fore its termination, from being seconds they had become the principals. The end brought no benefit to either. Indeed the very treaty of peace was a satire on their strife; for by one of the chief articles all conquests were to be restored. The House of Hanover, it is true, had saved the much-loved Electorate, and bound down Louis no longer to harbour the Pretender, -scarcely an adequate recompence to England for all the blood and treasure she had spent, not to speak of the indignity of sending two noble hostages to Paris, until the restoration of Cape Breton should be effected. The pretended peace was nothing more than a truce, to which France was compelled by political necessity; for her resources were drained, and her people impoverished, while her navy had been annihilated by Anson, Warren, and Hawke. Bent, as she still was, upon extending her settlements in America and India, the object of France was to gain time for the purpose of recruiting her resources and renewing her navy. So the proclamation of peace was received in Paris with even greater demonstrations of joy than in London. Te Deum was sung in the metropolitan church on the 13th of February, 1749; and the same evening there was a grand display of fireworks in the Place de Grève. The crowd was so dense upon the memorable occasion, that fifteen persons were crushed to death, and to crown the calamity, the Seine having overflowed and inundated the Place during the exhibition, many more were drowned. Alluding to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Maréchal Belleisle is said to have observed to Madame de Pompadour, "It leaves affairs in America as they are, and we have twenty savage nations

in Canada to take our revenge." With equal truth, Pompadour some years afterwards remarked, "Revenge cost us that country!"

When Wolfe once more returned home after his seven active campaigns, he may be said to have served his apprenticeship to the art of war, and as Mars was dethroned, our hero immediately enlisted under the banner of Cupid. The young lady who had "pleased" him the previous winter, and who fascinated him now, was Miss Lawson, one of the maids of honour to the Princess of Wales, and eldest daughter of the late Sir Wilfrid Lawson and Elizabeth Lucy Mordaunt, niece of Charles, third Earl of Peterborough.* But as Wolfe was gazetted on the 5th of January, 1749, as Major, with a view to the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the 20th regiment, then serving in Scotland, his present stay in town lasted only three weeks. In this short space of time, Miss Lawson made rapid progress in his affections. Let us leave it, however, for himself to describe the fair charmer, his rivals, and other attending circumstances.

Sir Wilfrid Lawson, of Isell, was one of the grooms of the bedchamber to George I., and M.P. for Cumberland. He died in 1737, leaving two sons, Wilfrid and Mordaunt, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Charlotte. (Burke's Extinct Baronetage.')

I

114

CHAPTER VI.

STIRLING.-GLASGOW.

FEBRUARY-October, 1749.

SIR WALTER SCOTT, writing in 1815, said that the people of Scotland were as different from their grandfathers as the people of England from those of the reign of Elizabeth.* Certainly no other country-in the Old World, at least-exhibits within a like space of time so marked a contrast in its condition as Scotland in 1750 and Scotland to-day. This unparalleled progress may be attributed to several causes; we need name but one-the sagacious, energetic, and "self-contained" character of the people, who, as soon as ever the barriers to their advance were removed, began to overtake their competitors in the march of civilization. Few of the London tourists who "do" the Highlands in two or three weeks reflect that it would have occupied about as many days to reach the terra incognita of one hundred years ago, as it does hours to enter the same well-mapped districts in the present time, and that the adventure would have been much more hazardous and laborious than an excursion to the backwoods of Canada is now. The world

* Waverley, chap. 72.

wide readers of Waverley,' etc., are generally so enchained by the genius of the great Wizard of the North, that instead of being instructed by the truths contained in his descriptions, they retain only the romance, and lose sight of the ugly facts which it envelopes. Rob Roy is remembered as a dashing, generous freebooter, but not as a vulgar thief; MacIvor, as a martyr to misplaced loyalty, but not as an oppressive feudal lord; and the Highland tribes, as hardy mountaineers, ever faithful to their chiefs, but not as idle, half-starved, superstitious serfs.

The

Until about the year of Wolfe's birth the Highlands may be said to have been almost undiscovered, and even of the more accessible parts of Scotland the greatest ignorance prevailed.* "The edge of the ancient animosity between the people of the northern and the southern divisions of this island, now happily broken and removed, was still keen. The Scottish mind was filled with distrust; it rankled with the remembrance of the treachery which forced on Scotland the then hated Union. Hanoverian succession was by no means popular in the north, and men's minds fluctuated between the old and *Captain Burt, writing about the year 1730, says :"The Highlands are little known even to the inhabitants of the low country of Scotland, for they have ever dreaded the difficulties and dangers of travelling amongst the mountains; and when some extraordinary occasion has obliged any one of them to make such a progress, he has, generally speaking, made his testament before he set out, as though he were entering upon a long and dangerous voyage, wherein it was very doubtful if he should ever return. But to the people of England, excepting some few, and those chiefly soldiery, the Highlands are hardly known at all; for there has been less, that I know of, written upon the subject than of either of the Indies." (Letters from the North of Scotland, vol. i. p. 6.)

:

the new race of kings."* The prominent part played by the Highland clans in the Rebellion of 1715 had indeed alarmed the Government, and instigated an official survey of those mountain regions of which nothing was known except that their dreary recesses swarmed with wild warriors, who regarded with disdain the avocations of civilized life, and who, at the signal of their chiefs, were ready to descend with fury upon their comparatively peaceful neighbours of the Lowlands. After Mar's rebellion had been quashed, General Wade was ordered to reconnoitre the Highlands, with instructions to observe their strength and resources, to take a rough census of the population, and suggest such measures as he considered best calculated to promote the internal improvement of the country. In his Report, which was not delivered until 1725, Wade estimated the number of men capable of bearing arms at about 22,000, fully one-half of whom were disaffected; and, after describing their mode of life and their thieving propensities, he showed the necessity of disarming the clans, and recommended the construction of forts, with military roads to render them easily accessible to the army. The Government determined upon carrying out the recommendations of the General, and assigned to him the duty of disarming

*Tait's Magazine, December, 1849.

Speaking of the Highland inhabitants, the General says in his Report:-"Their notions of virtue and vice are very different from the more civilized part of mankind. They think it the most sublime virtue to pay servile and abject obedience to the commands of their chieftains, although in opposition to their Sovereign and the laws of the kingdom; and to encourage this their fidelity, they are treated by their chiefs with great familiarity; they partake with them in their diversions, and shake them by the hand wherever they meet them."