and distributed among the tribes. Their English prisoners, including captives carried from the back settlements of North and South Carolina, were thought to have amounted to near three hundred souls.

But friendship lives in the heart of the savage. Listen to the tale of a red man's fidelity. Attakulla-kulla, hearing that Stuart, his friend, was a prisoner, hastened to ransom him, by giving every thing he could command; and when Oconostata, in a great council at Chotee, would have compelled the assistance of the English agent in the proposed siege of Fort Prince George, the Little Carpenter took him away as if to hunt for venison, and struck through the wilderness for Virginia. Nine days and nights they travelled, with such game as they killed for their food, with the light in the sky for their guide, through gaps rarely trodden even by wild beasts, for the beasts of the forest pick their paths; on the tenth day, they met a detachment of Virginians on Holston River.

Having fulfilled the letter of his instructions by reaching the country of the Cherokees, Montgomery, slighting the unanimous entreaty of the general assembly for protection of the back settlements, and leaving only four companies of royal Scots, embarked in all haste for Halifax by way of New York. And afterwards, in his place in the house of commons, he acted with those who thought the Americans factious in peace and feeble in war.

Ellis, the governor of Georgia, wiser than Lyttelton, secured the good-will of the Creeks.

CHAPTER XVI.

POSSESSION TAKEN OF MICHIGAN AND THE COUNTRY ON THE LAKES. PITT'S ADMINISTRATION CONTINUED.

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HAD Amherst been more active, the preceding campaign would have reduced Canada. His retreat to Crown Point gave De Levi, Montcalm's successor, a last opportunity of concentrating the remaining forces of France at Jacques Cartier for the recovery of Quebec. In that city, Saunders had left abundant stores and heavy artillery, with a garrison of seven thousand men, under the command of the brave but shallow Murray. When De Levi found it impossible to surprise the place in midwinter, he still resolved on undertaking its reduction. George Townshend, now in England, publicly rejected the opinion "that it was able to hold out a considerable siege ;" and Murray, preparing for "the last extremity," selected the Isle of Orleans as his refuge.

As soon as the river opened, De Levi proceeded, with an army of less than ten thousand men, to besiege Quebec. On the twenty-eighth of April, the vain-glorious governor, marching out from the city, left the advantageous ground which he first occupied, and incautiously hazarded an attack near Sillery Wood. The advance-guard, under De Bourlamarque, met the shock with firmness, and returned the attack with ardor. In danger of being surrounded, Murray was obliged to fly, leaving "his very fine train of artillery," and losing a thousand men. The French appear to have lost about three hundred, though Murray's report increased it more than eight-fold. During the two next days, De Levi opened trenches against the town; but the frost de

layed the works. The English garrison, reduced to twentytwo hundred effective men, exerted themselves with alacrity. Women, and even cripples, were set to light work. In the French army, not a word would be listened to of the possibility of failure. But Pitt's sagacity had foreseen and prepared for all. A fleet at his bidding was on its way to relieve the city; and to his wife he was able to write in June: "Join, my love, with me, in most humble and grateful thanks to the Almighty. The siege of Quebec was raised on the seventeenth of May, with every happy circumstance. The enemy left their camp standing, abandoned forty pieces of cannon. Swanton arrived there in the Van

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guard' on the fifteenth, and destroyed all the French shipping, six or seven in number. Happy, happy day! My joy and hurry are inexpressible."

Amherst had been notified of the intended siege; but he persevered in his systematic and tardy plan. When the spring opened, he had no difficulties to encounter in taking possession of Canada but such as he himself should create. A country suffering from a four years' scarcity, a disheartened peasantry, five or six battalions, wasted by incredible services, and not recruited from France, offered no opposition. The party which was conducted from Crown Point towards Montreal, by Colonel Haviland, found the fort on Isle-aux-Noix deserted. Amherst himself led the main army of ten thousand men by way of Oswego; it is not easy to say why, for the labor of getting there was greater than that of proceeding directly upon Montreal. After toiling to Oswego, he descended the St. Lawrence cautiously, taking possession of the feeble works at Ogdensburg treating the helpless Canadians with humanity, and with no loss of lives except in passing the Rapids, on the seventh of September he met before Montreal the army under Murray, who, as he came up from Quebec, had intimidated the people and amused himself by now and then burning a village and hanging a Canadian. The next day, Haviland arrived with forces from Crown Point. Thus the three armies came together in overwhelming strength to take an open town of a few hundred inhabitants, which

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Vaudreuil had resolved to give up on the first appearance of the English; and, on the eighth day of September, the flag of St. George floated in triumph on the gate of Montreal, the admired island of Jacques Cartier, the ancient hearth of the council-fires of the Wyandots, the village consecrated by the Roman church to the Virgin Mary, a site connected by rivers and lakes with an inland world, and needing only a milder climate to be one of the most attractive spots on the continent. The capitulation included all Canada, which was said to extend to the crest of land dividing branches of Erie and Michigan from those of the Miami, the Wabash, and the Illinois Rivers. Property and religion were cared for in the terms; but for civil liberty no stipulation was thought of. Canada, under the forms of a despotic administration, came into the possession of England by conquest; and in a conquered country the law was held to be the pleasure of the king.

On the fifth day after the capitulation, Rogers departed with two hundred rangers to carry English banners to the upper posts. From Erie, in the chilly days of November, they went forward in boats, being the first considerable party of men whose tongue was the English that ever spread sails on Lake Erie. The Indians on the lakes were at peace, united under Pontiac, the great chief of the Ottawas, happy in a country fruitful of corn and abounding in game. The Americans were met at the mouth of a river by a deputation of Ottawas from the west. "Pontiac," said they, "is the chief and lord of the country you are in; wait till he can see you with his own eyes."

When Pontiac and Rogers met, the savage chieftain asked: "How have you dared to enter my country without my leave?" "I come," replied the English agent, “with no design against the Indians, but to remove the French out of your country;" and he gave the wampum of peace. But Pontiac returned a belt, which arrested the march of the party, till his leave should be granted.

The next day, the chief sent presents of bags of parched corn, and at a second meeting smoked the calumet with the American leader, inviting him to pass onward unmo

lested, with an escort of warriors to assist in driving his herd of oxen along the shore. The tribes south-east of Erie were told that the strangers came with his consent; yet, while he studied to inform himself how wool could be changed into cloth, how iron could be extracted from 1760. the earth, how warriors could be disciplined like the English, he spoke as an independent prince, who would not brook the presence of white men within his dominions but at his pleasure.

After this interview, Rogers hastened to the straits which connect Erie and St. Clair, and took possession of Detroit. Thus was Michigan won by Great Britain.

England began hostilities for Nova Scotia and the Ohio. These she had secured, and had added Canada and Guadaloupe. "I will snatch at the first moment of peace," said Pitt. "The desire of my heart," said George II. to parliament, "is to see a stop put to the effusion of blood; "and the public mind was discussing how far the conquests should be retained. So great a subject of consideration had never before presented itself to British statesmen.

"We have had bloodshed enough," urged Pulteney, Earl of Bath, who, when in the house of commons, had been cherished in America as the friend of its liberties, and who now in his old age pleaded for the termination of a truly national war by a solid and reasonable peace. "Our North American conquests," said he to Pitt and Newcastle, and to the world, "cannot be retaken. Give up none of them, or you lay the foundation of another war. Unless we would choose to be obliged to keep great bodies of troops in America, in full peace, we can never leave the French any footing in Canada. Not Senegal and Goree, nor even Guadaloupe, ought to be insisted upon as a condition of peace, provided Canada be left to us." Such seemed "the infinite consequence of North America," which, by its increasing inhabitants, would consume British manufactures ; by its trade, employ innumerable British ships; by its provisions, support the sugar islands; by its products, fit out the whole navy of England.

Peace, too, was to be desired in behalf of England's ally,