V. she failed in her design. If her purpose was to cherish among CHAP. the colonists habits of industry and sobriety, she unquestionably succeeded; though at the expense of diminishing their 1759. regard for some of her own most ancient and characteristic institutions. Generally trained to useful labour, and habituated to regard it as almost the sole, and certainly the worthiest and most accessible path to distinction, the colonists had long entertained a jealousy of every system and institution that encroached on the respect or diminished the reward due to industrious pursuits. Some of the noblemen whom the parent state deputed to administer royal prerogative, or to fill other conspicuous offices in America, were persons of worth and honour; but none of them justified his titular pretensions to superiority over the rest of mankind, by his personal achievements; and the majority had excited the aversion and contempt of the colonists. The insolent pretensions and the sordid or insignificant characters of the inheritors of proprietary rights in America, together with the abortive attempt of the proprietaries of Carolina to introduce a subordinate species of titular nobility into this province, had combined to give a keener edge to the dislike of a hereditary tenure of honour and authority. There had, indeed, been always some individuals, and now there was a party among the colonists, certainly not considerable in numbers, who longed for such an assimilation of the colonial institutions to those of the parent state, as might enable themselves to indulge the pride and partake the splendour and ease of the titles, trappings, and pensions of Europe; even at the expense of exalting the royal prerogative in America, and proportionally restricting and depressing the liberties of their countrymen.1 This party, which, doubtless, included among its members, some dexterous and unprincipled knaves, probably contained a larger admixture of men in whom a blind but honest zeal for British and monarchical power, was combined with a sincere devotion to their own private interests, in various, and, to human eyes, inscrutable proportions. Opposed to popular rights, and exclaiming against the aim and the danger of popular sentiment in America, this party easily gained the ear and at least 'Franklin's Memoirs and Correspondence. Holmes. Belknap. X. 1759. BOOK the partial confidence of the royal court; and probably conceived, as well as conveyed, an exaggerated idea of its own influence, from the occasional support which it received from wealthy colonists, who, though warmly attached to liberty and their country, overvalued the superior riches of Britain, dreaded change and peril, and believed, because they wished, the infallible efficacy of temperate and submissive demeanour in preserving the relations of friendship and the blessings of peace. The zealots of monarchical and republican principles,— the one relying on British support, the other on their own superior numbers in America,- were more disposed both by word and action to precipitate their controversy to an extremity. The conduct of both was influenced at the present crisis by the state of public affairs, and the demeanour of the moderate party, which at once excited the ardour of the partizans of prerogative, and enforced the caution on the advocates of liberty. However disposed the British court, or any portion of it, might have been, at this period, to second the wishes of a party devoted to the interests of the crown, it was no easy matter to alter the long usages and established constitutions of the American provinces; in opposition, especially, to that strong current of republican sentiment and opinion by which. all these provinces were pervaded, and of which, even at a crisis like the present, the most unfavourable for its manifestation, there broke forth many unequivocal symptoms. The present contest between the French and English in America, was signalized, from time to time, by various predatory inroads of the Indian allies of France upon the frontiers of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. In this, as in the previous war, the provincial annalists confess the forbearance and tenderness generally demonstrated by the savages for their captives, but no longer hesitate to determine whether this altered treatment was the offspring of policy or humanity. For it was found that the Indians were engaged to deliver all their prisoners alive into the hands of the French, who indemnified themselves for the subsidies which they paid to their savage allies, by the ransoms which they exacted from the families and kinsmen of the captives. 1 1 Belknap. CHAPTER VI. Progress of Hostilities in America-entire Conquest of Canada.-War with the Cherokees.-Affairs of Massachusetts.-Death of George the Second.-Conclusion of the Cherokee War.-Affairs of South Carolina.-Discontents in Massachusetts-and in North Carolina.-Peace of Paris.-Affairs of Virginia-Patrick Henry.-Indian War.-Affairs of Pennsylvania. VI. THE inhabitants of North America had eagerly indulged the CHAP. hope that the reduction of Quebec not only betokened, but actually imported the entire conquest of Canada; but they 1760. were speedily undeceived, and, aroused by the spirited and nearly successful attempt of the French to retrieve this loss, they consented the more willingly to a renewed exertion of their resources for the purpose of securing and improving the victorious posture of their affairs. The New England levies, this year, were as numerous as they had ever been during the war; the Virginian levies (augmented by the emergency of the Cherokee war) amounted to two thousand men. in Ame No sooner had the English fleet retired from the river Progress of St. Lawrence, than Levi, who had succeeded to Montcalm's hostilities command, resolved to attempt the recovery of Quebec. The rica. land forces, which he possessed, were more numerous than the army of Wolfe, by which the conquest of the place had been achieved, and he enjoyed the co-operation of a number of frigates, which now enabled him entirely to command the river. He had hoped that a sudden attack might enable him to take Quebec by surprise, during the winter; but, after some preparatory approaches, which were repulsed, and a survey, which convinced him that the outposts were better secured, and the governor more active and alert than he had expected, he was induced to postpone his enterprise till the arrival of the spring. In the month of April, when the St. Lawrence afforded a navigation free from ice, the artillery, X. BOOK military stores, and heavy baggage of the French were embarked at Montreal, and carried down the river under the 1760. protection of six frigates; and Levi, himself, after a march of ten days, arrived, with his army, at Point au Tremble, within a few miles of Quebec. General Murray, to whom the preservation of the English conquest was entrusted, had taken prompt and skilful measures for its security; but his troops had suffered so much from the extreme cold of the winter, and the want of vegetables and fresh provisions, that, instead of five thousand, the original number of his garrison, he could now count on the services of no more than three thousand Prompted by overboiling courage, rather than guided by sound military discretion, and relying, perhaps, too far on Wolfe's assurance that nothing was impossible to a victorious army, he determined, with his inferior, but valiant force, to meet the enemy in the field, although their numbers amounted to more than twelve thousand; and, accordingly, marching out to the Heights of Abraham, he attempted to render this scene once more tributary to the glory of Britain, by an impetuous assault on the neighbouring position of the enemy at April 28. Sillery; but his attack was firmly sustained by the French; and, after a sharp encounter, finding himself outflanked, and in danger of being surrounded by superior numbers, he withdrew his troops from the action, and retired into the city. In this conflict the British lost the greater part of their artillery, and nearly a thousand men. The French, though their loss, in killed and wounded, was more than double that number, had yet gained the victory, which their general lost no time in improving. On the evening of the day which had witnessed the battle, Levi opened trenches against the town; yet, in spite of all his efforts, it was not till the 11th of May that his batteries were so far advanced as to commence an effectual fire upon the garrison. But Murray had now, by indefatigable exertion, in which he was assisted with the utmost alacrity by his soldiers, completed some outworks, and planted so powerful an artillery on the ramparts, that his fire was far superior to that of the besiegers, and nearly silenced their batteries. Quebec, nevertheless, would, most probably, have reverted to its former masters, if an armament, which had been despatched from France, had not been outsailed by a VI. 1760. British squadron, which succeeded in first gaining the en- CHAP. trance, and the command of the St. Lawrence. The French frigates, which had descended from Montreal, were now attacked by the British ships, and part of them having been destroyed, the rest betook themselves to a hasty retreat up the river. Levi instantly raised the siege, and, retiring with a precipitation that obliged him to abandon the greater part of his baggage and artillery, re-conducted his forces (with the exception of a number of Canadians and Indians who became disheartened, and deserted him by the way) to Montreal. Here the Marquis de Vaudreuil, governor-general of Canada, had fixed his head-quarters, and determined to make his last stand in defence of the French colonial empire,-thus reduced from the attitude of preponderance and conquest which it had presented two years before, to the necessity of a defensive and desperate effort for its own preservation. For this purpose Vaudreuil had called in all his detachments, and collected around him the whole force of the colony. Though little chance of success remained to him, he preserved an intrepid countenance, and, in all his dispositions, evinced the firmness and foresight of an accomplished commander. To support the spirits of the Canadians and their Indian allies, which had begun to droop, he had even recourse to the artifice of circulating among them feigned intelligence of the successes of France in other quarters of the world, and of her approaching succour. General Amherst, meanwhile, was diligently engaged in concerting and prosecuting measures for the entire conquest of Canada. During the winter, he had made arrangements for bringing all the British forces from Quebec, Lake Champlain, and Lake Ontario, to join in a united attack upon Montreal; Colonel Haviland by his direction, sailing with a detachment from Crown Point, took possession of Isle Aux Noix, which he found abandoned by the enemy, and thence proceeded towards Montreal; while Amherst with his own division, consisting of about ten thousand regulars and provincials, left the frontiers of New York, and advanced to Oswego, where his force received the addition of a thousand Indians of the Six Nations marching under the command of Sir William Johnson. Embarking with his entire army on Lake Ontario, |