CHAPTER III

June 16.

The first blow against the French in America had failed; it must now be seen how it fared with the operations entrusted to Shirley, Johnson, and Monckton. Shirley, at Massachusetts, had been busy since the beginning of the year in calling the Northern provinces to arms, and they had responded nobly, Massachusetts alone raising forty-five hundred men, and the rest of New England and New York nearly three thousand more. The point first selected for attack was Fort Beauséjour on the Acadian isthmus, for which object two thousand volunteers of New England were sent up to Monckton. Adding to them a handful of regular troops from the garrison,[262] Monckton sailed away without delay to his work. On the 1st of June the expedition anchored in the bay before Fort Beauséjour, which after a fortnight's siege and the feeblest of defences fell, together with a smaller fort called Fort Gaspereau, into Monckton's hands. This success was followed by the expulsion of the greater part of the French population from Acadia, a harsh measure necessitated entirely by the duplicity of the Jesuit priests and of the Canadian Government, who had never ceased to stir up the unhappy peasants to revolt. From henceforth, therefore, Acadia may be dismissed from the sphere of active operations.

The attack on Crown Point was a more serious matter, for which the force entrusted to William Johnson included some three thousand Provincial[283] troops from New England and New Hampshire, and three hundred Indians. Johnson had seen no service and was innocent of all knowledge of war, but his influence with the Indians was very great, and as he came from New York his appointment could not but be pleasing to that province. His men were farmers and farmers' sons, excellent material but neither drilled nor trained. With the exception of one regiment, all wore their own clothes, and far the greater number brought with them their own arms. After long delay, owing to the jealousies of the various provinces and to defective organisation, the force was assembled at Albany, and in August began to move up the Hudson towards Lake George, a new name bestowed by Johnson in honour of his sovereign. At the carrying-place, where the line of advance left the Hudson, was built a fort, which was first called Fort Lyman but subsequently Fort Edward, by which latter name the reader should remember it. Here five hundred men were left to complete and to man the works, while the remainder, moving casually and leisurely forward, advanced to the lake and encamped upon its southern border.

Meanwhile the French, warned by papers captured from Braddock of the design against Crown Point, had sent thither thirty-five hundred regular troops, Canadians and Indians, under the command of Count Dieskau, an officer who had served formerly under Marshal Saxe. There were two lines by which Johnson could advance against them, the one directly up Lake George, the other by the stream named Wood Creek, which runs parallel with it into Lake Champlain. The junction of both passages is commanded by a promontory on the western side of Lake Champlain, called by the French Carillon, but more famous under its native name of Ticonderoga. To this point Dieskau advanced with a mixed force of fifteen hundred men, and from thence pushed forward to attack Johnson in his camp. The sequel may be briefly told. Johnson had imprudently detached five hundred men with some vague[284] idea of cutting off Dieskau's retreat; and these were caught in an ambuscade and very roughly handled. But when, elated by this success, Dieskau advanced against Johnson's camp he was met by a most stubborn resistance; and finally his troops were driven back in disorder and he himself wounded and taken prisoner. Johnson, however, did not follow up this fortunate success. Shirley repeatedly adjured him to advance to Ticonderoga, but was answered that the troops were unable to move through sickness, indiscipline, bad food, and bad clothing. Johnson lingered on in his camp until the end of November, with his men on the verge of mutiny, and having built a fort at the southern end of the lake, which he called Fort William Henry, retreated to the Hudson. He was rewarded for his victory by a vote of five thousand pounds from the British Parliament and by a baronetcy from the King; but none the less his enterprise was a failure, and Crown Point was left safely in the hands of the French.

The expedition against Niagara was undertaken by Shirley himself, in all the pride of a lawyer turned general. Hitherto he had but planned campaigns on paper; now he was to execute one in the field. His base of operations was, like Johnson's, the town of Albany, and his force consisted of his own regiment and Pepperrell's, which, although the King's troops and wearing the King's uniform, consisted none the less of raw Provincial recruits, together with one regiment of New Jersey militia, in all twenty-five hundred men. From Albany the force ascended the river Mohawk in bateaux to the great carrying-place, where the town of Rome now stands; from which point the bateaux were drawn overland on sledges to Wood Creek,[263] where they were again launched to float down stream to Lake Oneida and so to the little fort of Oswego on Lake Ontario. As might have been expected with an amateur, Shirley's force arrived at its destination long[285] before his supplies, so that his force was compelled to wait for some time inactive and on short rations. The French, too, having learned of this design also from the papers taken at the Monongahela, had reinforced their garrisons not only at Niagara but at Fort Frontenac at the north-eastern outlet of the lake. This materially increased Shirley's difficulties, for unless he first captured Frontenac the French could slip across the lake directly he was fairly on his way to Niagara, take Oswego and cut him off from his base. To be brief, the task, rendered doubly arduous by dearth of provisions, was too great for Shirley's strength; and at the end of October he abandoned the enterprise, having accomplished no more than to throw a garrison of seven hundred men into Oswego.

So amid general disappointment ended the American campaign. Of the four expeditions one only had succeeded; all of the rest had failed, one of them with disaster. Nor did this disaster end with the retreat from the Monongahela, for no sooner had Dunbar retired from the frontier than the Indians, at the instigation of the French, swarmed into Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania to the massacre and pillage of the scattered settlements on the border. Washington with fifteen hundred Virginian militia did what he could to protect three hundred miles of frontier, but with so small a force the duty was far beyond his power or the power of any man. Reinforce him, however, the Assembly of Pennsylvania would not. They closed their ears even to the cry of their own settlers for arms and ammunition, and for legislation to enable them to organise themselves for defence. The Assembly was intent only on fighting with the Governor. The members would yield neither to his representations nor to the entreaties of their fellow-citizens; and it was not until the enemy had advanced within sixty miles of Philadelphia that, grudgingly and late, they armed the Governor with powers to check the Indian invasion. It was none too soon, for the French had taken note[286] of the large population of pauperised Germans, Irish, "white servants," and transported criminals in Pennsylvania, and were preparing to turn it into a recruiting-ground for the French service.[264]

Thus closed the year 1755, with hostilities in full play between English and French in North America. Yet war had not been declared, nor, though it was certain to come, had any preparation been made for it. The measures taken at the beginning of 1755 sufficiently indicate the feebleness and vacillation of a foolish and effete Administration. In February some addition had been made to the infantry by raising the strength of the Guards and of seven regiments of the Line; and in March the King sent a message to Parliament requesting an augmentation of the forces by land and sea. The Ministry employed the powers thus given to them in raising five thousand marines in fifty independent companies, and placing them expressly under the command of the Lord High Admiral. It is said[265] that Newcastle refused to raise new regiments from jealousy of the Duke of Cumberland's nomination of officers, and there is nothing incredible in the assertion. But though this measure pointed at least to activity on the part of the fleet, never were British ships employed to less purpose. The squadron sent out under Boscawen to intercept the French reinforcements on their way to Louisburg was considerably inferior to the enemy's fleet, and required to be reinforced, of course at the cost of confusion and delay, before it was fit to fulfil its duty. Fresh trouble was caused in May by the King's departure for Hanover, a pleasure which he refused to deny himself despite the critical state of affairs in England. During his absence his power was delegated, as was customary, to a Council of Regency, a body which was always disposed to reserve matters of importance for the King's decision, and was doubly infirm of purpose with such a creature as Newcastle among [287]its ruling spirits. A powerful fleet under Sir Edward Hawke was ready for sea and for action; and the Duke of Cumberland, remembering the consequences of peaceful hostility in 1742 and 1743, was for throwing off the mask, declaring open war and striking swiftly and at once. He was, however, overruled, and Hawke's fleet was sent to sea with instructions that bound it to a violation of peace and a travesty of war. The King meanwhile was solicitous above all things for the security of Hanover. Subsidiary treaties with Bavaria and Saxony for the protection of the Electorate had for some time existed, but were expired or expiring; and now that some return for the subsidies of bygone years seemed likely to be required, the contracting States stood out for better terms. The King therefore entered into a new treaty with Hesse-Cassel for the supply of eight thousand men, and with Russia for forty thousand more, in the event of the invasion of Hanover.
Sept. 15.

With these treaties in his pocket he returned to England, to find the nation full of alarm and discontent. Nor was the nation at fault in its feelings. In August the news of Braddock's defeat had arrived and had been received with impotent dismay. Yet nothing was done to retrieve the disaster, and two full months passed before a few thousand men were added to all three arms of the Army.[266] Meanwhile Newcastle, after vainly endeavouring to persuade Pitt to serve under him, had strengthened his ministry somewhat by securing the accession of Henry Fox; and on the 13th of November the King opened Parliament, announcing, as well he might, the speedy approach of war. A long debate followed, wherein Pitt surpassed himself in denunciation of subsidiary treaties and contemptuous condemnation of Newcastle; but the party of the Court was too strong[288] for him, and the treaties were confirmed by a large majority. Pitt was dismissed from his office of Paymaster, and Fox having been promoted to be Secretary of State was succeeded by Lord Barrington as Secretary at War. Lastly, some weeks later, General Ligonier was most unjustly ousted from the post of Master-General of the Ordnance, to make way for a place-hunter who was not ashamed thus to disgrace his honoured title of Duke of Marlborough. It seemed, in fact, as though there were a general conspiracy to banish ability from high station.
Nov. 27.
Dec. 5.
Dec. 8.

A fortnight later the estimates for the Army were submitted to Parliament. Notwithstanding the urgent danger of the situation, the number of men proposed on the British Establishment little exceeded thirty-four thousand men for Great Britain and thirteen thousand for the colonies. A few days afterwards the question was debated, and Barrington then announced a further increase of troops; whereupon Pitt very pertinently asked the unanswerable question why all these augmentations were made so late. The House, however, was in earnest as to the military deficiencies of the country. Fox had taunted Pitt by challenging him to bring forward a Militia Bill, and Pitt seized the opportunity offered by a debate on the Militia to give the outlines of a scheme for making that force more efficient. His proposals were embodied in a Bill, which formed the basis of the Militia Act that was to be passed, as shall be seen, in the following year. So far therefore the Commons forced upon the Government and the country at least the consideration of really valuable work.
1756.

On the re-assembly of Parliament after Christmas an estimate was presented for the formation of ten new regiments, to be made up in part of certain supplementary companies which had been added to existing battalions in 1755. These new regiments were, in order of seniority, Abercromby's, Napier's, Lambton's, Whitmore's, Campbell's, Perry's, Lord Charles Manner's, Arabin's, Anstruther's and Montagu's, and they are still[289] with us numbered in succession the Fiftieth to the Fifty-ninth.[267] At the same time a new departure was made by adding a light troop apiece to eleven regiments of dragoons, both men and horses being specially equipped for the work which is now expected of all cavalry, but which was then entrusted chiefly to irregular horse formed upon the model of the Austrian Hussars. Yet another novelty was foreshadowed in February when a Bill was introduced to enable the King to grant commissions to foreign Protestants in America. The origin of this measure, according to Horace Walpole, was a proposal made by one Prevost, a Protestant refugee, to raise four battalions of Swiss and Provincials in America, with a British officer for colonel-in-chief but with a fair number of foreigners holding other commissions. Quite as probably this new step was quickened, if not suggested, by the news that the French contemplated the enlistment of recruits among the foreign population of British America. The vote for these four battalions was passed without a division, though Pitt opposed the Bill with all his power and was supported by a petition from the Agent of Massachusetts. He was vehement for the employment of British soldiers to fight British battles; whereas so far the most important military measure of King and ministers had been the hiring of Germans. The Bill was none the less passed, and on the 4th of March the order for the enlistment of the four battalions was given. Lord Loudoun was to be their Colonel-in-Chief, Pennsylvania their recruiting-ground, and their title the Royal Americans, an appellation long since displaced by the famous number of the Sixtieth.
March 23.

Amid all these preparations, however, the nation throughout the first months of 1756 lived in abject terror of an invasion. France on her side had not been backward in equipping herself for the approaching contest. Great activity at Toulon had been followed by equal activity at Dunkirk, and despite good information[290] as to the true object of the armaments fitted out at these two ports, the people naturally, and the Government most culpably, persisted in the belief that they were designed for a descent upon Britain herself. Few troops were ready to meet such a descent, for votes cannot improvise trained officers and men, and the folly of the Administration had done its worst to discourage enlistment. When the danger seemed nearest, many great landowners had interested themselves personally and with great success to obtain recruits; and among others Lord Ilchester and Lord Digby in Somerset had attracted some of the best material to be found in rural England, promising that the men so enlisted should not be required to serve outside the Kingdom. Notwithstanding this pledge, however, these recruits were by order of the Ministry forcibly driven on board transports and shipped off to Gibraltar. Never was there more brutal and heartless instance of the ill-faith kept by a British Government towards the British soldier. Having thus checked the flow of recruits at home, the Ministry turned to Holland and asked for the troops which she was bound by treaty to furnish. The request was refused; whereupon a royal message was actually sent to Parliament announcing that the King in the present peril had sent for his contingent of Hessian troops from Germany, for the defence of England. The message was received with murmurs in the Commons, as well it might be, but it was not opposed; and indeed the climax of disgrace was not yet reached. Whether from desire to embarrass Newcastle or to pay court to the King, Lord George Sackville, an officer whom before long we shall know too well, expressed a preference for Hanoverians over Hessians, and proposed an address praying the King to bring over his own electoral troops. Pitt left his sickbed and came down, ill as he was, to the House, to appeal to the history of the past and to the pride of every Englishman against the motion; yet it was passed by a majority of nearly three to one. The Lords consented to join the Commons in this[291] address, the King granted their prayer, and the result was that both Hanoverians and Hessians were imported to defend this poor Island that could not defend herself.
Jan. 16.

The next business brought before Parliament furnished new evidence of the general confusion of affairs. As might have been foreseen, Frederick of Prussia had viewed with no friendly eye the treaty made by King George with Russia; and he now proposed, as an alternative, that Hanover and England should combine with Prussia to keep all troops whatsoever from entering the German Empire. Since Frederick had already announced his intention of attacking the Russians if they moved across the frontier, and since there was good reason to apprehend that, if driven to desperation, he might join with the French in overrunning Hanover, the Russian treaty was thrown over, and the new arrangement accepted by King George. The pecuniary conditions attached to the agreement were duly ratified by the House of Commons in May, with results that were to reach further than were yet dreamed of. Then at last, apparently as an after-thought, war was formally declared. The country being thus definitely committed to a struggle which might be for life or death, the Lords supported by Newcastle seized the opportunity to reject the Militia Bill, which was the one important military measure so far brought forward. The general helplessness of the moment, owing to the absence of a strong hand at the helm, is almost incredible.
April 8.
April 18.

Meanwhile the French had struck their first blow, not on the shores of Britain, but at Minorca. As early as in January the Ministry had received good intelligence of the true destination of the enemy's armaments, but had made no sufficient preparation to meet the danger; nor was it until the 7th of April that it sent a fleet of ten ships, ill-manned and ill-found, under Admiral Byng to the Mediterranean. On the day following Byng's departure twelve ships of the line under M. de la Galissonière, with transports containing sixteen[292] thousand troops under the Duke of Richelieu, weighed from Toulon, and on the 18th dropped anchor off the port of Ciudadella, at the north-western end of Minorca. General Blakeney, the governor, had received warning of the intended attack two days before, and had made such preparations as he could for defence; but the means at his disposal were but poor. He had four regiments, the Fourth, Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, and Thirty-fourth of the Line; to which Commodore Edgcumbe, who was lying off Mahon with a squadron too weak to encounter the French, had added all the marines that he could spare before sailing away to Gibraltar. Even so, however, Blakeney could muster little more than twenty-eight hundred men. But his most serious difficulty was lack of officers. He himself had won his ensigncy under Cutts the Salamander at Venloo, and he had maintained his reputation for firmness and courage at Stirling in 1745, but he was now past eighty, crippled with gout and unfit to bear the incessant labours of a siege. Nevertheless he was obliged to take the burden upon him from sheer dearth of senior officers. The lieutenant-governor of the Island, the governor of its principal defence, Fort Philip, and the colonels of all four regiments were absent; nineteen subalterns had never yet joined their respective corps, and nine more officers were absent on recruiting duties. In all five-and-thirty officers were wanting at their posts. It was the old evil against which George the First had struggled in vain, and it was now about to bear bitter fruit.
April.
May.

Richelieu landed on the 18th, and Blakeney at once withdrew the whole of his force to Fort St. Philip in order to make his stand there. This fortress, which commanded the town and harbour of Mahon, was probably the most elaborate possessed by the British, and was inferior in strength to few strongholds in Europe. Apart from the ordinary elaborations of the school of Vauban, it was strengthened by countless mines and galleries hewn out of the solid rock, which[293] afforded unusual protection to the defenders. Blakeney had little time to break up the roads or otherwise to hinder the French advance; and Richelieu, marching into the town of Mahon on the 19th, was able a few days later to begin the siege. His operations, however, were unskilfully conducted, and the garrison defended itself with great spirit. An officer of engineers, Major Cunningham by name, while on his way to England from Minorca on leave, had heard of the French designs upon the Island and had instantly hurried back to his old post to assist in the defence; and his skill and resource were of inestimable value. So clumsily in fact did the French manage their operations that it was not until the 8th of May that their batteries began to produce the slightest effect.

Byng meanwhile had arrived at Gibraltar and had learned what was going forward. He carried the Seventh Fusiliers on board his fleet for Minorca, and had orders to embark yet another battalion from Gibraltar as a further reinforcement. General Fowke, however, who was in command at the Rock, urged that his instructions on this latter point were discretionary only and that he could not spare a battalion, having barely sufficient men to furnish reliefs for the ordinary guards. He therefore declined to grant more than two hundred and fifty men, to replace the marines landed from the fleet by Commodore Edgcumbe. It is instructive to note the difficulties imposed upon the commanders by the neglect of the Government. Hitherto one of the first measures taken in prospect of a war had been the reinforcement of the Mediterranean garrisons. Now, after a full year of warning, they were left unstrengthened and unsupported. Nay, Richelieu had lain in front of Fort St. Philip for three whole weeks before three battalions were at last ordered to sail for Gibraltar.[268] Byng's fleet was so slenderly manned that he required the Seventh Fusiliers for duty[294] on board ship, and therefore asked Fowke for a battalion for Minorca; Fowke's position was so weak that he dared not comply; and Blakeney's force was so inadequate that, though he could indeed hold his own in the fortress, he dared not venture his troops in a sortie.
June 6.
June 9.
June 14.
June 27.
June 28.

At length on the 19th of May Byng came in sight of Fort St. Philip, and on the following day fought the indecisive action and made the unfortunate retreat which became memorable through his subsequent fate. The besieged, though greatly disappointed by his withdrawal, still defended themselves stoutly and with fine spirit. The fortress was well stored and the batteries were well and effectively served. Six more battalions were now sent to Richelieu, and the French plan of attack was altered. New batteries were built, which on the 6th of June opened fire from over one hundred guns and mortars, inflicting much damage and making a considerable breach. The British repaired the injured works and stood to their guns as steadily as ever; but on the 9th the French fire reopened more hotly than before and battered two new breaches. Matters were now growing serious; and on the 14th a party of the garrison made a sally, drove the French from several of their batteries and spiked the guns, but pursuing their success too far were surrounded and captured almost to a man. Still Richelieu hesitated to storm; nor was it until the night of the 27th that he nerved himself for a final effort and made a grand attack upon several quarters of the fortress simultaneously. The defence was of the stubbornest, and the successful explosion of a mine sent three companies of French grenadiers flying into the air; but three of the principal outworks were carried, and the ablest officer of the garrison, Lieutenant-Colonel Jefferies, while hurrying down to save one of them, was cut off and made prisoner with a hundred of his men. Cunningham also was severely wounded and rendered unfit for duty. With hardly men enough left to him to man the guns, Blakeney on the 28th capitulated with the honours of[295] war, and the garrison was embarked for Gibraltar. The siege had lasted for seventy days and had cost the French at the least two thousand men. The losses of the garrison were relatively small, amounting to less than four hundred killed and wounded, and the surrender was no dishonour to the British Army; but there was no disguising the disgraceful fact that Minorca was gone.
July.

On the 14th of July the news reached England, and the nation, frantic with rage and shame, looked about savagely for a scapegoat. Bitter and cruel attacks were made even upon poor old Blakeney, who for all his fourscore years had never changed his clothes nor gone to bed during the ten weeks of the siege. Fowke was tried by court-martial for disobedience of orders in refusing to send the battalion required of him from Gibraltar, and though acquitted of all but an error in judgment and sentenced to a year's suspension only, was dismissed the service by the King. Finally, as is well known, the public indignation fastened itself upon Byng; and the unfortunate Admiral was shot because Newcastle deserved to be hanged. Old Blakeney alone, as was his desert, became a hero and was rewarded with an Irish peerage. Amid all the disgrace of that miserable time men found leisure to chronicle with a sneer that the veteran went to Court in a hackney coach with a foot-soldier behind it. St. James's would not have been the worse for a few more courtiers and lacqueys of the same rugged stamp.
July 23.

More disasters were at hand; but the general paralysis in England continued. Such troops as the country possessed were still distributed as though an invasion were imminent. There was a camp at Cheltenham under Lord George Sackville, and another in Dorsetshire; the Hessians were at Winchester, the Hanoverians about Maidstone, the artillery massed together under the Duke of Marlborough at Byfleet; all doing nothing when there was so much to be done. The news of Braddock's defeat was nearly eight months[296] old when Byng sailed for the Mediterranean, but not a man had been embarked to America. Up to the end of March the only step taken had been the despatch of Colonel Webb to supersede Shirley as Commander-in-Chief, but with instructions to yield the command to General Abercromby, who was also under orders for America, on his arrival; while Abercromby in turn was to give place to Lord Loudoun. At last, towards the end of April the Thirty-fifth Foot and the Forty-second Highlanders were embarked and reached New York late in June; and a month later Lord Loudoun arrived and assumed the command. Pitt before its departure had described the force under Loudoun's orders as a scroll of paper, and the description was little remote from the truth. Of the Sixtieth hardly one battalion was yet raised; Shirley's and Pepperrell's regiments, or what was left of them, were in garrison at Oswego; and the levies of the various colonies as usual were long in enlisting, late in arriving, and not too well supplied. Finally, each several contingent was jealously kept by its province under its own orders and control.

Shirley, undismayed by the failures of the previous year, meditated further operations in the direction of Fort Frontenac and Niagara, and against Crown Point; and with this view he had accumulated supplies along the route to Oswego on the one hand, and at Forts Edward and William Henry on the other. The troops which he had appointed for Niagara were the shattered remains of the Forty-fourth and Forty-eighth, part of his own and of Pepperrell's regiments, four independent regular companies from New York, and a small body of Provincials. The enterprise against Crown Point was assigned to the Provincial forces of New England and New York. Loudoun's instructions seem to have prescribed for him much the same line as Shirley had marked out for himself; but the new Commander-in-Chief conceived an immense and not wholly unreasonable contempt for Shirley and for all his works. In the[297] first place, he found that his predecessor had emptied the military chest, and that there was remarkably little to show for the outlay. Oswego, on inspection by a competent engineer, was declared incapable of defence, being ill-designed and incomplete, while the garrison through sickness and neglect was in a shocking condition.[269] The fact was that the King's boats had been used to transport merchandise for sale by private speculators to the Indians, instead of food for the nourishment of the King's troops. Fort William Henry again was found to be in an indescribably filthy state. Graves, slaughter-houses, and latrines were scattered promiscuously about the camp; no discipline was maintained; provisions were scandalously wasted; and the men were dying at the rate of thirty a week. Loudoun decided almost immediately to abandon the attack on Niagara and to turn all his strength against Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
August 12.
August 9.
August 14.

Meanwhile there were sinister rumours that the French were likely to attack Oswego, and Loudoun sent Colonel Webb with the Forty-fourth regiment to reinforce the garrison. Webb had hardly reached the Great Carrying-place on his way, when the news met him that Oswego had already been captured. On the night of the 9th the Marquis of Montcalm, an energetic officer who had arrived in Canada in May 1755, had swooped down swiftly and secretly upon the fort with three thousand men, and after three days' cannonade had forced it to surrender. Webb at once retired with precipitation, and in alarm at a report that the French were advancing upon New York, burned the fort at the Great Carrying-place and retreated down the Mohawk. Such timidity was worthy of Newcastle's nominee; and this disaster brought the whole of the operations to a standstill. Montcalm having burned Oswego retired to Ticonderoga, where with five thousand men he took up a position from which Loudoun could not hope, with the troops at his disposal, to dislodge[298] him. The British General therefore contented himself with improving the defences of Fort Edward; and therewith ended the campaign of 1756 in North America. Everything had gone as ill as possible. Loudoun had shown great impatience with the Provincials, and the Provincials had taken no pains to help him. In Pennsylvania every conceivable obstacle was thrown in the way of recruiting; in New York there was not less friction over the quartering of the King's troops. There were reasons sufficient in the jealousy, the inexperience, and occasionally the corruption of the Provincials to excuse impatience in the General, but Loudoun was not conciliatory in manner nor had he the ability which commands confidence. He was, in fact, one more of the incompetent men nominated by an incompetent Administration. All that he could show for his first campaign was the loss of Oswego, the station which bound the British colonies to the great Indian trade with the West, the place of arms from which the chain of French posts was to be cut in two, in a word the sharpest and deadliest weapon in the armoury of British North America. Small wonder that the French were filled with triumph and the British colonies with dismay.

The news of yet another reverse heaped fuel on the flame of the nation's indignation against Newcastle; but meanwhile the cloud of war which had hung so long in menace over Europe burst at last in one tremendous storm. For some months past a league had been forming between France, Austria, Saxony, Russia, and Sweden to crush Frederick the Great and partition Prussia. France had been launched into this strange alliance by Madame de Pompadour, in revenge for Frederick's disdainful rejection of a friendly message; the Czarina likewise sought vengeance for an epigram; Austria burned to recover Silesia; Saxony had been enticed by Austria with the lure of a share in partitioned Prussia; and Sweden had been attracted by the bait of Pomerania. Frederick, fully aware of all that was[299] going forward, resolved to meet the danger rather than await it, and boldly invading Saxony began the Seven Years' War. Where it should end no man could divine. All that was certain was that Frederick, far from protecting Hanover, would have much ado to defend himself. Thus, then, on the one side there was Hanover open to attack, and on the other Minorca lost, British naval reputation tarnished, and France triumphant in America. Further, though as yet men knew it not, the news of the loss of Calcutta and of the tragedy of the Black Hole was even then on its way across the ocean. The outcry against the Government rose to a dangerous height; Fox deserted Newcastle, and resigned; and at length, in November, the shifty old jobber himself, after endless intrigues to retain office, reluctantly and ungracefully made way, nominally for the Duke of Devonshire, but in reality for William Pitt.
Dec. 2.
1757.
January.

On the 2nd of December Parliament met, and the spirit of the new minister showed itself at once in the speech from the throne. The electoral troops and Hessians were to be sent back forthwith to Germany; and it was now the royal desire, which it had not been before Pitt took office, that the militia should be made more efficient. In a word, England was from henceforth to fight her battles for herself. Two days later leave was granted for the introduction of a Militia Bill, and on the 15th estimates were submitted for a British Establishment of thirty thousand men for the service of Great Britain and nineteen thousand for the colonies, besides two thousand artillery and engineers; the absence of Minorca from its usual place in the list of garrisons providing a significant comment on the whole. Of the additional troops fifteen thousand had already been appointed for enlistment in September, when orders had been issued for the raising of a second battalion to each of fifteen regiments of the Line.[270] These battalions[300] were erected two years later into distinct regiments, of which ten still remain with us, numbered the Sixty-first to the Seventieth. This addition showed marks of Pitt's influence, but after the Christmas recess his handiwork was seen in a new and daring experiment, namely the formation of two regiments of Highlanders, each eleven hundred strong, which, though afterwards disbanded, became famous under the names of their Colonels, Fraser and Montgomery.[271] The idea was a bold one, for it struck the last weapon from the dying hands of Jacobitism and turned it against itself; and the result soon approved it as a success. The existing Scottish regiments were required to contribute eighty non-commissioned officers who could speak Gaelic;[272] and the Highlander from henceforth took his place not as a subverter of thrones but as a builder of empires. It is remarkable, concurrently, to note the sudden wave of energy which swept over the entire military administration in the first weeks of 1757, when the breath of one great man had once broken the springs and set the stagnant waters aflow. Shirley's and Pepperrell's regiments, which had been crippled and ruined at Oswego, were struck off the list of the Army to make room for more efficient corps.[273] Newcastle's feeble ministers had directed the embarkation of a single battalion only, besides drafts, to America: Pitt, without counter-ordering these, ordered the augmentation and despatch of seven battalions more.[274] The Forty-ninth regiment, which was serving in Jamaica, was increased to nearly double of its former strength, to hearten the colonists in that Island. The Royal Artillery was raised to a total of twenty-four companies and distributed into two battalions, [301]and a company of Miners, first conceived of six months before, was incorporated with it.[275] Finally, the Marines, which had been creeping up in strength ever since the beginning of the war, were augmented from one hundred to one hundred and thirty companies, so that men should not be lacking for the fleet. Nor was it only in the mere activity of departments and ubiquity of recruiting sergeants that the spirit of the master was seen. The nation was stirred by such military ardour as it had not felt since the Civil War, and there was a rush for commissions in the Army.[276]

On the re-assembling of Parliament the Militia Bill was again brought forward, and, though it did not pass the Lords until June, was so essential a feature of Pitt's first short Administration that it may be dealt with here once and for all. The measure was introduced by George Townsend and was practically identical with that which had been rejected in the previous year, though Henry Conway, an officer of some distinction, had prepared an alternative scheme which was preferred by many. The Bill as ultimately passed appointed a proportion of men to be furnished for the Militia in every county of England and Wales, from Devonshire and Middlesex, which were to provide sixteen hundred men apiece, to Anglesey, which was called upon for no more than eighty. These men were to be chosen by lot from lists drawn up by the parochial authorities for the Lords-Lieutenants and their deputies; and every man so chosen was to serve for three years, at the close of which period he was to enjoy exemption until his time should come again. Thus it was designed that every eligible man in succession should pass through the ranks and serve for a fixed term. Special powers were given to justices and to deputy-lieutenants to discharge men from duty on sufficient reason shown, or after two years of service if they were over five-and-thirty years of age. [302]The possession of a certain property was required as a qualification for officers, who likewise were entitled to discharge after four years' service, provided that others could be found to take their places. Provision was also made for the appointment by the King of an adjutant from the regular Army to every regiment, and of a sergeant to every twenty men. The organisation was by regiments of from seven to twelve companies, in which no company was to be of smaller strength than eighty men. The Lord-Lieutenant of each county was in command of that county's militia; and in case of urgent danger the King was empowered to embody the whole force, communicating his reasons to Parliament if in session, when officers and men became entitled to the pay of their rank in the Army and subject to the articles of war. It had been part of the original design, favoured with reservations by Pitt himself, that Sunday should be a day of exercise, as in Switzerland and other Protestant countries; but this clause was dropped in deference to petitions from several dissenting sects, and it was finally enacted that the men should be drilled in half-companies and whole companies alternately on every Monday from April to October. The Act was not passed without much opposition in the Lords, who indeed reduced the numbers of the force to thirty-two thousand men, or one-half of the strength voted by the Commons, and added clauses which clogged the working of the measure. Nor was it at first enforced without dangerous riot and tumult in some quarters, due principally to the unscrupulous employment, already narrated, of men enlisted for duty at home on foreign service. Nevertheless the great step was taken. A local force had been established for domestic defence, and the regular Army was set free for service abroad, or more truly for the service of conquest.

During the early debates on the Militia Bill Pitt himself was absent, being confined to his house by gout; nor was it until the 17th of February that he appeared in his place to support the royal request for[303] subsidies for Hanover and for the King of Prussia. The occasion drew upon him not a few sarcasms, for no man had more vehemently denounced the turning of Great Britain into a milch cow for the Electorate; but he waived the sneers aside in his wonted imperious fashion, for, consistent or inconsistent, he knew at least his own mind. It was one thing for British interests to be subordinated to Hanoverian; but it was quite another for Britain and Hanover to march shoulder to shoulder against a common enemy for their common advantage. The conquest of America in Germany was, as shall be seen, no idle phrase, though few as yet might comprehend its purport. But suddenly at this point Pitt's career was for the moment checked. Notwithstanding this proof of his loyalty to the cause of Hanover, the King was still unfriendly towards his new minister, and actually found, in the peril which threatened his beloved Electorate, a pretext for dismissing him from office. In March 1757 a French army of one hundred thousand men poured over the Rhine; and it was necessary to call out the Hanoverian troops to oppose it. The King was urgent for the Duke of Cumberland to command these forces, but the Duke was by no means so anxious to accept the trust. The memory of past failure oppressed him; and, since he hated Pitt, he was unwilling to correspond with him or to depend on him for instructions and supplies. To obviate this difficulty the King agreed to remove Pitt; and thus a minister of genius was discarded that an unskilful commander might take the field. It was a proceeding worthier of Versailles than of St. James's.

On the 5th of April Pitt, having refused to resign, received intimation of his dismissal; but by this time the nation had been roused to such a pitch that it would suffer no return to the imbecile and disgraceful administration of the past two years. The stocks fell; all the principal towns in England sent the freedom of their corporations to Pitt, and, in Walpole's phrase, for weeks it rained gold boxes. The King turned to Newcastle,[304] but the contemptible old intriguer tried in vain to form a government with Pitt or without him. For eleven whole weeks the negotiations continued and the country was left virtually without a government of any kind, until at length it was seen that Pitt's return to office was inevitable, and on the 27th of July, though Newcastle still retained the post of First Lord of the Treasury, Pitt was finally reinstated as Secretary of State on his own terms, that is to say, with full control of the war and of foreign affairs. "I will borrow the Duke's majority to carry on the Government," he had said, "I am sure that I can save this country and that no one else can."
July 9.

This was the turning-point of the whole war; but during the political struggle much precious time had been lost, all enterprise had been paralysed, and all arrangements dislocated. Thus fresh misfortunes were still at hand to increase the new minister's difficulties. In January Loudoun had received the Twenty-second regiment and the draft sent out to him by Newcastle's Government; but in April he was still awaiting his instructions as to the coming campaign, and meanwhile had little to report but the difficulties thrown by the Provincial authorities in the way of recruiting.[277] Pitt's intention, in deference to Loudoun's own representations, had been that he should attack Louisburg; and the seven battalions already referred to had been ordered to sail to Halifax with that object. These troops had been embarked on the 17th of March but had been detained by contrary winds until after the date of Pitt's dismissal; and though there seems to have been some effort to get them to sea a few days later, it is none the less certain that for one reason or another they did not reach Halifax until July.[278] Meanwhile Loudoun's position was most embarrassing. He had withdrawn [305]all his troops from the frontier to New York, and was waiting only for news of Admiral Holburne's squadron and the reinforcements that he might embark and sail to Halifax to join them. Not a word as to Holburne reached him; and all that he could discover was the unwelcome fact that a French fleet, strong enough to destroy his own escort and sink the whole of his transports, had been seen off the coast.[279] He decided at last that the risk must be run, embarked his troops and arrived safely at Halifax, where ten days later he was joined by Holburne's squadron. The troops were landed, and then, but not till then, steps were taken to obtain intelligence as to the condition of Louisburg. This fact alone enables us to judge of Loudoun's efficiency as a commander. The first reports received, though meagre, were encouraging, and the troops were re-embarked for action; but directly afterwards an intercepted letter revealed the fact that twenty-two French sail of the line were in Louisburg harbour, and that the garrison had been increased to seven thousand men. The French naval force was so far superior to Holburne's that any attempt to prosecute the enterprise was hopeless. The expedition was therefore abandoned, and the troops sailed back to New York.
July 31.
August 4.
August 9.

Meanwhile the disarming of the frontier afforded Montcalm an opportunity for striking a telling blow. At the end of July eight thousand French, Canadians and Indians were assembled at Ticonderoga, and on the 30th twenty-five hundred of them under command of an officer named Lévis started to march to North-West Bay on the western shore of Lake George, while Montcalm with five thousand more embarked in bateaux on Lake Champlain. On the following day both divisions united close to Fort William Henry, and on the 3rd of August Montcalm, mindful of the defeat of Dieskau, laid siege to the fort in form. Fort William Henry was an irregular bastioned square, built of crossed logs filled up with earth and mounting seventeen guns.[306] On the northern side it was protected by the lake, on the eastern side by a marsh, and to south and west by ditches and chevaux de frise. The garrison, which had been reinforced a few days before in view of coming trouble, counted a total strength of twenty-two hundred men, including regular troops, sailors and mechanics, under the command of a veteran Scottish officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Monro of the Thirty-fifth Foot. On the night of the 4th the trenches were opened on the western side of the fort, and two days later the French batteries opened fire. The fort returned the fire with spirit, but it was evident that unless it were speedily relieved its fall could be only a question of time. Colonel Webb lay only fourteen miles away at Fort Edward, and by summoning troops hurriedly from New York and from the posts on the Mohawk had collected a force of over four thousand men; but Montcalm was reported to have twelve thousand men, and Webb did not think it prudent to advance to Lake George until further reinforced. He therefore sent a letter to Monro, advising him to make the best terms that he could, which was intercepted by Montcalm and politely forwarded by him to its destination. The siege was pushed vigorously forward, and by the 8th the besieged were in desperate straits. Over three hundred men had been killed and wounded, all the guns excepting a few small pieces had been disabled, and, worst of all, smallpox was raging in the fort. On the 9th, therefore, Monro capitulated on honourable terms, which provided, among other conditions, that the French should escort the garrison to Fort Edward. On the march the Indian allies of the French burst in upon the unarmed British, unchecked by the Canadian militia, and despite the efforts of Montcalm and of his officers massacred eighty of them and maltreated many more. This, however, though it might well stir the vengeful feelings of the British, was but an episode. The serious facts were the loss of the post at Lake George, and yet another British reverse in North America.

July 26.
Sept. 5.

Such were among the last legacies bequeathed by Newcastle's feebleness; and meanwhile the King's perversity in driving Pitt from office had brought speedy judgment upon himself and upon Cumberland. The Duke was defeated by the French at the battle of Hastenbeck, and retreating upon Stade concluded, or rather found concluded for him, the convention of Klosterzeven, whereby he agreed to evacuate the country. Such were the discouragements which confronted Pitt on resuming office. It was hard to see how he could initiate any operations of value at so late a period of the year, but there was one species of diversion which, though little recommended by experience of the past, lay open to him still, namely a descent upon the French coast. A young Scottish officer, who had travelled in France, gave intelligence based on no very careful or recent observation, that the fortifications of Rochefort were easily assailable; and Pitt on the receipt of this intelligence at once conceived the design of surprising Rochefort and burning the ships in the Charente below it. Somewhat hastily it was determined to send ten of the best battalions and a powerful fleet on this enterprise, and the military command was offered to Lord George Sackville, who not relishing the task found an excuse for declining. Pitt was then for entrusting it to General Henry Conway, but the King objected to this officer on the score of his youth, and insisted on setting over him Sir John Mordaunt, a veteran who had showed merit in the past, but had now lost his nerve and was conscious that he had lost it. He and Conway alike objected to the project as based on flimsy and insufficient information, but both thought themselves bound in honour to accept the trust confided to them.
Sept. 8.
October.

Though the expedition had been decided upon in July, it was not until two months later that it sailed from England, and meanwhile the troops waited as usual in the Isle of Wight.[280] There was much delay in[308] providing transports, and the embarkation was so ill-managed that the troops were obliged to row a full mile to their ships. On the 8th of September, however, the vessels put to sea under convoy of sixteen sail of the line under Sir Edward Hawke, and after much delay from foul winds and calms anchored in Basque Roads, the haven which was to become famous half a century later for an attack of a very different kind. On the 23rd the fortifications of the Isle d'Aix were battered down by the fleet and the island itself captured; but therewith the operations came abruptly to an end. Fresh information revealed that the French were fully prepared to meet an attack on Rochefort; and a council of war decided that any attempt to take it by escalade would be hopeless. It was therefore decided to attack the forts at the mouth of the Charente, but the order was countermanded by Mordaunt; and after a week's delay Hawke gave the General to understand that unless operations were prosecuted forthwith he would return with the fleet to England. The military commanders thereupon decided that they would return with him, which on the 1st of October they did, to the huge indignation of both fleet and army. A court of inquiry was held over this absurd issue to such extensive and costly preparations, and Sir John Mordaunt was tried by court-martial but honourably acquitted. The incident gave rise to a fierce war of pamphlets. It is certain that Mordaunt showed remarkable supineness, and he was suspected of a wish to injure the influence of Pitt by turning the enterprise into ridicule; but with such men as Wolfe, Conway and Cornwallis among the senior officers, the only conclusion is that, in the view of military men, no object of the least value could have been gained by any operations whatever. Military opinion had been against the expedition from the first. Ligonier, a daring officer but of ripe experience and sound judgment, wrote of it in the most lukewarm terms as likely to lead to nothing. On the whole it seems that the troops were sent on a fool's errand, and that the blame[309] lay solely with Pitt. The nation was furious, and the King showed marked coldness towards the generals who had taken part in the failure; but Pitt, who was more hurt and disappointed than any one, took no step except to promote Wolfe, who had advocated active measures, over the heads of several other officers, and thus in one way at least extracted good from evil.

So ended the campaigning season of 1757 with an unbroken record of ill success in every quarter. But the right man was now at the head of affairs and was looking about him for the right instruments. The long period of darkness had come to an end and the light was about to break, at first in flickering broken rays, but soon to shine out in one blaze of dazzling and surpassing splendour.