went by harmless. The retreat began at once, and the thirty Virginians, who, with Washington, were all that remained alive, covered the flight of the ruined army. The artillery, provisions, baggage and private papers of the general were left on the field.

was no

The losses of the French and Indians were slight, amounting to three officers and thirty men killed, and as many others wounded. There attempt made at pursuit. The savages fairly reveled in the spoils of the battle-field. They had never known so rich a harvest of scalps and booty. The tawny chiefs returned to Fort du Quesne clad in the laced coats, military boots and cockades of the British officers. The dying Braddock was borne in the train of the fugitives. Once he roused himself to say, "Who would have thought it?" and again, "We shall better know how to deal with them another time." On the evening of the fourth day he died, and was buried by the roadside a mile west of Fort Necessity. When the fugitives reached Dunbar's camp, the confusion was

greater than ever.

Dunbar was a man of feeble capacity and no courage; pretending to have the orders of the dying general, he proceeded to destroy the remaining artillery, the heavy baggage, and all the public stores, to the value of a hundred thousand pounds. Then followed a precipitate retreat to Fort Cumberland, and then an abandonment of that place for the safer precincts of Philadelphia. It was only the beginning of August, yet Dunbar pleaded the necessity of finding winter quarters for his forces. The great expedition of Braddock had ended in such a disaster as spread consternation and gloom over all the colonies.

CHAPTER XXXII.

RUIN OF ACADIA.

BY the treaty of Utrecht, made in 1713, the province of Acadia, or Nova

Scotia, was ceded by France to England. During the following fifty years the colony remained under the dominion of Great Britain, and was ruled by English officers. But the great majority of the people were French, and the English government amounted only to a military occupation of the peninsula. The British colors, floating over Louisburg and Annapolis, and the presence of British garrisons here and there, were the only tokens that this, the oldest French colony in America, had passed under the control of foreigners.

At the time of the cession the population amounted to about three thousand; by the outbreak of the French and Indian War the number had increased to more than sixteen thousand. Lawrence, the deputygovernor of the province, pretended to fear an insurrection. When Braddock and the colonial governors convened at Alexandria, it was urged that something must be done to overawe the French and strengthen the English authority in Acadia. The enterprise of reducing the French peasants to complete humiliation was entrusted to Lawrence, who was to be assisted by a British fleet under Colonel Monckton. On the 20th of May, 1755, the squadron, with three thousand troops, sailed from Boston for the Bay of Fundy.

The French had but two fortified posts in the province; both of these were on the isthmus which divides Nova Scotia from New Brunswick. The first and most important fortress, named Beau-Sejour, was sit

uated near the mouth of Messagouche Creek, at the head of Chignecto Bay. The other fort, a mere stockade called Gaspereau, was on the north side of the isthmus, at Bay Verte. De Vergor, the French commandant, had no intimation of approaching danger till the English fleet sailed fearlessly into the bay and anchored before the walls of Beau-Sejour. There was no preparation for defence. On the 3d of June the English forces landed, and on the next day forced their way across the Messagouche. A vigorous

siege of four days followed. Fear and confusion reigned among the garrison; no successful resistance could be offered. On the 16th of the month Beau-Sejour capitulated, received an English garrison and took the name of Fort Cumberland. The feeble post at Gaspereau was taken a few days afterward, and named Fort Monckton. Captain Rous was despatched with four vessels to capture the fort at the mouth of the St. John's; but before the fleet could reach its destination, the French reduced the town to ashes and escaped into the interior. In a campaign of less than a month, and with a loss of only twenty men, the English had made themselves masters of the whole country east of the St. Croix.

The war in Acadia was at an end; but what should be done with the people? The French inhabitants still outnumbered the English nearly three to one. Governor Lawrence and Admiral Boscawen, in con

ference with the chief justice of the province, settled upon the atrocious measure of driving the people into banishment. The first movement was to demand an oath of allegiance which was so framed that the French, as honest Catholics, could not take it. The priests advised the peasants to declare their loyalty, but refuse the oath, which was meant to ensnare their souls. The next step on the part of the English was to accuse the French of treason, and to demand the surrender of all their firearms and boats. To this measure the broken-hearted people also submitted. They even offered to take the oath, but Lawrence declared that, having once refused, they must now take the consequences. The British vessels were made ready, and the work of forcible embarkation began.

The country about the isthmus was covered with peaceful hamlets.

the coast.

These were now laid waste, and the people driven into the larger towns on Others were induced by artifice and treachery to put themselves into the power of the English. Wherever a sufficient number of the French could be gotten together they were driven on shipboard. They were allowed to take their wives and children and as much property as would not be inconvenient on the vessels. The estates of the province were confiscated, and what could not be appropriated was given to the

*Longfellow's Evangeline is founded on this incident.

flames. The wails of thousands of bleeding hearts were wafted to heaven with the smoke of burning homes. At the village of Grand Pre four hundred and eighteen unarmed men were called together and shut up in a church. Then came the wives and children, the old men and the mothers, the sick and the infirm, to share the common fate. The whole company numbered more than nineteen hundred souls. The poor creatures were driven down to the shore, forced into the boats at the point of the bayonet, and carried to the vessels in the bay. As the moaning fugitives cast a last look at their pleasant town, a column of black smoke floating seaward told the story of desolation. More than three thousand of the hapless Acadians were carried away by the British squadron and scattered, helpless, half starved and dying, among the English colonies. The history of civilized nations furnishes no parallel to this wanton and wicked destruction of an inoffensive colony.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

EXPEDITIONS OF SHIRLEY AND JOHNSON,

THE third campaign planned by Braddock at Alexandria was to be conducted by Governor Shirley of Massachusetts. The expedition was to proceed from Albany to Oswego, and thence by water to the mouth of the Niagara. It was known that Fort Niagara was an insignificant post, depending for its defence upon a small ditch, a rotten palisade and a feeble garrison. To capture this place, to obtain command of the river, and to cut off the communications of the French by way of the lakes, were the objects of the campaign. "Fort du Quesne can hardly detain me more than three or four days," said Braddock to Shirley, "and then I will meet you at Niagara."

In the early part of August, Shirley set out at the head of nearly two thousand men. It was the last of the month before he reached Oswego. Here the provincial forces had been ordered to assemble. Four weeks were spent in preparing boats for embarkation. When everything was in readiness, a storm arose; and when the storm abated, the winds blew in the wrong direction. Then came another tempest and another delay; then sickness prevailed in the camp. With the beginning of October

Shirley declared the lake to be dangerous for navigation. The Indians deserted the standard of a leader whose skill in war consisted in framing excuses. The fact was that the general, while on the march to Oswego, had learned of the destruction of Braddock's army, and feared that a similar fate might overtake his own. On the 24th of October the greater part of the provincial forces, led by Shirley, marched homeward. Only one result of any importance followed from the campaign—the fort at Oswego was well rebuilt and garrisoned with seven hundred men under

Mercer.

Far more important was the expedition entrusted to General William Johnson. The object had in view was to capture the enemy's fortress at Crown Point, and to drive the French from the shores of Lake Champlain. Johnson's army numbered three thousand four hundred men, including a body of friendly Mohawks. The active work of the campaign began early in August, when General Phineas Lyman, at the head of the New England troops, proceeded to the Hudson above Albany, and at a point just below where the river bends abruptly to the west built Fort Edward. Thither in the last days of summer came the commanding general with the main division. The watershed between the Hudson and Lake George is only twelve miles wide. Johnson's army marched across to the head of the lake and laid out a commodious camp. A week was spent in bringing forward the artillery and stores. The soldiers were busy preparing boats for embarkation, and the important matter of fortifying the camp was wholly neglected.

Crown Roint!

Fors

South

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BattleField
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FortEdward.

MILES

15

44

VICINITY OF LAKE
GEORGE, 1755.

In the mean time, Dieskau, the daring commandant at Crown Point, determined to anticipate the movements of the English. With a force of fourteen hundred French, Canadians and Indians he sailed up Lake Champlain to South Bay. From this point he marched to the upper springs of Wood Creek, intending to strike to the south, pass the English army and capture Fort Edward before the alarm could be given. But the news was carried to General Johnson; and a force of a thousand en under command of Colonel Williams, accompanied by Hendrick, the -ray-haired chieftain of the Mohawks, with two hundred warriors, was sent to the relief of the endangered fort. On the previous night Dieskau's guides had led him out of his course. On the morning of the 8th of September the French general found himself and his army about four miles north of Fort Edward, on the main road from the Hudson to Lake