was made over to Spain.
CHAPTER IX.
EVERYDAY LIFE IN COLONIAL TIMES.
=121. Severe and Curious Punishments.=--In the early colonial times the laws were for the most part rigid and the punishments severe. Criminals were occasionally branded with a hot iron. If a man shot a fowl on Sunday, he was often publicly whipped. Small offenses were punished in a way which would not be tolerated in our times. A woman who had been complained of as a scold was placed in front of her house with a stick tied in her mouth. Sometimes a common scold was fastened to what was known as a ”ducking stool” at one end of a seesaw plank, and ducked in a pond or river!
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