Disgrace and panic reigned among all the English commanders. Webb whimpered to be allowed to fall back on the Hudson with his six thousand men; Loudoun cowered in New York with his large army, and could think of no better way of defending the northwest frontier than by intrenching himself on Long Island. There was not an Englishman in the Ohio or the St. Lawrence Basins. Everywhere beyond the narrow strip of the colonies the French were paramount. In Europe, England's position was almost as contemptible. Such was the result of the attempt of the aristocracy to rule England. There was only one man who could save England, and he was an old man, poor, a commoner, and sick almost to death. But in 1757 William Pitt was called to the English helm, accepted the responsibility, and steered the country from her darkest to her most brilliant hour. The campaigns which drove the soldiers of Louis XV. out of America were the first chapter of the movement which ended in the expulsion of the British from the territory of the United States. Catholicism and Protestantism were arrayed against each other for the last time. Pitt was the man of the people; his ambition, though generous, was as great as his abilities; the colonies knew him as their friend. "I can save this country, and nobody else can," he said; and bent his final energies to making England the foremost nation in the world, and the most respected. The faith of Rome allied France with Austria; and Prussia, with Frederic the Great, standing as the sole bulwark of Protestantism on the Continent, was inevitably drawn toward England.
With one movement of his all-powerful hand, Pitt reversed the oppressive and suicidal policy of the colonial administration. Loudoun was recalled; his excuses were vain. Amherst and Wolfe were sent out. The colonies were told that no compulsion should be put upon them; they were expected to levy, clothe and pay their men, but the government would repay their outlay. Instantly they responded, and their contributions exceeded all anticipation. Massachusetts taxed herself thirteen and fourpence in the pound. Provincial officers not above colonel ranked with the British, and a new spirit animated all. On the other hand, Canada suffered from famine, and Montcalm foresaw eventual defeat. Amherst and Wolfe, with ten thousand men, captured Louisburg and destroyed the fortifications. At the same time, a great army was collected against Ticonderoga. Nine thousand provincials, with Stark, Israel Putnam, and six hundred New England rangers, camped side by side with over six thousand troops of the British regulars under Abercrombie and Lord Howe. The French under Montcalm had erected Fort Carillon on the outlet from Lake George to Champlain, approachable only from the northwest. It was here that he planned his defense. The English disembarked on the west side of the lake, protected by Point Howe. In marching round the bend they came upon a French party of three hundred and defeated them, Howe falling in the first attack. Montcalm was behind intrenchments with thirty-six hundred men; Abercrombie rashly gave orders to carry the works by storm without waiting for cannon, but was careful to remain far in the rear during the action. The attack was most gallantly and persistently delivered; nearly two thousand men, mostly regulars, were killed; and, at the end of the murderous day, Montcalm remained master of the field. Abercrombie still had four times as many men as Montcalm, and with his artillery could easily have carried the works and captured Ticonderoga; but he was by this time "distilled almost to a jelly by the act of fear" and fled headlong at once. Montcalm had not yet met his match.
Bradstreet, however, with seven hundred Massachusetts men and eleven hundred New Yorkers, crossed Lake Ontario and took Port Frontenac, the garrison fleeing at their approach. Amherst, on hearing of Abercrombie's cowardice, embarked for Boston with over four thousand men, marched thence to Albany and on to the camp; Abercrombie was sent to England, and Amherst took his place as chief. The capture of Fort Duquesne was the first thing planned. Over forty-five hundred men were raised in South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia; Joseph Forbes commanded them as brigadier-general; Washington led the Virginians; John Armstrong and the boy, Anthony Wayne, were with the Pennsylvanians. Washington, who had clad part of his men in Indian deerskins, wanted to follow Braddock's line of march; but Forbes, who had not long to live, though his brain remained clear, preferred to build a road by which ready communication with Philadelphia could be kept up. Washington got news that the Fort had but eight hundred defenders, and a strong reconnaissance was sent forward, without his knowledge, under Major Grant, who, thinking he had the French at advantage, exposed himself and was defeated with a loss of three hundred. The remaining five hundred reached camp in good order, thanks to the discipline which had been given them by Washington. Forbes had decided to advance no further that season—it was then November; but Washington had information which caused him to gain permission to advance with twenty-five hundred provincials, and he occupied intrenchments near Duquesne. Nine days later the rest of the army arrived; and the garrison of the Fort set fire to it at night and fled. The place was entered by the troops, Armstrong raised the British flag, and at Forbes' suggestion it was rechristened Pittsburgh. And there, above the confluence of the two rivers, the city named after the Great Commoner stands to-day. A vast and fertile country was thenceforward opened to the east. After burying the bleaching bones of the men killed under Braddock, a garrison was left on the spot, and the rest of the army returned.
Washington, who had seen five years' arduous service, resigned his commission, and after receiving cordial honors from his fellow officers and the Virginia legislature, married the widow, Martha Custis, and settled down as a planter in Mount Vernon. He was a delegate to the Virginia House of Burgesses and to the Continental Congresses of 1774 and 1775; but it was not until the latter year that he reappeared as a soldier, accepting the command of the Continental forces on the 15th of June, not against the French, but against the English.
In 1759 the genius and spirit of Pitt began to be fully felt. The English were triumphant in Europe, and a comprehensive plan for the conquest of Canada was intrusted for the first time to men capable of carrying it out. Thousands of men were enlisted and paid for by the colonies north of Maryland. Stanwix, Amherst, Prideaux and Wolfe were the chiefs in command. Fifty thousand English and provincial troops were opposed by not more than an eighth as many half-starved Frenchmen and Canadians. Montcalm had no illusions; he told the French Minister of War that, barring extraordinary accidents, Canada's hour had come; but he "was resolved to find his grave under the ruins of the colony." And young General Wolfe had said, on being given the department of the St. Lawrence, "I feel called upon to justify the notice taken of me by such exertions and exposure of myself as will probably lead to my fall." The premonitions of both these valiant soldiers were fulfilled. Wolfe was at this time thirty-two years of age, and had spent half his life in the army. The Marquis de Montcalm was forty-seven when he fell on the Plains of Abraham. Neither general had been defeated up to the moment they faced each other; neither could succumb to any less worthy adversary.
But the first objective point was not Quebec, but Fort Niagara, which, standing between Erie and Ontario, commanded the fur trade of the country to the west. Prideaux, with an adequate force of English, Americans and Indians, invested the place in July, D'Aubry, the French commander, bringing up twelve hundred men to relieve it. Just before the action, Prideaux was killed by the bursting of a mountain howitzer, but Sir William Johnson was at hand to take his place. On the 24th the battle took place; the French were flanked by the English Indians, and charged by the English; they broke and fled, and the Fort surrendered next day. Stanwix had meanwhile taken possession of all the French posts between Pittsburgh and Erie. The English had got their enemy on the run all along the line. Gage was the only English officer to disgrace himself in this campaign; he squirmed out of compliance with Amherst's order to occupy the passes of Ogdensburgh. Amherst, with artillery and eleven thousand men, advanced on the hitherto invincible Ticonderoga. The French knew they were beaten, and therefore, instead of fighting, abandoned the famous stronghold and Crown Point, and retreated down to Isle aux Nois, whither Amherst should have followed them. Instead of doing so, he took to building and repairing fortifications—the last infirmity of military minds of a certain order—and finally went into winter quarters with nothing further done. Amherst, at the end of the war, received the routine rewards of a well-meaning and not defeated commander-in-chief; but it was Wolfe who won immortality.
He collected his force of eight thousand men, including two battalions of "Royal Americans," at Louisburg; among his ship captains was Cook the explorer; Lieutenant-colonel Howe commanded a body of light infantry. Before the end of June the army stepped ashore on the island that fills the channel of the St. Lawrence below Quebec, called the Isle of Orleans. Montcalm's camp was between them and the tall acclivity on which stood the famous fortress, which had defied capture for a hundred and thirty years. The French outnumbered the English, but neither the physical condition nor the morale of their troops was good. That beetling cliff was the ally on which Montcalm most depended. All the landing-places up stream for nine miles had been fortified: the small river St. Charles covered with its sedgy marshes the approach on the north and east, while on the west another stream, the Montmorenci, rising nearly at the same place as the St. Charles, falls in cataracts into the St. Lawrence nine miles above the citadel. All these natural features had been improved by military art. High up, north and west of the city, spread the broad Plains of Abraham.
Wolfe's fleet commanded the river and the south shore. Point Levi, on this shore, opposite Quebec, was fortified by the English, and siege guns were mounted there, the channel being but a mile wide; the lower town could be reached by the red-hot balls, but not the lofty citadel. After personally examining the region during the greater part of July, Wolfe decided on a double attack; one party to ford the Montmorenci, which was practicable at a certain hour of the tide, and the other to cross over in boats from Point Levi. But the boats grounded on some rocks in the channel; and Wolfe was repulsed at the Montmorenci. Four hundred men were lost. An expedition was now sent up stream to open communication with Amherst; but though it was learned that Niagara, Crown Point and Ticonderoga had fallen, Amherst did not appear. Wolfe must do his work alone; the entire population of the country was against him, and the strongest natural fortification in the world. His eager anxiety threw him into a fever. "My constitution is entirely ruined, without the consolation of having done any considerable service to the state, and without any prospect of it," was what he wrote to the English government. Four days afterward he was dying victorious on the Plains of Abraham.
The early Canadian winter would soon be at hand. The impossible must be done, and at once. Wolfe, after several desperate proposals of his had been rejected by the council of war, made a feint in force up the river, in the hope of getting Montcalm where he could fight him. He scrutinized the precipitous north shore as with a magnifying glass. At last, on the 11th of September, the hope that had so long been burning within him was gratified. But what a hope! A headlong goat-track cleft its zigzag way up the awful steep, and emerged at last upon the dizzy and breathless height above. Two men could scarce climb abreast in it; and even this was defended by fortifications, and at the summit, against the sky, tents could be seen. Yet this was the only way to victory: only by this heartbreaking path could England drive France from the western continent, and give a mighty nation to the world. Wolfe saw, and was content; where one man could go, thousands might follow. And he perceived that the very difficulty of the enterprise was the best assurance of its success. The place was defended indeed, but not strongly. Montcalm knew what daring could accomplish, but even he had not dreamed of daring such as this. Wolfe, with a great soul kindled into flame by the resolve to achieve a feat almost beyond mortal limitations, dared it, and prevailed.
Till the hour of action, he kept his troops far up the stream. By the 13th, all preparations were made. Night came on, calm, like the heart of the hero who knows that the culminating moment of his destiny has arrived. At such a crisis, the mortal part of the man is transfigured by the towering spirit, and his eyes pierce through the veils of things. His life lies beneath him, and he contemplates its vicissitudes with the high tranquillity of an immortal freedom. What is death to him who has already triumphed over the fetters of the flesh, and tasted the drink of immortality? He is the trustee of the purpose of God; and the guerdon his deed deserves can be nothing less noble than to die.