Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

through the cavity of the breast. Having thus obtained a dear bought victory, he started up on one leg, and saw Captain Ochterlony standing at the distance of sixty yards, close by the enemy's breast-work, with the French soldier attending him. Mr. Peyton then called aloud, Captain Ochterlony, I am glad to see you have at last got under protection Beware of that villain, who is more barbarous than the savages. God bless you, my dear captain. I see a party of Indians coming this way, and expect to be murdered immediately.'

"A number of these barbarians had for some time been employed on the left, in scalping and pillaging the dying and the dead that were left upon the field of battle; and above thirty of them were in full march to destroy Mr. Peyton. This gentleman knew he had no mercy to expect; for, should his life be spared for the present, they would have afterwards insisted upon sacrificing him to the manes of their brethren whom he had slain; and in that case he would have been put to death by the most excruciating tortures. Full of this idea, he snatched up his musket, and, notwithstanding his broken leg, ran above forty yards, without halting; and feeling himself now totally disabled, and incapable of proceeding one step further, he loaded his piece, and presented it to the two foremost Indians, who stood aloof waiting to be joined by their fellows; while the French, from their breast-works, kept up a continual fire of cannon and small arms upon this poor, solitary, maimed gentleman. In this uncomfortable situation he stood, when he discerned at a distance a Highland officer, with a party of his men, skirting the plain towards the field of battle. He forthwith waved his hand in signal of distress, and being perceived by the officer, he detached three of his men to his assistance. These brave fellows hastened to him through the midst of a terrible fire, and one of them bore him off on his shoulders. The Highland officer was Captain Macdonald, of Colonel Frazier's battalion, who, understanding that a young gentleman, his kinsman, had dropped on the field of battle, had put himself at the head of this party, with which he penetrated to the middle of the field, drove a considerable number of the French and Indians before him, and finding his relation still unscalped, carried him off in triumph. Poor Capt. Ochterlony was conveyed to Quebec, where, in a few days, he died of his wounds. After the reduction of that place, the French surgeons who attended him, declared, that in all probability, he would have recovered of the two shots he

had received in his breast, had he not been mortally wounded in the belly by the Indian's scalping knife.

"As this very remarkable scene was acted in sight of both armies, General Townshend, in the sequel, expostu lated with the French officers upon the inhumanity of keeping up such a severe fire against two wounded gentlemen, who were disabled, and destitute of all hope of escaping. They answered, that the fire was not made by the regulars, but by the Canadians and savages, whom it was not in the power of discipline to restrain."*

Sec. 24. The capture of Quebec, which soon followed, important as it was, did not immediately terminate the war. The French in Canada had still a powerful army, and some naval force, above the city.

Sec. 25. In the ensuing spring, 1760, Monsieur Levi approached Quebec, from Montreal, assisted by six frigates, for the purpose of recovering it from the English. Gen. Murray, who commanded the English garrison, marched to meet him, with only three thousand men, and, on the 28th of April, after a bloody battle, fought at Sillsery, three miles above the city, the English army was defeated, with the loss of one thousand men, the French having lost more than double that number.

The English retreated to Quebec, to which the French now laid siege. About the middle of May, an English squadron arrived with reinforcements, soon after which, the French fleet was taken and destroyed, and the siege was raised.

Sec. 26. The attention of the English commander in chief, Gen. Amherst, was now directed to the reduction of Montreal, the last fortress of consequence in the possession of the French. To effect this, he detached Col. Haviland, with a well disciplined army, to proceed to Lake George, Crown Point, and Lake Champlain; Gen. Mur

* Silliman's Tour, from Smollet.

ray was ordered from Quebec, with such forces as could be spared from the garrison, while Gen. Amherst himself proceeded with ten thousand men, by Lake Ontario, down the river St. Lawrence.

Generals Amherst and Murray arrived at Montreal the same day, Sept. 6th, and were joined by Haviland, on the day succeeding. While preparing to lay siege to the place, the commander of Montreal, M. de Vaudreuil, perceiving that resistance would be ineffectual, demanded a capitula

On the 8th, Montreal, Detroit, Michilimackinac, and all the other places within the government of Canada, were surrendered to his Britannic Majesty.

Sec. 27. Thus ended a war which, from the first hostilities, had continued six years, and during which much distress had been experienced, and many thousand valuable lives lost. Great and universal was the joy that spread through the colonies, at the successful termination of a contest, so long and severe, and public thanksgivings were generally appointed, to ascribe due honour to HIM who had preserved to the colonies their existence and liberties.

Sec. 28. While the troops were employed in the conquest of Canada, the colonies of Virginia. and South Carolina suffered invasion and outrage from the Cherokees, a powerful tribe of savages on the West. But in 1761, they were signally defeated by Col. Grant, and compelled to sue for peace.

Intelligence being communicated to Gen. Amherst of the danger of these colonies, he despatched Gen. Montgomery, with one thousand two hundred men, for their protection and relief.

Being joined by the forces of the province of Carolina on his arrival, he immediately proceeded into the country.

1

of the Cherokees, plundering and destroying their villages and magazines of corn. In revenge, the savages besieged Fort Loudon, on the confines of Virginia, which was oblig ed, by reason of famine, to capitulate. The capitulation was, however, broken, and the troops, while on their march to Virginia, were assaulted, numbers of them killed, and the rest taken captive.

The next year, 1761, Gen. Montgomery being obliged to return, Col. Grant was sent to continue the war. With an army of near two thousand six hundred men, he began his march towards the enemies country. On the fourth day the army fell in with a body of savages, and after a strongly contested battle, put them to flight. Following up this victory, Col. Grant proceeded to destroy their magazines, burn their corn fields, and consume their settlements, until, having effectually routed them, he returned with his troops. Soon after this, the Cherokee chiefs came in, and a peace was concluded.

Sec. 29. The conquest of Canada having been achieved in 1763, a definitive treaty, the preliminaries of which had been settled the year before, was signed at Paris, and soon after ratified by the kings of England and France; by which all Nova Scotia, Canada, the Isle of Cape Breton, and all other islands in the gulf and river St. Lawrence, were ceded to the British crown.

NOTES.

Sec. 30. MANNERS OF THE COLONISTS. The change in respect to manners in the colonies, during this period, consisted chiefly in a gradual wearing away of national distinctions and peculiarities, and a tendency to a still greater unity and assimilation of character. The rapid increase of wealth, and the frequency of intercourse with Europe, began to introduce among the colonies the tastes, and fashions, and luxuries of European countries. But the introduction of them produced little enervation of character among the people of America. Such an effect was counteracted

by the bloody but successful war with the French and Indians, and the boundless prosperity which seemed to open to the country, and call forth its energies. Instead, therefore, of a growing weakness in the colonies, we perceive a more vigorous spirit of commercial enterprise pervading the country; a consciousness of political importance becoming confirmed; and a deep and ardent love of civil liberty breathing over the land.

Sec. 31. RELIGION. The only religious sect introduced into America, during this period, was that of the Shakers, or Shaking Quakers, who arrived from England in 1774, and settled at Niska. yuna, near Albany.

Although the spirit of religious intolerance had disappear ed from the colonies, and the puritanical severity of the north had become much softened, yet, until the commencement of the French and Indian war, the religious character of the colonies had remained essentially the same. But during this war, infidelity was extensively introduced into the army, by means of the foreign English officers and soldiers who were sent into the country. From the army, it spread itself into society, and produced a considerable relaxation of morals, and a looser adherence to correct principle.

Sec. 32. TRADE AND COMMERCE. During this period, trade and commerce made great advances; the annual amount of imports from Great Britain was about two and a half millions of pounds sterling, from 1756 to 1771; from 1771 to 1773, it was three millions and a half annually, on an average. The annual amount of exports of the colonies to Great Britain and elsewhere, was about four million pounds sterling, at the close of this period. The articles of export, and the nature of the trade of the colonies, were essentially the same as stated in the notes to Period III.

In 1769, the number of ships employed by Great Britain and the colonies, in the trade with the colonies, was one thou

« ZurückWeiter »