and smaller armed vessels, commanded by Admirals Holmes and Saunders, and, on the 27th of June, landed upon Orleans Island, a few miles below Quebec. That city then, as now, consisted of an Upper and Lower Town, the former within fortified walls, upon the top and declivities of a high peninsula; the latter lying upon a narrow beach at the edge of the

water. Upon the heights, three hundred feet above the water, was a level plateau called the Plains of Abraham. At the mouth of the St. Charles, which here enters the St. Lawrence, the French had moored several floating batteries. The town was strongly garrisoned by French regulars, and along the north bank of the St. Lawrence, from the St. Charles to the Montmorenci River, was the main French army, under Montcalm,' in a fortified camp. It was composed chiefly of Canadian militia and Indians.

GENERAL WOLFE.

On the 30th of July, the English, after a slight skirmish, took possession of Point Levi, opposite Quebec, and throwing hot shot from a battery, they almost destroyed the Lower Town. They could not damage the strong fortifi

cations of the city from that distance, and Wolfe resolved to attack the French camp. He had already landed a large force, under Generals Townshend and Murray, and formed a camp [July 10, 1759], below the River Montmorenci. General Monckton, with grenadiers and other troops, crossed from Point Levi, and landed

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upon the beach [July 31], at the base of the high river bank, just above that stream. Murray and Townshend were ordered to force a passage across the Montmorenci, and co-operate with him, but Monckton was too eager for attack to await their coming. He unwisely rushed forward, but was soon repulsed, and compelled to take shelter behind a block-house near the beach, just as a heavy thunder-storm, which had been gathering for several hours, burst upon the combatants. Night came on before it ceased, and the roar of the rising tide warned the English to take to their boats. Five hundred of their number had perished.

Two months elapsed, and yet the English had gained no important advantages. Wolfe had received no intelligence from Amherst, and the future ap

'These were a kind of flat-boats, with proper breast works or other defenses, and armed with

cannons.

He was descended from a noble family. He was appointed governor of Canada in 1756. His remains are beneath the Ursuline convent at Quebec.

Grenadiers are companies of the regular army, distinguished from the rest by some peculiarity of dress and accoutrements, and always composed of the tallest and most muscular men in the serv ice. They are generally employed in bayonet charges, and sometimes carry grenades, a kind of small bomb-shell. Note 3, page 192.

peared gloomy. The exposure, fatigue, and anxiety which he had endured produced a violent fever, and at the beginning of September [1759], he lay prostrate in his tent. He called a council of war at his bedside, and, on the suggestion of Townshend, it was resolved to scale the heights of Abraham,' and assail the town on its weakest side. Wolfe heartily approved of the design. A plan was speedily matured, and feeble as he was, the commander-in-chief determined to lead the assault in person. The camp at the Montmorenci was broken up [Sept. 8], and the attention of Montcalm was diverted from the real designs of the English, by seeming preparations to again attack his lines. The affair was managed so secretly and skillfully, that even De Bourgainville, who had been sent up the St. Lawrence by Montcalm, with fifteen hundred men, to watch the movements of the English, had no suspicion of their designs.

All preparations having been completed, the English ascended the river, in several vessels of the fleet, on the evening of the 12th of September. They went several miles above the intended landing-place. Leaving the ships at midnight, they embarked in flat boats, with muffled oars, and moved silently down to the mouth of a ravine, a mile and a half from the city, and landed.* At dawn [Sept. 13], Lieutenant-Colonel Howe3 led the van up the tangled ravine, in the face of a sharp fire from a guard above. He was followed by the generals and the remainder of the troops, with artillery; and at sunrise the whole army stood in battle array upon the Plains of Abraham. It was an apparition little anticipated by the vigilant Montcalm. He perceived the peril of the city; and marching his whole army immediately from his encampment, crossed the St. Charles, and between nine and ten o'clock in the morning, confronted the English. A general, fierce, and bloody battle now ensued. Although twice severely wounded, Wolfe kept his feet; and as the two armies closed upon each other, he placed himself at the head of his grenadiers, and led them to a charge. At that moment a bullet entered his breast. He was carried to the rear, and a few moments afterward, Monckton, who took the command, also fell, severely wounded. Townshend continued the battle. Montcalm soon received a fatal wound; and the French, terribly pierced by English bayonets, and smitten by Highland broadswords, broke and fled. Wolfe died just as the battle ended, with a smile upon his lips, because his ears heard the victory-shouts of his army. Five hundred French

The declivity from Cape Diamond, on which the chief fortress stands, along the St. Lawrence to the cove below Sillery, was called by the general name of the Heights of Abraham, the plains of that name being on the top. See map on page 201.

3

This place is known as Wolfe's Cove; and the ravine, which here breaks the steepness of the rocky shore, and up which the English clambered, is called Wolfe's Ravine.

3 Afterward General Sir William Howe, the commander-in-chief of the English forces in America, when the Revolution had fairly commenced. Page 247.

4 He was carried into the city, and when told that he must die, he said, "So much the better; I shall then be spared the mortification of seeing the surrender of Quebec." His remains are yet in Quebec; those of Wolfe were conveyed to England. People of the two nations have long dwelt peaceably together in that ancient city, and they have united in erecting a tall granite obelisk, dedicated to the linked memory of Wolfe and Montcalm.

men were killed, and (including the wounded) a thousand were taken prisoners. The English lost six hundred, in killed and wounded.

General Townshend now prepared to besiege the city. Threatened famine within aided him; and five days after the death of Wolfe [Sept. 18, 1759], Quebec, with its fortifications, shipping, stores, and people, was surrendered to the English, and five thousand troops, under General Murray, immediately took possession. The fleet, with the sick and the French prisoners, sailed for Halifax. The campaign now ended, yet Canada was not conquered. The French yet held Montreal, and had a considerable land and naval force above Quebec.

CAMPAIGN OF 1760.

Notwithstanding these terrible disasters, the French were not dismayed, and early in the spring of 1760, Vaudreuil, then governor-general of Canada, sent M. Levi, the successor of Montcalm, to recover Quebec. He went down the St. Lawrence, with six frigates and a strong land force. General Murray marched out, and met him at Sillery, about three miles above Quebec, and there, on the 4th of April, was fought one of the most sanguinary battles of the war. Murray was defeated. He lost all his artillery, and about a thousand men, but succeeded in retreating to the city with the remainder. Levi now laid siege to Quebec, and Murray's condition was becoming perilous, from the want of supplies, when an English squadron, with reinforcements and provisions, appeared [May 9] in the St. Lawrence. Levi supposed it to be the whole British fleet, and at once raised the siege [May 10], and fled to Montreal, after losing most of his shipping.

Now came the final struggle. The last stronghold of the French was now to be assailed; and Vandreuil gathered all his forces at Montreal for the conflict. Amherst had made extensive preparations during the summer; and early in September [Sept. 6-7], three English armies met before the doomed city. Amherst, at the head of ten thousand troops, and a thousand warriors of the SIX NATIONS, under General Johnson,' arrived on the 6th, and was joined, the same day, by General Murray, and four thousand troops, from Quebec. The next day, Colonel Haviland arrived, with three thousand troops, from Crown Point, having taken possession of Isle Aux-Noix3 on the way. Against such a crushing force, resistance would be vain; and Vandreuil immediately signed a capitulation [Sept. 8, 1760], surrendering Montreal, and all other French posts in Canada, into the hands of the English. The regular troops, made prisoners at Montreal, were to be sent to France; and the Canadians were guarantied perfect security in person, property, and religion.5 General Gage was appointed governor at Montreal; and Murray, with four thousand men, garrisoned Quebec.

1 Page 190.

2 Page 198.

Note 8, page 197.

The chief posts surrendered were Presque Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania), Detroit, and Mackinaw.

They were chiefly Roman Catholics, and that is yet the prevailing religion in Lower Canada.
Pages 186 and 226.

The conquest of Canada produced great joy in the Anglo-American colonies, and in none was it more intense than in that of New York, because its whole northern frontier lay exposed to the enemy. The exultation was very great in New England, too, for its eastern frontiers were now relieved from the terrible scourge of Indian warfare, by which they had been desolated six times within a little more than eighty years. In these wars, too, the Indians had become almost annihilated. The subjugation of the French seemed to be a guaranty of peace in the future, and the people everywhere assembled to utter public thanksgiving to HIM who rules the nations.

Although the war had ceased in America, the French and English continued it upon the ocean, and among the West India Islands, with almost continual success for the latter, until 1763, when a definitive treaty of peace," agreed upon the year before, was signed at Paris [February 10, 1763], by which France ceded to Great Britain all her claimed possessions in America, eastward of the Mississippi, north of the latitude of Iberville River. At the same time, Spain, with whom the English had been at war for a year previously, ceded [February 10, 1763] East and West Florida to the British crown. now, England held undisputed possession (except by the Indians) of the whole Continent, from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico to the frozen North, and from ocean to ocean.*

And

The storm of war still lowered in the southern horizon, when the French dominion ceased in Canada. While the English were crushing the Gallic power in the north, the frontier settlements of the Carolinas were suffering dreadfully from frequent incursions of Indian war parties. French emissaries were busy among the Cherokees, hitherto the treaty friends of the English; and their influence, and some wrongs inflicted upon the Indians by some frontier Virginia Rangers, produced hostilities, and a fierce war was kindled in March, 1760. The whole western frontier of the Carolinas was desolated in the course of a few weeks. The people called aloud for help, and Amherst heeded their supplications. Early in April, Colonel Montgomery, with some British regulars and provincial troops, marched from Charleston, South Carolina, and laid waste a portion of the Cherokee country. Those bold aboriginal highlanders were not subdued; but when, the following year, Colonel Grant led a stronger force against them, burned their towns, desolated their fields, and killed many of their warriors, they humbly sued for peace [June, 1761], and ever afterward remained comparatively quiet.

The storm in the South had scarcely ceased, when another, more portentous and alarming, gathered in the North-west. Pontiac, a sagacious chief of

1 Note 1. page 193. 2 Franco and England, Spain and Portugal, were parties to this treaty. New Orleans, and the whole of Louisiana, was ceded by France to Spain at the same time, and she relinquished her entire possessions in North America. In 1800, Spain, by a secret treaty, retroceded Louisiana to France; and in 1803, Napoleon sold it to the United States for fifteen millions of dollars. See page 390.

The cost, to England, of this Seven Years' War, as the conflict was called in Europe, was five hundred and sixty millions of dollars. Page 27. • Page 27. 7 Marion, Moultrie, and several other men, afterward distinguished in the war for Independ ence, accompanied Grant on this occasion.

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the Ottawas, who had been an early ally of the French, secretly confederated several of the ALGONQUIN tribes, in 1763, for the purpose of expelling the English from the country west of the Alleghanies. After the fall of Montreal,' Pontiac had professed an attachment to the English; and as there seemed safety for settlers west of the mountains, immigration began to pour its living stream over those barriers. Like Philip of Mount Hope, Pontiac saw, in the future, visions of the displacement, perhaps destruction, of his race, by the pale-faces; and he determined to strike a blow for life and country. So adroitly were his plans matured, that the commanders of the western forts had no suspicions of his conspiracy until it was ripe, and the first bow had been struck, in the month of June. Within a fortnight, all the posts in possession of the English, west of Oswego, fell into his hands, except Niagara,' Fort Pitt, and Detroit. Colonel Bouquet saved Pittsburg;' Niagara was not attacked; and Detroit, after sustaining a siege of almost twelve months, was relieved by Colonel Bradstreet, who arrived there with reinforcements, in May, 1764. The Indians were now speedily subdued, their power was broken, and the hostile tribes sent their chiefs to ask for pardon and peace. The haughty Pontiac refused to bow to the white people, and took refuge in the country of the Illinois, where he was treacherously murdered in 1769. This was the last act in the dramaof the FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR."

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6

In our consideration of the history of the United States, we have now arrived at a point of great interest and importance. We have traced the growth of the colonies through infancy and youth, as their interests and destinies gradually commingled, until they really formed one people," strong and lusty, like

1 Page 18.

* The confederation consisted of the Ottawas, Miamies, Wyandots, Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Mississaguies, Shawnees, Outagamies or Foxes, and Winnebagoes. The Senecas, the most westerly clan of the Six NATIONS, also joined in the conspiracy. Page 203. 'Page 124. Page 198.

* Page 200.

3

Henry Bouquet was a brave English officer. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel in 1756, and was in the expedition against Fort du Quesne (page 198). In 1763, Amherst sent him from Montreal, with provisions and military stores for Fort Pitt. His arrival was timely, and he saved the garrison from destruction. The following year he commanded an expedition against the Indians in Ohio, and was successful. His journal was published after the war. Page 198.

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• An English trader bribed a Peoria Indian to murder him, for which he gave him a barrel of rum. The place of his death was Cahokia, a small village on the east side of the Mississippi, a little below St. Louis. Pontiac was one of the greatest of all the Indian chiefs known to the white people, and deserved a better fate. It is said, that during the war of 1763, he appointed a commissary, and issued bills of credit. So highly was he esteemed by the French inhabitants, that these were received by them. Montcalm thought much of him; and at the time of his death, Pontiac was dressed in a French uniform, presented to him by that commander. See page 202. Pontiac was buried where the city of St. Louis now stands, and that busy mart is his monument, though not his memorial.

The work most accessible to the general reader, in which the details of colonial events may be found, is Graham's Colonial History of the United States, in two volumes octavo, published by Blanchard and Lea, Philadelphia.

"It must not be understood, that there was yet a perfect unity of feeling among the various colonists. Sectional interests produced sectional jealousies, and these worked much mischief, even while soldiers from almost every colony were fighting shoulder to shoulder [page 190] in the continental army. Burnaby, who traveled in America at this period, expressed the opinion, that sectional jealousy and dissimilarity would prevent a permanent union; yet he avers that the people were imbued with ideas of independence, and that it was frequently remarked among them, that the tide of dominion was running westward, and that America was destined to be the mistress of the world." The colonists themselves were not unmindful or the importance of their position, and