The news of the declaration of war reached Louisbourg at least two
months before it was known in Boston, and the French Governor, M.
Duquesnel, immediately sent out expeditions to capture the English
posts in Nova Scotia. Canseau, at the entrance of the strait of that
name, was easily taken, and the garrison carried to Louisbourg, but
Annapolis Royal was successfully defended by Colonel Mascarene, then
governor of {215} Nova Scotia. All these events had their direct
influence on the expedition which New England sent in the spring of
1745 against Louisbourg. The prisoners who had been captured at
Canseau had remained until the autumn in Louisbourg, and the accounts
they brought back of its condition gave Shirley and others reason to
believe that if an expedition was, without loss of time, sent against
it, there would be a fair chance of success. Not only did they learn
that the garrison was small, but that it was discontented, and a mutiny
had actually broken out on account of the soldiers not having received
the usual additions to their regular pay for work on the
fortifications. The ramparts were stated to be defective in more than
one place, while gales and other causes had delayed the arrival of the
ships which arrived every year with provisions and reinforcements.
These facts gave additional confidence to Governor Shirley of
Massachusetts, William Vaughan of New Hampshire, and many influential
men who had already conceived the idea of striking a blow at the French
which would give the English control of the whole coast from Cape Sable
to the entrance of the St. Lawrence.
The expedition against Louisbourg consisted of over four thousand men,
of whom Massachusetts, which then included the present State of Maine,
contributed nearly one-third. Colonel Pepperrell of Kittery on the
Piscataqua, who had command, with the title of lieutenant-general, was
a man of wealth and influence, though without any military experience.
His excellent judgment and undaunted {216} courage, however,
contributed largely to the success of this bold venture. Captain
Edward Tyng, a capable colonial sailor, was the commodore of the little
fleet of thirteen vessels, carrying in all about two hundred guns. The
Puritan spirit of New England had much influence in organising an
expedition, and whose flag had a motto suggested by the Methodist
revivalist, Whitfield: "_Nil desperandum Christo duce_." The story of
the success of the New England troops, in conjunction with the small
English fleet, under the command of Commodore Warren, has been often
told, and we need not dwell on its details. M. Duchambon was at the
time governor of Louisbourg, and maintained the defence for nearly
forty days. The capitulation of the fortress was hastened by the fact
that the English fleet captured the French frigate _Vigilante_, on
whose arrival the garrison had been depending for weeks. On the
afternoon of June 17th, General Pepperrell marched at the head of his
army through the West or Dauphin gate into the town, and received the
keys from the commandant, who, with his garrison drawn up in line,
received him in the King's bastion. One hundred and fifty years later
a granite column was raised on the same historic ground in honour of
this famous victory, which caused such rejoicings throughout England
and America.
By the articles of capitulation, the garrison and residents of
Louisbourg, probably two thousand persons in all, were transported to
France. The settlement of Port Toulouse and Port Dauphin had been
captured, the first before, and the other during {217} the siege. The
leader of the New England expedition was rewarded with a baronetcy, the
first distinction of the kind ever given to a colonist, while Warren
was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral of the blue.
If the English Government had fully understood the necessities of their
American colonies, they would have immediately followed the advice of
Governor Shirley, who was a man of statesmanlike views and bold
conception, though he possessed no capacity as a leader of military
operations, as his later career in America proved. He suggested that
an expedition should attack Montreal by the usual route of Lake
Champlain, while an English fleet ascended the St. Lawrence and
besieged Quebec. All the colonies set to work with considerable energy
to carry out this scheme, but it came to nought, in consequence of the
failure of the Duke of Newcastle, the most incapable statesman ever at
the head of imperial affairs, to redeem his promise. It was then
proposed to attack Fort Frederick at Crown Point, on the western side
of Lake Champlain, where it contracts to a narrow river, but its
progress was arrested by the startling news that the French were
sending out a fleet to take Cape Breton and Acadia, and attack Boston
and other places on the Atlantic sea-board.
France had heard with dismay of the loss of Cape Breton, which she
recognised as a key to the St. Lawrence, and made two efforts to
recover it before the war closed in 1748. One of the noblest fleets
that ever sailed from the shores of France left {218} Rochelle in 1746
for Cape Breton, under the command of M. de la Rochefoucauld, the Duke
d'Anville, an able, sensitive man, who, however, had had no naval
experience. Storm and pestilence attacked the fleet, which found a
refuge in the harbour of Chebouctou, afterwards Halifax, where the
unfortunate Admiral died from an apoplectic seizure. His successor, M.
d'Estournelle, committed suicide in a fit of despondency caused by the
responsibility thrown upon him, when men were dying by hundreds every
day on those lonely Acadian shores. The French lost between two and
three thousand men by disease or casualties, and the remnant of the
great fleet, which was to have restored the fortunes of France in
America, returned home under the command of M. de la Jonquière without
having even attempted to capture the half-ruined fort at Annapolis.
Another fleet in 1747, under M. de St. George and the Marquis de la
Jonquière, the latter of whom became subsequently Governor of Canada,
never reached its destination, but was defeated off Cape Finisterre by
a more powerful fleet under Admirals Anson and Warren.
The Canadian Government, of which the Marquis de Beauharnois was then
the head, had confidently expected to regain Acadia, when they heard of
the arrival of the Duke d'Anville's fleet, and immediately sent M. de
Ramesay to excite the Acadians, now very numerous--probably ten
thousand altogether--to rise in arms against the few Englishmen at Port
Royal. He had with him a considerable force of Indians and Canadians,
among the latter {219} such distinguished men as Beaujeu, Saint-Ours,
Boishébert, Lanaudière, but the news of the disasters that had crippled
the fleet, forced him to give up his plan of attacking Annapolis, and
to withdraw to the isthmus of Chignecto, where he built a small fort at
Baie Verte. In the following year, 1747, he succeeded in surprising
and capturing Colonel Arthur Noble and a considerable force of New
England troops who had taken possession of the houses of the Acadian
French at Grand Pré, one of the most fertile and beautiful districts of
the province, afterwards still more famous in poetry and history. This
exploit, however, did not materially change the aspect of things in
Acadia, where the French Acadians had entirely disappointed the hopes
of Ramesay and his government. Had they been as active or enterprising
as their compatriots on the banks of the St. Lawrence, they might
easily, at that time, have won back Acadia for France. As it was,
however, Ramesay was not able to gain a firm foothold beyond the
isthmus. Even the success he won was neutralised by the activity of
Governor Shirley, who was ever alive to the importance of Nova Scotia,
and immediately sent another force to occupy the meadows of Grand Pré.
In 1748 English diplomacy, careless of colonial interests, restored the
island of Cape Breton to France by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in
return for the commercial post of Madras, which had been taken by the
French in the East Indies where England and France were now rivals for
the supremacy. It was the persistency of the French to regain {220}
possession of so valuable a bulwark to their great dominion of Canada,
that forced the English cabinet to restore it at a time when the nation
was threatened by a Catholic pretender, and disheartened at the results
of the war on the continent. Weary of the struggle and anxious for a
breathing space, England deserted Maria Theresa and made peace with
France.
{221}
XVI.
THE STRUGGLE FOR DOMINION IN THE GREAT
VALLEYS OF NORTH AMERICA--PRELUDE.
(1748-1756.)
[Illustration: Map of French forts in America, 1750-60.]
The map that is placed at the beginning of this chapter outlines the
ambitious designs conceived by French statesmen soon after the Treaty
of Aix-la-Chapelle. We see the names of many posts and forts intended
to keep up communications between Canada and Louisiana, and overawe the
English colonies then confined to a relatively narrow strip of
territory on the Atlantic coast. Conscious of the mistake that they
had made in giving up Acadia, the French now claimed that its "ancient
limits" did not extend beyond the isthmus of Chignecto--in other words,
included only Nova Scotia. Accordingly they proceeded to construct the
forts of Gaspereau and Beauséjour on that neck of land, and also one on
the St. John River, so that they might control the land and sea
approaches to Cape Breton from the St. Lawrence where Quebec, enthroned
on her picturesque heights, and Montreal at the {222} confluence of the
Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, held the keys to Canada. The approaches
by the way of Lake Champlain and the Richelieu were defended by the
fort of St. John near the northern extremity of the lake, and by the
more formidable works known as Fort Frederick or Crown Point--to give
the better known English name--on a peninsula at the narrows towards
the south. The latter was the most advanced post of the French until
they built Fort Ticonderoga or Carillon on a high, rocky promontory at
the head of Lake Sacrement, afterwards called Lake George by General
Johnson--a sheet of water always famed for its picturesque charms. At
the foot of this lake, associated with so many memorable episodes in
American history, General Johnson, a clever, ambitious Irishman, a
nephew of Sir Peter Warren, in 1755, erected Fort William Henry, about
fourteen miles from Fort Edward or Lyman, at the great carrying place
on the upper waters of the Hudson. Returning to the St. Lawrence and
the lakes, we find Fort Frontenac or Cataraqui at the eastern end of
Lake Ontario, where the old city of Kingston now stands. Within the
limits of the present city of Toronto, La Galissonnière built Fort
Rouillé as an attempt to control the trade of the Indians of the North,
who were finding their way to the English fort at Choueguen (Oswego),
which had been commenced with the consent of the Iroquois by Governor
Burnet of New York and was now a menace to the French dominion of Lake
Ontario. At the other extremity of this lake was Fort Niagara, the key
to the West.
{223}
At Detroit, Mackinac, and Sault Ste. Marie the French continued to hold
possession of the Great Lakes and the country to the west and south.
Their communications, then, between the West and Quebec were
established, but between the great valleys of the St. Lawrence and the
Mississippi, over which they claimed exclusive rights, there was
another valley which became of importance in the execution of their
scheme of continental dominion. In the years succeeding the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle the English colonists awakened to the importance of the
valley of the Ohio, and adventurous frontiersmen of Virginia and
Pennsylvania were already forcing their way into its wilderness, when
France's ambition barred the way to their further progress. That
astute Canadian, Governor La Galissonnière, in 1749, recognised the
importance of the Ohio in relation to the Illinois and Mississippi, and
sent Céloron, a captain in the French service, to claim possession of
the valley of the former river and its tributaries. This officer made
a long and enterprising journey, in the course of which he affixed at
different points the arms of France to trees, and buried leaden plates
bearing the inscription, that they were memorials of the "renewal of
the possession of the Ohio and all its affluents" originally
established by arms and treaties, particularly those of Ryswick,
Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle. Under the instructions of Governor
Duquesne, who possessed all the sagacity of La Galissonnière, forts
were established at Presqu'ile (Erie) and on French Creek, a tributary
of the Alleghany. Virginians saw with dismay the entrance {224} of the
French into a region on which they were now casting a longing eye.
Their government had secured from the Iroquois a doubtful deed which
gave them, as they urged, a title to the Great West, and a company was
even formed to occupy the Ohio. In 1754 the English commenced the
construction of a fort at the forks of the Ohio, but it was easily
captured by Contrecoeur, who completed and renamed it in honour of the
Governor of Canada, Duquesne. Washington, who now first appears in
American history, was defeated by Chevalier de Villiers at Fort
Necessity, a mere intrenchment at Great Meadows, and the French held
entire possession of the Ohio valley, where no English trader or
pioneer dared show himself. By 1755 the French dominion was complete
from the Ohio to the Illinois, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of
Mexico, so far as a slender line of communication by means of widely
separated posts and settlements could make it so. On the St. Joseph,
the Maumee, the Wabash, and the Illinois, there were small forts. Fort
Chartres in the Illinois country was the only post of any thorough
construction. At Cahokia, opposite the modern city of St. Louis, and
at Kaskaskia, at the junction of the river of that name with the
Mississippi, there were small and relatively prosperous French
villages. In Louisiana the French had the towns of Mobile, Biloxi, New
Orleans, and a few other settlements, where the African blacks far
outnumbered the whites. That colony had had many difficulties to
surmount before it could be considered established. Wars with the
Natchez and Chickasaws {225} had been constant. Crozat's experiment
had been followed by the establishment of the Mississippi or Western
Company, which was to develop gold mines, that never existed except in
the imaginations of its reckless promoter, John Law, a Scotchman. When
the Mississippi bubble burst, and so many thousands were ruined in
France, Louisiana still continued under the control of the company,
which was eventually obliged to give up its charter after heavy
expenditures which had produced very small results, and the colony
became a royal province. With its chequered future must be always
associated the name of the Canadian Bienville, who was for some years
its governor and justly earned the title of "Father of Louisiana."
Insignificant as was its progress, France prized its possession, and
had she been alive to her opportunities she might have colonised it
with Huguenots and made it a power in the conflict between herself and
England in America.
France, busy with her ambitious designs in Europe, gave but a meagre
and too often half-hearted support to the men who had dreams of
founding a mighty empire in America. When France and England met for
the great struggle on that continent, the thirteen colonies had reached
a population of nearly a million and a quarter of souls, exclusive of
the negroes in the South, while the total number of the people in
Canada and Louisiana did not exceed eighty thousand. In wealth and
comfort there was the same disproportion between the French and English
colonies. In fact at the time of the last {226} war, Canadian commerce
was entirely paralysed, farms neglected, and the towns barely able to
live. In 1757 food was so scarce in Quebec and Montreal that the
soldiers and people had to use horse flesh. The combined forces of
Canadian militia and regular troops were always much inferior in number
to the British and colonial armies when united for the invasion of
Canada, with the support of a powerful fleet; but the great strength of
the French colony lay in the natural barriers between the English
colonies and the keys to New France, Quebec, and Montreal, and in the
skill with which the approaches by way of Lake Champlain had been
defended by forts at every important point. If the French force was
insignificant in number, it was, as a rule, skilfully managed, and in
the early part of the struggle the English had no commander to compare
with Montcalm for military genius. In some respects the French
Canadians were more manageable in war than the English colonists. No
legislative bodies existed in Canada to interfere with and thwart the
plans and orders of military commanders, but the whole Canadian people
acted as a unit to be moved and directed at the will of the King's
officers. The Indian tribes from Acadia to the Mississippi, the Ohio,
and the Illinois, were, with the exception of the Five Nations, always
friendly to the French since the days of Champlain--the warm allies of
a people who fraternised naturally with them; and it would have been an
unhappy day for the English colonists had eighty or a hundred thousand
Canadians been able to arm and, under the skilful {227} generalship of
Montcalm, swoop down with their savage allies on the English colonial
settlements. But the French of Canada were never able, as a rule, to
do more than harass by sudden raids and skirmishes--by a system of
_petite guerre_, or petty warfare--the English of America, and at no
time in colonial history was the capture of Boston or of New York
actually attempted by a land force from Canada, though it was suggested
more than once. At the outbreak of the war the Mohawks were the only
Indian tribe on whom the English could place much dependence, and that
was largely owing to the energy and discretion of Sir William Johnson,
who had long lived in their country and gained not only their
confidence but even their affection. The tribes in the Ohio valley had
been won by the success of the French in driving out the Virginians,
while in the further west the Foxes and other communities who had been
unfriendly to the French had been beaten into submission--the Foxes in
fact almost destroyed--by the raids of the French and their Indian
allies. The great current of active thought and enterprise which
develops a nation was always with the English colonies, and though
large schemes of ambition stimulated the energies of the bold and
adventurous men to whom the destinies of France were entrusted from the
days of La Salle to those of Montcalm, their ability to found a new
empire in America under the lilies of France was ever hindered by the
slow development of the French settlements, by the incapacity of the
King and his ministers in France to grasp the importance of the
situation on this {228} continent, and by their refusal to carry out
the projects of men like La Galissonnière, who at once recognised the
consequences of such neglect and indifference, but found no one ready
to favour his scheme of establishing large settlements of French
peasantry in Canada and Louisiana. France, we see now, had her great
opportunity in America, and lost it forever at Quebec in 1759.
Before we proceed to the record of the events which led to the conquest
of Canada, it is necessary that we should briefly review the history of
the period which elapsed between the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle and the
commencement of the Seven Years' War. When English statesmen were
informed of the mistake they had made in restoring Cape Breton to
France with such reckless haste, they began to reflect on the best
means of retrieving it as far as possible; and at the suggestion of
Shirley and other colonists they set to work to bring an English
population into Nova Scotia, and to make it a source of strength
instead of weakness to the New England communities. In 1749, the year
of the formal surrender of Louisbourg, the city of Halifax was founded
on the west side of the admirable harbour, long known in Acadian
history as Chebouctou. Here, under the direction of Governor
Cornwallis, a man of great ability, a town slowly grew up at the foot
and on the slopes of the hill which was in later times crowned by a
noble citadel, above which has always floated the flag of Great
Britain. Then followed the erection of a fort at Chignecto, known as
Fort Lawrence in honour of the English officer who {229} built
it--afterwards governor of Nova Scotia--and intended to be a protection
to the province, constantly threatened by the French and Indians, who
were always numerous at the French posts and settlements on the
isthmus. The French constructed on the northern bank of the Missiquash
a fort of five bastions known as Beauséjour, and a smaller one at Bay
Verte, with the object, as previously stated, of keeping up
communication with Louisbourg, which they were strengthening in some
measure. At Fort Beauséjour the treacherous priest Le Loutre continued
to pursue his insidious designs of creating dissatisfaction among the
French Acadians and pressing on them the necessity of driving the
English from the former possessions of France.
Though war was not formally proclaimed between France and England until
many months later, the year 1755 was distinguished in America by
conflicts between the English and French--a prelude to the great
struggle that was only to end in the fall of New France. The French
frigates _Alcide_ and _Lys_ were captured on the coast of Newfoundland
by vessels of a fleet under Admiral Boscawen, who had been sent by the
English Government to intercept a French fleet which had left France
under Admiral de la Mothe, having on board troops under Baron Dieskau
and the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the successor of Duquesne in the
government of Canada.
In Acadia, in the valley of the Ohio, and at Lake George, the opposing
forces of England and France also met in conflict. In the spring an
English force of regular and colonial troops, chiefly the latter, {230}
under the command of Colonel Monckton, who has given his name to a
prosperous city on the isthmus of Chignecto, and of Colonels Winslow
and Scott, captured the two French forts and took a good many
prisoners, among whom were a considerable number of French Acadians,
forced by the French to assist in the defence of Beauséjour. Le Loutre
succeeded during the confusion on the surrender of the fort, in evading
capture, but only to find himself eventually taken prisoner by an
English ship while on his way to France, and sent to the island of
Jersey, where he was kept in confinement until the end of the war, and
from that time disappears from American history.