In the spring of 1757, the region of Lake Champlain was the scene of unusual activity. The Indians from the distant shores of Lake Su perior, and from the forests beyond Lake Erie, were rallying around the French standard; and by midsummer a restless band, eager for the fray and only restrained with difficulty, gathered at Fort Carillon as part of the expedition against the British strongholds of Fort Edward and Fort William Henry. Montcalm's army con sisted of about 6,000 of the best troops, with the addition of the Indians. The British force was divided between the two forts. Webb was at Fort Edward in command of 3,500 men, and Munro had 2,000 men in Fort William Henry and 500 entrenched upon a rising ground in the rear of the fort. Montcalm's first move, on approaching, was to occupy the route communi cating with the forts, which, at the same time, cut off the British troops upon the rising ground. This was accomplished by de Levis with 3,000 men. Montcalm strengthened his position and soon had 40 guns bearing upon the fort. From the first it was clear that the British position was untenable. Munro was twice offered terms of capitulation, but he stubbornly refused. At length he was forced to surrender, and the garrison marched out of the fort. Then followed a frightful scene, which has unjustly tarnished the memory of Montcalm. The Indians, disappointed of the plunder to which they looked forward at the sack of the fort, fell upon the prisoners with. fury, and horribly massacred nearly 100 before any means could be taken to prevent them. Montcalm and Levis did their best to arrest the fury of the savage hordes and saved many lives; but the mischief was done, and dire ven geance was threatened. Notwithstanding the dismal failure of Loudon, Pitt was still de termined to reduce Louisburg, which was to be made the chief objective in the campaign of 1758. London had been recalled, and the com mand was entrusted to Amherst, who had al ready done good service in Germany. The chid officers under him were Lawrence and Wolfe. The force consisted of about 12,000 men. On the 2d ofJune part of the fleet anchored in Gabarus Bay, a few miles from Louisburg, Boscawen being the admiral in com mand. The expedition was a joint one, both naval and military. Wolfe was the most con spicuous figure of all present. His brigade made the real attack from the boats, while Whitmore's and Lawrence's supported him by feints in other places. The landward siege was well pressed home, and Louisburg, the gate way of New France, soon fell, and being shortly after razed to the ground, literally became a thing of the past.
Success had attended British arms in other quarters. Bradstreet at the head of 3,000 men had captured Fort Frontenac, which the un wisdom of Vaudreuil had left inadequately sup. ported, although it was a most important post commanding Lake Ontario and serving as a base for the Ohio forts. De Noyan, the gover nor, had demanded reinforcements, but, in the place of troops, Vaudreuil had dispatched a one armed man to his assistance, and, as resistance was futile, capitulation followed. Fort Du quesne had also become a British post, and now bore the name of Fort Pitt. Forbes, in the face of great difficulties, had endured the perils and suffering of a winter's march; and, when at last his bravery and determination had triumphed over every obstacle, and the fort was in sight, he found that it had been evacuated. While Loudon was °planting a harmless occupation, Abercromby was making a worse mess of affairs at Ticonderoga (q.v.). The French had been expecting an attack at this vital point, which commanded the route by way of Lake Champlain, and threatened Montreal. A large body of men had been ordered there in the spring by Montcalm; but the withdrawal of so many troops under Lou don had convinced Vaudreuil that it would be an opportune moment to create a diversion on the Mohawk. Montcalm was opposed to this enterprise; consequently Vaudreuil insisted, and 1,600 men were detached for the purpose. By the middle of June Montcalm had only 3,000 men at Ticonderoga, the battalions of La Sarre, Languedoc, Beam, Berri, Guienne and Royal Roussillon, with two good engineers. The place was by no means strongly fortified, but works were hastily thrown up in advantageous positions. In the meantime the formidable army under Abercromby, consisting of regulars and provincials, in all 15,000 men, was en camped about half a mile from the fort. But the real head of the army, Lord Howe, the best soldier in America, as Wolfe had said, had been killed in a preliminary skirmish, and the com mander was powerless to act. Something had ,to be done, however, and Abercromby moved his whole force against Carillon. Montcalm's army had been increased by 500 men under de Levis; and after a seven hours' blundering as sault, Abercromby was completely outgener alled, and lost no less than 2,000 men. This victory covered Montcalm with glory, and he is frequently referred to as °the hero of Caril lon?' But although he had won glory for French arms, the victory was a blow to the jealous Vaudreuil, and signalized the farther accentuation of discord which produced serious results in future operations.
In 1759 Pitt was at last in a position to put his greater scheme into practice. The tide of war was almost on the turn, and he seized op portunity beforehand. The Seven Years' War (q.v.) was being waged in many parts of the world; in fact, in a purely military sense, there were several different wars going on at the same time. But there was one great connective
force which made them one, and that was the British navy. France and England were now in the very middle of their great imperial war, which began after the fall of the Stuarts in 1688, and was continued as one single age-long and world-wide struggle for the over-sea do minion of the world, down to Trafalgar and Waterloo. The Seven Years' War was the most distinctively imperial phase of the whole of this vast conflict ; the heart of it lay in the fight for American dominion; and the central episode of this fight itself is to be found in the against Quebec, which culminated in the re -nowned battle of the Plains of Abraham. The four real conquerors of New France are Pitt, Anson, Saunders and Wolfe. The names of Pitt and Wolfe have always been on every tongue; but the equally important ones of Anson and of Saunders have been unduly for gotten. Pitt, of course, was the originator; and in himself, the most important of the four. But as the whole fortunes of the war were really determined by the British command of the sea, it is absolutely necessary to understand the naval side of the campaign, not only for its own sake, but also to fully appreciate the work of the army. In the ever-memorable year of 1759, it was entirely due to the navy that Eng land remained safe at home, and it was more than half due to the navy. that she emerged as a conqueror abroad. France had prepared a gigantic scheme of invasion. One fleet was to sail for Ireland, where the were to be met on landing by a general rising in their favor. The Jacobites were to be stirred into insurrection by another French fleet destined for Scotland; whilst their third fleet, larger than both the others united, was to convoy in numerable troop-boats across the Channel, as they made a dash for the south of England. To guard against this national danger the navy then developed the first regular system of blockade ever known. Boscawen blockaded Toulon, Hawke blockaded Brest, Rodney cruised off Havre and Admiral Smith kept the reserve fleet always ready in the Downs. Meanwhile, however, Pitt was preparing a counterstroke; not at France herself —where she would be stronger than England in a cam paign fought out on her own home base—but at her over-sea possessions in Canada, from which she was separated by those 3,000 miles of hostile waters, which the British command of the sea had practically made a British pos session. Thus Montcalm had to await attack in utter isolation, on the far side of an immense stretch . of territorial waters, across which Wolfe advanced in perfect safety to meet him. And it must be remembered that Saunders' squadron was not only a strong one, for it comprised a full quarter of the whole navy, but that it was playing an integral part in a universal scheme of strategy — for all seas are strategically one—whilst Wolfe's little army was only a landing-party on a large There were twice as many seamen as landsmen engaged in the taking of Quebec. Saunders had over 18,000 sailors, more than two-thirds of whom belonged to the navy, while Wolfe had less than 9,000 soldiers. The total British force, therefore, amounted to 27,000 men. Saunders and Wolfe received their secret in structions from the King in February, and im mediately after sailed for Nova Scotia. The final rendezvous was -Louisburg, where over 8,000 men were assembled in May. On 1 June the fleet began its dangerous voyage, with no less than 200 vessels of all sorts and sizes. It was navigated in perfect safety to the Island of Orleans, where it arrived on 27 June, and was not injured by a tremendous gale a day or two later, nor by the costly display of fireworks, in the shape of fire ships, destined to work its destruction. The picket boats met the attack well up stream, and, °taking hell in tow," as a bluejacket forcibly expressed it, put all the enemy's vessels ashore, where they burnt tiltin selves out. Wolfe established three camps. The principal one was at Montmorency, just beyond the falls. The second was on the Island of Orleans, completely out of range, and thus very convenient for a hospital and stores. The third was at Point Levis, which Vaudreuil fool ishly refused to occupy, in spite of Montcalm's sensible advice, and which was consequently left open for Wolfe to build his batteries on. These batteries literally pounded the town to pieces; as a manuscript note on a plan of the siege in the French War Office truly remarks, "re ne fut pas un siege, mass un bombardemen0 Among other projectiles of all kinds, 36,000 solid cannon balls were fired from this coign of vantage. Montcalm's position was still im mensely strong, in spite of the loss of the Levis Heights. The upper town of Quebec is built upon the extremity of a long promontory which is bounded on the south by steep cliffs, 200 or 300 feet sheer up above the Saint Lawrence, and on the north by lower, but still easily defensible, cliffs overlooking the valley of the Saint Charles. The town was held by 2,000 men under de Ramesay. It had a double tier of bat teries, one on the top of the cliffs, the other along the water front below them. The only open ground in the vicinity was round the mouth of the Saint Charles. But this was well entrenched, and the trenches were carried on continuously for seven miles along the Beauport shore to the Montmorency, opposite Wolfe's camp.