"The Acadians cowered before their masters, hoping forbearance; willing to take an oath of fealty to England; in their single-mindedness and sincerity, refusing to pledge themselves to bear arms against France. The English were masters of the sea, were undisputed lords of the country, and could exercise clemency without apprehension. Not a whisper gave a warning of their purpose till it was ripe for execution. But it had been "determined upon" after the ancient device of Oriental despotism, that the French inhabitants of Acadia should be carried away into captivity to other parts of the British dominions. * * France remembered the descendants of her sons in the hour of their affliction, and asked that they might have time to remove from the peninsula with their effects, leaving their lands to the English; but the answer of the British Minister claimed them as useful subjects, and refused them the liberty of transmigration. The inhabitants of Minas and the adjacent country pleaded with the British officers for the rest.i.tution of their boats and their guns, promising fidelity, if they could but retain their liberties, and declaring that not the want of arms, but their conscience, should engage them not to revolt. "The memorial," said Lawrence in Council, "is highly arrogant, insidious and insulting." The memorialists, at his summons, came submissively to Halifax. "You want your canoes for carrying provisions to the enemy," said he to them, though he knew no enemy was left in their vicinity. "Guns are no part of your goods," he continued, "as by the laws of England all Roman Catholics are restrained from having arms, and are subject to penalties if arms are found in their houses. It is not the language of British subjects to talk of terms with the Crown, or capitulate about their fidelity and allegiance.
What excuse can you make for your presumption in treating this government with such indignity as to expound to them the nature of fidelity? Manifest your obedience by immediately taking the oaths of allegiance in the common form before the Council." The deputies replied that they would do as the generality of the inhabitants should determine; and they merely entreated leave to return home and consult the body of their people. The next day, the unhappy men, foreseeing the sorrows that menaced them, offered to swear allegiance unconditionally."
But it was now too late. The savage purpose had been formed. That the cruelty might have no excuse, it happened that while the scheme was under discussion letters arrived leaving no doubt that all the sh.o.r.es of the Bay of Fundy were in the possession of the British. It only remained to be fixed how the exportation should be effected:--
"To hunt them into the net was impracticable; artifice was therefore resorted to. By a general proclamation, on one and the same day, the scarcely conscious victims, "both old men and young men, as well as all the lads of ten years of age,"
were peremptorily ordered to a.s.semble at their respective posts. On the appointed 5th of September, they obeyed. At Grand Pre, for example, 418 unarmed men came together. They were marched into the church, and its avenues were closed, when Winslow, the American commander, placed himself in their centre, and spoke:--"You are convened together to manifest to you His Majesty"s final resolution to the French inhabitants of this his province. Your lands, and tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts, are forfeited to the crown, and you yourselves are to be removed from this his province. I am, through his Majesty"s goodness, directed to allow you liberty to carry off your money and household goods, as many as you can, without discommoding the vessels you go in." And he then declared them the King"s prisoners. Their wives and families shared their lot; their sons, 527 in number, their daughters, 576; in the whole, women and babes and old men and children all included, 1,923 souls. The blow was sudden; they had left home but for the morning, and they never were to return.
Their cattle were to stay unfed in the stalls, their fires to die out on their hearths. They had for that first day even no food for themselves or their children, and were compelled to beg for bread. The 10th of September was the day for the embarkation of a part of the exiles. They were drawn up six deep, and the young men, 161 in number, were ordered to march first on board the vessel. They could leave their farms and cottages, the shady rocks on which they had reclined, their herds and their garners; but nature yearned within them, and they would not be separated from their parents. Yet of what avail was the frenzied despair of the unarmed youth? They had not one weapon; the bayonet drove them to obey; and they marched slowly and heavily from the chapel to the sh.o.r.e, between women and children, who kneeling, prayed for blessings on their heads, they themselves weeping, and praying, and singing hymns. The seniors went next; the wives and children must wait till other transport vessels arrived. The delay had its horrors.
The wretched people left behind were kept together near the sea, without proper food or raiment, or shelter, till other ships came to take them away; and December with its appalling cold had struck the shivering, half-clad, broken-hearted sufferers before the last of them were removed. "The embarkation of the inhabitants goes on but slowly," wrote Monckton, from Fort c.u.mberland, near which he had burned three hamlets, "the most part of the wives of the men we have prisoners are gone off with their children, in hopes I would not send off their husbands without them."
Their hope was vain. Near Annapolis, a hundred heads of families fled to the woods, and a party was detached on the hunt to bring them in. "Our soldiers hate them," wrote an officer on this occasion, "and if they can but find a pretext to kill them, they will." Did a prisoner seek to escape, he was shot down by the sentinel. Yet some fled to Quebec; more than 3,000 had withdrawn to Miramichi and the region south of the Ristigouche; some found rest on the banks of the St. John"s and its branches; some found a lair in their native forests; some were charitably sheltered from the English in the wigwams of the savages. But 7,000 of these banished people were driven on board ships, and scattered among the English colonies, from New Hampshire to Georgia alone; 1,020 to South Carolina alone. They were cast ash.o.r.e without resources; hating the poor-house as a shelter for their offspring, and abhorring the thought of selling themselves as laborers. Households, too, were separated; the colonial newspapers contained advertis.e.m.e.nts of members of families seeking their companions, of sons anxious to reach and relieve their parents, of mothers mourning for their children. The wanderers sighed for their native country; but to prevent their return, their villages, from Annapolis to the isthmus, were laid waste. Their old homes were but ruins. In the district of Minas, for instance, 250 of their houses, and more than as many barns, were consumed. The live stock which belonged to them, consisting of great numbers of horned cattle, hogs, sheep, and horses, were seized as spoils and disposed of by the English officials. A beautiful and fertile tract of country was reduced to a solitude.
There was none left round the ashes of the cottages of the Acadians but the faithful watch-dog, vainly seeking the hands that fed him. Thickets of forest-trees choked their orchards; the ocean broke over their neglected dikes, and desolated their meadows."
Nor were the woes of this ill-treated people ended:
"Relentless misfortune pursued the exiles whereever they fled. Those sent to Georgia, drawn by a love for the spot where they were born as strong as that of the captive Jews, who wept by the side of the rivers of Babylon for their own temple and land, escaped to sea in boats, and went coasting from harbor to harbor; but when they had reached New England, just as they would have set sail for their native fields, they were stopped by orders from Nova Scotia. Those who dwelt on the St. John"s were torn once more from their new homes. When Canada surrendered, hatred with its worst venom pursued the 1,500 who remained south of the Ristigouche. Once more those who dwelt in Pennsylvania presented a humble pet.i.tion to the Earl of Loudoun, then the British Commander in-Chief in America; and the cold-hearted peer, offended that the prayer was made in French, seized their five princ.i.p.al men, who in their own land had been persons of dignity and substance, and shipped them to England, with the request that they might be kept from ever again becoming troublesome by being consigned to service as common sailors on board ships of war."
And so it was throughout:--"We have been true," said they in one of their pet.i.tions, "to our religion, and true to ourselves; yet nature appears to consider us only as the objects of public vengeance."--"I know not," writes Mr. Bancroft, "if the annals of the human race keep the records of wounds so wantonly inflicted, so bitter and so perennial as fell upon the French inhabitants of Acadia."
American history has at least one element of peculiar character. The voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers--the settlement of the Virginia cavaliers--the foundation of Pennsylvania,--though all events of profound moral interest, as well as productive of fine pictorial effects, are not without parallels more or less close in the varied tale of ancient and modern colonization. But that which is distinctive and peculiar in the story of American civilization is, its struggle against the Red Men. Settlers, it is true, have often found themselves in strange company. In Africa the Greek colonizer elbowed the swarthy Ethiop. In South America the Spaniard stood beside the Peruvian and the Carib. Dutchmen have encountered the Malay and the Dyak. For two centuries English settlers have had to deal with the uncivilized races of the East and West--from the Bushmen of the Cape to the savages of New Zealand. But none of these races present the same attractive features as the brethren of the Iroquois and the Mohicans. About these latter there are points of romantic and chivalric interest. Though not free from the vices of the savage, they often exhibit virtues which might shame the European. There is something of dignity in their aspect and bearing.
They are seldom without a natural and original poetic sense,--and their language has a wild Ossianic music. They are bold in metaphor and apt in natural ill.u.s.tration. A group of actors on the scene having characteristics so peculiar and so attractive as the Red Skin is invaluable to a historian whose tendency is to see events and note character under their most pictorial aspects.
The part taken by the Indians in that war between the French and English in America which ended in the conquest of Quebec and the expulsion of the Lilies from Canada is narrated at great length by Mr. Bancroft,--and the atrocious nature of the conflict is well brought out. At the commencement of the war, we are allowed a glimpse at a curious war-council:
""Brothers," said the Delawares to the Miamis, "we desire the English and the Six Nations to put their hands upon your heads, and keep the French from hurting you. Stand fast in the chain of friendship with the Government of Virginia."
"Brothers," said the Miamis to the English, "your country is smooth; your hearts are good; the dwellings of your governors are like the spring in its bloom." "Brothers,"
they added to the Six Nations, holding aloft a calumet ornamented with feathers, "the French and their Indians have struck us, yet we kept this pipe unhurt;" and they gave it to the Six Nations, in token of friendship with them and with their allies. A sh.e.l.l and a string of black wampum were given to signify the unity of heart; and that, though it was darkness to the westward, yet towards the sun-rising it was bright and clear. Another string of black wampum announced that the war-chiefs and braves of the Miamis held the hatchet in their hand, ready to strike the French. The widowed Queen of the Piankeshaws sent a belt of black sh.e.l.ls intermixed with white. "Brothers," such were her words, "I am left a poor, lonely woman, with one son, whom I commend to the English, the Six Nations, the Shawnees, and the Delawares, and pray them to take care of him." The Weas produced a calumet. "We have had this feathered pipe," said they, "from the beginning of the world; so that when it becomes cloudy, we can sweep the clouds away. It is dark in the west, yet we sweep all clouds away towards the sun-rising, and leave a clear and serene sky." Thus, on the alluvial lands of Western Ohio, began the contest that was to scatter death broadcast through the world. All the speeches were delivered again to the Deputies of the Nations, represented at Logstown, that they might be correctly repeated to the head Council at Onondaga. An express messenger from the Miamis hurried across the mountains, bearing to the shrewd and able Dinwiddie, the Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, a belt of wampum, the scalp of a French Indian, and a feathered pipe, with letters from the dwellers on the Maumee and on the Wabash. "Our good brothers of Virginia," said the former, "we must look upon ourselves as lost, if our brothers, the English, do not stand by us and give us arms." "Eldest brother," pleaded the Picts and Windaws, "this string of wampum a.s.sures you, that the French King"s servants have spilled our blood, and eaten the flesh of three of our men. Look upon us and pity us, for we are in great distress. Our chiefs have taken up the hatchet of war. We have killed and eaten ten of the French and two of their negroes. We are your brothers; and do not think this is from our mouth only; it is from our very hearts." Thus they solicited protection and revenge."
The Duke of Newcastle was unequal to the task of driving the soldiers of France from Canada or from the valley of the Mississippi. The North and South were both in the hands of France. The route of the Ohio and the Mississippi had been discovered by adventurers and missionaries of that nation; and a few years of quiet possession of the territory would have allowed French statesmen to consolidate their power in those regions, and to draw a strong cordon around the entire group of English colonies on the Atlantic sea-board. But Pitt"s genius was brought to bear at a critical moment on the arrangement of this great question--and he conceived the project of breaking the Mississippi line and attacking the enemy in their strongholds on the St. Lawrence. Three expeditions were fitted out. Amherst and Wolfe were ordered to join the fleet under Boscawen, destined to act against Louisburgh--Forbes was sent to the Ohio Valley--Abercrombie was intrusted with the command against Crown Point and Ticonderoga, though Lord Howe was sent out with the last named as the real soul of the enterprise. Mr. Bancroft writes:
"None of the officers won favor like Lord Howe and Wolfe.
Both were still young. To high rank and great connections Howe added manliness, humanity, capacity to discern merit, and judgment to employ it. As he reached America, he entered on the simple austerity of forest warfare. James Wolfe, but thirty-one years old, had already been eighteen years in the army; was at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and had won laurels at Laffeldt. Merit made him at two-and-twenty a lieutenant-colonel, and his active genius improved the discipline of his battalion. He was at once authoritative and humane, severe, yet indefatigably kind; modest, but aspiring and secretly conscious of ability. The brave soldier dutifully loved and obeyed his widowed mother, and his gentle nature saw visions of happiness in scenes of domestic love, even while he kindled at the prospect of glory, as "gunpowder at fire.""
On the 28th of May the expedition reached Halifax.--
"For six days after the British forces on their way from Halifax to Louisburgh, had entered Chapeau Rouge Bay, the surf, under a high wind, made the rugged sh.o.r.e inaccessible, and gave the French time to strengthen and extend their lines. The sun still dashed heavily, when, before daybreak, on the 8th of June, the troops, under cover of a random fire from the frigates, attempted disembarking. Wolfe, the third brigadier, who led the first division, would not allow a gun to be fired, cheered on the rowers, and, on coming to shoal water, jumped into the sea; and, in spite of the surf, which broke several boats and upset more, in spite of the well-directed fire of the French, in spite of their breastwork and rampart of felled trees, whose interwoven branches made one continued wall of green, the English landed, took the batteries, drove in the French, and on the same day invested Louisburgh. At that landing, none was more gallant than young Richard Montgomery; just one-and-twenty; Irish by birth; an humble officer in Wolfe"s brigade; but also a servant of humanity, enlisted in its corps of immortals. The sagacity of Wolfe honored him with well-deserved praise, and promotion to a lieutenancy. On the morning of the 12th, an hour before dawn, Wolfe, with light infantry and Highlanders, took by surprise the light-house battery on the north-east side of the entrance to the harbor; the smaller works were successively carried. On the 23d, the English battery began to play on that of the French on the island near the centre of the mouth of the harbor.
Science, sufficient force, union among the officers, heroism, pervading mariners and soldiers, carried forward the siege, during which Barre by his conduct secured the approbation of Amherst and the confirmed friendship of Wolfe. Of the French ships in the port, three were burned on the 21st of July; in the night following the 25th, the boats of the squadron, with small loss, set fire to the Prudent, a seventy-four, and carried off the Bienfaisant. Boscawen was prepared to send six English ships into the harbor. But the town of Louisburgh was already a heap of ruins; for eight days, the French officers and men had had no safe place for rest; of fifty-two cannon opposed to the English batteries forty were disabled. The French had but five ships of the line and four frigates. It was time for the Chevalier de Drucour to capitulate. The garrison became prisoners of war, and, with the sailors and marines, in all 5,637, were sent to England. On the 27th of July, the English took possession of Louisburgh, and, as a consequence, of Cape Breton and Prince Edward"s Island. Thus fell the power of France on our eastern coast. Halifax being the English naval station, Louisburgh was deserted. The harbor still offers shelter from storms; the coast repels the surge: but a few hovels only mark the spot which so much treasure was lavished to fortify, so much heroism to conquer. Wolfe, whose heart was in England, returned home with the love and esteem of the army. His country was full of exultation; the trophies were deposited with pomp in the cathedral of St. Paul"s; the churches gave thanks; Boscawen, himself a member of parliament, was honored by a unanimous tribute from the House of Commons. New England, too, triumphed; for the praises awarded to Amherst and Wolfe recalled the heroism of her own sons."
This success inspired Pitt to still greater efforts. He resolved to annex the "boundless north," as it was then called, to the British empire in America; and early in the spring Wolfe again went out,--this time, to conquer Quebec and find a soldier"s grave. Many of his companions in arms were then and afterwards famous men:--Jervis, afterwards the renowned Earl St. Vincent, James Cook, the navigator, George Townshend, Barre, and Colonel Howe.
"On the 26th of June, the whole armament arrived, without the least accident, off the Isle of Orleans, on which, the next day, they disembarked. A little south of west the cliff of Quebec was seen distinctly, seemingly impregnable, rising precipitously in the midst of one of the grandest scenes in nature. To protect this guardian citadel of New France, Montcalm had of regular troops no more than six wasted battalions; of Indian warriors few appeared, the wary savages preferring the security of neutrals; the Canadian militia gave him the superiority in numbers; but he put his chief confidence in the natural strength of the country.
Above Quebec, the high promontory on which the upper town is built expands into an elevated plain, having towards the river the steepest acclivities. For nine miles or more above the city, as far as Cape Rouge, every landing-place was intrenched and protected. The river St. Charles, after meandering through a fertile valley, sweeps the rocky base of the town, which it covers by expanding into sedgy marshes. Nine miles below Quebec, the impetuous Montmorenci, after fretting itself a whirlpool route, and leaping for miles down the steps of a rocky bed, rushes with velocity towards the ledge, over which, falling two hundred and fifty feet, it pours its fleecy cataract into the chasm. As Wolfe disembarked on the Isle of Orleans, what scene could be more imposing? On his left lay at anchor the fleet with the numerous transports; the tents of his army stretched across the island; the intrenched troops of France, having their centre at the village of Beanport, extended from the Montmorenci to the St. Charles; the city of Quebec, garrisoned by five battalions, bounded the horizon. At midnight on the 28th, the short darkness was lighted up by a fleet of fire-ships, that, after a furious storm of wind, came down with the tide in the proper direction. But the British sailors grappled with them and towed them free of the shipping. The river was Wolfe"s; the men-of-war made it so; and, being master of the deep water, he also had the superiority on the south-sh.o.r.e of the St. Lawrence. In the night of the 29th, Monckton, with four battalions, having crossed the south channel, occupied Point Levi; and where the mighty current, which below the town expands as a bay, narrows to a deep stream of but a mile in width, batteries of mortars and cannon were constructed. The citizens of Quebec, foreseeing the ruin of their houses, volunteered to pa.s.s over the river and destroy the works; but, at the trial, their courage failed them, and they retreated. The English, by the discharge of red-hot b.a.l.l.s and sh.e.l.ls, set on fire fifty houses in a night, demolished the lower town, and injured the upper. But the citadel was beyond their reach, and every avenue from the river to the cliff was too strongly intrenched for an a.s.sault."
The summer was going rapidly, and as yet no real progress had been made.
Wolfe was eager for action,--and he pursued his researches into the nature of the formidable position with extraordinary eagerness:--
"He saw that the eastern bank of the Montmorenci was higher than the ground occupied by Montcalm, and, on the 9th of July, he crossed the north channel and encamped there; but the armies and their chiefs were still divided by the river precipitating itself down its rocky way in impa.s.sable eddies and rapids. Three miles in the interior, a ford was found; but the opposite bank was steep, woody, and well intrenched.
Not a spot on the line of the Montmorenci for miles into the interior, nor on the St. Lawrence to Quebec, was left unprotected by the vigilance of the inaccessible Montcalm.
The General proceeded to reconnoitre the sh.o.r.e above the town. In concert with Saunders, on the 18th of July, he sailed along the well-defended bank from Montmorenci to the St. Charles: he pa.s.sed the deep and s.p.a.cious harbor, which, at four hundred miles from the sea, can shelter a hundred ships of the line; he neared the high cliff of Cape Diamond, towering like a bastion over the waters, and surmounted by the banner of the Bourbons; he coasted along the craggy wall of rock that extends beyond the citadel; he marked the outline of the precipitous hill that forms the north bank of the river,--and every where he beheld a natural fastness, vigilantly defended, intrenchments, cannon, boats, and floating batteries guarding every access. Had a detachment landed between the city and Cape Rouge, it would have encountered the danger of being cut off before it could receive support. He would have risked a landing at St.
Michael"s Cove, three miles above the city, but the enemy prevented him by planting artillery and a mortar to play upon the shipping. Meantime, at midnight, on the 28th of July, the French sent down a raft of five-stages, consisting of nearly a hundred pieces; but these, like the fire-ships a month before, did but light up the river, without injuring the British fleet. Scarcely a day pa.s.sed but there were skirmishes of the English with the Indians and Canadians, who were sure to tread stealthily in the footsteps of every exploring party. Wolfe returned to Montmorenci. July was almost gone, and he had made no effective advances. He resolved on an engagement. The Montmorenci, after falling over a perpendicular rock, flows for three hundred yards, amidst clouds of spray and rainbow glories, in a gentle stream to the St. Lawrence. Near the junction, the river may, for a few hours of the tide, be pa.s.sed on foot. It was planned that two brigades should ford the Montmorenci at the proper time of the tide, while Monckton"s regiments should cross the St. Lawrence in boats from Point Levi. The signal was made, but some of the boats grounded on a ledge of rocks that runs out into the river. While the seamen were getting them off, and the enemy were firing a vast number of shot and sh.e.l.ls, Wolfe, with some of the navy officers as companions, selected a landing-place; and his desperate courage thought it not yet too late to begin the attack.
Thirteen companies of grenadiers, and two hundred of the second battalion of the Royal Americans, who got first on sh.o.r.e, not waiting for support, ran hastily towards the intrenchments, and were repulsed in such disorder that they could not again come into line; though Monckton"s regiment had arrived, and had formed with the coolness of invincible valor. But hours hurried by; night was near; the clouds of midsummer gathered heavily, as if for a storm; the tide rose; and Wolfe, wiser than Frederic at Colin, ordered a timely retreat."
In this unsuccessful attempt Wolfe lost 400 men. On the tortures of a body wasted by fever and a mind preyed on by its own restless energy, we will not dwell. Wolfe reckoned on a.s.sistance from the corps of Amherst,--but this did not arrive. At last he perceived that his fate rested in his own hands alone,--and he conceived the daring plan of attack which has given to his name the soldier"s immortality. We extract Mr. Bancroft"s account of the brilliant attack which cost our young hero his life and the French their dominions in Northern America:--
"Every officer knew his appointed duty, when, at one o"clock in the morning of the 13th September, Wolfe, with Monckton and Murray, and about half the forces, set off in boats, and without sail or oars, glided down with the tide. In three-quarters of an hour the ships followed, and, though the night had become dark, aided by the rapid current, they reached the cove just in time to cover the landing. Wolfe and the troops with him leaped on sh.o.r.e; the light infantry, who found themselves borne by the current a little below the intrenched path, clambered up the steep hill, staying themselves by the roots and boughs of the maple and spruce and ash trees that covered the precipitous declivity, and, after a little firing, dispersed the picket which guarded the height. The rest ascended safely by the pathway. A battery of four guns on the left was abandoned to Colonel Howe. When Townshend"s division disembarked, the English had already gained one of the roads to Quebec, and, advancing in front of the forest, Wolfe stood at daybreak with big invincible battalions on the plains of Abraham, the battle-field of empire. "It can be but a small party come to burn a few houses and retire," said Montcalm, in amazement, as the news reached him in his intrenchments the other side of the St. Charles; but, obtaining better information,--"Then," he cried, "they have at last got to the weak side of this miserable garrison; we must give battle and crush them before mid-day." And before ten, the two armies, equal in numbers, each being composed of less than five thousand men, were ranged in presence of one another for battle. The English, not easily accessible from intervening shallow ravines, and rail fences, were all regulars, perfect in discipline, terrible in their fearless enthusiasm, thrilling with pride at their morning"s success, commanded by a man whom they obeyed with confidence and love. The doomed and devoted Montcalm had what Wolfe had called but "five weak French battalions," of less than two thousand men, "mingled with disorderly peasantry," formed on ground which commanded the position of the English. The French had three little pieces of artillery, the English one or two. The two armies cannonaded each other for nearly an hour; when Montcalm, having summoned Bougainville to his aid, and despatched messenger after messenger for De Vaudreuil, who had fifteen hundred men at the camp, to come up, before he should be driven from the ground, endeavored to flank the British and crowd them down the high bank of the river. Wolfe counteracted the movement by detaching Townshend with Amherst"s regiment, and afterwards a part of the Royal Americans, who formed on the left with a double front. Waiting no longer for more troops, Montcalm led the French army impetuously to the attack. The ill-disciplined companies broke by their precipitation and the unevenness of the ground; and fired by platoons, without unity. The English, especially the forty-third and forty-seventh, where Monckton stood, received the shock with calmness; and after having, at Wolfe"s command, reserved their fire till their enemy was within forty yards, their line began a regular, rapid, and exact discharge of musketry. Montcalm was present every where, braving danger, wounded, but cheering by his example. The second in command, De Sennezergues, an a.s.sociate in glory at Ticonderoga, was killed. The brave but untried Canadians, flinching from a hot fire in the open field, began to waver; and, so soon as Wolfe, placing himself at the head of the twenty-eighth and the Louisburgh grenadiers, charged with bayonets, they every where gave way. Of the English officers, Carleton was wounded; Barre, who fought near Wolfe, received in the head a ball which destroyed the power of vision of one eye, and ultimately made him blind. Wolfe, also, as he led the charge, was wounded in the wrist, but still pressing forward, he received a second ball; and, having decided the day, was struck a third time, and mortally, in the breast. "Support me," he cried to an officer near him: "let not my brave fellows see me drop." He was carried to the rear, and they brought him water to quench his thirst. "They run, they run," spoke the officer on whom he leaned. "Who run?" asked Wolfe, as his life was fast ebbing. "The French," replied the officer, "give way every where." "What," cried the expiring hero, "do they run already? Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton; bid him march Webb"s regiment with all speed to Charles River to cut off the fugitives." Four days before, he had looked forward to early death with dismay.
"Now, G.o.d be praised, I die happy." These were his words as his spirit escaped in the blaze of his glory. Night, silence, the rushing tide, veteran discipline, the sure inspiration of genius had been his allies; his battle-field, high over the ocean-river, was the grandest theatre on earth for ill.u.s.trious deeds; his victory, one of the most momentous in the annals of mankind, gave to the English tongue and the inst.i.tutions of the Germanic race the unexplored and seemingly infinite West and North. He crowded into a few hours actions that would have given l.u.s.tre to length of life; and filling his day with greatness, completed it before its noon."
In that terrible action fell also "the hope of New France." In attempting to rally a body of fugitive Canadians in a copse near St.
John"s Gate, Montcalm was mortally wounded.
We have quoted enough from this volume to show how varied and stirring are the subjects with which Mr. Bancroft here deals.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] _History of the American Revolution._ By George Bancroft. Vol. I.
Boston, Little & Brown, 1852.
From the London Literary Gazette
LIFE IN CANADA.
BY MRS. MOODIE.[6]
If there be one of life"s affairs in which woman has a peculiar right to have her wishes considered and her veto respected, it is that of emigration. For, in the arduous task of establishing a new home in a half-settled country, let man do what he will to alleviate, on her fall the burthen and heat of the day. Hers are the menial toils, the frequent anxieties, the lingering home-sickness, the craving after dear friends"
faces and a beloved native land. Hers, too, the self-imposed duty and unselfish effort to hide regret under cheerful smiles, when the weary brother or husband returns at evening from toil in field and forest.
Blessed and beautiful are the smiles of the sad-hearted, worn to wile away another"s cares!
Love in a cottage has long been jeered at, and depicted as flying out of the window. It seems miraculous to behold the capricious little deity steadfastly braving, for many a long year, the chilly atmosphere of a log-hut in an American forest. In the year 1832, Mrs. Moodie (here better remembered as Miss Susanna Strickland, sister of the well-known historian of the English and Scottish Queens) accompanied her husband, a half-pay subaltern, to the backwoods of Canada. Many were her misgivings, and they did not prove unfounded. Long and cruel was the probation she underwent, before finding comparative comfort and prosperity in the rugged land where at first she found so much to embitter her existence. n.o.bly did she bear up under countless difficulties and sufferings, supported by an energy rare in woman, and by her devoted attachment to the husband of her choice. For some years her troubles were not occasional, but continual and increasing. Her first installation in a forest home could hardly have been more discouraging and melancholy than it was:
"The place we first occupied was purchased of Mr. C----, a merchant, who took it in payment of sundry large debts, which the owner, a New England loyalist, had been unable to settle. Old Joe H--, the present occupant, had promised to quit it with his family at the commencement of sleighing; and as the bargain was concluded in the month of September, and we were anxious to plough for fall wheat, it was necessary to be upon the spot. No house was to be found in the immediate neighborhood save a small dilapidated log tenement, on an adjoining farm (which was scarcely reclaimed from the bush), that had been some months without an owner.
The merchant a.s.sured us that this could be made very comfortable until such time as it suited H--to remove."
With singular want of caution, Mr. and Mrs. Moodie neglected to visit this "log tenement" before signing an agreement to rent it. On a rainy September day they proceed to take possession:
"The carriage turned into a narrow, steep path, overhung with lofty woods, and after laboring up it with considerable difficulty, and at the risk of breaking our necks, it brought us at length to a rocky upland clearing, partially covered with a second growth of timber, and surrounded on all sides by the dark forest. "I guess," quoth our Yankee driver, "that at the bottom of this "ere swell, you"ll find yourself _to hum_;" and plunging into a short path cut through the wood, he pointed to a miserable hut, at the bottom of a steep descent, and cracking his whip, exclaimed, "It"s a smart location that. I wish you Britishers may enjoy it." I gazed upon the place in perfect dismay, for I had never seen such a shed called a house before. "You must be mistaken; that is not a house, but a cattle-shed, or pig-sty." The man turned his knowing keen eye upon me, and smiled, half humorously, half maliciously, as he said, "You were raised in the old country, I guess; you have much to learn, and more perhaps than you"ll like to know, before the winter is over.""
The prophet of evil spoke truly. It was a winter of painful instruction for the inexperienced young woman, and her not very prudent husband. We might fill columns with a bare list of their vexations and disasters.
Amongst the former, not the least arose from the borrowing propensities of their neighbors. They had "located" in a bad neighborhood, in the vicinity of a number of low Yankee squatters, "ignorant as savages, without their courtesy and kindness." These people walked unceremoniously at all hours into their wretched dwelling, to criticise their proceedings, make impertinent remarks, and to borrow--or rather to beg or steal, for what they borrowed they rarely returned. The most extraordinary loans were daily solicited or demanded; and Mrs. Moodie, strange and timid in her new home, and amongst, these semi-barbarians--her husband, too, being much away at the farm--for some time dared not refuse to acquiesce in their impudent extortions. Here is a specimen of the style of these miscalled "borrowings." On the first day of their arrival, whilst they were yet toiling to exclude wind and rain from the crazy hovel, which their baggage and goods filled nearly to the roof, a young Yankee "lady" squeezed herself into the crowded room:
"Imagine a girl of seventeen or eighteen years of age, with sharp, knowing-looking features, a forward impudent carnage, and a pert flippant voice, standing upon one of the trunks, and surveying all our proceedings in the most impertinent manner. The creature was dressed in a ragged, dirty, purple stuff gown, cut very low in the neck, with an old red cotton handkerchief tied over her head; her uncombed, tangled locks falling over her thin, inquisitive face in a state of perfect nature. Her legs and feet were bare, and in her coa.r.s.e, dirty, red hands she swung to and fro an empty gla.s.s decanter."
The mission of this squalid nymph was not to borrow but to lend. She "guessed the strangers were fixin" there," and that they"d want a gla.s.s decanter to hold their whisky, so she had brought one over. "But mind--don"t break it," said she; ""tis the only one we have to hum, and father says it"s so mean to drink out of green gla.s.s"--a sentiment worthy of a colonel of hussars. Although quite pleased by such disinterested kindness and attention, Mrs. Moodie declined the decanter, on the double ground of having some of her own, and of not drinking whisky. The refusal was unavailing. The lady in ragged purple set down the bottle on a trunk, as firmly as if she meant to plant it there, and took herself off. The next morning cleared up the mystery of her perseverance. "Have you done with that "ere decanter I brought across yesterday?" said the "cute damsel, presenting herself before Mrs. Moodie with her bare red knees peeping through her ragged petticoats, and with face and hands innocent of soap. The English lady returned the bottle, with the remark that she had never needed it.
""I guess you won"t return it empty," quoth the obliging neighbor; "that would be mean, father says. He wants it filled with whisky.""
The hearty laugh which this solution of the riddle provoked from the inmates of the log-house offended the female Yankee, who tossed the decanter from hand to hand and glared savagely about her. But the ridicule was insufficient to deter her from the whisky hunt. When a.s.sured there was none in the place, she demanded rum, and pointed to a keg, in which she said she smelt it. Her keen olfactories had not deceived her. The rum, she was told, was for the workmen: