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, massacring, 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]
[Illustration: 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]
[Illustration: CAPTURE OF QUEBEC]
SPAIN CEDES FLORIDA TO GREAT BRITAIN.—In the spring of 1761, France made proposals of peace; but while the negotiation was under way, Spain allied herself with France, and was soon dragged into the war. The British thereupon captured Havana and Manila (1762), and thus became for a short time masters of Cuba and the Philippines. A few weeks later preliminary articles of peace were signed (November, 1762), and the final (or definitive) treaty in 1763. Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain in return for Cuba. News of the capture of the Philippines was not received till after the preliminary treaty was signed; the islands were therefore returned without any equivalent. [11]
THE FRENCH QUIT AMERICA.—By the treaties of 1762 and 1763 France withdrew from America.
To Great Britain were ceded (1) all of New France (or Canada), Cape Breton
Island, and all the near-by islands save two small ones near Newfoundland,
and (2) all of Louisiana east of the Mississippi save the city of New
Orleans and a little territory above and below the city.
[Illustration: THE BRITISH TERRITORY AT THE END OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN
WAR.]