The enemy were so confounded and dispirited by this disaster, and the certain information that a strong English fleet was already in the river St. Laurence, that in the following night they raised the siege of Quebec, and retreated with great precipitation, leaving their provisions, implements, and artillery to governor Murray, who had intended to make a vigorous sally in the morning, and attempt to penetrate into the camp of the besiegers, which, from the information of prisoners and deserters, he conceived to be a very practicable scheme. For this purpose he had selected a body of troops, who were already under arms, when a lieutenant, whom he had sent out with a detachment to amuse the enemy, came and assured him that their trenches were abandoned. He instantly marched out of Quebec at the head of his forces, in hopes of overtaking and making an impression on their rear, that he might have ample revenge for his late discomfiture; but they had passed the river Cape Rouge before he could come up with their army: however, he took some prisoners, and a great quantity of baggage, including their tents, stores, magazines of provision and ammunition, with thirty-four pieces of battering cannon, ten field-pieces, six mortars, four petards, a great number of scaling ladders, intrenching tools, and every other implement for a siege. They retired to Jaques-Quartiere, where their ammunition began to fail, and they were abandoned by great part of the Canadians; so that they resigned all hope of succeeding against Quebec, and began to take measures for the preservation of Montreal, against which the force under general Amherst was directed. There M. Vaudreuil had fixed his head-quarters, and there he proposed to make his last stand against the efforts of the British general. He not only levied forces, collected magazines, and erected new fortifications in the island of Montreal, but he had even recourse to feigned intelligence, and other arts of delusion, to support the spirits of the Canadians and their Indian allies, which had begun to flag in consequence of their being obliged to abandon the siege of Quebec. It must be owned, he acted with all the spirit and foresight of an experienced general, determined to exert himself for the preservation of the colony, even though very little prospect of success remained. His hopes, slender as they were, depended upon the natural strength of the country, rendered almost inaccessible by woods, mountains, and morasses, which might have retarded the progress of the English, and protracted the war until a general pacification could be effected. In the meantime, major-general Amherst was diligently employed in taking measures for the execution of the plan he had projected, in order to complete the conquest of Canada. He conveyed instructions to general Murray, directing him to advance by water towards Montreal, with all the troops that could be spared from the garrison of Quebec. He detached colonel Haviland, with a body of troops from Crown-Point, to take possession of the Isle-aux-Noix, in the lake Champlain, and from thence penetrate the shortest way to the bank of the river St. Laurence; while he himself, with the main body of the army, amounting to about ten thousand men, including Indians, should proceed from the frontiers of New York, by the rivers of the Mohawks and Oneidas, to the lake Ontario, and sail down the river St. Laurence to the island of Montreal. Thus, on the supposition that all these particulars could be executed, the enemy must have been hemmed in and entirely surrounded. In pursuance of this plan, general Amherst had provided two armed sloops to cruise in the lake Ontario, under the command of captain Loring; as well as a great number of bateaux, or smaller vessels, for the transportation of the troops, artillery, ammunition, implements, and baggage. Several regiments were ordered to proceed from Albany to Oswego: and the general taking his departure from Schenectady, with the rest of the forces, in the latter end of June, arrived at the same place on the ninth day of July.
GENERAL AMHERST REDUCES THE FRENCH FORT AT THE ISLE ROYALE.
Being informed that two French vessels had appeared off Oswego, he despatched some bateaux to Niagara, with intelligence to captain Loring, who immediately set sail in quest of them; but they escaped his pursuit, though they had twice appeared in the neighbourhood of Oswego since the arrival of the general, who endeavoured to amuse them, by detaching bateaux to different parts of the lake. The army being assembled, and joined by a considerable body of Indians, under the command of sir William Johnston, the general detached colonel Haviland, with the light infantry, the grenadiers, and one battalion of highlanders, to take post at the bottom of the lake, and assist the armed vessels in finding a passage to La Galette. On the tenth day of August the army embarked on board the bateaux and whale-boats, and proceeded on the lake towards the mouth of the river St. Laurence. Understanding that one of the enemy’s vessels had run aground and was disabled, and that the other lay off La Galette, he resolved to make the best of his way down the river to Swegatchie, and attack the French fort at Isle Royale, one of the most important posts on the river St. Laurence, the source of which it in a great measure commands. On the seventeenth, the row-galleys fell in with the French sloop commanded by M. de la Broquerie, who surrendered after a warm engagement. Mr. Amherst having detached some engineers to reconnoitre the coasts and islands in the neighbourhood of Isle Royale, he made a disposition for the attack of that fortress, which was accordingly invested, after he had taken possession of the islands. Some of these the enemy had abandoned with such precipitation, as to leave behind a few scalps they had taken on the Mohawk river, a number of tools and utensils, two swivels, some barrels of pitch, and a large quantity of iron. The Indians were so incensed at sight of the scalps, that they burned a chapel and all the houses of the enemy. Batteries being raised on the nearest islands, the fort was cannonaded not only by them, but likewise by the armed sloops, and a disposition was made for giving the assault, when M. Pouchart, the governor, thought proper to beat a parley, and surrender on capitulation. The general, having taken possession of the fort, found it so well situated for commanding the lake Ontario and the Mohawk river, that he resolved to maintain it with a garrison, and employed some days in repairing the fortifications.
From this place his navigation down the river St. Laurence was rendered extremely difficult and dangerous, by a great number of violent riffs or rapids, and falls; among which he lost above fourscore men, forty-six bateaux, seventeen whale-boats, one row-galley, with some artillery, stores, and ammunition. On the sixth day of September the troops were landed on the island of Montreal, without any opposition, except from some flying parties, which exchanged a few shot, and then fled with precipitation. That same day he repaired a bridge which they had broken down in their retreat; and, after a march of two leagues, formed his army on a plain before Montreal, where they lay all night on their arms. Montreal is, in point of importance, the second place in Canada, situated in an island of the river St. Laurence, at an equal distance from Quebec and the lake Ontario. Its central situation rendered it the staple of the Indian trade; yet the fortifications of it were inconsiderable, not at all adequate to the value of the place. General Amherst ordered some pieces of artillery to be brought up immediately from the landing-place at La Chine, where he had left some regiments for the security of the boats, and determined to commence the siege in form; but in the morning of the seventh he received a letter from the marquis de Vaudreuil by two officers, demanding a capitulation; which, after some letters had passed between the two generals, was granted upon as favourable terms as the French had reason to expect, considering that general Murray, with the troops from Quebec, had by this time landed on the island; and colonel Haviland, with the body under his command, had just arrived on the south side of the river, opposite to Montreal; circumstances equally favourable and surprising, if we reflect upon the different routes they pursued, through an enemy’s country, where they had no intelligence of the motions of each other. Had any accident retarded the progress of general Amherst, the reduction of Montreal would have been attempted by general Murray, who embarked with his troops at Quebec on board of a great number of small vessels, under the command of captain Deane in the Diana. This gentleman, with uncommon abilities, surmounted the difficulties of an unknown, dangerous, and intricate navigation; and conducted the voyage with such success, that not a single vessel was lost in the expedition. M. de Levis, at the head of his forces, watched the motions of general Murray, who, in advancing up the river, published manifestoes among the Canadians, which produced all the effect he could desire. Almost all the parishes on the south shore, as far as the river Sorrel, submitted, and took the oath of neutrality; and lord Rolle disarmed all the inhabitants of the north shore, as far as Trois Rivieres, which, though the capital of a district, being no more than an open village, was taken without resistance. In a word, general Amherst took possession of Montreal, and thus completed the conquest of all Canada; a conquest the most important of any that ever the British arms achieved, whether we consider the safety of the English colonies in North America, now secured from invasion and encroachment; the extent and fertility of the country subdued; or the whole Indian commerce thus transferred to the traders of Great Britain. The terms of the capitulation may perhaps be thought rather too favourable, as the enemy were actually enclosed and destitute of all hope of relief: but little points like these ought always to be sacrificed to the consideration of great objects; and the finishing the conquest of a great country without bloodshed, redounds as much to the honour as it argues the humanity of general Amherst, whose conduct had been irreproachable during the whole course of the American operations. At the same time, it must be allowed he was extremely fortunate in having subordinate commanders, who perfectly corresponded with his ideas; and a body of troops whom no labours could discourage, whom no dangers could dismay. Sir William Johnston, with a power of authority and insinuation peculiar to himself, not only maintained a surprising ascendancy over the most ferocious of all the Indian tribes, but kept them within the bounds of such salutary restraint, that not one single act of inhumanity was perpetrated by them during the whole course of this expedition. The zeal and conduct of brigadier-general Gage, the undaunted spirit and enterprising genius of general Murray, the diligence and activity of colonel Haviland, happily co-operated in promoting this great event.
FRENCH SHIPS DESTROYED, &c.
The French ministry had attempted to succour Montreal by equipping a considerable number of store ships, and sending them out in the spring under convoy of a frigate; but as their officers understood that the British squadron had sailed up the river St. Laurence before their arrival, they took shelter in the bay of Chaleurs, on the coast of Acadia, where they did not long remain unmolested. Captain Byron, who commanded the ships of war that were left at Louisbourg, having received intelligence of them from brigadier-general Whitmore, sailed thither with his squadron, and found them at anchor. The whole fleet consisted of one frigate, two large store-ships, and nineteen sail of smaller vessels; the greater part of which had been taken from the merchants of Great Britain; all these were destroyed, together with two batteries which had been raised for their protection. The French town, consisting of two hundred houses, was demolished, and the settlement totally ruined. All the French subjects inhabiting the territories from the bay of Funda to the banks of the river St. Laurence, and all the Indians through that tract of country, were now subdued, and subjected to the English government. In the month of December of the preceding year, the French colonists at Miramachi, Rickebuctou, and other places lying along the gulf of St. Laurence, made their submission by deputies to colonel Frye, who commanded in Fort Cumberland at Chignecto. They afterwards renewed this submission in the most formal manner, by subscribing articles, by which they obliged themselves, and the people they represented, to repair in the spring to Bay Verte, with all their effects and shipping, to be disposed of according to the direction of colonel Laurence, governor of Halifax, in Nova-Scotia. They were accompanied by two Indian chiefs of the nation of the Mickmacks, a powerful and numerous people, now become entirely dependent upon his Britannic majesty. In a word, by the conquest of Canada, the Indian fur trade, in its full extent, fell into the hands of the English. The French interest among the savage tribes, inhabiting an immense tract of country, was totally extinguished; and their American possessions shrunk within the limits of Louisiana, an infant colony on the south of the Mississippi, which the British arms may at any time easily subdue.