PLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN.
This treaty with the Indians, who had been debauched from the interest of Great Britain, auspiciously paved the way for those operations which had been projected against the French settlements in Canada. Instead of employing the whole strength of the British arms in North America against one object, the ministry proposed to divide the forces, and make impressions on three different parts at once, that the enemy might be divided, distracted, and weakened, and the conquest of Canada completed in one campaign. That the success might be the more certain, the different expeditions were planned in such a manner as to co-operate with each other, and even join occasionally; so practicable was it thought for them to maintain such a correspondence as would admit of a junction of this nature. The project of this campaign imported, that general Wolfe, who had distinguished himself so eminently in the siege of Louis-bourg, should proceed up the river St. Laurence, as soon as the navigation should be clear of ice, with a body of eight thousand men, and a considerable squadron of ships from England, to undertake the siege of Quebec, the capital of Canada: that general Amherst, who commanded in chief, should, with another army of regular troops and provincials, amounting to twelve thousand men, reduce Ticonderoga and Crown Point, cross the lake Champlain, and, proceeding along the river Richelieu to the banks of the river St. Laurence, join general Wolfe in the siege of Quebec: that brigadier-general Prideaux, with a third body, reinforced with a considerable number of friendly Indians, assembled by the influence and under the command of sir William Johnston, should invest the French fort erected at the fall or cataract of Niagara, which was certainly the most important post of all French America, as it in a manner commanded all the interior parts of that vast continent. It overawed the whole country of the Six Nations, who were cajoled into a tame acquiescence in its being built on their territory: it secured all the inland trade, the navigation of the great lakes, the communication between Canada and Louisiana, and opened a passage for inroads into the colonies of Great Britain. It was proposed that the British forces, having reduced Niagara, should be embarked on the lake Ontario, fall down the river St. Laurence, besiege and take Montreal, and then join or co-operate with Amherst’s army. Besides these larger armaments, colonel Stanwix commanded a smaller detachment for reducing smaller forts, and scouring the banks of the lake Ontario. How far this project was founded on reason and military knowledge may be judged by the following particulars, of which the projectors were not ignorant. The navigation of the river St. Laurence is dangerous and uncertain. The city of Quebec was remarkably strong from situation, and fortification, from the bravery of the inhabitants, and the number of the garrison. Monsieur de Montcalm, an officer of great courage and activity, kept the field between Montreal and Quebec, with a body of eight or ten thousand men, consisting of regular troops and disciplined militia, reinforced by a considerable number of armed Indians; and another body of reserve hovered in the neighbourhood of Montreal, which was the residence of monsieur de Vaudreuil, governor-general of Canada. The garrison of Niagara consisted of above six hundred men; the march to it was tedious and embarrassed; and monsieur de Levi scoured the country with a flying detachment, well acquainted with all the woods and passes. With respect to general Amherst’s share of the plan, the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown-Point stood in his way. The enemy were masters of the lake Champlain, and possessed the strong fort of Chambly, by the fall of the river Richelieu, which defended the pass to the river St. Laurence. Even had these obstacles been removed, it was hardly possible that he and Mr. Wolfe should arrive at Quebec in the same instant of time. The first that reached it, far from being in condition to undertake the siege of Quebec, would have run the risk of being engaged and defeated by the covering army; in which case the other body must have been exposed to the most imminent hazard of destruction, in the midst of an enemy’s country, far distant from any place of safety to which it could retreat. Had these disasters happened (and, according to the experience of war, they were the natural consequences of the scheme), the troops at Niagara would in all probability have fallen an easy sacrifice, unless they had been so fortunate as to receive intelligence in time enough to accomplish their retreat before they could be intercepted. The design would, we apprehend, have been more justifiable, or at least not so liable to objection, had Mr. Amherst left two or three regiments to protect the frontiers of New-York, and, joining Mr. Wolfe with the rest, sailed by the river St. Laurence to besiege Quebec. Even in that case the whole number of his troops would not have been sufficient, according to the practice of war, to invest the place, and cope with the covering enemy. Nevertheless, had the enterprise succeeded, Montcalm must either have hazarded an engagement against great odds, or retired farther into the country; then the route would have been open by land and water to Montreal, which could have made little resistance. The two principal towns being taken, and the navigation of the river St. Laurence blocked up, all the dependent forts must have surrendered at discretion, except Niagara, which there was a bare possibility of supplying at an incredible trouble and expense, from the distant Mississippi; but even then, it might have been besieged in form, and easily reduced. Whatever defects there might have been in the plan, the execution, though it miscarried in some essential points, was attended with surprising success. The same good fortune that prospered the British arms so remarkably in the conquest of Guadaloupe, seemed to interpose still more astonishingly in their favour at Quebec, the siege of which we shall record in its proper place. At present, we must attend the operations of general Amherst, whose separate army was first in motion, though such impediments were thrown in his way as greatly retarded the progress of his operations; impediments said to have arisen from the pride, insolence, and obstinacy of certain individuals, who possessed great influence in that part of the world, and employed it all to thwart the service of their country. The summer was already far advanced before general Amherst could pass lake George with his forces, although they met with no opposition, and reached the neighbourhood of Ticonderoga, where, in the preceding year, the British troops had sustained such a terrible disaster. At first the enemy seemed determined to defend this fortress: but perceiving the English commander resolute, cautious, and well prepared for undertaking the siege; having, moreover, orders to retreat from place to place, towards the centre of operations at Quebec, rather than run the least risk of being made prisoners of war, they, in the night of July the twenty-seventh, abandoned the post, after having in some measure dismantled the fortifications; and retired to Crown -Point, a fort situated on the verge of lake Champlain, General Amherst having taken possession of this important post, which effectually covered the frontiers of New-York, and secured to himself a safe retreat in case of necessity, ordered the works to be repaired, and allotted a strong garrison for its defence. This acquisition, however, was not made without the loss of a brave accomplished young officer, colonel Boger Townshend, who, in reconnoitering the fort, was killed with a cannon-shot, and fell near the same spot which, in the former year, had been enriched with the blood of the gallant lord Howe, whom he strongly resembled in the circumstances of birth, age, qualifications and character.
GEORGE II. 1727-1760
GENERAL AMHERST EMBARKS ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
While the general superintended the repairs of Ticonderoga, and the men were employed in preparing batteaux and other vessels, his scouting parties hovered in the neighbourhood of Crown-Point, in order to watch the motions of the enemy. From one of these detachments he received intelligence, on the first day of August, that the enemy had retired from Crown-Point. He immediately detached a body of rangers before him to take possession of the place: then he embarked with the rest of the army, and on the fourth day of the month landed at the fort, where the troops were immediately encamped. His next care was to lay the foundation of a new fort, to be maintained for the further security of the British dominions in that part of the country; and particularly for preventing the inroads of scalping parties, by whom the plantations had been dreadfully infested. Here information was received that the enemy had retired to the Isle aux Noix, at the other end of the lake Champlain, five leagues on the hither side of St. John’s; that their force encamped in that place, under the command of M. de Burlemaque, consisted of three battalions and five piquets of regular troops, with Canadians and marines, amounting in the whole to three thousand five hundred effective men, provided with a numerous artillery; and that the lake was occupied by four large vessels mounted with cannon, and manned with piquets of different regiments, under the command and direction of M. le Bras, a captain in the French navy, assisted by M. de Rigal, and other sea-officers. In consequence of this intimation, general Amherst, who had for some time employed captain Loring to superintend the building of vessels at Ticonderoga, being resolved to have the superiority on the lake, directed the captain to build with all possible expedition a sloop of sixteen guns, and a radeau eighty-four feet in length, capable of carrying six large cannon. These, together with a brigantine, being finished, victualled, and manned by the eleventh day of October, the general embarked with the whole of the troops in batteaux, in order to attack the enemy; but next day, the weather growing tempestuous, was obliged to take shelter in a bay on the western shore, where the men were landed for refreshment. In the meantime, captain Loring, with his small squadron, sailing down the lake, gave chase to a French schooner, and drove three of their ships into a bay, where two of them were sunk, and the third run aground by their own crew, who escaped; one, however, was repaired and brought away by captain Loring, so that now the French had but one schooner remaining. General Amherst, after having been some days wind-bound, re-embarked his forces, and proceeded down the lake; but the storm, which had abated, beginning to blow with redoubled fury, so as to swell the waves mountains high, the season for action being elapsed, and winter setting in with the most rigorous severity, he saw the impossibility of accomplishing his design, and was obliged to desist. Returning to the same bay where he had been sheltered, he landed the troops, and began his march for Crown-Point, where he arrived on the twenty-first day of October. Having secured a superiority on the lake, he now employed all his attention in rearing the new fortress at Crown-Point, together with three small outforts for its better defence; in opening roads of communication with Ticonderoga, and the governments of Massachusetts and New Hampshire; and in making dispositions for the winter-quarters of his troops, so as to protect the country from the inroads of the enemy.
NIAGARA REDUCED.
During this whole summer he received not the least intelligence of Mr. Wolfe’s operations, except a few hints in some letters relating to the exchange of prisoners, that came from the French general Montcalm, who gave him to understand that Mr. Wolfe had landed in the neighbourhood of Quebec, and seemed determined to undertake the siege of that city; that he had honoured him (the French general) with several notes, sometimes couched in a soothing strain, sometimes filled with threats; that the French army intended to give him battle, and a few days would determine the fate of Quebec. Though Mr. Amherst was ignorant of the proceedings of the Quebec squadron, his communication continued open with the forces which undertook the siege of Niagara; and he received an account of their success before he had quitted the lines of Ticonderoga. General Prideaux, with his body of troops, reinforced by the Indian auxiliaries under sir William Johnston, advanced to the cataract of Niagara, without being exposed to the least inconvenience on his march; and investing the French fortress about the middle of July, carried on his approaches with great vigour till the twentieth day of that month, when, visiting the trenches, he was unfortunately slain by the bursting of a cohorn. Mr. Amherst was no sooner informed of his disaster, than he detached brigadier-general Gage from Ticonderoga, to assume the command of that army. In the meantime it devolved on sir William Johnston, who happily prosecuted the plan of his predecessor with all the success that could have been desired. The enemy, alarmed with the apprehension of losing a place of such importance, resolved to exert their endeavours for its relief. They assembled a body of regular troops, amounting to twelve hundred men, drawn from Detroit, Venango, and Presque Isle; and these, with a number of Indian auxiliaries, were detached under the command of monsieur d’Aubry, on an attempt to reinforce the garrison of Niagara. Sir William Johnston having received intelligence of their design, made a disposition to intercept them in their march. In the evening he ordered the light infantry and picquets to post themselves to the left, on the road leading from Niagara Falls to the fortress; these were reinforced in the morning with the grenadiers and part of the forty-sixth regiment, commanded by lieutenant-colonel Massey; and another regiment, under lieutenant-colonel Farquhar, was posted at the tail of the works, in order to support the guard of the trenches. About eight in the morning, the enemy being in sight, the Indians in the English army advanced to speak with their countrymen who served under the French banners; but this conference was declined by the enemy. Then the French Indians having uttered the horrible scream called the war-whoop, which by this time had lost its effect among the British forces, the enemy began the action with impetuosity; but they met with such a hot reception in front, while the Indian auxiliaries fell upon their flanks, that in a little more than half an hour their whole army was routed, their general, with all his officers, taken, and the pursuit continued through the woods for several miles with considerable slaughter. This battle, which happened on the twenty-fourth day of July, having been fought in sight of the French garrison at Niagara, sir William Johnston sent major Harvey with a trumpet to the commanding officer, to present him with a list of seventeen officers taken in the engagement, and to exhort him to surrender before more blood was shed, while he had it in his power to restrain the Indians. The commandant, having certified himself of the truth, by sending an officer to visit the prisoners, agreed to treat, and in a few hours the capitulation was ratified. The garrison, consisting of six hundred and seven effective men, marched out with the honours of war, in order to be embarked in vessels on the lake, and conveyed in the most expeditious manner to New-York. They laid down their arms when they embarked; but were permitted to keep their baggage, and by proper escort protected from the savage insolence and rapacity of the Indians. All the women were conducted, at their own request, to Montreal; and the sick and wounded, who could not bear the fatigue of travelling, were treated with humanity. This was the second complete victory obtained on the continent of North America, in the course of the same war, by sir William Johnston, who, without the help of a military education, succeeded so signally in the field by dint of innate courage and natural sagacity. What remarkably characterizes these battles, is the circumstance of his having taken, in both, the commanders of the enemy. Indeed, the war in general may be distinguished by the singular success of this gentleman and the celebrated lord Clive, two self-taught generals; who, by a series of shining actions, have demonstrated that uninstructed genius can, by its own internal light and efficacy, rival, if not eclipse, the acquired art of discipline and experience. Sir William Johnston was not more serviceable to his country by his valour and conduct in the field, than by the influence and authority which his justice, benevolence, and integrity, had acquired among the Indian tribes of the Six Nations, whom he not only assembled at Niagara to the number of eleven hundred, but also restrained within the bounds of good order and moderation.