Part 7 (2/2)
The further this work proceeds, the more do we feel that it must take its place as an essentially satisfactory history of the United States.
Mr. Bancroft is thoroughly American in thought and in feeling, without ceasing to have those larger views and n.o.bler sympathies which result from cosmopolitan rather than from local training. His style is original and national. It breathes of the mountain and the prairie--of the great lakes and wild savannahs of his native land. A strain of wild and forest-like music swells up in almost every line. The story is told richly and vividly. It has. .h.i.therto been thought by Americans themselves, even more than by Europeans, that the story of the English colonies presented but a dreary and lifeless succession of petty squabbles between the settlers and the crown officers--of unintelligible persecutions of each other on the ground of differences of opinion in religion. Mr. Bancroft has shown how ill founded has been this impression. In his hands American history is full of fine effects.
Steeped in the colors of his imagination, a thousand incidents. .h.i.therto thought dull appear animated and pictorial. Between Hildreth and Bancroft the difference is immense. In the treatment of the former, dates, facts, events are duly stated--the criticism is keen, the chronology indisputable,--but the figures do not live, the narrative knows no march. The latter is all movement. His men glow with human purposes,--his story sweeps on with the exulting life of a procession.
Yet because Mr. Bancroft contrives to bring out the more romantic aspects of his theme, it is not to be supposed that he fails in that strict regard to truth--truth of character as well as of incident--which is the historian's first duty, and without which all other qualities are useless. Of all American writers who have written on the history of their own country, we would p.r.o.nounce him to be the most conscientious.
His former volumes were remarkable for the amplitude and accuracy of their references. The authorities cited were often recondite and obscure,--yet it was evident that they had been sifted carefully and critically. The same may be said of the volume before us.
Careful research had enabled Mr. Bancroft to throw new light on several points connected with the settlement and early history of his country.
As his dates approach nearer to the present time, the sources of new information open on him in abundance. The MS, additions to our knowledge of the times treated of in these volumes are considerable; but they are spread pretty fairly over the entire narrative--lending a new light to the events and adding a new trait to the characters--rather than thrown into ma.s.ses. The effect produced is more that of greater roundness and completion than of absolute change in old historical verdicts. We quote one out of innumerable instances of these minute but characteristic additions. The historian is speaking of the Duke of Newcastle,--whose ignorant government of the colonies was one of the chief sources of their discontent:--
”For nearly four-and-twenty years he remained minister for British America; yet to the last, the statesman, who was deeply versed in the statistics of elections, knew little of the continent of which he was the guardian. He addressed letters, it used to be confidently said, to 'the island of New England,' and could not tell but that Jamaica was in the Mediterranean. Heaps of colonial memorials and letters remained unread in his office; and a paper was almost sure of neglect unless some agent remained with him to see it opened. His frivolous nature could never glow with affection, or grasp a great idea, or a.n.a.lyze complex relations. After long research, I cannot find that he ever once attended seriously to an American question, or had a clear conception of one American measure.”
Walpole had told us that Newcastle did not know where Jamaica was:--the amusing address ”Island of New England” Mr. Bancroft finds referred to in a ma.n.u.script letter of J. Q. Adams. It serves to suggest that what is usually thought to be a joke of Walpole's was probably the literal truth:--the man who is sufficiently innocent of geography to make New England an island, would have no difficulty in confounding the East and West Indies.
In this volume we first meet with the great character who is to be the hero of the Revolution now looming before the reader. Mr. Bancroft treats us to no full-length portrait of George Was.h.i.+ngton:--instead of a picture he presents us with the man. Was.h.i.+ngton comes before us at twenty-one,--in the chamber of Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia; from whom he is accepting a perilous but most important mission--to cross the forests, rivers, and mountains which separate Williamsburg and Lake Erie, in the depths of a severe winter, and there endeavor to detach the Delaware Indians from the French alliance. All the elements of Was.h.i.+ngton's greatness--his courage, hardihood, military prescience, and merciful disposition--are stamped indelibly on this the first act of his public life:--
”In the middle of November, with an interpreter and four attendants, and Christopher Gist as a guide, he left Will's Creek, and following the Indian trace through forest solitudes, gloomy with the fallen leaves, and solemn sadness of late autumn, across mountains, rocky ravines, and streams, through sleet and snows, he rode in nine days to the fork of the Ohio. How lonely was the spot, where, so long unheeded of men, the rapid Allegheny met nearly at right angles 'the deep and still' water of the Monongahela!
At once Was.h.i.+ngton foresaw the destiny of the place. 'I spent some time,' said he, 'in viewing the rivers;' 'the land in the Fork has the absolute command of both.' 'The flat, well-timbered land all around the point lies very convenient for building.' After creating in imagination a fortress and a city, he and his party swam their horses across the Allegheny, and wrapt their blankets around them for the night, on its northwest bank. From the Fork the chief of the Delawares conducted Was.h.i.+ngton through rich alluvial fields to the pleasing valley at Logstown. There deserters from Louisiana discoursed of the route from New Orleans to Quebec, by way of the Wabash and the Maumee, and of a detachment from the lower province on its way to meet the French troops from Lake Erie, while Was.h.i.+ngton held close colloquy with the half-king; the one anxious to gain the west as a part of the territory of the ancient dominion, the other to preserve it for the Red Men. 'We are brothers,'
said the half-king in council; 'we are one people; I will send back the French speech-belt, and will make the Shawnees and the Delawares do the same.' On the night of the twenty-ninth of November, the council-fire was kindled an aged orator was selected to address the French the speech which he was to deliver was debated and rehea.r.s.ed; it was agreed that, unless the French would heed this third warning to quit the land, the Delawares also would be their enemies; and a very large string of black and white wampun was sent to the Six Nations as a prayer for aid. After these preparations, the party of Was.h.i.+ngton, attended by the half-king, and envoys of the Delawares, moved onwards to the post of the French at Venango. The officers there avowed the purpose of taking possession of the Ohio; and they mingled the praises of La Salle with boasts of their forts at Le Boeuf and Erie, at Niagara, Toronto, and Frontenac. 'The English,' said they, 'can raise two men to our one; but they are too dilatory to prevent any enterprise of ours.' The Delawares were intimidated or debauched; but the half-king clung to Was.h.i.+ngton like a brother, and delivered up his belt as he had promised. The rains of December had swollen the creeks. The messengers could pa.s.s them only by felling trees for bridges. Thus they proceeded, now killing a buck and now a bear, delayed by excessive rains and snows, by mire and swamps, while Was.h.i.+ngton's quick eye discerned all the richness of the meadows. At Waterford, the limit of his journey, he found Fort Le Boeuf defended by cannon. Around it stood the barracks of the soldiers, rude log-cabins, roofed with bark. Fifty birch-bark canoes, and one hundred seventy boats of pine, were already prepared for the descent of the river, and materials were collected for building more. The Commander, Gardeur de St. Pierre, an officer of integrity and experience, and, for his dauntless courage, both feared and beloved by the Red Men, refused to discuss questions of right. 'I am here,' said he, 'by the orders of my general, to which I shall conform with exactness and resolution.' And he avowed his purpose of seizing every Englishman within the Ohio Valley. France was resolved on possessing the great territory which her missionaries and travellers had revealed to the world. Breaking away from courtesies, Was.h.i.+ngton hastened homewards to Virginia. The rapid current of French Creek dashed his party against rocks; in shallow places they waded, the water congealing on their clothes; where the ice had lodged in the bend of the rivers, they carried their canoe across the neck. At Venango, they found their horses, but so weak, the travellers went still on foot, heedless of the storm. The cold increased very fast; the paths grew 'worse by a deep snow continually freezing.' Impatient to get back with his despatches, the young envoy, wrapping himself in an Indian dress, with gun in hand and pack on his back, the day after Christmas quitted the usual path, and, with Gist for his sole companion, by aid of the compa.s.s, steered the nearest way across the country for the Fork. An Indian, who had lain in wait for him, fired at him from not fifteen steps'
distance, but, missing him, became his prisoner. 'I would have killed him,' wrote Gist, 'but Was.h.i.+ngton forbade.'
Dismissing their captive at night, they walked about half a mile, then kindled a fire, fixed their course by the compa.s.s, and continued travelling all night, and all the next day, till quite dark. Not till then did the weary wanderers 'think themselves safe enough to sleep,' and they encamped, with no shelter but the leafless forest-tree. On reaching the Allegheny, with one poor hatchet and a whole day's work, a raft was constructed and launched. But before they were half over the river, they were caught in the running ice, expecting every moment to be crushed, unable to reach either sh.o.r.e. Putting out the setting-pole to stop the raft, Was.h.i.+ngton was jerked into the deep water, and saved himself only by grasping at the raft-logs. They were obliged to make for an island. There lay Was.h.i.+ngton, imprisoned by the elements; but the late December night was intensely cold, and in the morning he found the river frozen. Not till he reached Gist's settlement, in January, 1754, were his toils lightened.”
Was.h.i.+ngton reported the state of affairs on the Lakes,--and active measures were consequently adopted. Of the rapid and brilliant development of his military genius, we are not now to trace the progress; but it is scarcely possible to read without a shudder of ”the hair-breadth 'scapes” of the young man whose life was of such inestimable consequence to his country. Thus, in the battle fought by Braddock--to whom Was.h.i.+ngton acted as aide-de-camp--against the French and Indians in 1755, he appeared to others as well as to himself to bear a charmed life. In this action, says Mr. Bancroft,--
”Of eighty-six officers, twenty-six were killed--among them, Sir Peter Halket,--and thirty-seven were wounded, including Gage and other field officers. Of the men, one half were killed or wounded. Braddock braved every danger. His secretary was shot dead; both his English aids were disabled early in the engagement, leaving the American alone to distribute his orders. 'I expected every moment,' said one whose eye was on Was.h.i.+ngton, 'to see him fall.' Nothing but the superintending care of Providence could have saved him.
An Indian chief--I suppose a Shawnee--singled him out with his rifle, and bade others of his warriors do the same. Two horses were killed under him; four b.a.l.l.s penetrated his coat. 'Some potent Manitou guards his life,' exclaimed the savage. 'Death,' wrote Was.h.i.+ngton, 'was levelling my companions on every side of me, but, by the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected.' 'To the public,' said Davis, a learned divine, in the following month, 'I point out that heroic youth, Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton, whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country.' 'Who is Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton?' asked Lord Halifax, a few months later. 'I know nothing of him,' he added, 'but that they say he behaved in Braddock's action as bravely as if he really loved the whistling of bullets.'”
Thus opened that career of glory, moderation, and success--thus, at the period of nascent manhood were exhibited the marking traits of that serene and devoted character--which have placed the name of Was.h.i.+ngton on the n.o.blest and loftiest pedestal in the Temple of Fame.
Leaving for a while the only figure in that scene of miserable and savage warfare on which the mind can dwell with any degree of trust and satisfaction, we will move to the north-east of the English settlements, and follow the story of the unhappy people of Acadia. Mr. Bancroft has drawn a touching picture of the homely virtues and obscure happiness of this rural population before the interference of the British officers changed their joy into wailing, and endowed their simple annals with a dark and tragic interest:--
”After repeated conquests and restorations, the treaty of Utrecht conceded Acadia, or Nova Scotia, to Great Britain.
Yet the name of Annapolis, the presence of a feeble English garrison, and the emigration of hardly five or six English families, were nearly all that marked the supremacy of England. The old inhabitants remained on the soil which they had subdued, hardly conscious that they had changed their sovereign. They still loved the language and the usages of their forefathers, and their religion was graven upon their souls. They promised submission to England; but such was the love with which France had inspired them, they would not fight against its standard or renounce its name. Though conquered they were French neutrals. For nearly forty years from the peace of Utrecht they had been forgotten or neglected, and had prospered in their seclusion. No tax-gatherer counted their folds, no magistrate dwelt in their hamlets. The parish priests made their records and regulated their successions. Their little disputes were settled among themselves, with scarcely an instance of an appeal to English authority at Annapolis. The pastures were covered with their herds and flocks; and dikes, raised by extraordinary efforts of social industry, shut out the rivers and the tide from alluvial marshes of exuberant fertility. The meadows, thus reclaimed, were covered by richest gra.s.ses, or fields of wheat, that yielded fifty and thirty fold at the harvest. Their houses were built in cl.u.s.ters, neatly constructed and comfortably furnished, and around them all kinds of domestic fowls abounded. With the spinning-wheel and the loom, their women made, of flax from their own fields, of fleeces from their own flock, coa.r.s.e, but sufficient clothing. The few foreign luxuries that were coveted could be obtained from Annapolis or Louisburgh, in return for furs, or wheat, or cattle. Thus were the Acadians happy in their neutrality and in the abundance which they drew from their native land. They formed, as it were, one great family. Their morals were of unaffected purity. Love was sanctified and calmed by the universal custom of early marriages. The neighbors of the community would a.s.sist the new couple to raise their cottage, while the wilderness offered land. Their numbers increased, and the colony, which had begun only as the trading station of a company, with a monopoly of the fur trade, counted, perhaps, sixteen or seventeen thousand inhabitants.”
The transfer of this colony from French to English rule could not fail to be productive of some untoward results. The native priests feared the introduction among them of heretical opinions:--the British officers treated the people with insolent contempt. ”Their papers and records”
says our historian, ”were taken from them” by their new masters:--
”Was their property demanded for the public service? 'they were not to be bargained with for the payment.' The order may still be read on the Council records at Halifax. They must comply, it was written, without making any terms, 'immediately,' or 'the next courier would bring an order for military execution upon the delinquents.' And when they delayed in fetching firewood for their oppressors, it was told them from the governor, 'If they do not do it in proper time, the soldiers shall absolutely take their houses for fuel.' The unoffending sufferers submitted meekly to the tyranny. Under pretence of fearing that they might rise in behalf of France, or seek shelter in Canada, or convey provisions to the French garrisons, they were ordered to surrender their boats and their firearms; and, conscious of innocence, they gave up their barges and their muskets, leaving themselves without the means of flight, and defenceless. Further orders were afterwards given to the English officers, if the Acadians behaved amiss to punish them at discretion; if the troops were annoyed, to inflict vengeance on the nearest, whether the guilty one or not,--'taking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'”
There is no reason to believe that these atrocious orders were not executed in the spirit in which they had been conceived. But worse remained to come:--
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