CHAPTER XXXII.

SECOND YEAR OF WAR.

French Fortifications in America. War in earnest.

- Story of Mrs. Howe and her Children. -Massacre at Fort William Henry. - Loss of a Noble Young Leader. George Washington's Advice to the British Colonel. - The City of Quebec. Wolfe approaches the Fortress. - The Heights of Abraham. - Defeat of the French.

- Death of Wolfe. Peace at last.

IN the close of the last year, the mother countries had pretended not to take any share in the war of their American colonies. But they now began to see that it was time for them to take a more active part, and therefore France and England declared war against each other, for the fourth time in about seventy-five years.

Before we go any farther, I wish you to fully understand the exact position of the principal French and English forts in America. The description will not be very interesting, but it is necessary for you to get the position of the two countries mapped out in your head, in order that you may understand the plan of the war. For you know in a war for the possession of a country, the one who takes the most forts or strongholds will in the end be the victor.

First, then, the eastern end of the French line of forts was at Louisburg, a very strong place on Cape Breton Island, commanding all the fisheries and the entrance to the St. Lawrence River. Next came Quebec and Montreal, the two old towns on the St. Lawrence. Then came Crown Point and Ticonderoga in New York, on Lake Champlain and Lake George. Fort Frontenac, where La Salle used to command almost a century before, was on Lake Ontario, and Fort Niagara was between the two lakes. The French line of strongholds thence extended down the Ohio River at Fort Duquesne, where Braddock was killed, and from thence all along the Mississippi, where they ended in New Orleans. There were a great many of these forts all over the Northwest, but I have only given you the names of those which were most important in the war.

Until this war began, the English had paid little attention to fortifying their western border. But as soon as the troubles broke out, they went to building forts, and at the opening of the second year of war, they had several important positions. Fort Cumberland was built in Virginia, where George Washington was manding the forces of the colony. Forts Edward and William

Henry were built in eastern New York, near Crown Point and Ticonderoga. They were also strengthening their lines all along in New York, where they ended in the strongly fortified town of Oswego. Besides these, of course their sea-coast towns, of Boston, New York, and Charleston, were always carefully guarded.

Now can you see it all like the pieces on a chess board? If the English take Louisburg, Quebec, Ticonderoga, and the rest, they will beat France. If they cannot get them, and the French take Oswego and William Henry, get down to the city of Albany and take that, and then keep pressing in on the borders of Virginia and New England, in the end they will crowd the English out and get the rule here. Keep all this in mind now and we will rapidly follow the motions of the two armies.

As soon as they declared war openly, the French sent over to Canada a very able commander, named Montcalm, and the English sent two generals, Loudon and Abercrombie, each commander with troops and war ships. Loudon was not a very able man, and Abercrombie soon superseded him.

As soon as war began in earnest, the worst feature of it, as usual, was the Indian raids upon defenseless villages. The peace that Sir William Johnson kept with the Mohawks in New York, helped them greatly there, but in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts these were dreadful days. The Indians were so bold that they came once within thirty miles of the city of Philadelphia, and the lonely little villages, remote from large cities, lived in constant dread. I could tell you stories enough to fill a great book, of white people who were taken captive and carried off to slavery by these terrible foes.

One summer morning in July a troop of hooting and yelling savages rushed into a little village in New Hampshire. After their work of destruction and death was over, they left the settlement with a band of captives, among whom was a Mrs. Howe and her seven children. They scattered the children in various French families along the route, selling them to any family among the French who would give them gay calico for their squaws, or an iron kettle in which to cook food, or even a drink of "fire-water," to quench their thirst for the new strong liquor which the white man had brought among them. They permitted Mrs. Howe to keep her baby, who was only a helpless infant, and with this in her arms they took her to Montreal. Her dearest wish was to be sold to some decent French peo

ple as a slave, for terrible as it seemed for a free-born English woman to live in slavery, it was a bright fate compared to the prospect of being kept among the savages. But at Montreal her hope died out. No one would buy her because she had her infant with her. "We do not want a slave with a child," they said, "she will be nothing but a burden to us.'

On this she was taken back into the wilderness, and her last child, her baby, was torn from her arms and given away, she knew not where, nor to whom. In the forest among the Indians, she suffered the acutest tortures of hunger, and when winter approached, of cold also. A few acorns found in the wood were a feast for her. In her dreams she heard the crying of her poor children, till it often seemed as if her mind would give way and she should go mad. At length she found her baby, and one of her other children, in the wigwam of an Indian family. When, with a cry of joy, she took her baby in her arms, the poor little creature was in such a famished condition that it bit its mother in the face like a starved wild animal. Fortunately, the poor infant soon died, and its sufferings were at an end.

In the spring her captors once more took Mrs. Howe to a French village, and succeeded in selling her. Her owners were kindly people and she was comfortable once more in body. But you can fancy what heart-ache she felt, torn from her kindred and home, as she saw herself day after day sinking into hopeless bondage, expecting to die a miserable slave. Such was the fate of many an English and French captive in these horrible wars. But Mrs Howe's case proved happier. Colonel Philip Schuyler, who was a prominent citizen of Albany, heard of her condition, and himself sent her money by which. she was able to purchase her own liberty and that of four of her sons. With these rescued children she returned to her home in New Hampshire. After the war she journeyed to Canada and recovered another child, a daughter. One of her daughters, who had been sold to the governor of Canada, was taken to France and respectably married there. This story is only one among thousands not unlike it, which are found in the annals of the French and Indian wars in America.

The close of the year 1757 looked very dark for the English. The French had succeeded in taking Oswego, one of their strongest points. Montcalm, the French general, had laid siege to Fort William Henry. The garrison had held out nobly; but at last, their

powder giving out, they were obliged to give up.

Colonel Munroe was the commander there, and he obtained the pledge that his band of soldiers should go out unharmed from the fortress, leaving it to the French. The French commander gave his word, but no sooner had the brave little garrison marched a short distance from the fort, than a band of Indians, allies of the French, fell upon them and slew them without mercy.

The English colonies were filled with gloom and anxiety, and complained so loudly that some of their fears spread among their friends in England, and at the beginning of 1758 much more vigorous measures were taken. Three expeditions were sent out at once, against Louisburg, Ticonderoga, and Duquesne. The force which beseiged Louisburg after a hard siege took the town, thus getting one of the best strongholds of the enemy, and the control of the entrance to Canada.

At the same time General Abercrombie went to Ticonderoga, and here a sad event occurred for the English army. They were defeated, and lost many men. Among others a brave young general, Lord Howe, was killed, who of all their leaders was the one most liked by the colonists. Nearly all the British officers, like Braddock, had felt and shown great contempt for the colonial soldiers and leaders, and this contempt for the advice and experience of the residents in America lost the English many battles. But Lord Howe was a young soldier of better sense than most of

Lord Howe.

the others. He lived like a plain soldier, in a tent in the fields, dressed plainly, and ate soldier's fare. He found the soldiers' lives were often endangered by their long-tailed army coats, which the Indians would catch at from their ambush behind trees, and he ordered all his soldiers to wear jackets, wearing one himself to set the example. He gave every attention to the health of his men, providing in all ways that he could for their comfort, and when they had discomforts he shared them with the men. Of course he was loved by every one; all called him a model commander, and when he died, fighting before Ticonderoga, all the country mourned for the young man, as a true gentleman and hero. Abercrombie's forces did some good service, however, after the defeat at Ticonderoga. They went down to Oswego, retook it from the French, and afterward captured Fort Frontenac.

Colonel Forbes led the army against Duquesne.

When he got as

far as Cumberland, George Washington, who commanded there, said to him, "You had better go by Braddock's old road. A good many trees are cut down, and bridges built, in that road, and it will save time and labor." But a British officer had no idea of paying any attention to young Washington, who was nothing but a colonist, and so he started to make a new road. This hewing a fresh path through the wilderness caused them great delay and suffering, and might have caused the ruin of the whole expedition. Fortunately for them, however, the French heard stories of their coming, and fancied them much stronger than they really were. They were very short of provisions in the fort, and just before the English got there, they set fire to the place and ran away. The English took it and changed the name of Duquesne to Pittsburg, and a flourishing city stands there to-day, on the site of the old French fort. This year ended in English rejoicing, with Louisburg and Duquesne in their possession, and Oswego back again, beside the smaller fort, Frontenac, which they had also taken.

Now that they held two such important points in the French lines as Louisburg and Duquesne, the English thought if they could only take Quebec the French power would be completely broken. But it was not an easy matter to take Quebec. You would say so if you had ever seen the town. It is built high up on the top of a precipice, at least two hundred feet above the St. Lawrence River, and the steep, rocky cliff looks as if no human foot could scale it.

A brave young English general, James Wolfe, had been at the taking of Louisburg, and behaved so gallantly there, that it was decided to send him to make an attempt on Quebec. He accordingly sailed thither with a large fleet, and disembarked on the opposite shore of the St. Lawrence, on a low-lying point of land known as Point Levi. By this time the French were growing uneasy at the English successes. They knew they must hold Quebec or acknowledge themselves beaten. They summoned at once the soldiery in Crown Point and Ticonderoga, who left those posts and came up to defend their more important fortress. For two months General Wolfe lay in his quarters at Point Levi, looking over at Quebec, and thinking how it were best to attack it. The town itself was built within a strong wall. Back of the city, lay broad green fields known as the "Plains of Abraham." Wolfe, who was constantly studying some means of reaching the top of the cliff, one day dis