[146] "New York, Dec. 13. Early on Monday last an express arrived hither from the westward, and brought sundry letters which gave an account that General Forbes was in possession of Fort du Quesne; one of those letters said: 'Fort du Quesne, Nov. 26, 1756. I have now the pleasure to write to you from the ruins of the fort.... We arrived at six o'clock last night, and found it in a great measure destroyed. There are two forts about twenty yards distant; the one built with immense labor, small, but a great deal of strong works collected into little room, and stands at the point of a narrow neck of land at the confluence of the two rivers: it is square, and has two ravelins, gabions at each corner, &c. The other fort stands on the bank of the Allegany, in the form of a parallelogram, but not near so strong as the other. They sprung a mine, which ruined one of their magazines; in the other we found sixteen barrels of ammunition, &c., and about a cart-load of scalping-knives. A boy, who had been their prisoner about two years, tells us ... that they had burned five of the prisoners they took at Major Grant's defeat, on the parade, and had delivered others to the Indians, who were tomahawked on the spot. We found numbers of dead bodies within a quarter of a mile of the fort, unburied, so many monuments of French humanity. Mr. Bates is appointed to preach a thanksgiving sermon for the remarkable superiority of his majesty's arms. We left all our tents at Loyal Hanning, and every conveniency, except a blanket and a knapsack.' Another letter mentions that 'only 2500 picked men marched from Loyal Hanning ... that 200 of our people were to be left at Fort du Quesne, now Pittsburg—100 of the oldest Virginians, the others of our oldest Pennsylvanians.... The French judged rightly in abandoning a fort, the front of whose polygon is only 150 feet, and which our shells would have destroyed in three days. We have fired some howitzer shells into the face of the work, which is made of nine-inch plank, and rammed between with earth, and found that, in firing but a few hours, we must have destroyed the entire face."—The Public Advertiser, Jan. 20, 1757.
[147] "He was a person of slender abilities, and utterly devoid of energy and resolution, and Pitt too late regretted the error he had committed in intrusting a command of such importance to one so little known to him, and who proved so unfit to sustain it."—Graham, vol. IV., p. 19.
[148] "It was a circumstance additionally irritating and mortifying to England, that the few advantages which had been gained over the French were exclusively due to the colonial troops, while unredeemed disaster and disgrace had attended all the efforts of the British forces (1757)."—Graham's Hist. of the United States, vol. iv., p. 16.
[149] Graham, in his "History," falls into the mistake of supposing that Lord John Murray commanded the 42d regiment, because it bore his name.
CHAPTER VI.
It will now be advisable to consider the state of the two great rival races on the North American continent, before entering upon the relation of the eventful campaign which was but the crisis of a surely approaching fate. Although the decisive blow that forever crushed the power of France was doubtless dealt by the immortal Wolfe upon the Plains of Abraham, the slow but certain conquest of Canada had progressed for many a previous year; with the wisdom and rectitude of the counselor, with the ax and plow of the settler, with the thrift and adventure of the merchant, with the sober industry of the mechanic, and the daring hardihood of the fisherman, was the glorious battle won. Against weapons such as these the chivalry of Montcalm and of his splendid veteran regiments vainly strove. To them victory brought glory without gain, inaction danger, and disaster ruin. Despite their courage, activity, and skill, the rude but vigorous British population, like surging waves, gained rapidly on every side, and at length burst the opposing barriers of military organization, and poured in a broad flood over the dreary level of an oppressed and spiritless land.
In the year 1759, the population of Canada had only reached to 60,000 souls, and it was found to have decreased during the last twenty years of war and want; of these, 6700 dwelt under the protection of the ramparts of Quebec, 4000 at Montreal, and 1500 at the little town of Three Rivers. The greater part of the remainder led a rural life on the fertile banks of the St. Lawrence and its tributaries, while a few wandered with gun and rod among Indian tribes scarcely more savage than themselves, over the prairies, and on the shores of the great lakes and rivers of the West. The settlements on both shores below Quebec were then almost as advanced as now: small white houses, dainty in the distance, stretched in rows for many miles along the level banks, or dotted the hill side in picturesque irregularity. Here and there, neat wooden churches, of a peculiarly quaint architecture, stood the centers of hamlets and knots of farms. In their neighborhood this encumbering forest was usually cleared away with careful industry, and each fertile nook and valley, and the borders of each stream, were rich with waving corn. Through these lower settlements a sort of rude track extended for many miles by the water side. On the large and beautiful island of Orleans many thousand acres of corn and pulse were sown, the farms carefully separated by wooden paling, and intersected with tolerable roads.
Between Quebec and Montreal, the banks of the Great River were hardly in so advanced a state as those toward the sea; the churches were fewer and more distant, the houses ruder and more scattered. There were many miles, indeed, where no traces of human industry greeted the traveler's eye. The shores of the great lakes, or, rather, expansions of the stream, were dreary swamps and thickets, and the slopes of the distant hills still bore the primeval forest. On the sandy flats of Three Rivers, in a scattered village, dwelt a population more numerous than that of the present day; a small surrounding district was cleared and cultivated, but the main occupation and support of the inhabitants was the fur trade with the Indians, who resorted thither from the unknown north by the waters of the broad streams here uniting with the St. Lawrence.
The rich and fertile island of Montreal was already generally cleared, and extensively but thinly peopled. The city, at times called Ville Marie in old maps, ranged somewhat irregularly for more than a mile along the river side, and was even then remarkable for the superiority of its public buildings over those of its colonial neighbors.