1754, 1755
The Signal of Battle
The defeat of Washington was a heavy blow to the Governor, and he
angrily ascribed it to the delay of the expected reinforcements. The
King's companies from New York had reached Alexandria, and crawled
towards the scene of action with thin ranks, bad discipline, thirty
women and children, no tents, no blankets, no knapsacks, and for
munitions one barrel of spoiled gunpowder.[161] The case was still worse
with the regiment from North Carolina. It was commanded by Colonel
Innes, a countryman and friend of Dinwiddie, who wrote to him: "Dear
James, I now wish that we had none from your colony but yourself, for I
foresee nothing but confusion among them." The men were, in fact,
utterly unmanageable. They had been promised three shillings a day,
while the Virginians had only eightpence; and when they heard on the
march that their pay was to be reduced, they mutinied, disbanded, and
went home.
[Footnote 161: _Dinwiddie to the Lords of Trade, 24 July, 1754. Ibid. to
Delancey, 20 June, 1754._]
"You may easily guess," says Dinwiddie to a London correspondent, "the
great fatigue and trouble I have had, which is more than I ever went
through in my life." He rested his hopes on the session of his Assembly,
which was to take place in August; for he thought that the late disaster
would move them to give him money for defending the colony. These
meetings of the burgesses were the great social as well as political
event of the Old Dominion, and gave a gathering signal to the Virginian
gentry scattered far and wide on their lonely plantations. The capital
of the province was Williamsburg, a village of about a thousand
inhabitants, traversed by a straight and very wide street, and adorned
with various public buildings, conspicuous among which was William and
Mary College, a respectable structure, unjustly likened by Jefferson to
a brick kiln with a roof. The capitol, at the other end of the town, had
been burned some years before, and had just risen from its ashes. Not
far distant was the so-called Governor's Palace, where Dinwiddie with
his wife and two daughters exercised such official hospitality as his
moderate salary and Scottish thrift would permit.[162]
[Footnote 162: For a contemporary account of Williamsburg, Burnaby,
_Travels in North America_, 6. Smyth, _Tour in America_, I. 17,
describes it some years later.]
In these seasons of festivity the dull and quiet village was
transfigured. The broad, sandy street, scorching under a southern sun,
was thronged with coaches and chariots brought over from London at heavy
cost in tobacco, though soon to be bedimmed by Virginia roads and negro
care; racing and hard-drinking planters; clergymen of the Establishment,
not much more ascetic than their boon companions of the laity; ladies,
with manners a little rusted by long seclusion; black coachmen and
footmen, proud of their masters and their liveries; young cavaliers,
booted and spurred, sitting their thoroughbreds with the careless grace
of men whose home was the saddle. It was a proud little provincial
society, which might seem absurd in its lofty self-appreciation, had it
not soon approved itself so prolific in ability and worth.[163]
[Footnote 163: The English traveller Smyth, in his _Tour_, gives a
curious and vivid picture of Virginian life. For the social condition of
this and other colonies before the Revolution, one cannot do better than
to consult Lodge's _Short History of the English Colonies_.]
The burgesses met, and Dinwiddie made them an opening speech, inveighing
against the aggressions of the French, their "contempt of treaties," and
"ambitious views for universal monarchy;" and he concluded: "I could
expatiate very largely on these affairs, but my heart burns with
resentment at their insolence. I think there is no room for many
arguments to induce you to raise a considerable supply to enable me to
defeat the designs of these troublesome people and enemies of mankind."
The burgesses in their turn expressed the "highest and most becoming
resentment," and promptly voted twenty thousand pounds; but on the third
reading of the bill they added to it a rider which touched the old
question of the pistole fee, and which, in the view of the Governor, was
both unconstitutional and offensive. He remonstrated in vain; the
stubborn republicans would not yield, nor would he; and again he
prorogued them. This unexpected defeat depressed him greatly. "A
governor," he wrote, "is really to be pitied in the discharge of his
duty to his king and country, in having to do with such obstinate,
self-conceited people.... I cannot satisfy the burgesses unless I
prostitute the rules of government. I have gone through monstrous
fatigues. Such wrong-headed people, I thank God, I never had to do with
before."[164] A few weeks later he was comforted; for, having again
called the burgesses, they gave him the money, without trying this time
to humiliate him.[165]
[Footnote 164: _Dinwiddie to Hamilton, 6 Sept., 1754. Ibid. to J.
Abercrombie, 1 Sept., 1754._]
[Footnote 165: Hening, VI. 435.]
In straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel, aristocratic Virginia was
far outdone by democratic Pennsylvania. Hamilton, her governor, had laid
before the Assembly a circular letter from the Earl of Holdernesse
directing him, in common with other governors, to call on his province
for means to repel any invasion which might be made "within the
undoubted limits of His Majesty's dominion."[166] The Assembly of
Pennsylvania was curiously unlike that of Virginia, as half and often
more than half of its members were Quaker tradesmen in sober raiment and
broad-brimmed hats; while of the rest, the greater part were Germans who
cared little whether they lived under English rule or French, provided
that they were left in peace upon their farms. The House replied to the
Governor's call: "It would be highly presumptuous in us to pretend to
judge of the undoubted limits of His Majesty's dominions;" and they
added: "the Assemblies of this province are generally composed of a
majority who are constitutionally principled against war, and represent
a well-meaning, peaceable people."[167] They then adjourned, telling the
Governor that, "As those our limits have not been clearly ascertained to
our satisfaction, we fear the precipitate call upon us as the province
invaded cannot answer any good purpose at this time."
[Footnote 166: _The Earl of Holdernesse to the Governors in America, 28
Aug. 1753._]
[Footnote 167: _Colonial Records of Pa._, V. 748.]
In the next month they met again, and again Hamilton asked for means to
defend the country. The question was put, Should the Assembly give money
for the King's use? and the vote was feebly affirmative. Should the sum
be twenty thousand pounds? The vote was overwhelming in the negative.
Fifteen thousand, ten thousand, and five thousand, were successively
proposed, and the answer was always, No. The House would give nothing
but five hundred pounds for a present to the Indians; after which they
adjourned "to the sixth of the month called May."[168] At their next
meeting they voted to give the Governor ten thousand pounds; but under
conditions which made them for some time independent of his veto, and
which, in other respects, were contrary to his instructions from the
King, as well as from the proprietaries of the province, to whom he had
given bonds to secure his obedience. He therefore rejected the bill, and
they adjourned. In August they passed a similar vote, with the same
result. At their October meeting they evaded his call for supplies. In
December they voted twenty thousand pounds, hampered with conditions
which were sure to be refused, since Morris, the new governor, who had
lately succeeded Hamilton, was under the same restrictions as his
predecessor. They told him, however, that in the present case they felt
themselves bound by no Act of Parliament, and added: "We hope the
Governor, notwithstanding any penal bond he may have entered into, will
on reflection think himself at liberty and find it consistent with his
safety and honor to give his assent to this bill." Morris, who had taken
the highest legal advice on the subject in England, declined to
compromise himself, saying: "Consider, gentlemen, in what light you will
appear to His Majesty while, instead of contributing towards your own
defence, you are entering into an ill-timed controversy concerning the
validity of royal instructions which may be delayed to a more convenient
time without the least injury to the rights of the people."[169] They
would not yield, and told him "that they had rather the French should
conquer them than give up their privileges."[170] "Truly," remarks
Dinwiddie, "I think they have given their senses a long holiday."
[Footnote 168: _Pennsylvania Archives_, II. 235. _Colonial Records of
Pa._, VI. 22-26. _Works of Franklin,_ III. 265.]
[Footnote 169: _Colonial Records of Pa._, VI. 215.]
[Footnote 170: _Morris to Penn, 1 Jan. 1755._]
New York was not much behind her sisters in contentious stubbornness. In
answer to the Governor's appeal, the Assembly replied: "It appears that
the French have built a fort at a place called French Creek, at a
considerable distance from the River Ohio, which may, but does not by
any evidence or information appear to us to be an invasion of any of His
Majesty's colonies."[171] So blind were they as yet to "manifest
destiny!" Afterwards, however, on learning the defeat of Washington,
they gave five thousand pounds to aid Virginia.[172] Maryland, after
long delay, gave six thousand. New Jersey felt herself safe behind the
other colonies, and would give nothing. New England, on the other hand,
and especially Massachusetts, had suffered so much from French
war-parties that they were always ready to fight. Shirley, the governor
of Massachusetts, had returned from his bootless errand to settle the
boundary question at Paris. His leanings were strongly monarchical; yet
he believed in the New Englanders, and was more or less in sympathy with
them. Both he and they were strenuous against the French, and they had
mutually helped each other to reap laurels in the last war. Shirley was
cautious of giving umbrage to his Assembly, and rarely quarrelled with
it, except when the amount of his salary was in question. He was not
averse to a war with France; for though bred a lawyer, and now past
middle life, he flattered himself with hopes of a high military command.
On the present occasion, making use of a rumor that the French were
seizing the carrying-place between the Chaudière and the Kennebec, he
drew from the Assembly a large grant of money, and induced them to call
upon him to march in person to the scene of danger. He accordingly
repaired to Falmouth (now Portland); and, though the rumor proved false,
sent eight hundred men under Captain John Winslow to build two forts on
the Kennebec as a measure of precaution.[173]
[Footnote 171: _Address of the Assembly to Lieutenant-Governor Delancey,
23 April, 1754. Lords of Trade to Delancey, 5 July, 1754_.]
[Footnote 172: _Delancey to Lords of Trade, 8 Oct. 1754_.]
[Footnote 173: _Massachusetts Archives, 1754_. Hutchinson, III. 26.
_Conduct of Major-General Shirley briefly stated. Journals of the Board
of Trade, 1754_.]
While to these northern provinces Canada was an old and pestilent enemy,
those towards the south scarcely knew her by name; and the idea of
French aggression on their borders was so novel and strange that they
admitted it with difficulty. Mind and heart were engrossed in strife
with their governors: the universal struggle for virtual self-rule. But
the war was often waged with a passionate stupidity. The colonist was
not then an American; he was simply a provincial, and a narrow one. The
time was yet distant when these dissevered and jealous communities
should weld themselves into one broad nationality, capable, at need, of
the mightiest efforts to purge itself of disaffection and vindicate its
commanding unity.
In the interest of that practical independence which they had so much at
heart, two conditions were essential to the colonists. The one was a
field for expansion, and the other was mutual help. Their first
necessity was to rid themselves of the French, who, by shutting them
between the Alleghanies and the sea, would cramp them into perpetual
littleness. With France on their backs, growing while they had no room
to grow, they must remain in helpless wardship, dependent on England,
whose aid they would always need; but with the West open before them,
their future was their own. King and Parliament would respect perforce
the will of a people spread from the ocean to the Mississippi, and
united in action as in aims. But in the middle of the last century the
vision of the ordinary colonist rarely reached so far. The immediate
victory over a governor, however slight the point at issue, was more
precious in his eyes than the remote though decisive advantage which he
saw but dimly.
The governors, representing the central power, saw the situation from
the national point of view. Several of them, notably Dinwiddie and
Shirley, were filled with wrath at the proceedings of the French; and
the former was exasperated beyond measure at the supineness of the
provinces. He had spared no effort to rouse them, and had failed. His
instincts were on the side of authority; but, under the circumstances,
it is hardly to be imputed to him as a very deep offence against human
liberty that he advised the compelling of the colonies to raise men and
money for their own defence, and proposed, in view of their "intolerable
obstinacy and disobedience to his Majesty's commands," that Parliament
should tax them half-a-crown a head. The approaching war offered to the
party of authority temptations from which the colonies might have saved
it by opening their purse-strings without waiting to be told.
The Home Government, on its part, was but half-hearted in the wish that
they should unite in opposition to the common enemy. It was very willing
that the several provinces should give money and men, but not that they
should acquire military habits and a dangerous capacity of acting
together. There was one kind of union, however, so obviously necessary,
and at the same time so little to be dreaded, that the British Cabinet,
instructed by the governors, not only assented to it, but urged it. This
was joint action in making treaties with the Indians. The practice of
separate treaties, made by each province in its own interest, had bred
endless disorders. The adhesion of all the tribes had been so shaken,
and the efforts of the French to alienate them were so vigorous and
effective, that not a moment was to be lost. Joncaire had gained over
most of the Senecas, Piquet was drawing the Onondagas more and more to
his mission, and the Dutch of Albany were alienating their best friends,
the Mohawks, by encroaching on their lands. Their chief, Hendrick, came
to New York with a deputation of the tribe to complain of their wrongs;
and finding no redress, went off in anger, declaring that the covenant
chain was broken.[174] The authorities in alarm called William Johnson
to their aid. He succeeded in soothing the exasperated chief, and then
proceeded to the confederate council at Onondaga, where he found the
assembled sachems full of anxieties and doubts. "We don't know what you
Christians, English and French, intend," said one of their orators. "We
are so hemmed in by you both that we have hardly a hunting-place left.
In a little while, if we find a bear in a tree, there will immediately
appear an owner of the land to claim the property and hinder us from
killing it, by which we live. We are so perplexed between you that we
hardly know what to say or think."[175] No man had such power over the
Five Nations as Johnson. His dealings with them were at once honest,
downright, and sympathetic. They loved and trusted him as much as they
detested the Indian commissioners at Albany, whom the province of New
York had charged with their affairs, and who, being traders, grossly
abused their office.
[Footnote 174: _N.Y. Col. Docs._, VI. 788. _Colonial Records of Pa._ V.
625.]
[Footnote 175: _N.Y. Col. Docs._, VI. 813.]
It was to remedy this perilous state of things that the Lords of Trade
and Plantations directed the several governors to urge on their
assemblies the sending of commissioners to make a joint treaty with the
wavering tribes.[176] Seven of the provinces, New York, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, and the four New England colonies, acceded to the plan, and
sent to Albany, the appointed place of meeting, a body of men who for
character and ability had never had an equal on the continent, but whose
powers from their respective assemblies were so cautiously limited as to
preclude decisive action. They met in the court-house of the little
frontier city. A large "chain-belt" of wampum was provided, on which the
King was symbolically represented, holding in his embrace the colonies,
the Five Nations, and all their allied tribes. This was presented to the
assembled warriors, with a speech in which the misdeeds of the French
were not forgotten. The chief, Hendrick, made a much better speech in
reply. "We do now solemnly renew and brighten the covenant chain. We
shall take the chain-belt to Onondaga, where our council-fire always
burns, and keep it so safe that neither thunder nor lightning shall
break it." The commissioners had blamed them for allowing so many of
their people to be drawn away to Piquet's mission. "It is true," said
the orator, "that we live disunited. We have tried to bring back our
brethren, but in vain; for the Governor of Canada is like a wicked,
deluding spirit. You ask why we are so dispersed. The reason is that you
have neglected us for these three years past." Here he took a stick and
threw it behind him. "You have thus thrown us behind your back; whereas
the French are a subtle and vigilant people, always using their utmost
endeavors to seduce and bring us over to them." He then told them that
it was not the French alone who invaded the country of the Indians. "The
Governor of Virginia and the Governor of Canada are quarrelling about
lands which belong to us, and their quarrel may end in our destruction."
And he closed with a burst of sarcasm. "We would have taken Crown Point
[_in the last war_], but you prevented us. Instead, you burned your own
fort at Saratoga and ran away from it,--which was a shame and a scandal
to you. Look about your country and see: you have no fortifications; no,
not even in this city. It is but a step from Canada hither, and the
French may come and turn you out of doors. You desire us to speak from
the bottom of our hearts, and we shall do it. Look at the French: they
are men; they are fortifying everywhere. But you are all like women,
bare and open, without fortifications."[177]
[Footnote 176: _Circular Letter of Lords of Trade to Governors in
America, 18 Sept. 1753. Lords of Trade to Sir Danvers Osborne, in N.Y.
Col. Docs._, VI. 800.]
[Footnote 177: _Proceedings of the Congress at Albany, N.Y. Col. Docs._,
VI. 853. A few verbal changes, for the sake of brevity, are made in the
above extracts.]
Hendrick's brother Abraham now took up the word, and begged that Johnson
might be restored to the management of Indian affairs, which he had
formerly held; "for," said the chief, "we love him and he us and he has
always been our good and trusty friend." The commissioners had not power
to grant the request, but the Indians were assured that it should not be
forgotten; and they returned to their villages soothed, but far from
satisfied. Nor were the commissioners empowered to take any effective
steps for fortifying the frontier.
The congress now occupied itself with another matter. Its members were
agreed that great danger was impending; that without wise and just
treatment of the tribes, the French would gain them all, build forts
along the back of the British colonies, and, by means of ships and
troops from France, master them one by one, unless they would combine
for mutual defence. The necessity of some form of union had at length
begun to force itself upon the colonial mind. A rough woodcut had lately
appeared in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, figuring the provinces under the
not very flattering image of a snake cut to pieces, with the motto,
"Join, or die." A writer of the day held up the Five Nations for
emulation, observing that if ignorant savages could confederate, British
colonists might do as much.[178] Franklin, the leading spirit of the
congress, now laid before it his famous project of union, which has been
too often described to need much notice here. Its fate is well known.
The Crown rejected it because it gave too much power to the colonies;
the colonies, because it gave too much power to the Crown, and because
it required each of them to transfer some of its functions of
self-government to a central council. Another plan was afterwards
devised by the friends of prerogative, perfectly agreeable to the King,
since it placed all power in the hands of a council of governors, and
since it involved compulsory taxation of the colonists, who, for the
same reasons, would have doggedly resisted it, had an attempt been made
to carry it into effect.[179]
[Footnote 178: Kennedy, _Importance of gaining and preserving the
Friendship of the Indians_.]
[Footnote 179: On the Albany plan of union, _Franklin's Works_, I. 177.
Shirley thought it "a great strain upon the prerogative of the Crown,"
and was for requiring the colonies to raise money and men "without
farther consulting them upon any points whatever." _Shirley to Robinson,
24 Dec. 1754_.]
Even if some plan of union had been agreed upon, long delay must have
followed before its machinery could be set in motion; and meantime there
was need of immediate action. War-parties of Indians from Canada, set
on, it was thought, by the Governor, were already burning and murdering
among the border settlements of New York and New Hampshire. In the south
Dinwiddie grew more and more alarmed, "for the French are like so many
locusts; they are collected in bodies in a most surprising manner; their
number now on the Ohio is from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred." He
writes to Lord Granville that, in his opinion, they aim to conquer the
continent, and that "the obstinacy of this stubborn generation" exposes
the country "to the merciless rage of a rapacious enemy." What vexed him
even more than the apathy of the assemblies was the conduct of his
brother-governor, Glen of South Carolina, who, apparently piqued at the
conspicuous part Dinwiddie was acting, wrote to him in a "very
dictatorial style," found fault with his measures, jested at his
activity in writing letters, and even questioned the right of England to
lands on the Ohio; till he was moved at last to retort: "I cannot help
observing that your letters and arguments would have been more proper
from a French officer than from one of His Majesty's governors. My
conduct has met with His Majesty's gracious approbation; and I am sorry
it has not received yours." Thus discouraged, even in quarters where he
had least reason to expect it, he turned all his hopes to the Home
Government; again recommended a tax by Act of Parliament, and begged, in
repeated letters, for arms, munitions, and two regiments of
infantry.[180] His petition was not made in vain.
[Footnote 180: _Dinwiddie Papers_; letters to Granville, Albemarle,
Halifax, Fox, Holdernesse, Horace Walpole, and Lords of Trade.]
England at this time presented the phenomenon of a prime minister who
could not command the respect of his own servants. A more preposterous
figure than the Duke of Newcastle never stood at the head of a great
nation. He had a feverish craving for place and power, joined to a total
unfitness for both. He was an adept in personal politics, and was so
busied with the arts of winning and keeping office that he had no
leisure, even if he had had ability, for the higher work of government.
He was restless, quick in movement, rapid and confused in speech, lavish
of worthless promises, always in a hurry, and at once headlong, timid,
and rash. "A borrowed importance and real insignificance," says Walpole,
who knew him well, "gave him the perpetual air of a solicitor.... He had
no pride, though infinite self-love. He loved business immoderately; yet
was only always doing it, never did it. When left to himself, he always
plunged into difficulties, and then shuddered for the consequences."
Walpole gives an anecdote showing the state of his ideas on colonial
matters. General Ligonier suggested to him that Annapolis ought to be
defended. "To which he replied with his lisping, evasive hurry:
'Annapolis, Annapolis! Oh, yes, Annapolis must be defended,--where is
Annapolis?'"[181] Another contemporary, Smollett, ridicules him in his
novel of _Humphrey Clinker_, and tells a similar story, which, founded
in fact or not, shows in what estimation the minister was held: "Captain
C. treated the Duke's character without any ceremony. 'This wiseacre,'
said he, 'is still abed; and I think the best thing he can do is to
sleep on till Christmas; for when he gets up he does nothing but expose
his own folly. In the beginning of the war he told me in a great fright
that thirty thousand French had marched from Acadia to Cape Breton.
Where did they find transports? said I.--Transports! cried he, I tell
you they marched by land.--By land to the island of Cape Breton!--What,
is Cape Breton an island?--Certainly.--Ha! are you sure of that?--When I
pointed it out on the map, he examined it earnestly with his spectacles;
then, taking me in his arms,--My dear C., cried he, you always bring us
good news. Egad! I'll go directly and tell the King that Cape Breton is
an island.'"
[Footnote 181: Walpole, _George II._, I. 344.]
His wealth, county influence, flagitious use of patronage, and
long-practised skill in keeping majorities in the House of Commons by
means that would not bear the light, made his support necessary to Pitt
himself, and placed a fantastic political jobber at the helm of England
in a time when she needed a patriot and a statesman. Newcastle was the
growth of the decrepitude and decay of a great party, which had
fulfilled its mission and done its work. But if the Whig soil had become
poor for a wholesome crop, it was never so rich for toadstools.
Sir Thomas Robinson held the Southern Department, charged with the
colonies; and Lord Mahon remarks of him that the Duke had achieved the
feat of finding a secretary of state more incapable than himself. He had
the lead of the House of Commons. "Sir Thomas Robinson lead us!" said
Pitt to Henry Fox; "the Duke might as well send his jackboot to lead
us." The active and aspiring Halifax was at the head of the Board of
Trade and Plantations. The Duke of Cumberland commanded the army,--an
indifferent soldier, though a brave one; harsh, violent, and headlong.
Anson, the celebrated navigator, was First Lord of the Admiralty,--a
position in which he disappointed everybody.
In France the true ruler was Madame de Pompadour, once the King's
mistress, now his procuress, and a sort of feminine prime minister.
Machault d'Arnouville was at the head of the Marine and Colonial
Department. The diplomatic representatives of the two Crowns were more
conspicuous for social than for political talents. Of Mirepoix, French
ambassador at London, Marshal Saxe had once observed: "It is a good
appointment; he can teach the English to dance." Walpole says concerning
him: "He could not even learn to pronounce the names of our games of
cards,--which, however, engaged most of the hours of his negotiation. We
were to be bullied out of our colonies by an apprentice at whist!" Lord
Albemarle, English ambassador at Versailles, is held up by Chesterfield
as an example to encourage his son in the pursuit of the graces: "What
do you think made our friend Lord Albemarle colonel of a regiment of
Guards, Governor of Virginia, Groom of the Stole, and ambassador to
Paris,--amounting in all to sixteen or seventeen thousand pounds a year?
Was it his birth? No; a Dutch gentleman only. Was it his estate? No; he
had none. Was it his learning, his parts, his political abilities and
application? You can answer these questions as easily and as soon as I
can ask them. What was it then? Many people wondered; but I do not, for
I know, and will tell you,--it was his air, his address, his manners,
and his graces."
The rival nations differed widely in military and naval strength.
England had afloat more than two hundred ships of war, some of them of
great force; while the navy of France counted little more than half the
number. On the other hand, England had reduced her army to eighteen
thousand men, and France had nearly ten times as many under arms. Both
alike were weak in leadership. That rare son of the tempest, a great
commander, was to be found in neither of them since the death of Saxe.
In respect to the approaching crisis, the interests of the two Powers
pointed to opposite courses of action. What France needed was time. It
was her policy to put off a rupture, wreathe her face in diplomatic
smiles, and pose in an attitude of peace and good faith, while
increasing her navy, reinforcing her garrisons in America, and
strengthening her positions there. It was the policy of England to
attack at once, and tear up the young encroachments while they were yet
in the sap, before they could strike root and harden into stiff
resistance.
When, on the fourteenth of November, the King made his opening speech to
the Houses of Parliament, he congratulated them on the prevailing peace,
and assured them that he should improve it to promote the trade of his
subjects, "and protect those possessions which constitute one great
source of their wealth." America was not mentioned; but his hearers
understood him, and made a liberal grant for the service of the
year.[182] Two regiments, each of five hundred men, had already been
ordered to sail for Virginia, where their numbers were to be raised by
enlistment to seven hundred.[183] Major-General Braddock, a man after
the Duke of Cumberland's own heart, was appointed to the chief command.
The two regiments--the forty-fourth and the forty-eighth--embarked at
Cork in the middle of January. The soldiers detested the service, and
many had deserted. More would have done so had they foreseen what
awaited them.
[Footnote 182: Entick, _Late War_, I. 118.]
[Footnote 183: _Robinson to Lords of the Admiralty, 30 Sept. 1754.
Ibid., to Board of Ordnance, 10 Oct. 1754. Ibid., Circular Letter to
American Governors, 26 Oct. 1754. Instructions to our Trusty and
Well-beloved Edward Braddock, 25 Nov. 1754_.]
This movement was no sooner known at Versailles than a counter
expedition was prepared on a larger scale. Eighteen ships of war were
fitted for sea at Brest and Rochefort, and the six battalions of La
Reine, Bourgogne, Languedoc, Guienne, Artois, and Béarn, three thousand
men in all, were ordered on board for Canada. Baron Dieskau, a German
veteran who had served under Saxe, was made their general; and with him
went the new governor of French America, the Marquis de Vaudreuil,
destined to succeed Duquesne, whose health was failing under the
fatigues of his office. Admiral Dubois de la Motte commanded the fleet;
and lest the English should try to intercept it, another squadron of
nine ships, under Admiral Macnamara, was ordered to accompany it to a
certain distance from the coast. There was long and tedious delay.
Doreil, commissary of war, who had embarked with Vaudreuil and Dieskau
in the same ship, wrote from the harbor of Brest on the twenty-ninth of
April: "At last I think we are off. We should have been outside by four
o'clock this morning, if M. de Macnamara had not been obliged to ask
Count Dubois de la Motte to wait till noon to mend some important part
of the rigging (I don't know the name of it) which was broken. It is
precious time lost, and gives the English the advantage over us of two
tides. I talk of these things as a blind man does of colors. What is
certain is that Count Dubois de la Motte is very impatient to get away,
and that the King's fleet destined for Canada is in very able and
zealous hands. It is now half-past two. In half an hour all may be
ready, and we may get out of the harbor before night." He was again
disappointed; it was the third of May before the fleet put to sea.[184]
[Footnote 184: _Lettres de Cremille, de Rostaing, et de Doreil au
Ministre, Avril 18, 24, 28, 29, 1755. Liste des Vaisseaux de Guerre qui
composent l'Escadre armée à Brest, 1755. Journal of M. de Vaudreuil's
Voyage to Canada_, in _N.Y. Col. Docs._, X. 297. Pouchot, I. 25.]
During these preparations there was active diplomatic correspondence
between the two Courts. Mirepoix demanded why British troops were sent
to America. Sir Thomas Robinson answered that there was no intention to
disturb the peace or offend any Power whatever; yet the secret orders to
Braddock were the reverse of pacific. Robinson asked on his part the
purpose of the French armament at Brest and Rochefort; and the answer,
like his own, was a protestation that no hostility was meant. At the
same time Mirepoix in the name of the King proposed that orders should
be given to the American governors on both sides to refrain from all
acts of aggression. But while making this proposal the French Court
secretly sent orders to Duquesne to attack and destroy Fort Halifax, one
of the two forts lately built by Shirley on the Kennebec,--a river
which, by the admission of the French themselves, belonged to the
English. But, in making this attack, the French Governor was expressly
enjoined to pretend that he acted without orders.[185] He was also told
that, if necessary, he might make use of the Indians to harass the
English.[186] Thus there was good faith on neither part; but it is clear
through all the correspondence that the English expected to gain by
precipitating an open rupture, and the French by postponing it. Projects
of convention were proposed on both sides, but there was no agreement.
The English insisted as a preliminary condition that the French should
evacuate all the western country as far as the Wabash. Then ensued a
long discussion of their respective claims, as futile as the former
discussion at Paris on Acadian boundaries.[187]
[Footnote 185: _Machault à Duquesne, 17 Fév. 1755_. The letter of
Mirepoix proposing mutual abstinence from aggression, is dated on the
6th of the same month. The French dreaded Fort Halifax, because they
thought it prepared the way for an advance on Quebec by way of the
Chaudière.]
[Footnote 186: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 187: This correspondence is printed among the _Pièces
justificatives_ of the _Précis des Faits_.]
The British Court knew perfectly the naval and military preparations of
the French. Lord Albemarle had died at Paris in December; but the
secretary of the embassy, De Cosne, sent to London full information
concerning the fleet at Brest and Rochefort.[188] On this, Admiral
Boscawen, with eleven ships of the line and one frigate, was ordered to
intercept it; and as his force was plainly too small, Admiral Melbourne,
with seven more ships, was sent, nearly three weeks after, to join him
if he could. Their orders were similar,--to capture or destroy any
French vessels bound to North America.[189] Boscawen, who got to sea
before La Motte, stationed himself near the southern coast of
Newfoundland to cut him off; but most of the French squadron eluded him,
and safely made their way, some to Louisbourg, and the others to Quebec.
Thus the English expedition was, in the main, a failure. Three of the
French ships, however, lost in fog and rain, had become separated from
the rest, and lay rolling and tossing on an angry sea not far from Cape
Race. One of them was the "Alcide," commanded by Captain Hocquart; the
others were the "Lis" and the "Dauphin." The wind fell; but the fogs
continued at intervals; till, on the afternoon of the seventh of June,
the weather having cleared, the watchman on the maintop saw the distant
ocean studded with ships. It was the fleet of Boscawen. Hocquart, who
gives the account, says that in the morning they were within three
leagues of him, crowding all sail in pursuit. Towards eleven o'clock one
of them, the "Dunkirk," was abreast of him to windward, within short
speaking distance; and the ship of the Admiral, displaying a red flag as
a signal to engage, was not far off. Hocquart called out: "Are we at
peace, or war?" He declares that Howe, captain of the "Dunkirk," replied
in French: "La paix, la paix." Hocquart then asked the name of the
British admiral; and on hearing it said: "I know him; he is a friend of
mine." Being asked his own name in return, he had scarcely uttered it
when the batteries of the "Dunkirk" belched flame and smoke, and
volleyed a tempest of iron upon the crowded decks of the "Alcide." She
returned the fire, but was forced at length to strike her colors.
Rostaing, second in command of the troops, was killed; and six other
officers, with about eighty men, were killed or wounded.[190] At the
same time the "Lis" was attacked and overpowered. She had on board eight
companies of the battalions of La Reine and Languedoc. The third French
ship, the "Dauphin," escaped under cover of a rising fog.[191]
[Footnote 188: Particulars in Entick, I. 121.]
[Footnote 189: _Secret Instructions for our Trusty and Well-beloved
Edward Boscawen, Esq., Vice-Admiral of the Blue, 16 April, 1755. Most
secret Instructions for Francis Holbourne, Esq., Rear-Admiral of the
Blue, 9 May, 1755. Robinson to Lords of the Admiralty, 8 May, 1755_.]
[Footnote 190: _Liste des Officiers tués et blessés dans le Combat de
l'Alcide et du Lis_.]
[Footnote 191: Hocquart's account is given in full by Pichon, _Lettres
et Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire du Cap-Breton_. The short account
in _Précis des Faits_, 272, seems, too, to be drawn from Hocquart. Also
_Boscawen to Robinson, 22 June, 1755. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 24 Juillet,
1755_, Entick, I. 137.
Some English accounts say that Captain Howe, in answer to the question,
"Are we at peace, or war?" returned, "I don't know; but you had better
prepare for war." Boscawen places the action on the 10th, instead of the
8th, and puts the English loss at seven killed and twenty-seven
wounded.]
Here at last was an end to negotiation. The sword was drawn and
brandished in the eyes of Europe.