THE HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. BOOK X. (CONTINUED). CHAPTER V. Incapacity of the British Commander in America.- Loss of Fort William-Henry.— Dispute between Massachusetts and the British Commander.- State of Parties in New England.-Change of the British Ministry and Measures.-Affairs of Pennsylvania.—Political exertions of Franklin in England.— Conquest of Cape Breton. Repulse at Ticonderoga. — Reduction of Fort Frontignac,—and Fort Du Quesne. Effect of the British Successes upon the Indians. Plan of the Campaign of 1759.-Reduction of Ticonderoga,- and Crown Point.-Battle of Niagara, and Capture of Fort Niagara.-Siege of Quebec.- Battle of the Heights of Abraham, and Surrender of Quebec. V. of the Bri THE expectations which had been formed, both in Britain and CHAP. America, of a vigorous and successful campaign, were completely disappointed. If it had been the wish or intention of 1757. the British ministers to render the guardian care of the parent Incapacity state ridiculous, and its supremacy odious to the colonists, tish Comthey could hardly have selected a fitter instrument for the mander in achievement of this sinister purpose than Lord Loudoun. Devoid of genius, either civil or military; always hurried, and hurrying others, yet making little progress in the dispatch of business; hasty to project and threaten, but mutable, indecisive, and languid in pursuit and action; negligent of even America. X. 1757. BOOK the semblance of public virtue; impotent against the enemy whom he was sent to destroy; formidable only to the spirit and liberty of the people whom he was commissioned to defend; he excited alternately the disgust, the apprehensions, and the contemptuous amazement of the colonists of America.1 January. In the commencement of this year he repaired to Boston, where he was met by a council composed of the governors of Nova Scotia and of the states of New England. To this council he addressed a speech in which, with equal insolence and absurdity, he ascribed the public safety to the efforts of the English soldiers, and all the recent successes of the French to the misconduct of the American troops or the provincial governments. It is unlikely, notwithstanding the arrogance of his disposition and the narrowness of his capacity, that he could have expected to stimulate the Americans to a higher strain of exertion, by depreciating their past services, and exalting, above their gallant and successful warriors, the defeated troops and disgraced commanders of England. Nor, indeed, does he appear to have entertained any such chimerical purpose. He required that the governments of New England should contribute only four thousand men, which should be despatched to New York, there to unite with the quotas to be furnished by that province and New Jersey, and thereafter to be conducted by him to an enterprise which, he declared, that the interests of the British service forbade him immediately to disclose, but which, they might be assured, would not be uncongenial to the views and sentiments of the people of New England. This moderate requisition, far inferior to the exaction which had been anticipated, served at least to silence the murmurs, though it could not appease the discontent and indignation created by Lord Loudoun's preliminary remarks; and the levies which he "He is like St. George upon a sign-post," said a Philadelphian to Dr. Franklin, "always on horseback but never advancing." When Franklin pressed for reimbursement of certain supplies which he had been employed to procure for the army, Lord Loudoun told him that he could afford to wait, as his employment had doubtless given him ample opportunity of filling his own pockets. Franklin endeavoured to repel this insinuation; but the integrity to which he pretended was treated by Lord Loudoun as something utterly incredible. "On the whole," says Franklin, "I wondered much how such a man came to be entrusted with so important a business as the conduct of a great army; but having since seen more of the great world, and the means of obtaining, and motives for giving places and employments, my wonder is diminished." Franklin's Memoirs. V. 175 demanded, having been speedily raised, hastened to unite CHAP. themselves with the contingents drawn from the other provinces at New York, where, early in the spring, the British commander found himself at the head of more than six thousand American troops. It had been expected by the states of New England, and, perhaps it had been the original purpose of Lord Loudoun himself, that this force should be applied to the reduction of Ticonderoga and Crown-Point; but he was induced to depart from this plan, if indeed he ever entertained it, by the tidings of an additional armament having been despatched from Britain to Nova Scotia. This armament, consisting of eleven ships of the line, besides transports and bombketches, under the command of Admiral Holborne and Commodore Holmes, and containing six thousand disciplined soldiers, conducted by George Viscount Howe, arrived accordingly at Halifax, whither Lord Loudoun shortly July. after repaired, along with the forces which he had collected at New York. He now proclaimed his intention of declining for the present all active operations against Crown-Point or Ticonderoga, and of uniting his whole disposeable force in an expedition to Cape Breton, for the conquest of Louisburg. This abandonment of the enterprise, on which they had confidently relied, was a severe disappointment to the states of New England: nor was their concern abated by the issue of the design which Lord Loudoun had preferably embraced; for it now appeared that he was totally unacquainted with the strength of the place which he proposed to subdue; and his attack upon it was first suspended by the necessity of gaining this preliminary information, and ultimately relinquished, in consequence of the result of his inquiries, and of the accession of force which the place received while these inquiries were pending. It was found that Louisburg was garrisoned by six thousand regular troops, besides militia, and farther defended by seventeen line of battle ships, which were moored in the harbour, and which arrived while the British troops lingered inactively at Halifax. Lord Loudoun accounting the armament, which he commanded, unequal to cope with this force, announced that the enterprise must be deferred till the following year; and, having dismissed the provincial troops, he returned in the end of August to New York, there to learn |