tlllfffillfl? 
 
Jeffery ^4mherst 
 
AMHERST BEFORE MONTREAL 
 
Jeffery ^4mherst 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 LAWRENCE SHAW MAYO 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 
 
 FOURTH AVENUE &f 3OTH STREET, NEW YORK 
 
 LONDON, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 
 
 1916 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1916 
 BY LAWRENCE SHAW MAYO 
 
 THE -PLIMPTON -PRESS 
 
 NOR W ODD-MASS -U-S-A 
 
TO 
 MY MOTHE R 
 
 
 34C2C3 
 
PREFACE 
 
 \VHEN Othello was about to end his troubled 
 career he exhorted those in attendance, 
 
 "7 pray you, in your letters, 
 When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, 
 Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, 
 Nor set down aught in malice." 
 
 It has always seemed to me that in these few 
 words Shakespeare formulated a guiding-rule for 
 all who would assume the responsibilities of writ 
 ing biography, and upon this principle, therefore, 
 the following unvarnished tale has been prepared. 
 Jeffery Amherst was human and, like the rest of 
 us, possessed faults as well as virtues: otherwise 
 he would have been far less interesting. Britain 
 associates his name with the conquest of Canada, 
 and America connects it with an institution of 
 learning in the fairest region of New England, yet 
 the man s personality has been ever inscrutable. 
 The ensuing pages may throw more light on the 
 subject, and I confidently hope that my attempt 
 to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
 the truth, may in no way tend to dim the lustre 
 of " a name known to fame in days of yore." 
 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
 April, 1915. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 BIRTH, FAMILY, AND ENVIRONMENT . 
 
 - 3 
 
 II. 
 
 EARLY CAMPAIGNS 
 
 . . 8 
 
 III. 
 
 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR .... 
 
 24 
 
 IV. 
 
 WILLIAM PITT 
 
 43 
 
 V. 
 
 LOUISBURG 
 
 . . 66 
 
 VI. 
 
 BETWEEN Two CAMPAIGNS 
 
 94 
 
 VII. 
 
 TlCONDEROGA 
 
 . 120 
 
 VIII. 
 
 LAKE CHAMPLAIN 
 
 146 
 
 IX. 
 
 MONTREAL 
 
 . . I/O 
 
 X. 
 
 SIR JEFFERY AMHERST, KT. 
 
 192 
 
 XI. 
 
 PONTIAC S WAR 
 
 . . 213 
 
 XII. 
 
 FAVOR AND DISFAVOR 
 
 H3 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION . 
 
 . . 270 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE BOURBON ARMADA .... 
 
 2QS 
 
 XV. 
 
 LAST YEARS 
 
 3H 
 
 INDEX 
 
 
 32Q 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Amherst before Montreal Frontispiece 
 
 From a mezzotint of the painting by Reynolds. 
 
 Jeffery Amherst Facing page 38 
 
 From an engraving of a sketch by Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, in the possession of E. M. 
 Whitcomb, Esq., of Amherst, Mass. 
 
 Louisburg in 1758 76 
 
 There is a copy of this engraving in the John 
 Carter Brown Library at Providence. 
 
 Crown Point and Lake Champlain 146 
 
 Photographed in September, 1912. 
 
 The Obelisk at "Montreal" 248 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 "Montreal 1 in 1778 280 
 
 From The Universal Magazine, November, 1778. 
 
 The Death of Chatham 294 
 
 From an engraving of Copley s well-known 
 painting. 
 
Jeffery ^4mherst 
 
Jejfery Ambers t 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BIRTH, FAMILY, AND ENVIRONMENT 
 
 JEFFERY AMHERST was born at Riverhead, a 
 pleasant village in the parish of Sevenoaks, Kent, 
 on January 29, 1717. He was the second son 
 of Jeffery Amherst and Elizabeth Kerril, both of whom 
 came of Kentish stock. The family was well-to-do 
 and lived in an old mansion called "Brook s Place." 
 In this house Jeffery was born and grew up. His 
 ancestors had lived and died in Kent ever since the 
 days of Runnymede and the Magna Charta, and from 
 the reign of Richard II the genealogy is easily traced 
 to a Reverend Jeffery Amherst who was the rector of 
 Horsemonden, a parish near Tunbridge Wells, in 
 the time of the Commonwealth. 1 The reftor was the 
 great-great-grandfather of our Jeffery; he died in 1662. 
 His grandson, another Jeffery Amherst, was a member 
 of Parliament just after the Glorious Revolution, and 
 both he and his son, the grandfather and the father of 
 our Jeffery, were barristers. 
 
 Of the nine or ten children born to Jeffery Amherst 
 
 1 Ritchie and Evans s Lord Amherst, p. 9. 
 
4 JEFFERr AMHERST 
 
 and his wife, Elizabeth Kerril, five grew to maturity, 
 Sackville, Jeffery, John, William, and their sister 
 Elizabeth. Sackville, the eldest, led an obscure life, 
 but his name is interesting for it indicates the long 
 association of the Amherst family with the Sackvilles, 
 Earls of Dorset, who had belonged to the peerage since 
 the first decade of the reign of Elizabeth. The first 
 Earl of Dorset, when Lord Treasurer of England, had 
 employed one Richard Amherst as his steward. In 
 later times our Jeffery Amherst s father was a neighbor 
 of Lionel Cranfield Sackville, the first Duke of Dorset, 
 whose seat, "Knole," was very near Riverhead. This 
 proximity of residence led to an intimacy between the 
 families which became a large factor in the rise of 
 Jeffery the son, and was also an influence in the career 
 of the Duke s notorious offspring, Lord George Germain. 
 John Amherst, who was about a year younger than 
 Jeffery, turned his energies to a naval life with no small 
 amount of success. He began his career as a mid 
 shipman in the Mediterranean fleet under Admirals 
 Haddock and Mathews, became a captain before he was 
 thirty, and at the outbreak of the Seven Years War 
 was in command of the "Deptford" of 48 guns, one of 
 the fleet with which the unfortunate Admiral Byng 
 sailed to attempt the relief of Minorca in the spring of 
 1756. Two years later he was in American waters 
 where his ship formed part of the squadron under 
 Boscawen which made possible his brother s first great 
 achievement, the capture of Louisburg. Towards 
 the end of his life he was made Vice-Admiral of the 
 Blue, and Rear-Admiral of the White. 
 
BIRTH AND FAMILY 5 
 
 Probably Jeffery s favorite brother was William, 
 who was his junior by about fifteen years. During 
 the French and Indian War he was one of Amherst s 
 aides-de-camp, and distinguished himself in America 
 by recapturing Newfoundland from the French in 
 1762. After his return to England, William com 
 manded a fort on the Channel for a while and then 
 was elected to Parliament. His military training, 
 combined with his brother s influence, brought him 
 numerous sinecures. In the army he attained the 
 rank of lieutenant-general; and when, in 1774, the 
 office of lieutenant-governor of Newfoundland became 
 vacant, it was appropriately given to him who had 
 regained the island for the British Empire twelve 
 years before. 
 
 The England into which JefFery Amherst was born 
 was the England of George I. In northern Europe 
 the meteoric Charles XII of Sweden, at whose name 
 the world turned pale, plunged into war with Nor 
 way in 1717 and a year later fell dead before the 
 fortress of Fredriksten. At home the ascendancy of 
 the Whigs had already been established by the Elec 
 tor of Hanover who so miraculously acceded to the 
 English throne without domestic or foreign disturb 
 ance. The Old Pretender, to be sure, landed in 
 Scotland in the winter of 1715-16; but soon after 
 wards returned discomfited to France. The Whigs, 
 to secure their control of the ship of state, had passed 
 the Septennial Act, whereby they continued them 
 selves as members of Parliament for four years more 
 than their electors expected, and securely fortified 
 
6 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 the Protestant succession. As George I was but a pup 
 pet in their hands, understanding the English Con 
 stitution about as much as he understood the English 
 language, this meant the establishment of the Whig 
 oligarchy as the real power in England. For twenty 
 years this power was personified in Walpole. 
 
 In literature the England of 1717 witnessed the 
 sunset of the Augustan age. Addison s course was 
 almost run, while Steele and Swift still plied their 
 powerful pens. Defoe was turning his thoughts from 
 politics to adventure, and Pope busied himself with 
 the last volume of his translation of the "Iliad." 
 It was the end of the period which preceded the 
 reign of Thomson s "Seasons" and Young s "Night 
 Thoughts." 
 
 In 1721 Walpole became Prime Minister of England 
 and began his wise policy of conserving the country s 
 wealth and energy until a sufficiently valid cause 
 demanded their expenditure in a vigorous and profit 
 able war. But England was neither as wise nor as 
 patient as the great man at the helm, and after twenty 
 years of peace and prosperity the country followed 
 the counsels of less sagacious ministers and became 
 involved in the inglorious War of the Austrian Suc 
 cession. Though Walpole fell and though his simple 
 truth was miscalled simplicity, the good that he had 
 done lived after him, for in those two decades of 
 patient service he laid the financial foundation upon 
 which Pitt was destined to erect an empire. Of this 
 empire Pitt was to be the architect and Amherst 
 and Clive the master builders. 
 
BIRTH AND FAMILY 7 
 
 Looking forward for a moment we see that during 
 the period of Walpole s supremacy Jeffery Amherst 
 was growing to manhood; during the fifteen years 
 of mediocrity that followed, he assisted in one igno 
 minious campaign after another; and it was only when 
 William Pitt came into his own that Amherst knew 
 the joys of victory and fame culminating in the con 
 quest of Canada in 1760. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EARLY CAMPAIGNS 
 
 SOCIAL usage of eighteenth-century England 
 prescribed the profession of arms as the only 
 proper pursuit for a second son, and in accord 
 ance with this law, Jeffery Amherst was predestined 
 for a martial career. His first employment, however, 
 was of a different nature, for at an early age he was 
 a page in the house of the Duke of Dorset who lived 
 but a short distance from the Amherst homestead 
 at Riverhead. Such service was regarded as a social 
 and educational privilege in those days and in this 
 case it led directly to the boy s entrance into the 
 army. In 1735 Jeffery s noble patron was Lord- 
 lieutenant of Ireland and through his influence 
 Amherst, although only eighteen years old, was 
 appointed an ensign in the First Regiment of Foot 
 Guards. 1 
 
 An ensign in the British army of the old regime 
 was a commissioned officer of the lowest rank, cor 
 responding to a second-lieutenant of to-day. The 
 Foot Guards were an ancient institution, which traced 
 its origin to the two regiments of King s Guards that 
 were organized just before and just after the Res- 
 
 1 Sir Frederick William Hamilton s Origin and History of the First or 
 Grenadier Guards, iii, 449. 
 
EARLY CAMPAIGNS 9 
 
 toration. 1 These two military bodies were merged 
 into one by Charles II in 1665, and the combination 
 became known as the King s Regiment of Guards, a 
 designation which gave way twenty years later to 
 the more familiar name of the First Regiment of 
 Foot Guards. In time of peace it was usually quar 
 tered in London, sending occasional detachments to 
 Windsor or elsewhere to attend upon members of the 
 royal family; but in time of war this regiment was 
 usually to be found where the fighting was most 
 severe. At Blenheim, Ramillies, and Malplaquet it 
 had shown itself worthy of its colonel, who in those 
 early campaigns was no other than the invincible 
 Marlborough. 
 
 The first seven years of Ensign Amherst s service 
 were years of peace, for in spite of the war with Spain 
 which broke out in 1739, Walpole s peace policy was 
 practically maintained until his downfall three years 
 later. During this period the Guards formed the 
 garrison of London, guarded the sovereign at Wind 
 sor, and performed whatever occasional services 
 naturally fell to the lot of the Household Troops. 
 
 Besides these duties, and occasionally awing a tur 
 bulent public, or aiding the customs officers in the 
 suppression of smuggling, the regiment had little to 
 do except to submit to an annual review, an event 
 which is interesting chiefly from the description of 
 the uniform of a Guardsman, which it affords. A 
 brigade-order preceding one occasion of the kind 
 stipulated the following requirements: 
 
 1 Ibid., i, no. 
 
io JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 "The officers to appear in their new regimental 
 clothes, gaiters, square-toed shoes, gorgets, sashes, 
 buff-colored gloves, regimental laced hats, cockades, 
 the button worn on the left side, and twisted wigs, 
 according to the pattern. The men to appear per 
 fectly clean and shaved, square-toed shoes, gaiters, 
 their hats well cocked and worn so low as to cover 
 their foreheads and raised behind, with their hair 
 tucked well under and powdered, but none on the 
 shoulders, the point of their hats pointing a little 
 to the left, their arms perfectly clean/* 1 
 
 Such was the appearance of the English fighting- 
 man of Amherst s youth, and the uniform continued 
 to be cruelly conspicuous until the sound good sense 
 of Lord Roberts put an end to such absurdities after 
 the Boer War. For Continental wars, in which the 
 great factor was standing one s ground in a battle, 
 the scarlet coat and other accoutrements were not 
 so great a handicap as they might seem, but it is 
 still difficult for the American mind to comprehend 
 their employment in wilderness warfare, for one hun 
 dred and fifty years after Braddock s disaster in 1755. 
 
 If we care to picture Amherst at this time we 
 must imagine a tall, thin youth with brown hair, a 
 ruddy face, eyes of steel grey, and a nose decidedly 
 aquiline. 2 To this young man the declaration of war 
 against Spain in 1739 must have been welcome, after 
 the dull monotony of year after year of garrison life 
 
 1 Hamilton s Grenadier Guards, ii, 98. 
 
 2 Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall s Historical and Posthumous Memoirs 
 (edited by H. W. Wheatley), i, 406: also Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait of 
 Amherst at "Montreal," Sevenoaks, Kent. 
 
EARLY CAMPAIGNS u 
 
 and reviews; and still more grateful must have been 
 the prospect of a general war on the Continent, for 
 two years previous to this it had been decided that 
 in case of hostilities the First Regiment was to be 
 at once ordered on foreign service. 
 
 The War of the Austrian Succession was caused 
 by the violation of a scrap of paper known as the 
 Pragmatic Sanction. By this document, which was 
 assented to by all the important states of Europe, 
 the Emperor Charles VI thought he had secured the 
 succession of his daughter Maria Theresa to his whole 
 Austrian domain, but after his death in 1740 the 
 guaranteed heiress was not long in doubt as to the 
 good faith of princes. 
 
 Prussia struck the first blow when Frederic II 
 poured 30,000 men over the frontier and demanded 
 the province of Lower Silesia. France followed his 
 ignoble example, then Sardinia, Saxony, Spain, and 
 Poland did likewise, and the partition of Austria 
 seemed inevitable. English statesmen regarded the 
 situation with grave concern, for Britain had guar 
 anteed the Pragmatic Sanction and was likely to ful 
 fil her engagement. In 1741 Parliament subsidized 
 the plucky Austrian Archduchess, and in the follow 
 ing year 16,000 English troops were sent to Flanders 
 as auxiliaries to her forces. 
 
 Among the regiments thus despatched to the Con 
 tinent was the First Regiment of Foot Guards in 
 which Amherst was still a minor commissioned officer. 
 The chief command of all these troops was given to 
 the veteran Earl of Stair, among whose major-gen- 
 
12 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 generals was John Ligonier. The latter s name was 
 originally Jean Louis Ligonier. He had fled from 
 France as a Protestant refugee, after the Revoca 
 tion of the Edict of Nantes, and, enlisting in the 
 British army, fought under Marlborough at Blen 
 heim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, and 
 proved himself a splendid soldier. At Malplaquet, 
 Ligonier had twenty-three bullets shot through his 
 clothes and yet emerged from the battle unhurt. 
 His rise in the service was as rapid as it was deserved, 
 and it was a piece of great good fortune for Jeffery 
 Amherst that the veteran commander chose him for 
 one of his aides-de-camp in the present campaign. 
 The selection was made in the previous year when 
 Amherst was twenty-four years old, but whether it 
 was based upon an acquaintance with the young 
 lieutenant or upon the recommendation of the 
 Duke of Dorset remains a mystery. At any rate, 
 Amherst went to Flanders in the summer of 1742 
 in the capacity of aide-de-camp to General John 
 Ligonier. 
 
 If JefFery was impatient for active service after 
 his long and uninteresting apprenticeship in and 
 about London, the first campaign was disappointing. 
 In fact, the operations of the British army on the 
 Continent in 1742 can hardly be called a campaign; 
 they consisted mainly in waiting for the Dutch 
 allies to arrive. The Netherlanders, although under 
 the same obligations to maintain the Pragmatic 
 Sanction, were diffident about taking any active part 
 in its support. Their forms of procedure were slow 
 
EARLY CAMPAIGNS 13 
 
 and their temper averse to the remonstrances of Lord 
 Stair; even Carteret, by going in person to the 
 Hague, failed to stir them out of their apathy. In 
 the meantime the British troops remained in Flan 
 ders, "idle, unemployed, and quarrelling with the 
 inhabitants." 1 
 
 In 1743 events assumed a more cheerful aspect, 
 and towards the end of June the English and their 
 Hanoverian and Hessian allies defeated a large 
 French army at Dettingen. This battle is usually 
 remembered as the last in which an English king 
 actually commanded his troops in person. Curiously 
 enough it was also the first field upon which Amherst 
 saw active service, and although it would be inter 
 esting to know his impressions of his first battle, for 
 these we have no source of information. All we 
 know is that in the campaign as a whole he acquitted 
 himself well, for in the autumn of the same year 
 Lord George Sackville alluded to him with genuine 
 enthusiasm in a letter to the Duke of Dorset: 
 
 "You can not imagine how well everybody speaks 
 of Jeff. Amherst. He is of great use to General Lig- 
 onier and the General is very sensible of it. He can 
 not be long before he is promoted in his turn, for he 
 is now the eldest lieutenant in the regiment and 
 there can be no danger of anybody s being put over 
 his head." 2 Lord George was in a position to know 
 because he was with the army during the summer of 
 
 1 Mahon s History of England, iii, 189. 
 
 2 Historical Manuscripts Commission s Report on the Manuscripts of 
 Mrs. Stopford-Sackville, i, 286. 
 
I 4 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 1743, first as lieutenant-colonel of the Twenty-eighth 
 Regiment of Foot, and after Dettingen, as aide-de 
 camp to the King. 
 
 This battle was also the first action for at least 
 three other soldiers, who were to distinguish them 
 selves in the conquest of Canada before many years. 
 One of these was James Wolfe, 1 a youthful ensign of 
 sixteen years, who was doing the duty of an adju 
 tant. Wolfe s entrance into adtive service was hardly 
 propitious, as the horse he rode was shot in the leg 
 at the very outset of the battle, and the future hero 
 of the Plains of Abraham pitched headlong from his 
 saddle. 2 For Robert Monckton, who was second in 
 command before Quebec and upon whose shoulders 
 Wolfe s mantle fell on that eventful day in 1759, 
 Dettingen was also an initiation into a martial career. 
 Monckton was only a year older than Wolfe and on 
 this occasion served on the King s Guard. The last 
 of the trio was George Townshend to whom Quebec 
 surrendered, and who hurried home to England 
 soon after the capitulation in order to steal for him 
 self as much as possible of Wolfe s glory. 3 Town 
 shend graduated from St. John s College, Cambridge, 
 with the degree of M.A. in 1742, and instead of 
 indulging in the "grand tour" of Europe which in 
 the eighteenth century was the usual method of 
 spending the first year after one s college days, he 
 wished to join in the Continental campaign as a vol- 
 
 1 Deckles Willson s Life and Letters of James Wolfe, p. 34. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 39- 
 
 1 Francis Parkman s Montcalm and Wolfe, ii, 317. 
 
EARLY CAMPAIGNS 15 
 
 unteer. As his father was Viscount Townshend and 
 his uncle the Duke of Newcastle, a post on the staff 
 of Lord Dunmore, who commanded a division under 
 Lord Stair, was found for George Townshend, then 
 eighteen years old. 1 Thus it was that the future 
 conqueror of New France, and the first, second, and 
 third officers in command on the Plains of Abraham, 
 had their first taste of real war at the battle of Det- 
 tingen, June 27, 1743. 
 
 The next great conflict of the war occurred almost 
 two years later at Fontenoy. In the meanwhile the 
 command of the British contingent of the allied army 
 had been given to William Augustus, Duke of Cum 
 berland, a younger son of George II, who was not 
 more than twenty-four years old at the time of his 
 appointment. In spite of his youth Cumberland was 
 a born leader of men and his personal bravery and 
 enthusiasm were an inspiration to the rank and file. 
 Had he commanded an harmonious army the battle 
 of Fontenoy, which was fought on May n, 1745, 
 might have been a victory for England, but lack of 
 co-operation between the British, Hanoverians, Aus- 
 trians, and Dutch prevented any such happy outcome. 
 JefFery Amherst was present with his chief, General 
 Ligonier, and had a busy day of it, dashing hither 
 and thither over the field carrying important mes 
 sages to the Duke and to his subordinate generals. 2 
 More than once the French army seemed to be de- 
 
 1 C. V. F. Townshend s Life of Field-Marshal George Townshend, p. 7. 
 
 2 J. W. Fortescue s History of the British Army, ii, 113. F. H. Skrine s 
 Fontenoy, pp. 164-165. 
 
16 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 feated, but finally it was the British who were obliged 
 to retreat. Retiring to a position, north of Brussels, 
 they spent the rest of the spring and summer in 
 helplessly watching Flanders fall completely into the 
 hands of the enemy. 
 
 While in this interesting situation, the Duke 
 received word that Charles Edward Stuart, better 
 known as the Young Pretender, had arrived in Scot 
 land to attempt the recovery of the English throne. 
 As Britain was drained of troops by the European 
 war, Cumberland was instructed to send home ten 
 battalions with Sir John Ligonier, as soon as pos 
 sible. Temporarily the scene of the war was to be 
 changed and battles were to be fought in the north 
 of England and in Scotland. Wherever Ligonier 
 went, his aide-de-camp accompanied him. Accord 
 ingly Captain Amherst left the main army in late 
 September and arrived in London in the first week 
 of the following month. 
 
 The Young Pretender was the grandson of James 
 II and was well suited to the romantic part he chose 
 to play, for he was youthful, handsome, and blessed 
 with a magnetic personality. At first success at 
 tended him at every hand. He marched through 
 Scotland and down into England before the troops 
 recalled from the Continent could be landed and put 
 in motion against him. When real opposition ap 
 peared upon the horizon, however, Charles Edward 
 Stuart, having given London a good fright, turned 
 his face northward and hurried back across the bor 
 der. The English forces were divided into three 
 
EARLY CAMPAIGNS 17 
 
 small armies, one of which was entrusted to Sir John 
 Ligonier. With this division Amherst left London 
 in the last week of November and advanced into 
 the Midlands to prevent the Pretender from making 
 a dash into Wales, where Jacobite sympathies were 
 supposed to be strong. A week later in the heart 
 of Staffordshire, Ligonier and the Stuart found 
 themselves in close promixity and the latter suddenly 
 chose Scotland, rather than London or Wales, as his 
 objective. When the Duke of Cumberland, who was 
 with Ligonier, got wind of the retreat of the rebels, 
 he caught up four thousand men and started in hot 
 pursuit. Over the border into Scotland he harried 
 the enemy, and on and on until the decisive victory 
 at Culloden, in the following April, crushed the rebel 
 lion at a blow, and extinguished forever all hope of 
 a restoration of the Stuarts. 
 
 Jeffery Amherst remained with his chief, and so 
 did not witness the wholesale butcheries which are 
 ever associated with the names of Cumberland and 
 Culloden. On the contrary, life must have been quite 
 uninteresting for the young aide-de-camp. Soon after 
 the Duke s departure, a rumored invasion of the 
 south of England by the French, brought Ligonier 
 and his army back to London, where they arrived 
 about Christmas time. Here the winter was spent, 
 and though England kept a vigilant eye upon Dun 
 kirk, the threatened expedition never took place. 
 
 Promotion in the service, however, compensated 
 Amherst for lack of excitement in this dull period. 
 On Christmas Day in 1745, he was given a company 
 
i8 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 in the First Battalion of the First Regiment of Foot 
 Guards, and his rank was raised to that of lieuten 
 ant-colonel. 1 This meant not only a higher rank 
 and the title of colonel, but also brought with it a 
 pecuniary increase. As a captain, Amherst had 
 received sixteen shillings and sixpence per day. In 
 his new rank the pay was one pound, eight shillings, 
 and sixpence, a substantial difference of twelve 
 shillings. 2 
 
 In June, 1746, Colonel Amherst accompanied Lig- 
 onier back to the Netherlands, where the French had 
 made great progress during the absence of the Brit 
 ish troops. Though George II was keenly desirous 
 of revenge upon France for the suspicious part she 
 had played in the Forty-five, his hopes were not 
 realized in this campaign, for no battle worthy of 
 the name was fought. Inaction and occasional com 
 pulsory retreat were the characteristics of the year s 
 operations on the Continent. In the following 
 winter, however, when the Duke of Cumberland 
 was appointed commander-in-chief of the allied 
 army, there was more prospect of co-operation and 
 enterprise. 
 
 The military family which the Duke adopted to 
 help him in the campaign of 1747 is interesting. Of 
 his seven aides-de-camp three were destined to win 
 renown in America. The first of these was the ever 
 memorable Lord Howe, who was killed near Ticon- 
 deroga eleven years later, the idol of Americans and 
 
 1 Army List for 1754, p. 8. 
 
 2 Fortescue s History of the British Army, ii, 606. 
 
EARLY CAMPAIGNS 19 
 
 British alike. The second was none other than 
 Colonel Jeffery Amherst, who, according to Horace 
 Walpole, had been "the favorite aide-de-camp of 
 Ligonier." The third was George Townshend, who, 
 as has already been stated, commanded under Wolfe 
 on the Plains of Abraham, and in later years became 
 a Field Marshal of the British army. For Amherst, 
 who was just thirty years old, the appointment was 
 flattering and was doubtless due to the representa 
 tions of his old chief, Ligonier. 
 
 In spite of all his energy and enthusiasm, Cum 
 berland was not a match for the enemy, and the odds 
 against him were increased by the lack of harmony 
 which marked the councils of the Allies. On July 2, 
 1747, a battle was forced upon him at Laffeldt, a 
 tiny village near Maestricht. The British and the 
 Hessians made a gallant stand, but when retreat 
 became necessary, heroic measures were required to 
 prevent its becoming a rout. Accordingly Ligonier, 
 with characteristic bravery, led three regiments of 
 cavalry straight into the pursuing French horse. 
 Before this terrific onslaught the enemy fell back in 
 temporary confusion and gave the allied army time 
 to make good its escape. Amherst s erstwhile chief 
 paid dearly for his achievement: his horse was shot 
 under him, and he himself was captured by the 
 French. Although from a military point of view the 
 battle of Laffeldt was unimportant, it led directly to 
 the ending of the war. 
 
 At last King George was heartily sick of the con 
 flict which, since Dettingen, had been one defeat 
 
20 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 after another on the Continent. Apparently the 
 victorious Louis XV was equally bored by the pros 
 pect of more campaigns in the Netherlands, for he 
 availed himself of the presence of Ligonier, now his 
 prisoner, to make overtures for peace. These were 
 gladly transmitted to the Duke of Cumberland and 
 when he, in turn, conveyed them to his father, George 
 II, the tidings were received with joy by the King 
 and his ministers. Consequently a Congress to arrange 
 the terms of a peace assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle in 
 January, 1748, and the preliminary articles establish 
 ing practically the status quo ante bellum, were signed 
 a few months later. 
 
 What had the six years of war meant to Amherst? 
 For him the long and costly struggle had been an 
 excellent training-school replete with moving acci 
 dents by flood and field, and the experience gained 
 in the War of the Austrian Succession was destined 
 to yield fruit in the Seven Years* War a decade later; 
 but equally important were the friendships Colonel 
 Amherst formed at this time. Of these his acquain 
 tance with Sir John Ligonier was to lead directly to 
 the prominent part awaiting him at Louisburg. 
 Hardly less valuable was his association with the 
 Duke of Cumberland, although the latter fell from 
 grace at the precise moment when Amherst s real 
 career was about to begin. 
 
 In time of peace the soldier s life is indeed dull. 
 Jeffery Amherst returned to the monotonous routine 
 of an officer of the Guards whose duties during the 
 next few years consisted chiefly in assisting the civil 
 
EARLY CAMPAIGNS 21 
 
 magistrates of London to preserve the peace. There 
 were smugglers and highwaymen to be escorted to 
 Newgate, and there were excited crowds to be kept 
 in order at public executions; also there were the less 
 lugubrious periods of service at Windsor, or at Hamp 
 ton Court, or wherever the sovereign might choose 
 to reside. Fortunately the monotony of this life was 
 somewhat relieved in Amherst s case by his appoint 
 ment as Groom of the Bedchamber to his royal 
 companion in arms, the Duke of Cumberland. Be 
 sides whatever eclat this membership in the ducal 
 household brought, it also meant personal atten 
 dance upon his Royal Highness for two or three 
 weeks at a time every year; and thus the intimacy 
 which had grown up between the two men during 
 their service abroad was kept alive in time of peace. 
 
 Another friendship formed during the war appears 
 to have been continued during these dull days, for 
 in a letter from Wolfe to his father, written in April, 
 1750, the future captor of Quebec mentions having 
 "writ" to Amherst, and "said everything that I 
 thought could engage him to use his influence with 
 Sir John Ligonier" to procure a provision for the son of 
 one Mrs. Scott. 1 To what extent Amherst troubled 
 himself about the matter is not known, but a few 
 weeks later Wolfe asserted his conviction that his 
 friend had done his part, and gave still further evi 
 dence of confidence in his "sincerity and good incli 
 nations." Although it is well known that the future 
 conquerors of Canada saw their first service in the 
 
 1 Beckles Willson s Life and Letters of James Wolfe, p. 125. 
 
22 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 
 
 previous campaigns in the Low Countries, this is 
 the earliest evidence of their actual acquaintance. 
 
 In the autumn of the same year, 1750, occurred 
 the death of Jeffery Amherst, the father, at the age 
 of seventy-three years. By his decease the family 
 estate at Riverhead passed to Sackville, the eldest 
 son. Eighteen months later Amherst s mother fol 
 lowed her husband, and was buried at Sevenoaks. 
 These breaks in the family circle were perhaps con 
 tributing causes of the Colonel s first matrimonial 
 venture, for in May, 1753, JefFery Amherst married 
 his second cousin, Jane Dalison. 1 The bride, who 
 was thirty-one years old, and hence five years younger 
 than her husband, came of a good Kentish family 
 which had been established for many years not far 
 from Riverhead. The marriage took place in Gray s 
 Inn Chapel in London, but of this Mrs. Amherst we 
 know little else except that she died twelve years 
 later, leaving her husband without heirs. 
 
 Domestic events and military routine so occupied 
 the Colonel at this time that even his old friends 
 and patrons, the Sackvilles, lost track of him, and one 
 of them wrote to the future Lord George Germain, 
 asking "What is become of Amherst and his General 
 Ligonier?" 2 Indeed it seems as if the Colonel shared 
 the sentiments of Shakespeare s Henry V, 
 
 "In peace there s nothing so becomes a man 
 As modest stillness and humility." 
 
 1 William Berry s County Genealogies, Kent, pp. 182, 183, 495. 
 * Stopford-Sackvillf Manuscripts, i, 39. 
 
EARLY CAMPAIGNS 23 
 
 But he was not to remain long in obscurity, for the 
 clouds of war, that were to encircle the globe, 
 already darkened the western horizon, and there was 
 promise of a conflict which had been inevitable ever 
 since the signing of the universally unsatisfactory 
 Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE SEVEN YEARS* WAR 
 
 IT is usually asserted that the Seven Years War 
 broke out in America and spread to the Old 
 World. Certainly that is the most convenient 
 way to distinguish this upheaval from those of the 
 preceding half-century of conflict. Whether or not 
 conditions in Europe would have led to a general 
 war irrespective of the clash between two empires in 
 the New World, American developments may prop 
 erly be regarded as the long, slow fuse which at 
 length ignited the magazines of all central Europe. 
 Heretofore the reverse of this process had been true; 
 European hostilities were merely echoed in America 
 by the raids of the French and Indians upon our 
 frontier towns, or by organized attacks on the part 
 of the British against the strongholds of New France. 
 Colonial warfare was a display of loyalty to the 
 mother country rather than a primary quarrel, and 
 seldom accomplished much in the interests of either 
 empire at large. Now the tables were turned, for 
 when Washington encountered the French near 
 Great Meadows in May, 1754, shots were exchanged 
 which preluded a great European struggle. The 
 renewal of hostilities meant that two empires spread 
 ing out over North America had at last run afoul of 
 
THE SEVEN TEARS WAR 25 
 
 each other west of the Alleghanies, and the question 
 of right of way must be settled by force of arms. 
 
 From the beginning of her American colonization 
 France devoted her main efforts to Canada and 
 founded in that region a feudal state known as New 
 France. Pushing constantly westward, up the St. 
 Lawrence River and through the Lakes, the French 
 established a good claim to the entire valley, a proc 
 ess which culminated in the pageant of Saint-Lusson 
 in 1671. On that occasion Daumont de Saint-Lus 
 son, in the presence of the representatives of four 
 teen Indian tribes formally took possession of the 
 great inland basin at Sault Ste. Marie, and thus de 
 fined the northern boundary of England s colonial 
 empire in the New World. A decade later, La Salle 
 sailed down the Mississippi from the Illinois to the 
 Gulf of Mexico and, in April, 1682, assumed title to 
 the entire Mississippi Valley in the name of the 
 King of France, in whose honor he named the vast 
 wilderness Louisiana. If his exploration was the 
 basis of true ownership France had succeeded already 
 in setting a western limit to the English colonies at 
 the watershed of the Alleghanies; but as yet these 
 ramifications of New France failed to disturb the 
 Anglo-Saxons on the seaboard. Except in the Con 
 necticut and Hudson valleys they still clung to the 
 tidewater regions and cared little about the adlivi- 
 ties of French explorers in the remote hinterland. 
 
 The first check to French expansion was admin 
 istered when the Iroquois, or Five Nations, and their 
 territories were taken under the protection of the 
 
26 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 King of England. This was accomplished in 1684 
 by Governor Dongan of New York and it was des 
 tined to be an event of infinite importance for the 
 future of England in America. The League of the 
 Iroquois was a confederation of the most civilized 
 and intelligent Indians on the continent. Their 
 domain proper was practically that of the State of 
 New York to-day, but tributary tribes were to be 
 found throughout the Ohio Valley, and it is obvious 
 that the friendship of the Iroquois was the key to 
 the inland country north of the Ohio and east of 
 the Mississippi. The French had forfeited all pos 
 sibility of true amity with the Five Nations when 
 Champlain unadvisedly took the side of their enemies, 
 the Ottawas, and delighted the latter by thoroughly 
 terrifying and dispersing a band of Iroquois which 
 he encountered near the head of Lake Champlain. 
 That misstep occurred in 1609 and Iroquois hostility 
 for the French might have been overcome in time had 
 it not been for the fact that French brandy was 
 scarce and expensive, while English rum was always 
 available for no great consideration. The Jesuit 
 Fathers did their utmost not only to convert the 
 bloodthirsty natives to Christianity of the French 
 type, but also to suppress drunkenness among the 
 redskins with whom they labored. But French 
 blandishments were wasted upon the Iroquois, and 
 their friendship for the English was consummated 
 at Albany in 1684 when, as we have seen, they 
 declared themselves subjects of the King of England 
 and placed their territory under his protection. 
 
THE SEVEN TEARS WAR 27 
 
 By one of the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht 
 in 1713, the King of France acknowledged the Iro- 
 quois to be English subjects. Was this not equiva 
 lent to an admission of England s title to the Ohio 
 Valley? It must seem so, and was doubtless regarded 
 as such by the parties to the instrument; but when 
 France was once more upon her feet, she did every 
 thing in her power to evade the treaty obligations 
 forced upon her in 1713. 
 
 The Treaty of Utrecht not only secured the recog 
 nition of the Iroquois as subjects of the English 
 Crown, and thus excluded New France from 
 expansion south of the Great Lakes, but it also 
 lopped off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia from the 
 Gallic empire in America. This pruning of New 
 France in the northeast was soon balanced by the 
 founding of New Orleans in Louisiana, near the mouth 
 of the Mississippi, and by the middle of the century 
 there were perhaps three thousand whites and two 
 thousand negro slaves in the southern colony. Scat 
 tered settlements grew up along the river, extending 
 northward from New Orleans. They dotted the 
 banks of the Mississippi at Natchez and in the 
 vicinity of the modern St. Louis, and there were also 
 numerous hamlets in the Illinois country. Thus 
 in 1750, France held the gates to the boundless in 
 terior of North America, while the English were 
 practically walled up by the Alleghanies, not more 
 than two hundred miles from the Atlantic seaboard. 
 Furthermore, as France in America had now two 
 heads, one at Quebec, the other at New Orleans, 
 
28 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 policy dictated the connecting of these capitals by 
 the actual possession of the Ohio Valley. The first 
 steps in this process which aimed at the establish 
 ment of France as the predominant power in North 
 America led to the Seven Years War, a struggle 
 whose outcome spelt quite the reverse of French 
 colonial aggrandizement in the New World. In the 
 short space of ten years the Gallic peril was not 
 only averted, but so thoroughly annihilated that 
 France was wiped off the continent of North America. 
 Quietly ignoring the limits forced upon New 
 France by the Treaty of Utrecht and disregarding 
 the fact that English traders abounded in the country 
 west of the Alleghany Mountains, the governor of 
 Canada, the Marquis de la Galissoniere, sent out a 
 party of about two hundred white men, escorted by 
 a few Indians, to take possession of the Ohio Valley. 
 This was in June, 1749; the leader of the expedition 
 was Celoron de Bienville. The Frenchmen proceeded 
 across Lake Erie, carried to Chautauqua Lake, and 
 then floated down the Allegheny to the Ohio, depos 
 iting here and there leaden plates inscribed with a 
 legend to the effect that Celoron was taking posses 
 sion "of the aforesaid River Ohio, of all streams that 
 fall into it, and all lands on both sides, to the source 
 of the aforesaid streams as the preceding Kings of 
 France have enjoyed, or ought to have enjoyed, it, 
 and which they have upheld by force of arms and by 
 treaties, notably by those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and 
 Aix-la-Chapelle." 1 All this was very impressive, but 
 
 1 Parkman s Montcalm and Wolfe, i, 47. 
 
THE SE7EN TEARS 9 WAR 29 
 
 unless followed by settlement it could in no way 
 secure the region for France. To facilitate future 
 expeditions and possible colonization, the Frenchmen 
 made themselves as agreeable as possible to the 
 Indians, ordered a group of English traders to with 
 draw from the country, and then returned to Canada 
 by the way of the Great Miami, the Maumee, and 
 Lake Erie. From the French point of view the Ohio 
 Valley was now indisputably French. 
 
 To realize how the two empires were destined to 
 jostle each other in the immediate future, we need 
 only to note the formation and activity of the Ohio 
 Company. In the same year in which Celoron took 
 possession of the valley of the Ohio, some Virginia 
 gentlemen, among them Lawrence and Augustine 
 Washington, procured a grant of two hundred thou 
 sand acres from the King of England. Roughly 
 speaking, the land granted must lie in the northern 
 part of the present state of West Virginia, and in 
 1750 the Ohio Company sent an Indian trader, Chris 
 topher Gist by name, across the mountains to spy 
 out the land and after exploration to select a desir 
 able tract for them. Gist carried out instructions 
 and explored the Ohio from its most northern point 
 at Logstown to the Great Miami, where, a scant year 
 and a half before, the French, under Celoron de 
 Bienville, had preceded him. A collision between the 
 two frontiers was now inevitable, and that collision 
 became more immediate when, in 1752, the Marquis 
 Duquesne de Menneville, a man with an aggressive 
 policy, was appointed governor of Canada. 
 
30 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 The French government did not give any great 
 amount of support to the ambitious schemes of the 
 new governor. He was reminded that the expenses 
 of the colony were already enormous and that they 
 had doubled since the peace; but the Marquis Du- 
 quesne, seeing that it was a case of now or never, 
 determined to occupy the upper waters of the Ohio 
 and to strengthen that occupation by forts and 
 garrisons. Early in the spring of 1753, an expedi 
 tion of about fifteen hundred men set out for the 
 disputed country. Instead of carrying from Lake 
 Erie to Chautauqua Lake, as Celoron had done four 
 years before, the present invaders landed at Presqu 
 isle, the site of the modern city of Erie, which they 
 found to be an advantageous point with an excellent 
 harbor. At this place they constructed a fort, and 
 then cut a road through the woods to the Riviere 
 aux Boeufs, the nearest tributary of the Ohio. There 
 they built another fort, which was named Fort Le 
 Boeuf; but dysentery and discouragement put an 
 end to further operations for the year. Leaving three 
 hundred men to garrison the two new posts, the 
 rest of the expedition, much the worse for exposure 
 and fatigue, returned to Montreal. 
 
 The garrison at Fort Le Boeuf had settled down 
 for a long winter in the wilderness, when, on the 
 evening of the eleventh of December, the monotony 
 of their solitude was broken by the arrival of a young 
 Virginian, accompanied by Christopher Gist and a 
 few other white men and Indians. The unbidden 
 guest was Major George Washington, Adjutant- 
 
THE SEFEN TEARS WAR 31 
 
 General of the Virginia militia, and he brought with 
 him a letter from Governor Dinwiddie, expressing 
 surprise that the French troops should fortify lands 
 "so notoriously known to be the property of the 
 Crown of Great Britain." The letter also demanded 
 the peaceable departure of the intruders. The com 
 mander at Fort Le Boeuf forwarded Dinwiddie s 
 missive to the Marquis Duquesne and Washington 
 returned to Virginia unmolested. One discovery 
 which the young Virginian made while on this mission 
 deserves especial notice. At the confluence of the 
 Allegheny and the Riviere aux Boeufs, some sixty 
 miles from Fort Le Boeuf, stood an English trading- 
 house. Washington found the building converted 
 into a French military outpost over which the invad 
 ers had raised their flag. The property had changed 
 hands in the previous August when members of 
 Duquesne s expedition seized the house and carried 
 off its inmates. This aggression on the part of the 
 French, small in itself, was the first overt act of the 
 Seven Years War, and it is small wonder that Gov 
 ernor Dinwiddie, when informed of what had occurred, 
 arose in his wrath and determined upon energetic 
 measures for the next year. 
 
 In February, 1754, Captain Trent, an English fur 
 trader, crossed the mountains with a band of back 
 woodsmen to build a fort at the point where the 
 Allegheny and the Monongahela unite to form the 
 Ohio, a spot which Washington had wisely judged 
 the best for the purpose. Hardly had Trent and his 
 men commenced constructing the outpost when a 
 
32 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 swarm of canoes and bateaux, bringing about five 
 hundred Frenchmen, descended upon the position of 
 the English. Planting cannon in front of the embry 
 onic fortress, the invaders forced the officer in charge 
 to surrender, and then allowed him to depart with 
 his men. While the vanquished English recrossed 
 the mountains to .Virginia, the French destroyed 
 the captured works at the forks of the Ohio and 
 began the construction of a much larger and better 
 building which they named Fort Duquesne. 
 
 To Dinwiddie and Washington this step towards 
 open hostilities resembled a declaration of war, and 
 they acted accordingly. The governor, although at 
 odds with the Virginia Assembly, succeeded in raising 
 a few hundred men whom he hurried through the 
 wilderness to the scene of adtion. This so-called 
 Virginia Regiment was commanded by Colonel 
 Joshua Fry, an English gentleman, but Washington 
 was at the head of the advance. Towards the end 
 of May the latter had penetrated to a place called 
 Great Meadows on the western slope of the Alle- 
 ghanies, and learning that a party of Frenchmen were 
 in the immediate vicinity, Washington determined to 
 surprise them before they could set a trap for him. 
 Advancing into the forest, the Virginians came upon 
 the French in a rocky hollow, and a short battle 
 ensued. The commander of the enemy s force and 
 about ten others were killed; the rest were captured, 
 and Washington returned to the camp at Great 
 Meadows where he awaited reinforcements. While 
 there he erected a rude protection against the French 
 
THE SEFEN TEARS 9 WAR 33 
 
 which he called Fort Necessity, a name it very soon 
 justified, for on July 3, 1754, he was surrounded 
 and attacked by the enemy. After nine hours of 
 stubborn and discouraging fighting, Washington sur 
 rendered upon conditions of marching out with 
 drums beating and all the honors of war. In the 
 early morning of July 4, the retreat began, and a 
 few days later not an English flag waved beyond the 
 Alleghanies. 
 
 Clearly, war between England and France had 
 begun in North America, but, as in the days of Haw 
 kins and Drake, one code of international law ob 
 tained in the Old World, another in the New. Hence 
 hostilities on the American frontier although recog 
 nized and abetted by the home governments did not 
 necessarily mean war between the two states in 
 Europe. Furthermore France needed time to increase 
 her navy and to strengthen her garrisons in America, 
 while England was equally unprepared with a reduced 
 army of only eighteen thousand men. It behooved 
 both powers to simulate peace at home while bending 
 every energy to get the upper hand in the wilderness 
 across the water. 
 
 In 1755, the English undertook various operations 
 against the enemy with incidental success, but all 
 their petty victories were more than offset by the 
 hideous defeat of Braddock s expedition against 
 Fort Duquesne, in which officers and men were done 
 to death by the French and their Indian allies. 
 Nevertheless, Britain by no means relinquished her 
 claim to the hinterland, nor her intention, if necessary, 
 
34 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 to fight for it. In May, 1756, she declared war 
 against France. Thus began the most terrible con 
 flict of the eighteenth century. 
 
 In view of the discouraging events that were tak 
 ing place in America it was only natural that George 
 II turned a worried eye towards his hereditary pos 
 sessions in Germany, for in the impending European 
 war the Electorate of Hanover could scarcely help 
 falling into the hands of the French, particularly if 
 Prussia took the side of Louis XV. To guard against 
 such an event the British government took 8,000 
 Hessians into England s pay and, in February, 1756, 
 sent Colonel Jeffery Amherst to Germany to take 
 charge of their commissariat. The appointment 
 entailed duties of an administrative kind only, and 
 was very likely due to the influence of the Duke of 
 Cumberland, who still stood high as a military ad 
 viser to the Cabinet. 
 
 At first Amherst s headquarters were in the quaintly 
 attractive town of Cassel, the capital of the old elec 
 torate of Hesse-Cassel, but hardly had the Colonel 
 arrived at the scene of his duties when he received 
 hurried orders from home to return to England with 
 a portion of the Hessian subsidiaries, for the island 
 trembled at the prospect of an invasion by the 
 French. This meant not only the task of supplying 
 the troops, but also the engineering of their assembly 
 and transportation, a feat which Amherst seems to 
 have accomplished with success. Leaving Cassel in 
 the first week in April, he went to Hanover and 
 thence to Stade, the fortified port of the Electorate 
 
THE SE7EN TEARS 9 WAR 35 
 
 on the estuary of the Elbe. There he remained three 
 or four weeks, awaiting the arrival of the trans 
 ports which should convey him and his Germans 
 across the North Sea. By the eleventh of May all 
 were on shipboard, and the imported mercenaries, 
 escorted by their commissary on H. M. S. "Queen- 
 borough," turned their faces toward England. The 
 voyage was not a short one, even for those days, 
 but Amherst and his charges arrived in good 
 order at Southampton on the evening of May 
 I5. 1 There the Hessians were immediately divided 
 into two camps, one at Farnham, the other at 
 Winchester, both sufficiently near the coast to 
 insure its protection. 2 
 
 During the busy days when he was occupied with 
 the landing and disposition of the Hessians, Jeffery 
 Amherst was appointed colonel of the I5th Regi 
 ment of Foot, 3 an event in which Wolfe rejoiced so 
 much that he wrote to his father: "I hear with 
 pleasure to-day, that my friend Amherst has got a 
 regiment; nobody deserves the King s favor better 
 than that man/ 4 The new appointment was practi 
 cally a sinecure and in no way interfered with his 
 duties as commissary to the foreign subsidiaries, but 
 as a recognition of his ability and services the colo 
 nelcy was decidedly significant. 
 
 In January, 1753, the eyes of Frederick of Prussia 
 had been opened to the existence of an ill-natured 
 
 1 State Papers Foreign, Military Expeditions, vol. 27. 
 
 2 Hamilton s Grenadier Guards, ii, 152. 
 1 Army List for 1757, p. 6. 
 
 * Willson s Wolfe, p. 287. 
 
36 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 secret treaty between Russia and Austria, aiming at 
 the restitution of Silesia and the partition of the 
 kingdom of Prussia. Saxony, too, was in the plot, 
 and all that was necessary to insure success was the 
 neutrality, if not the assistance, of France. Well 
 might even Frederick be concerned when confronted 
 with such a hostile coalition and he looked about for 
 a strong ally with whom to stem the threatening 
 tide. For his royal uncle, the King of England, 
 Frederick had little affection and less respecl:, but in 
 the face of the gathering storm his practical mind dis 
 covered in Britain a much needed source of strength. 
 When George II was confident of the sincerity of the 
 Prussian king s advances, he gladly closed with him 
 in an alliance to resist any invasion of Germany by 
 foreign powers, for such an arrangement insured the 
 safety of Hanover. This diplomatic move resulted 
 in the Treaty of Westminster in January, 1756, and 
 led France to abandon her traditional policy and to 
 join with Austria against Prussia. The standard in 
 ternational cleavage of Europe was radically changed 
 and the line-up for the oncoming struggle showed 
 Austria, Russia, France, the Catholic German states, 
 and finally Sweden on one side, against England and 
 Prussia on the other. Of this inevitable European 
 explosion it is evident that the clash of empires in 
 America was but the sputtering fuse. 
 
 By the Second Treaty of Versailles in May, 1757, 
 France joined Russia and Austria in their conspiracy 
 for the partition of Prussia, and in anticipation of 
 that event, two French armies aggregating 100,000 
 
THE SE7EN TEARS WAR 37 
 
 men were poured across the Rhine. Then indeed 
 was Hanover threatened with an invasion, and 
 George II urged the Duke of Cumberland to take 
 command of the troops of the Electorate, and of the 
 Hessians whom he had hired for just such an emer 
 gency. Evidently age and experience had staled 
 Cumberland s desire for foreign service. Lacking 
 confidence in himself he made difficulties, particularly 
 about being under the direction of Pitt, whom he 
 hated as much as did his father. 1 When that minister, 
 refusing to resign, was peremptorily dismissed by 
 the King, the Duke s last excuse was removed, and 
 early in April, the Butcher of Culloden reluctantly 
 departed for the Continent. 
 
 Meanwhile Colonel Amherst, who had sojourned 
 in England for the past nine months with his Hes 
 sian charges, was despatched once more to Germany. 
 Early in March, 1757, he was again in Cassel with 
 its parks and palaces, and he remained in that vicin 
 ity for several weeks, attending to the Hessian con 
 tingent resident there. In May the commissary s 
 duties called him to Stade to superintend the disem 
 barking of the German troops, who, having defended 
 Britain for a year, were now returning to the Con 
 tinent to fight under the Duke of Cumberland. 
 By the middle of the month they were safely landed 
 and sent on their way to the camp at Hameln on 
 the Hanoverian frontier, a town more famous for its 
 Pied Piper and its rats than for this military estab 
 lishment. Thither Amherst followed them shortly 
 
 1 Corbett s England in the Seven Tears 1 War, i, 158. 
 
38 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 and placed himself under the command of his royal 
 friend. 1 
 
 The forces of which the Duke took command num 
 bered about 50,000 men, mostly Hanoverians and 
 Prussians with a generous admixture of Hessians, 
 Brunswickers, and other German levies, and with 
 them he was expected to protect the electoral domin 
 ions. This Army of Observation, as it was appro 
 priately called, was concentrated at Bielefeld, late in 
 April. Cumberland s task, however, was an un 
 grateful one: in the first place the troops were ill- 
 assorted; secondly, they were devoid of anything 
 resembling esprit de corps; and worst of all, they 
 believed themselves over-matched by the French, 
 and predestined to defeat. 2 The unhappy com 
 mander manoeuvred indecisively until the French 
 general, Marshal d Estrees, forced a battle upon him 
 at Hastenbeck, on the north bank of the Weser. 
 
 This engagement took place on July 26, 1757, and 
 JefFery Amherst, who was present with the Hessian 
 mercenaries in his charge, once more saw his chief 
 go down to defeat before the enemy. Although the 
 Duke of Cumberland was Amherst s junior by four 
 years he had grown old and unwieldy before his 
 time. At Hastenbeck his failing sight compelled him 
 to depend upon other eyes than his own, and the 
 result was disastrous. With a loss of 1500 men, 
 Cumberland retreated steadily down the course of 
 the Weser to Verden, which lies in the heart of the 
 
 1 State Papers Foreign, Military Expeditions, Vol. 27. 
 1 Torrens History of Cabinets, ii, 378. 
 

THE SEFEN TEARS WAR 39 
 
 Electorate. His defeated army was completely de 
 moralized. Rations were short and the soldiers left 
 the ranks to pillage and to indulge in all kinds of 
 excesses. 1 In the meanwhile the French swept over 
 Hanover unresisted, plundering and pursuing, until 
 Cumberland on the twenty-first of August proposed 
 a suspension of hostilities. But Richelieu, who had 
 succeeded d Estrees as commander-in-chief of the 
 enemy s forces, only laughed at the overture of his 
 downcast opponent, and the chase continued across 
 the moors towards Stade, near the mouth of the 
 Elbe. There the archives and other valuable effects 
 of the conquered Hanover were stored, and there, also, 
 was the refugee Council of Regency of the Electorate. 
 To Amherst this uninterrupted retreat into a Serbonian 
 bog was incomprehensible; 2 but the Duke s position on 
 the rounded peninsula between the estuaries of the 
 Weser and the Elbe was not unlike that of Cornwallis 
 at Yorktown. If he could maintain a strong base 
 upon the coast, there was hope of reinforcements from 
 England, or at least of transports for his beleaguered 
 army, and knowledge of this possibility was among 
 the causes which induced Richelieu to grant his victim 
 the amazingly lenient terms that marked the ensuing 
 Convention of Kloster Zeven. 
 
 While Cumberland was retiring under the guns of 
 Stade, the King of Denmark awoke to a diplomatic 
 difficulty which presented itself owing to the recent 
 
 1 Richard Waddington s La Guerre de Sept Ans, i, 460. 
 
 2 P. C. Yorke s Life and Correspondence of Philip Torke, Earl of Hard- 
 wickf, lily 119. 
 
40 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 military operations. By a treaty of forty years 
 standing, Denmark guaranteed Bremen and Verden 
 to the Elector of Hanover, undertaking to maintain 
 this obligation within six weeks by an army of 
 8,000 men. Now Bremen and Verden were in the 
 hands of the enemy, and Frederic V was confronted 
 with the choice of a profitless war, or of effecting 
 some sort of pacification between the belligerents, 
 some arrangement whereby the duchy and the 
 principality might be retained by the Elector of 
 Hanover. 
 
 Negotiations, with this in view, were opened in 
 the last days of August, and on September 8, 1757, 
 the Convention of Kloster Zeven was concluded. 
 Both parties to the arrangement rushed headlong 
 into the pacification, with the result that only its 
 general provisions were reduced to black and white, 
 leaving many questions to be settled at leisure, - 
 in other words, open to controversy. The Duke of 
 Cumberland agreed to send home to their respective 
 countries the subsidized troops from Hesse, Bruns 
 wick, and Saxe-Gotha, while about one-half of the 
 Hanoverian army was to be interned in cantonments 
 around Stade; the remainder returned beyond the 
 Elbe, leaving the French in full possession of Han 
 over. Years after this time Napoleon characterized 
 the terms of the Convention of Kloster Zeven as 
 "inexplicable" on the part of the French, and from 
 every point of view it must appear that for the Duke 
 it was an easy way out of a very difficult situation. 
 Returning to England, however, the unfortunate 
 
THE SEVEN YEARS WAR 41 
 
 commander was received with cutting silence by his 
 royal father, who exclaimed to the courtiers about 
 him: "Here comes my son who has ruined me and 
 disgraced himself." It is not surprising that on the 
 following day William Augustus, Duke of Cumber 
 land, once the idol of the nation, threw up all his 
 military employments and retired forever from a 
 career which had proved singularly unfortunate. 
 
 When the Convention was signed, Colonel Amherst 
 very naturally began to march the Hessian troops 
 under his jurisdiction back to their native heath. 1 
 Then word came from England that the King did not 
 consider himself bound by the Convention, where 
 upon the army recently commanded by Cumberland 
 was speedily prepared for a fresh campaign under 
 the leadership of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, a 
 warrior who had attained high distinction in the 
 Prussian service. Of him Colonel Amherst wrote in 
 glowing terms to his old friend Joseph Yorke, then 
 England s minister at the Hague: "The Prince is 
 indefatigable and with his manner with the troops 
 gains their love and confidence; all I see and hear 
 foretells success." 2 The soldiers who three months 
 before this time were dispirited and demoralized 
 now bristled with impatient vigor, and almost imme 
 diately the restored army won several small advan 
 tages over Richelieu. Then, content with having 
 started the war on a new tack, Ferdinand went into 
 
 1 Amherst to Da Costa, Sept. 10, 1757, Emmett Collection, MS. A, in the 
 New York Public Library. 
 
 2 Amherst to Yorke, Dec. 21, 1757. Additional MS. No. 32876, Fol. 449, 
 in the British Museum. 
 
42 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 winter quarters at Liineburg, whence he intended to 
 resume the offensive in February. 
 
 In the meantime there occurred in the life of Jeffery 
 Amherst an event of inestimable importance. Early 
 in January, 1758, while wintering at Stade, he received 
 an order signed by Lord Holdernesse, requiring his 
 immediate presence in England. From there he was 
 to proceed to America with the rank of major-general 
 in command of an army of over 11,000 men to cap 
 ture the French island-stronghold at Louisburg in 
 Cape Breton. This order came as a complete sur 
 prise, and the causes which led to it present a se 
 quence of events too interesting and too important 
 to be neglected. Leaving Amherst to make hurried 
 preparations for his departure from Germany, let 
 us turn to the men and events responsible for the 
 sudden promotion which changed the scene of his 
 activities from the Old World to the New. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 WILLIAM PITT 
 
 WHEN Amherst left England for Germany in 
 the early part of 1756, William Pitt had 
 broken with the head of the ministry, the 
 Duke of Newcastle, and was in open opposition to 
 the administration in which he had enjoyed the re 
 munerative post of Paymaster of the Forces. The 
 occasion of his dismissal was an attack upon the 
 policy of the government on the trite charge that 
 Britain was subservient to Hanover, but Pitt s real 
 reason for taking up arms against his old colleagues 
 was his conviction that in the fall of Newcastle lay 
 the sole prospect of his own advancement. Long had 
 he waited and watched for an opportunity to display 
 the extraordinary power which he knew to be his 
 and at last he was convinced that so long as the gov 
 ernment was dominated by "one too powerful sub 
 ject," as he stigmatized his chief, those abilities 
 would be under a bushel. The splendor of Pitt 
 must rise from the ruins of Newcastle. Nor was this 
 attitude discreditable from a broad point of view. 
 Extremely desirous of power and fame though he 
 was, the insurgent member was chiefly actuated by 
 a consciousness of phenomenal ability, which in this 
 period of military decadence could render incompa- 
 
44 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 rable service to his country. His own phrase, "that 
 sense of honor which makes ambition virtue," was 
 exemplified in the Great Commoner, for he possessed 
 both qualities and yet combined them successfully. 
 Upon the ground that England needed the full 
 strength of this one man s extraordinary powers, 
 and upon such ground alone, we can justify Pitt s 
 rebellion in 1755, a rebellion which was destined to 
 make Britain the foremost power of the world. 
 
 The Newcastle constellation, rid of its unruly star, 
 sank slowly and inevitably towards the horizon. The 
 year 1756 brought nothing but discouragement and 
 defeat for England abroad, while at home Britain 
 trembled at the rumor of a French invasion. The 
 old Duke of Newcastle felt his power in the Commons 
 rapidly diminishing, and in November the "universal 
 minister" resigned. 
 
 The obvious successor to the primacy was William 
 Pitt, but though the Great Commoner was backed 
 by the thinking part of the nation he could not count 
 more than sixteen followers in the House of Com 
 mons. To remedy this difficulty the good-natured 
 Duke of Devonshire accepted the nominal headship 
 of the government, while Pitt, more capable, if less 
 powerful, achieved his ambition, becoming actual 
 prime minister as Secretary of State for the Southern 
 Department. In this capacity he controlled the 
 movement of armies in the New World and in India, 
 as well as in southern Europe, and, as a matter of 
 fact, determined the whole course of the war, for 
 his strong intellect easily carried before it the medi- 
 
WILLIAM PITT 45 
 
 ocre mind of Holdernesse, his colleague for the 
 Northern Department. Politically the new admin 
 istration was as weak as its worst enemy could have 
 wished. The House of Commons, that changing tide 
 upon which ministries rise and fall, was practically 
 in the hands of the fallen Newcastle and his allies. 
 Morally the Devonshire ministry was strong as the 
 Rock of Gibraltar, for behind Pitt was the nation, 
 not the riffraff of democracy nor the debauched 
 Whig aristocracy, but "that unenfranchised England 
 which had little representation in Parliament/ 1 that 
 unromantic but sterling middle class, which has al 
 ways made England England. But circumstances 
 and politicians combined to shorten the life of his 
 first attempt at administration. In five months 
 time the Newcastle-ites proved themselves supreme 
 in Parliament, while their opponent flew in the face 
 of both King and people in a desperate effort to save 
 an unfortunate commander from an unjust execu 
 tion. The last straw was added when Cumberland 
 refused to take command of the Army of Observa 
 tion if Pitt were to exercise authority over his adlions. 
 The King, who hated his greatest minister, no longer 
 hesitated. On April 6, 1757, William Pitt, refusing 
 to resign, was summarily dismissed. 
 
 The moment was a critical one for England, and 
 it became evident at once that the work of the 
 powerful opposition had been purely destructive. 
 Pitt s first administration had fallen, but no one 
 dared undertake the formation of a new ministry. 
 
 1 Parkman s Montcalm and Wolfe, ii, 46. 
 
46 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 On the other hand, addresses of condolence poured 
 in upon the Great Commoner. In Horace Walpole s 
 happy phrase "for some weeks it rained gold boxes," 
 for in such encasements came the freedom of the 
 cities of London, Bath, Worcester, Chester, and 
 Exeter, besides the same honor conferred by other 
 corporations. It was apparent that the nation stood 
 behind him, but the dismissed Secretary of State 
 well knew that he could not maintain himself without 
 the support of the unrepresentative House of Com 
 mons. The King was in despair, and for nearly three 
 months England was without a government. There 
 was but one thing which could save the country, 
 a coalition between Pitt and Newcastle; in other 
 words, an alliance of nation and Parliament. The 
 Duke hesitated to head a ministry in which he real 
 ized that he would be far outshone by the Secretary 
 of State. Newcastle hated Pitt as cordially as the 
 latter despised the Duke, but a combination was 
 brought about by which each gained what he most 
 desired; Newcastle as First Lord of the Treasury was 
 to dole out the offices, a pleasant occupation free 
 from all responsibility for the conduct of politics and 
 of war, while Pitt, to use his own language, would 
 borrow the Duke s majorities to carry on the gov 
 ernment. The cabinet meetings promised to be 
 gatherings as congenial as those which marked Wash 
 ington s first administration with Hamilton and Jeffer 
 son seated at the same table, but the arrangement 
 was practical in a high degree, as subsequent events 
 proved. In the last week of June, 1757, the new min- 
 
WILLIAM PITT 47 
 
 istry kissed hands l and England thus took a neces 
 sary step on the high-road to victory. 
 
 Now that the reins of power have been securely 
 placed in the hands of the Great Commoner, let us 
 pause to study the character and qualities of this 
 extraordinary man, to whom Jeffery Amherst owed 
 much. 
 
 William Pitt was primarily a genius: secondarily 
 he was a very great man. The genius of Pitt lay in 
 his eloquence; his greatness in his mastery of men. 
 
 In England, the eighteenth century was an age 
 when legislation was determined more by speech- 
 making than by party or policy, a phenomenon which 
 was due to the fact that when the government and 
 its placemen were confronted by a numerous and 
 well-organized opposition in the House of Com 
 mons, the balance of power was held by a compara 
 tively small group of independents. To hold these 
 members to the Government, or to carry them over 
 to the Opposition was the aim of the party leaders, 
 and to accomplish this end, persuasive speaking was 
 essential. As an orator, Pitt was incomparable. 
 His didlion was simple but poetic, calculated to im 
 print his intelligent ideas clearly and indelibly upon 
 the minds of his hearers. Majestic in declamation, 
 blasting in invective, he awed and thrilled the most 
 fastidious audience. Nor was this all, for he united 
 with these attributes the qualities of a great actor. 
 A contemporary of Garrick, he rivalled in look, ges 
 ture, and tone, that greatest histrionic genius of all 
 
 1 Albert von Ruville s William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, ii, 130. 
 
48 JEFFERT AMHERSr 
 
 time. He held his adherents spellbound by his utter 
 ances, and with the lightning of his flashing eye struck 
 terror to the hearts of those who opposed him. 
 
 Like all orators of the eighteenth century, the 
 Great Commoner spoke with a freedom which the 
 political speaker of to-day may not enjoy, for in those 
 days the reporting of speeches in Parliament was fit 
 ful and sporadic. Then the statesman spoke to the 
 House of Commons and not to the proletariat, and 
 he spoke with a personality and an art which are 
 entirely lost in the printed page. His whole idea 
 was to carry the House with him, and he did not 
 need to consider the misrepresentations which might 
 be the fruit of his words when conned in cold print 
 by hostile critics in the country at large. With such 
 lack of restraint Pitt uttered his trenchant aphorisms 
 and memorable phrases. As Lyttelton said, "His 
 words have sometimes frozen my young blood into 
 stagnation, and sometimes made it pace in such a 
 hurry through my veins that I could scarce support 
 it." 1 Such was the eloquence of the man, an elo 
 quence which was but the ornament of a scholar s 
 mind and a statesman s intellect. The divine spark 
 of Pitt s oratory was his patriotism: first, last, and 
 always he was an Englishman, whether defending 
 the American colonists, when they, as Englishmen, 
 claimed the rights of other subjects of the Crown, or 
 casting them out of the realm of conciliation because 
 they had joined in an alliance with Britain s heredi 
 tary enemy. As with Webster, so with Pitt, love of 
 
 1 Lecky s England in the Eighteenth Century, ii, 512. 
 
WILLIAM PITT 49 
 
 country was the Promethean heat which kindled 
 extraordinary eloquence and stirred to their deepest 
 depths the hearts of his hearers. Such was the gen 
 ius of this paragon of public speakers. 
 
 Pitt was not merely scholar and orator. He was 
 a monarch of men. His instructions to the com 
 manders under his jurisdiction, and his letters to the 
 colonial governors sound like the edicts of a king. 
 Expressed with marvelous clearness and force, his 
 missives were calculated to bring forth the greatest 
 efforts from those who understood the tasks, how 
 ever Herculean. Generous with commendation, yet 
 firm in reprimand, the great War Minister displayed 
 at all times an appreciation of the difficulties attend 
 ing the campaigns as well as the results which might 
 justly be expected. His knowledge of the detail of 
 every situation, amazing as it was, accounts for much 
 of the efficiency of his administration. So inspiring 
 was his personality that every commander who 
 entered his closet came out of it a braver man and 
 carried away with him new courage and faith. 
 
 Scarcely less admirable was his standard of political 
 honor. Moving in an age when offices were sought 
 more for their remunerative contingencies than for 
 the power or even the fame which they brought the 
 incumbent, a period when every arm of the service 
 was festered with rottenness and honeycombed with 
 graft, William Pitt inaugurated an entirely new sys 
 tem of morals. Upon coming into the Pelham ad 
 ministration in 1746, he was given the notoriously 
 lucrative post of Paymaster of the Forces. Every 
 
50 JEFFERT AMHERSr 
 
 occupant of this office before his time had availed 
 himself of the opportunity to invest the large float 
 ing balance in government securities, appropriating 
 the interest for his own purse, as well as receiving 
 one-half per cent of all subsidies voted by Parliament 
 to foreign princes. Although Pitt was probably the 
 poorest man who had ever held this office, he refused 
 from the first to accept these perquisites which seemed 
 to him illegal; and when the King of Sardinia en 
 deavored to make him a gift of no mean proportions, 
 the Paymaster of the Forces refused it as he would a 
 bribe. To us any other course than that which Pitt 
 pursued in this matter would seem more surprising 
 than that which he chose. To eighteenth-century 
 England, however, such an honorable conviction, 
 with the courage to support it, was astounding. 
 The general run of office-holders shrugged their 
 shoulders, while the nation, long-suffering under the 
 corruption of its representatives and weary of the 
 selfish deeds of placemen, "feeding at the public 
 crib," recognized the greatness of William Pitt, and 
 from that hour he was its idol. 
 
 Genius usually sets limitations to greatness, and 
 this was conspicuously the case with Pitt. Until 
 his accession to power under the Pelhams in 1746, 
 one is little attracted to the violent spitfire who 
 assailed with the fury of a madman, the wise admin 
 istration of Walpole. The Whig statesman at the 
 helm was attacked at every point by "this terrible 
 cornet," as Walpole dubbed him, and even after 1742, 
 Pitt continued his hostility, insisting upon an im- 
 
WILLIAM PITT 51 
 
 peachment. The succeeding administration pursued 
 an entirely different policy, but Pitt, finding himself 
 as far from power as before, continued his venomous 
 assaults upon the Government. He even went so 
 far as to insult the King by calling Hanover a "des 
 picable electorate." One cannot but feel that, as a 
 rule, Pitt in opposition was actuated more by a 
 desire to overthrow the existing ministry in the hope 
 of acquiring power through its downfall, than by any 
 sincerely patriotic motive. Hence it came about 
 that his career was replete with inconsistencies. 
 Measures he abhorred when others were in control 
 of the affairs of state, William Pitt was often entirely 
 ready to adopt or to continue, when he found himself 
 in the seats of the mighty. For instance, the corner 
 stone of his vehement opposition in 1743, was the 
 folly of subsidizing Hanoverian troops to defend the 
 King s electoral dominions, but three years later he 
 quietly acquiesced in the continuance of that scheme 
 by a ministry in which he held office. He never 
 murmured against the Pelhams when they closely 
 followed in Walpole s steps, in spite of the fact that 
 his own speeches, not long before, had condemned 
 absolutely the policies of the great Whig. Wise 
 men change their minds, we are told; but in Pitt s 
 case one cannot help feeling that opposition was for 
 opposition s sake, and only when he was on the poli 
 tical bridge did the man take a statesmanlike view 
 of the situation. 
 
 Another concomitant of his genius was Pitt s ner 
 vous irritability, a misfortune which sometimes 
 
52 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 amounted almost to insanity. Lord of others, he 
 was not always master of himself, and in disciplining 
 his own party he was frequently so imperious and 
 dictatorial that one would have thought his invectives 
 were directed against the Opposition. Often, too, 
 that dramatic power which served him so well in 
 flights of eloquence or bursts of scorn led to excesses 
 which made the Great Commoner ridiculous and 
 wellnigh contemptible. A great sufferer from gout, 
 that bane and torture of the eighteenth century, 
 Pitt made the most of his ill-health. Displaying 
 rather than concealing, his painful malady, he de 
 lighted to appear the heroic patriot whom no amount 
 of suffering could keep from the performance of his 
 duties. Swathed in flannel and supporting himself 
 upon the familiar crutch, he was well aware of the 
 fact that he presented a piteous spectacle in the 
 Commons or among the Peers. This ostentation 
 was part and parcel of his delight in being theatrical: 
 although many of his deeds were noble and disin 
 terested, William Pitt never lost sight of the effect 
 which they might produce. Like Disraeli he was 
 always acting a part in the drama of life, and was 
 ever conscious of his audience. 
 
 Finally, Pitt s love of pomp and show proclaimed 
 him a parvenu. Royalty dazzled him to an incred 
 ible extent. One of his contemporaries declared that 
 at the levee he bowed so low one could see the tip 
 of his hooked nose between his legs. 1 Although he 
 had spent half of his career railing at the Court, 
 
 1 Lecky s England in the Eighteenth Century, ii, 527. 
 
WILLIAM PITT 53 
 
 when actually brought into the presence of royalty 
 he was almost unmanned; and when at the height 
 of his power Pitt received a few words of commenda 
 tion from George III, a pygmy in comparison with 
 this giant, the world-famous minister burst into 
 tears. This last event was doubtless due to Pitt s 
 physical condition, for at that moment he was on 
 the verge of a nervous disorder which soon after laid 
 him prostrate; but it is certain that he never pos 
 sessed the unconscious majesty of a Washington or 
 a Wellington. 
 
 Such was William Pitt, who, in spite of his faults 
 and weaknesses, was a very great man, towering 
 above his contemporaries as a mammoth pine rises 
 conspicuously above the restless tree-tops of the 
 forest. His eloquence has become proverbial; his 
 patriotism was matchless; and as a war minister, he 
 displayed a genius and efficiency which made the 
 Bourbons tremble for their possessions the world 
 over. Take him for all in all, he was a man, and 
 England was not to look upon his like again. 
 
 Although Pitt was now securely established where 
 he could govern the course of the war, the first six 
 months of his administration saw little indication of 
 the victorious era upon which Britain was about to 
 enter. In Germany, as we have seen, the Duke of 
 Cumberland laid down his arms in an ignominious 
 capitulation. On the French coast, an expedition 
 to capture Rochefort, the War Minister s pet 
 project, failed because of lack of co-operation be 
 tween army and navy. From America came even 
 
54 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 worse tidings. The Marquis de Montcalm, who 
 had succeeded to the command of the French forces 
 in the New World, captured Fort William Henry at 
 the southern end of Lake George, while Lord Lou- 
 don, the British commander-in-chief, made an unsuc 
 cessful attempt to take the enemy s stronghold at 
 Louisburg on Cape Breton Island. The autumn of 
 1757 was indeed a season of depression for Pitt, 
 relieved only by the news of dive s astounding 
 victory over the natives of Bengal and their ineffi 
 cient French allies. Truly the time was out of joint, 
 and it was Pitt s task to set it right. He was not 
 long in formulating a new policy for the conduct of 
 the war in America. 
 
 The campaign of 1758 was to be made on three 
 main lines. In the first place, Fort Duquesne must 
 be captured, and a hold obtained upon the Ohio 
 Valley. For this operation Pitt selected Brigadier- 
 General John Forbes, a man of more than sixty years, 
 who had begun his career as a physician but now 
 had been long in the military service of the country. 
 He was given a strong regiment of Highlanders and 
 about four thousand provincials with which to accom 
 plish the purpose that had brought disaster to Brad- 
 dock three years before. 
 
 Secondly, Lake George and Lake Champlain, the 
 former the scene of the recent disaster at Fort Wil 
 liam Henry, the latter strongly fortified by the French 
 at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, must be cleared of 
 the enemy. This would open one of the natural 
 avenues to Canada, and relieve New York from the 
 
WILLIAM PITT 55 
 
 constant encroachments of Montcalm. Loudon, who 
 had antagonized the colonists, besides showing him 
 self to be woefully incapable in a military way, was 
 recalled, and the chief command devolved upon 
 Major-General James Abercromby. So far the latter 
 had done nothing to win distinction, favorable or 
 unfavorable; but Horace Walpole, with his usual 
 perspicacity, declared him to be "a commander 
 whom a child might outwit, or terrify with a pop 
 gun," 1 a characterization destined to be confirmed 
 only too soon by disastrous fadls. 
 
 Finally the campaign of 1758 included an attack 
 upon Louisburg, which, if successful, would be fol 
 lowed by an advance against Quebec by the way of 
 the St. Lawrence. 2 Of the three operations this was 
 the most important, requiring both land and sea 
 power. The military force assigned to it counted 
 fourteen thousand regulars, supplemented by five 
 hundred provincials, in command of which Pitt 
 placed Colonel Jeffery Amherst, giving him the rank 
 of major-general in America, and assigning as his 
 assistants three brigadiers, Whitmore, Lawrence, and 
 his old friend Wolfe. Equally auspicious was the 
 appointment that entrusted the naval part of the 
 expedition to Admiral Edward Boscawen, "Old 
 Dreadnought," as he was called by the British sea 
 men, who had abundant confidence in his well-known 
 fighting ability. 
 
 This was the plan of campaign for the war in 
 
 1 Letters of Horace Walpole (Toynbee edition), iv, 36. 
 1 Corbett s England in the Seven Tears War, i, 307. 
 
56 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 America for 1758, and great credit has ever been 
 given to Pitt for his judicious selection of officers for 
 the Louisburg expedition. In these military ap 
 pointments, unlike that of Abercromby, claims of 
 seniority were disregarded whenever they clashed 
 with those of efficiency; preferment went neither by 
 letter nor affection, nor "by old gradation, where 
 each second stood heir to the first," but by merit 
 and approved worth. This principle of selection 
 which Pitt inaugurated fully justified itself within 
 the year. But how did the War Minister, master 
 of detail though he was, know where to put his 
 finger upon the right man for every important com 
 mand? How did he dare appoint to the leadership 
 of an expedition of infinite importance, an obscure 
 colonel who had obtained a regiment scarcely eigh 
 teen months before? The answer to this question is, 
 - Sir John Ligonier. 
 
 When the Duke of Cumberland, returning from an 
 inglorious summer s work in Germany, resigned all 
 his offices and appointments, Pitt seized the oppor 
 tunity to complete his absolute control of the war. 
 What he particularly needed was an able commander- 
 in-chief, one who knew the personnel of the army and 
 the merits or demerits of every officer. He believed 
 Sir John Ligonier to be just such a man and eagerly 
 pressed for his appointment, before the old King 
 might relent and re-instate the Butcher of Culloden. 
 George II proved tractable except upon one point. 
 Whoever became chief of the army should not enjoy 
 the title of Captain-General which the Duke of 
 
WILLIAM PITT 57 
 
 Cumberland had so recently borne. 1 It is difficult 
 to understand precisely the grounds for the King s 
 objection, but probably he regarded the headship of 
 the army as one of the royal prerogatives, which had 
 fast diminished in number since the accession of the 
 Hanoverian dynasty. Of whatever else he might be 
 robbed, George II, remembering his military prowess 
 on the field of Dettingen, would never part with 
 his nominal supremacy in the army. Charles II 
 might grant the title to General Monk out of grati 
 tude for the Restoration; William might confer the 
 compliment upon the son of his favorite Lieuten 
 ant Schomberg; and Anne might donate such au 
 thority to Marlborough; but the soldier-king would 
 have none but himself or one of his immediate family 
 enjoy the dignity of being Captain-General. With 
 the resignation of Cumberland the office passed 
 out of existence forever. The Cabinet was united 
 upon the advisability of having Ligonier the actual 
 head of the army, with or without the title which 
 the King so jealously withheld, and through the 
 combined efforts of Newcastle, Hardwicke, and Pitt, 
 the hero of the battle of Laffeldt was made com- 
 mander-in-chief of all his Majesty s forces in Great 
 Britain. 
 
 For the War Minister the new appointment was 
 of infinite importance. At last he had as his right- 
 hand man a brilliant soldier, and one who believed 
 thoroughly in the new military policy. Sir John s 
 first duty was to select the best officers; then he and 
 
 1 Torrens History of Cabinfts, ii, 426. 
 
58 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 Pitt would fit them into the scheme of war. Thus 
 it came about that Ligonier brought forward the 
 name of Colonel Amherst, his favorite aide-de-camp 
 in the previous war, who was then hiding his mili 
 tary talent in Germany as commissary to the Hes 
 sian soldiers in British pay. Pitt s confidence in the 
 judgment of the commander-in-chief was unlimited. 
 As far as we know, he had never heard of Jeffery 
 Amherst; but, relying upon the assurances of Lig 
 onier, he determined to put him in command of the 
 expedition against Louisburg. It was now the last 
 week of December, 1757, and Pitt was anxious to see 
 the preparations for the coming year under way. 
 Although he was practically Prime Minister, and had 
 complete control of the conduct of the war, the 
 Great Commoner had learned by experience that it 
 was never safe to take an important step without 
 the consent and approval of his colleagues. The 
 latter, although nonentities in themselves, controlled 
 Parliament, and unless formally bound to Pitt s 
 policy, might leave him high and dry at any time. 
 Two things were necessary, the sanction of the 
 Cabinet for the operations planned, and the King s 
 consent to Colonel Amherst s sudden elevation. Both 
 were accomplished before the end of the dying year. 
 A meeting of the Cabinet at Lord Holdernesse s 
 was called for the evening of December 28, but the 
 Duke of Newcastle was entertaining "the Bishop of 
 Durham and some other company" at Claremont, 
 and begged to be excused from attending. 1 Pitt was 
 
 1 Additional MS. No. 32876, (British Museum). 
 
WILLIAM PITT 59 
 
 annoyed and somewhat suspicious; he allowed the 
 Duke to remain out of town with his Christmas 
 party, but took care to secure his written endorse 
 ment on the drafts which he intended to submit to 
 the Cabinet. On the evening of the 28th Pitt s plans 
 for the North American campaign of 1758 were duly 
 approved by the rest of the Cabinet, 1 and only the 
 King s sanction of Amherst was needed to complete 
 the plan. To secure this there seems to have been 
 no small amount of difficulty, presumably because 
 of the obscurity of the officer in question. 
 
 The task was undertaken by Sir John Ligonier 
 who was quite ready to stand sponsor for his one 
 time aide-de-camp. On December 30, he gained the 
 King s ear and won the royal consent to Amherst s 
 employment in America. 2 Thus the Colonel s un 
 looked-for advancement was due first and last to the 
 interest and friendship of his old chief, with whom he 
 had seen service at Fontenoy. In writing to New 
 castle concerning Ligonier s good offices in this con 
 nection, Pitt said: "For this, and for how many 
 right things done and fatal ones prevented, what do 
 we owe in one place." How well might Jeffery 
 Amherst have spoken the same words of the same 
 individual, but with a purely personal application! 
 
 On January 3, 1758, an order was signed by the 
 Earl of Holdernesse requiring Amherst s immediate 
 presence in England. A month later he was on his 
 
 1 Ibid. 
 
 8 Ibid. See, however, Basil Williams Life of William Pitt, i, 367, which 
 attributes the appointment to the entreaties of Lady Yarmouth. 
 
60 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 way home, awaiting transportation at Ritzbiittel, 
 near the mouth of the Elbe, where Cuxhaven with 
 its Hamburg-American establishments stands to-day. 1 
 Arriving in London, Amherst was subjected to a few 
 direct questions about certain bills for the Hessians 
 forage, aggregating 200,000, which he was said to 
 have contracted. The amount due was unexpectedly 
 large, and, to make matters worse, Baron Mun- 
 chausen, the Hanoverian minister in London, who 
 rendered the account, had insisted that one half of 
 it must be remitted by the next post. The King 
 summarily ordered the First Lord of the Treasury 
 to provide the necessary funds, whereupon New 
 castle showed the papers to Pitt, for he was cautious 
 about paying bills presented by anyone other than 
 the government s authorized agent, Colonel Amherst. 
 The Hanoverian s name is suggestive of fiction and 
 Pitt deemed his statement exaggerated to say the 
 least. Newcastle made a partial payment by for 
 warding 60,000 to Amherst, but demanded an ex 
 planation. 2 Consequently the commissary had no 
 sooner set foot on English soil than he was called to 
 account by his Grace. The contract, expensive as 
 it was, proved to be genuine, and the agent declared 
 it was advantageous to the government. Newcastle 
 was embarrassed, the more so because the indig 
 nant War Minister obstinately refused to fulfil the 
 demands of the contract, 3 but before the matter 
 
 1 State Papers, Foreign Military Expeditions, Vol. 27, in the Public Record 
 Office. 
 
 2 Additional MS. No. 32877. 
 
 3 Additional MSS., Nos. 32878 and 32997. 
 
WILLIAM PITT 61 
 
 was settled, Amherst was hurried off to Portsmouth 
 where H. M. S. "Dublin," 74, was waiting to convey 
 him to America. 
 
 Delay had been the chief cause of defeat in the 
 previous year and Pitt took care that the present 
 attack on Louisburg should be begun as soon as the 
 season permitted, not later than the twentieth of 
 April. This would insure a blockade of the port 
 before the enemy s garrison and fleet could be re- 
 vidlualed or reinforced from France. With this in 
 view, various convoys of troops destined for Cape 
 Breton were got under way early in February. On 
 the 24th, Boscawen cleared the Channel and stood 
 out to sea with a snug fighting force composed of 
 ten large ships of the line and five or six frigates. 
 The transports were well ahead of him, bound for the 
 rendezvous at Halifax, where certain troops winter 
 ing in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were to 
 concentrate on April 12. To insure still further the 
 success of the expedition, Vice-Admiral Sir Charles 
 Hardy, recently Governor of New York, was dis 
 patched to Halifax in January to command the small 
 squadron there, and to institute a preliminary block 
 ade of Louisburg. 1 
 
 Major-General Amherst, as we must call him now, 
 sailed from Portsmouth, March 16, 1758, on board 
 the "Dublin," a vessel with a record by no means 
 enviable. In the previous summer she had been a 
 part of the fleet told off for the attack on Rochefort, 
 but a refractory rudder had kept the ship from active 
 
 1 Corbett s England in the Seven Tears War, i, 313. 
 
62 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 service. The rest of the season the "Dublin," was a 
 floating pest-house reeking with an epidemic fever. 1 
 Her commander, Captain George Brydges Rodney, 
 was destined to become the most famous of those 
 English admirals who raised the navy to the level at 
 which Nelson found it. Twenty-four years later he 
 sat in an armchair on the quarter-deck of the "For 
 midable" and won from the French off Dominica the 
 greatest naval victory of the generation; but as yet 
 Rodney had failed to achieve distinction. He was a 
 man of about forty years, a little younger than 
 Amherst, and if we may judge from his later habits 
 of extravagance, he enjoyed good living. Since 
 1751, the captain of the "Dublin" had sat in the 
 Commons as one of Newcastle s dependents, and he 
 had been careful never to let his marine duties inter 
 fere with this comfortable sinecure. Whatever his 
 shortcomings may have been, Rodney possessed 
 abnormally good luck and no small amount of per 
 sonal courage. When the "Dublin" was four or five 
 days out, and yet, owing to various kinds of wind 
 and weather, found herself only twenty leagues off 
 Brest, a sail was seen laying to. The wind blew a 
 gale and the weather was thick, but as soon as Rod 
 ney was sure that it was an enemy-ship, he deter 
 mined to capture it, storm or no storm. The vessel, 
 which was armed with sixteen six-pounders, first 
 hoisted the English colors, then the French. There 
 upon the "Dublin" fired upon her. The sea was so 
 rough that although twenty-five or thirty guns were 
 
 1 Hannay s Rodney, p. 49. 
 
WILLIAM PITT 63 
 
 discharged, not one took effect. After firing three 
 guns and a few small arms in return the Frenchman 
 struck. It proved to be an East India ship laden 
 with seven hundred thousand pounds of coffee and a 
 rich cargo of rose-wood, a prize of no small value, 
 whether Rodney was right in prolonging Amherst s 
 journey on that account or not. The "Dublin" 
 being alone, her captain was obliged to take his 
 booty into the nearest port for safe keeping. Rather 
 than return to Portsmouth, he turned his course to 
 the Spanish port of Vigo, and waited there till he 
 found a small cruiser to take charge of his prize. 1 
 This episode retarded Amherst s already belated 
 voyage by at least two weeks, and it was April I 
 before the "Dublin" was again on her legitimate 
 course. 
 
 Until the era of the American clipper-ship, west 
 ward transatlantic voyages were incredibly long. 
 In the North Atlantic the west wind never owes the 
 east wind anything, as the seamen express it, and a 
 ship bound for America usually encounters head 
 winds almost the entire distance. Furthermore, the 
 route from England to the New World was pain 
 fully circuitous. First the mariner steered south by 
 west to the Canaries, then west by south until he 
 guessed that he must be about five hundred leagues 
 out from Ferro; it could be little more than a guess, 
 for as yet there were no means of accurately deter 
 mining one s longitude upon the high seas. From 
 
 1 Gertrude Selwyn Kimball s Correspondence of William Pitt with Colonial 
 Governors, i, 218-220: Corbett s England in the Seven Tears War> i, 315. 
 
64 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 this uncertain point the prow was turned toward the 
 northwest with the hope of sighting the Bermudas 
 before many days. Such was the course of the 
 "Dublin," as through calms and storms she made 
 her tedious way across the ocean. 1 April came and 
 went, and yet no sign of land. On the I7th of May, 
 almost nine weeks after her departure from Ports 
 mouth, the man-of-war ran across a Virginia ship 
 bound for England. Amherst embraced the oppor 
 tunity to send a letter by her to Pitt. He lamented 
 the long delays and hoped to reach Halifax within a 
 day or two. His expectations were not fulfilled, 
 however, for contrary winds and the fogs which 
 abound off that coast, especially during the spring, 
 held him back for ten days more. Finally, on May 
 28, the long, low outline of Acadia came up over the 
 horizon and was silhouetted against the western 
 sky. 2 
 
 As the vessel drew nearer to the shore, Amherst 
 beheld a myriad of sails coming out of the harbor of 
 Halifax. It proved to be Boscawen with the fleet 
 and troops bound for Louisburg. The admiral had 
 had no easy crossing; indeed, Wolfe, who was a 
 notoriously poor sailor, maintained that "from Chris 
 topher Columbus time to our days" there had never 
 been "a more extraordinary voyage." 3 The long 
 passage, which was made by the same route pursued 
 by Amherst, consumed almost three months, and 
 
 1 Amberst to Pitt, May 17, 1758, Colonial Office Papers, A. and W. /., vol. 
 53, in the Public Record Office. 
 
 2 KimbalPs Pitt Correspondence, i, 271. 
 
 3 Willson s Wolfe, p. 363. 
 
WILLIAM PITT 65 
 
 Boscawen did not reach Halifax until the second 
 week in May. There he waited for the troops from 
 New York to appear. The latter arrived a few days 
 later, but when at last everything was ready for the 
 departure for Louisburg, contrary winds kept the 
 flotilla in port another week. 
 
 Thus it came about that when Boscawen, in order 
 to prevent further loss of time, was starting for Cape 
 Breton without the Commander-in-Chief, the "Dublin" 
 met the expedition at the entrance to the harbor of 
 Halifax. With business-like promptness Amherst im 
 mediately transferred himself and his belongings to 
 the flagship "Namur," and the fleet continued on its 
 way to the Dunkirk of America. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 LOUISBURG 
 
 iHE town and fortress of Louisburg were sit 
 uated on a tongue of land projecting from the 
 coast of Cape Breton Island. This peninsula 
 and a corresponding promontory to the northeast 
 narrow the entrance to a well-sheltered harbor, which 
 the French government chose for a naval base soon 
 after signing the Treaty of Utrecht. No expense 
 was spared in fortifying the place, and in 1745 Louis 
 burg was reckoned the second strongest citadel in 
 North America. Nevertheless, in that year the town 
 was captured by four thousand New Englanders 
 commanded by a Kittery merchant, William Pep- 
 perrell. Few disasters in the eighteenth century so 
 rankled in the hearts of Frenchmen as did this catas 
 trophe, and hence the restoration of Louisburg was 
 practically a sine qua non of the Treaty of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle. By that instrument the conquest of the 
 provincials was undone. The island fortress was 
 turned over to its founders and once more became a 
 menace to the indignant colonists. All these events 
 occurred while Amherst was an aide-de-camp to 
 Ligonier, and later to the Duke of Cumberland, in 
 the War of the Austrian Succession. 
 
 Since 1748, the stronghold on Cape Breton had 
 
LOUISBURG 67 
 
 assumed a much more formidable aspect. The town 
 of Louisburg now contained about four thousand 
 inhabitants. Its fortifications were more than a 
 mile and a half in length, and these, supplemented 
 by the Grand Battery opposite the mouth of the 
 harbor, and by the Island Battery which commanded 
 the entrance to the port, rendered the citadel the 
 strongest in French or British America. The town 
 itself was inconsequential, containing no public build 
 ings except a convent, a hospital, the King s store 
 houses and the governor s quarters. There were 
 perhaps a dozen private houses of stone in the place; 
 the rest of the dwellings were the humble wooden 
 abodes of fishermen. The military establishment, 
 however, was by no means so insignificant. The 
 garrison consisted of more than three thousand well- 
 disciplined troops, including two companies of artil 
 lery. In addition to these regular forces there was a 
 body of armed inhabitants in the town and a band 
 of Indians skulking outside. 1 Nor did Louisburg 
 lack protection from an attack by sea, as it had 
 in the siege of 1745. The harbor contained a fleet 
 of five ships-of-the-line and seven frigates carrying 
 about three thousand men. This meant a naval 
 strength of more than five hundred guns. 
 
 Although vast sums had been expended upon 
 strengthening the fortifications, they were not with 
 out their weaknesses. The masonry of the ramparts 
 was so poor, probably owing to the bad quality of 
 the mortar used, that in the cannonading of the next 
 
 1 Parkman s Montcalm and Wolfe, ii, 57. 
 
68 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 six weeks, it crumbled under the concussion of its 
 own guns. 1 In some places bundles of sticks were 
 substituted for the original construction, but all in 
 all Louisburg deserved to be called the Dunkirk of 
 America. On two sides the triangular promontory 
 was lapped by the water of the open sea, or of the 
 harbor; across the third side extended the strongest 
 front of the works, reinforced by four bastions, one 
 of which formed a part of the citadel. The greatest 
 strength of Louisburg was its rock-bound coast 
 stretching for miles in either direction, and only 
 occasionally relenting sufficiently to afford a landing- 
 place for friend or foe. Drucour, the governor of 
 the town, took precautions to have all these acces 
 sible points vigilantly guarded, and in this attitude 
 of defence he awaited the coming of the enemy. 
 
 The English flotilla of more than one hundred and 
 fifty ships, presenting a splendid spectacle as it 
 departed from Halifax on the morning of May 28, 
 1758, soon separated into several small squadrons, 
 with the men-of-war leading the procession towards 
 Cape Breton Island. 2 Fogs hid the ships at times, 
 but they managed to keep near enough together to 
 prevent many from being lost, and on the evening 
 of the fifth day, June i, General Amherst saw the 
 entrance to Gabarus Bay, a deep bight bounded on 
 the east by the promontory of Louisburg. The next 
 morning an impenetrable fog hung over the water 
 until noon, and then suddenly rose, disclosing a view 
 
 1 Fortescue s History of the British Army, ii, 321. 
 
 2 A Journal of the Siege and Surrender of Louisburg, etc. (Boston, 1758). 
 
LOUISBURG 69 
 
 of the town and of the ships in the harbor. 1 By this 
 time the British fleet had cast anchor in Gabarus 
 Bay. While waiting for the transports to come up, 
 for only one-third of them had arrived, Amherst 
 with two of his brigadiers, Wolfe and Lawrence, 
 reconnoitred the forbidding shore, and in the evening 
 searched out possible landing places. If the troops 
 arrived in time, an attempt to get a foothold on the 
 island would be made in the morning. Three spots 
 seemed practicable, although it was clear that the 
 French had thrown up works and had placed batter 
 ies to command these vulnerable points. 
 
 On the morning of June 3, most of the missing 
 transports came in, but in his plans for the day the 
 General had not taken the weather into account. 
 Landing on this rocky island was difficult under the 
 best conditions, and now it was rendered almost 
 impossible by "a very frightful surf," to use the words 
 of one observer. The ships rolled prodigiously; and, 
 to make matters worse, a dense fog settled down upon 
 water and shore. Disappointed in their original plan, 
 the men on the frigates amused themselves by return 
 ing the shots which the enemy, from their batteries, 
 directed towards the fleet. By way of experiment a 
 handful of soldiers landed under the fire of the frig 
 ates, and having succeeded in getting ashore, re 
 turned immediately to the ships. 2 The thing could 
 be done, but Amherst and Boscawen deemed any 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 271. 
 
 2 Journals of Captain John Montresor in the New York Historical Society s 
 Collections for 1881, p. 157. 
 
yo JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 serious attempt as yet unwise. The whole fleet lay 
 at anchor in the bay, while the frigates now and 
 then returned the insults of the enemy. From the 
 British decks the men could see great numbers of 
 Indians along the spray-drenched shore, then the 
 town with its pretentious fortifications, and beyond 
 the citadel, the ships in the harbor of Louisburg. 
 One of the enemy s small magazines blew up and 
 flared the news of its destruction through the fog; 
 otherwise the day passed uneventfully. 
 
 Every longshoreman of our northeast coast main 
 tains that "a fog will always kick up a sea" and no 
 other explanation is necessary to his a posteriori way 
 of reasoning. The true cause of the phenomenon 
 lies not in the fog, but in the dissipation of a well- 
 organized storm off the Banks, or to the southward. 
 When such an area of low pressure fills up and be 
 comes stationary, the neighboring coast is apt to get, 
 for days at a time, the roll which survived the dying 
 storm, and the fog which hovered over its watery 
 grave. Such seems to have been the meteorological 
 conditions off Cape Breton Island in the first week of 
 June, 1758. Day after day the fog-swathed ships 
 rolled and creaked at anchor in Gabarus Bay, while 
 the roar of the breakers along the rocky shore was in 
 cessant. Once the weather gave promise of a change 
 and Amherst hurried his men into the boats. Then 
 the fog came in again and the swell increased until 
 the Admiral discouraged further prosecution of the 
 attempt. In the meanwhile the Frenchmen were 
 busily reinforcing their works. Occasionally they 
 
LOUISBURG 71 
 
 cannonaded the ships, and any British boat that 
 attempted to reconnoitre was sure of a smart fire 
 from the enemy. 
 
 On the evening of the seventh there was every 
 indication of better weather, and Amherst gave 
 orders for a general landing to be made the next 
 morning at dawn, the disembarkation to be accom 
 plished in profound silence in order to surprise the 
 enemy. When Amherst, Wolfe, and Lawrence had 
 scrutinized the shore, almost a week before this 
 time, they had pitched upon three points where 
 attacks might be made with some hope of success. 
 These accessible places were two little bays in Fresh 
 water Cove, about four miles from Louisburg, and 
 an inlet sheltered by White Point which was much 
 nearer the fortifications of the town. Amherst deter 
 mined to divide the forces into three divisions and 
 to threaten all three places at once. One of his 
 brigadiers, Whitmore, was to proceed towards White 
 Point, while Wolfe and Lawrence made the real 
 attack and attempted to force a landing at Fresh 
 water Cove. At two o clock on the morning of June 
 8, the troops were in the boats. Some of the frig 
 ates edged in to attack the French entrenchments 
 and to cover the landing of the soldiers, and after 
 these had engaged the enemy for about a quarter 
 of an hour, the boats put off for the shore. 
 
 Wolfe s division, which contained a corps of marks 
 men and the New England rangers, had the shortest 
 course to land. The enemy aded wisely and re 
 served their fire until the invaders were almost in 
 
72 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 shore. Then from their entrenchments, artfully con 
 cealed by spruces and firs, came a deadly fire of 
 cannon and musketry. The flag-staff of Wolfe s 
 boat was snapped off by a swivel-shot, but to a man 
 of his spirit this was only part of the fun. When 
 things looked very black for the English, a boat 
 load of light infantry spied a rocky inlet which was 
 sheltered from the French artillery, and immediately 
 changed their course and made for this spot. The 
 officers leaped ashore and their men succeeded in 
 doing likewise, but the next boat was caught by the 
 breakers and crashed upon the rocks. Major Scott, 
 who commanded the light infantry, gained the land, 
 however, and scrambled up the crags with ten fol 
 lowers. There he came face to face with about 
 seventy Frenchmen and Indians. A desperate struggle 
 for a foothold ensued, in which three bullets were 
 shot through the gallant Major s clothes, and five of 
 his men were killed or wounded; but Scott stood his 
 ground with a resolution worthy of Snowdon s knight. 
 In the meantime Wolfe signalled to the rest of the 
 detachment to follow the light infantry and effedl 
 a landing in the rock-bound cove. Many of the 
 boats were staved upon the rocks, but the men 
 leaped into surf up to their waists, and waded to the 
 shore. Some poor wretches were caught by the 
 undertow and were sucked back into the breakers, 
 where they perished. Brigadier Wolfe was among 
 the first to jump from his boat, and armed with 
 only a cane was soon scaling the slippery rocks. 
 Forming the soldiers who followed him in this spec- 
 
LOUISBURG 73 
 
 tacular landing, the dashing commander charged the 
 nearest French battery and carried it with the bay 
 onet. After that the British were secure in their 
 position. 
 
 The other detachments, those under Lawrence and 
 Whitmore, which were to make a feint at landing 
 at other points along the coast, also succeeded in 
 their design. By rowing along the shore they diverted 
 the attention of the enemy from any one place until 
 Wolfe had made good his landing at Freshwater 
 Cove. Then they turned westward and disembarked 
 at a little beach, with very little opposition from the 
 distracfled French. 
 
 Now the enemy were attacked upon right and left 
 and there was danger of their being cut off from the 
 town. Amherst himself came ashore, while the boats 
 plied busily between the ships and the land, un 
 loading regiment after regiment upon the Island of 
 Cape Breton. The French were thoroughly terrified. 
 Abandoning their cannon, mortars, tools, stores, and 
 ammunition, they at first retreated, and then fled, in 
 the direction of Louisburg. Wolfe gave chase through 
 the rough growth, which to Amherst s European eyes 
 appeared to be the worst battle-ground he had ever 
 seen. 1 The pursuit ended with a cannonade from the 
 town, which was helpful rather than otherwise, as it 
 gave the General a clue to the enemy s range, and 
 thus determined to some extent the site for his camp. 
 
 The initial operations against Louisburg had been 
 decidedly successful. In the process of landing and 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 274. 
 
74 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 in the skirmish which followed, the British lost only 
 about one hundred men, killed and wounded. Al 
 though some were drowned in the surf, the very size 
 of the waves was a protection to the troops, for 
 many a well-directed ball failed of its mark owing to 
 the sudden rise or fall of the boats in the heavy 
 swell. 1 The French lost several men killed, and 
 seventy were taken prisoners. All things considered, 
 the issue of the morning of June 8 was thoroughly 
 satisfactory, and all had been accomplished before 
 half-past eight o clock. The rest of the day would 
 naturally have been devoted to landing tents and 
 provisions, guns and stores, but the fickle weather 
 turned against the English once more. The wind 
 increased, the waves mounted higher than ever, and 
 all communication with the fleet was cut off. With 
 out tents, and enjoying a very short allowance of 
 provisions, the soldiers were far from comfortable for 
 several days and nights. Meanwhile, Amherst, es 
 tablishing his camp just beyond range of the French 
 cannon, commenced the actual siege of Louisburg. 
 
 With such a disparity of numbers as the French 
 and British forces presented, there could be little 
 doubt as to the ultimate outcome of the investment. 
 Within the fortified town Drucour could count only 
 about four thousand fighting men, while the besieg 
 ing host numbered between eleven and twelve thou 
 sand, all except five hundred of whom were regulars. 
 From the decks of the twelve French ships of war at 
 
 1 Captain John Knox s Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North 
 America, i, 193. 
 
LOUISBURG 75 
 
 anchor in the harbor, the officers could see the Brit 
 ish armada of forty armed vessels of various de 
 scriptions, from the flagship "Namur," of ninety 
 guns, to the fireships "^Etna" and "Lightning," 
 carrying only eight guns each. A few days after the 
 landing of the English troops Sir Charles Hardy s 
 squadron, which had hovered off Cape Breton since 
 early spring, appeared in the bay and completed 
 Boscawen s fleet. 1 One of the newcomer s ships, the 
 "Captain," is of particular interest to us because it 
 was commanded by John Amherst, the General s 
 brother. Louisburg was an old story to John, for his 
 ship had been part of the ill-conducted expedition 
 under Lord Loudon and Admiral Holburne in the 
 previous autumn, when the fleet encountered a ter 
 rific storm in these very waters. 2 In the spring of 
 1758 the "Captain" had again come hither, this 
 time in Sir Charles Hardy s squadron, which was 
 intended to prevent the revicfhialing or reinforce 
 ment of the island garrison, and which now united 
 with the rest of the fleet to prosecute the siege of 
 Louisburg. 
 
 So long as any part of the army was tentless, 
 Amherst refused to proceed with his operations. On 
 the eleventh of June communication with the fleet 
 was easier and things began to straighten themselves 
 out. That evening the glare of flames to the north 
 east blazed out the news of an event as important 
 as it was unexpected: the enemy had abandoned the 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 282. 
 
 2 Robert Beatson s Naval and Military Memoirs, iii, 164. 
 
76 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 Grand Battery after setting fire to the buildings it 
 contained, and to the huts and fish-houses fringing 
 the water s edge. 1 This fortification stood on the 
 north shore of the harbor opposite the entrance, where 
 it could greet with a terrific front fire, any hostile 
 squadron trying to force its way in. Formidable as 
 it was to naval force, in case of land attack the post 
 was helpless. This had been conclusively proved in 
 1745 when it was deserted at the first approach of 
 the enterprising provincials, who, by the way, ef 
 fected their landing on the island at almost the same 
 spot where Wolfe and his companions were hurled 
 ashore by the breaking waves thirteen years later. 
 In the first siege of Louisburg the abandonment of 
 the Grand Battery had been the decisive event of 
 the campaign, 2 for thereby the New Englanders 
 gained possession of what they most lacked, artil 
 lery, competent to do the work before them. To 
 guard against a repetition of this blunder, Drucour 
 took care to destroy the fort and to mutilate or 
 carry away its equipment before Amherst forced his 
 hand. Against such odds discretion was the better 
 part of valor. The French governor called in his 
 outposts, and Louisburg, tortoise-like, retired into 
 its shell. 
 
 The destruction of the Grand Battery was Am- 
 herst s cue for an attack upon the fortified island in 
 the mouth of the harbor. When this and the French 
 fleet were disposed of, Boscawen might enter the land- 
 
 1 Parkman s Montcalm and Wolfe, ii, 64. 
 
 1 Parkman s Half-Century of Conflifl, ii, 102. 
 
LOUISBURG 77 
 
 locked haven with impunity and let loose his cannon 
 upon the unprotected town. With this object in 
 view, on the morning after the conflagration, Amherst 
 detached Brigadier Wolfe with twelve hundred men, 
 to skirt the water-front and seize Lighthouse Point 
 opposite Louisburg. This promontory corresponded 
 to that where the town stood and co-operated with it 
 in sheltering the harbor from the sweep of the open 
 sea. From shore to shore the distance here was 
 perhaps a mile, and in midstream lay the Island 
 Battery. Amherst gave his brigadier additional in 
 structions to attempt to destroy the enemy s ships 
 which were riding at anchor in the port. While 
 Wolfe circled the harbor by land, the General sent 
 artillery and tools by sea, to await the Brigadier at 
 Lorambec, a fishing village on the way to his des 
 tination. 
 
 The enterprise was eminently successful. Wolfe 
 reached Lighthouse Point that same day, and there 
 took possession of a battery recently abandoned by 
 the French. In the course of a week he planted guns 
 and mortars along the harborside as well as on Light 
 house Hill, and on the night of the nineteenth of 
 June the new posts opened fire on the French ships. 
 This was a reversal of Amherst s plan, but the Brig 
 adier had determined that the destruction of the men- 
 of-war should precede the suppression of the guns on 
 the island. 1 The enemy returned the compliment 
 from the squadron, from the Island Battery, and 
 even from the town. Des Gouttes, who commanded 
 
 1 Corbett s England in the Seven Tears War, i, 324. 
 
78 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 the fleet, realized his danger at once and retired the 
 ships as close as possible under the walls of the town. 
 To guard against fire, the decks were piled with 
 cordage and bales of tobacco, and Wolfe soon found 
 that he could make no impression in that quarter. 
 He then turned his attention to the rocky islet in 
 the harbor s mouth and cannonaded it with a right 
 good will. Day and night the bombardment con 
 tinued until the evening of the twenty-fifth, when 
 the British succeeded in silencing the shattered 
 Island Battery. Then leaving a few men at the 
 Point, with some ship-guns, to prevent the French 
 from repairing their demolished works and batteries, 
 Amherst s right-hand man rejoined the army in front 
 of the town. 
 
 While these brilliant events were taking place to 
 the eastward of Louisburg, General Amherst was 
 primarily occupied with landing provisions, stores, 
 and artillery, an undertaking of so great difficulty, 
 owing to the boisterous waves, that over one hun 
 dred boats were lost in its accomplishment. On the 
 eighteenth of June, in company with Colonel Bastide, 
 the General reconnoitred the ground between the 
 English camp and the town. The terrain was by no 
 means encouraging. Captain Knox, the soldier- 
 historian of the war, described it as "a vile country, 
 partly rough, but in general swampy." 1 The British 
 troops were encamped about two miles from the 
 fortress upon a wooded slope, down which flowed a 
 stream supplying them with good water. Between 
 
 1 Knox s Historical Journal, i, 193. 
 
LOUISBURG 79 
 
 this ground and the bastions of Louisburg there was 
 a wide marsh, which terminated in terra firma with 
 occasional hillocks, less than a half-mile from the 
 ramparts. Bastide, who was the chief engineer of 
 the expedition, declared that the trenches should be 
 opened on one of these knolls called Green Hill. 
 Before this could be done, however, a road must be 
 made across the swamp-land so that artillery and 
 stores could be forwarded without danger or delay. 
 Here, thirteen years before, Pepperrell s energetic 
 rustics watched one of their cannon sink to the hubs 
 of its wheels in the mud and moss, and finally drop 
 completely out of sight. 1 A piece of Yankee inge 
 nuity had saved the situation then, but Amherst with 
 unlimited means at his disposal determined to con- 
 stru<ft a road protected by an epaulment, or lateral 
 earthwork, which would shield the men from the 
 raking fire of the "Arethuse," a vexatious frigate in 
 the upper harbor. 
 
 The road to Green Hill was begun at once and 
 pushed on as fast as possible. On the first day four 
 hundred men toiled at the construction from four in 
 the morning until one in the afternoon, when they 
 were relieved by a party of equal number who con 
 tinued the work until ten o clock at night. The 
 long June days of this northern latitude were used 
 to their best advantage by the resolute General. 
 Now and then the enemy cannonaded the workmen 
 and the camp itself, but the progress towards Green 
 Hill went steadily and relentlessly on, until the eve- 
 
 1 Parkman s Half-Century of Conflift, ii, 105. 
 
80 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 ning of June 26 saw a British lodgment effected on 
 the appointed hillock. 1 
 
 Amherst s camp was not entirely free from mis 
 fortune, in spite of its commander s care and pre 
 caution. Among the provincials attached to the 
 expedition was a band of New England carpenters, 
 about one hundred in number, under the conduct 
 of Colonel Messerve of New Hampshire. While 
 this Yankee delegation was on its way to Louisburg 
 "one Eliot of hallifax [who] came with us was taken 
 with ye Smalpox." 2 As if this were not enough, 
 their ship lost the rest of the armada in the fog, and 
 when the weather cleared they "saw none of ye 
 fleet." The next day the captain "spoke with a 
 frigat and she said ye fleet had got in and we was 
 15 Leags Distance and Dam d us and then he left 
 us." Contagion plus anathema made short work of 
 the unfortunate carpenters. Within two weeks 
 after their landing on the island, all but sixteen of 
 the one hundred and eight men were stricken with 
 smallpox. Among those who succumbed to the 
 dread disease were the leader and his eldest son. 
 Colonel Messerve, though a shipwright by profession, 
 had acquired a handsome fortune and his death was 
 a great loss to New Hamphsire. 3 
 
 When Wolfe shattered the Island Battery, the 
 French governor very naturally expected that Bos- 
 cawen would follow up this advantage by a naval 
 
 1 Montresors Journals, p. 164. 
 
 2 Diary of Nathaniel Knap, in the Society of Colonial Wars in Massa 
 chusetts Publications, No. 2. 
 
 3 Jeremy Belknap s History of New Hampshire, ii, 301. 
 
LOUISBURG 81 
 
 attack upon the men-of-war in the harbor. To pre 
 vent such a calamity Drucour resorted to heroic 
 measures. On the evening of June 29, under cover 
 of the darkness and fog, the enemy sank four of 
 their ships in the mouth of the harbor. One of them 
 was the "Apollon," of fifty guns, while the others 
 were less of a sacrifice. 1 The haven was now con 
 sidered safe from any design which the English 
 admiral might have upon it, but as yet Boscawen 
 entertained no idea of threading the treacherous 
 channel in order to demolish his doomed opponent. 
 While Hardy s squadron patrolled the open sea about 
 the entrance to the harbor and picked off the enemy s 
 ships one by one, whenever they attempted to es 
 cape, "Old Wry-necked Dick," as Boscawen was 
 occasionally referred to by the seamen, converted his 
 sailors into marines, and lent Amherst several large 
 guns from the fleet to be used in the batteries. He 
 preferred to bombard the French ships from the 
 shore, and he did so most successfully. The co-op 
 eration and harmony between the Admiral and the 
 Major-General excited the admiration of all, includ 
 ing even the impatient and hypercritical Wolfe. 2 
 
 The siege progressed without any serious set-back. 
 On the night of the ninth of July the French rushed 
 forth in a desperate sortie from the town, and sur 
 prised some of the British; but it availed them little 
 in the end. The enemy s men were shamefully drunk 
 and when once routed fired upon each other, an error 
 whereby they lost more in killed and wounded than 
 
 1 Beatson s Memoirs, iii, 179. 2 Willson s Wolfe, p. 388. 
 
82 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 did the English. 1 Yet the hostilities were not with 
 out a gentler side. Drucour, for instance, wrote to 
 Amherst that Louisburg contained a surgeon of great 
 skill whom he would gladly lend to any English 
 officer who might require his services. On his side 
 the Briton allowed wounded prisoners to send mes 
 sages and letters through the lines to their beleaguered 
 friends. Upon another occasion the General expressed 
 his regret for the discomfort to which Madame Dru 
 cour was necessarily subjected by the vicissitudes of 
 war, and accompanied his words with some pine 
 apples from the West Indies. The lady recipro 
 cated by sending him fifty bottles of wine. Amherst 
 apparently approved of the exchange and it was not 
 long before he sent another instalment of fruit to the 
 governor s wife. This time Drucour gave the mes 
 senger two gold-pieces for conveying his acknowl 
 edgment to Amherst, but no wine, for he feared 
 that his cellar would soon be empty if such courtesies 
 continued. 2 More important were the tentative nego 
 tiations between the two commanders for the pro 
 tection of the sick and wounded. Drucour requested 
 that the French hospital be exempt from British 
 fire. Amherst replied that in the case of so small a 
 town he could scarcely guarantee that any part 
 would be free from shot and shell; but if the French 
 cared to remove their disabled to an island in the 
 harbor s mouth, or to a ship, he would gladly permit 
 them to do so. For some inscrutable reason the 
 
 1 Montresors Journals, p. 184: and Knox s Journal, i, 194. 
 
 2 Waddington s Guerre de Sept Ans, ii, 351. 
 
LOUISBURG 83 
 
 governor declined to avail himself of this privilege. 
 Wolfe was quite right in declaring, "When the French 
 are in a scrape, they are ready to cry out in behalf 
 of the human species; when fortune favours them, 
 none more bloody, more inhuman." 1 
 
 The British lines crept closer and closer to the 
 doomed fortress and their fire became proportionally 
 more deadly. At dusk on the sixteenth of July, 
 Wolfe made a sudden dash forward and seized a bit 
 of rising ground within three hundred yards of one 
 of the bastions of Louisburg. In vain the guns of 
 the town poured forth grape-shot upon the daring 
 invaders. With pick and spade the dirt flew all 
 night, and when morning came the English sappers 
 were still burrowing on towards the rampart. The 
 cannonading and firing of musketry grew hotter and 
 hotter on both sides. Amherst was indefatigable. 
 Visiting the outposts and the batteries every day, 
 he was constantly reconnoitering to discover some 
 new point from which to assail the enemy and accel 
 erate the siege. 2 
 
 The twenty-first of July was an eventful day. In 
 the afternoon one of Wolfe s shells dropped on the 
 poop of the "Celebre." 3 With a deafening roar her 
 magazine exploded, and soon the ship was in flames. 
 The fire spread to the sails; ablaze she drifted from 
 
 1 Willson s Wolfe, p. 379. 2 Knox s Journal, i, 195. 
 
 8 Montresor s Journals pp. 170, 185. Of this incident Knap s Journal 
 gives an account, as vivid as it is illiterate. "General Wolfe hove a Shell on 
 board one of ye Men of war and blew her up and Ketcht on fire and she 
 Ketcht 2 more on fire and they were burnt Down. By night there was but 
 2 ships Left in ye harbour and there was 12 or 14 when we Came in." 
 
84 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 her moorings while the English concentrated their 
 shot and shell upon the helpless man-of-war to pre 
 vent the boats and towns-people from going to her 
 rescue. Soon two more ships were on fire, for the 
 flames from the "Celebre" spread to the canvas of 
 her sisters the "Entreprenant" and the "Capricieux." 
 The cables of the menacing craft were speedily cut 
 and the vessels drifted listlessly into the upper har 
 bor. There the blazing trio ran aground and burned 
 to the water s edge. Of the French squadron only 
 two ships, the "Prudent" and the " Bienfaisant," 
 remained to bid defiance to the oncoming English. 
 
 The siege now rushed towards its inevitable con 
 clusion. Event followed event in such close sequence 
 that the besieged were frantic with apprehension. 
 On the morning after the burning of the ships, the 
 English dropped a shell into the citadel of Louisburg. 
 Crashing through the roof, the missile plunged into 
 a room full of soldiers, and exploded in their midst. 
 At once that part of the building which was of wood 
 burst into flames: the fire spread rapidly, consuming 
 the chapel and all the northern part of the citadel. 
 Soldiers and sailors hurried to the spot to put out the 
 conflagration, but the British showered missiles re 
 lentlessly in that direction. Sheets of flame and 
 clouds of smoke swept towards a wooden barrier 
 which shielded the casemates under the ramparts 
 from exploding shells. If this took fire, the wounded 
 soldiers and non-combatants who had taken refuge 
 in the subterranean chambers would be in danger of 
 suffocation. Those who had legs used them, and 
 
LOUISBURG 85 
 
 rushed forth into the chaos of flames and flying iron, 
 the women and children shrieking with terror. 1 The 
 enemy put up a gallant fight, nevertheless. They 
 fired well from the town, throwing shells into the 
 English works and dismounting at least two guns. 2 
 One of their shot went into the muzzle of a British 
 twenty-four pounder and stuck there as if purposely 
 rammed in. Amherst s batteries were more de 
 structive than those of the French, however, and once, 
 while the enemy were firing "all sorts of old iron and 
 any stuff they could pick up," the British hurled a 
 shell filled with combustibles into a range of barracks 
 in the town. The building was a flimsy affair and 
 burned like tinder. Realizing its nature, the French 
 garrison had vacated it, and were now lying in the 
 streets, or in any place which offered protection 
 from the rain of bombs with which Wolfe pelted 
 them. Their evacuation took place none too soon, 
 for now night was turned into day by the glare of 
 the crackling conflagration. Mortars roared, cannon- 
 balls screamed through the air, and the snapping of 
 musketry from the ramparts was continuous. 
 
 At last the enemy s fire grew daily weaker; and 
 well it might, for almost one-fourth of the besieged 
 were in the hospitals. The rest, wellnigh exhausted, 
 continued the hopeless defence. On the twenty- 
 fourth there were only four cannon in commission 
 on the west wall of the town, and the French de 
 pended chiefly upon small arms which they used 
 through the embrasures, while the English continued 
 
 1 Montresors Journals, p. 171. 2 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 305. 
 
86 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 their bombardment without ceasing. The condi 
 tion of Louisburg was pitiable. Each cannon-shot 
 from the British batteries shook its ruinous walls 
 and brought down great masses of the tottering 
 structures. 1 Shot and shell poured in upon every 
 part of the town, and whenever a few brave spirits 
 endeavored to return the fire from their remaining 
 guns, they were beaten back by a deluge of bullets 
 from the British musketry, which had now pressed 
 close upon the ramparts. But one event remained 
 to complete the downfall of the Dunkirk of America. 
 This was the capture or destruction of the two sur 
 viving men-of-war which lay huddled together under 
 the French batteries on the harbor side of the town. 
 Just before daybreak on July 26, Admiral Bos- 
 cawen sent a flotilla manned by six hundred sailors 
 to take or burn the " Prudent " and the "Bienfai- 
 sant." The harbor was enshrouded in a dense fog, 
 and as the boats pushed softly from shore, Amherst 
 opened fire upon the works from every battery, in 
 order to distract the attention of the enemy. The 
 French men-of-war were completely surprised, and 
 surrendered with scarcely a blow. The tide being 
 low, the "Prudent" was aground. Allowing her 
 crew to escape to the shore in boats, the boarders 
 set the ship on fire. While she burned at anchor, 
 making the foggy night hideous with flaring light, 
 Boscawen s men turned their attention to the "Bien- 
 faisant." This vessel was afloat and fell an easy 
 prey to her bold assailants. The English towed their 
 
 1 Journal of Cbevalicr de Johnstone. 
 
LOUISBURG 87 
 
 prize safely from her moorings to the northeast arm 
 of the harbor, in spite of a concentrated fire directed 
 upon them from all the available cannon and mus 
 ketry of the enemy. It was a gallant action and 
 cost the performers but seven men killed and nine 
 wounded. 1 
 
 The loss of the ships was the final blow to the spirit 
 of resistance, for the water-front, protected by a mere 
 wall, was now open to escalade or to a cannonade, if 
 Boscawen saw fit to enter the harbor. The Admiral 
 had precisely that operation in mind, but upon going 
 on shore to tell Amherst of his intentions, he found the 
 general reading a letter from the governor of Louisburg. 
 At ten o clock that July morning a white flag had 
 appeared over the breach in one of the bastions, and 
 an officer came to the British camp with an offer to 
 capitulate. Drucour demanded the same terms which 
 the valiant Blakeney had received at Minorca two 
 years before. This meant freedom and all the hon 
 ors of war for the garrison. Amherst s reply was 
 short and to the point. The French troops must 
 surrender as prisoners of war within an hour; other 
 wise the place would be attacked by land and sea. 
 Another officer emerged from the ruined town and 
 pleaded for more lenient terms, but Amherst and 
 Boscawen would not talk with him. To the gover 
 nor they sent a repetition of their demands and 
 requested a reply within thirty minutes. Drucour s 
 second answer was a flat refusal; but the bearer of 
 the note had scarcely got beyond the fortifications, 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 308. 
 
88 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 when a third messenger overtook him and called him 
 back. One of the civil authorities of Louisburg, 
 upon hearing of the governor s reply, had protested 
 that such an attitude was eminently proper from a 
 military point of view, but that Drucour could not 
 have taken into consideration the sufferings of the 
 four thousand inhabitants, and of the ten or twelve 
 hundred sick in the hospitals, which further resis 
 tance must entail. This argument appealed to the gu 
 bernatorial mind, and in place of the note of refusal 
 Drucour sent out three officers with instructions to 
 accept the terms imposed by Amherst. One of these 
 bearers of good tidings, afraid that the patience of 
 the English would be exhausted before he reached 
 their camp, ran out of the town, waving his arms 
 about, and bawled out from afar, "We accept! We 
 accept!" 
 
 At eleven o clock that night the negotiators re 
 turned to Louisburg with the articles of capitulation, 
 accompanied by a note from Amherst and Bos- 
 cawen assuring their defeated opponent that they had 
 no intention of distressing the unfortunate inhabi 
 tants of the town, but would do all in their power to 
 aid them. The terms of surrender were as follows: 
 the garrison should be sent to England in English 
 ships, as prisoners of war; all artillery, arms, ammu 
 nition, and provisions in Louisburg and the islands 
 of Cape Breton and St. John (now Prince Edward 
 Island) should be given up intact; the gate called 
 the Porte Dauphine should be surrendered to the 
 British troops the next morning at eight o clock, and 
 
LOUISBURG 89 
 
 the garrison should lay down their colors and arms 
 on the esplanade at noon. 1 One cannot help wonder 
 ing whether Amherst, as he put down his pen, re 
 called that just one year ago that day the forces under 
 the Duke of Cumberland went down to defeat before 
 the French at the battle of Hastenbeck. 
 
 The French governor signed the capitulation at 
 midnight. Before noon of the twenty-seventh three 
 companies of grenadiers marched through the west 
 gate of the town. Soon the Union jack was float 
 ing over the citadel and the vanquished garrison, 
 drawn up on parade, laid down their arms. Over 
 fifty-five hundred officers, soldiers, and sailors were 
 taken prisoners of war, while the amount of artillery, 
 arms, ammunition, and stores which fell into the 
 hands of the victors is astonishing. All that after 
 noon a long line of wagons streamed in and out of 
 Louisburg, hauling away the guns and stores, over 
 which sentries kept guard to see that nothing was 
 carried elsewhere than to the King s depot. There 
 were eighteen mortars and two hundred and twenty- 
 one cannon, besides seventy-five hundred muskets 
 with eighty thousand cartridges. 
 
 Louisburg had fallen and with it the islands of 
 Cape Breton and St. John. The key to the St. 
 Lawrence had been wrested from the enemy, and 
 the conqueror hastened to send the glad news to 
 England. As bearer of the tidings he selected his 
 younger brother, William, who had been with the 
 army as Amherst s aide-de-camp, while Boscawen 
 
 1 Beatson s Memoirs, iii, 178. 
 
90 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 appointed one Captain Edgecomb to represent the 
 navy in this happy mission. The elements which 
 had conspired to delay the expedition coming out 
 from England now did their best to speed the good 
 word across the water. Captain Amherst and his 
 naval companion sailed on the evening of July 30; 1 
 in less than three weeks they set England on fire 
 with the joyful tidings. 2 Congratulations poured in 
 from all sides. Lady Yarmouth effusively hoped 
 that the victory would bring about a glorious peace. 
 Horace Walpole shared her sentiments. 3 The Arch 
 bishop offered thanksgiving, while the more worldly 
 Chesterfield declared that the country had been 
 greatly in want of a cordial and here was one. 4 Lord 
 Temple, Pitt s brother-in-law, was intoxicated with 
 joy. In writing his "hundred thousand million of 
 congratulations" to the War Minister "upon this 
 great and glorious event," Temple addressed him 
 "my dear brother Louisburg." 5 To understand the 
 storm of enthusiasm which swept over England, one 
 must realize that Amherst s feat was the first victory 
 in a war that had been dragging on for two dis 
 couraging years. 
 
 George II, like his subjects, was carried away by 
 the joyous news. He insisted upon giving each of 
 the messengers a present of 500, and a further sum 
 to be devoted to the purchase of a sword and a 
 ring. 6 It was not long before William Amherst, who 
 
 1 Montresor s Journals, p. 173. 2 Grenville Papers, i, 258. 
 
 8 Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, Aug. 24, 1758. 
 4 Torrens History of Cabinets, ii, 471. 6 Von Ruville s Pitt, ii, 214. 
 
 6 Gentleman s Magazine, xxviii, 448 (Sept., 1758). 
 
LOUISBURG 91 
 
 was only twenty-six years old, was still further re 
 warded by being made deputy quarter-master-general 
 of the forces in North America with the rank of 
 lieutenant-colonel. 1 
 
 The arrival of the French colors taken at Louis- 
 burg occasioned a great demonstration in the metrop 
 olis. First the trophies were carried to the palace 
 at Kensington, whereupon the King ordered that 
 they should be deposited in St. Paul s, which was 
 done with great pomp and circumstance. A gor 
 geous procession of cavalry and foot escorted the 
 eleven standards from Hyde Park to the west gate 
 of the cathedral amidst the blare of trumpets and 
 the roar of kettle-drums. While the guns at the 
 Tower and in St. James s Park boomed over London, 
 the dean and chapter, attended by the choir, re 
 ceived the Gallic emblems and hung them in a con 
 spicuous place as a lasting memorial to the success 
 of his Majesty s arms in the reduction of Louisburg. 2 
 
 The celebration of Amherst s victory was by no 
 means confined to the Old World. To the Ameri 
 can colonists, and to the men of New England in 
 particular, the stronghold on Cape Breton Island 
 had been doubly the Dunkirk of America, for the 
 place was famous as a resort of privateers, 3 Jean 
 Bart and his followers never worried the English 
 seamen of the Channel more than the marauders of 
 Louisburg troubled our sea-going ancestors. When 
 
 1 Ibid., xxviii, 504 (Odl., 1758). 
 
 2 London Magazine, Vol. xxvii, p. 480 (Oft., 1758). 
 
 3 Parkman s Half-Century of Confiift, i, 188. 
 
92 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 the good news arrived from the eastward, sermons 
 of thanksgiving were preached in almost every New 
 England meeting-house, while the seaport towns were 
 still more demonstrative. The jubilant Bostonians 
 piled a great bonfire on the top of Fort Hill and let 
 its light shine out over harbor and country-side to 
 the glory of Amherst and his brave soldiers. New 
 port indulged in fire-works and a general illumina 
 tion. The ringing of bells and the discharge of guns 
 expressed Philadelphia s joy, while New York cele 
 brated the occasion with a grand official dinner, where 
 each toast was announced to the town by the can 
 non at Fort George. 1 By the end of August the good 
 news had penetrated to the British camp at Lake 
 George where timid Abercromby had settled down 
 after one defeat at the hands of Montcalm. The 
 dispirited army rose to the occasion with enthusiasm, 
 and fired three rounds of artillery and small arms for 
 the taking of Louisburg. 
 
 Nor did the rejoicing cease with bonfires and pyro 
 technics, salutes and banquets. Some individuals 
 more venturesome than the rest attempted to give 
 vent to their exultation in verse. The results, as 
 usual in such cases, were hardly subjects for con 
 gratulation, but one rhyme is perhaps less pitiful 
 than the rest. This 2 was written on board the "Ox 
 ford," in Louisburg Harbor soon after the surrender. 
 Its author, Valentine Nevill, is otherwise unknown 
 
 1 Parkman s Montcalm and Wolfe, ii, 80. 
 
 1 Nevill s The Reduttion of Louisburg. There is a copy of this " poem" in 
 the John Carter Brown Library at Providence. 
 
LOUISBURG 93 
 
 to fame, but his characterization and appreciation of 
 Amherst may appropriately close this chapter of the 
 General s career: 
 
 "Calm and composed amid the hostile Scene, 
 
 Judicious, steady, template, and serene, 
 
 Prudently bold, considerate and good, 
 
 Resolvd, and yet not prodigal of Blood, 
 
 Thy Virtues, Amherst, cannot be unsung, 
 
 While Virtue s Praise employs the Poet s tongue" 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 
 
 ACCORDING to Pitt s plan for the campaign 
 of 1758 the capture of Louisburg was to be 
 but the prelude to an attack upon Quebec 
 itself. If the season were too far gone after the 
 first stronghold fell, the commanders were to turn 
 their hands to the destruction of the French settle 
 ments along the Canadian coast and in southern 
 Louisiana. 1 The Louisburg expedition arrived at the 
 Island of Cape Breton seven weeks after schedule 
 time; the siege consumed seven weeks; yet Amherst 
 concluded his letter to Pitt, announcing his victory, 
 with this sentence: "If I can go to Quebec, I will." 2 
 Four days later news arrived, so disturbing in its 
 character that it was one of the strongest factors in 
 the determination of plans for the rest of the sum 
 mer. The unwelcome report came from Lake George, 
 where a British army of more than fifteen thousand 
 men had gone down to defeat before Montcalm. 
 
 The irruption into Canada by the way of the lakes 
 of northern New York was assigned to General 
 Abercromby, the commander-in-chief of his Majesty s 
 forces in North America. In July there were six 
 
 1 Corbett s England in the Seven Years War, i, 307. 
 
 2 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 307. 
 
BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 95 
 
 thousand regulars and about nine thousand provin 
 cials under his orders at the southern end of Lake 
 George. Although nominally the commander, Aber- 
 cromby lacked the qualities of a leader, and Pitt, 
 knowing this to be the case, appointed Brigadier 
 Lord Howe to be second in command. The latter 
 was beloved by every man in the army and was one 
 of the few British officers to win the good-will of 
 the colonial soldiers. An engaging personality was 
 not his only remarkable quality. The young noble 
 man, who was in his thirty-fourth year, possessed an 
 exceptional amount of good sense, and was ever 
 ready to break through the traditions of the service 
 when wilderness conditions required tactics differing 
 from those employed in European warfare. His 
 men were equipped for efficiency rather than for 
 show. They cut their hair close, and the tails of 
 their gorgeous coats were amputated at the waist. 
 Wolfe startles one with the statement that his Lord 
 ship "has taken away all the men s breeches," 1 
 without explaining that he substituted leggings to 
 protect their limbs from the briery undergrowth of 
 the forest. The musket-barrels were browned to 
 render them inconspicuous, and every man carried 
 in his knapsack thirty pounds of meal, which made 
 him independent of supply-trains for a month. Be 
 fore such numbers and such an efficiently equipped 
 force, the French might well tremble for their posts, 
 Ticonderoga and Crown Point, at the head of Lake 
 
 1 Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts Ninth Report, Appendix 
 iii, p. 756. 
 
96 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 Champlain. In fact they did. Montcalm had only 
 about thirty-five hundred men to pit against the in 
 vading host, but good luck, supplemented by admi 
 rable skill, triumphed over the disparity in numbers. 
 
 Early in July Abercromby embarked his forces 
 upon Lake George and started on his way to attempt 
 the capture of Ticonderoga. Landing at the north 
 ern end of the lake, where its spectacular shores 
 converge until there is scarcely room for the rushing 
 outlet which dances on its way to the water of 
 Champlain, the army started through the forest 
 primeval. The growth was dense from the first, 
 and before long became almost impenetrable; but 
 the troops struggled on until even the guides were 
 at a loss where to turn. One or two provincial 
 regiments preceded the main parts of the army, 
 and in their progress through the leafy wilderness 
 must have got too far in advance before they real 
 ized it. The principal column was headed by Lord 
 Howe with Major Israel Putnam and two hundred 
 rangers. Bending aside saplings and climbing over 
 fallen giants of the forest, the soldiers tramped 
 towards the French fort at Ticonderoga. Suddenly 
 in a dense thicket they heard a challenge: Qui vive! 
 The cry was a desperate one, for it came from a party 
 of three hundred and fifty Frenchmen who were 
 caught between the advanced guard and the main 
 body of the British army. The enemy fired from 
 the underbrush. Putnam and the rangers recipro 
 cated in kind. A brisk skirmish ensued, and 
 Lord Howe fell dead with a bullet in his breast. 
 
BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 97 
 
 The fighting continued until the small band of the 
 enemy was destroyed almost to a man, but the 
 outcome of the campaign had been practically deter 
 mined when the brave and noble Howe dropped on 
 the soft ground of the virgin forest. Upon his fol 
 lowers the effect of his death was immeasurable. 
 Well might Abercromby have said, "0 what a fall 
 was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and 
 all of us fell down," for with the death of Howe the 
 soul of the army expired. The hero s body was 
 carried back to Albany, 1 where it rests under the ves 
 tibule of St. Peter s Church, although the visitor to 
 Ticonderoga is usually led to believe that the noble 
 man s ashes are there. 
 
 Although the destructive party of Frenchmen were 
 effectually disposed of, Abercromby shared the con 
 sternation of his troops and hastened to leave the 
 spot where his gallant second had fallen. Retracing 
 its steps, the dispirited army again came in sight of 
 the shimmering surface of Lake George. In the 
 meantime Montcalm had retreated to Ticonderoga 
 and awaited the approach of the British. About a 
 half-mile from the enemy s forts an elevated ridge 
 offered great natural advantages to the French posi 
 tion if the commander saw fit to avail himself of 
 them. Montcalm was ever awake to his opportun 
 ities and at the eleventh hour his men constructed 
 along this axis a staunch wall of timber felled upon 
 the spot. The logs were piled upon each other to a 
 height of eight or nine feet, forming a complete shelter 
 
 1 Boston Gazette, July 17, 1758. 
 
98 JEFFERT AMHERSr 
 
 for the French soldiers. This protection was still fur 
 ther secured by a most ingenious abattis. The 
 ground in front of the crude breastwork sloped away, 
 and over that area, to the distance of a musket-shot, 
 the enemy cut down trees in such manner that they 
 lay with their tops towards the British, offering many 
 a sharpened branch upon which a valiant soldier 
 might be torn or impaled. As one Massachusetts 
 officer said, it looked like a forest uprooted by a 
 hurricane. 1 Montcalm had now done all he could, 
 and he awaited developments in no easy frame of 
 mind. If attacked in front he might hold his posi 
 tion, otherwise the danger would be extreme. 
 
 On the eighth of July Abercromby took his engi 
 neer s advice and attempted a front attack upon the 
 cruel works of the enemy. This step was very Un 
 wise, the more so because it was undertaken without 
 waiting for the artillery to come up. The result was 
 a disaster second only to that in which Braddock 
 had met his death just three years before. Whoever 
 knows the joys of tramping across newly tim 
 bered land may appreciate to some extent the diffi 
 culty of advancing upon the enemy s works through 
 an artificial barrier of felled trees. The English 
 soldiers were ordered to carry the lines with the 
 bayonet. They struggled across the abattis, now fall 
 ing helpless, caught between the interlacing branches, 
 now stumbling over logs, only to be swept at last by a 
 killing fire of grape-shot and musket-balls. The 
 ranks were broken, but more by the obstructions 
 
 1 Parkman s Montcalm and Wolfe y ii, 105. 
 
BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 99 
 
 which impeded their progress than by the fire of the 
 French soldiers. The valor and impetuosity of the 
 regulars and provincials, battling against an enemy 
 whom they could neither reach nor see, were tragic. 
 Within a few feet of the wooden wall they were con 
 fronted with a more elaborate and deadly array of 
 sharpened branches than that which they had suc 
 ceeded in traversing. The French played upon them 
 with a cross-fire here, and many a brave soldier, 
 falling, was transfixed upon the jagged limbs. 
 
 Again and again the attack was renewed that hot 
 July afternoon, but all in vain. Once a gallant 
 Scotch captain tore his way through the abattis and 
 with a few of his men climbed the breastwork, only 
 to be bayonetted by the enemy. Until sunset the 
 fighting continued, but the last hour and a half of 
 battle was merely an attempt on the part of the pro 
 vincials to cover the disorderly retreat of the regulars 
 and to protect their comrades who were collecting 
 and removing the wounded. The dead were left 
 where they had fallen, and the British forces hur 
 riedly retreated to the head of Lake George. In 
 the profitless slaughter the English had lost almost 
 two thousand officers and men, while Montcalm s 
 well-protected defenders of Ticonderoga were lessened 
 by only about three hundred and twenty-five. This 
 was the disheartening story which Abercromby re 
 lated in his despatches to Amherst. 
 
 Upon the receipt of the bad news Amherst went 
 immediately to Boscawen and discussed the situation. 
 Should reinforcements be sent to Lake George at 
 
ioo JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 once? The Admiral did not see how that could be 
 done until the prisoners who had been taken at 
 Louisburg were actually on shipboard, and on their 
 way to England. The embarkation consumed a 
 great deal of time because of frequent spells of foggy 
 weather, but at last, on the fourteenth of August, 
 the five thousand Frenchmen were all crowded into 
 five men-of-war and ten transports. 1 Next morning 
 the squadron of prison-ships, under the command of 
 Captain Rodney, crept out of the harbor and started 
 on its four weeks voyage. In the meantime Wolfe 
 had grown restless. Daily he besieged his chief with 
 questions about the next operations. It was clear 
 that he keenly desired to start at once for Quebec 
 and had no doubt that such an attack would be 
 successful. 2 Amherst also wished to enter the St. 
 Lawrence and make an attempt upon the capital of 
 New France, but Boscawen was less enthusiastic 
 about the project. The fleet wanted provisions, and 
 the ships had suffered so much damage from the 
 waves in Gabarus Bay that he considered an expedi 
 tion up the river impracticable. Still Amherst hoped 
 to carry out the original plan. Then came Aber- 
 cromby s letter. The Admiral and the General pon 
 dered the question for almost a week, and, on the 
 sixth of August, came to the conclusion that the 
 Quebec enterprise must be abandoned. 3 When Am 
 herst broke this news to Wolfe, the latter showed his 
 disappointment in a petulant reply, demanding that 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 314. 2 Willson s Wolff, p. 385. 
 
 3 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 313. 
 
BETWEEN TWO 
 
 reinforcements be sent to Abercromby immediately. 
 He would gladly have picked up four or five battal 
 ions and started at once for Boston or New York, 
 but this being out of the question for the present, 
 the disgruntled Brigadier expended his energy in 
 complaining that "This damned French garrison 
 take up our time and attention which might be better 
 bestowed upon the interesting affairs of the conti 
 
 nent/ 1 
 
 When the impracticability of attacking Quebec was 
 certain, Amherst lost no time in putting into execu 
 tion his alternative instructions, to destroy the 
 French settlements along the Canadian coast. On 
 the very next day Major Dalling was dispatched to 
 Espagnolle, now Sydney, C. B., with orders to bring 
 away all the French inhabitants able to carry arms; 
 and ere long Colonel Rollo with five hundred men 
 departed for Prince Edward Island, upon an equally 
 grim mission. Towards the end of the month Am 
 herst ordered another detachment under Colonel 
 Monckton to proceed to the shores of the Bay of 
 Fundy and the mouth of the St. John River "to de 
 stroy the vermin who are settled there/ Finally a 
 fourth expedition was organized and sent against the 
 inhabitants of the western coast of the Gulf of St. 
 Lawrence. This part of the program was assigned 
 to Wolfe, who owned that he would be pleased "to 
 see the Canadian vermin sacked and pillaged and 
 justly repaid their unheard-of cruelty." 1 All these 
 operations, although seemingly unnecessary and cruel, 
 
 1 Willson s Wolfe, p. 389. 
 
LQ2 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 were in fad entirely justifiable, for Quebec was chiefly 
 supplied with provisions by these settlements. Prince 
 Edward Island, or as we should more properly call 
 it, lie St. Jean, abounded in corn and cattle and had 
 no other market than the capital of New France. 1 
 By destroying these supplies and removing the in 
 habitants who provided them, an important step 
 towards the conquest of Quebec would be accom 
 plished. England had experimented with French 
 Canadian "neutrals" long enough to know that such 
 phenomena could never exist; and, that being the 
 case, these unfortunate beings must be removed 
 from the field of military operations. 
 
 Lord Rollo found the governor of Prince Edward 
 Island somewhat reluctant to consider himself bound 
 by the capitulation of Louisburg, but a slight display 
 of force quickly reduced him to submission. The 
 British captured as many of the inhabitants as pos 
 sible and sent them off to France. Few of the 
 wretched exiles, however, were destined to see the 
 shores of the Old World, for the vessels upon which 
 they embarked proved unseaworthy, and hundreds 
 of men and women were shipwrecked and drowned 
 on the voyage. 2 If Lord Rollo had any misgivings 
 about the justice of this deportation, his conscience 
 was relieved by the discovery of several of his country 
 men s scalps adorning the interior of the gubernato 
 rial residence. These ghastly trophies betokened the 
 zeal of parties of fugitive Acadians who had eked 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 350. 
 
 1 Beatson s Memoirs, iii, 181; Casgrain s Une Seconde Acadie, pp. 352-353- 
 
BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 103 
 
 out a living in their new surroundings by scalping 
 Englishmen and carrying the results of their labors 
 to the governor for a bounty. The removal of the 
 inhabitants of Prince Edward Island, effected at this 
 time, accounts for the comparative absence of French 
 Canadians noticeable in that region to-day; for those 
 who escaped the clutches of the British fled to Que 
 bec, and the island became a wilderness once more. 
 
 The other ravaging expeditions were equally suc 
 cessful, although the conquerors were occasionally 
 embarrassed by rinding a number of Germans among 
 their captives. These people had wandered from a 
 colony founded in Acadia by the English five or ten 
 years before, and Amherst decreed that they should 
 be left unmolested, or else sent back to Lunenburg 
 in Nova Scotia. 1 
 
 Wolfe s excursion resulted in the temporary ruin 
 of the enemy s fisheries on the west shore of the Gulf 
 of St. Lawrence, upon which the Canadian and 
 French troops were in a great measure dependent 
 for subsistence. The quiet fisher-folk were not ex 
 pecting the descent of the British with fire and sword 
 and consequently there was no opposition. Gaspe, 
 the first place attacked, was easily disposed of. The 
 terrified habitants left their houses and rushed to the 
 woods, while the invaders completely destroyed their 
 settlement. A few of the miserable people escaped 
 to Quebec, some were captured in the forest, while 
 others were gradually driven from their hiding-places 
 by starvation and gave themselves up. At every 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 312. 
 
104 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 wretched hamlet along that shore the same desolat 
 ing operations were carried on. Houses and shallops, 
 stages and nets, magazines and stores were burned. 
 All the schooners and dried fish, and every bit of 
 property, combustible or not, were consigned to the 
 flames or were otherwise destroyed. Wolfe hustled 
 the habitants on board the British ships; but some 
 of those who commanded minor excursions were not 
 so careful, and the ruined Canadians were left to 
 face the approaching winter without food or shelter. 
 It is a depressing picture; let us hope that Wolfe 
 did not find so much pleasure in the deed as in its 
 anticipation. These depredations occupied his rest 
 less spirit throughout September. Then returning to 
 Louisburg, the Brigadier carried out his intention of 
 leaving America, supposedly forever, and sailed for 
 England with Boscawen on the first day of October. 
 The future hero of the Plains of Abraham had 
 acquitted himself well in the conquest of Louisburg, 
 and Amherst must have appreciated how much he 
 owed to the valor and inspiring leadership of his 
 first Brigadier; but on the other hand the General s 
 patience and good-nature had been put to a great 
 test by this mercurial James Wolfe. Although the 
 two men were never to meet again, it may be worth 
 our while to study the personality and character of 
 each as displayed in the recent campaign. Amherst, 
 a mature soldier of forty-one years, was methodical 
 almost to excess. Without an assuredly sufficient 
 number of men and a well-established base, he would 
 never make the slightest move. When everything 
 
BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 105 
 
 was arranged to his liking, he advanced, and never 
 failed in carrying his plan into execution. He never 
 hurried, and was so thorough that he never left 
 dangling any loose ends of which the enemy might 
 take advantage. Hence his operations were rarely 
 spectacular, and never designedly so. To Amherst a 
 campaign was to be played like a game of chess, and 
 he never failed to checkmate his opponent. Noth 
 ing ruffled him, not even the officious suggestions and 
 petulant outbursts of his right-hand man. His good 
 nature was as remarkable as his deliberation. 
 
 In contrast to the serene General we have almost 
 his antithesis in Wolfe. Every American is familiar 
 with that strange and unmistakable profile. The 
 tip of his long and slightly upturned nose was the 
 apex of a triangle formed by a sloping forehead and 
 a receding chin. His physique was no more prepos 
 sessing: his body was slender, his shoulders narrow, 
 and his limbs long and thin. The caricature cul 
 minated in his red hair which he wore tied in a queue 
 behind. The eye and the mouth alone were true 
 indexes to his character. The one was bright and 
 alert, the other beautiful and resolute. Although a 
 young man of thirty-one, Wolfe was almost an invalid, 
 presumably a victim of tuberculosis aggravated by 
 over-wrought nerves; but as a soldier, he was match 
 less for spirit or enterprise. No undertaking was too 
 dangerous, no fire too hot. He enjoyed the battle 
 for the battle s sake and never considered his own 
 safety. What he could not endure was inaction. 
 Yet inadion was sometimes imperative. When this 
 
io6 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 was the case, Wolfe became restive, then critical, 
 then officious. His superior found him invaluable 
 when a position was to be seized or lines were to be 
 carried; but in the tedious, yet necessary, interim 
 he was a thorn in the flesh. He had no patience for 
 the infinite amount of detail which, if neglected, 
 might spell ruin for a campaign. Wolfe wanted the 
 dash, the charge, and the escalade, in any of which 
 he was undeniably brilliant. Before Louisburg we 
 have watched him leap into the breakers on the day 
 of the landing, we have heard his guns from Light 
 house Point shattering the Island Battery, and when 
 the French attempted a sortie it was Wolfe who 
 hurled them back into the town and incidentally 
 gained an advanced position. But when not occu 
 pied with such enterprises the Brigadier s restless 
 spirit relieved itself in criticism of his contemporaries, 
 superiors as well as equals, and he never doubted the 
 infallibility of his own opinion. 
 
 While the Louisburg expedition was waiting for a 
 favorable wind to carry it out of the harbor of Hali 
 fax, Wolfe gave vent to his feelings to Lord George 
 Sackville in a characteristic letter, beginning, "The 
 latter end of May and the fleet not sailed! What 
 are they about? Why are they not landed at Louis 
 burg ?" He was sure that the enterprise would 
 "cost a multitude of men," and lamented the sickly 
 state of many of the regiments. 1 As a matter of 
 facl, the British losses before the island stronghold 
 were only one hundred and seventy-two killed and 
 
 i Willson s Wolff, p. 368. 
 
BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 107 
 
 about three hundred and fifty wounded out of an 
 army of more than eleven thousand men. All went 
 well until the siege was over. Then Wolfe broke 
 out again. He seemed to consider Amherst incapa 
 ble of dealing with the situation, and by writing to 
 the General s brother he tried to make William the 
 vehicle of his suggestions as to the proper conduct 
 of affairs. Then in letters to Sackville and to his 
 father he indulged in personalities: his brother- 
 brigadier, Whitmore, he called "a poor, old, sleepy 
 man"; Abercromby, "a heavy man"; and Brigadier 
 Provost, "the most detestable dog upon earth." 1 
 Amherst seems to have been singularly immune from 
 the shrill chirp of the critic, but Wolfe pestered him 
 daily by urging an attack upon Quebec. 
 
 Particularly unfortunate were the Brigadier s re 
 marks about the provincial soldiers. When Wolfe 
 heard of Abercromby s defeat, he wrote to Amherst 
 declaring that reinforcements should be sent at once 
 to the camp at Lake George. "We all know how 
 little the Americans are to be trusted; by this time, 
 perhaps, our troops are left to defend themselves 
 after losing the best of our officers." 2 Poor Wolfe! 
 He little knew that in the very engagement to which 
 he referred, it was those despised Americans who 
 kept up a lingering fight until sunset, in order to 
 protect the flight of the panic-stricken regulars, 
 a flight so precipitate that forest and swamp were 
 strewn with the arms, accoutrements, and even the 
 shoes of the vanquished. In another letter his prej- 
 
 1 Ibid., pp. 390 and 393. 2 Ibid., p. 394. 
 
io8 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 udiced pen did him even less credit: "I am afraid 
 that by this time Mr. Abercromby is left to defend 
 himself with the remains of his regular troops. The 
 Americans are in general the dirtiest, most contemp 
 tible cowardly dogs that you can conceive. There 
 is no depending on them in action. They fall down 
 dead in their own dirt and desert by battalions, offi 
 cers and all. Such rascals as those are rather an 
 encumbrance than any real strength to any army." 
 These sentiments were probably due to the author s 
 failure to comprehend the frontier method of fight 
 ing, which taught every man to avail himself of the 
 nearest protection, rather than to march towards 
 the enemy in the pasteboard soldier fashion of the 
 Europeans. Be that as it may, one cannot help 
 regretting that the scornful Wolfe did not live to eat 
 his words on the slope of Bunker Hill, or on the 
 rocky sides of King s Mountain. But enough of 
 the man s limitations. They were quite offset by 
 his valor and his filial devotion; and long may 
 James Wolfe stir the hearts of those who live in the 
 land of the free and the home of the brave. 
 
 Towards the end of August Amherst saw his way 
 to leave Louisburg and go to Abercromby s aid with 
 reinforcements. The siege-trenches had been levelled, 
 the battered walls patched up, and the Island Bat 
 tery put in commission. The town resounded with 
 the noisy hammers of the Yankee carpenters, who 
 bent their restored energies to shingling houses and 
 building barracks. The prisoners were on their way 
 to England, and at last there seemed to be nothing 
 
BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 109 
 
 to keep the conqueror of Louisburg at the scene of 
 his victory. Abercromby had expressed a particular 
 need of artillery officers and men along with what 
 ever troops could be spared from the forces in the 
 northeast, and Amherst responded by ordering five 
 regiments to embark for Boston, while he himself 
 went on board his brother s ship, the "Captain," 
 which Boscawen had assigned to convoy the trans 
 ports to Massachusetts Bay. With a fair wind, on 
 August 30, the little fleet sailed out of the har 
 bor. 
 
 Amherst s voyages were no more expeditious than 
 his campaigns. Almost two weeks passed before he 
 came in sight of the wooded hills of Cape Ann. But 
 worse trouble awaited him in Boston. The inhabi 
 tants of that Puritan town were still enthusiastic 
 about the fall of Louisburg and intended to show their 
 appreciation to the men who brought that glorious 
 event to pass. The regiments encamped on the 
 Common, and if the sacred Frog Pond itself had been 
 filled with New England s traditional stimulant the 
 feted soldiers could not have celebrated more unre 
 servedly. For September fourteenth the General 
 recorded that "it was impossible to hinder the People 
 giving the Soldiers rum in much too great quanti 
 ties." The next day s entry was veiled, but senten 
 tious: "I halted to settle everything for the March." 
 When once more on his journey Amherst found 
 thirteen men missing as the consequence of Boston 
 hospitality, but confidently wrote, "I believe I have 
 quite got the better of the Rum, and that we shall 
 
i io JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 have no more bad effects from that." 1 The words 
 were truly spoken, as we shall see in the next 
 campaign. 
 
 Thomas Pownall, the energetic and business-like 
 governor of Massachusetts, had provided ox-carts, 
 camp necessaries and other supplies, and everything 
 was in readiness to expedite the departure of the 
 troops for the west. From Boston to Albany is about 
 two hundred miles, a distance which Amherst and his 
 men covered in nineteen days. When one considers 
 that a part of the march was made through what the 
 General termed "the greenwood the time seems 
 quite creditable. Leaving appreciative Boston on 
 September 16, the soldiers spent their first night on 
 the banks of the Charles, at Watertown. Thence 
 their route was through the happy autumn fields of 
 Weston, Sudbury, and Marlborough. At Worcester, 
 Amherst encamped his four thousand men on a hill 
 behind the court-house and halted a day. The 
 General found quarters for himself at the house of 
 Colonel Chandler, and delighted his host by taking 
 an intelligent interest in his farm, over which he 
 rambled to his heart s content. This military visita 
 tion added much to the usually colorless life of the 
 inland town. The officers were very social, spending 
 their evenings and taking their suppers with those 
 of the inhabitants who aspired to be society-folk. 
 One of the regiments, composed of Scotch High 
 landers, was particularly interesting to the provincial 
 inhabitants who had never before beheld such an 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 352-353. 
 
BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS in 
 
 array of plaids and kilts, nor heard the shrilling of 
 bagpipes. Among the spectators of the martial 
 transit was a young graduate of Harvard College, 
 who was studying law at this county-seat. His 
 name was John Adams. The future president of the 
 United States, was then, as ever, introspective and 
 critical, but the excellent order and discipline of the 
 troops extorted from him one of the few favorable 
 comments to be found in his diary. 1 It was fortunate 
 that the puritanical young lawyer saw the regulars 
 at Worcester and not at Boston. 
 
 The army resumed its march on the twenty-first 
 and in three days time arrived at Springfield, on the 
 east bank of the Connecticut. Amherst s original 
 plan was to travel only through the settled parts of 
 the colony, but now he changed his mind and re 
 solved to cut his way to Albany straight through the 
 southern end of the forest-clad Berkshire Hills. 
 Crossing the river, he did so; but he relished not this 
 marching "through the greenwood," and lest the 
 troops be surprised by the Indians or the French, 
 they were ordered to sleep on their arms. Emerg 
 ing from the wilderness, the General found himself 
 at Sheffield, in the Housatonic Valley, whence he 
 lost no time in making his way to Albany in advance 
 of the army. He soon got into communication with 
 Abercromby, at whose request he hurried forward to 
 the shores of Lake George, leaving instructions for 
 the troops to halt at the Dutch town until further 
 orders. 2 
 
 1 John Adams Works, ii, 33. 2 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 365. 
 
ii2 JEFFERT AMHERSr 
 
 On the fifth day of Odlober, Jeffery Amherst 
 arrived at Abercromby s headquarters. The Com- 
 mander-in-Chief immediately held a council of war 
 with the newcomer and Brigadier-General Gage, 
 upon the advisability of a second attack upon the 
 formidable French post at Ticonderoga. It is evi 
 dent that the point was already settled in Aber 
 cromby s mind, and that all he desired was the 
 moral support of Amherst s corroboration. He dwelt 
 at length upon the increased strength of the enemy s 
 works, upon his lack of artillery and engineers and 
 finally upon the lateness of the season. Amherst 
 acquiesced entirely in his superior s views, and active 
 operations in the Lakes were postponed until the 
 following year. 1 In honor of the conqueror of Louis- 
 burg the whole army was drawn up at five o clock 
 the next afternoon, and the General viewed it in its 
 splendid setting of mountains, gorgeous with autum 
 nal coloring, reflected in the peaceful lake. At any 
 season of the year Lake George compares favorably 
 with the beautiful inland waters of England, but in 
 October it easily eclipses its British rivals, for the 
 picturesque shores of Windermere or Ullswater in all 
 their glory are never arrayed in the flaming hues of 
 our maples and oaks. Although there is no expres 
 sion of admiration for Nature in his letters, it seems 
 as if Amherst must have been moved by the spectac 
 ular beauty of the New World. 
 
 The question of action or inaction in this region 
 being settled for the present, Amherst departed for 
 1 Ibid., i, 399. 
 
BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 113 
 
 New York, where he arrived late on the night of 
 Odober 12. Thence he returned to Halifax, his 
 proper headquarters in North America, but on his 
 way thither, the General stopped at Boston to confer 
 with Governor Pownall about winter quarters for 
 any overflow of troops or artillery which could not 
 properly be accommodated in Nova Scotia. 1 The 
 Massachusetts magistrate keenly desired to see a 
 permanent garrison of regulars stationed in the 
 vicinity of his capital, provided they were under his 
 command, and doubtless fell in readily with Am- 
 herst s proposition. The historic Castle, now Fort 
 Independence, where Andros was imprisoned at the 
 time of the Glorious Revolution and to which the 
 British troops were removed after the Boston Mas 
 sacre in the early stages of a more glorious revolu 
 tion, was the logical abiding-place for any military 
 force charged with the defence of Boston. The fort 
 crowns a small island in the harbor, about three 
 miles from the heart of the town, and the General 
 and Pownall spent part of one crisp October day in 
 examining the post and in discussing its proper use. 2 
 
 * Ibid., i, 365. 
 
 9 Ibid,, i, 385. Apparently Amherst and the popular governor of the 
 Bay Colony were on the best of terms at this time. Certainly the generous 
 quota of provincial troops which the latter invariably persuaded the Assembly 
 to furnish suggests hearty co-operation between the two men; but Thomas 
 Hutchinson, who was then lieutenant-governor, and who knew both of them, 
 gives an account of their relations, which, unless colored by his dislike for 
 Pownall, indicates anything but good will between Amherst and the chief 
 magistrate. "There had been an allowance of 4^ per day per man, (when 
 the Provincial troops were out on active service) made by the Assembly for 
 provisions. He (Governor Pownall) took it into his head to advise some of 
 the leading members of the House to reduce it to yd, and desired Mr. Hutch- 
 
ii 4 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 Leaving Boston on Odober 30, Amherst continued 
 on his way to Nova Scotia and landed at Halifax 
 early in November. A few days later an express 
 from New York arrived, bringing two missives from 
 William Pitt. These were the first letters written 
 after the news of Amherst s vidlory reached England. 
 One contained formal, yet enthusiastic, expres 
 sions of the King s approbation and the Secretary s 
 congratulations. The other disclosed two commis 
 sions, appointing Jeffery Amherst commander-in- 
 chief of all the forces employed in North America. 1 
 Such were the first fruits of his splendid achievement 
 on the rocky coast of Cape Breton. Besides the 
 headship of the army the appointment carried with 
 it the command of the 6oth regiment as a sort of 
 appanage. This body of troops, known as the 
 Royal Americans, was one of the most excellent in 
 the service. Organized in 1756, it was recruited 
 largely among the Germans in Pennsylvania, although 
 its officers were from Europe. Among the latter Lord 
 Howe had for a short time been prominent as col- 
 
 inson to promote the measure, which he declined, as it would have a tendency 
 to make a breach between the General and the Province, and hurt the ser 
 vice. Oh, by , says he, if I could not raise a party of the Civil, 
 
 against the Military, whether it was Majority or Minority, I should not care 
 a farthing, only let it be a party! Whether Gen. Amherst ever heard of 
 this or not, I do not know; but I have no doubt that the representations 
 made by him to Ministry, caused the recall of Gov. Pownall. To let him 
 down easily, he was nominated Governor of South Carolina; but upon 
 Gen. Amherst hearing of this nomination, he said to Brigadier Ruggles, who 
 was then in the army under the General, on the frontiers Depend upon 
 it, Mr. Pownall will not go out a Governor again to any of the American 
 Colonies. Another Governor was soon after appointed to South Carolina." 
 P. O. Hutchinson s Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutcbinson, i, 61. 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 430. 
 
BErWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 115 
 
 onel-commandant, 1 but the chief authority was al 
 ways vested in the supreme military officer in Brit 
 ish America, a distinction of which the regiment was 
 duly proud. The new appointment changed Am- 
 herst s plans for the winter. Leaving the troops to 
 hibernate at Halifax, while the artillery found quar 
 ters at Boston, the Commander-in-Chief left Nova 
 Scotia for the Massachusetts capital, and travelled 
 thence to New York where he arrived sometime 
 before the middle of December. 
 
 At New York Amherst was greeted by more good 
 news. This came from the third of the main opera 
 tions planned for the year, the attack upon Fort 
 Duquesne. 2 Brigadier-General Forbes commanded 
 the forces assigned for this undertaking, and he was 
 given about fifteen hundred regulars and five thou 
 sand provincials with which to accomplish the task 
 that had brought death and disaster to Braddock. 
 The American troops were drawn from Pennsylvania, 
 Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia, those of 
 the last-named colony being commanded by Colonel 
 George Washington. Forbes s tactics were not bril 
 liant, but his operations do him credit, for, from 
 beginning to end, he was racked with a painful dis 
 ease which would have destroyed the resolution, as 
 well as the disposition, of many a seasoned soldier. 
 In spite of his intense suffering, however, the faithful 
 Brigadier, swung in a litter between two horses, kept 
 up with the army in its progress through the moun- 
 
 1 Maclachlan s William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, p. 352. 
 
 2 KimbalPs Pitt Correspondence, i, 430. 
 
n6 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 tain wilderness. Very slowly the expedition crept 
 westward. It was November before the British were 
 within striking distance of Fort Duquesne and the 
 tortured leader, discouraged by rains and snows, was 
 on the point of giving up the business for that season, 
 when he received authentic reports of the defenceless 
 condition of the French post. The opportunity was 
 too good to lose, and Forbes pressed forward until 
 on November 25, he came in sight of the famous 
 stronghold. But the birds had flown. In place of 
 an imposing fortress, bristling with cannon, the 
 invaders beheld a heap of ruins, surrounded by the 
 smouldering remains of barracks and storehouses. 
 In despair the French garrison had blown up the fort 
 on the previous night, and were now hastening up the 
 Alleghany in the direction of Lake Erie. The success 
 of the British was complete. Soon the vicinity of 
 Fort Duquesne was dotted with soldiers huts and 
 traders cabins, around which Forbes erected a stock 
 ade, and named the hamlet Pittsburgh in honor of 
 his great chief, to whose genius so much of his own 
 success was due. 
 
 Thus ended the campaign of 1758. France had 
 held her own in the centre, while on the left, at 
 Louisburg, and on the right, at Fort Duquesne, she 
 had received telling blows. The tide of victory had 
 turned, but the issue of the imperial clash was as yet 
 by no means certain. 
 
 Amherst settled down for the winter at New York 
 and the English-speaking world resounded with his 
 praise. The Commons "resolved, nemine contradi- 
 
BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 117 
 
 cente, that the thanks of this house be given to 
 Major-General Amherst for the services he has done 
 to his King and country; and that Mr. Speaker do 
 signify the same to him." 1 Massachusetts was no 
 less appreciative. When a precinct of one of her 
 western towns petitioned to be made a separate en 
 tity, the Great and General Court enadled that it 
 "be and hereby is erected into a separate and dis 
 tinct district by the name of Amherst. 2 The choice 
 of an appellation for the new district rested with 
 Governor Pownall; for, according to colonial custom, 
 when a bill of this kind was passed by the legisla 
 ture, a space was left for the name, the blank being 
 filled in by the chief magistrate of the province. 3 
 Thus it came about that one of the most beautiful 
 of New England towns, lying among the hills of the 
 Connecticut Valley, received the name of Amherst, 
 a name which it was to share with an institution of 
 learning founded there in the early years of the next 
 century. New Hampshire was not far behind the 
 Bay Colony in honoring the hero of the hour. Less 
 than a year after the christening of Amherst, Massa 
 chusetts, the northern province followed suit and 
 conferred upon the township of Souhegan West, No. 
 3, the more euphonious name of the Commander-in- 
 Chief. 4 Before many months had passed away Vir 
 ginia divided one of her counties into three parts 
 
 1 Journal of the House of Commons. 
 
 2 ACls and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, 1758-59, Chap. 
 
 12. 
 
 3 Carpenter and Morehouse s History of Amherst, Mass., p. 68. 
 
 4 D. F. Secomb s History of Amherst, N. H., p. 12. 
 
ii8 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 and called one of them Amherst. 1 From these three 
 sources the name has sped across the continent until 
 to-day a dozen places in the United States bear the 
 appellation of the conqueror of Louisburg. 
 
 The monotony of the winter at New York was 
 broken by little except the report of marauding 
 Indians in the vicinity of Fort Edward, at the bend 
 of the Hudson. Much to Amherst s disgust "these 
 scoundrels * got away unpunished, and the General s 
 only satisfaction lay in characterizing as "a pack of 
 lazy, rum-drinking people," those whom he gladly 
 would have dispatched with his sword. The Gen 
 eral was distinctly bored with the scene of his activi 
 ties. In a letter to Lord George Sackville one finds 
 his impressions of America. It is evident that they 
 were deeply tinged with homesickness, for in speak 
 ing of a friend s intended return to England Amherst 
 expressed his sentiments in these words: Tis the 
 place that everybody here thinks of going to. I do 
 not, as long as the war lasts; when that is over, - 
 which I promise you I will do all I can to finish in a 
 right way, I will then rather hold a plough at 
 Riverhead, than take here all that can be given to 
 me." 2 The home-loving Englishman was obsessed 
 with fear that one reward for the victories he fully 
 expected to achieve might be the office of Governor 
 of New York, which he "would rather not be obliged 
 to refuse." With this in view he begged his aristo 
 cratic friend to do all in his power to prevent any 
 
 1 Hening s Statutes of Virginia, I, Geo. Ill, Ch. xx. 
 
 2 Stopford-Sackvillf Manuscripts, vol. ii. p. 268. 
 
BETWEEN TWO CAMPAIGNS 119 
 
 such calamity from taking place. That his fears 
 were not groundless we shall see, for in the ensuing 
 year, the governorship of Virginia 1 was given to 
 Jeffery Amherst as a long deferred reward for the 
 conquest of Louisburg. 
 
 1 Torrens History of Cabinets, ii, 515. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 TICONDEROGA 
 
 HIS Majesty having nothing so much at heart 
 as to improve the great and important ad 
 vantages gained the last Campaign, as well 
 as to repair the Disappointment at Ticonderoga, and 
 by the most vigorous and decisive Efforts, to estab 
 lish, by the Blessing of God on his Arms, His Maj 
 esty s just and indubitable Rights, and to avert all 
 future Dangers to His Majesty s Subjects in North 
 America, I am now to acquaint you that the King 
 has come to a Resolution to allot an adequate Pro 
 portion of His Forces in North America amounting 
 to 12,005 men > to make an attack upon Quebec, by 
 the River St. Lawrence against which place they are 
 to proceed from Louisburg, as early in the Year, as 
 on or about, the 7th of May, if the season shall 
 happen to permit, under the direction of Brigadier 
 Genl. Wolfe, whom the King has appointed for the 
 Command of that Operation, and who will have the 
 rank of Major General, for that Expedition only." 1 
 
 This lengthy mandate, which Amherst received from 
 William Pitt in March, 1759, practically sealed the fate 
 of New France. When Wolfe returned to England in 
 the autumn of 1758, with the hope of being employed 
 
 1 KimbalFs Pitt Correspondence, i, 432-433. 
 
TICONDEROGA 121 
 
 in Germany in the next campaign, he discovered that 
 Pitt had expected him to stay in the New World and 
 to continue the good work begun there. The young 
 brigadier smoothed the ruffled feathers of the min 
 ister with a declaration of his readiness to serve "in 
 America, and particularly in the river St. Lawrence," 1 
 and it was not long before he once more embarked 
 upon the uncongenial sea with the ship s prow turned 
 toward the rendezvous at Louisburg. Although Am- 
 herst was commander-in-chief in America, the ex 
 pedition against the capital of New France was so 
 distinct in its field and so important in its bearing 
 upon the conquest of Canada, that Wolfe was given 
 a locally independent command analogous to that 
 enjoyed by Nelson at the Nile. 2 In all other respects 
 he was Amherst s subordinate. As the Commander- 
 in-Chief remarked in a letter to Lord George Sack- 
 ville, "Quebec is everything, and I am not sure it is 
 not the easiest, as well as the greatest plan to be 
 pursued," 3 and it sometimes seems as if Amherst were 
 to play second fiddle to Wolfe in the operations of the 
 coming year. Such was hardly the case, however, the 
 illusion being due to the fact that we look at the St. 
 Lawrence expedition through the magnifying lens of 
 the Plains of Abraham, whereas in the winter of 1758 
 and 1759 the menacing posts of the French at Crown 
 Point and Ticonderoga loomed much larger than Que 
 bec to the eyes of Englishmen on either side of the 
 Atlantic. The capture of Quebec would be of great 
 
 1 Willson s, Wolfe, p. 400. 2 William Wood s Fight for Canada, p. 166. 
 1 Stopford-Sackville Manuscripts, ii, 267. 
 
122 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 advantage to England and a feather in the cap of 
 whatever commander accomplished it; but the more 
 serious work of the campaign lay in expelling the 
 enemy from northern New York and in relieving the 
 strategic centre of the British colonies from the great 
 pressure in that quarter. Time and again the English 
 had attempted to break through this threatening 
 Gallic barrier; but always in vain. Now the task 
 fell to Amherst. 
 
 In the same letter in which Pitt announced his 
 intention to give Wolfe an independent command, he 
 outlined the operations "which, from their importance, 
 difficulty and extent" must be undertaken by the 
 Commander-in-Chief. First and foremost, Amherst 
 was to make an irruption into Canada, either by the 
 way of Crown Point, or by a western route with an 
 attack upon the enemy s post at La Galette, where 
 the many spires and smoking chimneys of Ogdens- 
 burg now picket the St. Lawrence. The objective of 
 such an invasion was Montreal or Quebec, or both. 
 Secondly, the port of Oswego, which had been de 
 stroyed by Montcalm two years before, must be re 
 established. The third part of the program was left 
 to Amherst s discretion, but Pitt expressed a hope 
 that the General would find practicable an enterprise 
 against the French fort at Niagara. These instruc 
 tions make it clear that the war was no longer one 
 of boundaries but one of conquest. At last England 
 had adopted the principle, Delenda est Canada, and 
 she hoped to find a Scipio in JefFery Amherst. 
 
 While Wolfe, intoxicated with the prospect of great 
 
riCONDEROGA 123 
 
 victories over the French, strutted up and down, and 
 alarmed Pitt for the future of the expedition which he 
 had intrusted to such hands, 1 the Commander-in- 
 Chief was busy with preparations for the year s work. 
 Since the campaign in the lakes would require boats, 
 and crews to man the oars, Amherst took Time by 
 the forelock and advertised for "batteau men," even 
 before the snow began to disappear. Equally im 
 portant was the question of land-transportation, for 
 which the General made provision by employing the 
 winter months in the construction of carts and 
 wagons; for he knew that the supply of vehicles 
 among the country people was inadequate and un 
 reliable. 2 The arms of the infantry were repaired 
 and worn-out muskets were replaced by those cap 
 tured at Louisburg. The latter were much needed, 
 for, in Amherst s own words, the provincial troops 
 "were far from being regular as they ought to have 
 been" in turning in their arms at the end of the last 
 campaign. In the previous year Pitt had inaugurated 
 the policy of furnishing the colonial volunteers with 
 everything except clothing and pay, which he left to 
 the several provinces, 3 and it is to be surmised that 
 many a New England lad availed himself of his 
 Majesty s generosity to carry home a musket as a 
 useful souvenir of his summer s military service. 
 
 Towards the end of the winter a report came from 
 Fort Edward telling of a skirmish between the French 
 garrison at Ticonderoga and a handful of regulars, 
 
 1 Mahon s History of England, ii, 378. 
 
 * Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, ii, 32. 3 Ibid., i, 138. 
 
I2 4 JEFFERT AM H ERST 
 
 rangers, and Indians under the redoubtable Major 
 Rogers. The excursion seems to have been under 
 taken merely as an outlet for the pent-up energies 
 of the men stationed at the bend of the Hudson; but 
 the leader brought back with him four scalps and 
 half a dozen prisoners, besides a sketch of the in- 
 trenchments and fort, which he hoped might be use 
 ful to the Commander-in-Chief. A raid of this kind 
 was hardly consonant with Amherst s notions of war 
 fare, but it reduced the French by thirty men, more 
 or less, while the marauders lost only three. If 
 Rogers and his adventurous companions found that 
 the excitement recompensed them for the pains of 
 frost-bite, he had no objection to their prowling 
 about on snow-shoes and bagging what game they 
 could. Parallel depredations of a more remunerative 
 nature were carried on by New York privateers, who 
 at one swoop captured half of a fleet of French mer 
 chant-men and brought in prizes to the value of over 
 100,000. With these occupations and diversions 
 the long winter passed, and gave way to a more 
 active spring. 
 
 In a letter to the governors of the American col 
 onies Pitt had urged them to provide twenty thousand 
 provincial troops for the campaign of 1759, leaving to the 
 discretion and zeal of each community the quota which 
 it would furnish. In New England the response to the 
 call was gratifying. The Massachusetts assembly agreed 
 to send five thousand men, and a few weeks later Pow- 
 nall, the popular governor of the Bay Colony, induced 
 
TICONDEROGA 125 
 
 them to make provision for fifteen hundred more, al 
 though this required a bounty of more than 10 per man. 1 
 Connecticut was not far behind with five thousand, 
 while New York contributed about twenty-five hundred 
 recruits. 2 The other colonies north of the Carolinas 
 complied with Pitt s requisition to a certain extent, 
 with the exception of Pennsylvania and Maryland; 
 these two provinces soon demanded Amherst s per 
 sonal attention. 
 
 It was no mere coincidence that the two proprie 
 tary colonies were the two which declined to furnish 
 troops for an attack upon the common enemy. In 
 each case the cause lay in an irrepressible conflict 
 between the proprietors and the inhabitants, and the 
 principle at stake was one of taxation. In order to 
 join forces with the neighboring colonies in the cam 
 paign of 1759, the Pennsylvania assembly agreed to 
 create 100,000 in bills of credit, based on a tax on 
 all property, including that owned by the Penns. 3 
 This appears to us to be a just apportionment, but 
 the proprietors entertained a different view. They 
 were quite ready to pay taxes on lands from which 
 they derived rent, but refused to have a penny levied 
 upon their great tracts of ungranted domain. 4 The 
 Governor, being under a bond of 5000 to the pro 
 prietors to obey their orders, could not give his 
 assent to the supply bill in its original form; there 
 fore he amended it to exclude all their estates except 
 
 1 Ibid., ii, 91. 
 
 2 Calendar of Home Office Papers, 1760-1765, 98. 
 
 8 Winfred T. Root s Relations of Pennsylvania with the British Government, 
 1696-1765, p. 209. 4 Channing s History of the United States, ii, 335-336. 
 
126 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 the quit-rents and appropriated tradts. At such a 
 proposition the House rose up in its wrath and 
 declared that the Governor had no power to change 
 money bills. Whether the Assembly was right or 
 not, Brigadier Stanwix, who was the chief army 
 officer in the colony, took its protest as his cue, and 
 asked Amherst to come to Philadelphia and break 
 the deadlock; otherwise there would be little pros- 
 pedr. of a Pennsylvania contingent to the British 
 forces in North America. 
 
 The Commander-in-Chief lost no time in starting 
 for the scene of the political wrangle. He had con 
 templated a visit to the Delaware earlier in the sea 
 son to discuss Indian affairs with the governors of 
 the central colonies and Virginia, but the proposed 
 congress of magistrates never actually met and the 
 trip to Philadelphia had been given up. Now his 
 presence was much needed in the Quaker capital, 
 and on the morning of April 7, General Amherst, 
 accompanied by his brother William, and a few other 
 gentlemen, embarked upon a sloop and set out for 
 the Jersey shore. They reached Elizabeth about 
 noon, whence, after resting and refreshing themselves 
 with "tea at West s" they continued on their way, 
 arriving at New Brunswick before sundown. From 
 there the route lay through Trenton and Bristol. At 
 noon of the third day Amherst got his first glimpse 
 of the most populous town in the colonies, and soon 
 took up his quarters at one "Mr. Griffith s, Quaker." l 
 The next two days were full of business for the 
 
 1 Montresor s Journals, p. 66. 
 
TICONDEROGA 127 
 
 Commander-in-Chief. The supply bill must be 
 passed, and Amherst took the matter seriously in 
 hand. First he talked to the Speaker of the Assem 
 bly and to some of the leading members, but all the 
 arts of argumentation and persuasion were useless. 
 The popular branch of the government cared more 
 for the principle at stake than for the reputation of 
 the province. Failing in this attack, the General 
 resorted to a message, which he thought would stir 
 the dormant patriotism of the legislators; "but 
 that had not the consequence I designed. " l The 
 Assembly remained obdurate, and Amherst was 
 forced to confess himself beaten. There remained 
 but one way to cut the Gordian knot, the Gover 
 nor must disobey the proprietors instructions and 
 pass the supply bill with all its provisions. As long 
 as his purposes could be accomplished in a legal way 
 Amherst was careful to remain within the law; but 
 in a case of emergency he had no scruples against 
 ignoring such sanctions, if they interfered with what 
 he saw clearly to be the best course. This was true 
 in 1780 when he suppressed the Gordon Riots with 
 an iron hand, and his attitude was the same in 1759. 
 Governor Denny, like most provincial governors, 
 was between the upper and the nether millstone. 
 On the one hand he was under a bond of 5000 
 to the Penns to obey their orders; on the other, he 
 was dependent upon the Assembly for his salary and 
 the expenses of government. It was the proverbial 
 choice between the devil and the deep sea. Just 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, ii, 88. 
 
128 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 which Denny would have chosen, if left to himself, 
 it is difficult to say; but Amherst s influence tipped 
 the scales in favor of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania. 
 When the Commander-in-Chief left Philadelphia he 
 wrote to the Governor asking him to waive his in 
 structions and to give his assent to the supply bill as 
 brought in by the Assembly. The exigent circum 
 stances justified such action in the mind of the Gen 
 eral and he promised to explain the situation to the 
 ministry. 1 Denny did as Amherst requested. Penn 
 sylvania furnished over three thousand troops for the 
 coming campaign 2 and the Governor was voted his 
 stipend of 1000. As far as Amherst was concerned, 
 the incident was closed; but Denny s troubles had 
 only begun. The proprietors looked upon his remu 
 neration as a bribe and threatened to take action 
 against the bond. This peril was averted by the 
 decision of the Assembly to indemnify the governor 
 in case the Penns went to such extremes, but Denny 
 was dismissed from office. 3 One cannot help thinking 
 that the relations between Amherst and the fallen 
 magistrate must have been considerably strained by 
 the consequences of the General s request in the 
 spring of 1759; but after all, it was only a request, 
 and Denny had no one but himself to blame for the 
 course of action pursued on that occasion. 4 
 
 1 Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, better known as 
 Pennsylvania Colonial Records, viii, 331-332. 
 
 2 Calendar of Home Office Papers, 1760-1765, p. 98. 
 
 8 Root s Pennsylvania and Great Britain, 1696-1763, p. 210. 
 4 Maryland was even more refractory than Pennsylvania. Amherst 
 wrote to Governor Sharpe every year, requiring Maryland s quota of pro- 
 
TICONDEROGA 129 
 
 While at Philadelphia Amherst conferred with 
 another group of men. These were the deputies of 
 the Iroquois and other Indian tribes, who desired 
 specific information concerning a treaty entered into 
 with the English in the previous year. Ever since 
 Braddock s defeat the Delawares and Shawanoes 
 had been in open hostility to the British and had 
 displayed their animosity by frequent attacks upon 
 the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania. The Iro 
 quois, although nominally subjects of the King of 
 Great Britain, wavered between the exhortations of 
 their English champion, Sir William Johnson, and the 
 cajoleries of the cunning Frenchmen. In each tribe 
 there was an English party and one that favored the 
 enemy. While pushing his tedious way towards 
 Fort Duquesne in the summer of 1758, Brigadier 
 Forbes brought about "a general convention of the 
 Indians," which met at the town of Easton in October. 
 The session lasted almost three weeks and terminated 
 in a burial of the hatchet, "so deep that nobody can 
 dig it up again." 1 The pacification thus achieved 
 extended also to the western Indians who were trib 
 utary to the Iroquois, and promised to remove one 
 great annoyance to British arms in the present war. 
 On her part England, or rather Pennsylvania, prom 
 ised to make no more settlements west of the Alle- 
 
 vincial troops, but on each occasion the lower house granted it only under 
 conditions which were not to be thought of by the upper house. The Mary 
 land contingent was non-existent in this period. In 1762 the requisition was 
 only 84 men, but even these were not forthcoming. 
 
 Maryland Archives, vol. ix, pp. 332, 392, 510. Vol. xiv, pp. 28, 48. 
 
 1 Parkman s Montcalm and Wolfe, ii, 155. 
 
130 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 ghanies. 1 During the winter the untutored mind 
 seems to have been seized with an access of suspi 
 cion, and Indian deputies flocked to Philadelphia to 
 ascertain the exact terms of the agreement. There 
 Amherst received them and gave assurance that the 
 English would live up to their obligations, 2 whereupon 
 the red men, with restored confidence, grunted their 
 satisfaction and departed for the wilderness, leaving 
 the General to follow up his advantage by directing 
 Sir William Johnson to engage as many Indians as 
 possible for the year s operations. 3 
 
 With at least one result to show for his southern 
 excursion, Amherst turned his face once more towards 
 New York, and left Philadelphia on April u, a little 
 before midday. The journey was broken by dinner 
 at Burlington, whence the party went on to Cross- 
 wicks to spend the night. The next day carried 
 them as far as Perth Amboy, where the General was 
 entertained at dinner by Governor Bernard, the 
 same gentleman who was soon to be transferred to 
 Massachusetts and to earn a baronetcy by exas 
 perating the people to the point of rebellion. Am 
 herst reviewed a regiment quartered in the town, and 
 at six o clock in the evening took leave of his well- 
 meaning host. Going on board his sloop, the Gen 
 eral sailed across the bay and arrived at New York 
 early the next morning. 4 
 
 1 Clarence W. Alvord s Genesis of the Proclamation of 1763, pp. 13-14. 
 
 2 Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia 1761-1765 (edited by 
 J. P. Kennedy), p. xi. 
 
 3 Brodhead s New York Documents, vii, 389. 
 
 4 Montresors Journals, p. 61. 
 
TICONDEROGA 131 
 
 Amherst s first care was to dispatch to Louisburg 
 the troops destined for Wolfe s expedition against 
 Quebec. When this was done, he turned his atten 
 tion towards his own campaign. Pitt had appointed 
 Albany as the rendezvous, and May i as the date 
 for the assembling of the regular and provincial 
 forces under Amherst s immediate command. 
 
 The General intended that he, at least, should be 
 punctual. Leaving his headquarters on the after 
 noon of April 28, he went on board the official sloop, 
 while the cannon at the Battery roared out a fare 
 well salute of fifteen guns. 1 Apparently the winds 
 did not favor a voyage up the Hudson, for the boats 
 lay at anchor for more than twenty-four hours and 
 prevented the Commander-in-Chief from making the 
 early start which he so much desired. Before long, 
 however, Amherst ascended the picturesque stream 
 and arrived at Albany on the third day of May. 
 Not a regiment of the provincial contingent had yet 
 appeared at the rendezvous on the Hudson; but 
 while he waited for the Americans to come in, the 
 General made good use of his time by planning and 
 organizing an expedition against Fort Niagara, the 
 French post between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. 
 
 Pitt s instructions to Amherst had suggested "some 
 enterprise" against Niagara, "the success of which 
 would so greatly contribute to establish the uninter 
 rupted dominion of that Lake, and, at the same 
 time effectually cut off the communication between 
 Canada and the French settlements to the South." 
 
 1 Montresor s Journals , p. 68. 
 
132 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 The Minister s idea was excellent, but he made his 
 proposal before hearing of the outcome of Forbes 
 operations against Fort Duquesne. The latter under 
 taking was so slow and tedious that Pitt doubtless 
 considered its success in that year to be dubious at 
 best. Accordingly, he intended to cut the French 
 line of communication through the Lakes at Niag 
 ara, and thus render the Ohio posts and those to the 
 westward untenable if not useless. In making this 
 proposition, however, the Secretary of State left 
 its adoption or rejection wholly to the discretion of 
 Amherst. 1 The General s decision to send five thou 
 sand men to capture a fortress which was in no sense 
 a menace to the British, was an error in judgment 
 scarcely justified even by the success of the enter 
 prise. The troops thus drawn off from the main 
 army might have been better employed by the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief in pushing forward his "irruption 
 into Canada" by the way of Lake Champlain; 2 but 
 with his mind made up to add the capture of Niagara 
 to the growing list of victories, Amherst sent for Sir 
 William Johnson, the manipulator of the Iroquois, 
 to arrange for a goodly supply of Indian auxilia 
 ries. 
 
 On the fourth of May the General and the frontier 
 Baronet met at Schenedlady. Although the former 
 would not confide his intentions to Sir William lest 
 the secret leak out through him to his Indians, and 
 thence to the enemy, Johnson was positive in his 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, ii, 13. 
 * Von Ruville s William Pitt, ii, 264. 
 
TICONDEROGA 133 
 
 assertion that the Sachems were "firm to the Eng 
 lish" and that he was certain of eight hundred sav 
 ages who would go with him. Thus reassured, 
 Amherst awaited the arrival of Brigadier-General Pri- 
 deaux, whom he had selected to command the expedi 
 tion. By the middle of the month the prospective 
 leader was at Albany, and the Commander-in-Chief 
 immediately gave him his instructions. Prideaux 
 was to ascend the Mohawk and continue westward 
 to Oswego: there he must leave about half of his 
 force to build a fort, in accordance with Pitt s in 
 junction, and with the rest of his men take Niagara. 
 For this undertaking Amherst told off about five 
 thousand regulars and provincials, of whom a slight 
 majority were men from New York. These forces 
 were to be increased at Oswego by as many Indians 
 as Sir William Johnson could collect and retain. 1 
 On May 20 the Niagara expedition started on its 
 way up the Mohawk. 
 
 Meanwhile Amherst patiently awaited the assem 
 bling of the colonial contingent of his army. The 
 first troops to put in an appearance came from Rhode 
 Island; then came the New Yorkers, who were closely 
 followed by the men from Massachusetts. The month 
 of May was exceptionally rainy, and the Hudson, 
 rising "on a sudden," still further contributed to 
 Amherst s difficulties. At first the General rejoiced 
 in the high water because it promised to facilitate 
 transportation up the rivers, but when the swelling 
 
 1 Amber st to Johnson, A. and W. I., Vol. 90, No. 63, in the Public Record 
 Office. 
 
134 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 of the stream was increased by a "very violent 
 rain/ some of the soldiers were given unlooked-for 
 employment. Prideaux had collected a large number 
 of boats at Schenectady for the use of his expedition. 
 The unexpected inundation floated them off, and down 
 the Mohawk sped the irresponsible craft, while the 
 distressed Brigadier sent to Amherst for help. The 
 Commander-in-Chief at once dispatched a body of 
 men to the river with instructions to stop the run 
 away boats before they reached "the Great Falls. " 
 It was no easy task, but the feat was accomplished, 
 fairly successfully, and only a few members of the 
 unruly flotilla eluded their would-be captors and 
 crashed to pieces in the seventy-foot plunge at Co- 
 hoes. While the wreckage of these bateaux swept 
 by Albany on the turgid waters of the Hudson, 
 Amherst, impatient of longer delay, took what troops 
 he had and moved up the river. On the third of 
 June he was at Half Moon. From there the army 
 rowed up stream to Stillwater, Saratoga, and finally 
 to Fort Edward, which stood at the sharp bend of 
 the Hudson. Here Amherst called a halt, and gave 
 the rain-drenched men, who, he declared, had "not 
 a dry thread on them," an opportunity to recuperate 
 from their hard tug against the rushing current. 
 
 From the outset of the campaign the General made 
 a firm stand for two principles, temperance and hu 
 manity. We have seen that after the Boston episode 
 Amherst was determined to prevent any repetition 
 of that debauch. In the spring of 1759, he made 
 this resolve an actuality by prohibiting the use of 
 
riCONDEROGA 135 
 
 rum or other spirituous liquors in the forces under 
 his command. 1 
 
 This "prohibitation" was a far greater denial to 
 the army than the twentieth-century mind can easily 
 comprehend, for our ancestors looked upon rum as a 
 necessary of life. The farmer in the hay-field, the 
 deacon at the church-raising, and the soldier on the 
 march, each required his daily allowance of the cheap 
 alcoholic stimulant, and regarded it as a preventive 
 against the many ills which threatened his existence. 
 Twenty years later the American soldiers in the 
 Revolution refused to fight because their supply of 
 rum was cut off; but Amherst succeeded in carrying 
 out his temperance policy by substituting for the 
 stronger liquor an interesting drink called spruce 
 beer. This beverage was brewed from the fresh green 
 tips of spruce branches with a generous admixture of 
 molasses, and was held to be efficacious as a cure for 
 scurvy and other diseases which were likely to attack 
 an army in the wilderness. Amherst was a confirmed 
 believer in its medicinal virtue, for his men at Louis- 
 burg had fortified their constitutions with it, and 
 had proved at least its innocuousness. 2 In the present 
 campaign spruce beer was brewed in great quanti 
 ties and "served at cost," a half-penny per quart. 3 
 Later in the summer when the army became sickly, 
 the General attributed the men s illness to their cus 
 tom of "drinking water wherever they find it" and 
 
 1 Bonney s Legacy of Historical Gleanings, i, 28. 
 
 2 Knox s Journal, i, 184. 
 
 J Commissary Wilson s Orderly Book, pp. 19-20, and 137. 
 
136 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 tried to overcome the trouble by his sovereign rem 
 edy. 1 The provincials, on the contrary, probably 
 considered the prohibition of rum as the chief cause 
 of their malady; and who shall say which attribu 
 tion, if either, was correct? 
 
 The humanity of Jeffery Amherst displayed itself 
 in his general orders of June 12, that no scouting 
 parties or others in the army under his command 
 should scalp any women or children belonging to the 
 enemy. But if such deeds were perpetrated by the 
 French upon the English, the General declared that 
 they should be avenged by the death of two men of 
 the enemy for every woman or child "murthered." 
 The mathematics of this retribution attest the com 
 mander s detestation of the promiscuous butchering 
 which had marked French and Indian raids upon the 
 frontier settlements. One of these had just occurred 
 in central New York and occasioned the expression 
 of Amherst s sentiments in the general orders just 
 mentioned. Lest there be any misunderstanding of 
 his intentions, the General took pains to send 
 an officer with a flag of truce to present a copy of 
 his edict to the French officer in command at Ticon- 
 deroga. 
 
 Before dawn on the twenty-first of June the Brit 
 ish camp at Fort Edward was the scene of great 
 activity. Tents were struck at three o clock; by 
 four, the artillery and regiments began to embark 
 upon the diminutive Hudson, whose course they were 
 to follow as far as possible in the direction of Lake 
 
 1 Massachusetts Historical Society s Proceedings, viii, 101. 
 
TICONDEROGA 137 
 
 George. At ten o clock Amherst left Fort Edward 
 and followed the army in its progress through the 
 wilderness. The advance-guard consisted of Rog 
 ers Rangers and some light infantry, who kept flank 
 ing parties on either side to insure the forces against 
 a surprise. The march was accomplished with such 
 celerity that at sundown of that long June day the 
 British emerged from the dark forest and encamped 
 on the southern shores of the mountain lake. Here 
 occurred a discouragingly long delay of one month, 
 much of the time being spent in building or repair 
 ing boats and rafts to carry the troops and artillery 
 across the lake. At the end of his bungling campaign 
 in these parts during the previous year Abercromby 
 carefully sank the sloop-of-war which had patrolled 
 those placid waters, and hid the whale boats in the 
 woods lest they fall into the hands of the enemy. 1 
 It seems as if Amherst might have had these neces 
 sary means of transportation put in commission be 
 fore the arrival of his army; but apparently little 
 or nothing had been done, and while part of the 
 troops were busy with this work, the General found 
 occupation for the rest in the construction of a fort 
 of no mean dimensions. The latter undertaking was 
 begun in earnest early in July, but only one bastion 
 was ever finished, for the outcome of the campaign 
 deprived a stronghold at this point of any raison 
 d etre. Much blame has been heaped upon Amherst 
 for building Fort George, as it was called, and his 
 critics have lamented the time and energy wasted 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i, 402. 
 
138 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 upon a needless post; but to do the General justice, 
 it should be pointed out that Pitt had specifically 
 directed him to build a fort "at Lake George," 1 and 
 that Amherst had promised to do so. In the light of 
 what actually happened the construction of Fort 
 George seems an unnecessary precaution, but Am 
 herst, although confident, could not be sure of victory, 
 where his predecessor had found defeat. If Fortune 
 turned against the British arms it would be well to 
 have a fortified base nearer the scene of hostilities 
 than Fort Edward. 
 
 As these shores had been the annual mustering 
 place of armies for the past four years, and occa 
 sionally a battle-ground for the French and the 
 English, it is not surprising that the soldiers were 
 continually discovering pieces of old ammunition and 
 discarded muskets. This led Amherst to issue the 
 following amusing order: "As shells and shot may 
 have been left by the enemy or may be fired from the 
 enemy during the campaign, which will be of use in 
 firing back to them again, the following prices shall 
 be allowed to those who shall pick them up and 
 deliver them to the commanding officer at the artil 
 lery park: for a 13 inch shell, one dollar; an eight- 
 inch shell, a quarter dollar; large shot, 2d each, 
 smaller at id each." 2 Five shillings was the price 
 "for every good repairable fire-lock." This quaint 
 table of values makes one realize more vividly, per 
 haps, than any other one thing the difference between 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, i. 421. 
 1 Wilson s Orderly Book, pp. 76-77. 
 
TICONDEROGA 139 
 
 eighteenth-century warfare and that practised in our 
 more efficient, if less economical, age. 
 
 Fort Ticonderoga stood upon a lonely promontory 
 between the outlet of Lake George and the narrow 
 southern end of Lake Champlain. On three sides 
 the position was protected by rocky shores; on the 
 fourth, by a swamp and by the deadly breastwork 
 that Montcalm had erected to repel Abercromby. 
 The fort itself was square, with four bastions, and the 
 French, with their happy faculty for picturesque and 
 appropriate names, called it Carrillon, which means 
 a square piece of iron; so far it had justified its 
 appellation. When Abercromby attempted its cap 
 ture, the place was commanded by Montcalm; but 
 now the gallant Marquis was defending Quebec from 
 the onslaught of the British under Wolfe and Saun- 
 ders. In his stead Bourlamaque, who had been 
 dangerously wounded in the battle of the previous 
 July, was in charge of Carrillon with instructions to 
 hold the post if possible, but if overborne by num 
 bers, to fall back to Isle aux Noix at the northern end 
 of Lake Champlain. His forces were nearly equal to 
 those at Montcalm s disposal in 1758, while Amherst s 
 army was much smaller than that which Abercromby 
 had hurled at the enemy s intrenchment in vain, and 
 the prospect of smart fighting and a regular siege was 
 before the English as they broke up their camp and 
 prepared to embark upon Lake George. 
 
 On the morning of July 21, Amherst and his army 
 of about eleven thousand men got into the boats and 
 pushed out upon the mountain-rimmed lake. The 
 
I 4 o JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 departure was not without accidents. Many of the 
 craft were so unseaworthy that no sooner were they 
 loaded than they had to be relieved of their cargoes 
 to prevent them from sinking One bateau, carrying 
 a hundred barrels of gunpowder, went to the bottom 
 in company with a raft overloaded with two heavy 
 mortars. These mishaps provoked the General, but 
 leaving the sunken vessels where they were, he went 
 on board the radeau "Invincible," which resembled 
 both a raft and a boat, and gave the signal to ad 
 vance. The flotilla presented a remarkable spectacle 
 as it proceeded down the lake. First came a flat- 
 bottomed affair mounting a three-pounder, then the 
 vanguard of light infantry in forty whale-boats, 
 followed by the main army, with the sloop "Hali 
 fax," which had been reclaimed from the depths, 
 bringing up the rear. The men used their blankets 
 for sails whenever the fresh wind allowed them to do 
 so, 1 and thus the long procession steered its way 
 between the islands and across the broads. A little 
 before dark Amherst made the signal to bring-to, and 
 the army passed an uncomfortably windy night en 
 bateau. At daybreak the boats pushed on until they 
 reached the outlet of the lake, where the troops made 
 an orderly landing at nearly the same spot chosen by 
 Abercromby for his disembarkation the year before. 
 
 When all were on shore the General put the army 
 in motion towards the dreaded fortress, and before 
 long the advance-guard encountered a small band of 
 French and Indians, who made only a feeble resis- 
 
 1 Knox s Journal, i, 396. 
 
TICONDEROGA 141 
 
 tance. The British then found themselves on some 
 heights, upon which they rested and waited for the 
 artillery to come up, for Amherst had no intention of 
 repeating the blunder of his predecessor. Bour- 
 lamaque, perceiving his opponent s plans, became 
 uneasy: the intrenchments that had wrought de 
 struction upon Abercromby s forces could not hold 
 out for any length of time against regular approaches 
 supported by artillery, and the Frenchman decided 
 to retreat into the fort. Amherst, advancing cau 
 tiously on the forenoon of July 23, found the famous 
 lines abandoned, and at once encamped in front of 
 them, where he was well sheltered from the cannon 
 of Carrillon. So far Fortune had indeed smiled upon 
 the General. But even better luck awaited him, for 
 Bourlamaque, despairing of successful resistance, had 
 already left Ticonderoga, and was hurrying toward 
 Crown Point with all but four hundred of his troops. 
 The enemy s conduct was inglorious, yet after the 
 surrender of the lines this was doubtless their wisest 
 course. 
 
 Meanwhile the detachment left at Carrillon fully 
 occupied the attention of the British. The fort 
 maintained a brisk fire, and in its dying gasp brought 
 grief to the English army. A cannon-shot, plunging 
 over the reversed intrenchments, killed Colonel 
 Roger Townshend. This officer has been called the 
 Lord Howe of Amherst s army, and in many ways 
 the metaphor is a good one. He was young and 
 handsome, and came of a family that had belonged 
 
I 4 2 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 to the peerage ever since the Restoration. In 1758, 
 Sir John Ligonier sent him to Louisburg as adjutant- 
 general, in which capacity he acquitted himself so 
 well that Amherst gave him the same duties for the 
 present campaign. Had Roger Townshend not met 
 sudden death at the lines of Ticonderoga, it is prob 
 able that he would have won a reputation compa 
 rable to that of either of his two elder brothers. One 
 of these succeeded to Wolfe s command and received 
 the surrender of Quebec after the battle on the Plains 
 of Abraham. The other was a dashing politician and 
 a brilliant speaker, who is remembered chiefly for a 
 scintillating speech, which justly gained its author 
 the sobriquet of "Champagne" Townshend, and 
 for certain revenue acl:s that were among the causes 
 of the American Revolution. Although Roger Town 
 shend failed to achieve the fame and notoriety of his 
 brothers, he was "deservedly lamented by the Gen 
 eral and the army," and his memory, like that of 
 Lord Howe, is preserved by a monument in West 
 minster Abbey. 
 
 Amherst was aware of the flight of Bourlamaque 
 but the good news by no means led him to precipi 
 tate adlion. He waited for his artillery to come up 
 to the lines, planted batteries, and completed prepa 
 rations for a regular siege. 1 The evening of July 26, 
 found everything arranged as the General would have 
 it; at break of day he intended to open fire. Sud 
 denly at ten o clock the silence of the forest night 
 
 1 Brodhead s New York Documents, vol. vii, p. 400. 
 
TICONDEROGA 143 
 
 was broken by the roar of an explosion, and turning 
 their eyes towards the French fortress, the English 
 beheld a great conflagration rising above the tree- 
 tops. Some deserters from the enemy reported that 
 the garrison had abandoned the fort and were then 
 hurrying down Lake Champlain in the direction of 
 Crown Point. Amherst s first thought was to extin 
 guish the fire and to capture Carrillon intact, but the 
 French, before departing, had cleverly loaded all their 
 guns and musketry to the muzzles and these, being 
 automatically discharged by the flames, kept the 
 British at a safe distance until the next day. The 
 General, therefore, contented himself with harassing 
 the rear of the retreating bateaux of the garrison, 
 capturing a few prisoners and a goodly supply of 
 powder. 
 
 It is possible that amid the crackle of the con 
 flagration and the irregular explosions of the cannon, 
 Jeffery Amherst thought of the extraordinary coin 
 cidence of events which had marked July 26 during 
 the last two years of his life. The same month and 
 day had witnessed in 1757 the battle of Hastenbeck, 
 in 1758 the surrender of Louisburg, and now in 1759 
 the downfall of Ticonderoga. 
 
 Early the next morning a sergeant of the regulars 
 asked permission to venture into the smoking ruins 
 in order to bring away a French flag which still waved 
 over the abandoned fortress. Amherst readily gave 
 his consent, and in a short time the bold volunteer 
 returned with the Bourbon colors. At last Carril- 
 
144 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 Ion, the destroyer of armies and the distressing thorn 
 of the northern colonists, was no more. Once again 
 the General s younger brother, Colonel William Am- 
 herst, sped across the seas to carry encouraging ti 
 dings to Old England, while America rejoiced and 
 was exceeding glad. Amherst appointed the twenty- 
 ninth of July as a day of thanksgiving in the camp, 1 
 and it is to be suspedled that on that occasion the 
 ban on stimulants was temporarily raised; for Colo 
 nel Montresor, who was at the head of Lake George, 
 recorded in his journal under July 28: "We cele 
 brated the taking of Ticonderoga by making bon 
 fires on the highest part of the Camp and giving the 
 workmen one gill of rum apiece." 
 
 After these demonstrations were over, the General 
 turned the energies of his men to levelling the trenches 
 and batteries, and to raising the boats, which the 
 fleeing army had sunk in the lake, lest they fall into 
 the hands of the English in good condition. When 
 the fire in the fort was finally extinguished, Amherst 
 discovered that only a small part of the whole 
 structure had been ruined by the explosion and the 
 flames, and he ordered it to be repaired by four pro 
 vincial regiments under the superintendence of Colonel 
 Schuyler. Having seen these enterprises well under 
 way, the deliberate Commander-in-Chief assembled 
 the larger part of his forces and advanced down the 
 Narrows of Lake Champlain. Fort Frederic, as the 
 
 1 Samuel Niles* Summary Historical Narrative, etc., printed in the Massa 
 chusetts Historical Society s, Colltflions, series iv, vol. v. 
 
riCONDEROGA 145 
 
 French called their long-established post at Crown 
 Point, commanded these inland waters, and its mas 
 sive stone tower, bristling with cannon, bade defiance 
 to the rightful occupants of the region. Thither 
 Bourlamaque had fled, and thither Amherst intended 
 to follow and to conquer. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LAKE CHAMPLAIN 
 
 AT noon on August i, a scouting party came to 
 the camp at Ticonderoga announcing that the 
 enemy had abandoned Crown Point and were 
 headed northward down the lake. The next day a 
 heavy rain prevented Amherst from confirming the 
 report; but on the fourth the British army resumed 
 its victorious journey, landed on the beautiful prom 
 ontory, and took possession of Fort Frederic, which 
 was intact but undefended. The view from the new 
 position was superb. On one side the noble peaks 
 of the Adirondacks, sweeping upward from the west 
 ern shores of Lake Champlain, demand the admira 
 tion of every lover of Nature, while in the other 
 direction meadows and gentle, rolling country rise 
 from the narrowing waters, and invite one to the 
 fertile fields of Vermont. Enjoyment of the scenery, 
 combined with elation over two easy victories, must 
 have made the soldiers feel that their progress through 
 the wilderness was a fete champetre rather than a 
 campaign, and the illusion was increased by the 
 advent of more good news. That very evening a lieu 
 tenant arrived with a letter from Sir William Johnson 
 enclosing the capitulation of Niagara. Thus at almost 
 the same moment two gates to New France were thrown 
 
LAKE CHAMPLAIN 147 
 
 open, and there seemed to be little doubt that the 
 proposed "irruption into Canada" would take place 
 in the immediate future. 
 
 The enterprise against Niagara had been entrusted 
 to Brigadier-General Prideaux. According to his in 
 structions he had proceeded to Oswego, where he 
 left nearly half his force under Colonel Haldimand 
 to build a fort. With the remaining troops he went 
 westward to Niagara, and laid siege to the enemy s 
 fortress, which was strong and exceptionally well 
 built. Its commander, Captain Pouchot, an excellent 
 officer and a gallant fighter, had about six hundred men 
 with whom to defend the post, but his chief reliance 
 was upon a motley band of bush-rangers and savages 
 that had gathered on the southern side of Lake Erie 
 with the intention of recovering Pittsburgh from the 
 English. These half-civilized forces were now called 
 to the relief of Niagara, and Pouchot bent every en 
 ergy to hold out until they arrived. Prideaux, who 
 was joined by Sir William Johnson and about a thou 
 sand Indian warriors of the Five Nations, commenced 
 a regular siege with great vigor. Unfortunately the 
 Brigadier, while walking in the trenches one evening, 
 was killed by the explosion of a British shell, which 
 burst just as it left the mouth of a coe-horn. In his 
 pocket was found a written order for Sir William 
 Johnson to take command of the expedition. 1 Ac 
 cordingly the Baronet did so, continuing the same 
 aggressive tactics which his ill-fated predecessor had 
 employed until the garrison was wellnigh exhausted. 
 
 1 Miles History of the French and Indian Wars, p. 502. 
 
148 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 On the morning of July 24, Pouchot heard distant 
 firing which told him of the approach of succor; 
 but his hopes were dashed when from a bastion of 
 the battered fortress he watched a short but desper 
 ate battle between the British and the party that had 
 come to relieve Niagara. In an hour s time the 
 French were cut to pieces, and those who were for 
 tunate enough to escape hurried back to Lake Erie 
 and thence to Detroit. Johnson s victory was com 
 plete. He followed the battle by a brisk cannonade 
 of the fort and at four o clock sent in a summons 
 to surrender. ^ The gallant Pouchot saw no rational 
 alternative. On the following day, July 25, 1759, 
 Niagara was surrendered to the English, and the 
 French posts in the interior were still further isolated 
 from the capital of New France. 
 
 Amherst was overjoyed with the recent victories 
 which he termed "an happy presage of the entire 
 reduction of Canada in this campaign;" 1 but, as 
 usual, he proceeded with the utmost caution. In 
 the first place, he considered it imperative to build 
 at Crown Point a fort which should "secure entirely 
 all His Majesty s Dominions that are behind it from 
 the Inroads of the Enemy and the Scalping Partys 
 that have infested the whole Country," and which 
 should "give great peace and quiet to the King s 
 subjects." The result of this unfortunate conviction 
 was that for two months the British army remained 
 practically stationary upon the shores of Lake Cham- 
 plain, while the French, at the opposite end of the 
 
 1 Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, vi, 225. 
 
LAKE CHAMPLAIN 149 
 
 Lake, awaited its advance with fear and trembling. 
 The much talked-of "irruption into Canada" was 
 not forthcoming. Granted that a strong fort on the 
 frontier is of great advantage, nevertheless the most 
 enthusiastic champion of Jeffery Amherst must find it 
 difficult to justify this long delay in northern New 
 York. Whatever his reasons may have been, the 
 Commander-in-Chief refused to pursue the retreating 
 enemy, and settling down at Crown Point, spent two 
 valuable months in building a fort, in cutting a road 
 through the Vermont wilderness, and in brewing 
 spruce beer. The alleged cause of his inaction was 
 that four armed vessels of the French made the 
 advance of his flotilla impossible until the British 
 had an equivalent naval force. Accordingly Amherst 
 ordered the construction of a brigantine, a sloop, and 
 a huge raft, eighty-four feet long and twenty feet 
 broad. Ship-building in the forest was not easy at 
 best, and in this case the work was hindered by fre 
 quent accidents at the one overworked sawmill. 
 Almost ten weeks passed before the fresh water 
 squadron was in commission. Ships cannot be built 
 in a day, perhaps, but under the circumstances could 
 not Amherst have employed his men better by turn 
 ing their labor to the speedy creation of a navy in 
 stead of to the commencement of a prodigious 
 fort? 
 
 It seems, however, that the underlying cause of the 
 long delay was not so much the lack of naval power 
 as it was the temperament of the commander. To 
 a man of Amherst s cautious instincts and methodical 
 
ISO JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 habits any other course was impossible. To give 
 chase to the French before his base was securely 
 fortified was not to be thought of by a general as 
 thorough and deliberate as he. Wolfe might rush in 
 where strategists feared to tread, but Amherst always 
 looked before he leaped, and also took care never to 
 lose what had once been gained. If one takes into 
 consideration this attitude of mind, the apparent 
 apathy of the summer of 1759 is comprehensible, 
 although historians will never cease to censure Am 
 herst for the sacrifice of those two months after 
 the occupation of Crown Point. Be that as it may, 
 what he attempted in that period he did with 
 characteristic thoroughness. The fortifications were 
 planned upon a stupendous scale. For eight weeks 
 sixteen hundred men were kept at work upon the 
 stronghold; 1 and this was but the beginning of a 
 structure, the completion of which required three 
 years of labor and three million pounds sterling. In 
 form it was pentagonal, with walls of solid masonry 
 twenty-five feet thick and twenty feet high. 2 The 
 plan also included stone barracks, a parade-ground, 
 and other military accessories, all of which passed 
 into the hands of the energetic Ethan Allen and his 
 renowned Green Mountain Boys at the outbreak 
 of the American Revolution, without a blow being 
 struck on either side. 
 
 Another enterprise undertaken by Amherst while 
 his miniature navy was being built was the construc- 
 
 1 Wilson s Orderly Book. 
 
 2 Vermont Historical Gazetteer, i, 4. 
 
LAKE CHAM PLAIN 151 
 
 tion of a road from the Vermont shore, opposite 
 Crown Point, to Number Four, now Charlestown, 
 New Hampshire, a frontier hamlet on the Connecti 
 cut River. The object was "to open a communica 
 tion from the Massachusetts and New Hampshire 
 governments to Crown Point," and the work was 
 assigned to two hundred rangers under the command 
 of Captain Stark, the future hero of Bennington. 1 
 As a result of these efforts the New Hampshire 
 troops marching to Crown Point a year later, took 
 the cross-country route from Number Four and found 
 a good road all the way from Otter Creek, near 
 Rutland, to the rendezvous. 2 Number Four was one 
 of the most exposed places on the frontier. In the 
 previous war, the fort there had defended itself 
 bravely and successfully against a band of French and 
 Indians; now the new road linked it with the stronger 
 post at Crown Point, besides opening up new country 
 for settlement. This enterprise was sound from a 
 military standpoint and promised to be an aid to the 
 expansion of New Hampshire; but from the point 
 of view of the present campaign, Stark and his com 
 panions might have been occupied to better advan 
 tage in constructing rafts or rude ships, with which 
 to attack the lake squadron of the enemy. Amherst 
 also amused himself by sending out exploring expedi 
 tions, one to discover the source of the Hudson, 
 another to search out the course of Otter Creek, and 
 still another to follow up the Sable River, not so 
 
 1 Stark s General John Stark, p. 27. 
 
 2 Belknap s History of New Hampshire, i, 30511. 
 
152 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 much to view its famous chasm as to find out whether 
 it afforded a short cut to the St. Lawrence near Og- 
 densburg. All of these interesting diversions con 
 sumed valuable time that might have been devoted 
 to far more practical purposes. 
 
 In the meantime the soldiers worked manfully at 
 building the new fort, a task which, to the provin 
 cials at least, was quite as congenial as the more 
 active form of warfare. Their lot was by no means 
 an unenviable one. Behind the captured fort the 
 men discovered three fields of peas, which recall the 
 parable of the loaves and fishes, for if the report is 
 to be trusted, they were "very grateful to the soldiers 
 and served the whole army for three days/ 1 The 
 long encampment also gives us an opportunity to 
 study Amherst as a disciplinarian. Desertion and 
 mutiny were invariably punished with death; at an 
 early hour in the morning the culprit was shot in 
 front of his regiment in the presence of the entire 
 army. Lesser offences were expiated with the cat-o - 
 nine-tails, the usual sentence being five hundred or a 
 thousand lashes. One black sheep, already pardoned 
 for desertion on one occasion, had the misfortune to 
 be captured soon after changing sides a second 
 time. When caught by a scouting party the victim 
 was wearing the enemy s uniform, and this time the 
 General had no mercy, but ordered him "to be 
 hanged in his French coat, with a Libble on his breast, 
 Hang* for deserting to the French" The order goes 
 on to specify that "he is to be hanging all day and 
 
 1 Niles* History of the French and Indian Wars. 
 
LAKE CHAM PLAIN 153 
 
 at the retreat beating he is to be buried very deep 
 under the gallos, and his French coat with him." l 
 No half-way measures these, and it is to be hoped 
 that the execution in terrorem produced the desired 
 effect upon any soldiers who contemplated going over 
 to the enemy. On the other hand, Amherst occa 
 sionally tempered justice with mercy, as in the case 
 of a soldier who was condemned to be hanged for 
 thieving: upon the intercession of the man s captain, 
 and a promise of no second offence, the Commander- 
 in-Chief revoked the sentence and let the prisoner 
 go. 2 
 
 The summer of 1759 was exceptionally rainy, and 
 often the general orders required that the tents of 
 the army be struck at noon, in clear weather, so that 
 the ground might be dried and aired. The sick were 
 cared for even more solicitously. The men were 
 "properly defended from the dampness by dried grass 
 and brushwood," and every fair day witnessed a 
 parade of the disabled, who "marched down to the 
 lake to wash their hands and faces and cleaned 
 themselves." After these required ablutions the 
 men were "kept walking about for an hour," or such 
 time as their strength permitted, while their tents 
 were opened to the sun and air. Considering the 
 abominable lack of hygiene and therapeutics that 
 marked every age before the nineteenth century, we 
 must acknowledge that the methods practiced in 
 the camp at Crown Point were surprising and laud 
 able. 
 
 1 Wilson s Orderly Book, p. 113. f Ibid., p. 173. 
 
154 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 There is a story of Jeffery Amherst which is worth 
 repeating because it illustrates his tact in dealing with 
 both provincials and regulars. While at Ticonderoga 
 a boasting English major declared that no American 
 could lay him upon his back. The challenge was 
 accepted by a young Lieutenant Rice from Connecti 
 cut, who, after a long contested match, tripped his 
 adversary and proved himself the better wrestler. 
 Occasionally when an American wins an athletic 
 victory over one of his British cousins there is a cry 
 of foul play, and the rules of the game are amended 
 to insure English success in the future. Such seems 
 to have been the case at Ticonderoga. The van 
 quished major protested against the Yankee s method 
 of wrestling, and declared that tripping was unfair 
 and unmanly. Rice s answer was not calculated to 
 turn away wrath. High words followed and before 
 long the two men were ready to settle the affair by 
 a duel. The time and place were already appointed, 
 when reports of the quarrel reached the ears of the 
 Commander-in-Chief. Amherst succeeded in appeal 
 ing to his countryman s sense of military propriety, 
 and substituted for the proposed exchange of shots 
 a second wrestling-match, under rules agreeable to 
 the Englishman. The arrangement was made over 
 a glass of grog; and after the contest the athletes 
 became firm friends, in spite of the fact that the 
 second match, like the first, was won by the Amer 
 ican. 1 
 
 While the army was occupied in these various pur- 
 
 1 B. J. Lossing s Piftorial Field-Book of the Revolution, i, 13011. 
 
LAKE CHAMPLAIN 155 
 
 suits in the vicinity of Lake Champlain, the news of 
 Amherst s triple victory reached England. Pitt was 
 greatly pleased at the progress of the campaign and 
 embraced the opportunity to extort a reward from 
 the reluctant George II. Ever since the capture of 
 Louisburg the minister had urged that Amherst be 
 given the governorship of Virginia as a token of the 
 King s appreciation, but George had constantly with 
 held his consent. The reports from Ticonderoga, 
 Niagara, and Crown Point, supplemented by Pitt s 
 petulant threat to resign if his general were not re 
 warded, put a different aspect on the situation. 1 
 Therefore, on September 12, 1759, Jeffery Amherst 
 was appointed Governor of Virginia to succeed Lord 
 Loudon. 2 The new office sounds as if it were pre 
 cisely what the General wished to avoid, but as a 
 matter of fact it was a sinecure bringing in 1500 a 
 year. 3 In Virginia titular governors were appointed 
 at different times. These fortunate individuals en 
 joyed the title and part of the emoluments of the 
 position, while the actual conduct of the government 
 was left to a resident lieutenant-governor. 4 For 
 Amherst an office which did not require his presence 
 in America and yet contributed to his income was 
 in every way agreeable, and he gladly accepted the 
 appointment. Another honor conferred upon him in 
 this summer was promotion to the rank of Major- 
 
 1 Torrens History of Cabinets, ii, 515. 
 
 * Afts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, iv, 780. 
 
 1 Grenville Correspondence, iv, 349. 
 
 4 E. B. Greene s Provincial Governor, p. 57. 
 
JEFFERT AM H ERST 
 
 General in the British army, 1 in contradistinction to 
 his previous grade of Colonel, "with the rank of 
 Major-General in America. " Horace Walpole rarely 
 let an event pass without note or comment of some 
 sort, and his enthusiastic tribute to Amherst on the 
 occasion of the victory at Ticonderoga deserves quo 
 tation. "We have taken more places and ships in a 
 week than would have set up such pedant nations 
 as Greece and Rome to all futurity. If we did 
 but call Sir William Johnson Gulielmus Johnsonus 
 Niagaricus and Amherst Galfridus Amhersta Ti- 
 conderogicus we should be quoted a thousand 
 years hence as the patterns of valour, virtue, and 
 disinterestedness." 2 
 
 In the meantime the crimson foliage of the tupelos 
 fringing the rocky shores of Lake Champlain heralded 
 the approach of autumn; yet Amherst and his ten 
 thousand men advanced not. Wolfe, almost dis 
 couraged before Quebec, waited and hoped for help 
 from his chief. Finally he could delay operations no 
 longer. The great difficulty in the St. Lawrence 
 expedition had been to engage the French army 
 outside its defences, and Wolfe s one desperate chance 
 lay in seizing the level heights above the town and 
 thus forcing the hand of his wily adversary, the 
 Marquis of Montcalm. Early on the morning of 
 September 13, the vanguard of the British forces 
 scaled the almost impassable cliffs that formed the 
 great protection of Quebec, and by the use of a con- 
 
 1 Worthington C. Ford s British Officers Serving in America, 1754-1774. 
 
 2 Horace Walpole to the Earl of Stratford, Sept. 13, 1759. 
 
LAKE CHAM PLAIN 157 
 
 venient ravine the rest of the troops, with two small 
 cannon, soon occupied the Plains of Abraham, within 
 a mile and a half of the town. There the drill and 
 discipline of the British regiments won the day for 
 England: five days later Quebec and its garrison 
 surrendered. The capital of New France fell, but 
 not without costing England her most dashing sol 
 dier; for James Wolfe, like his adversary, Montcalm, 
 was killed on the field of battle. 
 
 Even though one has difficulty in being reconciled 
 to Amherst s two months of inaction at Crown Point, 
 it is doubtful whether a more aggressive campaign on 
 his part would have been of greater benefit to his 
 colleague on the St. Lawrence. The mere presence 
 of his army to the southward drew off from Quebec 
 a considerable part of the French forces which other 
 wise would have made Wolfe s feat impossible. The 
 nineteenth century, in its glorification of the hero of 
 the Plains of Abraham, went so far as to cast asper 
 sions upon Amherst and to lament his "wasted la 
 bors" on Lake Champlain; but his contemporaries 
 took a more rational view and realized the value of 
 his army-in-being, although its performances were 
 hardly spectacular. Thomas Hutchinson, the last 
 royal governor of Massachusetts under the charter, 
 possessed the mind of a trained historian, and his 
 judgment of Amherst s behavior in the summer of 
 1759 is both enlightening and just: "It is extremely 
 probable, that, if a great part of the French forces 
 had not been withdrawn from Quebec to attend the 
 motions of General Amherst, the attempt made by 
 
158 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 General Wolfe must have failed." l Not only was 
 Bourlamaque with thirty-five hundred men kept on 
 tenter-hooks of uncertainty at the outlet of Lake 
 Champlain, but Levis, the second in command at 
 Quebec, was sent up the St. Lawrence with eight 
 hundred men to defend Montreal from an expected 
 descent by the British from Niagara and Oswego. 2 
 Thus Amherst s apparent failure to co-operate with 
 Wolfe was in reality a great potential aid to the 
 latter s brilliant conquest of the capital of New 
 France. 
 
 On the very day when the fate of an empire was 
 decided on the Plains of Abraham, General Amherst 
 issued orders to Major Robert Rogers to set out with 
 two hundred rangers to punish "the enemy s Indian 
 scoundrels," particularly the Abenakis of St. Francis. 
 The occasion of the General s wrath against this 
 tribe was their seizure of two British officers bound 
 for Quebec, who came to St. Francis with a flag of 
 truce and a message of peace, which Amherst thought 
 would be respected by the savages. The captives 
 were sent to Montreal, and now the Indians were to 
 suffer for their loyalty to the French. In his in 
 structions to Rogers, Amherst wrote: "Take your 
 revenge, but don t forget that though those villains 
 have dastardly and promiscuously murdered the 
 women and children of all ages, it is my orders that 
 no women or children are killed or hurt." For the 
 
 1 Hutchinson s History of Massachusetts- Bay, ii, 78. 
 
 2 Bancroft s History of the United States, ii, 502. Parkman s Montcalm 
 and Wolfe, ii, 260. 
 
LAKE CHAM PLAIN 159 
 
 business in hand the General made a judicious se 
 lection when he chose Major Robert Rogers for the 
 leader. He was a New Hampshire man of thirty 
 years or more, renowned for his self-reliance and 
 boldness. Like many a lover of adventure he pos 
 sessed a character less splendid than his physique, 
 but ever since his appearance at Lake George, four 
 years before this time, Rogers had been the terror of 
 the French and of the Indians. Under his command 
 was a battalion of lynx-eyed rangers, who harried, 
 the enemy at every season of the year and were sure 
 to appear when least expected, on skates, on snow- 
 shoes, or in gliding birch-bark canoes. 1 The present 
 task promised hardship and excitement in plenty, 
 and Rogers lost no time in starting on his gory 
 mission. 
 
 The St. Francis Indians had been settled for about 
 seventy-five years on the River St. Francis, a few 
 miles above its confluence with the St. Lawrence. 
 Of all the savage allies of the French no tribe had 
 harassed and terrified the New England frontier as 
 much as these bloodthirsty redskins: their unex 
 pected excursions had been marked by burning farm 
 houses and murdered pioneers, men, women, and 
 children; in six years time they had killed, or carried 
 into captivity, four hundred people from the border 
 settlements. Rogers and his men set out in whale- 
 boats, and after successfully eluding the French 
 vessels, landed the tenth day at Missisquoi Bay, at 
 the north end of Lake Champlain. Concealing their 
 
 1 Parkman s Montcalm and Wolfe^ i ? 444-45, 
 
160 JEFFERY AM H ERST 
 
 boats on the shore, the expedition began to march 
 towards St. Francis. For nine days they struggled 
 through spruce bogs with the water up to their knees 
 most of the time; finally they came out upon better 
 ground, and a few days more brought them within 
 three miles of the Indian town which Rogers de 
 scried from a tree-top at sundown. There the party 
 halted while the leader, with one or two companions, 
 reconnoitred. They found the Indians yelling and 
 singing "in a high frolic," and saw hundreds of 
 English scalps dangling from poles over the doors of 
 the houses. At two o clock in the morning Rogers 
 returned to his party, and at three marched it towards 
 St. Francis. Where pandemonium had reigned, all 
 was quiet now. The men slipped off their packs and 
 formed in a semi-circle. A half hour before sunrise 
 the blow fell, and so suddenly that hardly a warrior 
 escaped. Some were killed in their beds, others were 
 pursued and shot down, while those who had thought 
 to conceal themselves in the cellars and lofts of their 
 houses were consumed in the wholesale conflagration 
 that followed the slaughter. 
 
 So far the expedition had been an unqualified 
 success; but while the sky was still red with the 
 flickering light of the holocaust, Nemesis appeared 
 in the shape of a party of three hundred or more 
 French and Indians, who had been sent to cut off 
 the retreat of the intruders. Rogers knew that any 
 attempt to regain the shores of Lake Champlain 
 would be fatal: there was, however, one possible 
 means of escape, to traverse the wilderness to the 
 
LAKE CHAMPLAIN 161 
 
 headwaters of the Connecticut and follow the course 
 of that river southward to Number Four. A council 
 of war adopted the latter plan, and the rangers started 
 on their two-hundred-mile flight. The rest of the 
 story rivals the Ancient Mariner in horror. 1 For a 
 while the Frenchmen, following close upon their heels 
 and picking off the stragglers one by one, caused them 
 distress; but this enemy was as naught compared 
 with the tortures of starvation that marked the last 
 days of their journey. Some of the men dropped 
 from exhaustion and perished where they fell; others 
 kept themselves alive by subsisting on ground-nut 
 and lily bulbs, until at the end of many days the 
 welcome sound of wood-cutting told them that at 
 last they were nearing Number Four. There they 
 were helped into the fort and nursed back to health 
 and strength. 
 
 While Major Robert Rogers and his companions 
 were paying dearly for the havoc they had wrought 
 at St. Francis, the main body of the army at Crown 
 Point finally bestirred itself. About the tenth of 
 October the little navy came down from the yards at 
 Ticonderoga: it consisted of a sloop, the "Bos- 
 cawen," a brigantine, the "Duke of Cumberland, * 
 and a radeau which the provincials dubbed "the 
 floating castle." 2 On the afternoon of October n, 
 this squadron, followed by the regulars in four col 
 umns of whaleboats, set out down the lake with fine 
 weather and a fair breeze, while the provincials were 
 
 1 Journals of Major Robert Rogers, pp. 141-149. 
 3 Niles French and Indian Wars, p. 523. 
 
162 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 left behind to work on the fort. That night the troops 
 spent on the water, and at daybreak some of the ba 
 teaux, having followed a misleading light, found them 
 selves in the midst of the enemy s sloops. In the 
 ensuing skirmish the French captured a boatload of 
 men, and then sailed away at top speed. The rest 
 of the regulars, preceded by the protecting radeau, 
 continued on their way down the lake until afternoon 
 when the wind began to blow hard from the north 
 west. One of the peculiarities of Lake Champlain 
 is its susceptibility to wind. On that sheet of water 
 the waves raised by a breeze of no great force are 
 quite out of proportion to the velocity of the air, a 
 strange phenomenon which Amherst was soon to 
 encounter. Towards sundown it became evident that 
 the boats must seek shelter or sink. On the western 
 shore a well protected bay promised a good haven and 
 thither the General directed the men to row. There 
 the windy night was passed in comparative comfort, 
 but the following day found the lake noisy and angry 
 with white caps racing by from the north; the pines 
 on the shore of Ligonier Bay, as Amherst named the 
 sheltering inlet, 1 swished and roared in the autumnal 
 gale, and all thought of going upon the water was 
 abandoned. The high winds continued for five days, 
 but during that time the brig and the sloop were 
 busy on the lake. First they pursued the enemy s 
 schooner until both British vessels ran aground. 
 Recovering from this humiliating occurrence, they 
 spied three French sloops and started after them at 
 
 1 Now called Willsboro Bay. 
 
LAKE CHAMPLAIN 163 
 
 once. Up and down the lake the chase continued 
 until the Frenchmen, refusing an action, were block 
 aded in a bay on the western shore, near the present 
 town of Plattsburg. 1 Night came on while the Brit 
 ish were at anchor off the entrance. In the morning 
 they discovered that the enemy, in despair, had sunk 
 two of their own vessels, while the third had been 
 run aground, in order that the crews might escape 
 through the woods to Isle aux Noix. 
 
 On the night of the fourteenth a rainstorm added 
 to the gaiety of the elements. When that tempest 
 cleared, a cold wave congealed the shivering army, 
 causing Amherst to wonder if the season were not 
 too far advanced for further operations. Midstream 
 in the outlet at the northern end of the lake, Bour- 
 lamaque lay intrenched to the teeth, with thirty-five 
 hundred men and one hundred cannon. On each 
 side of Isle aux Noix, a cbtvaux-de-frise closed the 
 Richelieu River to the British ships. Furthermore, 
 the largest French vessel was still to be accounted 
 for. 
 
 A gentle southerly breeze, however, restored the 
 General s confidence temporarily, and ordering his 
 men to re-embark, Amherst went down the lake to 
 the place where the enemy s sloops were captured. 
 There he received a letter from New York telling of 
 the fall of Quebec. This news, combined with a 
 north wind and "an appearance of winter," deter 
 mined the course of operations. The conquest of 
 Isle aux Noix must wait until another campaign. 
 1 Cumberland Bay. 
 
164 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 Turning their course southward, the men returned 
 to Ligonier Bay, and thence to Crown Point, where 
 the army reunited on the afternoon of October 21. 
 Once again on familiar ground, Amherst found the 
 new fort almost finished and Ticonderoga entirely 
 restored. These were the monuments of his cam 
 paign. 
 
 "When chill November s chilly blast made fields 
 and forests bare," some of the provincials from Massa 
 chusetts and New Jersey decided that it was time they 
 were disbanded and allowed to return to their homes. 
 The result was a small mutiny on the first day of 
 the month; but Amherst detailed a few regulars to 
 restore discipline and the matter was soon settled. 
 Towards the middle of November one American regi 
 ment after another was started on its homeward 
 way, those from New England following the new 
 road to Number Four, which greatly lessened the 
 distance and expense of their march. The weather 
 grew more and more severe, until the leaf-strewn 
 ground was white with snow, and on the twenty- 
 fifth the Commander-in-Chief broke camp. Leaving 
 a garrison of six companies at Ticonderoga, the di 
 minished army started on its march for New York. 
 The first night was spent in the woods between Lake 
 Champlain and Lake George, where the soldiers made 
 good fires, and wisely so, for before morning sev 
 eral inches of snow had fallen. Another day or two 
 brought them to the newly constructed Fort George, 
 which Amherst inspected and declared satisfactory. 1 
 
 1 Montrfsor s Journals, p. 108. 
 
LAKE CHAMPLAIN 165 
 
 Four companies were left to hold this post during the 
 winter, while the rest of the troops continued their 
 way south, seeking sheltered spots in the woods at 
 night, and sleeping in clusters around the campfires, 
 for it was not considered worth while to pitch tents 
 for such short encampments. 
 
 At Albany, Amherst met Sir William Johnson, the 
 recent hero of the Niagara expedition, and congratu 
 lated him upon his victory. During his three days 
 stay in town the Hudson froze over, which was an 
 noying because the General had embarked his men 
 upon vessels in the river, expecting them to go to 
 New York by water. As the cold weather contin 
 ued, however, he ordered the regiments off the ships 
 and started them on the road for the metropolis. A 
 day or two later, the fifth of December, Amherst 
 left Brigadier Gage to command at Albany and 
 crossed the Hudson on the ice. From there to New 
 York he travelled on foot, making a very favorable 
 impression upon the colonists and setting a good 
 example for the soldiers. 1 After walking six days, 
 the Commander-in-Chief arrived at his quarters on 
 Manhattan Island and settled down for a well-earned 
 winter s rest. 
 
 Among the indirect results of the campaign was a 
 short-lived and comparatively unknown fourteenth 
 colony, which came into being in the following man 
 ner. Major Philip Skene was one of the many Brit 
 ish officers who were attracted by the remarkable 
 fertility and beauty of the country around Crown 
 
 1 Bonney s Legacy of Historical Gleanings, i, 33. 
 
166 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 Point. Like Amherst, he had fought at Fontenoy 
 and Laffeldt in the previous war, and in the present 
 conflict he had been with Lord Howe in the earlier 
 campaign against Ticonderoga. 1 During the recent 
 summer of inaction on Lake Champlain, Skene s 
 thoughts turned to the creation of a great estate in 
 the wilderness, and early in November he asked 
 Amherst for a grant which should lie "between South 
 Bay, East Bay and the garrison-land of Fort Ed 
 ward." This was no modest request, but Skene en 
 joyed the General s favor and through his influence 
 might gain what he desired. As the Commander- 
 in-Chief had no direct authority to distribute land 
 which properly belonged to the Crown or to the col 
 onies, Skene was advised to present a petition to the 
 Secretary of State. He did so, and, confident of 
 success, settled "a number of poor families and some 
 servants" on his intended domain. 2 Then from Eng 
 land came a temporary refusal of the application, 
 which was due to the diffidence of the Lords of Trade 
 about handling the matter until they were possessed 
 of more definite knowledge concerning the location 
 and jurisdiction of the proposed settlement. Before 
 the desired information was given and the terms of 
 cultivation elucidated, duty called the Major to the 
 West Indies on the expeditions against Martinique 
 and Havana. Returning from the South, he brought 
 with him about two hundred and seventy prospective 
 soldier-settlers, only to find that he had no land which 
 
 1 Gentle man s Magazine, Ixxx, 672. 
 
 * Brodhead s New York Colonial Documtnts, vii, 615. 
 
LAKE CHAMPLAIN 167 
 
 he could legally assign to their use; indeed, that 
 which he had already improved had been regranted 
 over his head. This was discouraging, but Skene 
 was determined to be a great landlord and crossed 
 the ocean to present his case in person to the Lords 
 of Trade. 
 
 In England Major Skene s arguments carried such 
 conviction that in May, 1764, he was granted twenty 
 thousand acres, about thirty square miles. 1 As his 
 regiment was one of those stationed in America after 
 the war, the arrangement was a happy one, and the 
 newly created proprietor entered enthusiastically into 
 the development of his estate. In 1769 he retired 
 from the army. The next year saw him established 
 at Skenesborough, now Whitehall, New York, which 
 is pleasantly situated at the head of the South Bay 
 of Lake Champlain. There he set up forges for 
 smelting iron, as well as a number of sawmills, and 
 opened a road to Salem and Bennington to encourage 
 the flow of colonization in his direction. 2 In the 
 meantime an interprovincial war was being waged 
 between New Hampshire and New York, each claim 
 ing title to the land west of the Connecticut River. 
 New Hampshire grants were superimposed upon 
 those of New York, and vice versa, until it became 
 evident that only might would make right. As 
 Skene had almost lost his domain through the inter 
 ference of the government of New York, he threw in 
 his lot with the ultra-radical New Hampshire party, 
 
 1 Afts of the Privy Council (Colonial), vol. iv, p. 817. 
 
 1 New York State Agricultural Society s Transactions, vol. viii, p. 967. 
 
168 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 and for a time was hand in glove with the renowned 
 Ethan Allen. In 1774, Skene, Allen, and a few other 
 principal characters contrived a scheme to get rid 
 of the jurisdiction of both contesting governments 
 by having a new royal colony established. This 
 should contain "the New Hampshire Grants" west 
 of the Connecticut River, and also most of the pres 
 ent State of New York north of the Mohawk. If 
 the influential Major could induce the home govern 
 ment to solve the problem in this way, he might be 
 appointed governor of the new province with his 
 capital at Skenesborough. The idea appealed to 
 Skene who once more sailed for England to solicit 
 the accomplishment of the new project. 1 To a cer 
 tain extent the enterprise succeeded. Lord Dart 
 mouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, smiled 
 upon the ingenious proposition and appointed Major 
 Skene Lieutenant-Governor of Crown Point and 
 Ticonderoga, for which favor the latter was duly 
 grateful. 2 But there the matter was brought to an 
 abrupt close by the outbreak of the American Revo 
 lution, which temporarily placed in abeyance the 
 intercolonial dispute and its possible solution. Pre 
 cisely how far the British government would have 
 gone or actually went in the prosecution of 
 Skene s ambitious plan one cannot say. It is certain, 
 however, that the Continental Congress considered 
 
 1 Ira Allen s History of Vermont, in the Vermont Historical Society s 
 Collections, Vol. i. 
 
 8 Historical Manuscripts Commission s Fourteenth Report, Appendix, 
 Part 10, p. 269. 
 
LAKE CHAMPLAIN 169 
 
 him a dangerous partizan of the administration, and 
 by providing for his imprisonment as soon as he 
 arrived in America, 1 put an end to the proposed 
 colony that grew out of Amherst s campaign in 
 northern New York in the summer of 1759. 
 
 1 Journals of the Continental Congress, June 8 and June 27, 1775. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 MONTREAL 
 
 AS the spring of 1760 approached, the soldiers 
 at New York began to speculate upon the 
 plan of campaign for the coming season; 
 none, however, could have been at a great loss to 
 guess Amherst s objective, for Montreal still remained 
 in the hands of the French, and thither the capital 
 of New France had been transferred when Quebec 
 surrendered to the English. Although Pitt had 
 stipulated that this achievement was the "great and 
 essential object remaining to complete the glory of 
 His Majesty s arms in that part of the world," Am- 
 herst awaited specific instructions. He expected that 
 these would arrive with his brother, the much-trav 
 elled William, who was returning from his second 
 mission of bearing good news across the water. In 
 the meantime the General exhorted the colonial 
 assemblies to co-operate with him in the conquest of 
 Canada by providing as many provincial troops as 
 in the previous year. The governors did their best 
 but the colonists, overjoyed at the victories of 1759, 
 now regarded an early peace with France as a fore 
 gone conclusion. Indeed, there were rumors afloat 
 that hostilities might cease at any time. Under the 
 circumstances it is not surprising that, although the 
 
MONTREAL 171 
 
 assemblies voted approximately the same number of 
 troops, only four-fifths of the promised twenty 
 thousand adlually took the field, and these did so 
 with such deliberation that Amherst s movements 
 were much delayed. 1 
 
 Pitt s instructions for the present campaign arrived 
 unexpectedly at headquarters towards the end of 
 February, eight weeks before William Amherst re 
 turned to the New World. The orders were flatter 
 ing rather than specific. The object of the campaign 
 was the capture of Montreal, but how this was to be 
 accomplished was left entirely to the General s judg 
 ment. He might invade Canada in one body, or he 
 might divide his forces into separate and distinct 
 armies, whichever method he deemed the more ex 
 pedient. The latter alternative appealed to Am 
 herst in spite of its patent difficulties, and he decided 
 to overwhelm Montreal with three expeditions acting 
 simultaneously from east, south, and west. While 
 Murray, who was in command at Quebec, ascended 
 the St. Lawrence, Colonel Haviland should carry the 
 operations of the previous season to their logical 
 conclusion by driving the enemy from the northern 
 end of Lake Champlain. The third part of the 
 program was to be conducted by the Commander-in- 
 Chief who would lead the main army to Oswego, 
 and thence eastward down Lake Ontario and the 
 St. Lawrence to Montreal. The first would block 
 the enemy s avenue of escape down the river; the 
 second would dispose of the garrison at the Isle au 
 
 1 George Louis Beer s British Colonial Policy, p. 65. 
 
172 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 Noix; while Amherst s circuitous route was calcu 
 lated to prevent the French from retreating inland to 
 Detroit and the western posts. Obviously the pro 
 posed arrangement was full of dangers. Each de 
 tachment would be isolated from the other two until 
 the rendezvous was reached, and if separately at 
 tacked might be overpowered by the enemy. On 
 the other hand, if all went well, the campaign would 
 be one of the prettiest pieces of military co-operation 
 imaginable. Amherst counted the cost and was con 
 fident of success. The old boats were repaired, new 
 ones were built, and artillery and stores were brought 
 around from Boston. On the second day of May the 
 Commander-in-Chief set out for Albany, the accus 
 tomed assembling place of regulars and provin 
 cials. 
 
 As usual, the American troops were tardy in reach 
 ing the appointed ground, but Amherst made good 
 use of the time by forwarding provisions and stores 
 to Crown Point and Oswego, to facilitate the prog 
 ress of the expeditions when once in motion. He 
 also conferred with Sir William Johnson, who prom 
 ised him a goodly supply of Indians, as in the pre 
 vious year. By the middle of May, only a dozen 
 companies of Massachusetts troops, a handful of 
 men from Rhode Island, and a fraction of the New 
 York quota had turned up at Albany, and Am 
 herst was beginning to fume about "the sloth of the 
 colonies," when disturbing news from Quebec gave 
 him graver grounds for concern. 
 
 Brigadier Murray had been left in command of 
 
MONTREAL 173 
 
 the erstwhile capital of New France, and his garri 
 son had passed a comparatively comfortable winter, 
 which they made more or less interesting by indulging 
 in petty warfare with the bush-rangers and Indians of 
 the surrounding country. Scurvy, fever, and dysen 
 tery, however, had reduced the original number of 
 seven thousand by one-half, and in the following April 
 there were scarcely more than three thousand British 
 soldiers fit for duty in Quebec. Hundreds had been 
 buried in the snow-drifts, which furnished temporary 
 graves until the frozen ground should relax under 
 the influence of a spring sun. Meanwhile the French 
 at Montreal, particularly Vaudreuil, the Governor 
 of New France, kept a vigilant eye upon the state of 
 affairs in the English garrison, and Levis, who had 
 succeeded Montcalm as military head of the colony, 
 determined to fall upon the weakened enemy, and 
 recover Quebec for Louis XV. Some faint-hearts 
 scoffed at the enterprise, calling it " Levis folly "; 
 but secret preparations went on apace until the 
 commander had eight or nine thousand men ready to 
 march down the river. 
 
 On the twentieth of April, the expedition of recon- 
 quest set out for the scene of action. The English 
 abandoned their outpost at Old Lorette and fell 
 back to Sainte-Foy, where their position was stronger. 
 As soon as Murray realized the seriousness of the 
 present attack, he called in his men from the various 
 outlying districts and weighed the relative dangers 
 of a siege and of a pitched battle. In view of the 
 dubious condition of the town-walls, the latter choice 
 
174 JEFFERT AM H ERST 
 
 seemed the more advisable, and a lively battle took 
 place; but after two hours* fighting against double 
 their number, the British were forced to retire within 
 the fortifications of Quebec. Then indeed was there 
 great danger of losing what Wolfe had so gallantly 
 won. Every man worked to the utmost of his 
 strength to put the place in a state of defence against 
 its late owners, and it was at this critical juncture 
 that Murray wrote to Amherst, imploring him to 
 send relief to the besieged garrison on the St. Law 
 rence. The Commander-in-Chief did so by ordering 
 reinforcements up the river from Louisburg, 1 although 
 there was little hope of their arriving at Quebec in 
 time to rescue Murray and his fellow-sufferers. In 
 the meantime the English poured forth such a furious 
 fire from the walls of the town that the month of 
 May was well advanced before Levis could plant his 
 artillery and start an active siege. The enemy s 
 great dependence was upon a ship which they had 
 asked to have sent thither with munitions and heavy 
 guns. The arrival of this vessel would seal the fate 
 of the British, and Murray knew it; on the other 
 hand the appearance of an English ship-of-war would 
 frustrate the attempted reconquest of Quebec. Food 
 became bad and scarce, and the men were worn out 
 with excessive labor. When, therefore, on the ninth 
 of May a sail appeared far down the river, every 
 eye was strained to discover its nationality. Finally, 
 her colors were unfurled, and at the sight of the red 
 cross of St. George the garrison went fairly mad 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, ii, 288. 
 
MONTREAL 175 
 
 with relief and joy. Levis did not yet give up hope; 
 but when the welcome " Lowes toffe" was followed by 
 more representatives of the British navy, the game 
 was up. The English ships passed the town and 
 demoralized the enemy s squadron with little diffi 
 culty. The reconquest of Quebec was then out of 
 the question, and the Frenchmen made all speed to 
 return to their proper task, the defence of Mon 
 treal. 
 
 At Albany, life was far less exciting. June was 
 more than half gone before all the provincial troops 
 had straggled into camp. Amherst divided their 
 number between his own expedition and that which 
 was to operate under Haviland, the General appro 
 priating the men from Connecticut, New York and 
 New Jersey, while the provincials from Rhode Island 
 and Northern New England were sent to Crown 
 Point. Having made this apportionment, he gave 
 orders for the troops under his immediate command to 
 proceed to Oswego as soon as possible, while he went 
 on ahead to that secondary rendezvous. Oswego, 
 it will be remembered, stood on the southeastern 
 shore of Lake Ontario, and having been extensively 
 fortified by the British in 1759, was now one of 
 the most defensible places in America. 1 Upon his 
 arrival there, early in July, the Commander-in-Chief 
 learned that two French vessels had been hovering off 
 the settlement. As this performance was repeated, 
 he reported their presence to the naval commander 
 at Niagara, who responded by sending over two 
 
 1 London Magazine, vol. 28, pp. 626-627. 
 
176 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 ships, the "Onondaga" and the "Mohawk," which 
 were immediately ordered to sail in quest of the 
 enemy. 
 
 Towards the end of the month, Sir William 
 Johnson, true to his word, appeared at Oswego, 
 bringing with him the greatest number of Indians 
 that had yet flocked to the English standard. Of 
 the thirteen hundred redskins, however, only about 
 one-half were warriors, and as Amherst was disgusted 
 to be obliged to feed their women and children, 1 
 the latter were soon encouraged to depart for their 
 wilderness homes. Soon after the arrival of this 
 savage host, the regular and provincial regiments, 
 delayed no doubt by the "rainy, vile, and uncomfort 
 able season," began to drift into camp: 2 by the 
 ninth of the month all were present or accounted 
 for. At dawn of the following day, Amherst em 
 barked with the regulars upon Lake Ontario, leaving 
 Gage to bring up the provincials in the rear as soon 
 as there were enough bateaux. Down the lake and 
 into the St. Lawrence the whole flotilla steered its 
 course. Before long they passed the two British 
 ships, which the General had sent out to pursue the 
 elusive French vessels, and came to rest at Ogdens- 
 burg. 
 
 This progress, remarkable for its celerity, was 
 interrupted on the morning of August 17 by a spirited 
 encounter with the enemy s one remaining vessel, 
 
 1 Aspintuall Papers in the Massachusetts Historical Society s Colleftions, 
 Fourth Series, ix, 292-293. 
 8 Ibid., p. 300. 
 
MONTREAL 177 
 
 the other having run aground. As the two British 
 ships-of-war, the "Onondaga" and the "Mohawk," 
 had lost their way in the labyrinth of the Thousand 
 Islands, the capture of the Frenchman devolved 
 upon the infantry in the "row-galleys." Fortunately, 
 there was little or no wind and the enemy s vessel 
 tried in vain to slip by the English and to sail up the 
 river to the lake. The attacking party fired over one 
 hundred rounds to which the French ship replied 
 with zest, but by seven o clock in the morning her 
 Bourbon colors came down. 1 Amherst then took 
 undisturbed possession of the southern shore of the 
 St. Lawrence at the mouth of the Oswegatchie River, 
 where there had been an Indian settlement, watched 
 over by a French blockhouse, both of which were 
 now abandoned. 
 
 About four or five miles farther down the river, 
 upon an island in mid-stream, stood Fort Levis, 
 which was reported to be a strong post. Its com 
 mander was Pouchot, the same gallant Frenchman 
 who, in the previous year, had held Niagara as long 
 as there existed the slightest possibility of its relief. 
 After the surrender of that fortress he had been 
 exchanged, and he now prepared to face a less hope 
 ful siege. It would have been quite possible for 
 Amherst to run by the batteries of Fort Levis, with 
 out taking time to invest and capture it, but he 
 had two reasons for not doing this. One was his 
 characteristic thoroughness; the other, the possi 
 bility of finding in its garrison pilots to guide his 
 
 1 Aspinwall Papers, p. 307. 
 
178 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 boats through the dangerous rapids which lay between 
 the English army and Montreal. 
 
 After reconnoitering both shores and seizing the 
 islands below Fort Levis, Amherst invested the 
 rocky islet on all sides so that none of its garrison 
 might escape. In the meantime Pouchot s resist 
 ance was by no means passive. While the British 
 were circumnavigating the fort, they were treated to 
 a smart cannonade, which sunk one of their boats, 
 killed two men in another, and injured several. This 
 ticklish operation consumed many hours, and it was 
 eleven o clock on the night of August 18 before the 
 island was entirely surrounded. The next two days 
 were spent in planting batteries and in bringing up 
 the delinquent ships-of-war, whose strength was now 
 supplemented by the "Ottawa," the vessel recently 
 captured from the enemy. On the twenty-third, 
 Amherst opened fire from every side. The fortress 
 was raked fore and aft; its log walls were shivered 
 and splintered by the furious cannonade, but Pouchot 
 lived up to his well deserved reputation for bravery. 
 Although, one by one, the enemy s guns were dis 
 mounted the obstinate commander held out for three 
 days. Finally, on the afternoon of August 25, the 
 garrison beat a parley and Amherst received a letter 
 from his adversary. The British general never wasted 
 much time in haggling over terms of surrender: on 
 this occasion he gave his victim only ten minutes in 
 which to decide to give up his fort and all its appur 
 tenances in their present condition, the garrison to 
 be prisoners of war. Pouchot yielded at once, and 
 
MONTREAL 179 
 
 soon the British jack was hoisted over one more out 
 post of France in America. 
 
 Amherst s Indian allies had looked forward with 
 eagerness and joy to the reduction of Fort Levis, 
 an event which they never doubted would be followed 
 by a massacre of the garrison such as had marked 
 the capture of Fort William Henry by the French 
 three years before. In this expectation they were 
 grievously disappointed, however, and when it became 
 evident that the General would allow no violence of 
 any kind against those who had fallen into his hands, 
 three-quarters of his savages deserted from the army 
 and returned home in rage and disgust. 
 
 Lingering in the vicinity of his most recent con 
 quest, which was renamed Fort William Augustus 
 in honor of the Duke of Cumberland, Amherst em 
 ployed the men in repairing the fort, mending the 
 bateaux, and overhauling the larger vessels. The 
 prospect before hirru was not attractive. Between 
 his present camp and Montreal, the St. Lawrence 
 was torn with a series of dangerous rapids which 
 might spell the ruin of the entire campaign. Pouchot 
 took especial delight in painting them in their black 
 est colors to his conqueror s troubled fancy, and 
 well-nigh succeeded in disturbing the Englishman s 
 renowned equanimity. 1 However, the original plan 
 must be executed or the tripartite concentration 
 upon Montreal would lack its most important factor. 
 Already Murray with his forces from Quebec was 
 within a few miles of the rendezvous, while Havi- 
 
 1 Pouchot s Memoirs, ii, 40. 
 
i8o JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 land, having driven the enemy from Isle aux Noix, 
 was fast approaching the south bank of the St. Law 
 rence. On the last day of August, Amherst again 
 put the army in motion and soon had his first experi 
 ence of shooting the rapids, which he found "more 
 frightful than dangerous." While most of the men 
 stayed in the boats in passing these precarious parts 
 of the river, the General was careful to march cov 
 ering parties along the shore lest the French or the 
 Indians should add to the excitement of the occa 
 sion by attacking the flotilla. Fortunately there was 
 no resistance on the part of the enemy. On the con 
 trary, the inhabitants of the settlements traversed 
 by the army were overcome by the sight of such a 
 host and, abandoning their houses, rushed into the 
 woods as fast as their legs could carry them. As 
 Amherst had given strict orders that the Canadians 
 were not to be plundered on pain of death, their 
 panic-stricken evacuation was unnecessary. 1 When 
 ever it was possible, the General sent after them, 
 while others came back of their own accord. They 
 were disarmed, and after taking the oath of allegiance 
 were repossessed of their habitations and lands, 
 much to their surprise and happiness. 2 
 
 The first four rapids were passed with compara 
 tive ease, although a half-dozen men were drowned in 
 the turbulent waters before Lake St. Francis afforded 
 temporary relief and an opportunity to repair what 
 
 1 Woodkull s Journal in the Historical Magazine, v, 259. 
 3 Amherst to Governor Wentworihy Sept. 9, 1760 (MS. in the Boston 
 Public Library). 
 
MONTREAL 181 
 
 little damage had been done. On the fourth of 
 September, the boats pushed out into the stream 
 once more, this time to battle with the most danger 
 ous part of the river, the rapids known as the Ce 
 dars, the Buisson, and the Cascades. Here Amherst s 
 worst fears were realized. His description of the 
 river as being "full of broken waves," scarcely does 
 justice to the tumultuous rush of the waters as they 
 leap half-angrily, half-playfully in their mad dash 
 over the rock-strewn shoals. Almost fifty boats were 
 lost in the frightful torrent, several more were staved 
 on the rocks, and eighty-four men were swept down to 
 watery graves. At length when the last of the rapids 
 was left behind, the General gave the army a day 
 for rest, recuperation, and repairs before pressing 
 on to Montreal. 
 
 The morning of September 6 was favorable for 
 further progress down the river: the troops re- 
 embarked, and before long made a landing without 
 opposition on the island of Montreal. Some flying 
 parties of the enemy fired a few shots and then ran 
 away, leaving Amherst to form his army as he saw 
 fit on a plain before the town. At that very mo 
 ment Brigadier Murray landed to the eastward of 
 Montreal, and on the following morning, Colonel 
 Haviland and his victorious forces, fresh from their 
 seizure of Isle aux Noix, appeared on the south bank 
 of the St. Lawrence. Such a remarkable fruition of 
 Amherst s well-laid plans demanded the admiration 
 of both friend and foe. One Frenchman declared 
 that neither more beautiful military combinations nor 
 
182 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 "so many troops reunited on the same point and in 
 the same instant against a body already expiring" 
 were ever seen. 1 A careful historian has termed it 
 "one of the most perfect and astonishing bits of work 
 which the annals of British warfare can show." 2 
 
 While the three British armies were concentrating 
 within sight of Montreal, the French governor called 
 a council of war to determine what should be done 
 to preserve the fast fading glory of New France. 
 Montreal in 1760 was a thin fringe of low houses, 
 some of wood and some of stone, extending from east 
 to west along the water-front, while here and there 
 a church spire broke the even sky-line of the town. 
 The whole area was enclosed by a moat and a slight 
 wall of masonry, which might serve as a defence 
 against Indian attacks but could avail nothing 
 against a cannonade. Amherst was already bringing 
 up his artillery: when once the guns were in position 
 the town was at his mercy. The enemy s military 
 force numbered a scant twenty-five hundred with 
 which to oppose the seventeen thousand English 
 troops who practically surrounded them. Vaudreuil 
 saw but one course to pursue, to surrender. His 
 colleagues, including Levis, who had so recently held 
 Quebec in the hollow of his hand, agreed to the Gover 
 nor s proposition, and a lengthy capitulation, contain 
 ing fifty-five articles, was drawn up. Early on the 
 morning of September 7 news of these developments 
 came to Amherst s ears, and at the same time 
 
 1 Brodhead s New York Colonial Documents, x, 1121. 
 
 2 Corbett s England in the Seven Tears War, ii, 117. 
 
MONTREAL 183 
 
 he received a naive proposal that hostilities be sus 
 pended for one month. The General laughed at such 
 an idea, but cheerfully agreed to a cessation of arms 
 until noon. 1 About twelve o clock the articles of 
 surrender devised by the French authorities came in. 
 Amherst read them through and wrote his comments 
 in the margin of the document. Most of the terms 
 he accepted, some he modified, and others he rejected. 2 
 Among those which he flatly refused to grant was one 
 stipulating that the troops should march out with 
 arms, cannon, and the honors of war. On the con 
 trary, Amherst dictated that the whole garrison of 
 Montreal and all the rest of the troops in Canada 
 should lay down their arms and not serve again dur 
 ing the present war. He considered that the enemy 
 deserved this disgrace because of "the infamous part 
 the troops of France had acted in exciting the sav 
 ages to perpetrate the most horrid and unheard-of 
 barbarities in the whole progress of the war." 3 
 When the draught was returned Amherst requested 
 a speedy decision. Vaudreuil was ready to surrender 
 upon these terms and at once, but the military pride 
 of Levis could not submit to such a humiliating capit 
 ulation. When informed of Amherst s change in 
 the articles, he wrote a high-sounding letter to Vaud 
 reuil insisting that, weak and defenceless as Montreal 
 was, it would be better to break off negotiations 
 at once, and to make at least a show of resist- 
 
 1 Levis Journal des Campagnes, p. 304. 
 
 2 Brodhead s New York Colonial Documents, x, 1107-1120. 
 s Knox s Journal ii, 418. 
 
1 84 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 ance behind the walls of the town. If the Gover 
 nor should not see fit to adl upon his suggestion, 
 Levis and his troops asked permission to withdraw 
 to St. Helen s Island in the St. Lawrence, where 
 they would maintain to the last the honor of Bour 
 bon arms. When Vaudreuil declined to acT: upon 
 this mock-heroic proposal, Levis relieved his feelings 
 by ordering his men to burn all their flags in order 
 to lessen to that extent the victory of the English. 1 
 
 In the meantime Amherst s patience was tried by 
 two or three emissaries who came out of Montreal 
 to plead for more lenient terms. To each and all 
 of them, the Englishman turned a deaf ear and in 
 sisted that the only words he would listen to were 
 "Yes" or "No." 2 When it became clear that the 
 English general was resolute in maintaining his posi 
 tion, Vaudreuil was only too glad to sign the articles 
 of capitulation. At eight o clock on the morning of 
 September 8, 1760, Montreal was surrendered, and 
 Canada became a part of the British Empire. By that 
 strange identity of dates which is conspicuous through 
 out Amherst s military career, the day of this glorious 
 event was the third anniversary of the Convention of 
 Kloster Zeven, a capitulation, it will be remembered, 
 whereby the Duke of Cumberland, forced back to 
 the mouth of the Elbe by the French, was obliged 
 to disband his forces. 
 
 The Commander-in-Chief sent Colonel Haldimand 
 to take possession of the gates of the captured town. 
 
 1 Levis Journal des Campagnes, p. 308. 
 
 * Brodhead s New York Colonial Documents, x, 1105. 
 
MONTREAL 185 
 
 On the next day the French battalions laid down 
 their arms; but when the British officer in charge 
 demanded the enemy s flags, he was told that, al 
 though each regiment had brought its colors from 
 France, they had found them troublesome in this 
 woody country, and therefore had destroyed them. 1 
 After both Vaudreuil and Levis had affirmed this on 
 their parole d bonneur, Amherst accepted their ingen 
 ious evasion of the truth; but we have the word of 
 Levis himself that the flags were burned in a moment 
 of petty rage. 2 Although the Gallic conception of 
 honor is often incomprehensible to the Anglo-Saxon 
 mind, the Frenchman certainly proved himself a poor 
 loser on this occasion. Levis would neither receive 
 Amherst nor personally pay him the customary civil 
 ities, maintaining that it was his duty to show his 
 resentment towards the relentless conqueror, and that 
 the troops ought to have received more attention 
 from Vaudreuil and more esteem from General Am 
 herst. 3 Two stands of British colors, captured by 
 Montcalm at Oswego four years before, were restored 
 to their original owners, but these were the only flags 
 surrendered. 
 
 New France had fallen, and New England was 
 jubilant with thanksgiving sermons and other forms 
 of celebration. Boston indulged in a parade, fol 
 lowed by a dinner in Faneuil Hall; fireworks leaped 
 skyward, and Castle William roared out a salute of 
 
 1 Knox s Journal, ii, 441. 
 
 * Levis Journal des Campagnes, p. 308. 
 
 1 Brodhead s New York Colonial Documents, x, 1123. 
 
i86 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 sixty-three guns. 1 The inland towns followed suit. 
 On the evening of October 9, the people of Worces 
 ter illuminated their houses, and the windows of 
 Sheriff Chandler s mansion, where Amherst had been 
 a guest in the autumn of 1758, shone with a partic 
 ular brilliance. 2 Meanwhile the good news was on 
 its way to England. Upon its receipt Pitt was un 
 restrained in his congratulations and expressions of 
 approval, while the King gave each of the messen 
 gers five hundred pounds as a souvenir of their happy 
 mission. Horace Walpole, coming up to London by 
 accident one day in Odlober, found the place alive 
 with bonfires and squibs, and everybody drinking 
 the health of General Amherst. So the English- 
 speaking world celebrated the final event which added 
 New France to the British empire and relieved the 
 colonists forever of all fear of invasion from the 
 north. 
 
 Amherst had proved himself "the greatest military 
 administrator produced by England since the death 
 of Marlborough, and he remained the greatest until 
 the rise of Wellington": 3 he was hardly less remark 
 able as an organizer of the conquered province that 
 lay at his feet. His labors in the second capacity 
 were made difficult by three factors, the religion of 
 the Canadians, the feudal system that had domi 
 nated New France, and the French law, or Coutume 
 de Paris, according to which the inhabitants were 
 
 1 Boston Post Boy and Advertiser, Sept. 29, 1760. 
 
 2 Boston News Letter, Od. 16, 1760. 
 
 1 Fortescue s History of the British Army, ii, 405. 
 
MONTREAL 187 
 
 accustomed to settle their disputes. 1 By the terms 
 of surrender, Amherst granted that "the free exer 
 cise of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion" 
 should continue to flourish as it had under the old 
 regime. 2 He also signed an article allowing the lords 
 of manors to enjoy peaceable possession of their 
 goods and other property; but their judicial author 
 ity was not mentioned in the document. 3 This was 
 a significant and all-important omission, for it in 
 augurated the breaking down of feudalism in Canada. 
 Many an Englishman would have discarded at once 
 the civil law, which had prevailed in New France 
 since its foundation, and would have substituted for 
 it the Common Law, with which he was more famil 
 iar. Here again, however, the Commander-in-Chief 
 displayed the tacl and consideration that had charac 
 terized all his deeds in America. For administra 
 tive purposes he divided Canada into three military 
 districts Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec 
 coinciding with the old divisions under the French 
 rule, and placed a governor over each of them. Local 
 government was entrusted to Canadian militia cap 
 tains, who, like the English justices of the peace at 
 that time, belonged to the gentry. Each adjudi 
 cated the cases arising in his parish, and thus put an 
 end to the judicial authority of the feudal seigniors. 4 
 In the settlement of civil differences between the 
 inhabitants the Coutume de Paris obtained, while 
 
 1 For an exact analysis of the code of law under the old regime see Renton 
 and Phillimore s Colonial Laws and Courts, pp. 229-230. 
 
 2 Article XXVII. Article XXXVII. 
 4 Munro s Seigniorial System in Canada, p. 190. 
 
188 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 criminal offences were dealt with according to martial 
 law. 1 This hybrid system of justice was calculated 
 to afford the new subjects of the British Crown the 
 greatest amount of satisfaction consistent with a 
 strong government and a proper assertion of Eng 
 land s supremacy. From the decisions of these mag 
 istrates there was a right of appeal to the British 
 officer commanding the regular troops in that part 
 of the district, and ultimately to the governor. This 
 was the frame of government set up by Jeffery Am- 
 herst, and although it was modified in detail by his 
 lieutenants to suit local conditions, 2 its general prin 
 ciples were preserved and established a system far 
 happier for all concerned than that which succeeded 
 it under the Royal Proclamation of 1763. 
 
 The Commander-in-Chief, as self-appointed Gov 
 ernor-General of Canada, named Brigadier Gage 
 Governor of Montreal, and Colonel Burton, of Three 
 Rivers, while Murray returned to Quebec to take 
 charge of the government there. In order to remove 
 any suspicions which the Canadians might entertain, 
 Amherst even went so far as to conduct his official 
 correspondence with these deputies in French. 3 All 
 in all, the treatment of the vanquished people was 
 thoroughly successful. The habitants settled down 
 under their new masters with infinite content, and 
 before many weeks had passed, the General reported 
 
 1 Kingsford s History of Canada, iv, 442. 
 
 * Garneau s Histoire du Canada, ii, 391-392; Doutre et Lareau s Le Droit 
 Civil Canadien, pp. 486-489; Shortt and Doughty s Documents relating to 
 the Constitutional History of Canada, 7759-7797, pp. 31-36. 
 
 8 Royal Society of Canada s Proceedings, 1905, Appendix A, xliv. 
 
MONTREAL 189 
 
 to Pitt that the soldiers and the Canadians were 
 fraternizing on the best of terms. 1 
 
 From a military standpoint all that remained to 
 be done was to apply the finishing touches to the 
 conquest of Canada; and with that end in view Ma 
 jor Rogers was ordered to Detroit to take possession 
 of the western posts, which, although included in the 
 capitulation of Montreal, still remained in French 
 hands. Amherst then sent off the New England 
 troops to spend the rest of the season in completing 
 the forts under construction at Crown Point, at 
 Oswego, and in central New York, while the soldiers 
 from the Middle Colonies were given occupation in 
 the St. Lawrence valley. The four thousand pris 
 oners of war were shipped to sunny France, the 
 Indians were given various trinkets as a reward for 
 their good behavior in the campaign, and finally 
 the General found himself at liberty to go down the 
 river to inspect the newly established governments 
 of Three Rivers and Quebec. 
 
 Bidding good-bye to Montreal in the last days of 
 September, Amherst went first to Three Rivers, 
 where he spent two days. At St. Maurice he found 
 an iron mine and some forges which had been worked 
 by the Canadians for the benefit of the King of 
 France. As the mine seemed to be profitable, Am 
 herst kept the men at work for their new sovereign, 
 and continued on his journey to Quebec. On the 
 way he passed most of the transports bearing the 
 French troops which had been stopped in the river 
 
 1 Reuben Gold Thwaites France in America, p. 265. 
 
190 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 by contrary winds. Finding everything satisfactory 
 at Quebec, the Commander-in-Chief turned his steps 
 towards Crown Point and New York. At Isle aux 
 Noix he viewed the fortress which had checked his 
 advance in the previous year, and then ordered all 
 the works there to be destroyed. As the mainte 
 nance of this post would be an unnecessary expence 
 to the British and its abandonment intact might 
 prove a danger, the measure was a wise one. Louis- 
 burg had already suffered the same ignominious fate. 
 Early in 1760, Pitt had decreed that all its defences 
 and fortifications should be completely demolished 
 and its garrison transferred to Halifax. The work 
 of annihilating the Dunkirk of America was no small 
 task, but in December Amherst reported to his chief 
 that the renowned Louishurg was no more. 1 
 
 After a week or two at Crown Point where the 
 provincials still slaved at the construction of a pro 
 digious fortress, the General proceeded leisurely on 
 his way to New York by the way of Albany. His 
 welcome to the cosmopolitan metropolis befitted the 
 conqueror of New France. Early in the autumn, 
 Amherst had been voted the freedom of the city, 
 and Mr. Nicholas Roosevelt was directed to prepare 
 a gold box in which to encase the document. When 
 the General reached New York all was in readiness for 
 his reception. On November 27, the Mayor, aldermen, 
 and assistants waited upon "his said Excellency " 
 and presented him with the traditional gold box, 
 the cover of which was beautifully engraved with a 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, ii, 361-362. 
 
MONTREAL 191 
 
 Latin inscription, eulogizing in superlative terms the 
 Domitor Gallorum Canadensium. Besides the freedom 
 of the city, the box contained an enthusiastic and not 
 altogether unsuccessful bit of rhetoric, engrossed on 
 parchment. This recited the virtues, as well as the 
 military prowess, of the Commander-in-Chief, and 
 in the following words assured him of immortality 
 in the hearts of the American people. 1 "Minutely 
 to describe the innumerable advantages resulting 
 from so signal a conquest would be a vain attempt. 
 Let millions yet unborn mark the distinguished bless 
 ings as they rise, and while they reap the happy 
 fruits of your martial virtues they will not cease to 
 bless the name of Amherst." 
 
 1 New York Historical Society s Collections for 1885, pp. 522-528. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SIR JEFFERY AMHERST, KT. 
 
 WHEN Canada fell, the American theatre of 
 the Seven Years War moved southward 
 to the West Indies. Amherst had ex- 
 pecfled that the French forts and possessions on the 
 Mobile and the Mississippi would be the next objec 
 tive, but in January, 1761, Pitt informed him that 
 attacks upon the islands of Dominica, Santa Lucia, 
 and Martinique were to constitute this year s pro 
 gram, and that eight thousand of the regulars on the 
 American continent would be required for that pur 
 pose. The selection of a commander for the expedi 
 tion was left to Amherst. In order to retain a secure 
 hold upon England s conquests already accomplished 
 in the New World, the colonies were asked to supply 
 two-thirds as many troops as in the previous year. 
 These provincials were to garrison the various Cana 
 dian and frontier posts and so release the regulars for 
 active service in the West Indies. 1 As the colonial 
 axe was already ground and there was no longer any 
 apprehension of an invasion from Canada, the assem 
 blies made only a half-hearted response to the requi 
 sition: about ten thousand men were voted, but of 
 this number less than nine thousand ever appeared 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, ii, 366. 
 
SIR JEFFERT AMHERST, KT. 193 
 
 on the muster-fields. 1 Pitt probably foresaw this 
 falling-off, and remembering the usual tardiness of 
 the provincial troops at the rendezvous, felt sure that 
 the expedition against Martinique could not be got 
 under way before the hurricane season. As tropical 
 storms were more to be feared than any French fleet, 
 Amherst was instructed not to undertake that enter 
 prise until the end of September or early in October. 
 Meanwhile, lest Europe should think that England 
 was resting on her laurels, the Commander-in-Chief 
 was to send to Guadeloupe, the British base in the 
 Caribbean, two thousand regulars to seize Dominica 
 and Santa Lucia. 
 
 When these orders arrived at New York, Amherst 
 speedily set about assembling the forces for the 
 earlier expedition and summoned a number of ships 
 to convoy them on their southward voyage. The 
 command of the troops was entrusted to Colonel 
 Lord Rollo, who had displayed efficiency when sent 
 to receive the surrender of Prince Edward Island 
 after the victory at Louisburg. The fleet sailed from 
 New York in the last days of April. Six weeks later 
 Dominica succumbed to the quick and determined 
 assault of the British soldiers, 2 and foreshadowed the 
 similar fate which befell its sister-island, Martinique, 
 within eight months. 
 
 In the meantime Amherst passed the spring and 
 summer of 1761 in sending out provincial regiments 
 to take the place of the regulars called in to prepare 
 
 1 Beer s British Colonial Policy, p. 67. 
 
 2 KimbalFs Pitt Correspondence, ii, 442. 
 
194 JEFFERT AM H ERST 
 
 
 
 for the expedition against Martinique. For this pur 
 pose the General moved his headquarters to Albany, 
 while a camp for the returning regulars was estab 
 lished on Staten Island, just below New York. Sir 
 William Johnson was sent to Detroit to settle affairs 
 with the Indians in that part of the country, and to 
 see that their trade was properly conducted. He 
 carried with him about two hundred medals to dis 
 tribute among the more faithful of the redskins who 
 had accompanied the army down the St. Lawrence 
 to Montreal in the previous year; and although 
 Amherst did not, as yet, perceive the necessity 
 of such rewards, he agreed that it would please 
 the Indians much, and rejoiced, at any rate, that 
 the expence was not great. 1 Early in September the 
 Commander-in-Chief went down the Hudson again 
 and took up his quarters on Staten Island, where the 
 troops under General Monckton awaited the arrival 
 of transports to carry them to the West Indies. He 
 found the camp healthy, the men in constant exer 
 cise, and every prospect of a strong expedition in 
 both quality and quantity. Towards the end of 
 October the ships came in and anchored within 
 Sandy Hook, but as they were in a "shattered condi 
 tion" as the result of a hard voyage, repairs were 
 necessary, and the fleet did not get to sea until four 
 weeks later. In the interim the British camp was 
 the scene of an unusual and interesting ceremony. 
 
 1 KimbalFs Pitt Correspondence, ii, 427. A white marble replica of one 
 of these badges, much enlarged, appears as a medallion over the door of the 
 Amherst mansion, "Montreal," at Sevenoaks, Kent. 
 
SIR JEFFERT AMHERSr, KT. 195 
 
 On Odlober 25, 1761, General Amherst was invested 
 with the insignia of a Knight of the Bath. 
 
 When George II revived the "most honourable 
 Order of the Bath" in 1725, he adted upon the advice 
 of Sir Robert Walpole and intended that it should 
 supply a fund of favors, in lieu of places, and pre 
 vent an excessive demand for the Garter. 1 Among 
 its early members was the Duke of Cumberland who 
 was made "first and principal Companion," while 
 at a later date Ligonier, by his gallant action at Det- 
 tingen, won a place upon the chosen list. In 1760 
 the old King died and was succeeded by his grand 
 son, the young and independent George III, just 
 at the time when the news of the fall of Montreal 
 reached England. It was not long before the new 
 monarch decided to decorate Jeffery Amherst with 
 a red ribbon. On the twenty-sixth of May in 1761, 
 twelve knights-elect were installed in the royal 
 chapel of Henry the Seventh in Westminster Abbey. 
 After the procession had filed from the chapter- 
 room to the chapel, the Dean administered the 
 oath and admonished them to use their swords 
 "for the glory of God, the defence of the gospel, the 
 maintenance of their sovereign s right and honor, 
 and of all equity and justice, to the utmost of their 
 power." 2 To this injunction a further reminder of 
 their duty was added by "the King s master-cook, 
 who stood at the outside door of the Abbey with a 
 linen apron on and a chopping-knife in his hand." 
 
 1 Nicolas s History of the Orders of Knighthood, iii, 39. 
 
 2 Gentleman s Magazine, vol. 31, p. 236. 
 
196 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 To each newly created knight he addressed himself 
 as follows: "Sir, you know what great oath you have 
 taken, which, if you keep it, will be great honor to 
 you; but if you break it, I shall be compelled by my 
 office to hack off your spurs from your heels." 
 
 As Amherst was in America at the time of the 
 installation he was spared this ordeal, his part being 
 taken by a proxy, Sir Charles Cotterel-Dormer, 1 
 but Pitt soon informed him of the honor conferred, 
 and sending the insignia of the Order across the 
 ocean, instructed the governor of New York to per 
 form the ceremony of investiture "in the most hon 
 ourable and distinguished manner the circumstances 
 will allow of." At about the same time Major- 
 General Robert Monckton, who had been Wolfe s 
 second in command on the Plains of Abraham, was 
 appointed chief executive of New York. It was 
 Monckton, therefore, who, on almost the first day of 
 his administration, invested Amherst with the gold 
 collar and red ribbon of the Order of the Bath. The 
 ceremony took place in camp on Staten Island on 
 October 25, in the presence of several officers of the 
 army. General Monckton first read aloud Pitt s 
 letter containing his instructions and then, making 
 an apology for the informality of the occasion, put 
 the ribbon over Sir Jeffery s shoulder. The new 
 knight responded with a courteous acknowledgment 
 of "this distinguishing mark of his Majesty s royal 
 approbation," and the ceremony was completed. 2 
 
 1 Nicolas s History of the Orders of Knighthood, iii, 85. 
 * Universal Magazine , vol. 29, p. 336. 
 
SIR JEFFERT AMHERST, KT. 197 
 
 The General had received the first investiture ever 
 performed in America, establishing a precedent in 
 accordance with which, sixteen years later, General 
 William Howe was decorated at New York by his 
 brother, Viscount Howe, inappropriately soon after 
 Washington s astonishing campaign in the Jer 
 seys. 1 
 
 Late in November the fleet bound for the attack 
 upon Martinique got away from Sandy Hook and 
 bore off to the southward. The troops were under 
 the command of Monckton, whose zeal for military 
 glory was not to be hampered by his duties as gover 
 nor of New York, while the naval force that supple 
 mented the expedition was directed by Admiral 
 Rodney, the same gentleman who had escorted Am- 
 herst to Louisburg in the spring of 1758. Together 
 they silenced the guns of Fort Royal and frightened 
 St. Pierre into submission. Early in February, 1762, 
 Martinique was surrendered in toto to invincible 
 Britain. 
 
 While his colleagues were increasing their reputa 
 tions by active service in the West Indies, Sir JefFery 
 was occupied with civil and political concerns of 
 various kinds. After the fall of Fort Levis, and 
 before the capitulation of Montreal, the General had 
 written to the governor of New York recommending 
 him to encourage settlement in the upper Mohawk 
 Valley which was now freed from the raids of the 
 French and Indians. 2 Golden, acting upon this sug- 
 
 1 Nicolas s History of the Orders of Knighthood, iii, 92. 
 1 Brodhead s New York Colonial Documents, vii, 455. 
 
198 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 gestion, issued a proclamation inviting settlers to the 
 newly opened territory. The response was imme 
 diate, and applications for grants of land poured in. 1 
 This development of the wilderness was highly de 
 sirable from every point of view, but Amherst s eager 
 ness to increase the security of military posts in the 
 interior got him into trouble with the people of New 
 York, particularly with the merchants of Albany, 
 whose prosperity depended to a great extent upon a 
 lucrative trade with the Indians. As soon as the 
 Lords of Trade learned of the new land grants made 
 in the Mohawk Valley they advised the Privy Coun 
 cil to put a stop to the expansion of New York at 
 once, lest the Indians, cheated of their rightful do 
 main, might start a serious disturbance on the fron 
 tier. An order in council was issued enjoining many 
 provincial governors, including Golden, to make no 
 further grants, and reprimanding them and their 
 councils for their past behavior in this respect. 2 
 This edict was the forerunner of the Royal Procla 
 mation of 1763, which put a definite stop to the 
 territorial extension of the colonies until the home 
 government decided upon an Indian policy, and its 
 origin may be traced directly to Amherst s recommen 
 dation to Golden to colonize the upper Mohawk 
 Valley in the summer of 1760. 
 
 Hardly had this disturbance blown over when the 
 Lords of Trade received a dignified but determined 
 petition from the merchants of Albany. They com- 
 
 1 Afls of the Privy Council (Colonial), Unbound Papers, p. 335. 
 * Brodhead s New York Colonial Documents, vn, 478. 
 
SIR JEFFERT AMHERST, KT. 199 
 
 plained that Sir Jeffery had given ten thousand acres 
 of Indian land near Niagara to a group of army 
 officers. This land was part of a tract which had 
 been guaranteed to the Iroquois for their use forever 
 by the English government in 1726. The petition 
 ers did not doubt that Amherst s generosity was due 
 to ignorance of England s obligations, but if this 
 encroachment upon the reservation were allowed, not 
 only would the grantees enjoy a monopoly of the 
 Indian trade, "and reduce thousands of His Majesty s 
 American subjects to want," but they would also be 
 likely to cause an outbreak on the part of the sav 
 ages. 1 The Albanians were distinctly in the right, 
 however commercial their motives may have been, 
 and when the Privy Council raked Amherst gently 
 over the coals for overstepping his powers, the Gen 
 eral cheerfully confessed his guilt, although he 
 insisted that whatever grants he had made were 
 understood to be only permits to occupy the land 
 until the King s pleasure should be known. Now 
 that the authorities had given him a definite answer 
 he ordered the territory to be vacated at once. 2 
 
 Among the many people who "for want of being 
 rightly informed" applied to Amherst for tracts of 
 land on the frontier was one Eleazer Wheelock, a 
 minister of the gospel at Lebanon, Connecticut, whose 
 chief aim in life was the conversion and education of 
 the Indians. Since 1754 he had been at the head 
 of a "charity-school" in his home town where a 
 
 1 Brodhead s New York Colonial Documents, vii, 488. 
 
 2 Ibid., vii, 509. 
 
200 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 handful of Indian youths endeavored to acquire 
 learning in company with some lads of English par 
 entage. After a few years Mr. Wheelock realized 
 that the sort of education given to the aborigines at 
 Moor s School, as it was called, would avail little 
 so long as they were "ignorant of all the affairs of 
 husbandry, and the use of tools/ 1 and from that 
 moment he burned with a desire to establish an 
 industrial school much like the modern institution 
 at Carlisle, in which "well-instructed, sober, religious 
 Indians" might be employed as teachers as well as 
 the English. In his own words the plan was "to 
 have lands appropriated to the use of Indian schools, 
 and prudent, skillful farmers, or tradesmen, to lead 
 and instruct the boys, and mistresses to instruct the 
 girls, in such manufactures as are proper for them, 
 at certain hours, as a diversion from their school 
 exercises, and the children, taken quite away from 
 their- parents and the pernicious influence of Indian 
 examples, there may be some good prospect of great 
 advantage by schools amongst them." With this 
 estimable purpose the broad-minded educator wrote 
 to Sir Jeffery Amherst in the spring of 1763 and 
 asked for a tract of land about fifteen or twenty miles 
 square on the west side of the Susquehanna River, 
 "or in some other place more convenient in the heart 
 of the Indian country." 2 There he would establish 
 "an academy for all parts of useful learning" in the 
 
 1 Wheelock s Narrative of the Indian Charity School at Lebanon, in Con 
 nefticut. 
 
 * O Callaghan s Documentary History of New York, iv, 328. 
 
SIR JEFFERT AMHERST, KT. 201 
 
 midst of a community " peopled with a chosen number 
 of inhabitants of known honesty, integrity, and such 
 as love, and will be kind to, and honest in their deal 
 ings with Indians." 
 
 To Mr. Wheelock s appeal Sir Jeffery could make 
 but one reply, especially as the trouble about the 
 Niagara grants was still fresh in his memory. With 
 expressions of his high opinion of the minister s 
 designs and aspirations, he reminded the gentleman 
 that the disposal and settlement of all conquered 
 lands must be determined by his Majesty, and 
 wished him success in his application to the proper 
 authority. 1 A few years later Eleazer Wheelock s 
 dream was realized in New Hampshire, on the east 
 ern bank of the Connecticut River, where a few huts 
 of green logs in the midst of a wilderness marked the 
 beginnings of Dartmouth College. As the institu 
 tion took its name from its benefactor, the Earl of 
 Dartmouth, one cannot help wondering what name 
 the proposed school on the Susquehanna would have 
 borne, had Amherst been able to oblige the zealous 
 educator with a grant of land. Whatever it might 
 have been, the General s name was destined to be 
 adopted a half-century later by another college sit 
 uated in the same beautiful valley and equally well- 
 known in the world of letters. 
 
 A matter of great concern to Amherst was the il 
 licit trade which the colonists carried on with the 
 enemy throughout the war. The inhabitants of the 
 French sugar islands in the West Indies depended 
 
 1 Ibid., iv, 332. 
 
202 JEFFERT AMHERSr 
 
 almost entirely upon the produce of the British col 
 onies on the continent for food. Thus for fifty years 
 or more a highly profitable trade had flourished be 
 tween the foreign islands and the bread colonies of 
 the north. If the food supply of the former were 
 cut off, as would naturally happen in time of war 
 between England and France, starvation would stare 
 the islanders in the face, and their conquest would 
 be a simple matter. With this in view England for 
 bade all commercial intercourse with the French 
 colonies in June, 1756, and sent instructions to that 
 effect to America. 1 This prohibition was reinforced 
 in the following year by an acl: of Parliament making 
 it illegal to export any food-stuffs (except fish and 
 rice) from the American colonies. It is not strange 
 that the provincial traders were not at all favorably 
 impressed with such legislation. Commerce with the 
 French West Indies, which had been thoroughly re 
 munerative in time of peace, now promised to be 
 abnormally profitable. The enemy s provisions were 
 scarce and supplies would bring high prices, while 
 the islanders difficulty in marketing their chief prod 
 ucts, sugar and molasses, would permit the New 
 Englanders to purchase them almost on their own 
 terms. France could no longer send food to the 
 West Indies, nor could the sugar-planters, on the 
 other hand, be at all sure that their cargoes would 
 reach Europe in safety. The temptation to indulge 
 in the forbidden trade was indeed great, and the 
 British colonists did not long resist it. 
 
 1 Beer s British Colonial Policy, 1754-176^^ p. 78. 
 
SIR JEFFERT AM H ERST, KT. 203 
 
 Such intercourse with the enemy was dangerous, 
 for although the French governors were quite ready 
 to supply the ships with licenses exempting them from 
 capture by Bourbon cruisers or privateers, to escape 
 the eye of British officials was a different matter. 
 At first this was accomplished by false certificates 
 and mendacious bills-of-lading, a practice which soon 
 gave way to a safer and more elaborate means of 
 evasion known as a "flag of truce." 1 This was a 
 pass from the government authorizing the ship to 
 go to the French islands, ostensibly to exchange 
 prisoners of war, but actually to share in the enor 
 mous profits which trade with the enemy under 
 these conditions assured. The exportation of food 
 stuffs, particularly flour, was as great a hindrance to 
 England s military movements in America as it was 
 a benefit to the French islanders. Amherst seems 
 to have been surprisingly cognizant of this illegal 
 trade, and although in 1759 he complained to the 
 governor of New York that as a result of it his opera 
 tions against Canada were seriously handicapped by 
 a lack of flour, 2 there is no evidence that he informed 
 Pitt of the questionable state of affairs. Other au 
 thorities, however, did not hesitate to call the atten 
 tion of the home government to "these dangerous and 
 traiterous proceedings." Among the first to enlighten 
 Pitt were Commodore Moore and General Crump, 
 who were stationed in the West Indies; but more 
 effective was the exposure of Pennsylvania by its 
 
 1 Channing s History of the United States, ii, 567. 
 
 2 Beer s Colonial Policy, p. 100. 
 
204 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 over-zealous proprietary, Thomas Perm. 1 Although 
 this son of the founder had renounced America for 
 England as a place of residence long before the pres 
 ent war, he had kept in touch with the province, 
 and thus was able to give accurate information about 
 conditions existing on the Delaware. In 1759 rela 
 tions were strained between the colonists and the 
 proprietaries, and it may have been a desire to cause 
 trouble for the Pennsylvanians that led Thomas 
 Penn to present a few facts to Pitt s attention. His 
 text was the illicit trade carried on between the 
 bread colonies and the foreign West Indies, and his 
 description of the Philadelphia wharves swarming 
 "with shallops unloading these illegal cargoes, brought 
 at their return, and cheating the king of his duties 
 besides carrying provisions and ready money to the 
 enemy," was both graphic and alarming. 
 
 William Pitt acted in the matter with his accus 
 tomed promptness and vigor. Letters were sent to 
 all the governors in North America and the West 
 Indies, informing them of the recent reports and 
 ordering them to make inquiries "into the state of 
 this dangerous and ignominious trade," to discover 
 all persons in any way concerned in it, and to bring 
 "such heinous offenders to the most exemplary and 
 condign punishment." 2 The results of the ensuing 
 investigations were astounding. New York pleaded 
 guilty, but insisted that Philadelphia was a greater 
 offender. Pennsylvania s governor lamented the griev- 
 
 1 Beer s Colonial Policy, p. 91. 
 
 2 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, ii, 320. 
 
SIR JEFFERT AMHERST, KT. 205 
 
 ous state of affairs under his predecessor, the un 
 fortunate Denny, who, "as it were, opened a 
 shop" where flags of truce might be bought by all 
 comers, but assured the home government that the 
 days of such iniquity were over. Governor Stephen 
 Hopkins of Rhode Island boldly justified the game 
 which the merchants of his colony had been playing, 
 while Virginia s chief magistrate gave an illuminat 
 ing account of the way the trade was carried on 
 from his colony. Few investigations in history have 
 been more gratifying to the muck-raker. Governor 
 Bernard s seizure of a vessel and crew in Boston 
 Harbor yielded the intelligence that the Cherokee 
 Indians, who were then ravaging the frontier of 
 South Carolina, had been indirectly supplied with 
 ammunition by the English trading at New Orleans. 1 
 Yet commerce with the enemy apparently went on 
 as before. 
 
 In the Spring of 1762, Amherst became aware that 
 the evil, under a different guise, still continued. 
 On the fifteenth of April he sent a circular letter to 
 the governors asking them to put a stop to "such 
 infamous practices" at once, and to prohibit the 
 exportation of any kind of provisions from their 
 ports. The latter measure he hoped would be effec 
 tual: otherwise an embargo on all shipping must be 
 resorted to. 2 A few days later the "papers and 
 effects of several gentlemen subjects of the King of 
 France," seized by the sheriff in New York, added 
 
 1 Sparks MSS., " Bernard Official Correspondence," Vol. ii. 
 
 2 Beer s Colonial Policy, p. no; Colonial Records of Rhode Island, vi, 213. 
 
206 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 more fuel to the fire. 1 From these it appeared that 
 French agents had come to America with the express 
 purpose of promoting the illegal West Indian trade, 
 not only to furnish the enemy s settlements with pro 
 visions but also to supply their fleets and armies, if 
 any should be stationed in the Antilles. There was 
 every indication that the Frenchmen placed their 
 chief reliance upon Rhode Island, and that several 
 merchants of Newport were implicated in the busi 
 ness. 2 As the Commander-in-Chief needed every 
 barrel of flour he could lay his hands on, to vidlual 
 the four thousand men about to join the expedition 
 against Havana, he wrote at once to the governor of 
 Rhode Island and asked him to decree a general 
 embargo on all shipping. The same fate was shared 
 by other colonies. The embargo was laid and en 
 forced; but as soon as Amherst had assurance that 
 a quantity of provisions for the army was on its way 
 out from England, he hastened to free the ports 
 from restriction, much to the gratification of the 
 merchants, just and unjust. 3 
 
 In January, 1762, England declared war against 
 Spain. The latter power had been preparing to 
 join forces with France against Britain for a long 
 time, and yet England had persistently refused to 
 listen to Pitt s predictions to that effect. At last 
 when the truth of his prophecy was realized and it 
 became obvious that his Catholic Majesty was merely 
 
 1 New York Historical Society s Colleflions for 1876, p. 199. 
 
 2 Rhode Island Colonial Records, vi, 317-18. 
 * Ibid., vi, 323. 
 
SIR JEFFERT AMHERST, KT. 207 
 
 waiting for a favorable occasion to open hostilities, 
 George III took the initiative and declared war. 
 The far-seeing Pitt had laid the foundations for a 
 successful descent upon the Spanish West Indies 
 when the expedition against Martinique was sent 
 out: now the great minister had resigned, but the 
 impetus of his genius still carried England on to 
 victory. The first blow was aimed at Havana, the 
 key to Spain s insular possessions. Early in March, 
 1762, Lord Albemarle sailed from England with 
 four regiments under convoy of Admiral Sir George 
 Pocock, and toward the end of April they arrived at 
 Martinique. There Monckton s forces, "much re 
 duced by sickness," were added to the fresh troops, 
 giving Albemarle in all a force of twelve thousand 
 men with which to attack Havana. 
 
 Early in the winter orders had been sent to Am- 
 herst to provide four thousand men, some of whom 
 were to be provincials, and to send them to Cape 
 St. Nicholas, the northwestern tip of Haiti, to join 
 the rest of the expedition. If the attack on Cuba 
 proved successful, these troops were to be returned 
 to the Commander-in-Chief immediately after the 
 conquest, and he should then undertake a similar 
 enterprise against the Spanish settlements along the 
 north coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Amherst organ 
 ized his contingent as early in the season as the delib 
 eration of the colonial assemblies allowed; but it 
 was the end of June before all the troops had left 
 New York. 1 Albemarle and Pocock decided not to 
 
 1 Corbett s England in the Seven Tears War> ii, 262. 
 
208 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 wait for them. Passing through the dangerous Old 
 Bahama Channel, the fleet came in sight of Matan- 
 zas, and on the sixth of June approached the island 
 capital. The Spaniards, although previously warned, 
 were completely surprised. 
 
 The chief fortification of Havana was Morro 
 Castle, which stood on a rocky point at the har 
 bor s mouth, bidding defiance to attack by land or 
 by sea. Strangely enough, this bulwark of strength 
 lacked a garrison versed in the use of artillery, and 
 to remedy that deficiency its defence was assigned to 
 Don Luis de Velasco, the captain of a ship-of-war. 
 Velasco manned the fortress with gunners from the 
 navy and prepared to discharge his important trust. 
 The British army landed almost unresisted about six 
 miles to the eastward of the city. After a few minor 
 engagements the main attack was concentrated on 
 Morro Castle, while the enemy, with the Spanish 
 faculty of doing the wrong thing at the right time, 
 bottled up their own fleet by sinking three ships in 
 the narrow entrance to the harbor. This achievement 
 removed all possibility of a naval engagement which 
 might have frustrated the whole expedition. If the 
 English fleet had been disabled the city might have 
 been saved, but now the fall of Havana must mean 
 the capture of the fleet. 1 The soil in front of the 
 castle was so thin and rocky that earthworks were 
 almost out of the question. Bundles of faggots were 
 
 1 Captain Stockton s Military and Naval Operations against Cuba and 
 Puerto Rico, p. 22, in Military Historical Society of Massachusetts Papers, 
 vol. xi. 
 
SIR JEFFERT AMHERST, KT. 209 
 
 employed instead, and when these, scorched to tin 
 der by the frightful June sun, caught fire, Albemarle 
 used cotton bales to form the approaches and bat 
 teries, an expedient resorted to by Andrew Jack 
 son in the defence of New Orleans some forty years 
 later. As at Louisburg and at Martinique, the sailors 
 turned artillery-men, and in spite of the torrid heat 
 of a Cuban summer, did splendid work on shore. 
 The siege, however, was far from enjoyable. Bad 
 food and lack of water played havoc with the Eng 
 lish, until five thousand soldiers and three thousand 
 seamen were disabled with wounds or fever. But 
 though the sea was scattered over with floating corpses, 
 and though the camp was a pest-house, the British 
 sappers and miners continued their relentless approach 
 to the w r alls of Morro Castle. 
 
 Men looked out to sea in the hope of descrying 
 the belated ships from New York bringing the Ameri 
 can contingent, but July was almost gone before 
 their sails came up over the horizon. Even then 
 the forces that arrived were but a fraction of those 
 that were expected, for part had been intercepted 
 and captured by a French fleet hovering about 
 the Caicos Passage, and part had been wrecked in 
 the perilous Old Bahama Channel. 1 Nevertheless, the 
 moral effect of the reinforcements was great. On 
 the thirtieth day of July a breach was made in the 
 wall of the Castle and an assault followed. Don 
 Luis de Velasco, although seriously hurt, rushed to 
 the ramparts to help beat back the onslaught of 
 
 1 Corbett s England in the Seven Tears War> ii, 279. 
 
210 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 the British grenadiers: but all in vain. The brave 
 Spaniard was shot in the breast, and when he had 
 fallen, mortally wounded, Morro Castle followed the 
 example of Louisburg, Quebec, and Montreal. 1 
 
 The second instalment of American reinforcements 
 arrived off Havana on the second day of August. 
 The surrender of the city was then inevitable, and 
 on the tenth Albemarle sent in his summons. Out 
 of bravado the Spaniards refused it, but the next 
 day s bombardment produced a myriad of white 
 flags all over the town. On the thirteenth of August, 
 1762, Havana capitulated, and great was the fall 
 thereof. At one blow Spain lost nearly one-fifth of 
 her entire navy, while the amount of prize-money 
 acquired by the army and navy recalled the days of 
 Sir Francis Drake. Three million pounds sterling 
 fell into England s lap. Much of this was divided 
 among the soldiers and sailors, although the lion s 
 share went to the Earl of Albemarle and Admiral 
 Sir George Pocock, each of whom received over one 
 hundred thousand pounds. 
 
 Before the good news from Cuba reached New 
 York an unexpected development to the northeast 
 ward diverted Amherst s thoughts. By the concen 
 tration in the West Indies the British garrisons in 
 North America were reduced to a minimum, and the 
 French ministry availed itself of the opportunity to 
 
 1 When the news of Velasco s gallant defense and dramatic death reached 
 Madrid the King of Spain ordered that there should always be a ship in the 
 Spanish navy named " Velasco." The last man-of-war to bear that appella 
 tion was captured by the fleet under Commodore Dewey in Manila Bay on 
 the first of May, 1898. (Stockton s Military and Naval Operations, p. 25.) 
 
SIR JEFFERT AMHERST, KT. 211 
 
 give England a saucy slap by attacking Newfound 
 land. In May the Chevalier de Ternay slipped out 
 of Brest with two ships of the line, two frigates, and 
 about fifteen hundred troops under the Comte de 
 Haussonville, and on one of the longest days in the 
 year the squadron came in sight of St. John s, New 
 foundland. The English garrison of one hundred men 
 quickly surrendered the place, after which the French 
 men amused themselves by destroying the fisheries, 
 shipping, and whatever property the island afforded. 
 The governor of Newfoundland, Captain Graves, 
 who later became a well-known admiral, was absent 
 from St. John s at the time, and so escaped capture. 
 To his appeal for aid Amherst made as quick a re 
 sponse as circumstances would permit. The situa 
 tion was difficult, for no troops were available except 
 those at Nova Scotia. Nevertheless, Sir Jeffery col- 
 ledled fifteen hundred men in the course of a month 
 and entrusted them to his brother William, who had 
 never before enjoyed an independent command. The 
 expedition sailed from Louisburg on September 5. 
 About a week later it was joined by Lord Colville 
 with his flag-ship and a frigate, a few leagues to the 
 southward of St. John s. Finding a very good beach 
 at Torbay, which was not far from his objective, 
 Colonel Amherst landed his troops early on the 
 morning of the thirteenth. From that point a rough 
 path led through the woods to the open country 
 around the town. The British soon drove the enemy 
 out of the woods and back to "two very high and 
 steep hills" which seemed to control the harbor and 
 
212 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 all the ground between the attacking party and St. 
 John s. One smart engagement snatched the first 
 hill from the French; the second they vacated vol 
 untarily and withdrew into the town. 1 While Col 
 onel Amherst was landing his artillery and stores and 
 planting his batteries on the night of the sixteenth, 
 the enemy s fleet took advantage of a dense fog and 
 stole out of the harbor. Colville and Graves were 
 on the watch for just such a move, but the sly Ter- 
 nay towed out his ships with boats, and when the 
 fog lifted, the hostile squadron was far beyond pur 
 suit. St. John s was doomed and Ternay knew it. 
 His object was merely to save what he could. On 
 September 18, 1762, the anniversary of the surrender 
 of Quebec, the Comte de Haussonville asked for Am- 
 herst s terms. With an insistence upon a speedy 
 decision which would have done justice to his brother, 
 the British colonel demanded that the garrison of 
 St. John s surrender as prisoners of war. The French 
 man readily agreed to the conditions imposed, and 
 Newfoundland was restored to its traditional sover 
 eign. As Amherst s losses did not exceed fifty men 
 killed and wounded and the surrendered garrison 
 numbered over six hundred, it is difficult to see what 
 the French had gained by their summer excursion 
 to the coast of Newfoundland. 
 
 1 Gentleman s Magazine, vol. 32, pp. 484-487. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 PONTIAC S WAR 
 
 FROM the time Jeffery Amherst s ship cast 
 anchor off Louisburg until the General left 
 New York for England five years later, the 
 bane of his military existence was the American 
 Indian. In 1758 savages skulked in the woods of 
 Cape Breton Island and fell upon any unwary English 
 regular who separated himself from his fellows; in 
 the following year the seizure of two messengers whom 
 the Commander-in-Chief had despatched to Quebec 
 with important communications for Wolfe was the 
 occasion of Major Rogers expedition against the St. 
 Francis Indians. As doubtful allies of the English in 
 the descent upon Montreal in 1760, the redskins became 
 disgusted with Amherst s prohibition of inhumanity, 
 and the majority of them returned to their wilderness 
 homes in a rage. Then came a dangerous uprising of 
 the Cherokees on the Carolina frontier. This had 
 hardly been suppressed with fire and sword when an 
 Indian outbreak, the most serious and wide-spread of 
 all, broke out at Detroit in May, 1763. The last dis 
 turbance bears the name of its chief organizer and 
 promoter and is known as the Conspiracy of Pontiac. 
 Two Indian grievances of the first magnitude were 
 the causes of the war that came as the aftermath of 
 
214 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 the conquest of Canada. The first of these was the 
 constant encroachment of the white man upon the 
 forest domain of the savages in spite of all promises 
 and treaties to the contrary. As early as 1760 Am- 
 herst had sent a written message to the Iroquois in 
 the vicinity of Fort Pitt, assuring them that they 
 would be compensated for any ground taken for mili 
 tary posts, 1 but that engagement had never been 
 fulfilled, and the Indians began to suspect that this 
 was the first step towards their enslavement and the 
 invasion of their domain. 2 More disturbing than 
 the military occupation of strategic points was the 
 fact that "a number of vagabonds," under pretence 
 of hunting, had overrun their lands and were making 
 settlements in many parts of them. 3 This usurpa 
 tion shook what little faith the Indians had in their 
 white neighbors, for, by the Treaty of Easton, Penn 
 sylvania had retroceded to them all the country west 
 of the Alleghany Mountains for their hunting-ground. 4 
 Although the Privy Council accepted this self-denying 
 ordinance as the solution of frontier troubles and, in 
 1761, extended its provisions to apply to Virginia, 5 
 the aborigines continued to make "grievous and 
 repeated complaints" that the treaty was not lived 
 up to. There was abundant room for misinterpre 
 tation of the phrase "westward of the great ridge." 
 Did it mean beyond the foothills, or beyond the 
 
 1 Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1761-1765, p. xiii. 
 
 2 Brodhead s New York Colonial Documents, vii, 577. 
 
 3 Report on Canadian Archives for 1889, p. 74. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 73; O Callaghan s Documentary History of New York, ii, 775. 
 6 Ads of the Privy Council (Colonial), iv, 475. 
 
PONTIAC S WAR 215 
 
 watershed? The Indians construed it in one way, 
 the colonists in another. The uncertainty was not 
 cleared up until the Royal Proclamation of 1763 set 
 the limit of the expanding colonies at "the heads or 
 sources of any of the rivers which fall into the Atlan 
 tic Ocean from the west or northwest": in the mean 
 time the Indians took it upon themselves to enforce 
 the terms of the treaty as they understood them. 
 
 The second great cause of discontent was the scar 
 city of supplies felt by the Indians as soon as New 
 France fell into the hands of the English. Hardly 
 had Major Rogers taken possession of the western 
 posts in the name of the King of Great Britain, when 
 it became apparent that the new masters of the 
 country were neither so generous as the French nor 
 so pleasant to deal with in business relations. The 
 Frenchmen had taken pains to secure the good will 
 of the Indians who came to the forts. They gave 
 the redmen guns, ammunition, and clothing, until 
 the latter became entirely dependent upon the de 
 vices of the Europeans and forgot the use of their 
 primitive weapons and garments. The English had 
 always neglecled the Indians, enemy or ally. Now 
 they saw no reason for continuing the crafty largesse 
 of their Bourbon enemies. Supplies ceased to flow 
 from the wilderness posts, and want and suffering 
 among the Indians followed, as a matter of course. 
 
 At first Amherst a&ed upon the advice of Sir 
 William Johnson, the superintendent of Indian affairs 
 for the northern tribes, and sent pork and flour to 
 the baronet s house "for the use of the most neces- 
 
216 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 sitous Indians during the winter," l but when it 
 appeared that this charity was likely to become a 
 permanent institution, the Commander-in-Chief very 
 naturally felt that affairs were being managed on a 
 wrong basis. He decided that Johnson s policy of 
 treating the Indians like children, pleasing their van 
 ity, and buying their friendship with little presents 
 and favors, was not sound. It was not consist 
 ent with the dignity of England, nor was it calcu 
 lated to secure the Indians friendship and respect 
 for any length of time. Furthermore, it was uneco 
 nomic, and Amherst begrudged every penny that 
 went from his military chest as a douceur to a people 
 whom he despised. His first move was to cut off 
 their supply of arms and ammunition, "lest they 
 should increase their stock from our bounty." 2 When 
 Johnson asked for 1000 to purchase the usual pres 
 ents for the meeting of the Six Nations, Sir Jeffery 
 granted the sum, but charged the recipient "to be as 
 sparing in these presents as possible." 3 In like vein 
 Amherst wrote to Colonel Henry Bouquet, who was 
 commanding in Pennsylvania; he insisted upon econ 
 omy in the matter of presents to the Indians in that 
 quarter, and increased the resentment of the redskins 
 by making it difficult for them to get rum. Bouquet 
 remonstrated, declaring that a lack of presents was 
 the chief cause of the discontent among the Indians; 
 
 1 Amber st to Bradstreet, Nov. 8, 1760, Myers Collection of MSS., in the 
 New York Public Library. 
 
 a Amherst to Sir William Johnson, August 18, 1761, Emmet MS. 8814, 
 New York Public Library. 
 
 8 Miscellaneous MSS. y New York Public Library. 
 
PONTIACS WAR 217 
 
 but Amherst could not see the matter in that light. 
 His reply to Bouquet s representations makes clear 
 the Indian policy of the Commander-in-Chief. "As 
 to appropriating a particular sum to be laid out 
 yearly to the warriors in presents, etc., that I can 
 by no means agree to; nor can I think it necessary 
 to give them any presents by way of Bribes, for if 
 they do not behave properly they are to be pun 
 ished." 1 Sir JefFery acted according to his convic 
 tions, which were based upon a military man s point 
 of view, but in the end his policy, or lack of policy, 
 proved to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. 
 
 An entirely different attitude toward the Indian 
 question was that of Sir William Johnson, a man who 
 had been singularly successful in his dealings with the 
 redmen. For almost thirty years this adventurous 
 Irishman had lived on the frontier of New York, 
 and by a prosperous traffic with the natives had 
 accumulated a small fortune. His two mansions in 
 the Mohawk Valley, Johnson Castle and Johnson 
 Hall, were gathering-places for the Indians, who came 
 in crowds to visit their good-natured host. John 
 son s first wife was a Dutch woman. After her 
 death his affections centred upon Molly Brant, the 
 sister of the Mohawk war-chief, and thus the entente 
 cordiale between the frontier plutocrat and his sav 
 age neighbors was consummated into an enduring 
 friendship. Johnson s military career in the French 
 and Indian War brought him recognition in England. 
 After the unsatisfactory but hard-fought battle of 
 1 Parkman s Conspiracy of Pontiac, i, i8in. 
 
218 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 Lake George he was made a baronet, and was still 
 further rewarded by a gift of five thousand pounds 
 from the king. More important for England was 
 his appointment as superintendent of Indian affairs 
 for the northern tribes, which was made about this 
 time. It was Johnson, too, who captured Niagara 
 in the same season which saw Ticonderoga and 
 Crown Point fall into Amherst s hands. 
 
 Whatever estimate one may form of Sir William s 
 career as a whole, one must admit that his faculty 
 for dealing with the Indians was little short of gen 
 ius. His policy was diametrically opposed to that of 
 the Commander-in-Chief, but since their jurisdictions 
 conflicted, and military measures became entangled 
 with Indian affairs, even Sir William Johnson could 
 not roll back the tide of discontent which was sweep 
 ing eastward from the northwest. He saw the dan 
 ger, but without Amherst s support his soothing 
 influence could not be really efficacious. In vain the 
 Iroquois brought their troubles to his sympathetic 
 ear, for Amherst refused to continue the French 
 practice of flattering them and of making them pres 
 ents. As Johnson rightly declared, the customary 
 gifts, however expensive and bountifully bestowed, 
 were "infinitely cheaper and much more effectual 
 than the keeping of a large body of regular troops 
 in their several countries/ 1 Where Indian hostility 
 was concerned he believed that an ounce of preven 
 tion was worth a pound of cure, a conviction which 
 events were to justify only too soon. To Johnson s 
 
 1 Parkman s Conspiracy of Pontiac, i, i8in. 
 
PONTIAC S WAR 219 
 
 warnings and suggestions Sir Jeffery, thoroughly irri 
 tated by the unrest of the western Indians, finally 
 retorted that unless the savages became loyal sub 
 jects of George III "they must not only expect the 
 severest retaliation, but an entire destruction of all 
 their nations, for I am firmly resolved, whenever they 
 give me an occasion, to extirpate them root and 
 branch." l But when the occasion was given, the 
 General found his proposed extermination more 
 easily threatened than accomplished. 
 
 For the first two years after the surrender of New 
 France all that the Indian discontent lacked was a 
 leader. In the winter of 1762-63 the deficiency was 
 supplied by the appearance of an Indian of extraor 
 dinary powers. This man was Pontiac, the prin 
 cipal chief of the Ottawas. Proud in spirit and keen 
 in perception, Pontiac realized the crisis that con 
 fronted his race and determined to overthrow the 
 existing order of things. A return to the days of 
 French ascendancy seemed to him the surest way of 
 putting an end to the evils that oppressed his breth 
 ren. In this belief he was encouraged by "French 
 missionaries and others" who assured him that 
 though the King of France had been asleep in recent 
 years he was now awake, and that his armies were 
 advancing up the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence 
 to rescue his red children from the encroaching Eng 
 lish. 2 Now was the time to strike. Towards the 
 end of the year 1762, Pontiac sent ambassadors to 
 
 1 Amberst to Johnson, Emmet MS. 8814. 
 * Parkman s Conspiracy of Pontiac, i, 185. 
 
220 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 many different nations, urging them to rise simul 
 taneously at a certain time in May and fall upon 
 every English fort in the wilderness. When these 
 were destroyed, the whole pack would assail the 
 frontier. The exhortation was received with enthu 
 siasm throughout the Ohio Valley and the district of 
 the Great Lakes; even one member of the Iroquois 
 confederacy, the Senecas, who were geographically 
 the most remote from Sir William Johnson, joined 
 the insurgent league. In the early spring of 1763 
 rumors of a general uprising floated into the British 
 forts, but the dissimulation of the savages was so 
 successful that no one suspected how formidable a 
 blow was in preparation. 
 
 On the evening of May 6, 1763, an Ottawa Indian 
 who had only half-heartedly acquiesced in Pontiac s 
 designs came to the gate of the fort at Detroit and 
 asked to speak to the commander. It was evident 
 that he had an important secret to impart. The 
 gates were opened to him and in a few minutes he 
 found himself in the presence of Major Gladwin and 
 his second in command, Captain Campbell. To them 
 the Indian divulged the plot which his chief had 
 contrived for the destruction of all the English at 
 Detroit. The plan was this: Pontiac, at the head of 
 sixty picked warriors with weapons concealed under 
 their blankets, was to come to the fort to ask the 
 commandant for a great council. After this delega 
 tion the rest of the village should follow, as uncon 
 cernedly as possible; but all were to be armed with 
 hidden tomahawks and knives. The women of the 
 
PONTIACS WAR 221 
 
 Ottawas, too, should straggle in with the others, 
 carrying guns cut short enough to be hidden under 
 their blankets. These squaws should take position 
 in the back street of the fortified village and await 
 the war-cry of the great chief. At the given signal 
 all would hurl themselves upon the English and de 
 stroy them, but care would be taken not to hurt any 
 Frenchman. This was part of the conspiracy of 
 Pontiac, and its execution was set for the very next 
 day. 
 
 The truth of the communication was apparent to 
 Major Gladwin. He recalled rumors that many 
 Indians had recently visited the blacksmith s shop 
 to borrow files and saws for some mysterious pur 
 pose. When these suspicious acls were described to 
 the commandant, with friendly suggestions to be on 
 his guard, he had given little heed to the news; but 
 now the events assumed serious significance. The 
 desired tools were to be used in amputating the 
 muzzles of the guns, in preparation for the surprise 
 of the garrison. The Major thanked his informant 
 and wished to reward him with presents; but the 
 savage shook his head, asking only that the English 
 men would never reveal his identity to the conspira 
 tors. Gladwin and Campbell relieved his mind on 
 that point, and without disclosing what startling 
 words had been poured into their ears, the com 
 manders quietly doubled the guards and closed all 
 entrances, except the main gates. At each of the 
 latter two sentinels were posted, while the officers 
 were ordered to inspect the arms of the troops under 
 
222 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 their command and to notify their men to be ready 
 for duty at a moment s notice. All these precau 
 tions were taken, and with so little disturbance 
 that neither the French dwelling within the forti 
 fied town, called the Fort, nor the watchful Indians 
 beyond the palisade had any occasion to suspect 
 that the plot was discovered. 1 
 
 On the morning following, May 7, Pontiac ordered 
 all his people to chant the war-song in their village, 
 to paint their faces, and to put on their feather bon 
 nets in preparation for the attack. Eagerly his fol 
 lowers obeyed his instructions, making themselves 
 frightful with the paraphernalia of savage warfare. 
 Under their blankets or hidden within their crude 
 garments, the Indians carried whatever weapons 
 they could best conceal and yet use to advantage 
 when the appointed moment came. Thus equipped, 
 the chief and his motley rabble appeared before the 
 fort at about ten o clock. Pontiac demanded a coun 
 cil with the English officers. There was nothing 
 extraordinary in the request, for the redmen were 
 frequently moved to wait upon the military command 
 ers and ask for a hearing of their grievances, real or 
 imaginary. Indeed, on the first day of May Pon 
 tiac, with malice aforethought, had been to the fort 
 and had told Gladwin that he intended to pay him 
 a formal visit before long. 2 Now the time had come. 
 His wish was granted, and soon the crafty Indian 
 
 1 The Pontiac Manuscript, printed in the Michigan Pioneer and Historical 
 Society s Collections, Vol. viii. 
 
 2 Parkman s Conspiracy of Pontiac, i, 236n. 
 
PONTIAC S WAR 223 
 
 with his sixty trusted warriors crowded into the 
 house of Captain Campbell. There Major Glad- 
 win, accompanied by a party of officers who were 
 warned of the impending danger, received them: 
 other officers were busy about the town, stationing 
 the troops where they would be of the most serv 
 ice when the outbreak occurred. The council was 
 opened, and while it was in progress the rest of the 
 Indians flocked through the gates, settled down where- 
 ever their chief had ordained that they should place 
 themselves, and awaited the war-cry. When Pon- 
 tiac calculated that the trap was ready to be sprung, 
 he stepped outside the council-house and looked 
 about the enclosure to make sure that all was as it 
 should be. To his great surprise, instead of seeing 
 groups of idle soldiers lounging about the fort, he 
 found the drill-ground alive with armed troops going 
 through their exercises. At once the scheming red 
 skin realized that his designs were discovered. His 
 only thought then was to get his people safely out of 
 the fort. When this was accomplished he might deceive 
 the English commander into believing that there was 
 no plot. After that he would take other measures and 
 crown a second attempt with complete success. 
 
 Disappointed and disconcerted, the proud Ottawa 
 turned back to the house where his conspirators 
 impatiently awaited the signal for attack. But one 
 look at his face, full of vexation and wrath, damp 
 ened their ardor. There was to be no massacre that 
 day. Pontiac, however, took care that no adlion 
 on his part should justify Gladwin s suspicions or 
 
224 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 jeopardize the safe departure of the Indians. He 
 killed time by making a meaningless speech, which 
 the Major answered calmly without intimating any 
 knowledge of the hostile intentions of his uncouth 
 guests. The art of dissimulation was practised with 
 remarkable finesse on both sides, but perhaps the 
 height of diplomacy was reached when Gladwin pre 
 sented the departing Indians with numerous trifles 
 which he knew would please them. The discomfited 
 conspirators, however, were too furious to remember 
 what few manners they possessed. They "went out 
 without saying good-bye or anything else," and pass 
 ing through the gate returned to their camp. The 
 first attempt to destroy the English at Detroit had 
 been frustrated, but this failure was only the begin 
 ning of the end. 
 
 Two days later, on the ninth of May, the common 
 outside the stockade was again alive with a greasy 
 horde of Indians. From their midst out strode the 
 haughty Pontiac. He approached the gate of the 
 fort, but it was barred against him. He called to 
 the sentinels and asked why he, the chief of the 
 Ottawas, was refused admittance. The commander 
 replied sententiously that Pontiac might enter, but 
 that most of his friends must remain outside the 
 palisade. The Indian protested that all his people 
 wished to smell the smoke of the peace-pipe, that 
 would bind their interests with those of the English; 
 but Gladwin, disgusted with the transparency of the 
 savage s designs, answered him with a flat refusal, 
 which ended the conversation. Furious at the fail- 
 
PONTIACS WAR 225 
 
 ure of his second stratagem, Pontiac turned on his 
 heel and went back to the Ottawa village. Seizing 
 a tomahawk, he chanted the war-song and cried that 
 "since he could not slay the English at the fort, he 
 would slay those outside of it." Thenceforth no 
 British subject in the region, man, woman or child, 
 was safe except within the stockade of Detroit. 
 
 Foiled in his attempts to capture the fort by 
 treachery, Pontiac now made an open attack. For 
 six hours on May 10 the Indians assailed the pali 
 sades with furious persistency; but their efforts 
 were in vain. In spite of this hostile demonstration, 
 Major Gladwin continued to believe that the out 
 break was merely a passing mood, and now that the 
 savages had given vent to their feelings he felt that a 
 reconciliation would be easily effected. As the town 
 was in great need of provisions and there was no 
 prospect of supplies, peace, or at least a truce, would 
 be highly advantageous to the Englishmen. Captain 
 Campbell and a junior officer were sent to the enemy s 
 camp to negotiate with the wily Pontiac, who pre 
 tended to show a strong desire for amity; but Glad- 
 win s hopes were soon dashed. Campbell and his 
 companion were immediately made captives, and 
 before many days the older man was murdered by 
 the savages, while his more fortunate fellow-prisoner 
 succeeded in making his escape. 1 It became clear 
 that Detroit was to be blockaded in earnest, and the 
 harassed garrison resigned themselves to a long and 
 vigilant defence. 
 
 1 Parkman s Conspiracy of Pontiac, i, 310. 
 
226 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 The tactics by which Pontiac had failed to sur 
 prise and destroy the Englishmen at Detroit were 
 employed by his allies and followers with almost 
 universal success in compassing the downfall of the 
 other British posts in the Lake Region. Less than 
 ten days after the fiasco in Gladwin s council-room, 
 the unsuspecting garrison at Fort Sandusky were 
 pounced upon by a band of Indian visitors. The 
 parade-ground was soon strewn with the bodies of 
 butchered soldiers and the fort was put to the torch. 
 A week later a friendly talk between the British 
 commandant at St. Joseph s and a group of Indian 
 chiefs suddenly changed into a massacre of the gar 
 rison. Lower Lake Michigan was thus purged of 
 the English. Then in quick succession came the loss 
 of Fort Miami on the Maumee River, the capture of 
 Ouatanon on the Wabash, and the bloody slaughter 
 at Fort Michilimackinac, which gave Lakes Michigan 
 and Huron into the complete control of the savages. 
 
 Towards the east fortune favored Pontiac s schemes 
 with equal success. The little garrison at Presqu 
 isle on Lake Erie had long mistrusted that an Indian 
 attack upon their fort was impending, and on the 
 fifteenth of June their expectations were realized. 
 At early dawn the yelling of a large number of red- 
 men announced the opening of a hot fight. The 
 blockhouse was supposedly impregnable, but its 
 shingled roof was showered with fire-arrows and fre 
 quently burst into flames. The defence was gallant 
 and exciting. For two days and two nights Ensign 
 Christie and his twenty-seven men held the enemy 
 
PONTIACS WAR 227 
 
 at bay, and the soldiers, in spite of their weariness, 
 were resolved to hold the post until the end, 
 although it was clear that sooner or later a confla 
 gration must terminate the conflict. The Indians 
 proposed that the garrison surrender the fort and 
 retire unmolested to the nearest post. The terms 
 were dismally reminiscent of the capitulation of Fort 
 William Henry in 1757, but the commandant chose 
 them rather than to face the certain death which 
 must come with the burning of the blockhouse. The 
 place was surrendered, and, as might be expecfled, its 
 recent defenders, instead of being allowed to go to 
 Fort Le Boeuf or Niagara, were carried prisoners to 
 Pontiac s camp at Detroit. 1 
 
 When Presqu isle fell, it was inevitable that the 
 wilderness posts linking it with Fort Pitt would be 
 swept away by the tide of Indian victory which was 
 rolling eastward towards the Alleghany Mountains. 
 Such indeed proved to be the gruesome fact. The 
 handful of men to whom the security of Fort Le 
 Boeuf was entrusted stood their ground until the fort 
 became a burning prison, from which the gallant 
 defenders made good their escape into the dark night, 
 eventually reaching the stout walls of Fort Pitt. Less 
 fortunate were the occupants of Venango. There a 
 pretence of friendship on the part of the savages 
 opened the gates to a band of Senecas, who treacher 
 ously fell upon the garrison and killed them all, ex 
 cept the commandant, Lieutenant Gordon. A worse 
 fate awaited this unfortunate officer. For several 
 
 1 Parkman s Conspiracy of Pontiac, i, 297. 
 
228 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 nights in succession he was roasted over a slow fire, 
 until at length death put an end to his tortures. 1 
 
 In the first two months of the war the savages had 
 been astoundingly victorious. West of Niagara, but 
 two forts, Detroit and Fort Pitt, remained in the 
 hands of the English. Around these two storm- 
 centres the fury of the redmen now whirled with 
 increasing energy. 
 
 At about the time the last of these tragedies oc 
 curred, Amherst received his first intimation that 
 there was trouble in the Lake Region. Early in the 
 spring he had sent a strong detachment up the 
 inland waterway with a supply of provisions for 
 Detroit and the other western posts. The convoy 
 consisted of several boats manned and guarded by 
 about a hundred men under Lieutenant Cuyler. 
 Leaving Fort Niagara in the middle of May, they 
 cruised along the northern shore of Lake Erie on their 
 way to Detroit. On the twenty-eighth of the month 
 the expedition landed at Point Pelee, not far from 
 the mouth of the Detroit River. There they were 
 attacked by a ferocious band of Wyandots, who cap 
 tured almost the entire party and their equipment. 
 Cuyler with a few others escaped, and returning to 
 Niagara, sent a report of the disaster to the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief. His unhappy comrades were not 
 so fortunate. Made captive by their savage foes, 
 the soldiers were forced to man the oars and to 
 propel the flotilla on its way to expectant Detroit, 
 where the sight of the approaching vessels was hailed 
 
 1 Parkman s Conspiracy of Pontiac, ii, 23. 
 
PONTIACS WAR 229 
 
 with delight until proximity disclosed the horrid 
 reality of the situation. Worse than the disappoint 
 ment of the besieged, who now were confronted by 
 the prospect of starvation, was another sequel to the 
 capture of Cuyler s expedition. For several succeed 
 ing days the smiling surface of the river was hideous 
 with bloody corpses and half-roasted human bodies 
 floating downstream from Pontiac s camp. Every 
 conceivable form of torture had been practised upon 
 the wretched Englishmen, only a few of whom were 
 saved for adoption and slavery. 1 With such sickening 
 suggestions of their probable fate, Gladwin and his 
 garrison continued their endeavors to save the post 
 for England. 
 
 The first relief came to Detroit towards the end 
 of June. A schooner which Gladwin had sent to 
 wards Niagara to hasten the progress of Cuyler s 
 supply ships, now returned, bringing the leader of 
 that ill-starred expedition, a few of the survivors, 
 and such reinforcements as could be spared from the 
 fort near the great waterfall. The blockade was 
 successfully run after a hot skirmish with the Indians, 
 and the vessel safely discharged its precious cargo 
 of men, provisions, and ammunition under the guns 
 of the fort. Upon this the enemy, by land and water, 
 redoubled their efforts to reduce Detroit. 
 
 When the news of the siege reached Amherst, the 
 General found himself in an embarrassing situation. 
 The military establishment in North America was 
 reduced to almost nothing by the expeditions recently 
 
 1 Pontiac Manuscript. 
 
230 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 sent against the French and Spanish West Indies. 
 The troops returning from Havana were worn out 
 by the hardships of that frightful campaign and 
 formed but remnants of the valiant regiments that 
 had stormed the Morro. The provincial contingent, 
 too, was only a fraction of what it had been, and was 
 chiefly employed in garrison duty in Canada and on 
 the frontier; hence the mobile force ready for use in 
 this emergency was appallingly meagre. For Am- 
 herst it was not a question of what he would do, 
 but rather of what he could do, to suppress the 
 Indian uprising. Under the circumstances he acted 
 admirably. His first move was to send to the front 
 his aide-de-camp, Captain Dalyell, for whom he had 
 both military esteem and personal affection. Sir 
 Jeffery ordered him to go to Niagara with all the 
 reinforcements he could possibly collect, and if devel 
 opments justified a campaign, to proceed thence to 
 Detroit. Dalyell gathered together two hundred and 
 eighty men and several small cannon; with these 
 and a fresh supply of provisions and ammunition, 
 he sailed from Niagara to relieve the western fort. 
 Though small in quantity, the troops under his 
 command were rare in quality, for they included the 
 incomparable Major Robert Rogers and a score of 
 his rangers. 
 
 The expedition reached Detroit in safety on the 
 twenty-ninth of July and did much to restore the 
 spirits of the long-suffering soldiers there. But 
 Dalyell was not content with strengthening the 
 defence. He was a soldier of the type of James 
 
PON TI ACS WAR 231 
 
 Wolfe, and was bitten with a desire to inflict an im 
 mediate and decisive defeat upon the savages. In 
 a conference with Gladwin on the day of his arrival, 
 he urged the latter to allow him to lead an attack 
 against the Indian camp at the earliest possible date. 
 The commandant was reluctant to grant the request, 
 but remembering, perhaps, that his friend was by no 
 means a novice in Indian warfare, as he had been the 
 companion of Israel Putnam on more than one ad 
 venturous occasion, Gladwin finally yielded to his 
 entreaty. 
 
 Long before dawn on the thirty-first of July two 
 hundred and fifty British troops passed out of the 
 gates of the fort, while two large bateaux paralleled 
 their movements on the river. A mile and a half 
 from the stockade the road crossed a small creek by 
 a wooden bridge, known ever since that fatal 
 morning as Bloody Bridge, and there the Indians, 
 forewarned by some telltale Canadians, awaited their 
 oncoming assailants. When the advance-guard of 
 the British were halfway across the stream, the sav 
 ages fell upon them unmercifully. The night was 
 intensely dark, and the Indians seemed to be on all 
 sides. It was the same old story. The savages shot 
 down the British by scores, while the Englishmen 
 could not guess where the enemy were, except by the 
 flash of their deadly muskets. When it became evi 
 dent that his men were entirely surrounded, Dalyell 
 ordered an instant retreat. The return to Detroit 
 would have been a flight had not the comman 
 der, twice wounded though he was, enforced order 
 
232 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 upon his terror-stricken soldiers. As the men hurried 
 along in the gray light of daybreak, their leader 
 caught sight of a sergeant who had fallen helplessly 
 wounded and who must soon feel the blow of a sav 
 age tomahawk. With quick sympathy Dalyell turned 
 back to rescue the subaltern. A third shot struck 
 him and he fell dead, while his detachment continued 
 on their frenzied way towards the shelter of the fort. 
 At last the nightmare was over and four-fifths of the 
 men, with the aid of the resourceful Rogers, were 
 once more within the walls of Detroit. 
 
 Far from achieving the purpose which its advocate 
 had intended, the fight at -Bloody Bridge elated the 
 besieging Indians, giving to the tedious monotony of 
 the blockade just that excitement which was neces 
 sary to revive the flagging interest of the restless 
 savages. Dalyell s body was recovered by the Eng 
 lish and brought into the fort, but not until the 
 Indians had torn out the gallant soldier s heart and 
 smeared its blood upon the faces of their prisoners. 
 
 The other centre of Indian activity in the summer 
 of 1763 was Fort Pitt. Since the last week in May, 
 pioneers and settlers in its vicinity had been menaced 
 by the savages, and on June 22 an unsuccessful 
 attack upon the fort itself inaugurated a blockade. 1 
 Thenceforth that strategic post was practically iso 
 lated from the rest of the military establishments of 
 the English. Fortunately Fort Pitt was commanded 
 by an officer of remarkable intelligence and fortitude. 
 Captain Ecuyer was a lively Swiss who enjoyed 
 
 1 Parkman s Conspiracy of Pontiac, ii, 15. 
 
PON ri ACS WAR 233 
 
 fighting for fighting s sake, and if his post had not 
 been burdened with refugees, many of whom were 
 women and children, he would have looked upon the 
 siege as a most entertaining game. His garrison 
 numbered more than three hundred, provisions were 
 plenty and the fort was in an excellent posture of 
 defence. The commandant s only anxiety arose from 
 the fadl that smallpox had broken out in his camp; 
 this danger, however, did not assume alarming pro 
 portions. Throughout July Fort Pitt was closely 
 hemmed in by the savages, but their assaults were 
 only half-hearted until the morning of the twenty- 
 seventh. Then the redskinned warriors opened * a 
 general fire which continued for several days. Ecuyer 
 was in his element, and his soldiers were not far be 
 hind him in their enjoyment of the fray. Many 
 wished to make a sortie and drive the Indians from 
 their hiding-places, but this was wisely forbidden. 
 Though the commandant was wounded in the leg by 
 a swift arrow, he merely made sport of the accident, 
 and day after day the same martial program went 
 on. Suddenly, on the first of August, the savages 
 decamped, leaving the tired garrison to speculate 
 upon the cause of their unexpected departure. 
 
 The redskins had good reason for abandoning the 
 attack upon Fort Pitt. An army of British regulars 
 was approaching the forks of the Ohio, and this ex 
 pedition could be better disposed of in the depths of 
 the wilderness than before the walls of the obstinate 
 fortress. Early in June, before the news of Cuyler s 
 mishap or of the blockade of Detroit reached Am- 
 
234 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 herst s ears, the Commander-in-Chief had heard re 
 ports of trouble with the Indians along the frontier 
 of Pennsylvania. At first he was not greatly dis 
 turbed by the alarm; but when bad tidings were 
 constantly followed by worse, Sir Jeffery s apparent 
 indifference changed to grave concern, particularly 
 when the developments in the Lake Region made it 
 clear that this was no ordinary uprising of the In 
 dians. Collecting and organizing what troops he 
 could, Amherst sent them off to Philadelphia to be 
 used as Colonel Bouquet, his right-hand man in the 
 Quaker province, should see fit. 
 
 Colonel Henry Bouquet was one of those rare 
 spirits who relieve the monotony of military annals. 
 Like the gallant Ecuyer, he was a Swiss, and had 
 been a soldier from boyhood. His first appearance 
 in America was as a lieutenant-colonel of the Royal 
 Americans, the crack regiment of which Amherst 
 was colonel ex officio. In 1763 Bouquet was in com 
 mand of the first battalion, and ready for service at 
 a moment s notice. For the business in hand he was 
 one man in a thousand. His hatred of the Indians, 
 whom he termed "the vilest of brutes/ was equalled 
 only by his chiefs regard for that "execrable race." 
 As he sped on his way to the relief of Fort Pitt, the 
 Colonel exchanged interesting suggestions with the 
 General as to the most efficient manner of getting 
 rid of the redskins. Amherst had just heard of two 
 particularly atrocious murders perpetrated by the 
 savages and his blood was up. His first orders to 
 Bouquet were that he wished "to hear of no prison- 
 
PONTUCS WAR 235 
 
 ers should any of the villains be met with in arms," 
 but this injunction was mild in comparison with sub 
 sequent ideas which occurred to Sir Jeffery. 1 Learn 
 ing that smallpox had broken out at Fort Pitt, the 
 Commander-in-Chief wondered whether the disease 
 could not be spread to good advantage among the 
 hostile Indians. He expressed this thought in a post 
 script to Bouquet. The resourceful Swiss seized 
 upon the idea and developed it. In his reply to 
 Amherst he wrote: 
 
 "I will try to inoculate the with some 
 
 blankets that may fall in their hands, and take care 
 not to get the disease myself. As it is a pity to ex 
 pose good men against them, I wish we could make 
 use of the Spanish method, to hunt them with Eng 
 lish dogs, supported by rangers and some light horse, 
 who would, I think, effectually extirpate or remove 
 that vermin." 
 
 Sir Jeffery s rejoinder approved the smallpox 
 method of extermination and expressed his regret 
 that the remoteness of merry England made the sug 
 gestion of canine aid impracticable. 2 Whether the 
 blanket treatment was practised or not must remain 
 a question, but the credulous may draw their own 
 conclusions from the fact that a few months later 
 smallpox broke out with unusual severity among the 
 Indians of the Ohio Valley. 
 
 Colonel Bouquet lost no time in getting to the 
 front. From Carlisle, which was filled with terror- 
 
 1 Parkman s Conspiracy of Pontiac, ii, 42. 
 
 2 Parkman s Conspiracy of Pontiac, ii, 44-45. 
 
236 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 stricken refugees, he pushed westward with about 
 five hundred men, the best of whom were Highland 
 ers of the Forty-second Regiment. All along the 
 way there were depressing evidences of Indian rav 
 ages. The whole country-side was deserted by its 
 erstwhile inhabitants, and here and there the charred 
 timbers of a settler s cabin told a tragic story of 
 frontier life. At Bedford the troops rested three 
 days before setting out upon the most difficult part 
 of their route, the crossing of the Alleghany Moun 
 tains and the traversing of the rough wilderness 
 beyond the ridge. Here Bouquet was happily rein 
 forced by a band of thirty backwoodsmen, whose 
 familiarity with forest conditions made them inval 
 uable adjuncts in the van and in the rear. The road 
 followed by Bouquet and his little army was that 
 rugged trail hacked out by Forbes s axe-men on their 
 way to the conquest of Fort Duquesne in the summer 
 and autumn of 1758. It was indeed a difficult track. 
 Up precipitous mountain-sides and through danger 
 ous defiles the sweating soldiers and struggling wagon 
 trains pressed on to the relief of Fort Pitt. After a 
 few days of such exertion the commander decided 
 to leave behind the more cumbrous part of his con 
 voy and let the troops advance with greater speed. 
 The change was made, but hardly had the unham 
 pered expedition resumed its march when war- 
 whoops and the rattle of musketry informed the 
 soldiers that they were in the presence of an enemy 
 more to be feared than the mountain fastnesses 
 which they had scaled, and more treacherous than 
 
PONTIACS WAR 237 
 
 the quagmires that had occasionally arrested their 
 wearisome progress. 
 
 It was shortly after noon on August 5th when the 
 advance-guard was thus suddenly attacked in the 
 woods of Edge Hill by an invisible band of Indians. 
 Two companies immediately came to its support, 
 succeeded in driving the enemy from their ambus 
 cade, "and pursued them a good way." The sav 
 ages, however, returned to the attack with vigor; 
 their fire which was obstinate in front soon extended 
 along the flanks of the British. The position became 
 serious. Bouquet ordered a general charge, hoping 
 to drive the enemy from the heights they occupied; 
 and although to all immediate appearances the 
 troops accomplished that object, no real advantage 
 was gained. The enemy, in true Indian fashion, 
 gave way, only to reappear upon all sides soon 
 afterwards. The light convoy, consisting of three 
 hundred and fifty horses loaded with flour, had been 
 left in the rear in supposed safety, but now it was 
 mercilessly assailed by the savages. The troops fell 
 back to protect the horses and provisions, and the 
 action became general and deadly. All that after 
 noon the fighting continued. At night the battle 
 subsided, giving the English an opportunity to 
 count their losses. More than sixty men out of a 
 scant five hundred lay dead or wounded on the forest 
 battleground. Such a diminution of his effectives 
 could not be easily afforded by Colonel Bouquet. 
 With gloomy forebodings he looked forward to the 
 next day s encounter, which would doubtless begin 
 
238 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 with the earliest light of dawn. In the meantime 
 the men improvised out of bags of flour a shelter for 
 the wounded, and about this central stronghold they 
 arranged themselves in a defensive circle. 1 Then 
 the tired soldiers lay upon their arms and snatched 
 what sleep they could. 
 
 True to Bouquet s expectations, the battle began 
 at daybreak before the British troops had had much 
 opportunity to recover from their fatigue of the pre 
 ceding day. The soldiers chief lack was water, of 
 which not a drop was to be had. A small stream 
 called Bushy Run, from which this desperate struggle 
 afterwards ironically took its name, lay only a half- 
 mile distant, but between the thirst-maddened troops 
 and its refreshing waters the forest bristled with a 
 host of redskins. As on the previous afternoon, the 
 Indians shouted and yelled in a terrifying manner; 
 their efforts to reach the stronghold, however, were 
 unsuccessful. The Englishmen fought splendidly. 
 Again and again they apparently routed the enemy 
 only to see them reappear when least expected. This 
 sort of fighting was too exasperating and too danger 
 ous for Colonel Henry Bouquet. With ingenuity 
 worthy of Pontiac himself, the Swiss commander 
 devised a ruse whereby the Indians, deceived into 
 thinking that the British were retreating, rushed into 
 a trap and were practically surrounded by those whom 
 they thought to have conquered. Then indeed were 
 the tables turned. The English poured deadly vol- 
 
 1 Bouquet to Amkerst, August 5, 1763. 
 
PONTIACS WAR 239 
 
 leys upon the front and right flank of the astonished 
 savages. At first the Indians returned the fire, but 
 the shock of the surprise and the fury of this unlooked- 
 for onslaught soon gave them but one thought, to 
 fly. The rout of the enemy was complete, and the 
 British pursued them until "they were totally dis 
 persed." When the chase was over and the woods 
 seemed quite cleared of lurking savages, the victorious 
 little army "marched without molestation" to the 
 banks of Bushy Run. 1 Four days later Colonel Bou 
 quet and his men relieved Fort Pitt. The right arm 
 of Pontiac s rebellion was broken. 
 
 Amherst was well pleased with the success of Bou 
 quet s expedition and particularly with that " very 
 wisely concerted and as happily executed" stratagem 
 at Edge Hill, which had spelled defeat for the In 
 dians. 2 While the General rejoiced in the ebbing tide 
 of Pontiac s victories in the upper Ohio Valley, In 
 dian impatience was doing much to relieve the pre 
 carious state of affairs at Detroit. The savages had 
 not anticipated such a prolonged and uninteresting 
 siege as that which had lasted from late spring until 
 early autumn, with only occasional encouraging and 
 enlivening episodes. Their ardor waned with the 
 summer solstice, the more so when rumors came to 
 them that a strong British force was on its way up 
 the lakes. Three of the four tribes, until now under 
 Pontiac s leadership, decided to sue for peace. Glad- 
 
 1 Bouquet to Amherst, August 6, 1763. 
 
 2 Amherst to Bouquet, August 31, 1763. 
 
240 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 win, only too glad to see the turn affairs were taking, 
 feigned reluctance to grant an absolute pacification, 
 but consented to a truce. The Ottawas alone con 
 tinued in open war against the English. The thirty- 
 first of October, however, saw the final blow fall 
 upon Pontiac s pet project. On that day a letter 
 arrived from M. Neyon, who commanded the prin 
 cipal French post in the Illinois country, informing 
 the Ottawa leader that any expectation of assistance 
 from the French was futile. England and France 
 were at peace and the Indians had better abandon 
 their hopeless hostilities. 1 This was virtually the end 
 of the Conspiracy of Pontiac. Had the defeated 
 chieftain known the history of the persuasive letter, 
 he would have been even less happy than he was, 
 for its existence was due entirely to the efforts of 
 an astute Englishman. That Englishman was none 
 other than Sir Jeffery Amherst. Realizing how 
 powerful an influence the French still wielded among 
 the Indians, and knowing, too, that much of the 
 present trouble was due to the savages delusion that 
 a Bourbon army was coming to their aid, he had 
 demanded that M. Neyon write a circular letter to 
 all the nations of the Ohio Valley and of the Lake 
 Region, putting an end to their false hopes and 
 advising them to bury the hatchet. The French 
 man reluctantly complied with this requisition, and 
 thus the rebellion received its death blow. 
 The Indian troubles of 1763 have often been re- 
 
 1 Parkman s Conspiracy of Pontiac, ii, 117. 
 
PONTIAC S WAR 241 
 
 garded as a blight upon the otherwise flawless laurels 
 Amherst won in America. But is such an estimate 
 just? Granted that Sir JefFery s short-sighted econ 
 omy in part occasioned the uprising of the savages, 
 when the storm broke did he not handle the crisis 
 exceptionally well? The war was not of the kind to 
 produce brilliant exploits, but its conduct demanded 
 both energy and sagacity. With almost no military 
 resources, the Commander-in-Chief faced the situa 
 tion resolutely and made a wise disposition of such 
 troops as he could muster. His selection of Colonel 
 Bouquet as the leader of the expedition to Fort Pitt 
 was a stroke of genius, which demonstrated itself on 
 the battle-ground of Edge Hill. Few conflicts have 
 so hinged upon the strategy and resourcefulness of 
 one man. In the far West it was Amherst s sagacity 
 that put an end to the machinations of Pontiac. 
 After the fight at Bloody Bridge there was no imme 
 diate prospect of sending further military aid to the 
 beleaguered garrison at Detroit. In this predicament 
 the General suppressed the uprising by an expedient, 
 more humane than infected blankets, more econom 
 ical than arms, and more effectual than either or both. 
 The Neyon letter both dispelled the enemy s hopes of 
 success and shook their faith in their deceptive friends, 
 the French. On this occasion, as on many others in 
 history, the pen proved mightier than the sword; 
 but seldom has it been the soldier s lot to wield the 
 conquering quill. Within six months of its outbreak, 
 the most formidable and extensive Indian war in 
 
242 JEFFERT AMHERSr 
 
 our history was brought to a successful conclusion 
 by the energy and sagacity of a general who had 
 almost no available soldiers. Few of Amherst s 
 achievements display his skill and wisdom so forcibly 
 as the crushing of Pontiac s rebellion, yet few of his 
 deeds have been so unjustly appraised. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 FAVOR AND DISFAVOR 
 
 MORE than five years had now passed since 
 Jeffery Amherst came to America, but 
 prolonged residence in the New World 
 had not diminished his longing for England. In 
 June, 1760, he had been careful to ask Pitt s permis 
 sion to go home as soon as peace should be declared. 1 
 Montreal surrendered in that year, but the world 
 wide conflict of nations continued until the signing of 
 the Treaty of Paris in February, 1763. Not till then 
 was Sir Jeffery granted his long-deferred leave, 
 and then only on condition that Indian disturbances 
 no longer required his presence in the colonies. 2 
 Hardly had the welcome furlough arrived, when 
 Pontiac s uprising still further delayed the General s 
 departure; but in the autumn of 1763 he decided 
 that conditions justified his return to England. His 
 task was done, and done well. Leaving the chief 
 command to Major-General Gage, Amherst took 
 passage on the sloop-of-war "Weasel," and setting 
 sail from New York about the middle of November, 
 looked for the last time upon the continent of his 
 many victories. 3 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, ii, 309. 
 
 2 Brodhead s New York Colonial Documents, vii, 539. 
 
 1 Calendar of the Sir William Johnson Manuscripts, p. 190. 
 
244 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 The General had not been in England many days 
 before he was presented at court, and was knighted 
 in person by his youthful Majesty George III. 1 The 
 newly crowned King had succeeded to the throne 
 during Amherst s absence; he was twenty-five years 
 old at that time, and though by no means a fool, 
 one would hardly describe him as "young in years, 
 but in sage counsel old." His whole ambition was 
 to break down the coalition of great Whig families 
 which had ruled England during the reign of his 
 "wise and unlovely" grandfather. His chief assets 
 in this attempt were determination of the kind that 
 is likely to be mistaken for obstinacy, and a will 
 ingness to corrupt Parliament in order to achieve 
 his purpose. Sir Jeffery s relations with the mis 
 guided despot were various in the course of the next 
 decade, but at this time he was especially smiled 
 upon. At a levee at St. James , in the last week of 
 January, it was noticeable that the King took the 
 late Commander-in-Chief aside and had a long con 
 ference with him, an attention which must have been 
 disconcerting, to say the least, to one so unused to 
 royalty. 2 
 
 Although Amherst basked in royal sunshine during 
 the first few weeks after his arrival in England, he 
 was not without enemies. Among the latter the most 
 prominent and most dangerous was Major Charles 
 Lee, who later won a bad name for himself in the 
 American Revolution. It was not many years since 
 
 1 Nicolas s History of Knighthood, iii, 202. 
 
 2 Gentleman s Magazine, January, 1764, p. 42. 
 
FA FOR AND DISFAFOR 245 
 
 this soldier of fortune had been generous in his praise 
 of the General under whom he served, 1 but loyalty 
 was not Lee s long suit, particularly when anything 
 could be gained by a change of front. Now he bent 
 every effort to stir up a hornet s nest for the return 
 ing conqueror. Just what Lee s grievance was it is 
 difficult to determine. It may have been that Am- 
 herst s advice upon Indian affairs had led to the 
 injunction in the Royal Proclamation of October 7, 
 1763, forbidding the further purchase of land from 
 the Indians, a measure which seriously interfered 
 with the Major s Utopian scheme for creating a 
 military colony of New Englanders, Germans, and 
 Swiss in the Ohio Valley. This possible ground for 
 attack, however, is hardly consistent with Sir Jeffery s 
 attitude towards western colonization, for at an earlier 
 date he had recommended Detroit as a proper seat 
 for a new government. 2 Whatever his complaint, Lee 
 plied his mephitic pen to the best of his ability in 
 decrying Amherst s conduct during his command in 
 America. 3 Some of these criticisms appeared in print, 
 and the late Commander-in-Chief was advised by his 
 friends to publish his instructions and orders from the 
 ministry. Then Lee turned his hand to less open war 
 fare. Knowing well the difference of opinion which 
 existed between Amherst and Sir William Johnson, 
 the aggrieved Major wrote to the latter lamenting 
 the colonial policy of the Administration and declar- 
 
 1 New York Historical Society s Collections, 1871, p. 18. 
 
 2 Historical Manuscripts Commission s Report V, Appendix, p. 217. 
 
 3 Morgan s Documentary History of New Tork, ii, 808. 
 
246 JEFFERT AMHERSr 
 
 ing his conviction that Sir Jeffery Amherst contrib 
 uted "all in his power to continue them in their 
 errors by his most wicked misrepresentations." 1 Like 
 all detractors of public personages, Lee was not without 
 a party, but the upshot of all his efforts was little more 
 than a temporary bad odor, which clung quite as 
 much to himself as to the object of his wrath. 
 
 About the time of Amherst s return from America, 
 his elder brother, Sackville, died. The latter was 
 unmarried, and as Jeffery was the second son, this 
 event brought the General into unexpected posses 
 sion of the family estate at Riverhead, in the parish 
 of Sevenoaks. Although his income was not large, 
 probably not much over 3000, it was adequate to 
 the maintenance of a more pretentious establishment 
 than that which had suited his brother s compara 
 tively obscure life. 2 The old seat, which had been 
 known as "Brook s Place," was torn down and at 
 a small distance from it Amherst erected his new 
 house, "Montreal." A contemporary account speaks 
 of the building as "an elegant stone mansion," 3 
 but Major Kemble, an American, who visited the 
 place with his brother-in-law, General Gage, in 1774, 
 
 1 Lee Papers, i, 35, in the New York Historical Society s Collections, 1871. 
 
 2 Amherst s income as computed in 1768 was: 
 
 Government in Virginia 1500 
 
 1 5th regiment 600 
 
 6oth regiment 200 
 
 Paternal estate 800 
 
 Total 3100 
 
 Woodfall s Letters ofjunius, iii, 155; Grenville Papers, iv, 354. 
 
 3 Universal Magazine, vol. 63, p. 260. 
 
FAVOR AND DISFAVOR 247 
 
 was content with calling it "a very clever convenient 
 small house." Whatever estimate they formed of the 
 edifice, all visitors agreed that it was beautifully 
 situated. Mrs. Boscawen has left us perhaps the 
 best description of the country-side, as she saw it from 
 a neighboring window. "I see at this moment such 
 an amphitheatre spread all around, first gently de 
 scending, then as gently rising, field above field, and 
 church beyond church, that it is like the map of an 
 estate laid down before me. I see Knowl, Seven 
 Oak and its various buildings; and Lord Amherst s 
 new house and pillar are very conspicuous/ Such 
 was, is, and, let us hope, always will be the aspect of 
 that charming part of Kent where Sir Jeffery estab 
 lished himself in the middle of the eighteenth cen 
 tury. 1 
 
 The "pillar" mentioned by the enthusiastic Mrs. 
 Boscawen deserves further notice, for, to quote its 
 own inscription, it commemorated "the providential 
 and happy meeting of three brothers, on this their 
 paternal ground, on the 25th of January 1764, after 
 a six years glorious war, in which the three were 
 successfully engaged in various climes, seasons, and 
 services." The monument, which resembles an obe 
 lisk rather than a pillar, was appropriately dedicated 
 to William Pitt, and bore upon two of its faces lists 
 of the battles leading to the conquest of Canada in 
 which Sir JefFery figured. It is about thirty-five 
 feet high, and still stands upon a pleasant eminence 
 near the house, a lasting memorial, as was intended, 
 
 1 Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granvillt, etc, v, 383-384. 
 
248 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 to the close fraternal friendship of Jeffery, John, and 
 William Amherst. 1 
 
 Although the General had not wished to make 
 America his permanent home, his five years residence 
 in that country had introduced him to much that 
 afforded enjoyment. Both JefFery and William Am 
 herst had a decided interest in botany, and the 
 American trees and shrubs seem to have particularly 
 attracted them by their variety and beauty. During 
 their campaigns the two soldiers collected seeds and 
 roots of many kinds to plant near the garden at 
 Riverhead; the exotics took kindly to their new 
 home, and the part of the grounds in which they 
 flourished is still called the American wood. These 
 trees and shrubs were not the only New World 
 products to find favor in the Englishmen s eyes. 
 Apparently William had acquired a taste for Indian 
 corn, and a consignment of it was shipped to him by 
 a friend in America in the autumn of 1765. It is 
 doubtful, however, whether that great staple of the 
 continental colonies prospered in the less genial 
 climate of England. American apples, too, were 
 sent across the Atlantic, and even game-birds, when 
 cooked, bore the long journey without spoiling. 2 
 
 While Amherst was erecting a mansion worthy of 
 his social and military standing, another indication of 
 
 1 For the text of the inscription on the monument and for many interest 
 ing details concerning the house and grounds, I am indebted to Earl Amherst, 
 the present owner of "Montreal," whose friendly interest in this book has 
 contributed much to the pleasure of my work. 
 
 2 Aspinwall Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society s Colleflions, 
 Fourth Series, x, 539, 580, et passim. 
 
THE OBELISK 
 
FAVOR AND DISFAFOR 249 
 
 his rise in the world appeared. He decided that it 
 was high time his portrait was painted. Accordingly 
 Joshua Reynolds, already the leading artist in Eng 
 land, was engaged to make the counterfeit present 
 ment. The work, begun in May, 1765, now hangs in 
 the home of the present Lord Amherst and is indeed 
 an amazing bit of fine art. General Amherst, clad 
 in the armor and regalia of a Knight of the Bath, 
 regards the landscape with great composure, in spite 
 of the fadl that in the background the rapids of the 
 St. Lawrence, which the painter seems to have con 
 fused with Niagara Falls, play havoc with the troops 
 on their way to Montreal. Under the circumstances 
 the General s serenity is surprising, but to make 
 matters worse his untroubled expression is accen 
 tuated by a pose of the body and hand which would 
 be far more appropriate for a poet than for a mili 
 tary man of energy and force. 1 If, however, one 
 blots out the ridiculous background, the mediaeval 
 helmet, and indeed everything except Amherst s 
 head, he will find that the face itself is strong and 
 satisfactory. Its chief attribute is the quiet self- 
 control that characterized Sir Jeffery throughout his 
 career in America. Reynolds painted, in all, three 
 likenesses, and sketched a fourth. Gainsborough, too, 
 tried his hand at portraying the General s features; 
 the somewhat characterless result of his labors hangs 
 in the National Portrait Gallery. Still another picture 
 "of the King, Lord Amherst, and Lord [blank] at a 
 distance on horseback" was undertaken by the 
 
 1 See frontispiece. 
 
JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 American artist, Benjamin West, but the writer has 
 not been able to locate it to-day. In July, 1779, it 
 was in West s studio in an unfinished condition. 1 
 Last, but not least, the ingenious Wedgwood im 
 mortalized Sir Jeffery s countenance in a medallion 
 which is preserved in the National Gallery at Edin 
 burgh. 
 
 The services that Amherst rendered his country 
 in the Seven Years War practically guaranteed his 
 steady promotion in military rank for the rest of his 
 life. In the spring of 1765, he was made a lieuten 
 ant-general, 2 and not long afterwards his friends in 
 the Government offered him the post of master- 
 general of the ordnance in Ireland. The latter prop 
 osition did not appeal to the General at all, in spite 
 the fact that George Grenville, then on his last legs 
 as Premier, insisted that he was "the properest per 
 son" for the office: 3 Sir Jeffery was apparently as 
 averse to Ireland as a place of residence as to Amer 
 ica, for even Pitt tried in vain to get him to take 
 command of the army there in the summer of 1767. 4 
 The wise General knew when he was well off and 
 would not be enticed from his hard-earned enjoy 
 ment of Sevenoaks by the mere promise of empty 
 honors away from home. 
 
 Hardly twelve months after Amherst s return to 
 England, his wife, who was also his cousin, died, 
 leaving the General without heirs. Two years later, 
 
 1 P. O. Hutchinson s Diary of Thomas Hutcbinson, ii, 309. 
 
 * London Magazine, May 1765, p. 267. 
 
 8 Grenville Papers, iii, 49-50. 4 Anson s Grafton, p. 157. 
 
FA FOR AND DISFAFOR 251 
 
 in March, 1767, Sir Jeffery married again. This time 
 his bride was Miss Elizabeth Gary, a daughter of 
 General George Gary and a niece of Viscount Falk 
 land. She brought with her a dowry of 10,000^ 
 From the fact that Lady Amherst lived until 1830, 
 one may assume that the General s second wife was 
 decidedly young at the time of her marriage. In 
 later years, Horace Walpole dubbed her "White 
 Pussy," but whether because she was a pretty blonde, 
 or for some reason best known to himself and his 
 correspondent, Miss Berry, the writer cannot say. 2 
 
 Two or three years after the Peace of Paris gave 
 England undisputed right to the Ohio Valley, Gover 
 nor Franklin of New Jersey and Sir William John 
 son planned to establish a colony in the Illinois 
 country. As the Proclamation of 1763 had prohib 
 ited all settlement beyond the Appalachians without 
 his Majesty s "special leave and license for that 
 purpose first obtained," the two promoters made 
 their wishes known to the Ministry, Sir William 
 writing directly to the King s advisers and William 
 Franklin enlisting the services of his influential 
 father, who was then in London as agent for the 
 province of Pennsylvania. General Gage and a 
 number of Philadelphia merchants also joined the 
 enterprise, which soon interested Lord Shelburne and 
 seemed in a fair way to succeed. The petitioners 
 asked for a modest tract of 63,000,000 acres, com 
 prising almost all the territory between the Wabash, 
 
 1 Grenville Papers, iv, 354. 
 
 2 Horace Walpole to Miss Berry, March 27, 1791. 
 
252 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 the Mississippi, and the Great Lakes, an area occu 
 pied to-day by the state of Illinois, the northern part 
 of Indiana, and the southern portions of Michigan 
 and Wisconsin. 1 The project could not have had a 
 better advocate than Benjamin Franklin, who gave it 
 his hearty support. Shelburne was easily persuaded 
 that the proposed colony would strengthen the Eng 
 lish government in those regions where the French 
 were still unenthusiastic about their new masters, 
 and might prevent a revolt on the part of the inhab 
 itants. Furthermore, it would be a growing market 
 for British goods and a reassuring barrier against the 
 Indians. These arguments were fortified by letters 
 from Amherst, who, the Secretary declared, was one 
 of "the best authorities for anything that related to 
 America." 2 The General recommended the establish 
 ment of further new governments on the Mississippi, 
 the Ohio, and at Detroit, and his opinion doubtless 
 had considerable weight with those ministers who 
 were not yet committed to either side. With such 
 support the measure was presented to the King in 
 Council, by whom it was adopted, subject to the 
 approval of the Board of Trade, in the autumn of 
 I767. 3 The Lords of Trade, however, proved averse 
 to the plan. Their attitude was probably due to the 
 narrow-minded counsels of the President of the Board, 
 Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough, who, it was said, op- 
 
 1 Winsor s The Colonies and the Republic West of the Alleghanies 1763- 
 1798, p. 38. 
 
 2 Benjamin Franklin to William Franklin, Nov. 25, 1767. 
 
 3 George Henry Alden s New Governments West of the Alleghanies before 
 1780, p. 19. 
 
FAVOR AND DISFAFOR 253 
 
 posed the scheme for fear of "dispeopling Ireland/ 1 
 Of Hillsborough, George III once remarked he did 
 "not know any man of less judgment," an observa 
 tion which decidedly increases one s respect for that 
 monarch as a judge of character. At all events, the 
 combined forces of Franklin s shrewdness, Shel- 
 burne s enthusiasm, and Amherst s advice failed to 
 achieve what had been almost a foregone conclusion, 
 the creation of a new colony in the Northwest, and 
 the Ohio Valley continued to be a wilderness, broken 
 only here and there by British military posts and the 
 settlements of happy-go-lucky Frenchmen. 
 
 The year of our Lord 1768 was one of those periods 
 in the course of human events when the social atmos 
 phere is surcharged with a spirit of unrest. Through 
 out the English-speaking world a wave of discontent 
 and disorder dominated society. In England eco 
 nomic conditions led to riotous actions on the part 
 of various kinds of laborers. The year was hardly 
 begun before the weavers in Spitalfields disturbed the 
 peace, and their example was soon followed by sail 
 ors and hatters, who clamored for an increase in 
 wages. A large body of sawyers tore down a mill 
 that had been recently erected, while even the coal- 
 heavers made a demonstration which threatened to 
 become dangerous. In politics the same spirit of 
 lawlessness prevailed. John Wilkes, an undesirable 
 citizen if there ever was one, returned from his re 
 tirement on the Continent and stood for election to 
 Parliament in Middlesex. A few years before this 
 
 1 Sparks Franklin, iv, 234. 
 
254 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 time he had been expelled from the House of Com 
 mons for libel, and outlawed by the courts for failing 
 to answer the indictments against him. Pitt had 
 called him the "blasphemer of his God and the libel 
 ler of his King," but the public continued to regard 
 him as a persecuted man who should be upheld. His 
 reappearance in 1768 occurred at the psychological 
 moment; it was all that was needed to pour oil upon 
 the smouldering fires of discontent. At once Wilkes 
 became the idol of the opposition to the existing order 
 of things, and his election to the Commons in March 
 was tumultuous and enthusiastic. The turbulent 
 state of the popular mind became more apparent 
 when the adventurer was arrested and sent to prison 
 for outlawry. His trip to the prison resembled a dis 
 orderly triumphal progress, and on the day of the 
 meeting of Parliament the metropolis was turned up 
 side down by a riotous mob. In America economic 
 and political grievances combined to overthrow the 
 rule of law and order. The seizure of John Hancock s 
 sloop "Liberty/ in June, was followed by a riot in 
 Boston so alarming in its proportions that the Com 
 missioners of the Customs made the fatal mistake of 
 sending for British troops to overawe the lawless citi 
 zens of Massachusetts Bay. Such was the psycho 
 logical atmosphere of 1768, and perhaps to that 
 intangible cause, rather than to any other, may be 
 attributed the extraordinary behavior of Sir Jeffery 
 Amherst during the summer of that restless year. 
 
 On July 27, 1768, the anniversary of the surrender 
 of Louisburg and of the capture of Ticonderoga, the 
 
FAVOR AND DISFAVOR 255 
 
 Earl of Hillsborough, who had been recently appointed 
 Secretary of State for the Colonies, indited the follow 
 ing epistle to the unsuspecting sinecure Governor of 
 Virginia: 
 
 SIR: I am commanded by the King to acquaint you 
 that bis Majesty, upon a consideration of the dispatches 
 lately received from Virginia, thinks it necessary for 
 his service that his governor of that colony should im 
 mediately repair to his government; and at the same 
 time to express to you the high opinion his Majesty 
 has of your ability to serve him in that situation. But 
 it is not the Kings intention to press you to go upon 
 that service unless it shall be perfectly agreeable to your 
 inclination as well as entirely convenient to you. His 
 Majesty does not forget that the government of Virginia 
 was conferred upon you as a mark of royal favour, and 
 as a reward for the very great services you have done 
 for the public, so much to your own honour, and so 
 much to the advantage of this kingdom, and therefore 
 his Majesty is very solicitous that you should not mis 
 take his gracious intention on this occasion. 
 
 If you choose to go immediately to your government 
 it will be extremely satisfactory to his Majesty; if you 
 do not, his Majesty wishes to appoint a new governor, 
 and to continue to you in some other shape that emolu 
 ment which was, as I have said before, intended as a 
 mark of the royal sense of your meritorious services; 
 it is a particular pleasure to me to have the honour of 
 expressing to you these very favourable sentiments of 
 our royal master. To add anything from myself would 
 
256 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 be a degree of presumption; I will therefore only re 
 quest the favour of your answer as soon as may be 
 convenient, and the liberty to assure you that I am, 
 
 HlLLSBOROUGH. 1 
 
 When the Secretary penned this letter, Sir Jeffery 
 was on his way up to London from Yorkshire. Ar 
 riving in town unexpectedly on Thursday, the Gen 
 eral was informed that a communication from Lord 
 Hillsborough, left the previous day, had been for 
 warded to Riverhead. As there was disturbing news 
 from America about town, Amherst went at once to 
 wait upon Hillsborough and learn the contents of the 
 letter in question. Upon showing him a copy of the 
 document, the Secretary did not have long to wait 
 for an answer. Sir Jeffery declared that he could 
 not possibly go to Virginia, because Gage, who had 
 served under him, was the commander-in-chief in 
 the continental colonies. Hillsborough thought that 
 such a reason was hardly valid for "a governor was 
 always the superior person in his own province, and 
 that his office, being a civil one, had no relation to 
 the command of the King s troops." However, as 
 he was not to urge Sir Jeffery to go, he would not 
 pursue the matter, but he wished that Amherst would 
 tell him how much the emoluments of that office 
 were so that the King might make him an annuity 
 for that amount. " Annuity!" said the General, 
 turning the situation over in his mind and speaking 
 
 1 WoodfalFs Junius, vol. iii, pp. 117-118. 
 
 2 Political Register, September, 1768. 
 
FAVOR AND DISFAVOR 257 
 
 aloud, "An annuity is a pension; the word pension 
 is grating to my ears. If, my Lord, the King would 
 bestow upon me some mark of honour, or something 
 in the military line, I should be happy in the distinc 
 tion, but a pension, my Lord, is grating to my ears." l 
 
 In vain Hillsborough sought to soothe the irate 
 soldier, who had flared up so unexpectedly. He re 
 minded him that Lord Chatham s pension was given 
 to him for his magnificent direction of the Seven 
 Years War, and that Sir Edward Hawke was re 
 warded in a like manner for saving Ireland. Why 
 should not Amherst have a pension for adding Can 
 ada to the British Empire? What was the differ 
 ence to him between a pension out of the revenue of 
 Virginia, and one derived from the four and a half 
 per cent duty upon sugar, or the duty upon tobacco? 
 But the more his Lordship talked, the less amiable 
 Amherst became. He merely repeated that he should 
 dislike a pension, and bowed himself off. 2 
 
 The next day, Friday, Colonel William Amherst 
 heard at Court that Norborne Berkeley, Lord Bote- 
 tourt, a member of the House of Peers, had been 
 appointed governor of Virginia. With fraternal inter 
 est he forwarded the news post-haste to Riverhead, 
 knowing well enough that this sudden development 
 was not likely to smooth the General s ruffled 
 feathers. His expectations were indeed realized. 
 Such a speedy filling of the office, from which he felt 
 that he had been forced to retire, convinced Amherst 
 
 1 Grenville Papers, iv, 349. 
 
 1 Ibid., iv, 344-346; Political Register, September, 1768. 
 
258 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 that the whole business was pre-arranged. The rep 
 utation and circumstances of his successor tended to 
 strengthen his conviction, for Lord Botetourt had 
 attempted a bit of finance, more clever than honor 
 able, and not succeeding in it, had lost both his for 
 tune and his good name. 1 His pecuniary status was 
 as notorious as it was critical, and it is small won 
 der that Amherst thought that he had been turned 
 out of office in order to provide a place and a salary 
 for a bankrupt nobleman. However, the General 
 quite overlooked the real state of affairs in Virginia. 
 If he had viewed the transaction coolly, and in the 
 light of recent events in America, it would not have 
 assumed such an ugly appearance. 
 
 In the previous April Francis Fauquier, the gay 
 and disreputable lieutenant-governor of Virginia, died 
 in Williamsburg. At about that time the Assembly 
 of the Old Dominion alarmed the Ministry by ap 
 plauding and seconding the sentiments of a circular 
 letter from Massachusetts, which set forth the im 
 portance of making a united stand against parliamen 
 tary taxation. The obnoxious missive was drafted by 
 Samuel Adams, and though couched in dignified lan 
 guage it was by no means ambiguous. Soon after 
 its receipt the Virginians framed a petition to the 
 King, a memorial to the Lords, and a remonstrance 
 to the House of Commons, stating their grievances 
 and insisting that internal taxation was unconstitu 
 tional. 2 These were sent off to England, where they 
 
 1 Channing s History of the United States, iii, 103. 
 
 2 Journals of House of Burgesses, April 14, 1768. 
 
FAVOR AND DISFAVOR 259 
 
 seem to have caused as great a stir as would have 
 been occasioned by a declaration of independence. 
 Clearly such a rebellious colony must not remain 
 long without a governor, and Hillsborough, for one 
 reason or another, thought of the impecunious 
 Baron Botetourt who, according to the Secretary at 
 War, was "a man every way fit for the business." 1 
 But why could not Botetourt have been made lieuten 
 ant-governor to succeed Fauquier, leaving Amherst 
 in undisturbed possession of his sinecure? Appar 
 ently the Ministry felt that the presence of "a 
 Governor and a man of great distinction" 2 would do 
 more to restore order in Virginia than the appoint 
 ment of a comparatively obscure lieutenant-governor. 
 Amherst was just the man to go to the province, but 
 in case he declined to do so, Hillsborough had a sub 
 stitute in mind. When Sir Jeffery s negative answer 
 was received the Secretary tendered the office to Lord 
 Botetourt, who snapped it up so quickly that the 
 General felt sure Hillsborough and the penniless 
 courtier had made the whole arrangement beforehand. 
 To show his indignation at what he chose to consider 
 an affront, Amherst threw up his military appoint 
 ments outright, and, encouraged by Lord Albe- 
 marle and other malcontents, did his best to create a 
 state of public opinion hostile to Hillsborough and 
 the rest of the Administration. 3 
 
 By the year 1768, England had become restive 
 under the system instituted by George III for the 
 
 1 Barrington-Bernard Correspondence, p. 164. 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 Grenville Papers, iv, 341. 
 
260 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 restoration of personal monarchical government. Par 
 liament was controlled by neither Whigs nor Tories, 
 but by a venal band of political adventurers who 
 sat in their midst. These men held the balance of 
 power and swung the vote whichever way their royal 
 master directed. They were well paid for their ser 
 vices, so well paid in fact that George III found 
 it necessary to practise every economy in the order 
 ing of his household affairs. Other than this the 
 employment of these hirelings, who won the title of 
 "the King s friends," had no drawback from his 
 Majesty s point of view. Thus was brought about 
 the temporary destruction of party government and 
 the re-establishment of an active kingship. As soon 
 as the results of the new regime became apparent, 
 many of the English people felt a not unnatural 
 hostility towards such a government, in which they 
 were not fairly represented; and when the Ministry 
 and Sir Jeffery Amherst fell out, they were quick to 
 make the General s grievance their own. An ill- 
 used soldier is sure of popular sympathy, and this 
 one found an able champion in the mysterious author 
 of the Letters of Junius. The affair was aired with 
 much vituperation. Amherst was as lavishly eulo 
 gized as his enemies were mercilessly assailed until 
 all London was heartily sick of the quarrel. 1 
 
 Meanwhile Sir Jeffe^ry took care to make capital 
 out of the alleged wrong he had suffered; his resent 
 ment changed to a spirit of bargaining. Realizing 
 what prestige his reconciliation would lend to the 
 
 1 Stopford-Sackvillc Manuscripts, i, 128. 
 
FAVOR AND DISFAFOR 261 
 
 none-too-secure Administration, the General named 
 the terms upon which he would forget his troubles 
 and return to the ministerial fold. His demands 
 were indeed surprising for one who had so slight a 
 grievance. First and foremost he asked for a peer 
 age which should descend to his brother in case he 
 himself had no heirs. Secondly, there must be a 
 compensation equivalent to the loss of his salary as 
 governor of Virginia. The objection to a pension 
 seems to have quietly disappeared. As if this were 
 not enough, the General also stipulated that he and 
 his heirs should enjoy the exclusive right of working 
 the coal mines at Louisburg. This grant would 
 doubtless bring in sufficient funds to enable the pros 
 pective baron to live in a manner befitting his ele 
 vation. Fourthly and fifthly, Sir Jeffery demanded 
 land in America, and pre-eminence among American 
 peers in case the King saw fit to establish such an 
 order. 1 This was the modest bill for damages which 
 Amherst presented to the Prime Minister as the 
 grounds of accommodation, and it quite justified 
 Horace Walpole s comment that Sir Jeffery, the 
 newest saint in the Martyrology, had acted too little 
 like a saint. 2 
 
 If the erstwhile Governor of Virginia expected that 
 all of these preposterous demands would be granted 
 by the frightened Administration, he was quite mis 
 taken. The Duke of Grafton went to him and 
 
 1 Woodfall s Junius, iii, 114-115. 
 
 2 Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, August 24, 1768: the text of this 
 passage as it appears in the various editions of Walpole s letters is obviously 
 misprinted. 
 
262 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 answered his requests in the following manner. A 
 peerage required an opulent fortune to enable the 
 bearer to support its dignity; this Amherst lacked, 
 and consequently he could not expect to join the 
 aristocracy. As for a recompense equal to his salary, 
 he had been assured of that from the first; but 
 political and commercial reasons forbade the work 
 ing of the Cape Breton coal mines at all. He might, 
 however, have a grant of almost any amount of land 
 in America when and where he pleased. The fifth 
 item was out of the question, because there was not 
 the slightest reason to expect that there would ever 
 be an American peerage. 1 So the dispute went on. 
 The resignation of Amherst s military appointments 
 was accepted, although the Ministry, reluctant to see 
 Amherst bite off his nose to spite his face, stipulated 
 that his successor in the colonelcy of the Royal 
 Americans should give up his office whenever the 
 General chose to make peace with the Government. 2 
 All summer and well into the autumn the miserable 
 affair dragged on, until the approaching session of 
 Parliament doubled the desire of the Administration 
 for a settlement of the case. Just how or why the 
 altercation was terminated no one knows, but finally, 
 in early November, the General was suddenly and 
 mysteriously restored to royal favor, and the recon 
 ciliation was cemented by his appointment as colonel 
 of the Third Regiment, familiarly known as the Buffs. 
 
 1 Woodfall s Junius, iii, 115. 
 
 2 Bflvoir Castle Manuscripts, vol. ii, p. 308, in the Historical Manuscripts 
 Commission s Report XII, Appendix, part v. 
 
FA FOR AND DISFAVOR 263 
 
 At the same time he was re-instated in command of 
 the Royal Americans. A few months later a grant 
 of twenty thousand acres in the province of New 
 York removed the last traces of hard feeling between 
 the soldier and the King. 1 
 
 In passing judgment upon Amherst s unpleasant 
 relations with the Ministry, it is difficult to say who 
 was in the right and who was in the wrong. Clearly 
 Hillsborough acted too hastily in appointing his suc 
 cessor; also, Lord Botetourt s disordered finances 
 cast an ugly dye upon the transaction. On the other 
 hand Sir Jeffery s bill for damages suggests an oppor 
 tunist and a social-climber rather than a man who 
 merely wished redress for injured feelings. One bit 
 of evidence in the General s favor has yet to be con 
 sidered. When William Pitt, now Lord Chatham, 
 racked with the combined tortures of gout and 
 neurasthenia, resigned from the Cabinet in October, 
 1768, he took pains to lament "the removal of Sir 
 Jeffery Amherst," 2 implying that this event had 
 much to do with his decision to leave the Govern 
 ment. Under normal conditions one might be guided 
 by Chatham s sentiments in the case and deduce 
 from his displeasure that Hillsborough was more at 
 fault than Amherst, but considering the state of the 
 man s health and his probable inability to take a 
 rational view of the situation, it seems quite as well 
 to leave out of account his attitude towards the 
 quarrel. Pitt s principal reasons for resigning were 
 
 1 Afls of the Privy Council (Colonial), v, 596. 
 
 a Taylor and Pringle s Chatham Correspondence, iii, 338. 
 
264 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 his shattered nerves and a recognition of the fadl 
 that he was no longer at the helm of the ship of 
 state. 
 
 Although Amherst s timely reconciliation enabled 
 the Administration to face the opening of Parlia 
 ment with some degree of equanimity, his financial 
 status remained pradlically unchanged by the settle 
 ment of the quarrel. It is evident, however, that he 
 intended to avail himself of the first opportunity to 
 increase his income. Shortly before his return to 
 England, he had received a letter from Sir William 
 Johnson, in which the latter remarked that he hoped 
 to procure for a friendly tribe of Indians some of 
 the land, claimed by the Society of the Jesuits in 
 Canada. "And I am of the opinion," he wrote, 
 "that the affair may be made very easy to them, 
 now that the Society is broke in France and can 
 consequently hold no lands as a body their grant 
 becoming void." 1 If it were easy for "the Coh- 
 nawageys" to obtain a part of the Jesuit estates, why 
 would it not be easier, and far more appropri 
 ate, for the conqueror of Canada to secure a grant 
 of all the rest of that confiscated property? After 
 some such manner must Amherst have reasoned in 
 the year 1770. The Jesuit estates were indeed a 
 tempting morsel, for they included seven hundred 
 and twenty-five thousand acres of the most fertile 
 country in the St. Lawrence Valley, almost one- 
 eighth of all the granted lands. 2 From the begin- 
 
 1 Brodhead s New York Colonial Documents, vii, 550. 
 
 2 Munro s Seignorial System in Canada, pp. 179-180. 
 
FA FOR AND DISFAVOR 265 
 
 ning of the colony the French government had been 
 lavishly generous in its efforts to encourage the prop 
 agation of the gospel and to increase the prosperity 
 of the Reverend Fathers of the Society and Company 
 of Jesus. As land in America was more abundant 
 than money at Versailles, in the days of Louis XIV 
 and Louis XV, the result had been a Jesuit monopoly 
 of the best territory in New France. By a fortu 
 nate coincidence, the Society was condemned by the 
 Parliament of Paris just before the signing of the 
 Treaty of Paris, and suffered a general confiscation 
 of its property. 1 This unlooked-for development, 
 coupled with the cession of New France, threw all 
 the Jesuit holdings in Canada into the possession of 
 George III in 1763, to be disposed of as he might 
 see fit. 
 
 Aware of this royal windfall, Sir Jeffery Amherst 
 petitioned his Majesty to grant him the estates out 
 right as a mark of his favor. The King received his 
 plea and turned it over to a committee of the Privy 
 Council for consideration. All this occurred in May, 
 I77O. 2 The committee passed the matter on to the 
 Board of Trade, which was always consulted when 
 any business affecting the colonies was under dis 
 cussion. 3 At first everything went along merrily 
 from Amherst s point of view, the only reservation 
 to the forthcoming grant being that the colleges, 
 chapels and other buildings of the followers of Loyola 
 
 1 J. B. Perkins France under Louis XV y ii, 222. 
 
 2 Statutes of the United Kingdom, 43 George III, C. 150. 
 * Afls of the Privy Council (Colonial), v, [150} 
 
266 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 should be retained by the Crown for public uses. 
 But alas! in the spring of 1771, at the very time 
 when the Attorney and the Solicitor-General were 
 busy draughting the instrument, Sir Jeffery s great 
 expectations went the way of many of the best-laid 
 schemes of mice and men. A petition from the in 
 habitants of Quebec to have the Jesuit estates devoted 
 to the support of education in Canada arrived most 
 inopportunely, and so reasonable seemed their plea 
 that Amherst s request was laid upon the table. 1 
 The matter fell into abeyance temporarily, but the 
 prize at stake was too precious to allow this obstruc 
 tion to end the game. On the contrary, the contest 
 for the possession of the coveted lands had only 
 begun. 
 
 While the pursuit of the Jesuit estates in America 
 occupied the General s attention, another source of 
 revenue presented itself much nearer home. Sir 
 Richard Lyttelton, a brother of Baron Lyttelton 
 and a cousin by marriage of Lord Chatham, died 
 about this time, leaving the sinecure governorship 
 of the Island of Guernsey without an incumbent. 
 The office was singularly like that which Sir Jeffery 
 had so recently enjoyed as titular executive of Vir 
 ginia, and it is not strange that the post was offered to 
 him in th e autumn of 1770. The adlual government 
 of the island was in charge of a lieutenant-governor 
 who led a forlorn and uncomfortable existence in 
 residence, 2 while his superior supervised affairs from 
 
 1 Colonial Office Papers, 42, Vol. 30, C. 27, in the Public Record Office. 
 
 2 Calendar of Home Office Papers, George III, iii, 412. 
 
FA FOR AND DISFAFOR 267 
 
 Whitehall. Amherst accepted the office, which must 
 have had a sentimental as well as a pecuniary in 
 terest for him, for his old chief and early patron, 
 Sir John Ligonier, had been Governor of Guernsey 
 for a year or two in the quiet interval between the 
 Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the outbreak of the 
 Seven Years War. It is interesting to note that 
 Ligonier, who had been deservedly raised to the 
 peerage, died in 1770 at the ripe old age of eighty- 
 nine years and that Amherst was one of the execu 
 tors of his estate. 1 
 
 Military appointments of higher and higher rank 
 continued to be conferred upon Sir Jeffery. In Oc 
 tober, 1772, he succeeded the disgruntled Henry 
 Seymour Conway as Lieutenant-General of the 
 Ordnance, in which capacity he superintended the 
 distribution of guns and ammunition to the various 
 regiments and ships. The promotion brought with 
 it membership in the Privy Council, 2 although not a 
 seat in the Cabinet. George III, like his more sol 
 dierly predecessor on the throne, was heartily averse 
 to having any one of his subjects commander-in- 
 chief of the British army; but feeling the necessity 
 of having some responsible head to the military, 
 from this time on he recognized Amherst as the actual 
 generalissimo of the forces in England. 
 
 Almost a decade had now elapsed since Sir Jeffery 
 returned from America, and in that period he had 
 received both smiles and frowns from his Majesty. 
 
 1 Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, iv, 260. 
 1 Ads of thf Privy Council (Colonial), v, 752. 
 
268 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 After his rehabilitation in the autumn of 1768, the 
 General was more careful in his attempt to walk the 
 tight rope of royal favor, a feat in which practice 
 was fast making him perfect. One example of his 
 proficiency is particularly characteristic. In Feb 
 ruary 1773, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester 
 were in town for a while, and on account of the 
 strained relations existing between his Royal High 
 ness and his brother the King, London society-folk 
 were much perplexed whether or not to pay court. 
 If they went to Gloucester House, they would be 
 identified with the Opposition and would probably 
 fall from grace. On the other hand, one could not 
 be sure that George III would not resent any slight 
 ing of his unconventional brother. The Duke s of 
 fence had been his marriage with the super-beautiful 
 Maria Walpole, the daughter of Sir Edward Walpole 
 and of Mary Clement, a pretty seamstress. It was a 
 true love-match on both sides, and except for birth, 
 the Duchess lacked none of the qualities befitting her 
 station; 1 indeed, if she at all resembled the many 
 portraits of her by Sir Joshua Reynolds her graces 
 must have dazzled and charmed even the most criti 
 cal of beholders. When the Duke and the Duchess 
 appeared in London, the leaders of the Opposition 
 hurried to wait upon them, and some of the Court 
 went too. Among the latter was Sir Jeffery Am- 
 herst; but he took care to have it understood that 
 he came to see his Royal Highness only, and when 
 asked to see his hostess, he replied that "he had not 
 
 1 Trevelyan s Early History of Charles James Fox, p. 396. 
 
FAVOR AND DISFAFOR 269 
 
 the honor of knowing the Duchess, and therefore 
 desired to be excused." 1 In spite of such meticulous 
 circumspection, the General had a narrow escape 
 from falling between two stools, for when the King 
 heard of his attendance at Gloucester House "he 
 bade Lord Hertford desire his brother, General Con- 
 way, to whisper to General Amherst that his Majesty 
 disliked his going to the Duke." 2 Such was the pre 
 carious life of a courtier under George III. 
 
 About the time of this social dilemma a letter from 
 Sir Jeffery provoked a very significant remark on the 
 part of the King. The subject-matter of the epistle 
 was of little importance, but its style irritated the 
 monarch. In speaking of it to Lord North he ob 
 served that although "coutched [sic] in civil terms," 
 it was "not without that commendation of his own 
 services, which, though very great, would not be 
 lessened if he left the appreciating them to others." 3 
 His Majesty s words were well chosen. The Gen 
 eral certainly did not wear gracefully the distinction 
 he had achieved, and it is probable that the King s 
 sententious remark expressed an opinion of Amherst 
 held by more than one of his contemporaries in the 
 years just preceding the outbreak of hostilities be 
 tween Great Britain and her thirteen long-suffering 
 colonies on the continent of North America. 
 
 1 Horace Walpole s Last Journals, i, 175. 2 Ibid., i, 176. 
 
 3 Donne s Correspondence of George III and Lord North, i, 78. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 
 
 THE decade following Amherst s return from 
 America witnessed a serious change in the rela 
 tions between England and the colonies that 
 had helped her to humble France in the Seven Years 
 War. The trouble began in 1764, when George 
 Grenville in his endeavor to be an efficient chancellor 
 of the exchequer inaugurated a commercial and mili 
 tary system not approved of by the American col 
 onists. The "New Policy," as it came to be called, 
 comprised three fundamental changes, the strict 
 enforcement of the trade laws, the permanent estab 
 lishment in America of a portion of the British 
 army, and the maintenance of the soldiers in those 
 parts by direct taxation. There is much to be said 
 on the side of Grenville and his coadjutors to justify 
 this departure from the old imperial order. In the 
 first place England was weighed down with debt as 
 a result of the late war, and every economy must 
 be practised in order to keep the ship of state off the 
 rocks of bankruptcy. As the customs service in 
 America cost the British government per annum 
 from four to seven times as much as it yielded in 
 revenue, it was time that steps were taken to remedy 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 271 
 
 whatever leakage might be found there. 1 Pitt had 
 unearthed an amazing amount of illicit trade during 
 the war, and from the fact that many revenue offi 
 cers resided in England, leaving their duties to good- 
 natured subordinates, it seemed probable that evasion 
 of the payment of duties was very general. The 
 first measure of reform, therefore, provided for a 
 strict enforcement of the existing trade laws, and to 
 make assurance doubly sure, certain additional money- 
 yielding restrictions were placed upon the commerce 
 of the colonies. 2 
 
 The proposal to quarter ten thousand British regu 
 lars in America was equally distasteful to our ances 
 tors, who felt that inasmuch as they had defended 
 themselves successfully against the French and In 
 dians for almost a century, there was no need of 
 an unwelcome standing army in their midst now 
 that they had beaten their foes to a standstill. But 
 either the Pontiac War or the gloomy prospect of 
 half-pay on the part of many officers made a deeper 
 impression upon the minds of the Ministry than did 
 the logical remonstrances of the Americans. It is 
 possible, too, that the moral support which the pres 
 ence of the military would lend to the customs ser 
 vice was another item in favor of this part of the 
 plan. Unreasonable as was the resolve to establish 
 permanently an army in the colonies, the proposed 
 method of supporting it was even more so. It was 
 hoped that the invigorated commercial laws would 
 
 1 Lecky s England in the Eighteenth Century, iii, 333. 
 
 2 Channing s History of the United States, iii, 40. 
 
272 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 not only pay for that branch of the government, 
 but would also contribute somewhat towards the 
 support of the military imposition. The latter insti 
 tution, however, was to rely for its maintenance 
 chiefly upon direct taxation. This was to take the 
 form of a stamp tax, unless the colonists could 
 devise some more acceptable and yet equally effi 
 cient method of raising the money themselves. As 
 the Americans were inclined to exert their ingenuity 
 more in denying the constitutionality of parliamen 
 tary taxation than in contriving a less disagreeable 
 impost, the year of grace given them by Grenville 
 for consideration was gone before any satisfactory 
 substitute was found. The colonists were so bur 
 dened with their provincial taxes, which the debt 
 of the Seven Years War had necessitated, that they 
 could not see any justice in this additional load. 
 Very naturally they questioned the right of Parlia 
 ment to tax those whom it did not represent, and 
 were easily convinced that the proposed Stamp Act 
 was unconstitutional. Whatever its legal status was, 
 the hated piece of legislation went through both 
 houses of Parliament with scarcely any opposition, 
 and received the assent of George III on March 22, 
 
 1765- 
 
 Although Sir Jeffery Amherst was not a member 
 of Parliament, the radical element in New York 
 believed that he not only approved of the Stamp 
 Act but also proposed an increase of the military 
 forces in America in order to insure its execution. 
 The Sons of Liberty on Manhattan Island gave vent 
 
THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION 273 
 
 to their feelings by bearing an effigy of the General 
 at the head of a procession, and afterwards burning 
 it with conspicuous disrespect. 1 This was one of 
 the least disreputable demonstrations against parlia 
 mentary taxation. Throughout the length and breadth 
 of the colonies objection took the form of riots, 
 personal indignities, and the destruction of property. 
 In Boston a mob demolished the house of Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor Hutchinson and made a bonfire 
 of his furniture, books, and papers. In all parts of 
 the country those who had been appointed stamp- 
 distributors hastened to resign, and it became very 
 evident that the Stamp Act could not be executed in 
 America. Less noisy, but more effective, was the 
 protest of many colonial merchants who refused to 
 import any goods from England as long as the meas 
 ure was even nominally in force. Others declared 
 that they could not meet their obligations because 
 of the new order of things. These actions produced 
 great distress among British traders and manufac 
 turers in every part of the kingdom, and led them to 
 petition Parliament for the repeal, or at least the 
 modification, of the New Policy. 
 
 In the meantime George Grenville and his col 
 leagues had fallen from royal grace. The succeeding 
 ministry was headed by the Marquess of Rocking- 
 ham, a Whig, who naturally opposed the policies of 
 his predecessor, and the repeal of the Stamp Act 
 became the burning question. Pitt threw in his lot 
 with the Rockingham Whigs, although he doubted 
 
 1 Montresor s Journals, p. 353. 
 
274 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 their sincerity, while Benjamin Franklin preached to 
 the House of Commons upon the hopelessness of 
 trying to enforce the Stamp Act, and upon the prob 
 ability of a rebellion if soldiers were employed for 
 that purpose. As an antidote for Dr. Franklin, the 
 legislators turned to Amherst, whom they consid 
 ered equally well-informed, and perhaps less preju 
 diced. The suspicions of the radical New Yorkers 
 were now confirmed. Sir Jeffery gave his advice in 
 no uncertain terms, the Stamp Adi must not be 
 repealed. 1 In taking this stand the General was in 
 accord with his friend Lord Temple, George Gren- 
 ville s inconsistent brother, although his ideas did not 
 at all coincide with those of Pitt who bent every 
 effort in favor of the colonists. Temple and Amherst 
 were on the best of terms, however, and the latter 
 was a frequent visitor at Stowe, where he mingled to 
 his heart s content with lords and ladies, dukes and 
 duchesses, and even with members of the royal family. 2 
 In spite of Amherst s opposition, the Stamp Act 
 was repealed, and a lull in the storm of colonial hos 
 tility followed. But Parliament still maintained its 
 right "to make laws and statutes of sufficient force 
 and validity to bind the colonies and people of Amer 
 ica, subjects of the crown of Great Britain in all cases 
 whatsoever," and acting upon Pitt s suggestion passed 
 a Declaratory Act to that effect. The Americans 
 had based their protests against the stamp duty upon 
 a distinction between Parliament s right to lay taxes 
 
 1 Grenville Papers, iv, 339. 
 
 2 Campbell s Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vi, 378. 
 
THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION 275 
 
 for the regulation of colonial trade, and its newly 
 assumed power of laying direct taxes, a distinction 
 upheld by even so thoughtful a statesman as William 
 Pitt, but now they unconsciously came to the deci 
 sion that parliamentary taxation in any form was 
 unconstitutional. Their new contention asserted it 
 self when Parliament substituted a tariff for revenue 
 in place of the repealed Stamp Adi. All might yet 
 have gone well if Pitt, who had now become Lord 
 Chatham, had been physically able to control the 
 course of politics. As things were, his health received 
 more attention than did the affairs of state, and while 
 Chatham sought rest and recreation at Bath his 
 colleagues had things their own way at Westminster. 
 Tax after tax was laid upon American imports, and 
 rigorous measures of enforcement made evasion of 
 the laws impossible. The Americans remonstrated 
 in vain, and when the lawless part of the population 
 expressed their sentiments by making merry with 
 the Commissioners of Customs in Boston, two regi 
 ments were sent to Massachusetts Bay to intimidate 
 the citizens of that unruly province. 
 
 After the arrival of the British soldiers at Boston 
 in the autumn of 1768, it mattered little in what 
 form Parliament tried to disguise the pill of unwel 
 come legislation; nothing short of a complete rever 
 sion to the old order of things would be acceptable 
 to the colonists. The events which followed were 
 not of a kind to improve the disposition of his Maj 
 esty George III, or to make firm his somewhat 
 unstable intellect. A bloody fray with the soldiers 
 
276 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 in March, 1770, kept alive colonial animosity towards 
 the Administration, and, on the other hand, the fa 
 mous Boston Tea Party, three years later, convinced 
 the King and Lord North, his Prime Minister, that 
 the time for discipline had come. A series of re 
 pressive adls, which were sure to cause rebellion, 
 were passed against the province of Massachusetts 
 Bay, and particularly against the port of Boston. To 
 quell any disturbances that might arise from the 
 execution of the new laws, General Thomas Gage, 
 Amherst s successor as commander-in-chief of the 
 British forces in America, was sent to Boston with 
 four more regiments, while a threatening fleet of war 
 ships blockaded the harbor. 
 
 Gage was appointed governor of the province, but 
 in spite of this combination of civil and military au 
 thority in one person, he failed to check the spread of 
 rebellion. Indeed he had not been in Massachusetts 
 very long before he advised the suspension of the 
 legislation of 1774 until more troops were available, 
 for according to Gage s reckoning, the conquest 
 of New England could not be safely undertaken 
 without twenty thousand men in the field. 1 This 
 estimate was quite different from one he had haz 
 arded a short while before, when he personally 
 assured the King that four regiments would be 
 sufficient to produce submission, and George III did 
 not like his general s revised version. When nearly 
 a year had passed since his arrival and he had appar 
 ently accomplished nothing, except to seal hermeti- 
 
 1 Historical Manuscripts Commission s Various Collcftions, vi, 257. 
 
THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION 277 
 
 cally the port of Boston, and to unite the colonies 
 in their common cause, General Gage decided that it 
 behooved him to do something, although just what 
 did not particularly matter. In April, 1775, he sent 
 an expedition of about a thousand men to Concord 
 to seize the military stores of the Americans in that 
 quiet town. Gage succeeded in his effort to do some 
 thing, but his men failed to disarm the rebellious 
 colonists. On the nineteenth of April a skirmish at 
 Lexington was followed at Concord by "the shot 
 heard round the world," and the British army re 
 ceived its first drubbing at the hands of the embat 
 tled farmers. 
 
 While Gage was endeavoring to reduce the Ameri 
 cans without committing any aggression that would 
 cause actual hostilities, Lord Dartmouth, Secretary 
 for the Colonies, and Lord North, decided that the 
 command ought to be given to a general of more 
 activity and decision. John Pownall, a member of 
 Parliament, whose brother had been governor of 
 Massachusetts-Bay during some of Amherst s most 
 brilliant campaigns, recommended that Sir JefFery 
 should be sent to Boston to supersede Gage, and that 
 two major-generals should accompany him. North 
 and Dartmouth both approved of the scheme and in 
 November, 1774, they made up their minds to effect 
 the change. 1 When the matter was broached to the 
 King, however, their plans were quite upset, for 
 George III " asked who could have thought of doing 
 so unjust a thing to General Gage." But as time 
 
 1 Ibid.; Hutchinson s Diary of Thomas Hutchinson, i, 299. 
 
278 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 went on, his Majesty changed his mind. In January, 
 1775, he wrote Lord Dartmouth that if matters 
 across the ocean became serious he was prepared to 
 give the command to Sir Jeffery Amherst, whose 
 presence in New England would both inspire the 
 British soldiers and reassure those colonists who still 
 wished well to the English government. General 
 Gage s feelings would be saved from injury by his 
 continuance as Governor of Massachusetts-Bay and 
 by elaborate explanations on the part of the Min 
 istry. As the King, for some reason, expected that 
 Amherst would beg to be excused, he decided to make 
 his wishes known to him in person, "and take myself 
 the task of obtaining his submission to what I think 
 so essential to perhaps preventing the effusion of 
 blood in that deluded part of my dominions." 1 
 
 On the last day of January the General went to 
 the palace and listened to the wishes of George III, 
 who, in a private interview, was "the finest gentle 
 man ever seen," if we may believe Doctor Johnson. 2 
 But all his Majesty s graces were in vain when it 
 came to persuading Sir Jeffery Amherst to go to 
 America. With real regret the King announced his 
 failure to Lord Dartmouth. "My negociation proved 
 fruitless. I stated very fully the intending to send 
 him with an olive branch in one hand, whilst the 
 other should be prepared to obtain submission, but 
 the ground first taken was never quitted, that noth- 
 
 1 Historical Manuscripts Commission s Report 13, Appendix, part iv, p. 
 SOL 
 
 2 Trevelyan s American Revolution, vol. iii, p. 208; Boswell s Life of 
 Johnson. 
 
THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION 279 
 
 ing but retreat would bring him to go again to Amer 
 ica. I am much hurt at not succeeding, as I think 
 it bore a prosperous aspecl: of bringing those deluded 
 people to due obedience without putting the dagger 
 to their throats. I see he cannot be persuaded, we 
 must do what is next best, leave the command to 
 Gage, send the best Generals that can be thought of 
 to his assistance, and give him private instructions 
 to insinuate to New York, and such other provinces 
 as are not guided by the madness of the times, what 
 the other would have been entrusted to negotiate." 1 
 For Amherst s refusal to assume this important 
 trust, various reasons have been assigned. The 
 General s gossiping contemporary, Horace Walpole, 
 sneeringly wrote that "his wife dissuaded him, and 
 he gave answer that he could not bring himself to 
 command against the Americans to whom he had 
 been so much obliged," and upon this evidence, ap 
 parently, Sir George Otto Trevelyan has based his 
 assertion of Amherst s grounds for declining the 
 command. 2 On the other hand, George Bancroft 
 maintained that Sir Jeffery objected to going to 
 America because the Ministry would not give him 
 an army of twenty thousand men with which to 
 undertake the business of reconciling or subduing the 
 rebellious colonists. 3 Friendly as Amherst s rela- 
 
 1 Historical Manuscripts Commission s Report 13, Appendix, part iv, 
 p. 501. 
 
 2 The Last Journals of Horace Walpole, i, 432-433; Trevelyan s American 
 Revolution, i, 260. 
 
 3 George Bancroft s History of the United States, iv, 128; but this author 
 gives no authority for the statement. 
 
280 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 tions with the Americans may have been in the past, 
 it is to be feared that lack of military support was 
 quite as influential as sentiment in determining him 
 to keep out of active service in the approaching war. 
 Probably more potent than either of these reasons was 
 his disinclination to give up his comfortable leisure at 
 "Montreal" and the congenial atmosphere of London. 
 It was General Gage who boasted that four regi 
 ments would be sufficient to restore order in New 
 England; but the Americans heard another version 
 of that well-known slur upon their fighting qualities, 
 and whatever love they still cherished for the name of 
 Amherst must have been speedily killed by a report 
 that the General "had said that with 5,000 English 
 regulars he would engage to march from one end to 
 the other of North America." 1 It is well-nigh in 
 credible that a soldier who depended so completely 
 upon a large force at his command, should have made 
 such a rash statement; yet the newspaper reporters 
 were not content with letting the story end there. 
 The sequel to this gasconade was an equally improb 
 able tale that when Colonel Washington heard of it 
 "he declared that with 1000 Virginians he would en 
 gage to stop Sir Jeffery Amherst s march." 1 Whether 
 our ancestors gave any credence to these rumors one 
 cannot say, but it is clear that they knew that the 
 command of the ministerial army had been offered 
 to Amherst, and that for one reason or another it 
 had been declined. 3 
 
 1 Pennsylvania Packet, June 12, 1775. * Ibid. 
 
 1 New England Chronicle, December 7, 1775. 
 
THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION 281 
 
 With Jeffery Amherst discretion was ever the 
 better part of valor. It is possible, therefore, that a 
 recognition of the futility of attempting to conquer 
 the Americans by a land war was responsible for 
 his refusal to supersede Gage. If so, he was not 
 alone in his conviction, for General Harvey, the 
 Adjutant-General and hence the highest adminis 
 trative military official in England, declared that 
 the conquest of America "with our British army" 
 would be an impossibility. In fact he deemed any 
 attempt to subdue the colonists by land campaigns 
 "as wild an idea as ever controverted common 
 sense." 1 Harvey s prediction of calamity was based 
 upon the geographical arrangement of the American 
 provinces and upon the spirit of the colonists. The 
 rebellious parts of the empire extended in a thin 
 line along the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Flor 
 ida. They were sparsely populated and contained 
 no capital city the capture of which would give a 
 great moral blow to the insurgents. The British 
 occupied successively Boston, New York, and Phila 
 delphia; but their visitations in these seaport towns 
 were generally more hurtful to themselves than to 
 the Americans, who merely surrounded the hostile 
 army and made any further invasion of the country 
 highly dangerous. Lacking control of the agricul 
 tural regions, the English forces, horses as well as 
 men, had to be supplied almost exclusively from 
 England. When an exasperated army advanced in 
 land with the hope of foraging in American fields 
 
 1 Fortescue s History of the British Army, iii, 167. 
 
282 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 and pastures, the farmers, as a rule quite indifferent 
 to the course of the war, rose up as one man and 
 gave the enemy a whipping which was not soon for 
 gotten. The fight at Bennington is perhaps the most 
 striking example of this constantly recurring form of 
 disaster. As these forays, or any other attempts to 
 march into the heart of the country, always endan 
 gered the British communications, each English gen 
 eral in turn tired of attempting active campaigns in 
 America. Foreseeing these formidable difficulties* the 
 Secretary at War, Viscount Barrington, advised that 
 the operations should be almost entirely naval, be 
 lieving that as soon as the foreign and coastwise 
 trade of the Americans was destroyed the discouraged 
 colonists would be right glad to listen to almost any 
 proposals for conciliation. Lord Shelburne of the 
 Opposition appears to have held the same views, 1 
 while Chatham, a few years later, graphically pre 
 sented the hopelessness of a land war by exclaiming 
 in the House of Lords: u You would conquer, you 
 say! Why, what would you conquer the map of 
 America? I am ready to meet any general officer 
 on the subject [looking at Amherst]. What will you 
 do out of the protection of your fleet? In the winter, 
 if together, they are starved; and if dispersed, they are 
 taken off in detail. You have got nothing in America 
 but stations." 2 The truth of these prognostications 
 and statements was more clearly proved in each suc 
 ceeding year of the colonists struggle for independence, 
 
 1 John Adams Works, Hi, 315. 
 
 * Cobbett s Parliamentary History, xix, 317. 
 
THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION 283 
 
 and whether or not Amherst held such sound views in 
 1774, it is certain that he did at a later date. 
 
 Although Sir Jeffery s scruples, his wife, or his 
 military acumen forbade his taking the field against 
 the Americans, he continued in his office at the Ord 
 nance and despatched arms and ammunition for the 
 British forces across the ocean. 1 As the American 
 Indians had been the bane of his existence in the 
 Seven Years War, so now the American privateers, 
 who swarmed the seas, exasperated him by playing 
 havoc with his attempts to supply the army at Bos 
 ton or elsewhere. One day Thomas Hutchinson, the 
 exiled royal governor of Massachusetts, met the 
 General in the Park, and when the conversation 
 turned to war news, Amherst gloomily announced 
 the capture of an ordnance-vessel, whose cargo he 
 valued at 10,500. 2 This was but one of many mel 
 ancholy events of like nature which made Sir Jeffery s 
 duties interesting, and also aided Washington in 
 driving the British army out of Boston. 3 
 
 In eighteenth-century England the conduct of for 
 eign and colonial affairs was entrusted to two or 
 three secretaries of state, each of whom had a given 
 geographical jurisdiction, in which, in time of war, 
 he was responsible for the movements of armies and 
 the progress of campaigns. Thus the real helmsman 
 of the British army in the American war was first 
 the gentle and well-meaning Lord Dartmouth, who 
 
 1 Donne s Correspondence of George III with Lord North, i, 239. 
 
 2 Hutchinson s Diary of Thomas Hutchinson, ii, 78. 
 8 Irving s Life of Washington, ii, 109-110. 
 
284 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 resigned his uncomfortable office in the autumn of 
 1775, and after his time Lord George Germain. The 
 latter gentleman, who began life as Lord George 
 Sackville, deserves more than passing notice, for 
 among the negative causes of American independence 
 none is more conspicuous than he. Born within a 
 mile or two of Jeffery Amherst s birthplace, he was 
 the youngest son of Lionel Cranfield Sackville, the 
 Duke of Dorset. He fought well in the war of the 
 Austrian Succession; but in the French War his 
 military career came to a sudden and inglorious end, 
 for at the battle of Minden in 1759, when ordered to 
 advance with the British cavalry, Sackville acled in 
 such a peculiar manner that he was dismissed from 
 the service. His demand for a court-martial only 
 made matters worse, for the judges, rinding him 
 guilty of disobedience, declared that he was "unfit to 
 serve his Majesty in any military capacity whatever." 
 George II completed the disgrace by ordering 
 that his name and sentence be given out in pub 
 lic orders "not only in Britain, but in America, and 
 every quarter of the globe where British troops hap 
 pen to be" as a horrible example of the way of the 
 transgressor. It seems as if these events ought to 
 have been the last the world ever heard of Lord 
 George Sackville, but it was not so to be. Chang 
 ing his name to Germain in 1770, in order to inherit 
 the lands of an aunt and 20,000 in money, he sud 
 denly became conspicuous in Parliament by his con 
 tempt for the American colonists, and, in 1774, by 
 his advocacy of extreme measures against Massa- 
 
THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION 285 
 
 chusetts. 1 This attitude won for him the favor of 
 George III, who made him Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies, and hence it came about that one who had 
 been judged "unfit to serve his Majesty in any mili 
 tary capacity whatever" directed the movements of 
 the British troops in America from 1775 to 1782. 
 
 As Amherst was the Nestor of English generals 
 at that time, Germain, who was nine years his jun 
 ior and much less experienced as a commander, 
 turned to him for consultation at almost every stage 
 of the war. In this way Sir Jeffery came to be the 
 recognized military adviser of the Cabinet, a part 
 which he played well. He recommended this man s 
 promotion and that man s leave of absence, delay 
 here and reinforcement there, until it seems as if 
 the Administration never took a step without first 
 discovering Amherst s opinion of the proposed move. 2 
 Some of his deductions were remarkably good, con 
 sidering his distance from the seat of war. In 1777, 
 for instance, he assured the King that Washington 
 had never had above 10,000 regular troops in the 
 campaign of that year, although including the mi 
 litia his army might have amounted to a couple of 
 thousand more, an estimate which proved to be aston 
 ishingly accurate. 3 These services bore fruit for Am- 
 
 1 Channing s History of the United States, iii, 14, 137-138. 
 
 2 Amherst s activities as consulting engineer of the American War may 
 be gleaned from the Historical Manuscripts Commission s Report on American 
 MSS., Vols. i-iv; Report on Various Collections, vi; Additional MSS. 
 (British Museum); Colonial Office Papers; and the Miscellaneous MSS. of 
 the Ford Collection in the New York Public Library. 
 
 8 Donne s Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii, 87. 
 
286 JEFFERT AM H ERST 
 
 herst, if not for the British arms, for in the spring of 
 1776, Sir Jeffery was granted the peerage which he 
 had long coveted. By this elevation he became Baron 
 Amherst of Holmesdale in the county of Kent, and 
 henceforth took his seat among the peers of the realm. 
 In the meantime the war against the colonists 
 dragged on with no immediate prospect of conclusive 
 victory for either side. In 1776, the United Colonies 
 declared themselves free and independent states, and 
 in the following year the surrender of Burgoyne at 
 Saratoga gave the Americans their first tangible 
 encouragement. Since the very beginning of colonial 
 troubles Amherst had served two masters, Pitt and 
 George III, and although that feat is proverbially 
 difficult, he succeeded for many years both in pre 
 serving the friendship of his great patron and in being 
 of much use to the King. The great test came in 
 the autumn of 1777, when his Majesty strongly sup 
 ported the employment of Indians against the Amer 
 icans as the mode of war best calculated to distress 
 the rebels and to end the contest. 1 When these vio 
 lent measures were proposed in the House of Lords, 
 Chatham arose in wrath and demanded, "Who is 
 the man that has dared to authorize and associate 
 to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the 
 savage?" This question was but the prelude to a 
 terrific denunciation of the Ministry which had de 
 based the army by infedling it "with the mercenary 
 spirit of robbery and rapine" and familiarizing it 
 with the "horrid scenes of savage cruelty/ until it 
 
 1 Lecky s England in the Eighteenth Century, iv, 77. 
 
THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION 287 
 
 could "no longer boast of the noble and generous 
 principles which dignify a soldier," nor "sympathize 
 with the dignity of the royal banner, nor feel the 
 pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war that 
 makes ambition virtue. " 1 The speech was one of 
 the most dramatic that Pitt ever delivered, but it 
 was also the most ill-considered, for not many min 
 utes after its conclusion Earl Gower remarked sar 
 castically that it was strange "that they who had the 
 conduct of the last war should forget the means by 
 which it was conducted, and now condemn the 
 measures they had formerly authorized." Indians 
 had been employed on the British side in the Seven 
 Years War and, if he remembered rightly, treaties 
 and presents had cemented the unholy alliance. 2 For 
 Chatham the situation was decidedly embarrassing. 
 After floundering about in a vain effort to make a 
 distinction between the use of savages as scouts and 
 their unrestricted employment "for murder and 
 massacre," the orator assured the peers that his ad 
 ministration had never justified or authorized either 
 of those measures. For confirmation he called upon 
 Lord Amherst. The requested testimony was some 
 thing of a surprise, for the General rose and con 
 fessed that he had received aid from the Indians in 
 his campaigns. He was careful, however, not to im 
 pute any sanction or knowledge of this practice to the 
 ministry of that time. 3 
 
 If Chatham had acted wisely he would have let 
 the matter drop then and there, but within three 
 
 1 Cobbett s Parliamentary History, xix, 360-375. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 410. * Ibid., p. 411. 
 
288 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 weeks he again asserted, and this time with noticeable 
 petulance, that he had never known of Indians being 
 used as auxiliaries of England in the Old French 
 War. Once more he called upon Amherst to cor 
 roborate his statement or to explain what use, if 
 any, had been made of the savages in the conquest 
 of Canada. With evident reluctance the General 
 arose and declared that the English had followed the 
 example of the French in resorting to this expedient, 
 but he was sure he never would have ventured to 
 do so if he had not received orders to that effect. 
 Amherst denied his lord, but under the circumstances 
 how could he have done otherwise? He knew that 
 Pitt had been perfectly cognizant of every detail of 
 the campaigns in America, and that he had specifi 
 cally commended the conduct of "the faithful Indian 
 allies" upon at least one occasion. 1 In taking the 
 side of the King against his best friend, Amherst 
 was actuated not by subservience to his Majesty, 
 but by the truth. The Earl of Shelburne, ever 
 Chatham s friend, came to the rescue by suggesting 
 that the General had received his instructions in this 
 particular from the Board of Trade and not from 
 the Secretary of State. Chatham grasped at this 
 straw and requested that Amherst would put an end 
 to the altercation by telling the Lords of his orders 
 and whence they emanated. The response was 
 brief, but not specific. "I was desired to make 
 treaties with the Indian powers. I was charged with 
 it in my instructions," said the General, and that 
 
 1 Kimball s Pitt Correspondence, ii, 345. 
 
THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION 289 
 
 was all he would vouchsafe. Pitt still persisted in 
 declaring his ignorance of any such orders and as 
 sured his hearers that the papers had never passed 
 regularly through the office of the Secretary of State. 
 Since further argument was futile until the evidence 
 was presented, Chatham subsided, with a final re 
 quest that Amherst would produce the disputed in 
 structions. 1 It is significant that nothing more of 
 them was ever heard in the House of Lords: "the 
 great oracle with the short memory" was probably 
 more than content to let the matter sleep. 
 
 Burgoyne s surrender and the apparent apathy of 
 General Sir William Howe revived in the Cabinet 
 the once dashed hope that Amherst would assume 
 the American command and bring the dull war to an 
 early and brilliant close. Such a happy expectation, 
 however, was soon conclusively disappointed; for in 
 a royal interview about the middle of January, 1778, 
 the General declined the honor in such emphatic 
 terms, "though with every expression of duty," that 
 even George III could entertain no serious thought of 
 a possible change of mind on the part of his disoblig 
 ing subject. "Though out of decency, on being 
 strongly pressed," the King wrote Lord North, "he 
 took time to consider, he gave no room to expect 
 he will accept. Thus I have done all I could to 
 effect what the Cabinet unanimously thought the 
 most desirable step." 2 
 
 1 Cobbett s Parliamentary History, xix, 507-512. 
 
 - Donne s Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii, 119; Hutch- 
 inson, Diary of Thomas Hutchinson ii, 180. 
 
2 9 o JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 The American struggle soon assumed a new aspect 
 in the eyes of Englishmen, for the success of the col 
 onists at Saratoga persuaded Louis XVI to throw in 
 his lot with the rebels with the hope of humbling 
 all-powerful England and of restoring some of the 
 Bourbon glory which France had lost in the last war. 
 Rumors of such a development were at large in Eng 
 land in the winter of 1777 and 1778 and did not tend 
 to increase the equanimity of Lord North and his 
 colleagues; but until the attitude of France was defi 
 nitely known in London, the Ministry devoted its 
 time to the discussion of plans for a more efficient 
 campaign against the Americans. At a cabinet 
 meeting on January 18, 1778, Amherst s sentiments 
 on the conduct of the hostilities were presented by 
 one of the ministers, views which he may have 
 held as far back as the beginning of the struggle, 
 and which were certainly strengthened by the un 
 productive military operations of 1777. The Gen 
 eral believed, so it was stated, that it would be 
 impossible to reduce the colonies effectually without an 
 addition of thirty or forty thousand men to the forces 
 already in America, and that under the circumstances 
 a naval war was the only wise plan. 1 He had pre 
 viously expressed this opinion to the King, with an 
 explanation "that the preventing the arrival of mili 
 tary stores, cloathing and the other articles necessary 
 from Europe, must distress them [the colonists] and 
 make them come into what Britain may decently 
 
 1 Historical Manuscripts Commission s Report io> Appendix vi, 
 162. 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 291 
 
 consent to." 1 While the ministers were cogitating 
 the proposed change in tactics, Lord North, made 
 uneasy by the probability of a Franco-American 
 alliance, introduced bills of conciliation which granted 
 practically everything the colonists had demanded 
 in 1774, and appointed commissioners to negotiate 
 a peace with the Continental Congress. Among 
 those who, because of their "conciliatory manners," 
 were suggested as bearers of the tardy olive branch 
 across the seas, was Lord Amherst, 2 but the ap 
 pointments were given to men of less reputation, who 
 coaxed the American insurgents in vain. 3 
 
 On the thirteenth of March, 1778, the French am 
 bassador in London delivered to the Secretary of 
 State a note announcing the treaty of friendship and 
 commerce recently signed by France and the United 
 States, and from that moment the wind of England s 
 war policy blew from a different quarter. Almost 
 instantly the ill-defined plans for the year took shape 
 and were placed on the road to execution. George 
 III at once sent for Amherst to ask his advice upon 
 the conduct of hostilities under the changed condi 
 tions; "for," as he wrote to Lord North, "we have 
 not a minute to loose." 4 The General had done 
 some earnest thinking in the last few days, and when 
 he appeared at Queen s House on the morning of 
 March 17, 1778, he had reconstructed his plan of 
 
 1 Donne s Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii, 1 19. 
 
 2 B. F. Stevens Facsimiles of Manuscripts, 374; 2 Rowland s Charles 
 Carroll, i, 240. 
 
 3 Lecky s England in the Eighteenth Century, iv, 85. 
 
 4 Donne s Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii, 151. 
 
292 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 war. His advice was as follows: Withdraw imme 
 diately the troops from Philadelphia (where they had 
 spent an idle and enjoyable winter), and station them 
 at New York. Despatch to the Floridas as many of 
 their number as may be deemed necessary for the 
 security of those provinces. Make New York the 
 rendezvous for the navy, and employ the fleet in the 
 destruction of all vessels in American harbors. (This 
 measure was doubtless to prevent the rebels from 
 fitting out an expedition against the British insular 
 possessions in the Caribbean.) Finally, if the peace 
 commissioners find that the colonists are resolved to 
 continue their alliance with France, then evacuate 
 New York and Rhode Island, and turn those troops 
 against the French West Indies. 1 In short, the 
 United States henceforth were negligible; a great 
 war was to be fought with France. 
 
 The effect of these recommendations and of the 
 new aspect of the conflict was almost electrical. Gen 
 eral Howe was recalled, and Clinton, his successor, 
 was ordered to move the army from the Quaker me 
 tropolis to New York as soon as possible. Before 
 long the seaboard towns of New Jersey, Virginia, 
 and Connecticut felt the result of Amherst s advice, 
 in the destruction of their shipping, although it is 
 doubtful whether the General would have counte 
 nanced the inland forays which followed these drastic 
 preventive measures. For two years after the battle 
 at Monmouth, the entrance of the French into the 
 sphere of conflict was distinctly reflected in the ab- 
 
 1 Donne s Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii, 152-153. 
 
THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION 293 
 
 sence in the New World of military or naval events 
 of any consequence. England s chief problem during 
 that period was one of readjustment to the new war, 
 which was far more complex than that which had 
 baffled her from 1775 to 1778. 
 
 Most striking of all the results of the French Al 
 liance was its effect upon Lord Chatham. Up to 
 this time he had distinguished himself as a consis 
 tent champion of the Americans, first in the Commons 
 and later among the Peers. Now his change of front 
 was as impressive as it was spectacular. In the spring 
 of 1778 the Rockingham Whigs proposed that the 
 King recognize the independence of the United 
 States and thus avoid the impending conflict with 
 the House of Bourbon, a struggle for which Eng 
 land was conspicuously unprepared. When the Duke 
 of Richmond made this wise though humiliating sug 
 gestion, Chatham was at Hayes, recovering from a 
 fit of the gout and still very weak; but he determined 
 to return to his seat in the House of Lords and oppose 
 the measure at any cost. Against the advice of fam 
 ily and friends he did so. On the seventh day of 
 April, leaning on the arm of his son William, and 
 supported by his son-in-law Lord Mahon, the vener 
 able statesman appeared before the assembly for the 
 last time, and delivered a stirring appeal to English 
 patriotism. Surely the nation was no longer what it 
 had been if at the mere threat of war it bowed to 
 the will of hated France and gave up half of its pos 
 sessions. If France meant war, let Britain fight and 
 "if we must fall, let us fall like men." American 
 
294 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 independence was out of the question, the empire 
 must be preserved intact, not because he loved 
 America less, but England more. Thus Chatham 
 protested against the dismemberment of that "an 
 cient and most noble monarchy" which he had raised 
 to the summit of its glory. Then, exhausted by his 
 efforts to save Britain from herself, the speaker fell 
 back in a swoon; and a few weeks later William Pitt, 
 Earl of Chatham, was no more. 1 
 
 The dramatic element in the great statesman s 
 last speech is only equalled by its poetic justice in 
 relation to Jeffery Amherst. Although the two men 
 had differed from the outset in their views concern 
 ing the proper administration of the colonies, the 
 French alliance swept them together again, and prob 
 ably no words of the General s could have better 
 expressed his sentiments in 1778 than those uttered 
 by his dying patron and friend. At last, Amherst, 
 Chatham, and George III were at one in their atti 
 tude towards the American War. 
 
 1 In his celebrated pidhire of this stirring moment, Copley has incidentally 
 given us a portrait of Amherst. When the Duke of Kent was in America 
 in the early part of the nineteenth century, he remarked to Abiel Holmes, 
 the father of the Boston humorist, that this particular likeness of the General 
 was excellent. Holmes Annals of America (Cambridge, 1829), ii, 413, 
 note 2. 
 
X 
 
 4! 
 
 o 
 
 t 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE BOURBON ARMADA 
 
 THE prospect of war with France afforded the 
 Duke of Gloucester an opportunity to show 
 his brother, the King, that although guilty of 
 an unconventional marriage he was none the less a 
 valiant warrior when his country was in danger. 
 Coming up to London quite unexpectedly, he offered 
 his services to George III and awaited developments. 
 Probably nothing could have been more annoying 
 to the Ministry, for on the preceding day they had 
 decided to force the King to appoint Lord Amherst 
 commander-in-chief of all the British forces in Eng 
 land. The Duke, although a soldier only in name, 
 doubtless expected that the office would be given to 
 him, and consequently his appearance on the scene 
 was anything but welcome. 1 Gallant as was the 
 offer of his Royal Highness, George III had not yet 
 entirely forgiven his brother for marrying the Count 
 ess Waldegrave. Consequently he ignored the Duke s 
 letter, and gave the command to Amherst on March 
 24, i?78. 2 
 
 As commander-in-chief of all British forces in 
 England Amherst s duties were much the same as 
 
 1 Walpole s Last Journals, ii, 151. 
 
 2 Gentleman s Magazine, March, 1778, p. 140. 
 
296 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 they had been during the last six years; but the fadl 
 that the King at last recognized him as the head of 
 the military establishment restored to some extent 
 the spirits of the army officers and of the people in 
 general. James Murray, who was leading a tranquil 
 life as lieutenant-governor of Minorca, thought that 
 Providence had prevented Amherst s accepting the 
 American command in order that he might save Eng 
 land in this hour of distress, and declared that he was 
 "the fittest person for the great task" to which he 
 had been called. 1 Lord Barrington was less san 
 guine, however, and in an amazingly frank interview 
 with the King he told the latter that there was "not 
 one general in whom his Majesty, the nation, or the 
 army would place confidence in case of the invasion 
 of Great Britain or Ireland." To remedy this defi 
 ciency the outspoken Secretary suggested that Prince 
 Ferdinand be induced to come to England to take 
 charge of military affairs until the crisis was passed. 2 
 Lord Chatham had entertained the same idea, and if 
 his strength had held out after his speech on April 
 7, he would have proposed this very measure to the 
 House of Lords. 3 Lord North even made a gloomy 
 little joke about the general officers, saying that he 
 did not know whether they would frighten the enemy, 
 but he was sure they frightened him whenever he 
 thought of them; 4 and it is very clear that in spite 
 
 1 Stopford-Sackville Manuscripts, i, 372. 
 
 s Shute Barrington s Political Life of William Wildman, Viscount Bar 
 rington, pp. 186-187. 
 
 8 Walpole s Last Journals, ii, 160. 
 
 4 Barrington s Life of Barrington, p. 185. 
 
THE BOURBON ARMADA 297 
 
 of Amherst s appointment, all England was shaking 
 in its shoes in the spring of 1778. 1 
 
 As affairs became more serious, the King and his 
 perplexed ministers became correspondingly more de 
 pendent upon Lord Amherst for advice and encour 
 agement, and the General, as commander-in-chief, 
 became a very important member of the Privy 
 Council. The meetings of that body in the reign of 
 George III were as uninspiring affairs as one might 
 have expected from a collection of subservient, sec 
 ond-rate politicians, who could never quite make up 
 their minds to tell the King of the folly of his auto 
 cratic system, nor to resign when they knew that 
 they were clogging the wheels of England s progress. 
 At one of these sessions, which was held in the face 
 of a critical juncture in international relations, Lord 
 North fell asleep as soon as the business was opened; 
 another minister followed suit, while Lord Hills- 
 borough nodded and dropped his hat. Sandwich, 
 First Lord of Admiralty, who was described by one 
 of his contemporaries as 
 
 " Too infamous to have a friend; 
 Too bad for bad men to commend" 
 
 dozed at first, but later rubbed his eyes and seemed 
 attentive. Amherst, be it said to his credit, "kept 
 awake, but said nothing." Indeed only Lord George 
 Germain and two of his colleagues paid any atten 
 tion to the reading of important despatches, while 
 the rest, when they awoke, merely approved of what 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 187. 
 
298 JEFFERY AMHERST 
 
 was proposed. 1 Sometimes the King sat at the head 
 of the table and presided over the meetings, asking 
 his counsellors, one by one, for their advice. On such 
 occasions Amherst as the youngest member present 
 usually spoke first, and it is to be suspected that in 
 the presence of his Majesty more attention was paid 
 to the affairs of state than when the Cabinet Council 
 was left to its own devices. 2 
 
 Much as Amherst may have enjoyed the doubtful 
 distinction of being one of the inner circle of the 
 King s advisers, he was obliged now and then to lis 
 ten to harsh words of criticism from some of his 
 contemporaries. Once when George III went to 
 see a fleet depart for America, Admiral Keppel was 
 embarrassed by the fact that the ships were not 
 ready, and he "spoke out very plain English before 
 Lords Sandwich and Amherst upon naval equipments, 
 the state of the fleet and the supply of ordnance, 
 stores, and supplies." 3 For the ordnance, at least, 
 the General was responsible and as the King gave 
 "all possible attention to Keppel s sentiments, facts, 
 and ideas," his Lordship was "not absolutely happy 
 at quite so much openness," and with good reason. 
 
 1 Historical Manuscripts Commission s Report, "Various Collections," 
 vi, 271. 
 
 Another contemporary wrote, " Even at the Cabinet dinners, which were 
 held weekly, I have heard Lord Sackville say that, though he [Amherst] 
 usually gave his decided affirmative or negative to the specific measures 
 proposed, yet he always did it in few words, often by a monosyllable, but 
 never could, without great difficulty, be induced to assign the reasons or 
 to state the grounds of his opinion." Wraxall s Historical Memoirs, i, 
 407. 
 
 * Ibid., vi, 272. 8 B. F. Stevens Facsimiles, 513*. 
 
THE BOURBON ARMADA 299 
 
 In spite of an occasional display of carelessness or 
 incompetence, Lord Amherst continued in high favor 
 with his Majesty. Evidence of this blessing was 
 given in the autumn of 1778 when the King and 
 Queen, on their way to the camp at Cox Heath, 
 stayed over night at "Montreal." The royal pair 
 and their attendants were escorted by detachments 
 of dragoons, and when the cavalcade arrived at Lord 
 Amherst s lodge about two o clock in the afternoon, 
 "a very great concourse of people" was there, "to 
 see their Majesties as they passed." In the even 
 ing illuminations at "Montreal" and throughout the 
 neighborhood, "together with the ringing of bells, 
 and other public demonstrations of joy, testified 
 the happiness of the inhabitants of all ranks" upon 
 this dazzling occasion. Nor were the efforts of the 
 citizens to impress his Majesty with their loyalty in 
 vain; on the morrow the King "was pleased to give 
 a sum of money to be distributed to the poor and 
 distressed families of the parish of Sevenoaks, and 
 for the bell-ringers." When the King and Queen 
 resumed their journey, Lord and Lady Amherst 
 accompanied them, and as they passed through the 
 village, the procession halted in front of the school, 
 while the master made a short address to George 
 III. 1 So gracious was the sovereign that it seems 
 as if a presidential candidate in the United States 
 could hardly outdo him in his efforts to win popu 
 larity by flattering his constituents in this trite but 
 ever successful manner. 
 
 1 Universal Magazine, November, 1778, p. 252. 
 
300 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 Now and then Amherst was used as a royal whip 
 in disciplining those of "the King s friends " who 
 showed dangerous signs of negligence. George Ill s 
 language was very elegant when he wrote to Lord 
 North that the attention of certain members "must 
 be quickened," but the result of the marshalling 
 would do credit to the most autocratic political boss 
 of to-day. 1 Amherst wrote letters to this member 
 and to that, reminding them of their duty to his 
 Majesty, and thus made possible the "handsome 
 majorities" which carried England further and fur 
 ther towards destruction. These services were re 
 warded by another military appointment calculated 
 to increase Lord Amherst s income without adding 
 to his duties. On April 21, 1779, the Commander-in- 
 Chief became also colonel of the Second Troop of 
 Horse Grenadier Guards. 2 
 
 England s fears of a French invasion in 1778 proved 
 groundless; but when Spain joined hands with her 
 Bourbon neighbor in June of the following year and 
 declared war upon Britain, renewed and redoubled 
 trepidation took possession of the English people. 
 What the Spanish Armada had failed to achieve two 
 centuries before was surely going to be accomplished 
 now by a Bourbon fleet, for the French navy had 
 grown rapidly in recent years and in combination 
 with that of Spain its large ships outnumbered the 
 British men-of-war by almost two to one. 3 In the 
 
 1 Donne s Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii, 238-239. 
 * Cannon s Third Regiment of Foot, pp. 189-190. 
 3 Channing s United States, iii, 28811. 
 
THE BOURBON ARMADA 301 
 
 face of so great a peril the government exerted itself 
 strenuously. Vigorous measures of defence were ob 
 viously necessary, and to supply them a scheme of 
 drafting 30,000 men was proposed. This was a part 
 of the Militia Bill of 1779. It passed the House of 
 Commons with comparative ease, but in the Lords 
 the radical Whigs violently assailed it. The Duke 
 of Richmond was as usual the chief leader of the 
 Opposition, and his remarks led Amherst to break 
 his accustomed silence, and to make one of the 
 few speeches he ever attempted. The General pro 
 nounced the nation so situated that it would be im 
 possible for England to carry on an offensive war 
 with success. As for defence, if Britain had ten to 
 one more than the enemy it behooved her to make 
 the ratio twenty to one. 1 No words could have been 
 more characteristic of the slow and steady soldier. 
 When Richmond asked for arguments to support 
 such a contention Lord Amherst replied that recent 
 attempts to recruit the army had not been so suc 
 cessful as formerly: England needed more fighting 
 men at once, and as the measure under discussion 
 was a certain means of obtaining them, he was for 
 it. His sentiments, however, did not prevail among 
 the peers, and this part of the Militia Bill had to be 
 dropped, although correspondingly extreme measures 
 for manning the ships of the navy went through both 
 Houses and received the royal assent. 2 
 
 A wave of patriotism and military zeal swept over 
 
 1 Almon s Parliamentary Register, xiv, 569. 
 
 2 Mahon s History of England, vi, 401-403. 
 
302 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 England. A large encampment of militia compa 
 nies was made at Cox Heath, near Maidstone, where 
 many counties were represented, while members of 
 the aristocracy and other individuals offered to raise, 
 at their own expense, regiments or smaller bodies of 
 soldiers for the defence of their threatened country. 1 
 Plymouth Harbor was closed to navigation, and at 
 Portsmouth a line of batteries bade defiance to the 
 enemy. On the ninth day of July a royal proclama 
 tion was issued charging all officers, civil as well as 
 military, to cause horses, cattle and provisions to be 
 driven or conveyed inland from the coast in case of 
 actual invasion. To use his own words, George III 
 intended that if the French landed troops on English 
 soil they should "have thorough reason to repent of 
 their temerity." 2 
 
 While Britain s activities recalled the days of 1588, 
 formidable offensive preparations were being made 
 on the other side of the Channel. A French army 
 of about fifty thousand men was marching to the 
 west coast, with the prospect of being transported 
 to the shores of England as soon as the Bourbon 
 fleet cleared the way. French men-of-war left Brest 
 and soon united with those of Spain: together they 
 numbered sixty-six sail of the line, not counting the 
 train of frigates and small vessels which attended 
 them. For several weeks they cruised oflF the Eng 
 lish coast, appearing most often in front of Plymouth 
 and keeping the inhabitants in a constant state of 
 
 1 Donne s Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii, 265, 274. 
 
 2 Ibid., ii, 271. 
 
THE BOURBON ARMADA 303 
 
 apprehension. Against this naval Goliath England 
 sent out Sir Charles Hardy with a fleet of only 
 thirty-eight ships of the corresponding type. The 
 odds against Britain were far greater than they had 
 been at the time of the Spanish Armada, yet the 
 invaders on this occasion were destined to meet the 
 same disappointment as in 1588. The English ad 
 miral handled his ships well, drew the enemy away 
 from before Plymouth and successfully avoided an 
 engagement with the superior force. Dissensions 
 between the Bourbon commanders also tended to 
 prevent the success of the attack; and before har 
 mony prevailed in their councils, sickness rendered 
 the Spanish crews unfit for service. The ships of his 
 Catholic Majesty were withdrawn, leaving the crest 
 fallen French admiral with no choice but to make his 
 best way back to Brest, which he did without more 
 ado. The result of the boasted Bourbon invasion had 
 been the capture of a single British ship of the line. 
 
 England breathed freely once more, but with her 
 relief came a disconcerting consciousness of the peril 
 that had so recently confronted her. A tumult was 
 raised over the defenceless state of the southern coast, 
 a tumult in which as usual the obstreperous Duke 
 of Richmond made himself heard above the rest. He 
 attacked Amherst in the House of Lords and called 
 the attention of the peers to a few startling facls 
 about conditions existing at Plymouth in the previous 
 July and August. Only four or five thousand troops 
 had guarded the exposed seaport, when it required 
 at least twice that number; the intrenchments were 
 
304 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 most unskillfully, planned; and as for the ordnance, 
 Amherst s particular department, there were guns 
 and shot, but no small stores like handspikes, wad 
 ding, rammers etc., without which the former were 
 useless. Had the enemy seen fit to attack it, Plym 
 outh must certainly have fallen, and it was his 
 Grace s opinion that whoever had been neglectful of 
 his duty, or unequal to the proper discharge of it, 
 ought to be brought to the most exemplary punishment. 
 This invective brought Amherst to his feet in an 
 instant; but his defence was very weak. He de 
 clared that he had gone down to Plymouth early 
 in the summer and had observed the state of affairs 
 there. The place ought to have had ten thousand 
 men to insure it against a land attack, but that 
 number could not then be supplied. He assured the 
 House that there was an abundance of gunpowder 
 and balls, but, conscious of his negligence, he also 
 blurted out that if the latter did not fit the cannon 
 it was not his fault! The works were admittedly 
 insufficient, but they were the best that could be 
 constructed on the spur of the moment, and were 
 intended to impede rather than to repel the pro 
 spective invaders. On the whole, Amherst s expla 
 nations were anything but convincing. When the 
 Duke mercilessly ridiculed them, the General s only 
 reply was that he was perfectly willing to submit to 
 an investigation and was ready to abide by the 
 judgment of the country. There, for the time being, 
 the matter rested. 1 
 
 1 Cobbett s Parliamentary History, xx, 1071-1081. 
 
THE BOURBON ARMADA 305 
 
 In case of an inquiry into Amherst s supposed neg 
 ligence George III declared himself neutral, for, as 
 he said, "The affair relates to him and the Ordnance; 
 if they can defend themselves I do not see any evil 
 can arise; if they have not done their duty it is right 
 it should be known." l If we emulate the King s 
 judicial state of mind in trying to form a proper 
 estimate of the merits of the case, we must find the 
 assertion of Sir David Lindsay strong evidence 
 against the Commander-in-Chief. According to Lind 
 say, who was in command at Plymouth during the 
 precarious months, the Government had neglected the 
 defences to such an extent that the Bourbon allies 
 could have taken the dockyards in six hours. 2 On 
 the other hand it should be remembered that the 
 Duke of Richmond was ever careful to twist facts to 
 suit his arguments. In the latter part of April, 1780, 
 the wretched business was again dragged into the 
 House of Lords when Richmond went so far as to 
 move that the assembly resolve itself into a com 
 mittee of the whole to inquire into the state of de 
 fence of Devon and Cornwall in the previous August, 
 and to place the responsibility for their lack of secu 
 rity. After a great deal too much had been said on 
 both sides, the peers defeated the Duke s motion by 
 a gratifying vote of ninety-two to fifty-one. 3 
 
 Almost at the moment when Amherst was so vig 
 orously attacked by the Opposition, an opportunity 
 
 1 Donne s Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii, 287. 
 
 2 Fortescue s History of the British Army, iii, 289. 
 
 3 Cobbett s Parliamentary History, xxi, 459-491. 
 
3 o6 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 to vindicate himself as a worthy commander-in- 
 chief was fortunately and unexpectedly afforded by 
 a series of anti-Catholic demonstrations known as 
 the Gordon Riots. Logically this reign of terror 
 should have occurred in 1778, when Parliament passed 
 an act relieving Papists of certain unreasonable dis 
 abilities on condition of their taking oaths which the 
 Protestants considered necessary to the safety of the 
 realm. 1 The measure applied only to England, but 
 it was generally known that its provision would be 
 extended to Scotland in the following year, and in 
 anticipation of such a calamity the men to the north 
 ward made known their sentiments by riotous pro 
 ceedings in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The lives of 
 Roman Catholics were in constant danger, and lib 
 eral Protestants were also attacked. The spirit of 
 unrest spread to England, where the fanatical party 
 found a leader in the unbalanced Lord George 
 Gordon, a young man whose violent anti-Catholic 
 speeches had received only ridicule and contempt in 
 the House of Commons. Outside its walls, however, 
 the fanatical Scotchman easily gathered about him 
 a party, called the Protestant Association, which 
 held a great meeting on May 29, 1780, and decided 
 to petition for the repeal of the Relief Act. 
 
 On the afternoon of June 2, thousands of men, 
 bearing the petition, poured in upon Westminster and 
 attempted to frighten Parliament into executing their 
 wishes on the spot. When the legislators objected 
 to recognizing this informal display of what we call 
 
 1 Lecky s England in the Eighteenth Century, iii, 551. 
 
THE BOURBON ARMADA 307 
 
 the right of initiative, the demonstrations of the 
 multitude developed into a riot of alarming propor 
 tions. Members of the Commons were seized and 
 insulted, and venerable peers on their way through 
 Palace Yard were subjected to unpardonable outrages. 
 Those who got safely within doors were imprisoned 
 there until, after several hours of suspense, troops 
 arrived upon the scene and dispersed the crowd. 
 This was but the beginning of anarchy, however, for 
 the rioters, once excited, threw discretion to the 
 winds and turned London into Pandemonium. The 
 scenes that followed in the next five days and nights 
 have been vividly described in " Barnaby Rudge," 
 but even the pen of Charles Dickens could not exag 
 gerate the horrors of that frightful cataclysm. Not 
 only was the property of Roman Catholics ruthlessly 
 destroyed in every part of the metropolis, but also 
 the houses of the leading ministers were assailed by 
 the all-powerful crowds. At Lord North s the mob 
 was beaten back by a party of light horse, but Lord 
 Mansfield, the aged Chief-Justice, was obliged to wit 
 ness the demolition of his mansion in Bloomsbury 
 Square and to see his noble law library consigned to 
 the flames. A still more desperate deed was the 
 burning of Newgate, the greatest prison in London, 
 which belched forth about three hundred convicts as 
 its contribution to the forces of the rioters. So out 
 rage followed outrage until an attempt was made to 
 capture or burn even the Bank of England. 
 
 That such a rebellion could have taken place in 
 London when England was at war with three nations 
 
3 o8 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 is a commentary upon the unpopularity of the North 
 Ministry, but the reason for the long continuance of 
 the reign of anarchy is found elsewhere. Apparently 
 the municipal government was paralyzed with fear, 
 but actually its helplessness was due to the provi 
 sions of the Riot Act, which tied the hands of the 
 military and gave the rioters full sway. To-day the 
 police system of London commands universal admi 
 ration, but in the eighteenth century the metropolis 
 lacked any such institution worthy of the name. To 
 make matters worse the Riot Act of 1715, in an 
 attempt to safeguard Englishmen against the abuse 
 of military power, dictated that in case of lawlessness 
 a specified proclamation must be read to the mob by 
 a justice or other magistrate, and that the offenders 
 must be given an hour in which to scatter before 
 troops or a posse comitatus might make arrests or 
 fire upon them. 1 These restrictions were of great 
 advantage to the rioters; in the first place, a justice 
 was apt to keep out of the way when dangerous dis 
 turbances occurred; and secondly, a mob could do 
 an infinite amount of harm in the hour of grace 
 accorded it before the soldiers might fire a shot. 
 Under such conditions it is not surprising that in 
 1780 London was at the mercy of the rioters for al 
 most a week. 
 
 As things went from bad to worse, George III 
 decided that something must be done to restore order. 
 On June 7, he called a meeting of the Privy Council 
 and questioned his advisers upon the wisdom of 
 
 1 Statutes at Large, I George I, Cap. 5. 
 
THE BOURBON ARMADA 309 
 
 longer observing the provisions of the Riot Ad. 
 At first the Councillors hesitated to take a definite 
 position one way or the other; but when Wedder- 
 burn, the Attorney-General, declared that under pres 
 ent conditions the reading of the Proclamation was 
 wholly unnecessary, his colleagues readily came 
 around to his wholesome, though perhaps uncon 
 stitutional, point of view. 1 The King then declared 
 that as chief magistrate he would see their advice 
 carried into effect; and he did. At no other moment 
 in his long reign did George III so nearly approach 
 greatness. His willingness to nullify the Riot Act in 
 order to save London suggests President Cleveland s 
 conduct in 1894, when the chief executive of the 
 United States, under somewhat similar circumstances, 
 ordered federal troops to Chicago without an appli 
 cation from the legislature or governor of Illinois. 2 
 Wedderburn drew up an order authorizing the mili 
 tary to use force without waiting for form; the 
 King signed it, and Amherst, as commander-in-chief 
 acted upon it the same day. 3 When this measure 
 went into execution, London was quickly restored to 
 order, although in the process over two hundred 
 people were shot dead in the streets. 
 
 What Bonaparte did for the Directory in 1795, 
 Amherst did for London at this time; and such 
 uncompromising treatment of lawlessness has ever 
 proved most effectual. Nevertheless, the smoke of 
 
 1 Campbell s Lives of the Lord Chancellors of England, viii, 42. 
 
 2 Rhodes Historical Essays, p. 225. 
 
 3 Hamilton s History of the Foot Guards, ii, 259. 
 
310 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 conflagrations due to the Gordon Riots had hardly 
 disappeared when the Duke of Richmond was once 
 more on his feet in the House of Lords, fulminating 
 against the Commander-in-Chief and moving that a 
 parliamentary inquiry be made into certain methods 
 employed by him in suppressing the recent disturb 
 ances. 1 His ground for complaint was not the in 
 fraction of the Riot Act, but an order Amherst had 
 issued disarming the inhabitants of the city of London, 
 which, according to the Duke, was "contrary to the 
 positive privilege of the subjects of this empire as 
 declared in the Bill of Rights." In the ensuing in 
 vestigation, it appeared that one Colonel Twistleton 
 had seen suspicious persons going about with firelocks, 
 and being in doubt as to the proper way of dealing 
 with them, he wrote to the Commander-in-Chief for 
 instructions. As the riots had only just subsided at 
 the time the letter was written and another outbreak 
 was feared at any minute, Amherst replied that any 
 arms found in the hands of unauthorized individuals 
 were to be delivered up and kept in safety until 
 further notice. 2 Although this edict directly contra 
 vened one of the provisions of the sacred Declaration 
 of Rights, 3 memories of the recent outrages happily 
 outweighed reverence for the English constitution in 
 both Houses of Parliament, and after much debate 
 Richmond s attempt to censure Amherst for over 
 stepping the law was emphatically rejected. 4 
 
 1 Cobbett s Parliamentary History, xxi, 591. 2 Ibid., xxi, 692. 
 
 3 i William and Mary, Second Session, Cap. 2, (Statutes at Large, iii, 441). 
 
 4 Journals of the House of Commons, xxxvii, 928: Journals of the House 
 of Lords, xxx vi, 151. 
 
THE BOURBON ARMADA 311 
 
 In the winter of 1780 the Netherlands joined in 
 the war which the United States, France, and Spain 
 were waging against Britain, and after that time 
 almost any hard blow the Americans could inflict 
 must have proved decisive for their cause. There 
 fore, when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at 
 Yorktown, on October 19, 1781, the independence of 
 the erstwhile colonies was practically assured. This 
 final catastrophe to British arms was at least partly 
 attributable to Lord George Germain s unfortunate 
 habit of undermining the efficiency of the commander- 
 in-chief in America by encouraging insubordination 
 in his second. 1 In this case he had given Cornwallis 
 an almost independent command and had sent him 
 off on an attempt to conquer the southern states, 
 much to the displeasure of Sir Henry Clinton. Al 
 though Amherst did not approve of the operations 
 which Lord Cornwallis proposed, he preferred him to 
 Clinton as a man, and therefore gave him his sup 
 port. 2 The result was the surrender at Yorktown, 
 and if Clinton s observations on that disaster were 
 just, Amherst must share in the responsibility for it. 
 According to Sir Henry the loss of the campaign was 
 attributable "to the Cabinet s having given a pref 
 erence to the plans of a second in command," and he 
 did not hesitate to declare that "to Lord North, 
 Lord G. Germain, Thurlow Lord Chancellor, Lord 
 Sandwich, Lord Amherst, Lord Gower the last 
 not least" -the thanks of the nation were due in 
 
 1 Channing s United States, iii, 327. 
 
 2 B. F. Stevens CHnton-Cornwallis Controversy, i, 45, 115. 
 
312 JEFFERT AM H ERST 
 
 great part for the loss of America. 1 Thus the con 
 clusion may not be too far-fetched that whether or 
 not Jeffery Amherst s sentiment kept him from taking 
 the field against our ancestors, nevertheless, through 
 his ill-starred advice to Lord George Germain on this 
 occasion, he was a negative factor in the accomplish 
 ment of American independence. 
 
 The North Ministry, which had too long tottered 
 on the brink of collapse, could not survive the news 
 of Cornwallis s surrender. It is a familiar story how 
 Lord North, upon hearing the fatal tidings, exclaimed, 
 "Oh, God, it is all over!" and although the King 
 was slow to comprehend the significance of the event, 
 his Prime Minister was right. On March 20, 1782, 
 North resigned, and with him fell all his colleagues. 
 Lord Amherst at once gave up the office of com- 
 mander-in-chief as well as his high post at the 
 Ordnance and retired to the pastoral shades of 
 "Montreal." But Lord George Germain, the "master 
 marplot" of them all, was not content to retire from 
 office so quietly. As a younger son of a well-known 
 duke, he very much desired a peerage as a token of 
 the King s appreciation of his doubtful services, and 
 in order to outrank Amherst, who had started his 
 career as a page in his father s household, Germain 
 asked to be created a viscount. 2 His request was 
 granted, but the new title brought humiliation as 
 well as glitter in its wake; for when the metamor 
 phosed Lord George Germain essayed to take his 
 
 1 B. F. Stevens Clinton-Cornwallis Controversy, i, 42, nvh. 
 
 2 Dictionary of National Biography. 
 
THE BOURBON ARMADA 313 
 
 seat in the House of Lords as Viscount Sackville, 
 that august body disputed his right to the honor. 
 Unpleasant memories of the battle of Minden were 
 revived and paraded to prove that the admission of 
 "the greatest criminal this country ever knew, would 
 be a disgrace to the House," 1 and only after much 
 discomfort was the new peer allowed to enjoy his 
 ill-gotten elevation. 
 
 1 Parliamentary Register, xxv, 105-107, 217-228. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 LAST YEARS 
 
 TO offset the losses Amherst sustained as a re 
 sult of the fall of the North Ministry, the 
 King appointed him colonel of the Second 
 Troop of Life Guards, a position which traditionally 
 brought with it certain honors and duties known as 
 "the Gold Stick in Waiting/ The incumbent was 
 held responsible for the safety of the royal person, and 
 had to provide a sufficient guard to attend his Majesty, 
 especially on occasions of state. 1 Thus the office 
 which Lord Amherst held for the rest of his life was 
 not wholly a sinecure; 2 for the most part, however, 
 the General was once more at leisure and could give 
 much of his time to social life and to the more satis 
 factory enjoyment of his friends. 
 
 Jeffery Amherst was now a man of sixty-five years 
 or more, whom his contemporaries found "grave, 
 formal, and cold." In person he was tall and thin; 
 his complexion was florid and his most striking fea 
 ture, excepting a large wart on the left cheek, was 
 a conspicuously aquiline nose. Although his intelli 
 gent face was an index to the sound judgment and 
 solid understanding which characterized his Lordship, 
 Amherst lacked the cultivation that would have made 
 
 1 Cannon s Historical Record of the Life Guards, p. 165. 
 
 2 Myers MS. No. 1453, in the New York Public Library. 
 
LAST TEARS 315 
 
 him more at ease in the society to which his title 
 had raised him. 1 Most of his friends were military 
 men with whom he had been associated in his vari 
 ous campaigns, but among those whom he found con 
 genial without the common background of the tented 
 field was Governor Thomas Hutchinson, the exiled 
 executive of Massachusetts-Bay. Hutchinson was a 
 gentleman of refinement and culture, a graduate of 
 Harvard College, and an historian whose work has 
 stood the test of time; yet he and the General seem 
 to have found singular pleasure in each other s com 
 pany. From the moment of his arrival in England 
 in the summer of 1774, until he died of homesickness 
 and a broken heart six years later, the Governor was 
 a frequent visitor at Amherst s town-house or country- 
 seat, as the season might dictate. Oftentimes they 
 walked together in the Park and discussed the course 
 of the war in America, both hoping against hope that 
 peace would soon be restored and that the British 
 empire would be once more what it was at the close 
 of the Seven Years War. Doubtless the fact that 
 the General had been in Boston and had gazed more 
 than once upon the Blue Hills of Milton, made 
 Hutchinson feel doubly drawn to the stolid soldier; 
 but apart from that bond there seems to have been 
 a certain friendly understanding between the two 
 men which helped to alleviate the American s lonely 
 suffering during those last sad years of his life. 2 
 
 1 Wraxall s Historical and Posthumous Memoirs (edited by H. B. 
 Wheatley), i, 406-407. 
 
 8 Hutchinson s Diary of Thomas Hutchinson, i, 226, 417; ii, 31, 78, ft 
 passim: also Egerton MS., No. 2659, Fol. 235, in the British Museum. 
 
316 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 Another acquaintance often to be found at Lord 
 Amherst s was Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Hal- 
 dimand, who had commanded a battalion of the Royal 
 Americans in the expedition against Montreal in 
 1760, and whom Amherst had appointed governor of 
 the district of Three Rivers, after the conquest of 
 Canada. Haldimand was a Swiss by birth and never 
 spoke English with any degree of success. During 
 the latter part of the American Revolution he was 
 governor of Canada, whence he returned to England 
 in the autumn of 1784. From that time on he was 
 in constant attendance at Lord Amherst s where he 
 dined or played cards to his heart s content. Her 
 Ladyship entertained much company during these 
 years, and although Haldimand was always ready to 
 accept her invitations and eat and drink at Am 
 herst s expense, he was equally ready to record his 
 unpleasant impressions of his host in a private diary, 
 which has since been made public. This was poor 
 taste, but the entries give one an interesting picture 
 of Lord Amherst. At one time Haldimand com 
 plained of the General s evasive answers, of his un 
 willingness to use his influence to do anyone a good 
 turn, and of his dislike of foreigners; 1 on other occa 
 sions Amherst s receptivity for flattery distressed the 
 diarist, or he "exhibited his usual fussiness." Per 
 haps the most extraordinary entry is that describing 
 a military dinner at the Amhersts where Haldimand 
 deliberately "asked for a bottle of old Madeira be- 
 
 1 Private Diary of General Haldimand, April n, 1786, in the Report on 
 Canadian Archives, 1889. 
 
LAST TEARS 317 
 
 cause it was offered to us with bad grace." l From 
 his record for the following day one would judge 
 that the disgruntled guest would have been just as 
 well off without the stimulant which he extorted 
 from his reluctant Lordship. Horace Walpole was 
 another occasional visitor at the Amhersts , and he 
 likewise never lost an opportunity to take a dig at 
 his host, for whom he had a deep-seated aversion; 
 but his remarks on the whole were not so unfriendly 
 as were those of General Haldimand. 2 
 
 Probably Amherst found another form of social 
 activity more enjoyable than his wife s series of routs 
 and receptions: this was the American Club, a con 
 genial group of officers who had seen service in the 
 New World and who had banded themselves together 
 for the sake of auld lang syne and the enjoyment of 
 good dinners. The organization was formed at the 
 close of the French and Indian War, its first presi 
 dent being the notorious Colonel Charles Lee; 3 but at 
 this time Amherst was its head and continued to be 
 so until 1787, when he yielded the honor to Admiral 
 Lord Howe, the brother of Sir William Howe of 
 American Revolution fame. 4 
 
 Although Amherst was disappointed in his attempt 
 to procure for himself a grant of the Jesuit estates 
 in Canada in 1771, he by no means abandoned hope 
 of adding those rich lands to his share of this world s 
 
 1 Ibid., Jan. 18, 1787. 
 
 2 Horace Walpole to Miss Mary Berry, March 27, 1791. 
 
 8 Richard E. Day s Calendar of the Sir William Johnson Manuscripts, 
 p. 204. 
 
 4 Haldimand Diary, January 30, 1787. 
 
3 i8 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 goods. He had come so tantalizingly near winning 
 the prize, the draught of the instrument apparently 
 lacked only the approbation of the King in Council, 
 - that after a few years of discreet silence he re 
 newed his petition to the Crown. 1 
 
 The second plea produced no more satisfactory 
 results than the first, but when Amherst once more 
 presented his request, seven years later, his persis 
 tency was rewarded with the prospect of success. An 
 order in council was issued creating a commission to 
 ascertain the extent of the lands, their value, and 
 their nature, and in the spring of 1787 it was com 
 mon talk in Canada that at last Lord Amherst was 
 to achieve his purpose: the patent was already made 
 out and awaited the Action of the Governor and 
 Council of Quebec. 2 Indeed so certain did the out 
 come seem that one Captain Genevay, a friend of 
 General Haldimand, took time by the forelock and 
 sought the position of curator of Amherst s pro 
 spective estates. But fate decreed otherwise. In No 
 vember, just at the time when everything indicated 
 Amherst s long-deferred success, a counter-petition, 
 signed by almost two hundred Canadians, was pre 
 sented to Lord Dorchester, the governor of Quebec. 3 
 In this document and the memorial which accom 
 panied it, the inhabitants argued that the greater 
 part of the Jesuit estates originated in private dona 
 tions made expressly for educational purposes, and 
 
 1 Afls of the Privy Council (Colonial), v, [150]. 
 
 2 Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society s Collections, xx, 285. 
 
 3 Kingsford s History of Canada, vii, 288. 
 
LAST TEARS 319 
 
 for that reason they should be regarded as public 
 property and be devoted to the support of a college 
 which was very much needed. 1 The legality of their 
 claim was dubious at best, but the virtue of the 
 cause of education gave strength to the suit of the 
 Canadians. Furthermore, Lord Dorchester, who was 
 an army man and had served under Amherst at 
 Louisburg, had a strong dislike for his one-time 
 commander 2 and doubtless did all in his power to 
 prevent the realization of the latter s mercenary 
 aspirations. While his Majesty s commissioners were 
 busy with the survey and report which were intended 
 to prelude the Amherst grant, the governor gave 
 access to all persons who could advance claims or 
 remonstrances against it, and took pains to impress 
 the adverse sentiments of the Canadians upon the 
 Home Secretary in England. 3 The result of his efforts 
 was an unsatisfactory status quo that lasted until 
 1803, four years after the death of Lord Amherst. 
 Then Parliament settled the case by voting his heirs 
 a perpetual annuity of 3000 in lieu of the long- 
 sought estates in America. As the annual revenue 
 of the Jesuit lands in 1787 was not more than $5000 
 it is evident that Amherst s immediate heir was 
 no loser by the $15,000 annuity substituted for the 
 other source of income. 4 By the end of the nine 
 teenth century, however, the Canadian property would 
 
 1 Report on Canadian Archives, 1890, pp. 203-204. 
 
 2 Donne s Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ii, 278. 
 * Report on Canadian Archives, 1890, pp. 273-274. 
 
 4 Kingsford s History of Canada, vii, 287. 
 
320 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 have eclipsed the pecuniary gift as a remunerative 
 asset. 
 
 After 1781 Lord Amherst found himself the last 
 leaf of his generation upon the family tree, and he 
 had no children to cheer or comfort his declining 
 years. His brother John, an admiral in the navy, 
 died in 1778, his sister Elizabeth in the following 
 year, and in May, 1781, William, his companion in 
 war and peace, also departed this life. Since the 
 days of Louisburg and Montreal William Amherst 
 had rivalled his more distinguished brother in the 
 acquisition of honors and profitable sinecures. From 
 being deputy-governor of a fortress on the southeast 
 coast, he rose to be a member of Parliament, and 
 finally, governor of Newfoundland, the island which 
 he had recaptured from the enemy towards the end 
 of the Seven Years War. In the army he was made 
 lieutenant-general, and although there was talk of 
 his going to America in the War of Independence, 1 
 he stayed in England and fought the King s battles 
 in the House of Commons. Like his brother, he was 
 a firm adherent of George III, and belonged to that 
 useful, if not respedlable, army known as "the King s 
 friends." 
 
 When General William Amherst died in 1781, he 
 left two children, Elizabeth and William Pitt Am 
 herst, aged twelve and eight respectively. Their 
 mother, who was "a very pretty and accomplished 
 woman much beloved by her brothers-in-law," had 
 died five years earlier, and Lord Amherst naturally 
 
 1 Stopford-Sackvillf Manuscripts, ii, 54. 
 
LAST TEARS 321 
 
 took his niece and nephew under his wing. Wil 
 liam s home in the Isle of Wight was sold, and the 
 children came to "Montreal" to live with their uncle 
 and aunt, who treated them as if they were their 
 own offspring. The boy, it is needless to say, was 
 named for the great statesman, during whose admin 
 istration his uncle and father had won reputations 
 for themselves in America; indeed Lord Chatham was 
 one of his godfathers. Lord Amherst sent his nephew 
 to school at Westminster and thence to Christ Church, 
 Oxford, where he received the degree of M.A. in 
 1797, the year of his uncle s death. 1 Two years later 
 he was recommended to the Secretary of State for 
 Foreign Affairs as a young man of exceptionally high 
 character, a reputation which he more than justified 
 during the next thirty years. After a brief mission 
 to China he was appointed Governor-General of India, 
 and for his conduct of affairs in that part of the 
 empire William Pitt Amherst was created an earl 
 in 1826. 
 
 Of course Jeffery Amherst could not foresee the 
 brilliant career of his favorite brother s son, but he 
 considered his nephew none the less worthy of in 
 heriting the honors which he had won during his 
 long life, and in 1788, he definitely named him the 
 heir to his title and estate. In order to bring this 
 about legally the General procured a new patent of 
 peerage wherein he was styled Baron Amherst of 
 Montreal, and which stipulated that William Pitt 
 Amherst and his heirs male should succeed to the 
 
 1 Ritchie and Evans Lord Amber si^ pp. 11-12. 
 
322 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 coronet and to the property. 1 When this was settled, 
 Lord Amherst took care to enlarge his domain in 
 Sevenoaks whenever there was an opportunity to do 
 so, and in other ways increased and concentrated his 
 nephew s heritage. 2 
 
 In February, 1793, the Revolutionists of France, 
 fresh from the murder of Louis XVI, and drunk with 
 the success of their efforts to overturn the existing 
 order of things, declared war upon England. Fore 
 seeing this event, the British government had already 
 called upon Lord Amherst to take command of the 
 army in Great Britain as in 1778. Although his 
 Lordship was really an old man, he forgot his seventy- 
 five years and cheerfully assumed the task imposed 
 upon him. A task it certainly was, for in the last 
 ten years the British army had degenerated to a 
 point never reached before or since. 
 
 For this decline there were many reasons. In the 
 first place when the North Ministry went out of office 
 Amherst was succeeded as commander-in-chief by 
 Henry Seymour Conway, an ardent Whig who could 
 not get along with the younger Pitt and who conse 
 quently resigned his position in March, 1784. From 
 that time on there was no commander-in-chief until 
 Amherst s appointment in 1793 . 3 
 
 Although that lapse must have been decidedly 
 hurtful to the service, it was not the basic cause of 
 the wane of England s military establishment. The 
 
 1 Gentleman s Magazine, September, 1788, p. 842. 
 
 2 Journals of the House of Lords, vol. 39, p. 7153. 
 
 3 Fortescue s History of the British Army, iii, 529. 
 
LAST TEARS 323 
 
 main responsibility must rest upon the shoulders of 
 the Prime Minister; for, great as was his genius, 
 William Pitt the Younger had his limitations when 
 it came to the administration of the army, the very 
 department in which his father had so pre-eminently 
 excelled. At the end of the American War all sol 
 diers whose terms of service were up had made haste 
 to leave their regiments, and recruits to fill their 
 places had not been forthcoming. 1 The fact that it 
 was almost impossible to persuade men to enlist, and 
 those who did so constantly deserted, should have 
 suggested to the ministers that conditions of life in 
 the army needed an investigation and a remedy, 
 but the government dodged the issue and relied upon 
 the purchase of Hessians rather than upon a recon 
 struction of the English army to supply the needed 
 soldiers in time of stress. 2 As a subterfuge this prac 
 tice might be temporarily economical, but England 
 could not long afford to make her military service as 
 unpopular as it was from 1783 until 1797. 
 
 The great evil in the army was the lack of a living 
 wage, and the unfortunate privates found themselves 
 forced to choose between starvation and desertion. 
 The Secretary at War and the Adjutant-General 
 were quite aware of the grievous state of affairs, but 
 Pitt, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, declined to do 
 anything until 1792. Then a reformed financial 
 basis assured the soldier a net annual income of only 
 eighteen shillings ten pence half-penny. 3 Such was 
 
 1 Ibid., iii, 499. 2 Ibid., iii, 516-517. 
 
 3 Ibid., iii, 521. 
 
3 2 4 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 the false economy of the younger Pitt. What wonder, 
 then, that Amherst upon resuming his command 
 found the army completely demoralized and fast 
 dying of inanition? These facfts are important, be 
 cause after his Lordship s death Henry Dundas, 
 Secretary of State for War, spoke of the late Com- 
 mander-in-Chief as "a worthy and respedlable old 
 man," but one who had done "mischief" that would 
 not be repaired "but by the unremitting attention 
 of many." 1 By placing the responsibility for Pitt s 
 misdeeds upon Amherst, Dundas was guilty of gross 
 injustice, for the General merely took over in an 
 emergency the hollow framework of an army and did 
 the best he could with it in the two years during 
 which he held the chief command. One could hardly 
 ask that a man of more than seventy-five years should 
 reform a rotten military system suddenly thrust upon 
 him, and those who lament that Amherst "allowed 
 innumerable abuses to grow up in the army" must 
 produce their grounds for such a grave and unjust 
 charge. 
 
 In February, 1795, the General was relieved of his 
 burdensome office by the Duke of York, a son of 
 George III. It is said that Lord Amherst was then 
 offered an earldom, which he declined; 2 but that any 
 such elevation was proposed is doubtful, not only 
 because the King made no mention of it to the 
 gentleman whose duty it was to inform the General 
 
 1 Historical Manuscripts Commission s Report on the Manuscripts of 
 J. B. Forte scue, Esq., iv, 264. 
 
 2 Gentleman s Magazine, September, 1797, p. 801. 
 
LAST TEARS 325 
 
 of the change, 1 but also because if the proposal had 
 been made, Amherst, in all probability, would have 
 snapped up the prize in an instant. Be that as it 
 may, in the summer of the following year he was 
 given the rank of field-marshal, the highest military 
 office in the British army and an eminence which no 
 man in England deserved more than he. 
 
 After his retirement from the chief command his 
 Lordship s health began to fail, and he found himself 
 scarcely able to attend to his duties as Gold Stick, 
 much less to take any part in the conduct of the war 
 which still continued with the French revolutionists. 
 From his retirement at "Montreal" Lord Amherst 
 watched the tedious course of the hostilities and the 
 rise of Bonaparte, little dreaming that the Corsican 
 was soon to become the terror and scourge of all 
 western Europe. On August 3, 1797, the end came, 
 and a week later his Lordship s remains were 
 interred in the family vault in Sevenoaks church. 
 The funeral service was performed by the rector 
 and was attended with little display: plain black 
 velvet covered the coffin, upon the plate of which 
 were inscribed the name, age, and title of Jeffery 
 Amherst. 2 
 
 In reviewing the General s life, one is struck by 
 certain peculiar features in his career. The first is 
 its division into two distinct parts, which might be 
 respectively labelled obscurity and prominence. Sin 
 gularly enough the abrupt line of demarcation divides 
 
 1 Life and Correspondence of the Rt. Hon. William Windbam, i, 286. 
 1 Gentleman s Magazine, September, 1797, p. 802. 
 
326 JEFFERT AMHERSr 
 
 Amherst s life into two periods of forty years each. 
 From 1717 until 1757 he was first growing to man 
 hood and later fighting on the Continent, with al 
 most no prospect of distinction and fame. Suddenly, 
 in the spring of 1758, the unknown colonel was 
 despatched to North America, where he won imme 
 diate and enduring glory that surpassed the most 
 fanciful dreams of his youth. The perihelion of his 
 orbit was reached in September, 1760, when, by a 
 triple combination of armies upon Montreal, Am- 
 herst achieved the conquest of Canada. 
 
 Horace Walpole s zealous devotion to his cousin, 
 Henry Seymour Conway, who in many ways was 
 Amherst s natural rival, almost always distorted his 
 regard for the General; but the dilettante of Straw 
 berry Hill was not far from right when he included 
 Amherst among "those men who, in particular in 
 stances in one period of their life, not only have 
 performed great adlions, but have conducted them 
 with consummate sense and address, and who in 
 the rest of their lives have been able to display 
 no symptoms of genius." l Walpole was wrong, how 
 ever, in concluding his estimate with an insinuation 
 that fortune rather than foresight was the chief 
 cause of his victories. Amherst was from first to 
 last a soldier of extraordinary ability, and his ap 
 parent predilection for court favors instead of for mili 
 tary pursuits, after his return from America, was due 
 to other causes than incompetency. Politically and 
 
 1 Walpole s Memoirs of the Reign of George II, iii, 28511. 
 
LAST TEARS 327 
 
 temperamentally the General was a Tory. He pos 
 sessed the domestic tastes and love of country-life 
 which one invariably associates with members of 
 that party, and after his five years of active service 
 in the New World, years almost unequalled in English 
 history for consistent military achievement, it was 
 but fair that he should enjoy the tranquil delights 
 of "Montreal." With untroubled conscience he left 
 the conduct of hostilities in the American Revolution 
 to younger officers; but it should be remembered that 
 when his country was in danger in 1779, and again 
 in 1793, he neither lingered in his home nor for one 
 moment shirked the responsibilities which his martial 
 genius imposed upon him. 
 
 While in America General Amherst became ac 
 quainted with some of the men who were destined 
 to found "a new nation, conceived in liberty and 
 dedicated to the proposition that all men are created 
 equal." Among them was Benjamin Franklin, with 
 whom the General held pleasant converse more than 
 once during his three years in New York. 1 It does 
 not appear that he ever met George Washington, but, 
 as the Virginian modestly expressed it, "that General 
 Amherst may have heard of such a person as I am 
 is probable." 2 In England his name is associated 
 with those of William Pitt and George III, and al- 
 although no sculptured marble preserves his likeness 
 and memory in abbey or public square, Canada, the 
 
 1 Smyth s Writings of Benjamin Franklin, iv, 202. 
 
 2 Sparks Writings of George Washington, ii, 334. 
 
328 JEFFERT AMHERST 
 
 flower of the British empire, sweeping from the fer 
 tile valley of the St. Lawrence to the towering sum 
 mits of the Rockies, will ever remain a splendid and 
 inspiring monument to the energy and ability of 
 Jeffery Amherst. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abercromby, Major-General James, 
 appointed Commander-in-chief, 55; 
 Horace Walpole s characterization 
 of, 55; at the southern end of Lake 
 George, 95; moves against Ticon- 
 deroga, 96; his sudden retreat, 97; 
 attacks Montcalm at Ticonderoga, 
 98-99; his retreat and losses, 99; 
 Wolfe s characterization of, 107; 
 consults with Amherst, 112. 
 
 Adams, John, impressed by Amherst s 
 troops, in. 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, the Peace of, sign 
 ing of, 20; Louisburg returned to 
 France by, 66. 
 
 Albany, merchants of, complain of 
 Amherst s land grants, 198-199. 
 
 Albemarle, Lord, commands expedi 
 tion against Havana, 207; enriched 
 by the fall of Havana, 210; en 
 courages Amherst to quarrel with 
 the Ministry, 259. 
 
 Allen, Ethan, his designs for a new 
 colony, 1 68. 
 
 American Club, the, 317. 
 
 American Wood, the, at "Montreal," 
 248. 
 
 Americans, Wolfe s criticism of, 
 107-108. 
 
 Amherst, Jeffery, birth and par 
 entage, 3; his brothers and sisters, 
 4; a page of the Duke of Dorset, 
 8; appearance in youth, 10; ap 
 pointed aide-de-camp to Ligonier, 
 12; goes to Flanders, 12; well 
 
 spoken of after Dettingen, 13; at 
 Fontenoy, 15; returns to England, 
 16; appointed lieutenant-colonel, 
 18; goes to the Netherlands, 18; 
 aide-de-camp to the Duke of Cum 
 berland, 19; Groom of the Bed 
 chamber, 21 ; friendship with 
 Wolfe, 21 ; marries Jane Dalison, 
 22; in charge of Hessian commis 
 sariat, 34; goes to Germany, 34; 
 conducts Hessian troops to Eng 
 land, 34-35; appointed colonel of 
 the I5th, 35; significance of his pro 
 motion, 35; returns to Germany, 
 37; at Stade, 37; at Hameln, 
 37; at the battle of Hastenbeck, 
 38; puzzled by Cumberland s 
 retreat, 39; his opinion of Prince 
 Ferdinand, 41; ordered to return to 
 England, 42; given rank of major- 
 general, 55; to command Louis- 
 burg expedition, 55; difficulty 
 attending his appointment, 58-59; 
 questioned concerning forage con 
 tracts, 60; sails for America, 61; 
 reaches Halifax, 64; proceeds 
 towards Louisburg, 65; recon 
 noitres the shore of Louisburg, 69; 
 orders a general landing made, 71; 
 goes ashore, 73; his impressions 
 of the battle-ground, 73; estab 
 lishes camp, 74; orders Wolfe to 
 attack the Island Battery, 76-77; 
 lands provisions, etc., 78; recon 
 noitres before the town, 78; orders 
 a road made to Green Hill, 79; his 
 
330 
 
 INDEX 
 
 co-operation with Boscawen, 81; 
 exchanges courtesies with Drucour, 
 82; suggests that French remove 
 wounded from Louisburg, 82; 
 indefatigable in the siege, 83; dic 
 tates terms of surrender, 87; 
 assures Drucour of clemency, 88; 
 sends William Amherst to England, 
 89; hopes to go to Quebec, 94; 
 hears of Abercromby s defeat, 94, 
 99; abandons Quebec enterprise, 
 100; orders destruction of French 
 settlement, 101; his temperament 
 and methods, 104-105; sails for 
 Boston, 109; in Boston, 109; at 
 Worcester, no; crosses the Berk 
 shire Hills, in; reviews army at 
 Lake George, 112; his relations 
 with Governor Pownall, 113; ap 
 pointed commander-in-chief in 
 America, 114; becomes colonel of 
 the Royal Americans, 114; winters 
 at New York, 1 16; thanked by the 
 House of Commons, 116-117; 
 places named in honor of, 117-118; 
 his aversion for Indians, 118; 
 longs to return to England, 118; 
 emphasizes importance of Quebec 
 expedition, 121; prepares for the 
 campaign of 1759, 123; goes 
 to Philadelphia, 126; persuades 
 Denny to disobey his instructions, 
 128; confers with Indians, 129- 
 130; orders Johnson to enlist 
 Indians, 130; returns to New 
 York, 130; goes to Albany, 131; 
 advances to Fort Edward, 134; 
 prohibits the use-of rum, 134-135; 
 his humanity, 136; advances to 
 Lake George, 137; builds Fort 
 George, 137-138; lays siege to 
 Ticonderoga, 142; celebrates the 
 fall of Ticonderoga, 144; advances 
 
 upon Crown Point, 144-5; 
 possession of the fort, 146; receives 
 news of Niagara, 147; builds fort 
 at Crown Point, 148; causes of 
 his delay, 149-150; explores the 
 Adirondacks, 151; as a disciplina 
 rian, 152-153; his tact, 154; ap 
 pointed governor of Virginia, 155; 
 appointed major-general, 155-156; 
 fails to aid Wolfe, 156-158; his 
 potential aid, 157-158; wreaks 
 vengeance on St. Francis Indians, 
 158-160; on Lake Champlain, 
 161-164; returns to Crown Point, 
 164; meets Johnson at Albany, 
 165; walks to New York, 165; 
 refers Skene to the Secretary of 
 State, 166; plans campaign against 
 Montreal, 171; confers with John 
 son, 172; orders reinforcements 
 to Quebec, 174; divides forces at 
 Albany, 175; at Oswego, 175; on 
 Lake Ontario, 176; besieges Fort 
 Levis, 177-179; disappoints In 
 dians, 179; descends the rapids, 
 180-181; his treatment of the 
 Canadians, 180; before Montreal, 
 181-182; amends terms of sur 
 render, 183; organizes government 
 of Canada, 186-188; his tad with 
 the French Canadians, 188; visits 
 Three Rivers and Quebec, 189- 
 190; at Isle aux Noix, 190; wel 
 comed to New York, 190-191; 
 sends troops to West Indies, 193; 
 begrudges medals given to Indians, 
 194; knighted by George III, 195- 
 197; sends expedition to Mar 
 tinique, 197; encourages settlement 
 in the Mohawk Valley, 197; grants 
 land near Niagara, 199; refers 
 Eleazer Wheelock to the proper 
 authorities, 201; troubled by trade 
 
INDEX 
 
 33i 
 
 with the enemy, 201, 203; lays 
 embargo on American shipping, 
 206; sends troops to Havana, 207; 
 sends William Amherst to recover 
 Newfoundland, 211; his troubles 
 with the Indians, 213; his Indian 
 policy, 215; sends Cuyler s de 
 tachment to supply western posts, 
 228; learns of Pontiac s War, 229- 
 230; sends reinforcements to De 
 troit, 230; sends relief to Fort 
 Pitt, 234; suggests extermination 
 of Indians by smallpox, 235; orders 
 M. Neyon to discourage Pontiac, 
 240; estimate of his handling of 
 Pontiac s War, 240-242; returns to 
 England, 243; presented at court, 
 244; attacked by Charles Lee, 244- 
 246; inherits family estate, 246; 
 builds "Montreal," 246; com 
 memorates fraternal reunion, 247; 
 his botanical interest, 248; por 
 traits of, 249-250; made lieutenant- 
 general, 250; declines office in 
 Ireland, 250; marries Elizabeth 
 Gary, 251; favors a colony in the 
 Northwest, 252; quarrels with the 
 Ministry, 254-260; demands peer 
 age, etc., 261; is rehabilitated, 
 262-263; as ks for Jesuit estates in 
 Canada, 264-266; made governor 
 of Guernsey, 266-267; appointed 
 to the Ordnance, 267; member of 
 the Privy Council, 267; as a 
 courtier, 268-269; George III ex 
 presses his opinion of, 269; burnt 
 in effigy, 273; supports the Stamp 
 Act, 274; to succeed Gage, 277- 
 278; declines to serve in America, 
 278-280; alleged boast of, 280; 
 probable reason for not going to 
 America, 281-283; influences the 
 conduct of the American War, 283, 
 
 285-286; granted a peerage, 286; 
 confesses employment of Indians, 
 287, 288; again declines American 
 command, 289; advises new plan 
 of war, 291-292; commander-in- 
 chief in England, 295; at the Privy 
 Council meetings, 297-298; criti 
 cized by Keppel, 298; entertains 
 the King, 299; disciplines the 
 "King s friends," 300; colonel of 
 the Horse Guards, 300; on the 
 Militia Bill, 301; attacked by 
 Richmond, 303-305; his defence, 
 304; crushes the Gordon Riots, 
 309; accused of disarming citizens 
 illegally, 310; partly responsible 
 for England s defeat in the Am 
 erican War, 311-312; retires 
 to "Montreal," 312; appointed 
 "Gold Stick," 314; his appearance 
 and personality at sixty-five, 314- 
 315; his friendship with Hutchin- 
 son, 315; criticized by Haldimand 
 and Walpole, 316-317; president 
 of the American Club, 317; his 
 final efforts to possess the Jesuit 
 Estates, 317-320; adopts his 
 nephew and niece, 320-322; 
 reappointed commander-in-chief, 
 322; unjustly criticized for decline 
 of army, 323-324; retires, 324; 
 death and burial of, 325; peculiar 
 features in his career, 325-326; 
 estimate of his ability, 326-328. 
 
 Amherst, Reverend Jeffery, ancestor 
 of Jeffery Amherst, 3. 
 
 Amherst, Jeffery, Sr., 3; death of, 
 
 22. 
 
 Amherst, John, brother of Jeffery, 4; 
 his early career, 4; commands the 
 "Captain" at Louisburg, 75; at 
 Sevenoaks, 247-248; death of, 
 320. 
 
332 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Amherst, Lady, 316; see also Gary, 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 Amherst, Richard, steward of the 
 Earl of Dorset, 4. 
 
 Amherst, Sackville, brother of Jeffery 
 Amherst, 4; significance of his 
 name, 4; inherits the estate at 
 Riverhead, 22; death of, 246. 
 
 Amherst, William, brother of Jef 
 fery, 5; aide-de-camp at Louisburg, 
 89; sent to England with news of 
 surrender, 89; rewarded by George 
 II, 90-91; goes to Philadelphia, 
 126; takes news of Ticonderoga to 
 England, 144; recovers Newfound 
 land, 211-212; at Sevenoaks, 247- 
 248; his botanical interest, 248; 
 governor of Newfoundland, 320; 
 one of "the King s friends," 320; 
 death of, 320. 
 
 Amherst, William Pitt, adopted by 
 Lord Amherst, 320-321; career 
 of, 321. 
 
 Amherst, Mass., named for Jeffery 
 Amherst, 117. 
 
 Amherst, N. H., named for Jeffery 
 Amherst, 117. 
 
 Amherst County, Va., named in 
 honor of Jeffery Amherst, 117-118. 
 
 "Apollon," the, a French ship sunk 
 at Louisburg, 81. 
 
 "Arethuse," a French frigate at 
 Louisburg, 79. 
 
 Army of Observation, commanded 
 by Cumberland, 38; defeated at 
 Hastenbeck, 38; demoralization of, 
 39; surrender of, 40; regenerated 
 by Ferdinand, 41; goes into winter 
 quarters, 42. 
 
 B 
 
 Barrington, Lord, his estimate of 
 Lord Botetourt, 259; on the con 
 duct of the American War, 282; 
 
 on the British generals of the time, 
 296; suggests Prince Ferdinand 
 for chief command, 296. 
 
 Bastide, Colonel, chief engineer of 
 Louisburg expedition, reconnoitres 
 before the town, 78-79. 
 
 Bath, Knights of the, installation of, 
 195-196; regalia of, 249. 
 
 Berkeley, Norborne, see Botetourt. 
 
 Bernard, Governor Francis, enter 
 tains Amherst, 130; reveals illegal 
 trade of Boston, 205. 
 
 " Bienfaisant," the, French man-of- 
 war at Louisburg, 84; captured by 
 the British, 86-87. 
 
 Bloody Bridge, the fight at, 231-232. 
 
 Boscawen, Admiral Edward, ordered 
 to Louisburg, 55; called "Old 
 Dreadnought," 55; sails for Amer 
 ica, 61; reaches Halifax, 65; pro 
 ceeds towards Louisburg, 65; lends 
 Amherst sailors and guns, 81; his 
 co-operation with Amherst, 81; 
 called "Old-Wry-necked Dick," 81; 
 orders the capture of the "Pru 
 dent" and the "Bienfaisant," 86; 
 contemplates entering the harbor, 
 87; assures Drucour of clemency, 
 88; sends Captain Edgecomb to 
 England with news of Louisburg, 
 89-90; discourages Quebec enter 
 prise, 100; returns to England, 104. 
 
 Boscawen, Mrs., 247. 
 
 "Boscawen," the sloop, 161. 
 
 Boston, celebrates the fall of Louis 
 burg, 92; fetes Amherst and his 
 men, 109; celebrates the fall of 
 New France, 185; riot in, 254; 
 British soldiers sent to, 275. 
 
 Boston Tea Party, the, 276. 
 
 Botetourt, Lord, appointed governor 
 of Virginia, 257; character of, 258; 
 Barrington s opinion of, 259. 
 
INDEX 
 
 333 
 
 Bouquet, Colonel Henry, 234; his 
 hatred of the Indians, 234-235; 
 marches to the relief of Fort Pitt, 
 235-237; attacked at Edge Hill, 
 237; his remarkable stratagem, 
 238; relieves Fort Pitt, 239. 
 
 Bourlamaque, Chevalier de, in com 
 mand at Ticonderoga, 139; aban 
 dons the fort, 141; retreats to 
 Crown Point, 145; at Isle aux Noix, 
 158, 163. 
 
 Braddock s expedition, defeat of, 
 
 33- 
 
 Brant, Molly, 217. 
 " Brook s Place," home of the Am- 
 
 herst family, 3; destroyed, 246. 
 Burton, Colonel, governor of Three 
 
 Rivers, 188. 
 Bushy Run, the battle of, 237-239. 
 
 Campbell, Captain, second in com 
 mand at Detroit, 220; murdered 
 by the Indians, 225. 
 
 Canada, constitution of, under Am- 
 herst, 187-188. 
 
 "Capricieux," the, French man-of- 
 war at Louisburg, burned, 84. 
 
 "Captain," the, commanded by John 
 Amherst, 75; at Louisburg, 75; 
 conveys Amherst to Boston, 109. 
 
 Carrillon, see Ticonderoga. 
 
 Cary, Elizabeth, second wife of 
 Amherst, 251. 
 
 Castle, the, now Fort Independence, 
 Amherst views, 113; celebrates the 
 fall of New France, 185. 
 
 "Celebre," the, a French ship at 
 Louisburg, blown up, 83. 
 
 Celoron de Bienville, takes possession 
 of the Ohio Valley, 28. 
 
 Chandler, Colonel, entertains Am 
 herst, no. 
 
 Charlestown, N. H., see Number 
 Four. 
 
 Chatham, the Earl of, see Pitt, 
 William. 
 
 Cherokees, supplies go to, 205; their 
 dangerous uprising, 213. 
 
 Chesterfield, Lord, his remarks on 
 the capture of Louisburg, 90. 
 
 Clinton, General Henry, appointed 
 commander-in-chief in America, 
 292; accounts for his failure in the 
 American War, 311-312. 
 
 Golden, Governor Cadwallader, en 
 courages settlement in the Mohawk 
 Valley, 197-198; reprimanded by 
 the Privy Council, 198. 
 
 Colville, Lord, commands squadron 
 off Newfoundland, 211-212. 
 
 Conway, Henry Seymour, retires 
 from the Ordnance, 267; comman 
 der-in-chief, 322; Amherst s natural 
 rival, 326. 
 
 Cornwallis, Lord, surrenders at York- 
 town, 311. 
 
 Cotterel-Dormer, Sir Charles, Am 
 herst s proxy, 196. 
 
 Cotton bales, substituted for earth 
 works, 209. 
 
 Coutume de Paris, continues in 
 force in Canada, 186-187. 
 
 Crown Point, French fort at, 95; 
 Bourlamaque retreats to, 145; 
 abandoned by the French, 146; oc 
 cupied by the English, 146; Am 
 herst builds new fort at, 148, 150, 
 164; the proposed colony includ 
 ing, 168; progress of the work at, 
 190. 
 
 Crump, General, 203. 
 
 Cumberland, William Augustus, 
 Duke of, commands British con 
 tingent at Fontenoy, 15; defeats 
 the Young Pretender at Culloden, 
 
334 
 
 INDEX 
 
 17; appointed commander-in-chief 
 of the allied army, 18; appoints 
 Amherst aide-de-camp, 19; de 
 feated at Laffeldt, 19; urged to 
 take command on the Continent, 
 37; commands Army of Observa 
 tion, 38; defeated at Hastenbeck, 
 98; his failing eye-sight, 38; re 
 treats towards Stade, 39; sur 
 renders at Kloster Zeven, 40; 
 retires from military career, 41; 
 the last Captain-General, 56-57; 
 Amherst names fort for, 179; 
 Knight of the Bath, 195. 
 
 Cuyler, Lieutenant, commands expe 
 dition to supply Northwest posts, 
 228; attacked by Wyandots, 228. 
 
 Cuyler s detachment, captured by 
 the Wyandots, 228; fate of, 228- 
 229. 
 
 D 
 
 Dalison, Jane, first wife of Jeffery 
 Amherst, 22; death of, 250. 
 
 Dalling, Major, ordered to remove 
 French from Espagnolle, 101. 
 
 Dalyell, Captain, Amherst s aide-de 
 camp, 230; relieves Detroit, 230; 
 attacks Pontiac, 231; death of, 
 232; mutilation of his body, 232. 
 
 Dartmouth, Lord, appoints Skene 
 lieutenant-governor, 168; approves 
 sending Amherst to America, 277; 
 resigns, 283-284. 
 
 Dartmouth College, founded, 201. 
 
 Declaratory Act, the, 274. 
 
 Denny, Governor, of Pennsylvania, 
 127; his dilemma, 127; disobeys 
 his instructions, 128; loses his 
 office, 128; connected with illegal 
 trade, 205. 
 
 Des Gouttes, French naval com 
 mander at Louisburg, 77-78. 
 
 Detroit, English fort at, 220; at 
 tacked by Pontiac, 225; first relief 
 comes to, 229; Amherst sends 
 reinforcements to, 230; Lee sug 
 gests new government at, 245. 
 
 Dettingen, battle of, Amherst s first 
 taste of war, 13; significance of, 
 
 13-14- 
 Dinwiddie, Governor of Virginia, 
 
 sends Washington to Fort Le 
 
 Boeuf, 31; sends soldiers to Fort 
 
 Duquesne, 32. 
 Dominica, expedition against, 192, 
 
 193- 
 
 Dongan, Governor Thomas, takes 
 the Iroquois under the protection 
 of the King of England, 26. 
 
 Dorchester, Lord, Governor of Que 
 bec, 318; dislikes Amherst, 319. 
 
 Dorset, Duke of, see Sackville, Lionel 
 Cranfield. 
 
 Drucour, Chevalier de, governor of 
 Louisburg, 68; blockades the 
 harbor, 80-8 1 ; exchanges courtesies 
 with Amherst, 82; asks immunity 
 for hospital, 82; proposes terms 
 of surrender, 87; surrenders to 
 Amherst and Boscawen, 88-89. 
 
 Drucour, Madame, Amherst expresses 
 solicitude for the comfort of, 82; 
 sends wine to Amherst, 82. 
 
 "Dublin," the, conveys Amherst to 
 America, 61-65; at Rochefort, 61; 
 commanded by Rodney, 62; cap 
 tures a prize, 62-63; meets a 
 Virginia ship, 64; Amherst leaves, 
 65. 
 
 " Duke of Cumberland," the brigan- 
 tine, 161. 
 
 Dundas, Henry, 324. 
 
 "Dunkirk of America," the, a name 
 for Louisburg, 65, 68, 86, 91, 
 190. 
 
INDEX 
 
 33S 
 
 Duquesne de Menneville, Marquis, 
 governor of Canada, 29; his aggres 
 sive policy in the Ohio Valley, 30; 
 his expedition commits first overt 
 act of war, 31. 
 
 Duquesne, Fort, erected by the 
 French, 32; Braddock s defeat 
 before, 33; Pitt plans capture of, 
 54; evacuated by the French, 116. 
 
 Easton, theTreaty of, 129; provisions 
 of, 214. 
 
 Ecuyer, Captain, in command of Fort 
 Pitt, 232; his enjoyment of the 
 siege, 233. 
 
 Edgecomb, Captain, sent to England 
 with news of Louisburg, 90; re 
 warded by George II, 90. 
 
 Edge Hill, the battle at, see Bushy 
 Run. 
 
 Edward, Fort, Indian depredations 
 near, 118; Amherst halts at, 134. 
 
 England, enters War of Austrian Suc 
 cession, n; declares war against 
 France, 34; makes an alliance with 
 Prussia, 36; declares war against 
 Spain, 206. 
 
 " Entreprenant," the, French man-of- 
 war, burned at Louisburg, 84. 
 
 d Estrees, Marshal, forces battle on 
 Cumberland at Hastenbeck, 38. 
 
 Fauquier, Francis, governor of Vir 
 ginia, 258. 
 
 Ferdinand, Prince of Brunswick, 
 commands Army of Observation, 
 41; Amherst s opinion of, 41; 
 suggested for chief command in 
 England, 296. 
 
 Feudalism, disintegration of in Can 
 ada, 186-187. 
 
 Fontenoy, the battle of, 15-16. 
 
 Foot Guards, the, Amherst an ensign 
 in, 8; origin and history of, 8-9; 
 uniform of, 10; ordered to the 
 Continent, 11. 
 
 Forbes, Brigadier-General John, 
 ordered to attack Fort Duquesne, 
 54; his campaign, 115-116; founds 
 Pittsburgh, 116. 
 
 Fort Royal, 197. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, agent for Penn 
 sylvania, 251; supports project for 
 a colony in the Northwest, 252- 
 253; discourages the enforcement 
 of the Stamp Adi, 274; his acquaint 
 ance with Amherst, 327. 
 
 Franklin, William, governor of New 
 Jersey, plans colony in the North 
 west, 251. 
 
 Frederic, Fort, see Crown Point. 
 
 French America, expansion of, 25-29; 
 effect of Treaty of Utrecht upon, 
 27; effect of campaign of 1758 
 upon, 116. 
 
 Freshwater Cove, 71; Wolfe lands at, 
 
 71-73- 
 
 Fry, Colonel Joshua, commands 
 Virginia Regiment, 32. 
 
 Gabarus Bay, 68; English fleet 
 anchors in, 69. 
 
 Gage, Brigadier-General Thomas, in 
 council of war, 112; in command 
 at Albany, 165; with Amherst at 
 Oswego, 176; governor of Mon 
 treal, 1 88; commander-in-chief in 
 North America, 243; visits "Mon 
 treal," 246; favors a colony in the 
 Northwest, 251; closes the port of 
 Boston, 276; governor of Massa 
 chusetts Bay, 276. 
 
336 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gainsborough, his portrait of Am- 
 herst, 249. 
 
 Galissoniere, Marquis de la, governor 
 of Canada, sends expedition to 
 take possession of the Ohio Valley, 
 28. 
 
 Gaspe, French settlement at, de 
 stroyed by Wolfe, 103. 
 
 Genevay, Captain, 318. 
 
 George II, at L Dettingen, 13; ready 
 for peace, 19-20; urges Cum 
 berland to command Army of 
 Observation, 37; remarks about 
 Cumberland, 41; retains nominal 
 supremacy in the army, 57; con 
 sents to Amherst s appointment, 
 59; rewards William Amherst and 
 Captain Edgecomb, 90-91. 
 
 George III, character of, 244; smiles 
 upon Amherst, 244; his political 
 methods 259-260; his opinion of 
 Amherst, 269; decides to discipline 
 America, 276; asks Amherst to go 
 to America, 278, 289; asks Am 
 herst s advice on the conduct of the 
 war, 291-292; at Privy Council 
 meetings, 298; visits "Montreal," 
 299; as a political boss, 300; nulli 
 fies the Riot Act, 309. 
 
 George, Fort, begun by Amherst, 137; 
 its existence justified, 138; in- 
 spedled by Amherst, 164. 
 
 Germain, Lord George, see Sackville, 
 Lord George. 
 
 Germans, colony of in Acadia, 
 103. 
 
 Gist, Christopher, sent by Ohio Com 
 pany to explore western lands. 
 
 Gladwin, Major, learns of Pontiac s 
 conspiracy, 220-221; outwits Pon- 
 tiac, 223; proposes a truce, 225; 
 yields to Dalyell, 231; makes a 
 truce with Indians, 239-240. 
 
 Gloucester, Duchess of, see Walpole, 
 Maria. 
 
 Gloucester, Duke of, marries Maria 
 Walpole, 268; hopes to be com- 
 mander-in-chief, 295. 
 
 "Gold Stick," the, 314. 
 
 Gordon, Lieutenant, tortured by the 
 Indians, 227-228. 
 
 Gordon, Lord George, 306. 
 
 Gordon Riots, the, 306-310. 
 
 Grafton, the Duke of, 261. 
 
 Grand Battery, the, part of the de 
 fences of Louisburg, 67; abandoned 
 by the French, 75-76. 
 
 Graves, Captain, governor of New 
 foundland, 211-212. 
 
 Great Meadows, Washington at, 32. 
 
 Green Hill, a strategic point before 
 Louisburg, 79; a road made to, 
 79-80; lodgment effected upon, 80. 
 
 Grenville, George, prime minister, 
 his opinion of Amherst, 250; insti 
 tutes the "New Policy," 270; 
 dismissed, 273. 
 
 Guernsey, the Island of, Amherst 
 appointed governor of, 266-267. 
 
 H 
 
 Haldimand, Colonel, at Oswego, 147; 
 
 takes possession of the gates of 
 
 Montreal, 184; entertained by 
 
 Amherst, 316; his criticisms of 
 
 Amherst, 316-317. 
 Hanover, Electorate of, perilous 
 
 position of, 34. 
 Hardy, Vice-Admiral Sir Charles, 
 
 ordered to blockade Louisburg, 61; 
 
 his squadron at the siege, 75, 81; 
 
 baffles the Bourbon armada, 303. 
 Harvey, General, on the futility of 
 
 land campaigns, 281. 
 Hastenbeck, battle of, 38; Louisburg 
 
 surrendered on anniversary of, 89; 
 
INDEX 
 
 337 
 
 Ticonderoga blown up on anniver 
 sary of, 143. 
 
 Haussonville, the Comte de, captures 
 Newfoundland, 211; surrenders to 
 William Amherst, 212. 
 
 Havana, British expedition against, 
 207-210; surrender of, 210. 
 
 Haviland, Colonel, 171; troops as 
 signed to, 175; drives the French 
 from Isle aux Noix, 179-180; before 
 Montreal, 181. 
 
 Hessians, in British service, 34; 
 Amherst in charge of commissariat, 
 34; sent to England, 34-35; return 
 to Germany, 37. 
 
 Hill, Wills, see Hillsborough. 
 
 Hillsborough, Earl of, opposes 
 scheme for a colony in the North 
 west, 252-253; his letter to 
 Amherst, 255-256; quarrels with 
 Amherst, 256-260; at the meetings 
 of the Privy Council, 297. 
 
 Holburne, Admiral, fails to capture 
 Louisburg, 75. 
 
 Holdernesse, Lord, Secretary of State, 
 45; orders Amherst to return to 
 England, 42, 59. 
 
 Hopkins, Governor Stephen, justifies 
 illicit trade, 205. 
 
 Howe, Brigadier Lord, aide-de-camp 
 of the Duke of Cumberland, 18; 
 actual leader of Abercromby s 
 army, 95; character of, 95; 
 changes soldiers uniforms to suit 
 wilderness warfare, 95; moves 
 against Ticonderoga, 96; death 
 and burial, 97. 
 
 Howe, General William, knighted at 
 New York, 197; his inefficiency, 
 289; recalled, 292. 
 
 Howe, Viscount, confers knighthood 
 upon General Howe, 197; president 
 of the American Club. 
 
 Hutchinson, Thomas, governor of 
 Massachusetts, appreciates impor 
 tance of Amherst s army-in-being, 
 157-158; his house demolished by 
 a mob, 273; discusses the American 
 War with Amherst, 283; his friend 
 ship with Amherst, 315. 
 
 lie St. Jean, see Prince Edward 
 Island. 
 
 Indians, at Louisburg, 67; near Fort 
 Edward, 118; Amherst s contempt 
 for, 118; Amherst confers with at 
 Philadelphia 129-130; employed 
 before Niagara, 147; join Am 
 herst s forces at Oswego, 176; 
 disgusted with Amherst s hu 
 manity, 179; receive medals for 
 services, 194; Amherst s troubles 
 with, 213; their grievances, 213- 
 215; employment of criticized, 
 286-289. 
 
 "Invincible," the, a radeau, 140. 
 
 Iroquois, or Five Nations, become 
 English subjects, 25-26; hostility 
 to the French, 26; their domain, 
 26; France recognizes as English 
 subjects, 27; their wavering al 
 legiance, 129; land granted to near 
 Niagara, 199; assured of their 
 lands, 214. 
 
 Island Battery, the, part of the de 
 fences of Louisburg, 67; Wolfe 
 bombards, and silences, 78. 
 
 Isle aux Noix, Bourlamaque s defences 
 at, 163; Haviland captures, 179- 
 180; fortifications destroyed at, 
 190. 
 
 J 
 
 Jesuit estates in Canada, the, extent 
 of, 264-265; confiscation of, 265; 
 sought by Amherst, 265-266; Am- 
 
338 
 
 INDEX 
 
 herst s final effort to possess, 317- 
 320; their value, 319. 
 
 Jesuits, condemned by France, 265. 
 
 Johnson, Sir William, 129; meets 
 Amherst at Schenectady, 132; to 
 provide Indians for Niagara cam 
 paign, 133; takes command before 
 Niagara, 147; congratulated by 
 Amherst, 165; brings Indians to 
 Oswego, 176; sent to Detroit on 
 Indian business, 194; his Indian 
 policy, 216-219; his career, 217- 
 218; plans colony in the Northwest, 
 251; tries to procure land for 
 Indians, 264. 
 
 Junius, champions Amherst, 260. 
 
 K 
 
 Kemble, Major, 246. 
 
 Keppel, Admiral, 298. 
 
 Kerril, Elizabeth, mother of Jeffery 
 Amherst, 3; death of, 22. 
 
 "Kings friends," the, 260; dis 
 ciplined by Amherst, 300; William 
 Amherst, one of, 320. 
 
 Kloster Zeven, Convention of, 39- 
 41; George II disavows, 41; Mon 
 treal surrenders on anniversary of, 
 184. 
 
 "Knole," the seat of the Duke of 
 Dorset, 4, 247. 
 
 Knox, Captain John, the soldier- 
 historian, 78; describes the terrain 
 at Louisburg, 78. 
 
 Laffeldt, battle of, Cumberland de 
 feated at, 19. 
 
 Lake George, the battle of, 217- 
 218. 
 
 La Salle, Sieur de, takes possession of 
 the Mississippi Valley for Louis 
 XIV, 25. 
 
 Lawrence, Charles, appointed briga 
 dier in Louisburg expedition, 55; 
 reconnoitres the shore of Louisburg, 
 69; makes a landing, 73. 
 
 Le Boeuf, Fort, French erect, 30; 
 Washington appears at, 30-31; 
 captured by the Indians, 227. 
 
 Lee, Major Charles, makes trouble 
 for Amherst, 244-245; his coloniz 
 ing schemes, 245; president of the 
 American Club, 317. 
 
 Levis, Chevalier de, sent to defend 
 Montreal, 158; attempts to recap 
 ture Quebec, 173-175; objects to 
 terms of surrender of Montreal, 
 183; burns French flags, 184; his 
 mendacious explanation, 185; his 
 discourtesy, 185. 
 
 Levis, Fort, captured by Amherst, 
 177-179; renamed William Augus 
 tus, 179. 
 
 " Liberty," the seizure of the, 254. 
 
 Lighthouse Point, at Louisburg, 
 Wolfe seizes, 77. 
 
 Ligonier, General John, early military 
 career of, 12; chooses Amherst as 
 aide-de-camp, 12; returns to Eng 
 land to oppose the Young Pre 
 tender, 16; goes to the Netherlands, 
 18; saves the army at Laffeldt, 19; 
 appointed commander-in-chief, 56- 
 57; advises Pitt in the selection of 
 commanders, 56-59; brings Am 
 herst to the notice of Pitt, 58; 
 stands sponsor for Amherst, 59; 
 governor of Guernsey, 267; death 
 of, 267. 
 
 Lindsay, Sir David, 305. 
 
 London, Lord, makes unsuccessful 
 attack upon Louisburg, 54; re 
 called, 55. 
 
 Louisburg, London fails to capture, 
 54; Pitt plans campaign against, 
 
INDEX 
 
 339 
 
 55; situation of, 66; captured by 
 New Englanders, 66; returned to 
 France, 66; its strength, 67; its 
 weakness, 67; its fortifications, 68; 
 initial losses of the British before, 
 74; siege of begins, 74; French 
 garrison at, 74; French fleet at, 
 74; nature of the terrain about, 78; 
 British camp before, 78; French 
 make sortie from, 81; climax of 
 the siege of, 84-87; pitiable condi 
 tion of, 86; negotiations for the 
 surrender of, 87-89; surrender of, 
 89; effect of the surrender in Eng 
 land, 90; England celebrates the 
 capture of, 91; American rejoicing 
 at the news from, 91-92; a resort 
 of privateers, 91; "The Reduction 
 of Louisburg," 92-93; its defences 
 completely demolished, 190: Am- 
 herst asks for coal-mines at, 261. 
 " Lowestoffe," the, relieves Quebec, 
 
 175- 
 Lyttelton, Sir Richard, 266. 
 
 M 
 
 Mansfield, Lord, Chief Justice, his 
 house destroyed, 307. 
 
 Martinique, Pitt plans expedition 
 against, 192-193; the British cap 
 ture, 197. 
 
 Maryland declines to furnish troops, 
 125, 128. 
 
 Messerve, Colonel, commands New 
 Hampshire carpenters at Louis- 
 burg, 80; dies of smallpox, 80. 
 
 Miami, Fort, 226. 
 
 Michilimackinac, Fort, massacre at, 
 226. 
 
 Militia Bill of 1779, 301. 
 
 "Mohawk," the, on Lake Ontario, 
 176; in the Thousand Islands, 
 177. 
 
 Monckton, Robert, at Dettingen, 14; 
 governor of New York, 196; con 
 fers knighthood on Amherst, 196; 
 commands troops at Marti 
 nique, 197. 
 
 Montcalm, Marquis de, captures Fort 
 William Henry, 54; his forces in 
 1758, 96; fortifies himself at Ticon- 
 deroga, 97-98; repulses Aber- 
 cromby, 98-99; his losses, 99; 
 death of, 157. 
 
 Montreal, British concentrate before, 
 181-182; appearance of, 182; its 
 fortifications, 182; surrenders to 
 Amherst, 183. 
 
 "Montreal," Amherst s house, built, 
 246-247; George III visits, 299. 
 
 Montresor, Colonel, 144. 
 
 Moor s School, 200. 
 
 Moore, Commodore, 203. 
 
 Morro Castle, the chief fortification 
 of Havana, 208; besieged by the 
 British, 208-210; surrender of, 210. 
 
 Munchausen, Baron, Hanoverian 
 minister at London, renders an 
 account, 60. 
 
 Murray, Brigadier, to attack Mon 
 treal from the east, 171; attacked 
 at Quebec by the French, 172-174; 
 approaches Montreal, 179, 181; 
 governor of Quebec, 188; on Am 
 herst s being commander-in-chief, 
 296. 
 
 N 
 
 "Namur," the, Boscawen s flag 
 ship, 65; Amherst goes on board, 
 65; size of, 75. 
 
 Necessity, Fort, Washington builds, 
 32; surrendered to the French, 33. 
 
 Netherlands, the, join in the Ameri 
 can War, 311. 
 
 Nevill, Valentine, author of "The 
 Reduction of Louisburg," 92. 
 
340 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Newcastle, the Duke of, dismisses 
 Pitt, 43; resigns, 44; forms coali 
 tion with Pitt, 46; declines to 
 attend Cabinet meeting, 58; en 
 dorses Pitt s program for 1758, 59; 
 demands explanation of Amherst s 
 forage contracts, 60. 
 
 Newfoundland, captured by the 
 French, 211; recovered by William 
 Amherst, 211-212. 
 
 New Hampshire, claims land west of 
 the Connecticut, 167. 
 
 New Orleans, founded by the French, 
 27. 
 
 "New Policy," the, 270-272. 
 
 New York, celebrates the fall of 
 Louisburg, 92; gives Amherst the 
 freedom of the city, 190-191; illicit 
 trade of, 204. 
 
 New York, Province of, claims title 
 to the New Hampshire grants, 167. 
 
 Neyon, M., French commandant in 
 the Illinois country, discourages 
 Pontiac s War, 240. 
 
 Niagara, Amherst plans campaign 
 against, 131-133; Prideaux lays 
 siege to, 147; surrender of, 148. 
 
 North, Lord, prime minister, decides 
 to discipline America, 276; pro 
 poses conciliation, 291; on the 
 British generals, 296; at a Privy 
 Council meeting, 297; resigns, 
 312. 
 
 Number Four, Amherst constructs 
 road from Crown Point to, 150-151; 
 Rogers retreats to, 161. 
 
 Obelisk, the, at Montreal, 247-248. 
 
 Ogdensburg, N. Y., Amherst halts 
 at, 176. 
 
 Ohio Company, formation and activ 
 ity of, 29. 
 
 "Old Dreadnought," nickname for 
 
 Admiral Boscawen, 55. 
 "Old Wry-necked Dick," nickname 
 
 for Admiral Boscawen, 81. 
 "Onondaga," the, on Lake Ontario, 
 
 176; in the Thousand Islands, 177. 
 Oswego, fort to be built at, 133, 147; 
 
 nature of defences at, 175. 
 "Ottawa," the, 178. 
 Ottawas, the, continue war against 
 
 the English, 240. 
 Otter Creek, Amherst sends exploring 
 
 party to, 151. 
 Ouatanon, 226. 
 
 Penn, Thomas, reports trade with 
 the enemy, 204. 
 
 Pennsylvania, declines to furnish 
 quota of troops, 125; political 
 situation in, 127. 
 
 Philadelphia, celebrates the fall of 
 Louisburg, 92; Amherst visits, 
 126-130; illicit trade of, 204-205. 
 
 Pitt, William, the Elder, Cumberland 
 objects to service under, 37; dis 
 missed by Newcastle, 43; becomes 
 Secretary of State, 44; dismissed, 
 45; forms coalition with Newcastle, 
 46; character of, 47-53, his elo 
 quence, 47-49; his mastery of men, 
 49; political standards, 49-50; his 
 inconsistencies, 50-51; his nervous 
 irritability, 51-52; his ill health, 
 52, 53; dazzled by royalty 52-53; 
 his judicious selection of officers, 56; 
 aided by Sir John Ligonier, 56-59; 
 will not appoint Amherst without 
 Newcastle s consent, 58-59; con 
 gratulated by Temple, 90; con 
 gratulates Amherst, 114; orders 
 Wolfe to attack Quebec, 120; plans 
 campaign for 1759, 120-122; calls 
 
INDEX 
 
 for provincial troops, 124-125; his 
 instructions for the campaign of 
 1760, 171; plans attack on the 
 West Indies, 192; sends insignia of 
 the Bath to New York, 196; in 
 vestigates trade with the enemy, 
 204-205; Amherst dedicates obe 
 lisk to, 247; urges Amherst to go 
 to Ireland, 251; on Amherst s dis 
 missal, 263; resigns from premier 
 ship, 263; and the Rockingham 
 Whigs, 273; breaks down, 275; 
 on the futility of a land war in 
 America, 282; condemns employ 
 ment of Indians in American War, 
 286-289; last speech and death of, 
 293-294, 296. 
 
 Pitt, William, the Younger, prime 
 minister, causes the decline of the 
 army, 323-324. 
 
 Pitt, Fort, attacked by the Indians, 
 232; besieged 233; relieved by 
 Bouquet, 239. 
 
 Pittsburgh, founded, 116. 
 
 Plains of Abraham, the, battle of, 157. 
 
 Plymouth, closed to navigation, 302; 
 its defenceless condition, 303-305. 
 
 Pocock, Admiral Sir George, con 
 voys expedition against Havana, 
 207; enriched by fall of Havana, 
 210. 
 
 Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas, heads 
 Indian discontent, 219; plans mas 
 sacre at Detroit, 220-221; out 
 witted by Gladwin, 223-224; 
 openly attacks Detroit, 225; dis 
 couraged by M. Neyon, 240. 
 
 Pontiac s War, causes of, 213-217; 
 breaks out at Detroit, 225; course 
 of in the Lake Region, 226-228; 
 news of reaches Amherst, 229; 
 around Fort Pitt, 232-239; wane 
 of, 239-240; ended by the Neyon 
 
 letter, 240; its connection with the 
 "New Policy," 271. 
 
 Pouchot, Captain, defends Niagara, 
 147; surrenders, 148; defends 
 Fort Levis, 177; surrenders to 
 Amherst, 178-179; increases Am 
 herst s apprehensions of the rapids, 
 179. 
 
 Pownall, John, member of Parlia 
 ment, 277. 
 
 Pownall, Thomas, governor of Massa 
 chusetts-Bay, no; his relations 
 with Amherst, 113; his activity, 
 124-125. 
 
 Presqu isle, French erect fort at, 30; 
 Indians capture British fort at, 
 226-227. 
 
 Prideaux, Brigadier-General, in 
 charge of Niagara expedition, 133; 
 lays siege to Niagara, 147; his 
 death, 147. 
 
 Prince Edward Island, surrendered 
 with Louisburg, 89; its importance 
 to the French, 102; Lord Rollo 
 removes population from, 102-103. 
 
 Privateers, bring mechant-men into 
 New York, 124; in the American 
 War, 283. 
 
 Privy Council, the, its meetings under 
 George III, 297-298; its opinion 
 on the Riot Act, 308-309. 
 
 Proclamation of 1763, less acceptable 
 than Amherst s constitution in 
 Canada, 188; traceable to order 
 in council of 1761, 198; defines 
 limit of colonization, 215, 251. 
 
 Provost, Brigadier, Wolfe s characteri 
 zation of, 107. 
 
 "Prudent," the, French man-of-war 
 at Louisburg, 84; captured and 
 burned, 86. 
 
 Putnam, Major Israel, commands 
 rangers, 96. 
 
342 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Quebec, the capital of New France, 
 27; to be attacked after Louisburg, 
 55; Amherst hopes to capture, 94; 
 Boscawen discourages enterprise 
 against, 100; Pitt orders attack 
 upon, 120; surrenders to the 
 English, 157; Levis attempts to 
 recapture, 173-175; Amherst visits, 
 190. 
 
 R 
 
 Revolution, the American, causes of, 
 270-277; futility of British land 
 campaigns in, 281-283; course of, 
 286; France enters, 290-291; last 
 years of, 292-293, 311-312; Am- 
 herst s influence upon the course 
 of, 283, 285-286, 292. 
 
 Reynolds, Joshua, paints portrait of 
 Amherst, 249; his portraits of 
 Maria Walpole, 268. 
 
 Rice, Lieutenant, of Connecticut, 
 wrestles with an English major, 
 
 154- 
 
 Richmond, the Duke of, Whig leader, 
 opposes the Militia Bill, 301; at 
 tacks Amherst, 303-305; questions 
 Amherst s method of suppressing 
 the Gordon Riots, 3 10. 
 
 Riot Act, the, its dangerous pro 
 visions, 308; ignored by George 
 HI, 309. 
 
 Riverhead, Jeffery Amherst born at, 
 
 3- 
 Rochefort, unsuccessful expedition 
 
 against, 53. 
 
 Rockingham, the Marquess of, 273. 
 Rodney, Captain George Brydges, 
 
 commands the "Dublin," 62; 
 
 sketch of, 62; captures a prize, 
 
 62-63; commands prison-ships after 
 
 Louisburg, 100; commands fleet 
 
 at Martinique, 197. 
 
 Rogers, Major Robert, skirmishes 
 with the French, 124; attacks St. 
 Francis Indians, 158-160; retreats 
 to Number Four, 161; sent to 
 Detroit, 189; takes possession of 
 western posts, 215; at the siege of 
 Detroit, 230, 232. 
 
 Rollo, Colonel Lord, removes in 
 habitants from Prince Edward 
 Island, 101, 102-103; leads expedi 
 tion against Dominica and Santa 
 Lucia, 193. 
 
 Roosevelt, Nicholas, 190. 
 
 Royal Americans, the, Amherst be 
 comes colonel of, 114. 
 
 Rum, given to soldiers at Boston, 
 109; Amherst prohibits use of, 
 
 I34-I35- 
 
 S 
 
 Sable River, Amherst sends exploring 
 party to, 151. 
 
 Sackville, Lord George, speaks well 
 of Amherst, 13; capacity at Det- 
 tingen, 14; Amherst writes impres 
 sions of America to, 118; early 
 life of, 284; secretary of state, 285; 
 at a Privy Council meeting, 297; 
 chief defect of his administration, 
 311; demands a peerage, 312; his 
 final humiliation, 313. 
 
 Sackville, Lionel Cranfield, first Duke 
 of Dorset, neighbor of Jeffery 
 Amherst, Sr., 4; his residence, 
 " Knole," 4; a factor in the life of 
 Amherst, 4; patron of Amherst, 8; 
 Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, 8. 
 
 St. Francis Indians, attacked by 
 Rogers, 158-160. 
 
 St. John s, Newfoundland, 211, 212. 
 
 St. Joseph s, massacre at, 226. 
 
 St. Lawrence, the rapids of the, 179; 
 Amherst descends, 180-181; as 
 imagined by Reynolds, 249. 
 
INDEX 
 
 343 
 
 St. Lusson, Daumont de, takes pos 
 session of the Lake Region, 25. 
 
 St. Maurice, iron mines at, 189. 
 
 St. Paul s Cathedral, Louisburg colors 
 deposited in, 91. 
 
 St. Pierre, 197. 
 
 Sainte-Foy, Levis defeats Murray at, 
 174. 
 
 Sandusky, Fort, massacre at, 226. 
 
 Sandwich, Lord, First Lord of the 
 Admiralty, 297. 
 
 Santa Lucia, expedition against, 192. 
 
 Schuyler, Colonel, repairs Ticon- 
 deroga, 144. 
 
 Scott, Major, at Louisburg, 72. 
 
 Senecas, the, join Pontiac s con 
 spiracy, 220; capture Venango, 227. 
 
 Seven Years War, causes of in 
 America, 24. 
 
 Shelburne, Lord, favors creation of a 
 colony in the Northwest, 251-252; 
 sustains Pitt in the Indian con 
 troversy, 288. 
 
 Skene, Major Philip, founds Skenes- 
 borough, now Whitehall, N. Y., 
 165-168; lieutenant-governor of 
 Crown Point and Ticonderoga, 
 168; imprisoned by the Continental 
 Congress, 169. 
 
 Smallpox, in British camp before 
 Louisburg, 80; suggested as means 
 of exterminating Indians, 235. 
 
 Spain, joins in the Seven Years War, 
 206; declareswaruponEngland,3OO. 
 
 Spruce beer, a substitute for rum, 135. 
 
 Stamp A A, the, 272; its effect in 
 America, 272-273; Amherst s opin 
 ion of, 274; repeal of, 274. 
 
 Stanwix, Brigadier, asks Amherst to 
 go to Philadelphia, 126. 
 
 Stark, Captain John, constructs road 
 from Crown Point to Number 
 Four, 151. 
 
 Staten Island, British camp on, 194. 
 
 Temple, Lord, effect of Louisburg 
 news upon, 90; his friendship with 
 Amherst, 274. 
 
 Ternay, the Chevalier de, captures 
 Newfoundland, 211; escapes from 
 the British squadron, 212. 
 
 Thousand Islands, the, 177. 
 
 Three Rivers, 187; Amherst visits, 
 189. 
 
 Ticonderoga, French fort at, 95; 
 Montcalm s defences at, 97-98; 
 Abercromby attacks, 98-99; its 
 location and strength, 139; aban 
 doned by the French, 141; blown 
 up, 142-143; repaired by the Eng 
 lish, 144, 164; the proposed colony 
 including, 168. 
 
 Townshend, George, at Dettingen, 
 14-15; aide-de-camp of the Duke 
 of Cumberland, 19. 
 
 Townshend, Colonel Roger, killed 
 before Ticonderoga, 141-142. 
 
 Trade with the enemy, in the French 
 and Indian War, 201-206; pro 
 hibited, 202; Pitt orders investiga 
 tion of, 204. 
 
 Trent, Captain, attempts to build a 
 fort at the forks of the Ohio, 31; 
 activities interrupted by the 
 French, 32. 
 
 Twistleton, Colonel, 3 10. 
 
 U 
 
 Utrecht, Treaty of, effect upon New 
 France, 27. 
 
 Vaudreuil, Marquis de, governor of 
 New France, 173; proposes terms 
 of surrender, 182. 
 
344 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Velasco, Don Luis de, commands 
 Morro Castle, 208; death of, 209- 
 210. 
 
 Venango, Fort, captured by the 
 Indians, 227. 
 
 Versailles, Second Treaty of, 36. 
 
 W 
 
 Waldegrave, the Countess, see Wai- 
 pole, Maria. 
 
 Walpole, Horace, his remarks on the 
 capture of Ticonderoga and Niag 
 ara, 156; finds London celebrating 
 the fall of Montreal, 186; his name 
 for Lady Amherst, 251; on Am 
 herst s quarrel with the Ministry, 
 261; explains Amherst s refusal to 
 go to America, 279; criticizes 
 Amherst as a host, 317; his final 
 estimate of Amherst, 326. 
 
 Walpole, Maria, 268. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, significance of 
 his policy, 6. 
 
 War of the Austrian Succession, cause 
 of, n; England enters, II. 
 
 Washington, George, sent to Fort Le 
 Boeuf, 30; leads advance against 
 French, 32; surrenders Fort Neces 
 sity* 33 > with Forbes expedition 
 against Fort Duquesne, 115; his 
 reply to Amherst s boast, 280. 
 
 "Weasel," the, 243. 
 
 Wedgewood, makes medallion of 
 Amherst, 250. 
 
 Wedderburn, the Attorney-General, 
 309. 
 
 West, Benjamin, paints portrait of 
 Amherst, 249-250. 
 
 Wheelock, Eleazer, asks Amherst for 
 grant of land, 199-201; founds 
 Dartmouth College, 201. 
 
 Whitehall, N. Y., founding of, 167. 
 
 Whitmore, Brigadier, sent on Louis- 
 burg expedition, 55; makes a land 
 ing, 73; Wolfe s characterization 
 of, 107. 
 
 Wilkes, John, 253; heads malcon 
 tents, 254. 
 
 Wolfe, James, at Dettingen, 14; 
 friendship with Amherst, 21; re 
 joices in Amherst s promotion, 35; 
 appointed brigadier in Louisburg 
 expedition, 55; comments upon 
 trans-Atlantic voyage, 64; re 
 connoitres the shore of Louisburg, 
 69; makes a landing, 71-73; seizes 
 Lighthouse Point, 77; bombards 
 French ships, 77; silences the 
 Island Battery, 78; characterizes 
 the French in war, 83; seizes ad 
 vanced position, 83; blows up the 
 "Celebre," 83; laments loss of time 
 after Louisburg, 100-101; his 
 eagerness to pillage French habi 
 tants, 101; destroys settlements 
 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 103- 
 104; returns to England, 104; 
 appearance of, 105; his tempera 
 ment, 105; his unfortunate criti 
 cisms, 106-108; ordered to attack 
 Quebec, 120; awaits Amherst s 
 co-operation, 156; death of, 157. 
 
 Worcester, Amherst halts a day at, 
 no; celebrates the fall of New 
 France, 186. 
 
 Wyandots, attack Cuyler s expedi 
 tion, 228. 
 
 Yarmouth, Lady, her connection with 
 Amherst s appointment, 59 note; 
 her remarks on the capture of 
 Louisburg, 90. 
 
 York, the Duke of, 324. 
 
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