The Abbé Picquet visited Niagara and the Portage above (Queenston or Lewiston); and in connection with his observations on those points he refers again expressly to Toronto. He is opposed to the maintenance of store-houses for trade at Toronto, because it tended to diminish the trade at Niagara and Fort Frontenac, "those two ancient posts," as he styles them. "It was necessary," he says, "to supply Niagara, especially the Portage, rather than Toronto. The difference," he says, "between the two first of these posts and the last is, that three or four hundred canoes could come loaded with furs to the Portage (Queenston or Lewiston); and that no canoes could go to Toronto except those which cannot pass before Niagara and to Fort Frontenac—(the translation appears to be obscure)—such as the Ottawas of the Head of the Lake and the Mississagués: so that Toronto could not but diminish the trade of these two ancient posts, which would have been sufficient to stop all the savages had the stores been furnished with goods to their liking."
In 1752, a French military expedition from Quebec to the Ohio region, rested at Fort Toronto. Stephen Coffen, in his narrative of that expedition, which he accompanied as a volunteer, names the place, but he spells the word in accordance with his own pronunciation, Taranto. "They on their way stopped," he says "a couple of days at Cadaraghqui Fort, also at Taranto on the north side of Lake Ontario; then at Niagara fifteen days."
1756.
In 1756, the hateful Choueguen, which had given occasion to the establishment of Toronto as a fortified trading-post, was rased to the ground. Montcalm, who afterwards fell on the Plains of Abraham, had been entrusted with the task of destroying the offensive stronghold of the English on Lake Ontario. He went about the work with some reluctance, deeming the project of the Governor-General, De Vaudreuil, to be rash. Circumstances, however, unexpectedly favoured him; and the garrison of Choueguen, in other words, of Oswego, capitulated. "Never before," said Montcalm, in his report of the affair to the Home Minister, "did 3,000 men, with a scanty artillery, besiege 1,800, there being 2,000 enemies within call, as in the late affair; the party attacked having a superior marine, also, on Lake Ontario. The success gained has been contrary to all expectation. The conduct I followed in this affair," Montcalm continues, "and the dispositions I made, were so much out of the ordinary way of doing things that the audacity we manifested would be counted for rashness in Europe. Therefore, Monseigneur," he adds, "I beg of you as a favour to assure his Majesty that if he should accord to me what I most wish for, employment in regular campaigning, I shall be guided by very different principles." Alas, there was to be no more "regular campaigning" for Montcalm. His eyes were never again to gaze upon the battle fields in Bohemia, Italy and Germany, where, prior to his career in Canada, he had won laurels.
The success before Choueguen in 1756 was followed by a more than counterbalancing disaster at Fort Frontenac in 1758. In that year a force of 3,000 men under Col. Bradstreet, detached from the army of Abercromby, stationed near Lake George, made a sudden descent on Fort Frontenac, from the New York side of the water, and captured the place. It was instantly and utterly destroyed, together with a number of vessels which had formed a part of the spoil brought away from Choueguen. On this occasion we find that the cry Hannibal ante Portas! was once more fully expected to be heard speedily within the stockade at Toronto. M. de Vaudreuil, the Governor-General, informs the Minister at Paris, M. de Massiac, "that should the English make their appearance at Toronto, I have given orders to burn it at once, and to fall back on Niagara."
1759.
One more order (the last), issuing from a French source, having reference to Toronto, is to be read in the records of the following year, 1759. M. de Vaudreuil, again in his despatch home, after stating that he had summoned troops from Illinois and Detroit, to rendezvous at Presqu'isle on Lake Erie, adds,—"As those forces will proceed to the relief of Niagara, should the enemy wish to besiege it, I have in like manner sent orders to Toronto, to collect the Mississagués and other natives, to forward them to Niagara."
1760.
The enemy, it appears, did wish to besiege Niagara; and on the 25th of July they took it—an incident followed on the 18th of the next September by the fall of Quebec, and the transfer of all Canada to the British Crown. The year after the conquest a force was despatched by General Amherst from Montreal to proceed up the country and take possession of the important post at Detroit. It was conveyed in fifteen whale-boats and consisted of two hundred Rangers under the command of Major Robert Rogers. Major Rogers was accompanied by the following officers: Capt. Brewer, Capt. Wait, Lieut. Bhreme, Assistant-Engineer, and Lieut. Davis of the Royal Train of Artillery. The party set out from Montreal on the 12th of September, 1760. The journal of Major Rogers has been published. It includes an account of this expedition. We give the complete title of the work, which is one sought after by book-collectors: "The Journals of Major Robert Rogers, containing an Account of the several Excursions he made under the Generals who commanded on the Continent of North America during the late War. From which may be collected the most material Circumstances of every Campaign upon that continent from the commencement to the conclusion of the War. London: Printed for the Author, and sold by J. Millan, bookseller, near Whitehall, MDCCLXV."
We extract the part in which a visit to Toronto is spoken of. He leaves the ruins of Fort Frontenac on the 25th of September. On the 28th he enters the mouth of a river which he says is called by the Indians "The Grace of Man." (The Major probably mistook, or was imposed upon, in the matter of etymology.)