A Brief History of the United States Part 15

FOOTNOTES

[1] It was only a few years after this defeat that the Dutch planted their trading posts on the upper Hudson. They made friends of the Iroquois, and when the English succeeded the Dutch, they followed the same wise policy, encouraged the old hatred of the Indians for the French, and inspired more than one of their raids into Canada. The Iroquois thus became a barrier against the French and prevented them from coming down the Hudson and so cutting off New England from the Middle Colonies.

[2] The inhabitants, mostly Dutch, had been advised to be on their guard, but they laughed at the advice, kept their gates open, and, it is said, at one of them put two snow men as mock sentinels.

[3] It was expected that the plunder of Quebec would pay the cost of the expedition. Failure added to the debt of Ma.s.sachusetts, and forced the colony to issue paper money or "bills of credit." This was the first time such money was issued by any of the colonies. (For picture of a bill of credit, see p. 204.)

[4] They captured, plundered, and burned York, were beaten in an attack on Wells, burned houses and tomahawked a hundred people at Durham, and burned the farmhouses near Haverhill.

[5] Queen Mary died in 1694, and King William in 1702. The crown then pa.s.sed to Anne, sister of Mary. The war, therefore, was fought mostly during her reign.

[6] Read Whittier's poem _Pentucket_, and his account in prose called _The Border War of 1708_.

[7] Formidable as was the fort, the snow of a severe winter had been suffered to pile in drifts against the stockade till in places it nearly reached the top, so that the stockade was no longer an obstacle to the French and Indians.

[8] Read Parkman's _Half-Century of Conflict_, Vol. I, pp. 52-66.

[9] Ever since the accession of King James I (1603) England and Scotland had been under the same king, but otherwise had been independent, each having its own Parliament. Now, in Queen Anne's reign, the two countries were united (1707) and made the one country of Great Britain, with one Parliament.

[10] It was during these years of peace that Georgia was planted. The Spaniards at St. Augustine considered this an intrusion into their territory, and protested vigorously when Oglethorpe established a line of military posts from the Altamaha to the St. Johns River. When word came that Great Britain and Spain were at war, Oglethorpe, aided by British ships, (1740) attacked St. Augustine. He failed to capture the city, and the Spaniards (1742) invaded Georgia. Oglethorpe, though greatly outnumbered, made a gallant defense, forced the Spaniards to withdraw, and (1743) a second time attacked St. Augustine, but failed to take it.

[11] The expedition was undertaken without authority from the king. The army was a body of raw recruits from the farms, the shops, lumber camps, and fishing villages. The commander--Pepperell--was chosen because of his popularity, and knew no more about attacking a fortress than the humblest man in the ranks. Of cannon suitable to reduce a fortress the army had none. Nevertheless, by dint of hard work and good luck, and largely by means of many cannon captured from the French, the garrison was forced to surrender. Read Hawthorne's _Grandfather's Chair_, Part ii, Chap. vii; also Chaps. viii and ix.

[12] Read Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Vol. I, pp. 20-34, for a comparison of the French and English colonies in America.

[13] One of these plates was soon found by the Indians and sent to the governor of Pennsylvania. Two more in recent years were found projecting from the banks of the Ohio by boys while bathing or at play.

[14] Among the members of the company were Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, and two brothers of George Washington.

[15] George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, at Bridges Creek, in Virginia. At fourteen he thought seriously of going to sea, but became a surveyor, and at sixteen was sent to survey part of the vast estate of Lord Fairfax which lay beyond the Blue Ridge. He lived the life of a frontiersman, slept in tents, in cabins, in the open, and did his work so well that he was made a public surveyor. This position gave him steady occupation for three years, and a knowledge of woodcraft and men that stood him in good stead in time to come. When he was nineteen, his brother Lawrence procured him an appointment as an adjutant general of Virginia with the rank of major, a post he held in October, 1753, when Dinwiddie sent him, accompanied by a famous frontiersman, Christopher Gist, to find the French.

[16] On the way home Washington left his men in charge of the horses and baggage, put on Indian walking dress, and with Christopher Gist set off by the nearest way through the woods on foot. "The following day," says Washington, in his account of the journey, "just after we had pa.s.sed a place called Murdering town, ... we fell in with a party of French Indians, who had lain in wait for us. One of them fired at Mr. Gist or me, not fifteen steps off, but fortunately missed." The next day they came to a river. "There was no way of getting over but on a raft, ... but before we were half over we were jammed in the ice.... I put out my setting pole to try and stop the raft that the ice might pa.s.s by, when the rapidity of the stream threw it with such force against the pole, that it jerked me out into ten feet of water, but I fortunately saved myself by catching hold of one of the raft logs." They were forced to swim to an island, and next day crossed on the ice. Read Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Vol. I, pp. 132-136.

[17] The French claimed that Jumonville was the bearer of a dispatch from the commander at the Ohio, that after the Virginians fired twice he made a sign that he was the bearer of a letter, that the firing ceased, that they gathered about him and while he was reading killed him and his companions.

Jumonville's death has therefore been called an "a.s.sa.s.sination" by French writers. The story rested on false statements made by Indians friendly to the French. In reality, there is ample proof that Jumonville made no attempt to deliver any message to Washington.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EASTERN NORTH AMERICA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.]

CHAPTER XI

THE FRENCH DRIVEN FROM AMERICA

THE SITUATION IN 1754.--The French were now in armed possession of the Ohio valley. Their chain of forts bounded the British colonies from Lake Champlain to Fort Duquesne. Unless they were dislodged, all hope of colonial expansion westward was ended. To dislodge them meant war, and the certainty of war led to a serious attempt to unite the colonies.

By order of the Lords of Trade, a convention of delegates from the colonies [1] was held at Albany to secure by treaty and presents the friendship of the Six Nations of Indians; it would not do to let those powerful tribes go over to the French in the coming war. After treating with the Indians, the convention proceeded to consider the question whether all the colonies could not be united for defense and for the protection of their interests.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOIN, OR DIE.]

FRANKLIN'S PLAN OF UNION.--One of the delegates was Benjamin Franklin. In his newspaper, the _Philadelphia Gazette_, he had urged union, and he had put this device [2] at the top of an account of the capture of the Ohio fort (afterward Duquesne) by the French. At the convention he submitted a plan of union calling for a president general and a grand council of representatives from the colonies to meet each year. They were to make treaties with the Indians, regulate the affairs of the colonies as a whole, levy taxes, build forts, and raise armies. The convention adopted the plan, but both the colonial legislatures and the Lords of Trade in London rejected it. [3]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANKLIN, AT THE AGE OF 70.]

THE FIVE POINTS OF ATTACK.--The French held five strongholds, which shut the British out of New France and Louisiana, and threatened the English colonies.

1. Louisburg threatened New England and Nova Scotia.

2. Quebec controlled the St. Lawrence.

3. Crown Point (and later Ticonderoga), on Lake Champlain, guarded the water route to New York and threatened the Hudson valley.

4. Niagara guarded the portage between Lakes Ontario and Erie, and threatened New York on the west.

5. Fort Duquesne controlled the Ohio and threatened Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The plan of the British was to strengthen their hold on Nova Scotia (Acadia), and to attack three of the French strongholds--Crown Point, Niagara, and Fort Duquesne--at the same time.

ACADIA.--Late in May, 1755, therefore, an expedition set sail from Boston, made its way up the Bay of Fundy, captured the French forts at the head of that bay, reduced all Acadia to British rule, and tendered the oath of allegiance to the French Acadians. This they refused to take, whereupon they were driven on board ships at the point of the bayonet and carried off and distributed among the colonies. [4]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FORTS IN NORTHERN NEW YORK.]

CROWN POINT.--The army against Crown Point, composed of troops from the four New England colonies and New York, gathered at Albany, and Forts in northern New York, under command of William Johnson [5] marched to the head of Lake George, where it beat the French under Dieskau (dees'kou), and built Fort William Henry; but it did not reach Crown Point.

NIAGARA.--A third army, under General Shirley of Ma.s.sachusetts, likewise set out from Albany, and pushing across New York reached Oswego, when all thought of attacking Niagara was abandoned. News had come of the crushing defeat of Braddock.

BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT.--Under the belief that neither colonial officers nor colonial troops were of much account, the mother country at the opening of the war sent over Edward Braddock, one of her best officers, and two regiments of regulars. Brad-dock came to Virginia, appointed Washington one of his aids, and having gathered some provincial troops, set off from Fort c.u.mberland in Maryland for Fort Duquesne. The country to be traversed was a wilderness. No road led through the woods, so the troops were forced to cut one as they went slowly westward (map, p. 144).

On July 9, 1755, when some eight miles from Fort Duquesne, those in the van suddenly beheld what seemed to be an Indian coming toward them, but was really a French officer with a band of French and Indians at his back.

The moment he saw the British he stopped and waved his hat in the air, whereupon his followers disappeared in the bushes and opened fire. The British returned the fire and stood their ground manfully, but as they could not see their foe, while their scarlet coats afforded a fine target, they were shot down by scores, lost heart, huddled together, and when at last Brad-dock was forced to order a retreat, broke and fled. [6]

Braddock was wounded just as the retreat began, and died as the army was hurrying back to Fort c.u.mberland, and lest the Indians should find his grave, he was buried in the road, and all traces of the grave were obliterated by the troops and wagons pa.s.sing over it. From Fort c.u.mberland the British marched to Philadelphia, and the whole frontier was left to the mercy of the French and Indians.

FRENCH VICTORIES.--War parties were sent out from Fort Duquesne in every direction, settlement after settlement was sacked, and before November the Indians were burning, plundering, ma.s.sacring, scalping within eighty miles of Philadelphia. During the two following years (1756-57), the French were all energy and activity, and the British were hard pressed. [7] Oswego and Fort William Henry were captured, [8] and the New York frontier was ravaged by the French.

BRITISH VICTORIES (1758).--And now the tide turned. William Pitt, one of the great Englishmen of his day, was placed at the head of public affairs in Great Britain, and devoted himself with all his energy to the conduct of the war. He chose better commanders, infused enthusiasm into men and officers alike, and the result was a series of victories. A fleet of frigates and battleships, with an army of ten thousand men, captured Louisburg. Three thousand provincials in open boats crossed Lake Ontario, took Fort Frontenac, and thus cut communication between Quebec and the Ohio. A third expedition, under Forbes and Washington, marched slowly across Pennsylvania, to find Fort Duquesne in ruins and the French gone.

[9]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LETTER WRITTEN BY WASHINGTON'S MOTHER. In the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society]

VICTORIES OF 1759.--Two of the five strongholds (Louisburg and Fort Duquesne) were now under the British flag, and the next year (1759) the three others met a like fate. An expedition under Prideaux (prid'o) and Sir William Johnson captured Fort Niagara; an army under Amherst took Ticonderoga and Crown Point; and a fleet and army led by Wolfe, a young officer distinguished at Louisburg, took Quebec.

QUEBEC, 1759.--The victory at Quebec was the greatest of the war. The fortress was the strongest in America, and stood on the crest of a high cliff which rose from the waters of the St. Lawrence. The French commander, Montcalm, was a brave and able soldier. But one night in September, 1759, the British general, Wolfe, led his army up the steep cliff west of the city, and in the morning formed in battle array on the Plains of Abraham. A great battle followed. Both Wolfe and Montcalm were killed; but the British won, and Quebec has ever since been under their flag. Montreal fell the next year (1760), and Canada was conquered. [10]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPTURE OF QUEBEC]