done, and at once. Wolfe, after several desperate proposals of his had
been rejected by the council of war, made a feint in force up the
river, in the hope of getting Montcalm where he could fight him. He
scrutinized the precipitous north shore as with a magnifying glass. At
last, on the 11th of September, the hope that had so long been burning
within him was gratified. But what a hope! A headlong goat-track cleft
its zigzag way up the awful steep, and emerged at last upon the dizzy
and breathless height above. Two men could scarce climb abreast in it;
and even this was defended by fortifications, and at the summit,
against the sky, tents could be seen. Yet this was the only way to
victory: only by this heartbreaking path could England drive France
from the western continent, and give a mighty nation to the world.
Wolfe saw, and was content; where one man could go, thousands might
follow. And he perceived that the very difficulty of the enterprise was
the best assurance of its success. The place was defended indeed, but
not strongly. Montcalm knew what daring could accomplish, but even he
had not dreamed of daring such as this. Wolfe, with a great soul
kindled into flame by the resolve to achieve a feat almost beyond
mortal limitations, dared it, and prevailed.
Till the hour of action, he kept his troops far up the stream. By the
13th, all preparations were made. Night came on, calm, like the heart
of the hero who knows that the culminating moment of his destiny has
arrived. At such a crisis, the mortal part of the man is transfigured
by the towering spirit, and his eyes pierce through the veils of
things. His life lies beneath him, and he contemplates its vicissitudes
with the high tranquillity of an immortal freedom. What is death to him
who has already triumphed over the fetters of the flesh, and tasted the
drink of immortality? He is the trustee of the purpose of God; and the
guerdon his deed deserves can be nothing less noble than to die.
It was at one in the morning that the adventure was begun. Silently the
boats moved down the stream, the dark ships following in silence.
Thousands of brave hearts beat with heroic resolve beneath the eternal
stars. The shadowy cove was gained; Wolfe's foot has touched the shore;
as the armed figures follow and gather at the foot of the ascent, no
words are spoken, but what an eloquence in those faces! Upward they
climb, afire with zeal; Howe has won a battery; upward! the picket on
the height, too late aroused from sleep by the stern miracle, is
overpowered. With panting lungs man after man tops the ascent and sees
the darkling plain and forms in line with his comrades, while still the
stream winds up endlessly from the depths below. The earth is giving
birth to an army. Coiling upward, deploying, ranging out, rank after
rank they are extended along the front of the forest, with Quebec
before them. No drum has beat; no bugle has spoken; but Wolfe is there,
his spirit is in five thousand breasts, and there needs no trumpet for
the battle.
As the last of the army formed upon the rugged field, dawn broke upon
the east, and soon the early sunshine sparkled on their weapons and
glowed along the ranks of English red. Meanwhile Montcalm had been
apprised; his first instinct of incredulity had been swept away by the
inevitable truth, and he manned himself for the struggle. Often had he
conquered against odds; but now his spirit must bow before a spirit
stronger than his, as Antony's before Augustus. And what had he to
oppose against the seasoned veterans of the English army, thrice armed
in the consciousness of their unparalleled achievement?--Five weak and
astounded battalions, and a horde of inchoate peasants. But Montcalm
did not falter; by ten he had taken up his position, and by eleven,
after some ineffectual cannonading, to allow time for the arrival of
re-enforcements which came not, he led the charge. The attack was
disordered by the uneven ground, the fences and the ravines; and it was
broken by the granite front of the English (three-fourths of them
Americans) and their long-reserved and withering fire. The
undisciplined Canadians flinched from that certain death; and Wolfe,
advancing on them with his grenadiers, saw them melt away before the
cold steel could reach them. The two leaders faced each other, both
equally undaunted and alert; it was like a duel between them; no
opening was missed, no chance neglected. The smoke hung in the still
air of morning; the long lines of men swayed and undulated beneath it
obscurely, and the roar of musketry dinned terribly in the ear, here
slackening for a moment, there breaking forth in volleying thunders;
and men were dropping everywhere; there were shoutings from the
captains, the fierce crash of cheers, yells of triumph or agony, and
the faint groans of the wounded unto death. Wolfe was hit, but he did
not heed it; Montcalm has received a musket ball, but he cannot yet
die. The English battle does not yield; it advances, the light of
victory is upon it. Backward stagger the French; Montcalm strives to
check the fatal movement, but the flying death has torn its way through
his body, and he can no more. Wolfe, even as the day was won, got his
death wound in the breast, but "Support me--don't let my brave fellows
see me drop," he gasped out. His thoughts were with his army; let the
retreat of the enemy be cut off; and he died with a happy will, and
with God's name on his lips. Montcalm lingered, suggesting means by
which to retrieve the day; but the power of France died with him.
Quebec was lost and won; and human history was turned into a new
channel, and no longer flowing through the caverns of mediaeval error,
rolled its current toward the sunlight of liberty and progress. "The
more a man is versed in business, the more he finds the hand of
Providence everywhere," was the reply of William Pitt, when Parliament
congratulated him on the victory. He had wrought his plans with wisdom
and zeal; but "except the Lord build the city, they labor in vain who
build it." There have been great statesmen and brave soldiers, before
Pitt and Wolfe, and since; but there could be only one fall of Quebec,
with all which that implied.
The following spring and summer were overshadowed by an unrighteous war
against the Cherokees, precipitated by the royalist governor of
Virginia, Lyttleton. An attempt by the French under Levi to recapture
Quebec failed, in spite of the folly of the English commander, Murray;
Pitt had foreseen the effort, and destroyed it with an English fleet.
Amherst, in his own tortoise-like way, advanced and took possession of
Montreal; and by permission of the Indian, Pontiac, who regarded
himself as lord of the country, the English flag was carried to the
outposts. Canada had surrendered; in the terms imposed, property and
the religious faith of the people were respected; but nothing was
promised them in the way of civil liberty. In discussing the European
peace that was now looked for, question was raised whether to restore
Canada, or the West Indian island of Guadaloupe, to France. Some, who
feared that the retention of Canada would too much incline the colonies
to independence, favored its return. But Franklin said that Canada
would be a source of strength to England. The expense of defending that
vast frontier would be saved; the rapidly increasing population would
absorb English manufactures without limit, and their necessary devotion
to farming would diminish their competition as manufacturers. He
pointed out that their differences in governments and mutual jealousies
made their united action against England unthinkable, "unless you
grossly abuse them."--"Very true: that, I see, will happen," returned
the English lawyer Pratt, afterward Lord Cam den, the attorney-general.
But Pitt would not listen to Canada's being given up; he was for
England, not for any English clique. On the other hand, one of those
cliques was preparing to carry out the long meditated taxation of the
colonies; and the sudden death of George II., bringing his son to the
throne, favored their purpose; for the Third George had character and
energy, and not a little intelligence for a king; and he was soon seen
to intend the re-establishment of the royal prerogative in all its
integrity. As a preliminary step to this end, he accepted Pitt's
resignation in October, 1761.
Much to the displeasure of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, already
Judge of Probate, was by Governor Bernard appointed to the Chief
Justiceship of the colony; the royalist direction of his sympathies was
known. In February, 1761, he heard argument in court as to whether
revenue officers had power to call in executive assistance to enforce
the acts of trade. The crown lawyer argued that to refuse it was to
deny the sovereignty of the English Parliament in the colonies. Then
James Otis arose, and made a protest which tingled through the whole
colony, and was the first direct blow aimed against English domination.
Power such as was asked for, he said, had already cost one king of
England his head and another his throne. Writs of assistance were open
to intolerable abuse; were the instrument of arbitrary power and
destructive of the fundamental principles of law. Reason and the
constitution were against them. "No act of Parliament can establish
such a writ: an act of Parliament against the constitution is void!"
These words were the seed of revolution. Hutchinson was frightened, but
succeeded in persuading his colleagues to postpone decision until he
had written to England. The English instruction was to enforce the law,
and the judges acted accordingly; but the people replied by electing
Otis to the assembly; and Hutchinson was more distrusted than ever. At
the same time, in Virginia, Richard Henry Lee denounced the slave
trade; the legislature indorsed his plea, but England denied it. South
Carolina was alienated by the same decree, and also by an unpopular war
against the Cherokees. In New York, the appointment of a judge "during
the king's pleasure" roused the assembly; but the result of their
remonstrance was that all colonial governors were instructed from
England to grant no judicial commissions but during the king's
pleasure. This was to make the Bench the instrument of the Prerogative.
A judge acted on questions of property, without a jury, on information
furnished by crown officers, and derived emoluments from his own award
of forfeitures; and the governor would favor large seizures because he
got one-third of the spoils. All the assemblies could do, for the
present, was to reduce salaries; but that did not make the offenders
any less avaricious. Moreover, the king began the practice of paying
them in spite of the assemblies, and reproved the latter for "not being
animated by a sense of their duty to their king and country."
James Otis continued to be the voice of the colonies. "Kings were made
for the good of the people, not the people for them. By the laws of God
and nature, government must not raise taxes on the property of the
people without the consent of the people. To tax without the assembly's
consent was the same in principle as for the king and the House of
Lords to usurp legislative authority in England." For the utterance of
these sentiments he was honored by the hearty support of the people,
and still more by the denunciations of men of the Hutchinson sort. The
ministers were not silent on the popular side. "May Heaven blast the
designs, though not the soul," said Mayhew, with Christian
discrimination, "of whoever he be among us who shall have the hardiness
to attack the people's rights!" King George's answer, as soon as he had
concluded the peace with France and Spain, in 1763, was to take
measures to terrorize the colonists by sending out an army of twenty
battalions to be kept permanently in America, the expenses of which the
colonists were to pay. But by enforcing the acts of trade, England had
now made herself the enemy of the whole civilized world, and the
American colonies would not be without allies in the struggle that was
drawing near.
While these matters were in agitation among the white people, the
Indians in the north were discovering grievances of their own. Pontiac,
an Ottawa chief, and by his personal abilities the natural leader of
many tribes, was the instigator and center of the revolt. The English
masters of Canada had showed themselves less congenial to the red men
than the French had done; they could not understand that savages had
any rights which they were bound to respect; while Pontiac conceived
that no white man could live in the wilderness without his permission.
Upon this issue, trouble was inevitable; and Pontiac planned a general
movement of all the Indians in the north against the colonists. The
success of the scheme could of course be only momentary; that it
attained the dignity of a "war" was due to the influence and energy of
the Indian general. His design was of broad scope, embracing a
simultaneous attack on all the English frontier forts; a wide coalition
of tribes was effected; and though their tactics were not essentially
different from those heretofore employed by savages, yet their
possession of arms, their skill in their use, and their numbers, made
their onslaughts formidable. On several occasions they effected their
entry into the forts by stratagem: a tale of misery told by a squaw; a
ball in a game struck toward the door of the stronghold; professedly
amicable conferences suddenly becoming massacres; such were the naive
yet successful ruses employed. Many lives were lost, and the border
lands were laid waste and panicstricken; but it was impossible for the
Indians to hold together, and their victories hastened their undoing.
No general engagement, of course, was fought, but Pontiac's authority
gradually abated, and he was finally compelled to go into retirement.
His Conspiracy has its picturesque side, but it is not organically
related to our history; it was merely a fresh expression of the
familiar fact that there could be no sincere friendship between the
white and the red. The former could live with the latter if they would
live like them; but no attempt to reverse the case could succeed. The
solemnity with which the practice of signing treaties of peace with the
Indians has uniformly been kept up is one of the curious features of
our colonial annals, and indeed of later times. Indians will keep the
peace without treaties, if they are kindly used and given liberty to do
as they please; but no engagement is binding on them after they deem
themselves wronged. They are pleased by the formalities, the speeches,
and the gifts that accompany such conferences; they like to exchange
compliments, and to play with belts of wampum; and it is possible that
when they make their promises, they think they will keep them. They can
understand the advantages of trade, and will make some sacrifice of
their pride or convenience to secure them. But the mind is never
dominant in them; the tides of passion flood it, and their wild nature
carries them away. It may be surmised that we should have had fewer
Indian troubles, had we never entered into any treaty with them. But
thousands of treaties have been made, and broken, sometimes by one
side, sometimes by the other, but always by one of the two. And then,
punishments must be administered; but if punishment is for improvement,
it has been as ineffective as the treaties. The only rational thing to
do with an Indian is to kill him; and yet it may fairly be doubted
whether complete moral justification could be shown for the killing of
any Indian since Columbus landed at San Salvador.--As for Pontiac, a
keg of liquor was inducement sufficient to one of his own race to
murder him, five years after the failure of his revolt.
Toward the end of September, Jenkinson, Secretary of the Treasury in
England, presented the draft for an American stamp-tax--the true
authorship of which was never disclosed. This tax was the result of the
argument of exclusion applied to the problem, How to raise a permanent
and sufficient revenue from the colonies. Foreign and internal commerce
taxes would not serve, because such commerce was forbidden by the
Navigation Acts. A poll-tax would be inequitable to the slaveholders.
Land-taxes could not be collected. Exchequer-bills were against an act
of Parliament. Nothing but a stamp-tax remained, and all persons
concerned were in favor of it, the colonists only excepted. Their
opinion was that taxation without representation was an iniquity. But
they did not perhaps consider that England owed a debt of seven hundred
million dollars which must be provided for somehow; and that the
interests of the empire demanded, in the opinion of those who were at
its head, that the colonies be ruled with a stronger hand than
heretofore. George Grenville accepted the responsibility of the act.
The king gave his consent to the employment of the entire official
force of the colonies to prevent infringements of the Navigation Acts,
and the army and navy were to assist them. There were large emoluments
for seizures, and the right of search was unrestricted, afloat or
ashore. In order to diminish the danger of union between the colonies,
a new distribution, or alteration of boundaries, was adopted, with a
view to increasing their number. But the country between the
Alleghanies and the Mississippi was to be closed to colonization, lest
it should prove impossible to control settlers at such a distance. It
proved, of course, still less possible to prevent emigration thither.
But all seemed going well, and the Grenville ministry was so firmly
established that nothing seemed able to shake it. The fact that a young
Virginia lawyer, Patrick Henry by name, had said in the course of an
argument against the claim of a clergyman for the value of some
tobacco, that a king who annuls salutary laws is a tyrant, and forfeits
all right to obedience; and that if ministers fail to fulfill the uses
for which they were ordained, the community may justly strip them of
their appointments--this circumstance probably did not come to the ears
of the British ministry; but it had its effect in Virginia. Grenville,
however, was induced by the appeals of some influential Americans in
London to postpone his tax for a year, so that the assemblies might
have an opportunity to consent to it. By way of tempting them to do
this, he sought for special inducements; he revived the hemp and flax
bounties; he permitted rice to be carried south of Carolina and Georgia
on payment of half subsidy; and he removed the restrictions on the New
England whale fishery. He then informed Parliament of his purpose of
applying the stamp-tax to America, and asked if any member wished to
question the right of Parliament to impose such a tax. In a full house,
not a single person rose to object. The king gave it his "hearty"
approval. It only remained for America humbly and gratefully to accept
it.
First came comments. "If taxes are laid upon us in any shape, without
our having a legal representation where they are laid, are we not
reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of
tributary slaves?" asked Samuel Adams of Boston. "These duties are only
the beginning of evils," said Livingston of New York. "Acts of
Parliament against natural equity are void," Otis affirmed; and in a
lucid and cogent analysis of the principles and ends of government he
pointed out that the best good of the people could be secured only by a
supreme legislative and executive ultimately in the people; but a
universal congress being impracticable, representation was substituted:
"but to bring the powers of all into the hands of one or some few, and
to make them hereditary, is the interested work of the weak and wicked.
Nothing but life and liberty are actually hereditable.... British
colonists do not hold their liberties or their lands by so slippery a
tenure as the will of princes; the colonists are common children of the
same Creator with their brethren in Great Britain.... A time may come
when Parliament shall declare every American charter void; but the
natural, inherent rights of the colonists as men and citizens can never
be abolished. The colonists know the blood and treasure independence
would cost. They will never think of it till driven to it as the last
fatal resort against ministerial oppression: but human nature must and
will be rescued from the general slavery that has so long triumphed
over the species." The immediate practical result was, that the
colonists pledged themselves to use nothing of English manufacture,
even to going without lamb to save wool. And even Hutchinson remarked
that if England had paid as much for the support of the wars as had
been voluntarily paid by the colonists, there would have been no great
increase in the national debt.
All this made no impression in England. The dregs of the Canadian
population were a handful of disreputable Protestant ex-officers,
traders and publicans--"the most immoral collection of men I ever
knew," as Murray said--but judges and juries were selected from these
gentry, and the Catholics were disfranchised. In New England,
boundaries were rearranged, and colonists had to buy new titles. New
York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, protested before Parliament against
the taxation scheme; Philadelphia at first petitioned to be delivered
from the selfishness of its proprietors even at the cost of becoming a
royal colony; but later, Franklin advised that they grant supplies to
the crown only when required of them "in the usual constitutional
manner." George Wythe, speaking for Virginia, remonstrated against
measures "fitter for exiles driven from their country after
ignominiously forfeiting its favor and protection, than for the
posterity of loyal Britons." Yet there were many royalist Americans who
were urgent that English rule should be strengthened; and the English
Board of Trade declared that the protests of the colonies showed "a
most indecent disrespect to the legislature of Great Britain." The king
decreed that in all military matters in America the orders of the
commander-in-chief there, and under him of the brigadiers, should be
supreme; and only in the absence of these officers might the governors
give the word. This became important on the occasion of the "Boston
Massacre" a few years later. In Parliament, Grenville said that he
would never lend a hand toward forging chains for America, "lest in so
doing I forge them for myself"; but he shuffled out of the American
demand not to be taxed without representation by declaring that
Parliament was "the common council of the whole empire," and added that
America was to all intents and purposes as much represented in
Parliament as many Englishmen. This assertion brought to his feet
Barré, the companion of Wolfe at Quebec. He denied that America was
virtually represented, and said that the House was ignorant of American
affairs. Charles Townshend, who posed as an infallible authority on
America, replied that the last war had cost the colonies little though
they had profited much by it; and now these "American children, planted
by our care, nourished up to strength and opulence by our indulgence,
and protected by our arms, grudge to contribute their mite to relieve
us from the heavy burden under which we lie."