BOOK IX CHAPTER I

From the East the course of our history leads us by rapid transition to the great continent of the West. The English claim to the sovereignty of North America dated from the reign of Henry the Seventh, under whose patronage Sebastian Cabot had made his great discoveries; but it was the Spaniards who first approached the unknown land and gave it the name of Florida, and it was a Frenchman, Denis of Honfleur, who first explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence. So also it was a Frenchman, Jacques Cartier, who gave its name to that noble river, and the name of Mount Royal or Montreal to the hill on which the city now stands. Full sixty years passed away before further attempt was made to found European settlements on the North American continent, and then English and French took the work in hand well-nigh simultaneously. In 1603 De Monts obtained permission from the French king to colonise Acadia,[237] discovered and planted the harbour called by him Port Royal and by the English at a later date Annapolis Royal, and explored the coast southward as far as that Plymouth where the Pilgrim Fathers were to land in 1621. The attempt of De Monts was a failure, and it was left to Samuel Champlain to begin the work anew by the founding of Quebec and by the establishment of Montreal at once as a gateway for Indian trade and a bulwark against Indian invasion.[242] To him was due the exploration of the river Richelieu and of the lake which bears his name, as far as the two headlands which were afterwards to become famous under the names of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. In Champlain's wake followed the Jesuit missionaries, whose history presents so curious a mixture of that which is highest and lowest in human nature. Lastly, to Champlain must be ascribed not only the final settlement of the French in Canada but the initiation of the French policy of meddling with the internal politics of the Indian tribes.
1613.

Meanwhile an English Company of Adventurers for Virginia had established a first settlement on the James river, just three-and-twenty years after Raleigh's abortive attempt to accomplish the same feat. The rival nations had not been settled in North America five years before they came into collision. The English claimed the whole continent in virtue of Cabot's discoveries, and the English Governor of Virginia enforced the claim by sending a ship to Acadia, which demolished the Jesuit settlement at Port Royal and carried the settlers prisoners to Jamestown.
1621.

A few years later a Scottish nobleman, Sir William Alexander, afterwards Earl of Stirling, obtained a grant from James the First of the territory which, in compliment to his native land, he christened Nova Scotia, and planted a colony there. Finally, in 1627, during the war with France, a company of London merchants, inspired chiefly by two brothers named Kirke, sent an expedition up the St. Lawrence, which captured Quebec, established settlements in Cape Breton, and in a word made the conquest of Canada. Unfortunately, however, Charles the First, then as always impecunious, allowed these important acquisitions to be restored to France at the Peace of 1632 for the paltry sum of fifty thousand pounds. The conquering merchants protested but in vain, pleading passionately for the retention at any rate of Quebec. "If the King keep it," they wrote, "we do not care what the French or any other can do, though[243] they have an hundred sail of ships and ten thousand men."[238] So truly was appreciated, even in the seventeenth century, the strategic value of that famous and romantic fortress.
1654.
1667.

Still even so Acadia[239] was not yet permanently lost, for in 1654 Major Sedgwicke, who had been sent by Cromwell to attack the Dutch settlements on the Hudson, took the opportunity to capture the French ports at St. Johns, Port Royal and Penobscot, and restored Acadia to England once more. With England it remained until 1667, when it was finally made over to France by the Treaty of Breda. Thus was established the French dominion in what is now called Canada.
1621.

Meanwhile, in the same year as had seen the first British settlement in Nova Scotia, English emigrants had landed at New Plymouth and founded the New England which was destined to swallow up New France. King James granted the infant settlement a charter of incorporation, encouraged it, and in 1625 declared by proclamation that the territories of Virginia and New England should form part of his empire.[240] The next step was the foundation of a distinct colony at Massachusetts Bay in 1628, which was erected into a corporation two years later and soon increased to a thousand persons. In 1635 yet another settlement was formed at Connecticut by emigrants from Massachusetts; and in the same year the intolerance of his fellow-settlers in Massachusetts drove Roger Williams afield to found the colony of Rhode Island. Finally, in 1638, another secession brought about the establishment of New Haven. The settlers had left England, as they pleaded, to find liberty of conscience; but as the majority understood by this phrase no more than licence to coerce the consciences of others, the few that really sought religious liberty wandered far before they found it.

[244]
1644.

A very few years sufficed to assure the preponderance of Massachusetts in the Northern Colonies. It widened its borders, absorbed the scattered settlements of New Hampshire and Maine, and in 1644 took its place at the head of the four federated colonies of New England.[241] The distraction caused by the Civil War in Britain left the colonies practically free from all control by the mother country, and Massachusetts seized the opportunity to erect a theocracy, which was utterly at variance with the terms of her charter, and to assume, together with the confederacy of New England, the airs and privileges of an independent State. The ambitious little community coined her own money, negotiated with the French in Acadia without reference to England, refused to trade with other colonies that were loyal to the King's cause, resented the appointment by the Long Parliament of Commissioners for the administration of the colonies, and hinted to Cromwell that the side which she might take in the Dutch war of 1653 would depend entirely on the treatment which she might receive from him. As her reward she received the privilege of exemption from the restrictions of the Navigation Acts.
1660.
1684.

Then came the Restoration; and the confederacy of New England quickly fell to pieces. Connecticut received a separate charter, under which she absorbed New Haven; and Rhode Island obtained a separate charter likewise. Massachusetts being thus left isolated, Charles the Second determined to inquire into the many complaints made against her of violation of her charter. The colonists replied by setting their militia in order as if for armed resistance; but on reconsideration decided to fall back on smooth words, false promises, false statements, and skilful procrastination. Such methods might seem at first sight to be misplaced in a community of saints, such as Massachusetts boasted herself to be, but at least they were never employed without previous invocation of the Divine guidance. For twenty years[245] the colonists contrived to keep the Royal authority at arm's length, till at last, after long forbearance on the side of Whitehall, the charter was cancelled by legal process, and Massachusetts was restored to her dependence on the mother country.

In the course of these years the English settlements in North America had multiplied rapidly. Maryland had been granted to Lord Baltimore in 1632; Carolina was planted by a company in 1663; Delaware with New Jersey was assigned by patent to the Duke of York, afterwards James the Second, in 1664, and Pennsylvania to William Penn in 1680. In fact, by the close of Charles the Second's reign the British seaboard in North America extended from the river St. Croix[242] in the north to the river Savannah in the south. But of all England's acquisitions during this period the most momentous was that of the Dutch settlements on the Hudson, captured in 1664 by Colonel Nicolls, who gave to the town of New Amsterdam its now famous name of New York.[243] One chief advantage of New York was that it possessed a direct way to the west from Albany, on the Hudson, up the Mohawk River to Lake Oneida and so to Lake Ontario, whereby it had access to the great fur-trade with the Indians. But this consideration, important though it was commercially, paled before the strategical significance of the port of New York. No more simple method of explaining this can be found than to quote the belief held by many of the English emigrants before they sailed, that New England was an island. In a sense this is almost true, the country being surrounded by the sea, to north, east, and south, and by the rivers Hudson and St. Lawrence to the west. Champlain had already paddled up the Richelieu [246]to Lake Champlain with the design of passing through Lake George, carrying his canoes to the head-waters of the Hudson and re-embarking for a voyage down the river to the sea. He had in fact chosen the highway of lakes and rivers on which the principal battles for the possession of the New World were to be fought. The northern key of that highway was Quebec, the southern New York. France possessed the one, and England the other. The power that should hold both would hold the whole continent.
1670.
1673.
1678.
1680.

Let us now turn for a moment to the proceedings of the French during these same years. Unlike the English, who stuck sedulously to the work of making their settlement self-supporting by agriculture, they were intent rather on trading with the Indians for fur and exploring the vast territory which lay to south and west of them. To these objects may be added the salvation of the souls of the Indian tribes; for beyond all doubt it was zeal for the conversion, or at any rate for the baptism, of these savages that led the Jesuits through endless hardship and danger into the heart of the continent. As early as 1613 Champlain had travelled up the Ottawa by way of Lake Nipissing and French River to Lake Huron, returning by Lake Simcoe and Lake Ontario. Jesuit missionaries followed the same track in 1634, and established a mission on the peninsula that juts out from the eastern shore of Lake Huron. From thence they spread to Lakes Superior and Michigan, erecting mission-houses and taking possession of vast tracts of land and water in the name of King Lewis the Fourteenth. Shortly after the restoration of King Charles the Second, Jean Talon, Intendant of Canada, formed the resolution of getting in rear of the English settlements and confining the settlers to a narrow strip of the sea-board; his plan being to secure the rivers that formed the highways of the interior, and to follow them, if they should prove to flow thither, to the Gulf of Mexico, so as to hold both British and Spaniards in check. A young adventurer, named Robert Lasalle, appeared at the right[247] moment as a fit instrument to his hand. In 1670 Lasalle passed through the strait, still called Detroit, which leads from Lake Huron to Lake Erie, reached a branch of the Ohio and made his way for some distance down that river. Three years later a Jesuit, Joliet, striking westward from the western shore of Lake Michigan, descended the Wisconsin and followed the Mississippi to the junction of the Arkansas. In 1678 an expedition under Lasalle explored the passage from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, and discovered the Falls of Niagara, where Lasalle, with immediate appreciation of the strategic value of the position, proceeded to build a fort. Finally, in 1680, Lasalle penetrated from the present site of Chicago on Lake Michigan to the northern branch of the River Illinois, paddled down to the Mississippi, and after five months of travel debouched into the Gulf of Mexico. He took nominal possession of all the country through which he passed; and the vast territory between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains from the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico to the uppermost waters of the Missouri were annexed to the French crown under the name of Louisiana.

The next step was to secure the advantages that should accrue from the discoveries of Lasalle. To this end the fort at Niagara had already been built; and Fort Frontenac was next erected at the northern outlet of Lake Ontario to cut off the English from trade with the Indians. At the strait of Michillimackinac, between Lakes Huron and Michigan, a Jesuit mission sufficiently provided for the same object. Besides these there were established Fort Miamis by the south-eastern shore of Lake Michigan, to bar the passage from the lake to the Upper Illinois, Fort St. Louis, near the present site of Utica, to secure the trade with the tribes on the plains of the Illinois, and yet another fort on the Lower Mississippi.
1682.
1687.
1688.
1689.

Such a monopoly of the Indian trade was by no means to the taste of the British and Dutch, nor of the Five Indian Nations, better known by the French name[248] of Iroquois, whom they had taken under their special protection. Nevertheless, in their simple plodding industry, their zeal for religious controversy and their interminable squabbles over their boundaries, the English colonies took little heed to what was going on in the continent behind them. One man alone saw the danger from the first, namely, Colonel Thomas Dongan, an officer who had begun his career in the French army, but had left it for the British, and after some service at Tangier had been sent out as Governor to New York. Dongan, however, was at first unsupported either by the Government at Whitehall or by the neighbouring colonies. His protests were vigorous to discourtesy, but he had small means for enforcing them. One resource indeed he did possess, namely the friendship of the Iroquois, who were the dominant tribes of the continent; for with all their subtle policy and their passion for interference with native affairs, the French had never succeeded in alienating the Iroquois—who covered the flank of New York and New England towards Canada—from their alliance with the British. Dongan therefore assiduously cultivated a good understanding with these Indians against the moment when he should be allowed to act. Meanwhile the French went yet further in aggression. They destroyed the factories of the Hudson's Bay Company; they treacherously entrapped and captured a number of Iroquois at Fort Frontenac, plundered English traders, and repaired and strengthened the fort built by Lasalle at Niagara. Dongan's indignation rose to a dangerous height; and now at last came a reply from England to his previous reports, and an order to repel further aggression on the Iroquois by force. Assembling a force of local militia at Albany he first insisted on the destruction of the fort at Niagara; and then the Iroquois burst in upon Canada and spread terror to the very gates of Montreal. It was just at this crisis that William of Orange displaced James the Second on the throne of England, and that war broke out between England and France. Therewith New[249] England and New France entered upon a conflict which was to last with little intermission for the next seventy years.

Judging from mere numbers the contest between the rival colonies should have been short, for the population of New England was over ninety thousand, whereas that of Canada did not exceed twelve thousand. But this disparity was more than equalised by other advantages of the French. In the first place, they were compact, united, and under command of one man, who was an able and experienced soldier. In the second, a large proportion of the inhabitants had undergone long military training, the French king offering bounties both of money and of land to officers and soldiers who should consent to remain in the colony. The chief delight of the male population was not the tilling of the soil; they loved rather to hunt and fish, and live the free and fascinating life of an Indian in the forest. Every man therefore was a skilful woodsman, a good marksman, a handy canoe-man, and in a word admirably trained for forest-fighting. Finally, there was a permanent garrison of regular troops, which never fell below, and very often exceeded, fifteen hundred men.

The English settler, on the other hand, knew little of the forest. When not engaged in husbandry he was a fisherman in his native heritage, the sea. Every colony had its own militia, which legally included, as a rule, the whole male population between the ages of sixteen and sixty. In the early days of North American settlement the colonists had been at pains to bring with them trained officers who could give them instruction in the military art. Such an officer was Miles Standish, who had served with the English troops in the Dutch service; such another was Captain John Underhill, who had fought in Ireland, Spain, and the Low Countries, and was reputed a friend of Maurice of Nassau. Under such leaders, in 1637, seventy-seven colonists had boldly attacked an encampment of four hundred Indian warriors and virtually annihilated them; giving, in fact, as fine an[250] exposition of the principles of savage warfare as is to be found in our history.[244] In 1653 again, New England, once assured of Cromwell's favour, made great and expensive preparations for an attack on the Dutch; and Massachusetts supplied two hundred volunteers to Nicolls for the capture of New York in 1664.
1680.
1686.

But as time went on the military efficiency of the colonies decreased; and in the war against the Indian chief, Philip, in 1671, the settlers suffered disaster upon disaster. The officers possessed neither skill nor knowledge; and the men, though they showed no lack of bravery and tenacity, were wholly innocent of discipline. Moreover, they shared the failing of the English militia of the same period, that they were unwilling to go far from their own homes. Again, since the confederacy of New England had been broken up, the jealousy and selfishness of the several provinces had weakened them for military efficiency. In the great peril of 1671 Rhode Island, being full of Quakers, would not move a finger to help her neighbours, and Connecticut, exasperated by extreme provocation, actually armed herself a few years later to inflict punishment on the cantankerous little community.[245] Within the several provinces again there was no great unanimity, and in fact in the event of a war with France every advantage of skill, of unity, and of prompt and rapid action lay with the French. James the Second, who saw the peril of the situation, tried hard to mend matters during his brief reign by uniting New England, New York, and New Jersey under the rule of a single governor, Sir Edmund Andros, an officer of the Guards. The experiment from one point of view was statesmanlike enough, but as it could not be tried without abolishing the representative assemblies of the various states, it defeated its own object by its extreme unpopularity.

[251]

The military aid furnished to the American colonies from home throughout this early period was infinitesimal. New England had never appealed to the mother country for help even in her utmost need. An independent company of regular troops was formed for the garrison of New York while the Duke of York was proprietor, and another company was also maintained for a short time in Virginia; but the first troops of the standing army to visit America were a mixed battalion of the First and Coldstream Guards, which crossed the Atlantic to suppress the Virginian rebellion of 1677. When Andros assumed his government in 1686 he brought with him a second company of soldiers from England. These were the first red-coats ever seen in Boston, and they have the credit of having taught New England to "drab, drink, blaspheme, curse and damn," a lesson which, as I understand, has not been forgotten. Thus though the militia of the colonies under Andros might muster a nominal total of ten or twelve thousand men, these two companies were all that he could have brought to meet the thirty-two or more companies of regular troops in Montreal and Quebec.
1689.

The outbreak of the war in 1689 brought back an efficient soldier, Count Frontenac, to the government of Canada. He knew the country well, having already served there as Governor from 1672 to 1682, and in that capacity seconded the great designs of Lasalle. On his arrival he at once made preparations for an advance on Albany by Lakes Champlain and George and for a rapid movement against New York. The project fortunately issued in no more than a general massacre of the inhabitants on the northern frontier of New York; but when that province called in alarm upon New England for assistance, it was found that Massachusetts had risen in revolution at the news of King James's fall, had imprisoned Andros, and through sheer perversity had cancelled all his military dispositions for the protection of New Hampshire and Maine. The Indians accordingly swept down upon the[252] defenceless borders and made frightful havoc with fire and sword.
1690.
1691.

In the following year the colonies of New York and New England met in congress and agreed to make a counter-stroke against Canada. More remarkable still, Massachusetts for the first time appealed to England for military aid in the furtherance of this enterprise; though, as may be guessed by those who have followed me through the story of King William's difficulties, the appeal was perforce rejected. The colonies therefore resolved to act alone, and despatched fifteen hundred troops by the usual line of inland waterways against Montreal, and thirty-two ships under Sir William Phips against Quebec. The expedition by land soon broke down on its way through dissension, indiscipline, and disease; and the fleet, though it made an easy conquest of Acadia, failed miserably before Quebec. The next year a small force from New York made a second futile raid into Canada; but for the most part the English colonies were content to hound on their Indian allies against the French. The French on their side retaliated in kind, and, as circumstances gave them opportunity, with still greater barbarity. Hundreds of defenceless settlers on the border were thus slaughtered without the slightest military advantage. Frontenac wrote repeated letters to his master urging him to determine the possession of the continent once for all by sending a fleet to capture New York; but either Lewis's hands were too full or he failed to appreciate the wisdom of Frontenac's counsel, for in any case, fortunately, he left New York unmolested.
1697.

The sphere of operations widened itself over Acadia and Newfoundland, and the war dragged on in a desultory fashion with raid and counter-raid, generally to the advantage of the French. To the last the English colonies were blind to the importance of the issue at stake. Jealous, self-centred, and undisciplined, many of them took no part whatever in the war; two only, New England and New York, rose to aggressive[253] action, which, though the stroke was wisely aimed against the tap-root of French power, failed utterly from lack of organisation and discipline. The French struck always at strategic points where their blow would tell with full force and weight. The colonists in their insane jealousy of the crown neglected the defence of these strategic points simply because it was enjoined by the mother country, and refused to provide the contingents of troops requested by the English commander-in-chief.[246] In fine, when the Peace of Ryswick ended the war, the French could reckon that they had achieved one great success; they had broken the power of the most formidable of the Indians, the Iroquois.

Massachusetts, which had suffered heavily from the war, found herself at its close obliged once more to invoke the assistance of England. In an address to the King she prayed for his orders to the several colonial governments to give their assistance against French and Indians, for a supply of ammunition, for the protection of a fleet, and for aid in the reduction of Canada, "the unhappy fountain," as they wrote, "from which issue all our miseries." So far, therefore, the war had taught one useful lesson; but, indeed, even at the time of her greatest disloyalty to the English crown Massachusetts had always soundly hated the French. Obviously closer union of the colonies for military purposes could not but be for the general advantage, and sundry schemes were prepared to promote it; but all alike were unsuccessful, though nothing could be more certain than that further trouble was ahead.
1702.
1707.
1709.

The renewal of war in 1702 brought the usual raids of Indians, stirred up by the French, upon the borders of the English colonies. These barbarous inroads, which meant the massacre and torture of innocent settlers, could serve no military end except to commit the Indians to hostility with the English, and naturally aroused the[254] fiercest resentment. The colonies, however, once again showed neither unity nor zeal for the common cause. New York evinced an apathy which was little short of criminal, Connecticut long held aloof, Rhode Island only after infinite haggling supplied grudging instalments of men and money. Massachusetts alone, true to her traditions, showed some vigour and spirit and actually made an attack on Port Royal in Acadia, choosing that point because it could be reached by sea. The expedition, however, failed with more than usual discredit owing to ignorance and unskilfulness in the commanders and utter indiscipline among the troops. Then the colonies wisely decided that it was useless to attempt to choke the fountain of all their miseries except at its head. An address was sent to Queen Anne praying for help in the conquest of Nova Scotia and Canada, which was favourably received; and for the first time operations were concerted for a joint attack of imperial and colonial troops upon the French in North America. England was to supply a fleet and five regiments of the regular Army, Massachusetts and Rhode Island were to furnish twelve hundred men more, and these forces united were to attempt Quebec; while fifteen hundred men from the other colonies, except from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which selfishly kept apart, were to advance upon Montreal by Lake Champlain. The troops of Massachusetts were mustered and drilled by British officers sent across the Atlantic for the purpose, and all signs pointed to a great and decisive effort. In due time the western contingent advanced towards Lake Champlain, by way of Albany and the Hudson, building on their way a fort at the carrying-place from the Hudson, which we shall know better as Fort Edward, and a second fort at Wood Creek, where the journey by water to Lake George was recommenced, called Fort Anne. There the little column halted, for the brunt of the work was to fall on the fleet which was expected from England. The weeks flew on, but the fleet never appeared. The disaster of Almanza had upset all[255] calculations and disconcerted all arrangements; and the great enterprise was perforce abandoned.
1710.
1711.

In July of the following year, however, an expedition on a smaller scale met with more success. A joint fleet of the Royal Navy and of colonial vessels, together with four regiments from New England and one of British marines, sailed against Port Royal, captured it after a trifling resistance, and changed its name to that which it still bears, of Annapolis Royal. Nova Scotia had changed hands many times, but from henceforth it was to remain British. Thus for the first time a British armament interposed seriously in the long strife between French and English in America. It was the beginning of the end, and of the end of more than French rule over the continent. "If the French colonies should fall," wrote a French officer at the time, "Old England will not imagine that these various provinces will then unite, shake off the yoke of the English monarchy, and erect themselves into a democracy."[247] The idea of the capture of Canada, however, took root just at this time in the new English Ministry, where Bolingbroke and Harley had succeeded in ousting Marlborough from office. The conquest of New France would, they conceived, be a fine exploit to set off against the victories of the great Duke. Massachusetts seconded the project with extraordinary zeal, and in July 1711 a British fleet with seven regular regiments on board sailed into Boston harbour. The disastrous issue of this enterprise has already been told. Bad seamanship cast eight of the transports on the rocks in the St. Lawrence, and seven hundred soldiers were drowned. General Hill and Admiral Walker were not the men to persist in the face of such a mishap, and the whole design was abandoned with disgraceful alacrity. The expedition was in fact simply a political move, conceived by factious politicians for factious ends instead of by military men for the benefit of the country, and accordingly it fared as such expeditions must inevitably fare.

[256]
1713.

Finally came the Peace of Utrecht, which gave England permanent possession of Newfoundland and of Acadia, though still without settlement of the vexed question as to the boundaries of the ceded province. These acquisitions entailed an increase of the British garrisons in America, as has already been told; but the entire strength of the British regular troops in New York, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland did not exceed nine hundred men. The French, for their part, after the loss of Acadia betook themselves to Cape Breton, or, as they called it, L'Ile Royale, and set themselves forthwith to establish in one of the harbours a post which should command the access to Canada, and form a base for future aggression against New England and Nova Scotia. A haven, named Port à l'Anglais, on the east coast was selected, and there was built the fort of Louisburg, the strongest on the Atlantic coast, and as the French loved to call it, the Dunkirk of America. The establishment of this fortress was one of those costly follies to which the French are prone, when failure and defeat allow them no outlet for their vexation and their spite. The climate absolutely forbade the construction of an elaborate stronghold of masonry. Fog and rain prevented mortar from setting all through the short spring and summer, fog and frost split mortar and stones and demolished walls every winter. Repairs were endless, yet the fortress was never in good repair, and the expense was intolerable. Lastly, such a stronghold was worthless without supremacy at sea.
1724.

But the French did not stop here. They lost no opportunity of stirring up the Acadians to discontent and of inflaming the Indians against the British both in Acadia and in New England. The result was a series of raids on the Kennebec, where the French, in order to guard the line of advance on Quebec by that river and Lake Chaudière, had established a chain of mission-stations. The colonists, goaded to exasperation, at last rooted out these missions by force, though not until after long delay owing to the perversity of the Assembly[257] of Massachusetts, which, always jealous of the English Governor, wished to take the control of operations out of his hand into their own, never doubting that their rustic ignorance would be as efficient as the tried skill of one of Marlborough's veterans.
1727.

So this state of outward peace and of covert war continued. France, despite the concessions made at the Peace of Utrecht, still claimed the whole of the North American continent, with some few trifling exceptions, and took every measure to make good her claim. A new fort was erected at Niagara; another fort was built at Chambly to cover Montreal from any English attack by way of Lake Champlain, and in 1731 a massive stronghold of masonry was constructed at Crown Point, on the western shore of the same lake, and christened Fort Frédéric. The ground on which this last fort stood was within the bounds claimed by New York, but the province was too busy over quarrels with her neighbour, New Jersey, to interpose. So although New York and New England alike denounced the encroachment furiously, neither the one nor the other would lift a finger to prevent it. The one movement made by the colonists in counterpoise to the ceaseless activity of the French was the establishment of a fortified trading station at Oswego on Lake Ontario, as a rival to the French post at Niagara. Even this work was done not by the colonists but by Governor Burnet of New York at his own expense; and the debt due to him from the province on this account has never been liquidated to this day.
1744.
1745.
June 17.

Thus matters drifted on until the war of the Austrian Succession. Then, as usual, the French at Louisburg received warning of the outbreak before the English at Boston, and the imperial garrisons at Annapolis Royal and at Canseau were overpowered and captured by the French without an effort. But now the colonists with superb audacity resolved to take the bull by the horns and to attack the French in the most formidable of their strongholds, Louisburg itself. The moving spirit in[258] the enterprise was Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, an Englishman by nationality and a barrister by training, who thought himself a born strategist; and the commander whom he selected was one William Pepperrell, a prosperous merchant of New England, whose father had emigrated as a poor man from his native Devon and had made his fortune. Pepperrell had neither education nor experience in military matters, but he had shrewd good sense; while, being popular, he was likely to command the respect and obedience of his undisciplined troops. After some trouble the Provincial Assemblies were coaxed into approval of the design; four thousand men were raised in New England, a small fleet of armed vessels was collected for the protection of the transports, and the little expedition sailed to its rendezvous at Canseau, some fifty miles from Louisburg. Here by good luck it was joined by a British squadron under Commodore Warren, which threw in its lot with it; and the army of amateurs with its escort of hardy seamen proceeded with a light heart to the siege of the Dunkirk of America. The account of the operations is laughable in the extreme, though the French found them no matter for laughter. Skilled engineers the besiegers had none, and few if any skilled artillerymen, but they went to work with the best of spirits and good humour in their own casual fashion, which puzzled the French far more than a regular siege in form. To be brief, with the help of gunners from the fleet and of extraordinary good fortune they succeeded in capturing the fortress after a siege of six weeks. The performance is certainly one of the curiosities of military history, but must be passed over in this place since it forms no part of the story of the British Army.[248] The colonists were not a little proud of the feat, and with right good reason. Nor did their gallant efforts pass without recognition in England. Pepperrell, who had amply justified Shirley's choice, was created a baronet; and on[259] Warren's suggestion[249] the remains of the colonial troops were taken into English pay and formed into two regiments, with Pepperrell and Shirley for their colonels.
1746.

Though the colonial garrison suffered terribly from pestilence during the ensuing winter,[250] Shirley was anxious to complete the conquest of Canada in 1746; and Newcastle received his proposals with encouragement at Whitehall. Three British regiments—the Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth, and Forty-fifth—arrived in April to occupy Louisburg, and Newcastle promised five battalions more under Lieutenant-General St. Clair, together with a fleet under Warren, to aid in the operations. It was agreed that the British and the levies of New England should sail up the St. Lawrence to attack Quebec, while the remainder should, as usual, march against Montreal by way of Lake Champlain. The colonists took up the enterprise with great spirit, and the Provincial Assemblies of seven colonies voted a total force of forty-three hundred men. The French in Canada took the alarm and made frantic preparations for defence; but though the colonists were ready and eager at the time appointed, the British troops never appeared; Newcastle having detained them in Europe for the ridiculous descent, already described elsewhere, upon L'Orient. Shirley, undismayed, then decided to turn his little force against Crown Point; when all New England was alarmed by intelligence of a vast French armament on its way to retake Louisburg, recapture Acadia and burn Boston. Then the colonists took fright in their turn and equipped themselves for defence with desperate energy; but once again there was no occasion for panic. The French fleet sailed indeed, but after a voyage of disasters reached the coast of Nova Scotia only to be shattered and dispersed by a terrible storm. The Commander-in-Chief died of a broken heart, his successor threw himself on his own sword in despair, and after some weeks of helpless lingering in the harbour which now [260]bears the name of Halifax, the fragments of the French fleet returned almost in a state of starvation to France.
1747.

Not discouraged by this terrible reverse the French Government in the following year sent out a second fleet, which was met off Rochelle by a superior fleet under Admirals Anson and Warren and utterly defeated. It was fortunate, for the British Government with Newcastle at its head gave the Americans no further help. Three hundred soldiers were indeed shipped off to Annapolis, but more than half of them died on the voyage, and many of the remainder, being gaol-birds and Irish papists, deserted to the French. The situation in Acadia was perilous, for the French population did not love their new masters, and the Canadians, particularly the Jesuit priests, never ceased to stimulate them to revolt. Shirley resolved that, though the security of Acadia was the charge of the mother country, the colonists must protect the province for themselves sooner than abandon it. Massachusetts responded to his appeal with her usual spirit, and notwithstanding one severe reverse of the colonial troops, Acadia was still safe at the close of the war. For the rest, the French pursued their old method of hounding on the Indians against the British; and petty but barbarous warfare never ceased on the borders. For once, too, this warfare produced, though indirectly, an important result, since it brought to the front a young Irishman named William Johnson who, having shown an extraordinary power and ascendency over the Indians, was chosen as agent for New York in all dealings of the British with them. We shall see more of this Johnson in the years before us. Finally came the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, when the Americans to their huge disgust learned that Louisburg, their own prize, had been restored to France—bartered away for the retention of an insignificant factory called Madras.