These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on shipboard.
Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their anguish,
"We shall behold no more our homes in the village of Grand-Pré!"
Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farm-yards,
Thinking the day had dawned; and anon the lowing of cattle
Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs interrupted.
Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleeping encampments
Far in the western prairies or forests that skirt the Nebraska,
When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the speed of the whirlwind,
Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the river.
Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the herds and the horses
Broke through their folds and fences, and madly rushed o'er the meadows.
* * * * *
Lo! with a mournful sound, like the voice of a vast congregation,
Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with the dirges.
'Twas the returning tide, that afar from the waste of the ocean,
With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hurrying landward.
Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of embarking;
And with the ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of the harbor,
Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the village in ruins.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
In July, 1758, an army of fifteen thousand, under General James Abercromby and Brigadier Lord Howe, attempted to take Ticonderoga, where Montcalm was stationed at the head of about three thousand men. Lord Howe, the very life of the army, was killed in the first skirmish, and Abercromby handled the army so badly that it was repulsed with a loss of nearly two thousand, and fled in a panic. The French loss was less than four hundred, and the victory was hailed as one of the greatest ever achieved by French arms in America.
ON THE DEFEAT AT TICONDEROGA OR CARILONG
[July 8, 1758]
Neglected long had been my useless lyre,
And heartfelt grief represt the poet's fire;
But rous'd by dire alarms of wasting war,
Again, O muse, the solemn dirge prepare,
And join the widow's, orphan's, parent's tear.
Unwept, unsung shall Britain's chiefs remain;
Doomed in this stranger clime to bleed in vain:
Here a last refuge hapless Braddock found,
When the grim savage gave the deadly wound:
Ah! hide Monongahel thy hateful head
(Still as thy waves roll near the injur'd dead)
On whose gore-moistened banks the num'rous slain,
Now spring in vegetative life again,
Whilst their wan ghosts as night's dark gloom prevail
Murmur to whistling winds the mournful tale;
Cease, cease, ye grisly forms, nor wail the past.
Lo! a new scene of death exceeds the last;
Th' empurpled fields of Carilong survey
Rich with the spoils of one disastrous day!
Bold to the charge the ready vet'ran stood
And thrice repell'd, as oft the fight renewed,
Till (life's warm current drain'd) they sunk in blood,
Uncheck'd their ardor, unallay'd their fire,
See Beaver, Proby, Rutherford, expire;
Silent Britannia's tardy thunder lay
While clouds of Gallick smoke obscur'd the day.
Th' intrepid race nursed on the mountain's brow
O'er-leap the mound, and dare th' astonish'd foe;
Whilst Albion's sons (mow'd down in ranks) bemoan
Their much lov'd country's wrongs nor feel their own;
Cheerless they hear the drum discordant beat—
And with slow motion sullenly retreat.
But where wert thou, oh! first in martial fame,
Whose early cares distinguish'd praises claim,
Who ev'ry welcome toil didst gladly share
And taught th' enervate warrior want to bear?
Illustrious Howe! whose ev'ry deed confest
The patriot wish that fill'd thy generous breast:
Alas! too swift t' explore the hostile land,
Thou dy'dst sad victim to an ambush band,
Nor e'er this hour of wild confusion view'd
Like Braddock, falling in the pathless wood;
Still near the spot where thy pale corse is laid,
May the fresh laurel spread its amplest shade;
Still may thy name be utter'd with a sigh,
And the big drops swell ev'ry grateful eye;
Oh! would each leader who deplores thy fate
Thy zeal and active virtues emulate,
Soon should proud Carilong be humbled low
Nor Montcalm's self, prevent th' avenging blow.
London Magazine, 1759.
But at last the tide turned. In 1757 William Pitt forced his way to the leadership of the government in England, and at once formed a comprehensive plan for a combined attack on the French forts in America. The first point of attack was Louisburg, which had been ceded back to France in 1748, and in the spring of 1758 a strong expedition under Lord Amherst was dispatched against it. The siege commenced June 8—the very day of the disaster at Ticonderoga—and after a tremendous bombardment which destroyed the town and badly breached the fortress, the garrison, numbering nearly six thousand, surrendered July 26, 1758.