HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Costume about the Middle of the Seventeenth Century.

Colleges were founded early in several colonies. Harvard dates from
1638; William and Mary, in Virginia, from 1693; Yale, from 1701; the
College of New Jersey, from 1746, its old Nassau Hall, built in 1756 and
named in honor of William III. of the House of Nassau, being then the
largest structure in British America. The University of Pennsylvania
dates from 1753; King's College, now Columbia, from 1754; Rhode Island
College, now Brown University, from 1764. Educational facilities in
general varied greatly with sections, being miserable in the southern
colonies, fair in the central, excellent in the northern. In Virginia,
during the period now under our survey, schools were almost unknown. In
Maryland, from 1728, a free school was established by law in each
county. These were the only such schools in the South before 1770.
Philadelphia and New York had good schools by 1700; rural Pennsylvania
none of any sort till 1750, then only the poorest. A few New York and
New Jersey towns of New England origin had free schools before the
Revolution. Many Southern planters sent their sons to school in England.
In popular education New England led not only the continent but the
world, there being a school-house, often several, in each town. Every
native adult in Massachusetts and Connecticut was able to read and
write. In this matter Rhode Island was far behind its next neighbors.

Newspapers were distributed much as schools were. The first
printing-press was set up at Cambridge in 1639. The first newspaper,
Publick Occurrences Foreign and Domestic, was started in Boston in
1690. The first permanent newspaper, the Boston News Letter, began in
1704, and it had a Boston and a Philadelphia rival in 1719. The Maryland
Gazette was started at Annapolis in 1727, a weekly at Williamsburg, Va.,
in 1736. In 1740 there were eleven newspapers in all in the colonies;
one each in New York, South Carolina, and Virginia (from 1736), three in
Pennsylvania, one of them German, and five in Boston. The Connecticut
Gazette was started at New Haven in 1755; The Summary, at New London in
1758. The Rhode Island Gazette was begun by James Franklin, September
27, 1732, but was not permanent. The Providence Gazette and Country
Journal put forth its first issue October 20, 1762. In 1775, Salem,
Newburyport, and Portsmouth had each its newspaper. The first daily in
the country, the Pennsylvania Packet, began in 1784.

James Logan.

Other literature of American origin flourished in New England nearly
alone. It consisted of sermons, social and political tracts, poetry,
history, and memoirs. The clergy were the chief but not the sole
authors. Of readers, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston had many.
Much reading matter came from England. Charleston enjoyed a public
library from 1700. About 1750 there were several others. That left to
Philadelphia in 1751, by James Logan, comprised 4,000 volumes.

William and Mary had established a postal system for America, placing
Thomas Neale, Esquire, at its head. The service hardly became a system
till 1738. In ordinary weather a post-rider would receive the
Philadelphia mail at the Susquehannah River on Saturday evening, be at
Annapolis on Monday, reach the Potomac Tuesday night, on Wednesday
arrive at New Post, near Fredericksburg, and by Saturday evening at
Williamsburg, whence, once a month, the mail went still farther south,
to Edenton, N. C. Thus a letter was just a week in transit between
Philadelphia and the capital of Virginia. In New England, from here to
New York, and between New York and Philadelphia, despatch was much
better.

Queen Mary.

The learned professions also were best patronized and had the ablest
personnel in New England, where all three, but particularly the clergy,
were strong and honored. Outside of New England, till 1750, lawyers and
physicians, especially in the country parts, were poorly educated and
little respected. Each formidable disease had the people at its mercy.
Diphtheria, then known as the throat disease, swept through the land
once in about thirty years. Smallpox was another frequent scourge. In
1721 it attacked nearly six thousand persons in Boston, about half the
population, killing some nine hundred. The clergy, almost to a man,
decried vaccination when first vented, proclaiming it an effort to
thwart God's will. Clergymen, except perhaps in Carolina and Virginia,
were somewhat better educated, yet those in New England led all others
in this respect.

Colonial America boasted many great intellectual lights. President
Edwards won European reputation as a thinker, and so did Franklin as a
statesman and as a scientist. Linnaeus named our Bartram, a Quaker
farmer of Pennsylvania, the greatest natural botanist then living.
Increase Mather read and wrote both Greek and Hebrew, and spoke Latin.
He and his son Cotton were veritable wonders in literary attainment. The
one was the author of ninety-two books, the other of three hundred and
eighty-three. The younger Winthrop was a member of the Royal Society.
Copley, Stuart, and West became distinguished painters.

Except for mails, there were in the colonies no public conveyances by
land till just before the Revolution. After stage lines were introduced,
to go from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh required seven days; from
Philadelphia to New York, at first three, later two. The earliest coach
to attain the last-named speed was advertised as "the flying machine,"
From Boston one would be four days travelling to New York, two to
Portsmouth. Packet-boats between the main points on the coast were as
regular and speedy as wind allowed. Stage-drivers, inn-keepers, and
ship-captains were the honored and accredited purveyors of news.

Everywhere was great prosperity, little luxury. Paucity of money gave
rise to that habit of barter and dicker in trade which was a mannerism
of our fathers. Agriculture formed the basal industry, especially in the
Southern colonies; yet in New England and Pennsylvania both manufactures
and commerce thrived. Pennsylvania's yearly foreign commerce exceeded
1,000,000 pounds sterling, requiring 500 vessels and more than 7,000
seamen. From Pennsylvania, in 1750, 3,000 tons of pig-iron were
exported. The annual production of iron in Maryland just before the
Revolution reached 25,000 tons of pig, 500 of bar. The business of
marine insurance began in this country at Philadelphia in 1721, fire
insurance at Boston in 1724. New England produced timber, ships, rum,
paper, hats, leather, and linen and woollen cloths, the first three for
export.

In country places houses were poor save on the great estates, south, but
in the cities there were many fine mansions before 1700. From this year
stoves began to be used. Glass windows and paper hangings were first
seen not far from 1750.

The colonists ate much flesh, and nearly all used tobacco and liquor
freely. Finest ladies snuffed, sometimes smoked. Little coffee was
drunk, and no tea till about 1700. Urban life was social and gay. In the
country the games of fox and geese, three and twelve men morris, husking
bees and quilting bees were the chief sports. Tableware was mostly of
wood, though many had pewter, and the rich much silver. The people's
ordinary dress was of homemade cloth, but not a few country people still
wore deerskin. The clothing of the rich was imported, and often gaudy
with tasteless ornament. Wigs were common in the eighteenth century, and
all head-dress stupidly elaborate.

William Lang, of Boston, advertises in 1767 to provide all who wish with
wigs "in the most genteel and polite taste," assuring judges, divines,
lawyers, and physicians, "because of the importance of their heads, that
he can assort his wigs to suit their respective occupations and
inclinations." He tells the ladies that he can furnish anyone of them
with "a nice, easy, genteel, and polite construction of rolls, such as
may tend to raise their heads to any pitch they desire."

"Everybody wore wigs in 1750, except convicts and slaves. Boys wore
them, servants wore them, Quakers wore them, paupers wore them. The
making of wigs was an important branch of industry in Great Britain.
Wigs were of many styles and prices. Some dangled with curls; and they
were designated by a great variety of names, such as tyes, bobs, majors,
spencers, foxtails, twists, tetes, scratches, full-bottomed dress bobs,
cues, and perukes. The people of Philadelphia dressed as the actors of
our theatres now dress in old English comedy. They walked the streets in
bright-colored and highly decorated coats, three-cornered hats, ruffled
shirts and wristbands, knee-breeches, silk stockings, low shoes, and
silver buckles." [footnote: Mrs. M. J. Lamb, in Magazine of Am. History,
August. 1888.] Lord Stirling, one of Washington's generals, had a
clothing inventory like a king: a "pompidou" cloth coat and vest,
breeches with gold lace, a crimson and figured velvet coat, seven
scarlet vests, et cetera, et cetera.

The wigs encountered the zealous hostility of many, among these Judge
Samuel Sewall. His highest eulogy on a departed worthy was: "The welfare
of the poor was much upon his spirit, and he abominated periwigs." A
member of the church at Newbury, Mass., refused to attend communion
because the pastor wore a wig, believing that all who were guilty of
this practice would be damned if they did not repent. A meeting of
Massachusetts Quakers solemnly expressed the conviction that the wearing
of extravagant and superfluous wigs was wholly contrary to the truth.

Chief Justice Sewall.

There was an aristocracy, of its kind, in all the colonies, but it was
far the strongest in the South. Social lines were sharply drawn, an
"Esquire" not liking to be accosted as "Mr.," and each looking down
somewhat upon a simple "Goodman." These gradations stood forth in
college catalogues and in the location of pews in churches. The Yale
triennial catalogue until 1767 and the Harvard triennial till 1772
arrange students' names not alphabetically or according to attainments,
but so as to indicate the social rank of their families. Memoranda of
President Clap, of Yale, against the names of youth when admitted to
college, such as "Justice of the Peace," "Deacon," "of middling estate
much impoverished," reveal how hard it sometimes was properly to grade
students socially. At the South, regular mechanics, like all free
laborers, were few and despised. The indentured servants, very numerous
in several colonies, differed little from slaves. David Jamieson,
attorney-general of New York in 1710, had been banished from Scotland as
a Covenanter and sold in New Jersey as a four years' redemptioner to pay
transportation expanses. Such servants were continually running away,
which may have aided in abolishing the system. Paupers and criminals
were fewest in New England. All the colonies imprisoned insolvent
criminals, though dirt and damp made each prison a hell. All felonies
were awarded capital punishment, and many minor crimes incurred
barbarous penalties. Whipping-post, pillory, and stocks were in frequent
use. So late as 1760 women were publicly whipped. At Hartford, in 1761,
David Campbell and Alexander Pettigrew, for the burglary of two watches,
received each fifteen stripes, the loss of the right ear, and the
brand-mark "B" on the forehead. Pettigrew came near losing his life from
the profuse bleeding which ensued. A husband killing his wife was
hanged. A wife killing her husband was burned, as were slaves who slew
their masters.

The Pillory.

In care for the unfortunate and in the study and in all applications of
social science, Philadelphia led. The Pennsylvania Hospital, the first
institution of the kind in America, was founded in 1751. The
Philadelphia streets were the first to be lighted; those of New York
next; those of Boston not till 1773. Before the end of the period now
before us Philadelphia and New York also had night patrols.

Signature of Jolliet (old spelling).

CHAPTER VIII.

ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN AMERICA

Totem of the Sioux.

[1659-1672]

Working upward from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the source of this
and of the Mississippi, and then down the latter river, Franciscans and
Jesuits their pioneers, braving dreadful hardships and dangers in
efforts, more courageous than successful, to convert the Indians, the
French had come to control that great continental highway and boldly to
claim for France the entire heart of North America.

A Sioux Chief.

In 1659, Groseilliers and Radisson penetrated beyond Lake Superior, and
dwelt for a time among the Sioux, who knew of the Mississippi River.
Next year Groseilliers went thither again, accompanied by the Jesuit
Menard and his servant, Guerin. In 1661 Menard and Guerin pushed into
what is now Wisconsin, and may have seen the Mississippi. These
explorations made the French familiar with the copper mines of Lake
Superior, and awakened the utmost zeal to see the Great River of which
the Indians spoke. La Salle probably discovered the Ohio in 1670, and
traced it down to the falls at Louisville. His main eulogist holds that
he even reached the Mississippi at that time, some three years earlier
than Joliet, but this is not substantiated. We also reject the belief
that he reached the stream by way of the Chicago portage in 1671.

Totem of the Illinois.

[1676]

In 1672 Count Frontenac, Governor of New France, despatched Louis Joliet
to discover the Great River. He reached the Strait of Mackinaw in
December, and there Pere Marquette joined him. In May, next year, they
paddled their canoes up the Fox River and tugged them across the portage
into the Wisconsin, which they descended, entering the Father of Waters
June 17, 1673. They floated down to the mouth of the Arkansas and then
returned, their journey back being up the Illinois and Desplaines
Rivers. Joliet gave his name to the peak on the latter stream which the
city of Joliet, Ill., near by, still retains. Joliet arrived at Quebec
in August, 1674, having in four months journeyed over twenty-five
hundred miles.

It thus became known how close the upper waters of the great rivers, St.
Lawrence and Mississippi, were to each other, and that the latter
emptied into the Gulf of Mexico instead of the South Sea (Pacific); yet,
as the Rocky Mountains had not then been discovered, it was for long
believed that some of the western tributaries of the Great River led to
that western ocean.

The Reception of Joliet and Marquette by the Illinois.

[1682]

In 1676 Raudin, and three years later, Du Lhut, visited the Ojibwas and
Sioux west of Lake Superior. Du Lhut reached the upper waters of the
Mississippi at Sandy Lake. He went there again in 1680. In 1682 La Salle
crossed the Chicago portage and explored the lower Mississippi all the
way to the Gulf, taking possession of the entire valley in the name of
France and naming it Louisiana. Nicholas Perrot travelled by way of the
Fox and Wisconsin Rivers to the upper Mississippi in 1685, and again in
1688. It is in his writings that the word "Chicago" first appears in
literature.

There were thus between the two great valleys, 1, the Superior route; 2,
the Wisconsin and Fox route; 3, the Illinois River route, whether by the
Kankakee, La Salle's way, or by the south branch of the Chicago River,
Joliet's way; and 4, the route by the Wabash and Ohio. The Wabash, too,
could be approached either from Lake Erie or from Lake Michigan, through
St. Joseph's River. At high water, canoes often passed from Lake
Michigan into the Mississippi without portage.

A Part of the Map Published in Paris by Thevenot as
"Marquette's Map." It shows the route taken by Joliet across Wisconsin
from the Baie des Puans (now Green Bay) to the Mississippi River, also
part of the return journey, that is, from the present site of Chicago,
northward along lake Michigan.

[1685-1690]

Louis XIV.

La Salle had the ambition to get to the South Sea from the Mississippi.
Governor De la Barre, who followed Frontenac, opposing him, he repaired
to France, where he succeeded in winning Louis XIV. to his plan. At the
head of a well-equipped fleet he sailed for the mouth of the
Mississippi, reaching land near Matagorda Bay on the first day of the
year 1685. Not finding the Mississippi, La Salle's officers mutinied.

The expedition broke up into parties, wandering here and there,
distressed by Indian attacks and by treachery among themselves. La Salle
was shot by his own men. Nearly all his followers perished, but a small
party at last discovered the river and ascended it to Fort St. Louis on
the Illinois, reaching France via Quebec. In this expedition France
took possession of Texas, nor did she ever relinquish the claim till, in
1763, the whole of Louisiana west of the Mississippi was ceded to Spain,
La Salle's ill-starred attempt led later to the planting of French
colonies by D'Iberville at Biloxi Island, in Mobile Bay, soon abandoned,
and at Poverty Point, on the Mississippi; and still later to the
settlement of New Orleans and vicinity. Growth in these parts was slow,
however. So late as 1713 there were not over three hundred whites in the
entire Mississippi Valley.

Coins Struck In France for the Colonies.

Assassination of La Salle.

New Orleans in 1719.

By this time French traders had set foot on every shore of the great
lakes and explored nearly every stream tributary thereto. The English,
pushing westward more and more, were trying to divide with them the
lucrative business of fur-trading, and each nation sought to win to
itself all the Indians it could. The Mohawks and their confederates of
the Five Nations, now equipped and acquainted with fire-arms, spite of
alternate overtures and threats from the French, remained firm friends
to the English, who more and more invaded those vast and fertile western
ranges. It grew to be the great question of the age this side the
Atlantic, whether England or France should control the continent. King
William's war, declared in 1689, was therefore certain to rage in
America as well as in Europe.

Signature of D'Iberville.

One sees by a glance at the map what advantage France had in this
struggle. It possessed the best fishing grounds and fur-producing
districts, and fish and furs were at first the only exports of value
from the north of America. The French, too, held all the water-ways to
the heart of the continent. Coming up Lake Champlain they could threaten
New York and New England from the rear. The colonies farther south they
shut in almost as straitly, French bullets whistling about any
Englishman's ears the instant he appeared beyond the mountains.

In other respects England had the advantage. In population English
America had become as superior as French America was territorially,
having 1,116,000 white inhabitants in 1750, to about 80,000 French. The
English colonies were also more convenient to the mother-country, and
the better situated for commerce both coastwise and across the ocean.
Among the English, temper for mere speculation and adventure decayed
very early, giving way to the conviction that successful planting
depended wholly upon persistent, energetic toil.

A piece of fortune more important yet was their relatively free
religious and political system. Toleration in religion was large.
Self-government was nearly complete internally, and indeed externally,
till the navigation acts. Canada, on the other hand, was oppressed by a
feudal constitution in the state, settlers being denied the fee simple
of their lands, and by Jesuits in Church. "New France could not grow,"
says Parkman, "with a priest on guard at the gate to let in none but
such as pleased him. In making Canada a citadel of the state religion,
the clerical monitors of the Crown robbed their country of a
transatlantic empire." Thus the Huguenots, France's best emigrants to
America, did not come to New France, but to New England and the other
Protestant colonies.

The Attack on Schenectady.

The Indian hostilities which heralded King William's War began August
13, 1688. Frontenac prepared to capture Albany and even Manhattan. He
did not accomplish so much; but on the night of February 8, 1689-90, his
force of ninety Iroquois and over a hundred Frenchmen fell upon
Schenectady, killed sixty, and captured eighty or ninety more. Only a
corporal's guard escaped to Albany with the sad news. This attack had
weighty influence, as occasioning the first American congress. Seven
delegates from various colonies assembled at New York on May 1, 1690, to
devise defence against the northern invaders.

The eastern Indians were hardly at rest from Philip's War when roused by
the French to engage in this. An attack was made upon Haverhill, Mass.,
and Hannah Dustin, with a child only a few days old, another woman, and
a boy, was led captive to an Indian camp up the Merrimac. The savages
killed the infant, but thereby steeled the mother's heart for revenge.
One night the three prisoners slew their sleeping guards and, seizing a
canoe, floated down to their home. Dover was attacked June 27, 1689,
twenty-three persons killed, and twenty-nine sold to the French in
Canada. Indescribable horrors occurred at Oyster River, at Salmon Falls,
at Casco, at Exeter, and elsewhere.

Hannah Dustin's Escape.

[1702]

In 1702 Queen Anne's War began, and in this again New England was the
chief sufferer. The barbarities which marked it were worse than those of
Philip's War. De Rouville, with a party of French and savages, proceeded
from Canada to Deerfield, Mass. Fearing an attack, the villagers meant
to be vigilant, but early on a February morning, 1704, the wily enemy,
skulking till the sentinels retired at daylight, managed to effect a
surprise. Fifty were killed and one hundred hurried off to Canada. Among
these were the minister, Mr. Williams, and his family. Twenty years
later a white woman in Indian dress entered Deerfield. It was one of the
Williams daughters. She had married an Indian in Canada, and now refused
to desert him. Cases like this, of which there were many in the course
of these frightful wars, seemed to the settlers harder to bear than
death. Massachusetts came so to dread the atrocious foe, that fifteen
pounds were offered by public authority for an Indian man's scalp, eight
for a child's or a woman's.

[1705]

Plan of Port Royal, Nova Scotia.

Governor Spotswood urged aggression on the French to the west; Governor
Hunter of New York had equal zeal for a movement northward. New York
raised 600 men and the same number of Iroquois, voting 10,000 pounds of
paper money for their sustenance. Connecticut and New Jersey sent 1,600
men. A force of 4,000 in all mustered at Albany under Nicholson of New
York. They were to co-operate against Montreal with the naval expedition
of 1711, commanded by Sir Hoveden Walker. Walker failed ignominiously,
and Nicholson, hearing of this betimes, saved himself by retreating.

Sir William Phips had captured Port Royal in 1690, and Acadia was
annexed to Massachusetts in 1692. In 1691 the French again took formal
possession of Port Royal and the neighboring country. In 1692 an
ineffectual attempt was made to recover it, but by the Treaty of
Ryswick, 1697, it was explicitly given back to France.

[1710]

At the inception of Queen Anne's War, in 1702, there were several
expeditions from New England to Nova Scotia; in 1704 and 1707 without
result. That of 1710 was more successful. It consisted of four regiments
and thirty-six vessels, besides troop and store ships and some marines.
Port Royal capitulated, and its name was changed to Annapolis, in honor
of Queen Anne. Acadia never again came under French control, and was
regularly ceded to England by the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713.
Notwithstanding this, however, French America still remained
substantially intact.

Queen Anne.

[1714]

If the great struggle for the Ohio Valley now became a silent one, it
was none the less earnest. Spotswood had opened a road across the Blue
Ridge in 1716. In 1721 New Yorkers began settling on Oswego River, and
they finished a fort there by 1726. Closer alliance was formed with the
Five Nations. The French governor of Quebec in 1725 pleaded that Niagara
must be fortified, and on his successor was urged the necessity of
reducing the Oswego garrison. It was partly to flank Oswego that the
French pushed up Lake Champlain to Crown Point and built Fort St.
Frederick.

The Treaty of Utrecht had left Cape Breton Island to France. The French
at once strongly fortified Louisburg and invited thither the French
inhabitants of Acadia and Newfoundland, which had also been ceded to
Great Britain. Many went, though the British governors did much to
hinder removal. This irritated the French authorities, and the Indian
atrocities of 1723-24 at Dover and in Maine are known to have been
stimulated from Montreal. Father Rasle, an astute and benevolent French
Jesuit who had settled among the Indians at Norridgewock, became an
agent of this hostile influence. In an English attack, August 12, 1724,
Rasle's settlement was broken up and himself killed. The Indians next
year made a treaty, and peace prevailed till King George's War.

Governor Shirley.

[1745]

Sir William Pepperrell.

This opened in 1744, England against France once more, and in 1745 came
the capture of Louisburg, then the Gibraltar of America. This was
brought about through the energy of Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts,
the most efficient English commander this side the Atlantic. That
commonwealth voted to send 3,250 men, Connecticut 500, New Hampshire and
Rhode Island each 300. Sir William Pepperrell, of Kittery, Me.,
commanded, Richard Gridley, of Bunker Hill fame, being his chief of
artillery. The expedition consisted of thirteen armed vessels, commanded
by Captain Edward Tyng, with over 200 guns, and about ninety transports.
The Massachusetts troops sailed from Nantasket March 24th, and reached
Canso, April 4th. "Rhode Island," says Hutchinson, "waited until a
better judgment could be made of the event, their three hundred not
arriving until after the place had surrendered." The expedition was very
costly to the colonies participating, and four years later England
reimbursed them in the sum of 200,000 pounds. Yet at the disgraceful
peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, she surrendered Louisburg and all
Cape Breton to France again.

[1746-1748]

In 1746 French and Indians from Crown Point destroyed the fort and
twenty houses at Saratoga, killing thirty persons, and capturing sixty.
Orders came this year from England to advance on Crown Point and
Montreal, upon Shirley's plan, all the colonies as far south as Virginia
being commanded to aid. Quite an army mustered at Albany. Sir William
Johnson succeeded in rousing the Iroquois, whom the French had been
courting with unprecedented assiduity. But D'Anville's fleet threatened.
The colonies wanted their troops at home. Inactivity discouraged the
soldiers, alienated the Indians. At last news came that the Canada
project was abandoned, and in 1748 the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was
declared.

This very year France began new efforts to fill the Ohio Valley with
emigrants. Virginia did the same. To anticipate the English, the French
sent Bienville to bury engraved leaden plates at the mouths of streams.
They also fortified the present sites of Ogdensburg and Toronto. Even
now, therefore, France's power this side the Atlantic was not visibly
shaken. The continental problem remained unsolved.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

[1748]

The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had been made only because the contestants
were tired of fighting. In America, at least, each at once began taking
breath and preparing to renew the struggle. Not a year passed that did
not witness border quarrels more or less bloody. The French authorities
filled the Ohio and Mississippi valleys with military posts; English
settlers pressed persistently into the same to find homes. In this
movement Virginia led, having in 1748 formed, especially to aid western
settlement, the Ohio Company, which received from the king a grant of
five hundred thousand acres beyond the Alleghanies. A road was laid out
between the upper Potomac and the present Pittsburgh, settlements were
begun along it, and efforts made to conciliate the savages.

Map showing Position of French and English Forts and Settlements.

The Ambuscade.

[1754]

One of the frontier villages was at what is now Franklin, Penn., and the
location involved Virginia with the colony of Pennsylvania. As
commissioner to settle the dispute George Washington was sent out.

The future Father of his Country was of humble origin. Born in
Westmoreland County, Va., "about ten in ye morning of ye 11th day of
February, 1731-32," as recorded in his mother's Bible, he had been an
orphan from his earliest youth. His education was of the slenderest. At
sixteen he became a land surveyor, leading a life of the roughest sort,
beasts, savages, and hardy frontiersmen his constant companions,
sleeping under the sky and cooking his own coarse food. No better man
could have been chosen to thread now the Alleghany trail.

Washington reported the French strongly posted in western Pennsylvania
on lands claimed by the Ohio Company. Virginia fitted out an expedition
to dislodge them. Of this Washington commanded the advance. Meeting at
Great Meadows the French under Contrecoeur, commander of Fort Du Quesne
(Pittsburgh); he was at first victorious, but the French were
re-enforced before he was, and Washington, after a gallant struggle, had
to capitulate. This was on July 3, 1754. The French and Indian War had
begun.

Baddock's Route.

[1755]

The English Government bade the colonies defend their frontier, and in
this interest twenty-five delegates from the seven northern colonies met
at Albany on June 19, 1754. Benjamin Franklin represented Pennsylvania,
and it was at this conference that he presented his well-considered
plan, to be described in our chapter on Independence, for a general
government over English America. The Albany Convention amounted to
little, but did somewhat to renew alliance with the Six Nations.
[footnote: Increased from five to six by the accession of the
Tuscaroras.]

In this decisive war England had in view four great objects of conquest
in America: 1. Fort Du Quesne; 2. The Ontario basin with Oswego and Fort
Niagara; 3. The Champlain Valley; 4. Louisburg. The British ministry
seemed in earnest. It sent Sir Edward Braddock to this side with six
thousand splendidly equipped veterans, and offered large sums for
fitting out regiments of provincials. Braddock arrived in February,
1755, but moved very languidly. This was not altogether his fault, for
he had difficulties with the governors and they with their legislatures.

Map of Braddock's Field.

At last off for Fort Du Quesne, he took a needlessly long route, through
Virginia instead of Pennsylvania. He scorned advice, marching and
fighting stiffly according to the rules of the Old World military art,
heeding none of Franklin's and Washington's sage hints touching savage
modes of warfare. The consequence was this brave Briton's defeat and
death. As he drew near to Fort Du Quesne, he fell into a carefully
prepared ambuscade. Four horses were shot under him. Mounting a fifth he
spurred to the front to inspire his men, forbidding them seek the
slightest cover, as Washington urged and as the provincials successfully
did. The regulars, obeying, were half of them killed in their tracks,
the remainder retreating, in panic at first, to Philadelphia. Braddock
died, and was buried at Great Meadows, where his grave is still to be
seen.

The Death of Braddock.

Washington was the only mounted officer in this action who was not
killed or fatally wounded, a fact at the time regarded specially
providential. On his return, aged twenty-three, the Rev. Samuel Davies,
afterward President of the College of New Jersey, referred to him in his
sermon as "that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope
Providence has preserved in so signal a manner for some important
service to his country."

[1757]

The early part of this war witnessed the tragic occurrence immortalized
by Longfellow's "Evangeline," the expulsion of the French from Acadia.
The poem is too favorable to these people. They had never become
reconciled to English rule, and were believed on strong evidence to be
active in promoting French schemes against the English. It was resolved
to scatter them among the Atlantic settlements. The act was savage, and
became doubly so through the unmeant cruelties attending its execution.
The poor wretches were huddled on the shore weeks too soon for their
transports. Families were broken up, children forcibly separated from
parents. The largest company was carried to Massachusetts, many to
Pennsylvania, some to the extreme South. Not a few, crushed in spirit,
became paupers. A number found their way to France, a number to
Louisiana, a handful back to Nova Scotia.

Braddock was succeeded by the fussy and incompetent Earl of Loudon,
1756-57, whom Franklin likened to Saint George on the sign-posts,
"always galloping but never advancing." He gathered twelve thousand men
for the recapture of Louisburg, but exaggerated reports of the French
strength frightened him from the attempt. Similar inaction lost him Fort
William Henry on Lake George. The end of the year 1757 saw the English
cause on this side at low ebb, Montcalm, the tried and brilliant French
commander, having outwitted or frightened the English officers at every
point.

Montcalm.

From this moment all changes. William Pitt, subsequently Lord Chatham,
now became the soul of the British ministry. George III. had dismissed
him therefrom in 1757, but Newcastle found it impossible to get on
without him. The great commoner had to be recalled, this time to take
entire direction of the war.

William Pitt.

[1758]

Pitt had set his mind on the conquest of Canada. He superseded Loudon
early in 1758 by General Amherst, who was seconded by Wolfe and by
Admiral Boscawen, both with large re-enforcements. They were to reduce
Louisburg. It was an innovation to assign important commands like these
to men with so little fame and influence, but Pitt did not care. He
believed his appointees to be brave, energetic, skilful, and the event
proved his wisdom. Louisburg fell, and with it the whole of Cape Breton
Island and also Prince Edward.

Unfortunately General Abercrombie had not been recalled with Loudon. The
same year, 1758, he signally failed to capture Ticonderoga, leaving the
way to Montreal worse blocked than before. Fort Du Quesne, however,
General Forbes took this year at little cost, rechristening it
Pittsburgh in honor of the heroic minister who had ordered the
enterprise.

[1759]

In the year 1759 occurred a grand triple movement upon Canada. Amherst,
now general-in-chief, was to clear the Champlain Valley, and Prideaux
with large colonial forces to reduce Fort Niagara. Both had orders,
being successful in these initial attacks, to move down the St. Lawrence
and unite with Wolfe, who was to sail up that river and beset Quebec.
Prideaux was splendidly successful, as indeed was Amherst in time,
though longer than he anticipated in securing Ticonderoga and Crown
Point.

General Wolfe.

Meantime Wolfe at Quebec was trying in all ways to manoeuvre the crafty
Montcalm out of his impregnable works. Failing, he in his eagerness
suffered himself to attempt an assault upon the city, which proved not
only vain but terribly costly. A weaker commander would now have given
up, but Wolfe had red hair, and the grit usually accompanying.
Undaunted, he planned the hazardous enterprise of rowing up the St.
Lawrence by night, landing with five thousand picked men at the foot of
the precipitous ascent to the Plains of Abraham, and scaling those
heights to face Montcalm from the west. The Frenchman, stunned at the
sight which day brought him, lost no time in attacking. In the hot
battle which ensued, September 13, 1759, both commanders fell, Wolfe
cheering his heroes to sure victory, Montcalm urging on his forlorn hope
in vain. The English remained masters of the field and in five days
Quebec capitulated.

Landing of Wolfe.

[1760-1763]

Quebec in 1730--From an old Print.

Vaudreuil, the French commander at Montreal, sought to dislodge the
English ere the ice left the river in the spring of 1760, and succeeded
in driving them within their works. Each side then waited and hoped for
help from beyond sea so soon as navigation opened. It came the earlier
to the English, who were gladdened on May 11th by the approach of a
British frigate, the forerunner of a fleet. They now chased Vaudreuil
back into Montreal, where they were met by Haviland from Crown Point and
by Amherst from Oswego. France's days of power in America were ended.
Her fleet of twenty-two sail intended for succor met total destruction
in the Bay des Chaleurs and by the Peace of Paris, 1763, she surrendered
to her victorious antagonist every foot of her American territory east
of the Mississippi, save the city of New Orleans.

The Indians were thus left to finish this war alone. Pontiac, the brave
and cunning chief of the Ottawas, aghast at the rising might of the
English, and the certain fate of his race without the French for
helpers, organized a conspiracy including nearly every tribe this side
the Mississippi except the Six Nations, to put to the sword all the
English garrisons in the West. Fatal success waited upon the plan. It
was in 1763 Forts Sandusky, St. Joseph (southeast of Lake Michigan),
Miami (Fort Wayne), Presque Isle (Erie, Pa.), Le Boeuf, Venango, and
Pittsburgh were attacked and all but the last destroyed, soldiers and
settlers murdered with indescribable barbarities. Pittsburgh held out
till re-enforced, at dreadful cost in blood, by Colonel Bouquet and his
Highlanders, who marched from Philadelphia.