1760.
THE ENGLISH TAKE POSSESSION OF THE WESTERN POSTS.
The war was over. The plains around Montreal were dotted with the white
tents of three victorious armies, and the work of conquest was complete.
Canada, with all her dependencies, had yielded to the British crown; but
it still remained to carry into full effect the terms of the surrender,
and take possession of those western outposts, where the lilies of France
had not as yet descended from the flagstaff. The execution of this task,
neither an easy nor a safe one, was assigned to a provincial officer,
Major Robert Rogers.
Rogers was a native of New Hampshire. He commanded a body of provincial
rangers, and stood in high repute as a partisan officer. Putnam and Stark
were his associates; and it was in this woodland warfare that the former
achieved many of those startling adventures and hair-breadth escapes which
have made his name familiar at every New-England fireside. Rogers's
Rangers, half hunters, half woodsmen, trained in a discipline of their
own, and armed, like Indians, with hatchet, knife, and gun, were employed
in a service of peculiar hardship. Their chief theatre of action was the
mountainous region of Lake George, the debatable ground between the
hostile forts of Ticonderoga and William Henry. The deepest recesses of
these romantic solitudes had heard the French and Indian yell, and the
answering shout of the hardy New-England men. In summer, they passed down
the lake in whale boats or canoes, or threaded the pathways of the woods
in single file, like the savages themselves. In winter, they journeyed
through the swamps on snowshoes, skated along the frozen surface of the
lake, and bivouacked at night among the snow-drifts. They intercepted
French messengers, encountered French scouting parties, and carried off
prisoners from under the very walls of Ticonderoga. Their hardships and
adventures, their marches and countermarches, their frequent skirmishes
and midwinter battles, had made them famous throughout America; and
though it was the fashion of the day to sneer at the efforts of provincial
troops, the name of Rogers's Rangers was never mentioned but with honor.
Their commander was a man tall and strong in person, and rough in feature.
He was versed in all the arts of woodcraft, sagacious, prompt, and
resolute, yet so cautious withal that he sometimes incurred the unjust
charge of cowardice. His mind, naturally active, was by no means
uncultivated; and his books and unpublished letters bear witness that his
style as a writer was not contemptible. But his vain, restless, and
grasping spirit, and more than doubtful honesty, proved the ruin of an
enviable reputation. Six years after the expedition of which I am about to
speak, he was tried by a court-martial for a meditated act of treason, the
surrender of Fort Michillimackinac into the hands of the Spaniards, who
were at that time masters of Upper Louisiana.[147] Not long after, if we
may trust his own account, he passed over to the Barbary States, entered
the service of the Dey of Algiers, and fought two battles under his
banners. At the opening of the war of independence, he returned to his
native country, where he made professions of patriotism, but was strongly
suspected by many, including Washington himself, of acting the part of a
spy. In fact, he soon openly espoused the British cause, and received a
colonel's commission from the crown. His services, however, proved of
little consequence. In 1778, he was proscribed and banished, under the act
of New Hampshire, and the remainder of his life was passed in such
obscurity that it is difficult to determine when and where he died.[148]
On the twelfth of September, 1760, Rogers, then at the height of his
reputation, received orders from Sir Jeffrey Amherst to ascend the lakes
with a detachment of rangers, and take possession, in the name of his
Britannic Majesty, of Detroit, Michillimackinac, and other western posts
included in the late capitulation. He left Montreal, on the following day,
with two hundred rangers, in fifteen whale boats. Stemming the surges of
La Chine and the Cedars, they left behind them the straggling hamlet which
bore the latter name, and formed at that day the western limit of Canadian
settlement.[149] They gained Lake Ontario, skirted its northern shore,
amid rough and boisterous weather, and crossing at its western extremity,
reached Fort Niagara on the first of October. Carrying their boats over
the portage, they launched them once more above the cataract, and slowly
pursued their voyage; while Rogers, with a few attendants, hastened on in
advance to Fort Pitt, to deliver despatches, with which he was charged, to
General Monkton. This errand accomplished, he rejoined his command at
Presqu' Isle, about the end of the month, and the whole proceeded together
along the southern margin of Lake Erie. The season was far advanced. The
wind was chill, the lake was stormy, and the woods on shore were tinged
with the fading hues of autumn. On the seventh of November, they reached
the mouth of a river called by Rogers the Chogage. No body of troops under
the British flag had ever before penetrated so far. The day was dull and
rainy, and, resolving to rest until the weather should improve, Rogers
ordered his men to prepare their encampment in the neighboring forest.
Soon after the arrival of the rangers, a party of Indian chiefs and
warriors entered the camp. They proclaimed themselves an embassy from
Pontiac, ruler of all that country, and directed, in his name, that the
English should advance no farther until they had had an interview with the
great chief, who was already close at hand. In truth, before the day
closed, Pontiac himself appeared; and it is here, for the first time, that
this remarkable man stands forth distinctly on the page of history. He
greeted Rogers with the haughty demand, what was his business in that
country, and how he dared enter it without his permission. Rogers informed
him that the French were defeated, that Canada had surrendered, and that
he was on his way to take possession of Detroit, and restore a general
peace to white men and Indians alike. Pontiac listened with attention, but
only replied that he should stand in the path of the English until
morning. Having inquired if the strangers were in need of any thing which
his country could afford, he withdrew, with his chiefs, at nightfall, to
his own encampment; while the English, ill at ease, and suspecting
treachery, stood well on their guard throughout the night.[150]
In the morning, Pontiac returned to the camp with his attendant chiefs,
and made his reply to Rogers's speech of the previous day. He was willing,
he said, to live at peace with the English, and suffer them to remain in
his country as long as they treated him with due respect and deference.
The Indian chiefs and provincial officers smoked the calumet together, and
perfect harmony seemed established between them.[151]
Up to this time, Pontiac had been, in word and deed, the fast ally of the
French; but it is easy to discern the motives that impelled him to
renounce his old adherence. The American forest never produced a man more
shrewd, politic, and ambitious. Ignorant as he was of what was passing in
the world, he could clearly see that the French power was on the wane, and
he knew his own interest too well to prop a falling cause. By making
friends of the English, he hoped to gain powerful allies, who would aid
his ambitious projects, and give him an increased influence over the
tribes; and he flattered himself that the new-comers would treat him with
the same respect which the French had always observed. In this, and all
his other expectations of advantage from the English, he was doomed to
disappointment.
A cold storm of rain set in, and the rangers were detained several days in
their encampment. During this time, Rogers had several interviews with
Pontiac, and was constrained to admire the native vigor of his intellect,
no less than the singular control which he exercised over those around
him.
On the twelfth of November, the detachment was again in motion, and within
a few days they had reached the western end of Lake Erie. Here they heard
that the Indians of Detroit were in arms against them, and that four
hundred warriors lay in ambush at the entrance of the river to cut them
off. But the powerful influence of Pontiac was exerted in behalf of his
new friends. The warriors abandoned their design, and the rangers
continued their progress towards Detroit, now within a short distance.
In the mean time, Lieutenant Brehm had been sent forward with a letter to
Captain Beletre, the commandant at Detroit, informing him that Canada had
capitulated, that his garrison was included in the capitulation, and that
an English detachment was approaching to relieve it. The Frenchman, in
great wrath at the tidings, disregarded the message as an informal
communication, and resolved to keep a hostile attitude to the last. He did
his best to rouse the fury of the Indians. Among other devices, he
displayed upon a pole, before the yelling multitude, the effigy of a crow
pecking a man's head; the crow representing himself, and the head,
observes Rogers, "being meant for my own." All his efforts were
unavailing, and his faithless allies showed unequivocal symptoms of
defection in the hour of need.
Rogers had now entered the mouth of the River Detroit, whence he sent
forward Captain Campbell with a copy of the capitulation, and a letter
from the Marquis de Vaudreuil, directing that the place should be given
up, in accordance with the terms agreed upon between him and General
Amherst. Beletre was forced to yield, and with a very ill grace declared
himself and his garrison at the disposal of the English commander.
The whale boats of the rangers moved slowly upwards between the low banks
of the Detroit, until at length the green uniformity of marsh and forest
was relieved by the Canadian houses, which began to appear on either bank,
the outskirts of the secluded and isolated settlement. Before them, on the
right side, they could see the village of the Wyandots, and on the left
the clustered lodges of the Pottawattamies; while, a little beyond, the
flag of France was flying for the last time above the bark roofs and
weather-beaten palisades of the little fortified town.
The rangers landed on the opposite bank, and pitched their tents upon a
meadow, while two officers, with a small detachment, went across the river
to take possession of the place. In obedience to their summons, the French
garrison defiled upon the plain, and laid down their arms. The _fleur de
lis_ was lowered from the flagstaff, and the cross of St. George rose
aloft in its place, while seven hundred Indian warriors, lately the active
allies of France, greeted the sight with a burst of triumphant yells. The
Canadian militia were next called together and disarmed. The Indians
looked on with amazement at their obsequious behavior, quite at a loss to
understand why so many men should humble themselves before so few. Nothing
is more effective in gaining the respect, or even attachment, of Indians
than a display of power. The savage spectators conceived the loftiest idea
of English prowess, and were astonished at the forbearance of the
conquerors in not killing their vanquished enemies on the spot.
It was on the twenty-ninth of November, 1760, that Detroit fell into the
hands of the English. The garrison were sent as prisoners down the lake,
but the Canadian inhabitants were allowed to retain their farms and
houses, on condition of swearing allegiance to the British crown. An
officer was sent southward to take possession of the forts Miami and
Ouatanon, which guarded the communication between Lake Erie and the Ohio;
while Rogers himself, with a small party, proceeded northward to relieve
the French garrison of Michillimackinac. The storms and gathering ice of
Lake Huron forced him back without accomplishing his object; and
Michillimackinac, with the three remoter posts of St. Marie, Green Bay,
and St. Joseph, remained for a time in the hands of the French. During the
next season, however, a detachment of the 60th regiment, then called the
Royal Americans, took possession of them; and nothing now remained within
the power of the French, except the few posts and settlements on the
Mississippi and the Wabash, not included in the capitulation of Montreal.
The work of conquest was finished. The fertile wilderness beyond the
Alleghanies, over which France had claimed sovereignty,--that boundless
forest, with its tracery of interlacing streams, which, like veins and
arteries, gave it life and nourishment,--had passed into the hands of her
rival. It was by a few insignificant forts, separated by oceans of fresh
water and uncounted leagues of forest, that the two great European powers,
France first, and now England, endeavored to enforce their claims to this
vast domain. There is something ludicrous in the disparity between the
importance of the possession and the slenderness of the force employed to
maintain it. A region embracing so many thousand miles of surface was
consigned to the keeping of some five or six hundred men. Yet the force,
small as it was, appeared adequate to its object, for there seemed no
enemy to contend with. The hands of the French were tied by the
capitulation, and little apprehension was felt from the red inhabitants of
the woods. The lapse of two years sufficed to show how complete and fatal
was the mistake.