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your zeal and obstinacy of courage; " but Montcalm informed Belle-Isle plainly, that, without unexpected good fortune, or great fault in the enemy, Canada must be taken this campaign, or certainly the next. Its census showed but a population of about eighty-two thousand, of whom not more than seven thousand men could serve as soldiers; the eight French battalions counted but thirty-two hundred; while the English were thought to have almost fifty thousand men in arms. There was a dearth in the land; the fields were hardly cultivated; domestic animals were failing; the soldiers were unpaid; paper money had increased to thirty millions of livres, and would that year be increased twelve millions more; while the civil officers were making haste to enrich themselves before the surrender, which was to screen their frauds.

The western brigade, commanded by Prideaux, composed of two battalions from New York, a battalion of royal Americans, and two British regiments, with a detachment of royal artillery, and Indian auxiliaries under Sir William Johnson, was the first to engage actively. Fort Niagara stood, as its ruins yet stand, on the flat and narrow promontory round which the deep and rapid Niagara sweeps into the lower lake. There La Salle, first of Europeans, had driven a light palisade. There Denonville had constructed a fortress and left a garrison for a winter. It commanded the portage between Ontario and Erie, and gave the dominion of the western fur-trade. Leaving a detachment with Colonel Haldimand to construct a tenable post at the mouth of the Oswego, the united American, British, and Indian forces embarked, on the first day of July, on Lake Ontario, and landed without opposition at one of its inlets, six miles east of the junction of the Niagara. The fortress on the peninsula was easily invested.

Aware of the importance of the station, D'Aubry collected from Detroit and Erie, Le Bœuf and Venango, an army of twelve hundred men, larger than that which defeated Braddock, and marched to the rescue. Prideaux made the best dispositions to frustrate the design; but, on the fifteenth of July, he was killed by the bursting of a

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cohorn, leaving his honors immature. Sir William Johnson, who succeeded to the command, commemorated his rare abilities and zeal, and carefully executed his plans. He posted the British army on the left, above the fort, so as to intercept the approach of the enemy and to support the guard in the trenches. On the morning of the twenty-fourth of July, the French made their appearance. The Mohawks gave a sign for a parley with the French Indians; but, as it was not returned, they raised the war-whoop. While the regulars advanced to meet the French in front, the English Indians gained their flanks and threw them into disorder, on which the English rushed to the charge with irresistible fury. The French broke, retreated, and were pursued. The carnage continued till fatigue stayed its hand. The bodies of the dead lay uncounted among the forests. On the next day, the garrison, consisting of about six hundred men, capitulated. Thus did New York extend its limits to the Niagara River and Lake Erie. The victory was so decisive, that the officer and troops sent by Stanwix from Pittsburg took possession of the French posts as far as Erie without resistance.

The success of the English on Lake Ontario drew De Levi, the second in military command in New France, from before Quebec. He ascended beyond the Rapids, and endeavored to guard against a descent to Montreal by occupying the passes of the river near Ogdensburg. The number of men at his disposal was too few to accomplish the object; and Amherst directed Gage, whom he detached as successor to Prideaux, to take possession of the post. But Gage made excuses for neglecting the orders, and whiled away his harvest-time of honor.

Meantime, the commander in chief assembled the main army at Lake George. The temper of Amherst was never ruffled by collisions with the Americans; his displeasure, when excited, was concealed under apparent apathy or impenetrable self-command. His judgment was slow, but safe; his mind solid, but never inventive. Taciturn and stoical, he displayed respectable abilities as a commander, without fertility of resources, or daring enterprise. In five

British regiments, with the royal Americans, he had fiftyseven hundred and forty-three regulars; of provincials and Gage's light infantry he had nearly as many more.

On the longest day in June, he reached the lake, and 1759. the next day, with useless precaution, traced out the ground for a fort. On the twenty-first of July, the invincible flotilla moved in four columns down the water, with artillery and more than eleven thousand men. On the twenty-second, the army disembarked on the eastern shore, nearly opposite the landing-place of Abercrombie; and that night, after a skirmish of the advanced guard, they lay under arms at the saw-mills. The next day, the French army under Bourlamarque, leaving a garrison of but four hundred in Fort Carillon, deserted their lines, of which possession was immediately taken.

Conscious of their inability to resist the British artillery and army, the French, on the twenty-sixth, abandoned Ticonderoga; and, five days afterwards, retreated from Crown Point to Isle-aux-Noix. The whole mass of the people of Canada had been called to arms; the noblesse piqued themselves much on the antiquity of their families, their own military glory and that of their ancestors; nor had the world known greater courage and loyalty than they displayed. So general had been the levy that there were not men enough left to reap the fields round Montreal; and, to prevent starvation, women, old men, and children were ordered to gather in the harvest alike for rich and poor. Yet, as the chief force was with Montcalm near Quebec, as the Indians no longer thronged to the camp of the French, the army that opposed Amherst had but one fourth of his numbers, and could not be recruited. An immediate descent on Montreal was universally expected. In a fortnight, Crown Point was occupied, without opposition. Amherst must advance, or Wolfe may perish. But, after repairing Ticonderoga, he wasted labor in building fortifications at Crown Point, which the conquest of Canada would render useless. Thus he let all August, all September, and ten days of October go by, before boats were ready; and when at last he embarked, and victory, not without honor, might

still have been within his grasp, he received messengers from Quebec, and turned back, having done nothing but occupy and repair deserted forts. Sending a detachment against the St. Francis Indians, he went into winter-quarters, leaving his unfinished work for another costly campaign. Amherst was a brave and faithful officer, but his intellect was dull. He gained a great name, because New France was occupied during his chief command; but, had Wolfe resembled him, Quebec would not have fallen.

June.

As soon as the floating masses of ice permitted, the 1759. forces for the expedition against Quebec repaired to Louisburg; and Wolfe, by his activity and zeal, his good judgment and the clearness of his orders, inspired unbounded confidence. His army consisted of eight regiments, two battalions of royal Americans, three companies of rangers, artillery, and a brigade of engineers,—in all, about eight thousand men ; the fleet under Saunders had two-andtwenty ships of the line, and as many frigates and armed vessels. On board of one of the ships was Jervis, afterwards Earl Saint-Vincent; another, which followed, bore as master James Cook, the navigator, who was destined to explore and reveal the paths and thousand isles of the Pacific. The brigades had for their commanders the brave, open-hearted, and liberal Robert Monckton, afterwards governor of New York and conqueror of Martinique; George Townshend, elder brother of Charles Townshend, soon to succeed his father in the peerage, and become known as a legislator for America, a man of quick perception, but unsafe judgment; and the rash and inconsiderate James Murray. For his adjutant-general, Wolfe selected Isaac Barré, an old associate at Louisburg. The grenadiers of the army were formed into a corps, commanded by Colonel Guy Carleton; a detachment of light infantry was to receive orders from Lieutenant-colonel, afterwards Sir William, Howe.

On the twenty-sixth of June, the whole armament arrived, without the least accident, off the Isle of Orleans, on which, the next day, they disembarked. A little south of west, the cliff of Quebec was seen distinctly, seemingly impregnable, rising precipitously in the midst of one of the grandest

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scenes in nature. To protect this guardian citadel of New France, Montcalm had of regular troops no more than six wasted battalions; of Indian warriors few appeared, the wary savages preferring the security of neutrals; the Canadian militia gave him the superiority in numbers; but he put his chief confidence in the natural strength of the country. Above Quebec, the high promontory on which the upper town is built expands into an elevated plain, having towards the river the steepest acclivities. For nine miles or more above the city, as far as Cape Rouge, every landing-place was intrenched and protected. The river St. Charles, after meandering through a fertile valley, sweeps the rocky base of the town, which it covers by expanding into sedgy marshes. Nine miles below Quebec, the impetuous Montmorenci, after fretting itself a whirlpool route, and leaping for miles down the steps of a rocky bed, rushes with velocity towards the ledge, over which, falling two hundred and fifty feet, it pours its fleecy cataract into the chasm.

As Wolfe disembarked on the Isle of Orleans, the fleet with the numerous transports lay at anchor on his left; the tents of his army stretched across the island; the intrenched troops of France, having their centre at the village of Beauport, extended from the Montmorenci to the St. Charles; the city of Quebec, garrisoned by five battalions, bounded the horizon. At midnight, on the twenty-eighth, the short darkness was lighted up by a fleet of fire-ships, that, after a furious storm of wind, came down with the tide in the proper direction; but the British sailors grappled with them and towed them free of the shipping.

The river was Wolfe's: the men-of-war made it so; and, being master of the deep water, he also had the superiority on the south shore of the St. Lawrence. In the night of the twenty-ninth, Monckton, with four battalions, having crossed the south channel, occupied Point Levi; and where the mighty current, which below the town expands as a bay, narrows to a deep stream of but a mile in width, batteries of mortar and cannon were constructed. Early in July, the citizens of Quebec, foreseeing the ruin of their

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