124

DEATH OF WOLFE.

the army, burning for revenge, continued the action under Monckton, who, being soon after wounded, gave the command to General Townsend. Murray now broke the centre of the French army, and the Highlanders, with their broadswords, completed their confusion, and falling on them with resistless fury, drove part of them over the St. Charles, and the remainder into Quebec. On the 18th, the city capitulated to Townsend, and the French power in America was crushed. Montcalm received a mortal wound, and was carried into the city; and Senezurgus, the second in command of the French, also fell in the battle.

General Wolfe, who expired in the arms of victory, was only thirty-three years of age. He possessed those military talents, which, with the advantage of years and opportunity of action, "to moderate his ardour, expand his faculties, and give to his intuitive perception and scientific knowledge, the correctness of judgment perfected by experience," would have "placed him on a level with the most celebrated generals of any age or nation." After he had received his mortal wound, it was with reluctance that he suffered himself to be conveyed to the rear. Leaning on the shoulder of a lieutenant, who kneeled down to support him, he was seized with the agonies of death; but hearing the cry, "They fly! They fly!" he roused himself and asked "Who fly?" “The French,” was the reply. "Then I depart content," said the dying hero, and almost instantly expired. A death more glorious, says Belsham, is nowhere to be found in history. every way worthy to be the opponent of Wolfe. truest military genius of any officer whom the French had ever employed in America. When informed that his wound was mortal, he replied, "I am glad of it." On being told that he could survive but a few hours, "So much the better," he replied, "I shall not then live to see the surrender of Quebec."

Montcalm was
He had the

Five thousand men, under the command of Murray, were placed as a garrison in the city, which, at the time of its capitulation, contained about ten thousand souls; and the British fleet sailed out of the St. Lawrence.

M. de Levi, the French general at Montreal, made several attempts to retake the city, but without success, and in 1760, Montreal was taken, and all its dependencies. Henceforward Canada became a British province.

The war on the continent being finished, expeditions were sent against the French possessions in the West Indies. Many troops were drawn from the colonies for this service, and Martinico, Grenada, St. Lucie, St. Vincent, and the other Caribbee Islands, were brought under the subjection of the British crown (1762). War being declared between Great Britain and Spain, early in the year, an armament was sent out by the ministers for the reduction of Havana, which was taken, after an obstinate defence. On the 10th of February,

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TREATY OF PEACE.

1763, a definitive treaty of peace was signed at Paris, and soon after ratified. Nova Scotia, Canada, Cape Breton, and the other French possessions in the north, were confirmed to Great Britain. The French were allowed to fish off the island of Newfoundland, but under the heaviest restrictions; and the small islands of St. Peter and Miquelon were confirmed to France. The boundary between the English and French possessions was fixed by a line drawn along the middle of the river Mississippi, from its source, as far as the river Iberville, and thence, by a line drawn along the middle of that river, and of the lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, to the sea. The river and port of Mobile, and all the French possessions east of the Mississippi, were ceded to Great Britain, except the island and town of New Orleans. All the West India isles which the English had taken from the French, were confirmed to the captors, and the Havana was exchanged with the King of Spain for the Floridas. With such great natural boundaries as these, it would be difficult to find any cause for the renewal of those controversies respecting possessions, which were formerly so harassing to the colonists.

COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION.

HE peace of 1763, which restored tranquillity to America, also released Europe from a long and bloody war; in the early part of which the arms of Britain had been signally unsuccessful; but, in the end, everywhere triumphant. The expulsion of the French from their possessions; the treaties made with the Indians, which, now that French intrigues were no longer in operation, the colonists hoped would be lasting; and the accession of George III. to the throne, gave the inhabitants of North America reason to expect a long season of peace, not merely as regarded their former enemies, but that civil peace between the mother country and her offspring, for the continuance of which every true friend of both countries could not too earnestly wish. The young king was in the flower of youth, a season when the people are usually willing to cherish fond anticipations of their monarch, and to yield him a cordial

protection and support. But causes of dissatisfaction and distrust were hidden by these fair appearances.

The new king had appointed new ministers, whose political measures were likely to be unpopular. They had none of the prudence and firmness necessary for the concurrence in, and direction of the public opinion, which always gains for its possessor the confidence of the mass,-a characteristic which so highly distinguished William Pitt, and of which Lord Grenville, who now stood at the head of the ministry, appeared to be utterly destitute. Plans for taxing the colonies had been suggested to both Pitt and Walpole successively; but those wary ministers declined the experiment. Walpole said "that he would leave that measure to some of his successors who had more courage than he had, and were less friendly to commerce than he was.'

Grenville had the kind and quantity of courage, of which Walpole confessed himself destitute, and he was bold enough to hazard the experiment. The duties imposed by the ministers of George II. on rum, sugar, and molasses imported into the colonies, although they had excited considerable opposition at the time they were enacted, were yet not openly resisted, the payment of them being evaded by smuggling, which was not considered as a crime of much importance by the colonists.

This practice was regarded with great indignation by the British ministry, who hastened to adopt a system of remedial measures, not altogether judicious. They were nevertheless sternly enforced, and all the commanders and other officers stationed off the American coasts, or cruising in the seas of that country, received authority and directions from the crown to act in the capacity of officers of the customs. Unacquainted with the duties of their new offices, being required not only to guard the laws from violation, but to administer them, they rarely executed their orders with discretion and humanity. They treated their fellow-subjects much in the same manner as they had been accustomed to treat their enemies; and by the confiscation of cargoes, and unreasonable