[107] How he strengthened rather than effaced the suspicion of his courage, and yet fought with a coolness that with almost all men justly palliated or removed the imputation on his spirit, seems rather difficult to explain, if it were any part of the duty of an editor to reconcile the contradictions of an author.—E.
[108] The surrenders of General Burgoyne’s and Cornwallis’s Armies.
[109] Francis Osborne, only son of the Duke of Leeds.
[CHAPTER XI.]
General Murray beaten at Quebec—Retreat of the French from that city—General Amherst takes Montreal—Our successes in the East Indies—Campaign in Germany—Prussians defeated—King of Prussia invests Dresden—Is obliged to retreat—Defeats Laudohn—Daun compelled to raise the Siege of Schweidnitz—The Allies take Berlin—Subsequently abandon it—The King of Prussia defeats Daun at Torgal—Prince Ferdinand’s Campaign—Earl of Clanricarde challenges the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—Character of George II.—His death—His Will—Anecdote respecting the Will of George I.
Those prodigious efforts were crowned, though not with universal, yet with most important success. In Germany, the campaign was far from decisive; but in America the war was concluded. After the loss of Quebec, the French retired into the heart of Canada. General Murray,[110] a brave and adventurous officer, with a garrison of about seven thousand men, and with the terror our arms had inspired, was left to defend the ruins of Quebec. The frost had obliged the Fleet to retire. Monsieur Levi, who had succeeded Montcalm, seized that last opportunity of struggling to recover their empire. Assembling a body of French, Canadians, and Indians, to the amount of ten thousand and upwards, he marched in April to besiege the capital. General Murray, impatient to be cooped within walls into which the English had entered so impetuously, disdained to await a regular siege, and, with far more intrepidity than policy, marched out with inferior force, attacked the French, and was defeated. He lost his cannon, but was sufficiently fortunate in not being cut off, as he was near being, from his retreat to the City. Levi soon prepared to form the siege by land and sea, having brought up six frigates; against which we had not a single vessel. The place must have fallen into the hands of its old masters, if, on the 9th of May, Lord Colville, with two frigates, outsailing the British squadron, had not entered the river and demolished the French armament. Levi, from the heights on the other side, was witness to that defeat; and, judging rightly that the rest of our naval force approached, broke up his camp in haste and confusion, and retreated, leaving his Artillery behind him.
One resource still remained—Montreal. There Monsieur de Vaudreuil, the General Governor, fixed his stand, and collected the whole force of the province. But he had to deal with a man, who, as brave as Wolfe or as Murray, and as circumspect as Vaudreuil was insidious, possessed the whole system of war. Provident, methodic, conciliating, and cool, Amherst disposed his plans, adapted his measures, reconciled jarring interests, and pursued his operations with steadiness; neither precipitating nor delaying beyond the due point, and comprehending the whole under an authority which he knew how to assume, and to temper from giving disgust.[111] A character so composed could not shine on a sudden: it required penetration to admire him; but the finer the details, the more astonishing was the result.
Amherst had determined, by one collective arrangement, to overwhelm the last hopes of France in Canada; an object sufficiently important to justify the exertion of superabundant resources. Colonel Haviland was ordered to sail from Crown Point, and proceed directly to Montreal: General Murray was commanded to bring up all the force he could spare from Quebec. Amherst himself, with a body of ten thousand men, and reinforced by a thousand savages under Sir William Johnson, embarked on Lake Ontario for the river St. Laurence; a spectacle that recalled the expeditions of ancient story, when the rudeness and novelty of naval armaments raised the first adventurers to the rank of demigods. That vast lake was to be traversed in open galleys laden with artillery, not with arrows and javelins. Wolfe, with all the formidable apparatus of modern war, had almost failed before Quebec: Amherst with barks and boats invaded Montreal, and achieved the conquest, though, what would have daunted the heroes of antiquity, he had the cataracts to pass. He surmounted that danger with inconsiderable loss, and appeared before Montreal on the very same day with General Murray. Too many obstacles, to which Monsieur de Vaudreuil had trusted, were conquered. The place itself was little tenable. The Governor took the only part that remained, that of surrendering his garrison prisoners of war. Thus was the French empire in Canada annihilated without effusion of blood. Amherst’s glory was completed by pardoning Vaudreuil’s perfidy and cruelties, and by preserving the vanquished from insult and injury.