A Historical Geography of the British Colonies Part 28

[Footnote 11: Wright's _Life of Wolfe_, p. 451.]

[Footnote 12: John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, had served in the Highland campaign of 1745. In America he appears to have shown himself wanting in quickness, in tact, and in strategical ability.

Franklin accused him of indecision. The colonial saying about him was that he was like the sign of St. George over an inn, always on horseback but never moving on. There is a pleasant notice of him in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, when Boswell and Johnson dined at his house on the tour to the Hebrides.]

[Sidenote: _Robert Rogers._]

Yet the English had some useful men among them, though not in the first rank. William Johnson has already been noticed. John Winslow, who had adequately commanded the New England contingent in Acadia, was now in charge of the provincial troops at Fort William Henry, near Johnson's old camping-ground at the southern end of Lake George.

In the same force was Robert Rogers, of New Hamps.h.i.+re, whose name is still borne by a cliff on Lake George, known as 'Rogers' Rock.'

Rogers raised and commanded companies of New England scouts, known as the Rangers, which were multiplied as the war went on, and as the value of the men and their leader became more apparent. His journal is a model of clear, concise military writing, recounting in straightforward fas.h.i.+on feats of extraordinary daring and hardihood.

As Johnson in his mastery over the Indians rivalled and perhaps excelled the French, so no Canadian partizan understood border warfare better than Robert Rogers. We read that on one occasion, when he had been reported as killed and the report proved false, the Indians in the French interest, who had been committing atrocities, repented from fear when they learnt that Rogers was still alive, and blamed {262} the French for encouraging them, as they said, to do the actions for which vengeance awaited them. It was something to have on the English side men who, in the Canadian style of fighting, were as good as or better than the Canadians themselves; and, in the absence of competent generals, fighting backwoodsmen, like Robert Rogers, at least served to remind Canada that the English colonies had a nasty sting.

[Sidenote: _End of the campaign of 1756._]

The programme for 1756--s.h.i.+rley's programme--had included an advance to and from Oswego, and an advance from Fort William Henry against Ticonderoga. When Loudoun arrived, he countermanded the first movement, though he subsequently sent Webb too late up the Mohawk river in order to reinforce Oswego. Montcalm's swift action then disconcerted all English plans, Oswego was lost, the forward move down Lake George was countermanded, and the summer ended with nothing for the English to record but one crus.h.i.+ng defeat.

[Sidenote: _Fruitless French attack on Fort William Henry._]

In November, the main body of the troops on either side went back into winter quarters, and Fort William Henry was left in charge of a small garrison of between 400 and 500 men, belonging to the 44th Regiment and the Rangers, commanded by Major Eyre. In the early spring of 1757, an attempt was made to surprise them by an expedition sent up from Montreal under the command of Rigaud de Vaudreuil, brother of the Governor of Canada. The attacking force started towards the end of February, and on March 19 appeared before the fort. The next day they offered terms of surrender, which were refused; and, after vainly attempting to reduce the fort till the twenty-fourth, they retreated down Lake George, having burnt some boats and outbuildings, but otherwise inflicted little loss.

[Sidenote: _Loudoun's abortive expedition against Louisbourg._]

The spring came on, and the early summer, and Loudoun matured a plan, which he had formed for attacking Louisbourg in force, as a preliminary to a further attack on Quebec. {263} His plan was accepted in London, and the Government determined to send out a strong fleet to co-operate with him, the rendezvous to be the harbour of Halifax. Like previous schemes of the same kind, the enterprise failed through untoward delays. The fleet under Admiral Holborne, consisting of fifteen s.h.i.+ps of the line, and conveying transports with from 5,000 to 6,000 men on board, did not sail till May 5, and did not reach Halifax till early in July. Loudoun, meanwhile, had drawn off the bulk of his troops, including Rogers and his Rangers, from the New York frontier; and, after vainly waiting at New York for news of the English Admiral, set sail for Halifax on June 20, reaching his destination on the last day of that month.

The combined forces were nearly 12,000 strong, but the time for attack had gone by. Hearing of the English preparations, the French Government had sent a fleet at least as strong as Holborne's across the Atlantic, under Admiral La Motte; and the English commanders learnt that Louisbourg was being defended by s.h.i.+ps as numerous as their own, and by a garrison in which the troops of the line alone were said to number 6,000 men. The enterprise was accordingly abandoned. In the middle of August Loudoun re-embarked the majority of his troops for New York. Holborne twice reconnoitred Louisbourg in the hope of bringing on a sea-fight. The second time, in the middle of September, a storm shattered his vessels, and the whole expedition utterly collapsed.[13] 'It is time,' wrote Horace Walpole[14] in despondent terms, 'for England to slip her own cables and float away into some unknown ocean.' On {264} his way back to New York, Loudoun was met with bad news--that Fort William Henry had fallen.

[Footnote 13: While Loudoun's troops were waiting at Halifax, he employed them in raising vegetables. In consequence, Lord Charles Hay, who was third in command, charged him with expending the nation's wealth 'in making sham fights and planting cabbages.' Lord Charles Hay was sent back to England, and a court-martial was held upon him, but the incident served to bring ridicule on the expedition.]

[Footnote 14: _Letters of Horace Walpole_, vol. iii, p. 103 (Letter of Sept. 3, 1757, written before the final break-up of the fleet).]

[Sidenote: _Montcalm prepares to attack Fort William Henry._]

When he started for Louisbourg, he left Webb in command of the small forces which remained to cover the New York frontier. He seems to have thought that the troops were sufficient not only to hold the French in check, but also to threaten Ticonderoga. Montcalm, on the other hand, saw his opportunity and determined, while he had superior numbers, to strike a blow which should rival his former achievement at Oswego. Throughout July the French troops concentrated at Ticonderoga, provisions were brought up, and a road was made past the rapids, by which Lake George discharges into Lake Champlain. A number of Indians were gathered from all quarters to join in the expedition, mission Indians taught to kill the heretic English, and savages from the wild and barbarous west. Scouting parties went forth, some along Lake George, others up the parallel southern arm of Lake Champlain; and, with Robert Rogers far away in Nova Scotia, they did much damage, on one occasion killing or taking prisoners two out of three hundred New Englanders. At the end of the month the main advance began.

[Sidenote: _The fort and its surroundings._]

Fort William Henry was about thirty miles distant from the French lines. It was a strong square fort, built near the southern edge of Lake George, a little to the west of the spot where Sir William Johnson two years before had formed his camp. The road from the fort to Fort Edward ran for a short distance due east, skirting the sh.o.r.e of the lake, and then turned inland to the south and south-east. On rising ground to the east of the road, beyond the point where it took the southward turn, the English had an entrenched camp, separated from the fort by swampy ground. After the attack on the fort in the preceding spring, Major Eyre and his troops had been replaced by others under the command of Colonel Monro, the main body consisting of 600 {265} men of the 35th, now the Suss.e.x Regiment. When news came that the French were on the point of advancing, Webb sent up 1,000 colonial troops from Fort Edward; and, when the attack began, Monro had with him about 2,400 men, while Webb, who had only 1,600 men left at Fort Edward, sent urgent messages to New York for reinforcements.

[Sidenote: _The French advance._]

On July 30, Levis moved forward with the French vanguard, marching along the western sh.o.r.e of Lake George; the main body of troops under Montcalm followed in boats on August 1, the whole force amounting to between 7,000 and 8,000 men. Two detachments, one commanded by La Corne, the other by Levis, marched round the fort, and took up positions on its southern side, to cut off communication with Webb; La Corne occupied the road to Fort Edward, while Levis encamped a little further to the west. Montcalm landed his big guns at a little inlet, still called Artillery Cove, about half a mile in a direct line from the fort, and, after a summons to surrender on August 3, began his trenches on the night of the fourth.

[Sidenote: _The fort surrenders._]

A far better defence was made than at Oswego. For four days the garrison held out bravely, hoping for relief from the south. Their guns were heard at Fort Edward; the urgency of their case was known; but Webb, though some 2,000 militia had reached him, felt himself too weak to make any advance. At length the situation became hopeless, and on August 9 Monro surrendered. The terms of capitulation were that the garrison should be escorted to Fort Edward, on condition that they would not serve again for eighteen months, and that all French prisoners taken in the war should be restored. The fort with all that it contained was handed over to the French. The surrender included the entrenched camp as well as the fort: the fort was evacuated; and the whole garrison, with the exception of a few sick and wounded, were gathered into the camp, retaining their arms, but without ammunition.

{266} [Sidenote: _The ma.s.sacre of Fort William Henry._]

Before night fell, the French Indians plundered the fort, and butchered some of the sick. Early on the following morning, the English troops began their march to Fort Edward; the Indians broke in among them, seizing and stripping men, women, and children; and, at a signal given by the Christian Abenakis from the Pen.o.bscot--Indians who had known the teaching and training of men like Le Loutre--a wholesale ma.s.sacre began. Montcalm and his officers, however, used every effort to protect the English, with the result that not more than fifty were murdered, and 600 carried off, 400 of whom were promptly recovered; and the broken band of fugitives in due course found their way to Fort Edward.

[Sidenote: _Blame attaching to the French._]

This was the episode well known in colonial annals as the ma.s.sacre of Fort William Henry, told of in history and in romance.[15] The horrors have no doubt been exaggerated, if, as appears to have been the case, the death-roll did not exceed the number given above. Still it was a horrible incident, and brought righteous discredit on the French cause. Though Montcalm, when the mischief had begun, acted with prompt.i.tude and vigour, it was well within his power to have prevented the possibility of any such outrage. His Indians numbered but 1,800, and he had 3,000 regular troops from France to hold them in check. The Canadian militia, too, numbered 2,500 men; but probably the seed of the evil lay in the disinclination of the colonial French and their officers to interfere with their Indian allies. It had become the tradition in Canada to live down to the Indians in matters of war, to attach them and to hold them by humouring their savage instincts; and it may well be believed that, if Canadian soldiers or Canadian officers were concerned in seeing the terms of capitulation carried out, they would prefer injuring the English to offending the Indians. Three years later, in the advance on Montreal, we read of {267} Sir William Johnson, under Amherst's orders, strongly repressing the Iroquois' l.u.s.t for French blood, and Amherst reporting that not a peasant woman or child had been hurt, nor a house burnt, since he entered the enemy's country. Better control of the savages in their employ gave the English fewer friends among them, but in the end it was one, and not the least, of the causes of their gaining the supremacy in North America.

[Footnote 15: e.g. in Fennimore Cooper's _Last of the Mohicans_.]

[Sidenote: _Webb's conduct._]

It was disputed at the time, and is still matter of dispute, whether Webb from Fort Edward might have saved the fort by the lake. The view generally taken of his conduct was probably coloured by the memory of his frightened retreat down the Mohawk river in the preceding year.

He could muster but 4,000 men all told; and, had he advanced and met with disaster, no force would have been left to keep Montcalm from marching on Albany, and possibly on New York itself. He risked nothing, and possibly he was wise; but the catastrophe which happened within his reach was in part, rightly or wrongly, debited to his account, and the feeling deepened in England and in America that on the English side leaders of men were sadly wanting.

[Sidenote: _The French raid the German Flats._]

One more success was scored by the French before the winter came on.

In October, Vaudreuil sent out from Montreal a raiding party of the old type, consisting of about 300 Canadians and Indians under an officer named Beletre. They went up the St. Lawrence into Lake Ontario, landed on its southern sh.o.r.e, at some distance east of the ruins of Oswego, crossed to the portage between the Mohawk and Wood Creek, where the forts were no longer standing, and moved down the Mohawk to raid the outlying settlements. Between the head waters of the Mohawk and Schenectady, on the northern side of the river, was the district known as the German Flats, where German colonists had been planted about the year 1720. They came from the Palatinate, and their group of houses bore the name of the settlement or village {268} of the Palatines. In the second week of November, Beletre's party broke in among them, burnt houses and barns, killed cattle, horses, and some of the inhabitants, carried off over a hundred prisoners, and retired in safety in face of a weak detachment from a little English fort on the other side of the river, and of a stronger body of troops whom Lord Howe brought up from Schenectady too late to retrieve the disaster.

[Sidenote: _The French triumphant in North America._]

[Sidenote: _William Pitt._]

This was the end of the campaign, the high-water mark of French successes in North America. At the end of 1757, the English had been beaten at all points. They had failed to attack Louisbourg, they had been driven from Lake George, the country of the Five Nation Indians was nearly cut off, all hold on the rivers and the lakes was gone.

The outlook was dark in the extreme: it is always darkest before dawn, and as a matter of fact dawn had already begun; for William Pitt, who had been dismissed from office in April, was recalled by the unanimous voice of the people of England before the end of June, and, leaving to the incompetent Duke of Newcastle the name of Prime Minister, controlled, as Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons, the soldiers, the sailors, the subsidies and the foreign policy of his country.[16]

[Footnote 16: Lord Chesterfield in a letter to his son dated May 18, 1758 (1775 ed., vol. iv, p. 137, Letter 298), wrote as follows of the Newcastle-Pitt combination: 'The Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt jog on like man and wife, that is, seldom agreeing, often quarrelling, but by mutual interest upon the whole not parting.']

[Sidenote: _Want of a leader on the English side._]

The wars of England have usually run the same course. They have begun with blunders and reverses, but ended in success. The English do not love war, and are rarely prepared for it. They begin fighting in half-hearted fas.h.i.+on, before the nation makes up its mind that the cause is worth a real effort and serious expenditure of money and life. There is groping about for a leader, for some one who will say distinctly what is to be done, and will prove as good as {269} his word. If such a man is found, the people will follow; they forgive a man who makes mistakes provided, as the saying is, that he makes something. Then the resources of the country are concentrated and utilized, and under articulate and sympathetic leaders.h.i.+p the cause of the nation prospers. If England in the year 1757 needed some one controlling will, much more was the want felt in her North American colonies. The demoralization caused by feeble ministries in England had its baleful effect in America; nerveless government at home strengthened the centrifugal tendencies of the colonies. Nothing but common danger gave them any common life; and, though Pitt's advent to power partially corrected the evil, Pitt was in England not in America. To the end the uniting force came from without rather than from within: the colonies followed the lead of Pitt and his generals, but to the mother country not to the colonies was due the conquest of Canada.

[Sidenote: _Distress in Canada._]

That Canada must be conquered, when England made her effort, was inevitable. The French appeared triumphant; they had moved forward; they had struck heavy blows; but behind the fighting line, even on the surface, they were in straits. The garrison of Fort William Henry had not been taken prisoners to Canada, because Canada could hardly feed them;[17] and the winter of 1757, which followed the brilliant campaign, was a winter of distress. Bread was wanting; horses were eaten for meat; the troops were mutinous and only kept in order by Levis' firmness and tact; the finances were in a ruinous condition; there were winter gaieties and winter gambling, but Canada before its conquest was in much the same condition as the mother country on the brink of the Revolution.

[Footnote 17: Similarly, after the fall of Oswego, Horace Walpole wrote, 'The ma.s.sacre at Oswego happily proves a romance; part of the two regiments that were made prisoners there are actually arrived at Plymouth, the provisions at Quebec being too scanty to admit additional numbers.' _Letters of Horace Walpole_, vol. iii, pp. 44, 45 (Letter of Nov. 13, 1756).]

{270} [Sidenote: _French plan of campaign for 1758._]

Both sides laid their plans for the coming year. The French scheme included a movement by Levis from Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario, across to the site of Oswego, and thence, after securing the alliance or the allegiance of the Iroquois, down the Mohawk valley, so as to co-operate with the main army under Montcalm advancing from Ticonderoga. The success of this project of Vaudreuil's, which was never carried into effect, presupposed that the bulk of the English troops would again be drawn off to attack Louisbourg, for it was known or suspected in Canada that another attempt on Louisbourg was in contemplation.

[Sidenote: _Pitt's plan._]

Pitt's plan of campaign was not new or original. The experience of long years had painfully taught what were the points where Canada must be attacked, if any permanent success was to be achieved. First and foremost was Louisbourg. With Louisbourg in English hands, the St. Lawrence could be blocked and Canada starved out. But the English minister had no intention of denuding the inland frontier of the British colonies, in order to take the French fortress in Cape Breton. On the contrary, he laid his plans also for an advance on Ticonderoga, and for the recovery of Fort Duquesne. He conceived no new scheme, but into old schemes he put new life. The novelties which he introduced were abundance of English troops, prompt instead of dilatory movement, and above all capable leaders--inspired with his own spirit, and in their turn inspiring the men whom they led. There was to be an end of the 'delays, misfortunes, disappointments and disgraces,'[18] which had so long been a.s.sociated in the English mind with war in America.

[Footnote 18: _Annual Register_ for 1758, p. 70.]

[Sidenote: _Strong English forces sent to America._]

On December 30, 1757, he addressed a circular letter to the Governors of the North American colonies, asking for levies of 20,000 men. On February 19, 1758, a strong fleet set sail for Halifax, to be directed against Louisbourg, while other English squadrons blocked the French ports {271} in Europe, and kept the enemy's s.h.i.+ps from crossing the Atlantic. It was a rare thing for an English expedition for America to start betimes, instead of waiting for orders and counter orders, until the season for active work was far spent. It was unheard of, too, for so many English troops to be sent into the New World. Twelve thousand soldiers, nearly all regulars, took part in the Louisbourg expedition. Abercromby on Lake George commanded, when summer came on, 15,000 men, of whom fully 6,000 were regulars.

Six thousand men took part in the march against Fort Duquesne, of whom 1,600 were Imperial troops. Thus in the year 1758 England had more than 20,000 regular soldiers employed in North America, enough force, as Lord Chesterfield thought, when coupled with the colonial troops, 'to eat up the French alive in Canada, Quebec, and Louisbourg, if we have but skill and spirit enough to exert it properly.'[19]