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ARTICLES OF SURRENDER.

63

The articles granted were that the troops should march out with their arms and the honours of war, with the baggage of the officers and men only. One piece of artillery, a 6-pr., was allowed to be taken from the fort in recognition of the valour with which it had been defended; the place immediately to be given over with the stores, guns and ammunition; the troops to proceed to fort Edward, on parole not to serve for eighteen months. All prisoners made since the commencement of the war, officers, soldiers, Canadians, women ånd. savages, to be delivered at Carillon within three months, as they were delivered an equal number of the garrison on parole to be allowed to serve. The sick and wounded were placed under the protection of Montcalm.

De Bougainville, in his narrative of the siege, states that Montcalm, after having agreed to the terms of capitulation, warned colonel Young that he could not pledge his word for the observance of the conditions, unless accepted by the Indians.* In consequence, he submitted to the leading chiefs the terms he had granted, and the conditions were accepted at a council. De Bougainville was the officer selected to draw up the articles of surrender.

Had the circumstances of Canada permitted, it would have been the fate of the garrison to be marched as prisoners to Montreal. Their surrender was complete, and in their situation there was only open to them the desperate alternative of refusing to give or take quarter, to exact better terms. It was however, simply impossible to find food for them. There is a letter from Bigott which sets forth that it was the wisest resolution not to make the garrison prisoners of war: "we could not feed them." He adds that the same want of provisions justified the non attack of fort Edward; for the longer detention of the Canadian habitants would have led to the loss of the harvest, and he could not have found subsistence for the troops after August. At that date the inhabitants of Quebec were limited to a ration of a quarter of a pound of

Dessieux, p. 305.

+ N. Y. Doc., X., p. 631.

bread a day, and there was general scarcity throughout the colony.

Hitherto the Indians had been restrained from the use of liquor; indeed neither wine nor spirits had been served out to any part of the force. De Bougainville tells us that previously to returning to the trenches he exercised great care in the destruction of all the strong drink in the fort, before the garrison marched out. The evacuation took place at noon of the 9th, the British troops proceeding to the entrenched camp. A French detachment was likewise present as a protection against interference on the part of the Indians. De Bourlamaque, with the force from the trenches, took possession of the fort. He placed sentries at the magazines and the provision stores; the fort was otherwise given over to pillage.

The scene which followed on the succeeding day is one of the best remembered in the history of the continent. The event was early placed on record. * It has frequently been related, and often with exaggeration: the facts, however, in their plain truth, can in no way be gainsaid. Some French writers endeavour to explain them away, and bring forward as an argument the folly of the British soldiery in giving rum from their canteens to the Indians in the hope of appeasing them. They also dwell upon the cowardice of the troops in submitting patiently to the Indian attack, affirming that they were seized with a panic to be incapable of offering resistance. The British amounted to 2,260 of all ranks, with several women and children. They were without ammunition. The king's regiment, the 35th, was alone armed with bayonets. The records of the siege show the self-assertion with which the Indians forced themselves upon the attention of Montcalm. There were present under his command 3,000 regular troops and 2,500 Canadian militia. There were 1,800 Indians. These figures show what power Montcalm had at his disposal to restrain the Indians in any attempt at aggressiveness, of which he disapproved.

I would gladly, if I could, acquit Montcalm of blame on * Smollett has described it, Chap. XXVII., 19. (1763-1765.)

1757]

THE MASSACRE.

65

this occasion; it appears to me impossible to do so. De Lévis, de Bourlamaque, de Bougainville, de Sénezergue and men of this calibre could have but one feeling of what was incumbent upon a French officer under such circumstances. The Canadians had been bred, with the tradition of allowing at the hour of victory full sway to the bloody instincts of the Indian. Those who read in these volumes the narrative when inroads were made upon the settlements of New England by the Abenakis, will have difficulty in adducing many instances when, through the intervention of the partizan leaders, the fury of their Indian allies was stayed, or mercy shewn. The chief motive of the savage in joining an expedition, even when his passions were excited by the appeals made to them, lay in the hope of plunder. De Rigaud, who was in command of the Indian force, had complained of the restriction against this license which had been exercised at Oswego. Men of the stamp of de la Corne Saint-Luc, Marin, Langlade, de Longueuil, de Niverville and de Langy knew no other policy, than that the savage had to be conciliated by the reward he claimed. He could only be kept true to French interests by the gratification of his instincts for blood, plunder and prisoners. It had been the law and practice for nearly a century, and the emergency which sanctioned it in their view was as strong as ever.

The fort had been plundered, but the intrenched camp was as yet untouched. Early on the morning of the 10th of August, when the days are longest, the motley tribes of savages crowded round the eminence on which the fortifications had been thrown up. They found the British, in accordance with the capitulation, preparing to march to fort Edward. They feared the booty, which they looked upon as their right, would escape them. There were seventeen wounded men in the hospital, belonging to the Massachusetts regiment. They had been placed under the protection of a French surgeon, who had then left them, and his place had been taken by the surgeon of the regiment. The French sentries which had been posted had been removed. The Indians forced their

F

way into the sick ward, dragged the men from their beds, killed and scalped them.* The French troops, drawn up in line, were not forty rods distant, and there was no attempt to protect or save the unfortunate men thus murdered. It was the commencement of a general plundering of the troops drawn up to march out of the intrenchment. Some of the French officers counselled that the demands of the Indians should be met, and the articles they asked for should be given up in order to appease them. The advice in some instances was acted upon. Nevertheless, the uproar continued, and the unsatisfied rapacity of the savages led them to be more clamorous. The duty of the French officers was exceedingly plain, to have marched a body of men of sufficient strength to prevent interference with the troops of the captured garrison by the savages, whose instincts they knew. The British troops were unarmed, and if in their desperation there had been an attempt at resistance the Canadian force would have come to the rescue of the Indian; all opposition would have been overpowered, and the probability is that a fearful massacre would have followed. The numbers against the British would have been in the proportion of two to one: an armed body of men against disarmed troops. The taunt of cowardice made by some French writers is unpardonable, and may be taken as the fullest proof of the weakness of their We have only the statements of the French that rum was given to the Indian by the soldiers. It is not so stated by any British authority. It is not impossible that a great quantity of spirits was found at the plunder of the fort. The seizure of much of the baggage doubtless included the possession of the canteens, and as the Indian drinks, drunkenness would be the immediate consequence.

case.

The column left the intrenchment. As it marched out the Indians rushed upon the rear ranks, took from officers and men all they could lay their hands on, stripping them of their dress and accoutrements. The women and children were seized

Affidavit of Miles Whiteworth, surgeon of the Massachusetts regiment, 17th of October, 1757.

1757]

INDIAN FEROCITY.

67

Many were killed.

before the faces of the French escort. Those of the troops who in any way resisted were tomahawked: it is not possible to mention the exact number; but de Lévis speaks of some fifty as being so slain.* Webb, while relating that there was an escort of three hundred men, deliberately expressed the opinion that the attack was connived at by the French. The rear of the column thus assaulted, broke and ran in upon the front; and the whole became affected by the panic and took refuge in flight. In the midst of the confusion a war-whoop was heard from the Abenakis from Penobscot. It was afterwards pretended that they were smarting from a wrong lately committed on their tribe, and they only retaliated the injury they had suffered. Even if this were the case, it was not the time, nor the occasion when revenge could be taken. The New Hampshire men in rear of the column were the first to sustain the onslaught, during which the escort made no effort at repression. There was no attempt to check the atrocities. The interpreters are accused by a French writer of inciting the Indians to acts of violence, and to seize the property of the disarmed garrison. The Indians acted with great ferocity against the negroes, mulattoes and Indians in the British ranks and immediately killed and scalped them. § They stripped and robbed the white men; where they experienced resistance their victim was struck down. At the commencement of the commotion a report of the proceedings of the Indians was carried to Montcalm by colonel Monroe,

"Il y eut une cinquantaine de chevelures levées." De Lévis' Journal, p. 102. + They were stripped by the Indians of everything they had, both Officers and Men, the Women and Children drag'd from among them, and most inhumanly butchered before their faces: the party of about three hundred men which was given them as an escort were during the time quietly looking on. From this and other circumstances we are too well convinced these barbarities must have been connived at by the French. After having destroyed the women and children they fell upon the rear of our men, who, running in upon the front, soon put the whole to a most precipitate flight, in which confusion most of them came into this camp about two o'clock yesterday morning, in a most distressing situation, and have continued dropping in ever since. Can. Arch., Series A. & W. I, vol. 85.2, p. 401. Pouchot, II., p. 89.

§ Que. Doc., IV., P. 120.