A Historical Geography of the British Colonies, Vol. V / Canada—Part I, Historical

by Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas

³⁶ See Documentary History of New York, vol. i, pp. 433-40 (Papers relating to the early settlement at Ogdensburg). The Abbé Piquet retired in this year (1760) to Louisiana, and thence to France, where he died in 1781. His mission on the Oswegatchie river, or Rivière de la Présentation, was a good sample of the aggressive French missions in Canada. Its object was to bring over the western tribes of the Five Nations to the French religion and French interests.

Fort Levis taken. Amherst before Montreal.

A little lower down, on an island in the St. Lawrence, at the head of the rapids, the French had a fortified outpost. They called the island Île Royale, and the fort upon it Fort Levis. The officer in charge was Pouchot, who had commanded at Niagara in the preceding year, and had been exchanged with other prisoners. From the eighteenth to the twenty-fourth of August, Amherst attacked the fort. From either bank, and from the neighbouring islands, the British guns poured in their fire, supported by the armed vessels of the expedition; and on the twenty-fifth, after a brave defence, Pouchot surrendered. On the thirty-first, Amherst began the descent of the rapids, watched by La Corne and a band of Canadians. A number of boats were lost, and eighty-four men were drowned; but the main body was carried safely onward, and by September 5 reached the Île Perrot, a few miles above the island of Montreal. On the sixth, Amherst landed at Lachine, and, marching forward, encamped that night directly in front of Montreal.

Negotiations for surrender. Montreal capitulates, and with it the whole of Canada.

The next day the French commanders negotiated for surrender, Murray having meanwhile landed on the island, and begun his march towards Montreal, on the opposite side to that on which Amherst was encamped. Vaudreuil and Levis tried to extract better terms from Amherst than the latter was inclined to grant; and Levis, in particular, strove hard to modify the provision that all the French troops in Canada should lay down their arms, and not serve again during the war. His protests were in vain. Amherst returned answer in strong words, that he was resolved by the terms of the capitulation to mark his sense of the infamous conduct of which the French troops had been guilty, in exciting the savages to barbarities in the course of the war. With 2,400 men opposed to about 17,000 in the three English forces, the Frenchmen had no option but to surrender. On September 8 the terms of capitulation were signed, and the whole of Canada passed into the keeping of Great Britain.

Amherst on the conduct of the French Indians.

Amherst's reference to French dealings with the Indians, and to the dealings of the Indians in French employ, the authority for which is Captain Knox's book, deserves to be noted. When two white races are pitted against each other in savage lands, the final mastery will rest with the one which, less than the other, comes down to the savage level. The French had sinned more than the English in this respect; and it is significant that, at the surrender of Niagara, they stipulated for protection against the Indian allies of the English, and that at the surrender of Montreal they made a similar request. On the second occasion Amherst answered, and answered truly, that no cruelties had been committed by the Indians on the English side. A few days before, at the taking of Fort Levis, a large proportion of Johnson's Indians had deserted when not allowed to use their scalping knives; and probably the majority of the English shared Captain Knox's opinion of them, that 'this is quite uniform with their conduct on all occasions whenever opportunity seems to offer for their being serviceable to us.'³⁷ The truth was that the English did not love the Indians or Indian ways; they suffered in consequence while the fate of war was still in the balance; but in the end they gained, as a ruling race, for the humanity of Amherst and the men whom he commanded stood to the credit of Great Britain in the coming time.

³⁷ Knox, vol. ii, p. 413. According to Knox, Johnson collected 1,330 Indians belonging to seventeen tribes. This number was reduced at the time of embarkation to 706, and afterwards by desertion to 182.

End of the war.

With the capitulation of Montreal, the war in North America ended. Already in the past July some French ships bringing supplies, which had reached the Baie des Chaleurs in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, had been followed up and destroyed in the Restigouche river by Commander Byron; and while Montreal was being given up, a detachment from the English garrison at Quebec reduced the French outpost at Jacques Cartier. The surrender of Montreal included all Canada, and Robert Rogers was sent by Amherst to take over Detroit, Michillimackinac, and other of the western outposts of New France. They were peaceably occupied at the time, but three years later were the scene of hard fighting in consequence of the dangerous Indian rising under Pontiac. Amherst himself left Canada almost immediately, but remained in America as Commander-in-Chief, having his head quarters at New York, until peace was signed, when he returned to England. Vaudreuil and his subordinates went back to France, to be brought heavily to account for their shortcomings; and until the peace, or rather until Pontiac's revolt had been put down a year later, Canada remained under military rule.