It was disputed at the time, and is still matter of dispute, whether Webb from Fort Edward might have saved the fort by the lake. The view generally taken of his conduct was probably coloured by the memory of his frightened retreat down the Mohawk river in the preceding year. He could muster but 4,000 men all told; and, had he advanced and met with disaster, no force would have been left to keep Montcalm from marching on Albany, and possibly on New York itself. He risked nothing, and possibly he was wise; but the catastrophe which happened within his reach was in part, rightly or wrongly, debited to his account, and the feeling deepened in England and in America that on the English side leaders of men were sadly wanting.
| The French raid the German Flats. |
One more success was scored by the French before the winter came on. In October, Vaudreuil sent out from Montreal a raiding party of the old type, consisting of about 300 Canadians and Indians under an officer named Belêtre. They went up the St. Lawrence into Lake Ontario, landed on its southern shore, at some distance east of the ruins of Oswego, crossed to the portage between the Mohawk and Wood Creek, where the forts were no longer standing, and moved down the Mohawk to raid the outlying settlements. Between the head waters of the Mohawk and Schenectady, on the northern side of the river, was the district known as the German Flats, where German colonists had been planted about the year 1720. They came from the Palatinate, and their group of houses bore the name of the settlement or village of the Palatines. In the second week of November, Belêtre's party broke in among them, burnt houses and barns, killed cattle, horses, and some of the inhabitants, carried off over a hundred prisoners, and retired in safety in face of a weak detachment from a little English fort on the other side of the river, and of a stronger body of troops whom Lord Howe brought up from Schenectady too late to retrieve the disaster.
| The French triumphant in North America. William Pitt. |
This was the end of the campaign, the high-water mark of French successes in North America. At the end of 1757, the English had been beaten at all points. They had failed to attack Louisbourg, they had been driven from Lake George, the country of the Five Nation Indians was nearly cut off, all hold on the rivers and the lakes was gone. The outlook was dark in the extreme: it is always darkest before dawn, and as a matter of fact dawn had already begun; for William Pitt, who had been dismissed from office in April, was recalled by the unanimous voice of the people of England before the end of June, and, leaving to the incompetent Duke of Newcastle the name of Prime Minister, controlled, as Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons, the soldiers, the sailors, the subsidies and the foreign policy of his country.16
16 Lord Chesterfield in a letter to his son dated May 18, 1758 (1775 ed., vol. iv, p. 137, Letter 298), wrote as follows of the Newcastle-Pitt combination: 'The Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt jog on like man and wife, that is, seldom agreeing, often quarrelling, but by mutual interest upon the whole not parting.'
| Want of a leader on the English side. |
The wars of England have usually run the same course. They have begun with blunders and reverses, but ended in success. The English do not love war, and are rarely prepared for it. They begin fighting in half-hearted fashion, before the nation makes up its mind that the cause is worth a real effort and serious expenditure of money and life. There is groping about for a leader, for some one who will say distinctly what is to be done, and will prove as good as his word. If such a man is found, the people will follow; they forgive a man who makes mistakes provided, as the saying is, that he makes something. Then the resources of the country are concentrated and utilized, and under articulate and sympathetic leadership the cause of the nation prospers. If England in the year 1757 needed some one controlling will, much more was the want felt in her North American colonies. The demoralization caused by feeble ministries in England had its baleful effect in America; nerveless government at home strengthened the centrifugal tendencies of the colonies. Nothing but common danger gave them any common life; and, though Pitt's advent to power partially corrected the evil, Pitt was in England not in America. To the end the uniting force came from without rather than from within: the colonies followed the lead of Pitt and his generals, but to the mother country not to the colonies was due the conquest of Canada.
| Distress in Canada. |
That Canada must be conquered, when England made her effort, was inevitable. The French appeared triumphant; they had moved forward; they had struck heavy blows; but behind the fighting line, even on the surface, they were in straits. The garrison of Fort William Henry had not been taken prisoners to Canada, because Canada could hardly feed them;17 and the winter of 1757, which followed the brilliant campaign, was a winter of distress. Bread was wanting; horses were eaten for meat; the troops were mutinous and only kept in order by Levis' firmness and tact; the finances were in a ruinous condition; there were winter gaieties and winter gambling, but Canada before its conquest was in much the same condition as the mother country on the brink of the Revolution.