opponents, they proceeded onward to Ticonderoga. The British commander, hearing that the French were inconsiderable in number, but that they were daily expecting large reinforcements, made a premature attack on the fort and was repulsed with considerable loss, when, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his officers, he raised the siege and precipitately retreated. Colonel Bradstreet, a provincial officer distinguished for his valour, intelligence, and activity, unwilling to participate in the disgrace of his commander, solicited his permission with a few men, to make an attempt on Fort Frontignac, a post of some consequence on Lake Ontario. Bradstreet succeeded in his enterprise. He laid siege to the fort on the 25th of August, and compelled the garrison to surrender at discretion on the 27th. He destroyed the fort, and nine armed vessels lying in the harbour, and such of the stores as he could not carry away.

The formidable expedition against Louisburg, succeeded chiefly through the exertions of the gallant Wolfe, and it was surrendered to the fleet and army of Great Britain towards the end of July.

Uninterrupted success henceforward attended the British arms during the remainder of the French war. In 1759, General Amherst marched against Ticonderoga and Crown Point, which were evacuated on his approach.

General Prideaux, meantime, with a strong detachment advanced and laid siege to Fort Niagara. He was accidentally killed by the bursting of a cohorn; but Sir William Johnson, his successor, pushing operations with increased vigour, completely defeated a large force which had been collected against him, added new laurels to those already won by him, and finally obliged the garrison to surrender. He conveyed them in safety as prisoners of war to New York.

But the most brilliant action of the whole war was the capture of Quebec by General Wolfe. He embarked at Louisburg with an army of eight thousand men, and, towards the end of June, landed on the Isle of Orleans, and immediately commenced operations against the city. Quebec was principally built on a steep rock on the northern bank of the St. Lawrence, while the river St. Charles, which flowed past it on the east, and united with the St. Lawrence immediately below the town, defended it on that side, and gave it the security of a peninsular locality. There was a boom thrown across the mouth of the St. Charles, immediately within which the French fleet was moored. A formidable French army, commanded by the experienced Montcalm, was strongly

intrenched on the eastern side of this river, their encampment extending along the shore to the falls of the Montmorency, while their rear was defended by an impenetrable forest. With a force far inferior in numbers to the enemy, Wolfe laid vigorous siege to the place, secure of the means of retreat while the British fleet remained in the river.

Perceiving that he could effect but little at the Isle of Orleans, General Wolfe, after a successful skirmish, took posession of Point Levi, on the opposite side of the St. Lawrence, and there erected batteries to annoy the town. This position was, however, at too great a distance to make any useful impression on the enemy's works, and feeling that the season for active operations was fast flying, and his own bodily strength diminishing, he determined to make use of every expedient to entice Montcalm from his defences. He accordingly planned an attack upon a redoubt at the mouth of the Montmorency; but the garrison, instead of offering resistance, retreated towards the encampment, while the French opening a tremendous fire upon his forces, he thought it best to retreat, with the loss of nearly five hundred men killed or wounded.

Finding it impossible to approach the city on its eastern side, Wolfe now turned his eyes to the apparently inaccessible cliffs above, and which, on account of the difficulty of ascending them, were but feebly defended. He assembled a council of his principal officers, and it was resolved to make an attempt to gain the heights of Abraham, a lofty plain just above Quebec. "It was proposed to land the troops by night, at the foot of the rocks, a small distance above the city, and to climb to the summit before daybreak. This attempt manifestly involved extreme difficulty and hazard. The stream was rapid, the shore shelving, the bank of the river lined with French sentinels, the landing-place so narrow as easily to be missed in the dark, and the cliff which must afterwards be surmounted so steep that it was difficult to ascend it even in open day and without opposition. Should the design be promulgated by a spy or deserter, or suspected by the enemy; should the disembarkation be disordered, through the darkness of the night or the obstructions of the shore; the landing-place be mistaken, or but one sentinel alarmed, the Heights of Abraham would instantly be covered with such numbers of troops as would render the attempt abortive and defeat inevitable. Though these circumstances of danger could not escape the penetration of Wolfe, yet he hesitated not a moment to embrace a project so congenial to his ardent and enterprising disposition, as well as to

the hazardous and embarrassing predicament in which he was placed, and from which only some brilliant and soaring effort could extricate him to his own and his country's satisfaction. He reposed a gallant confidence in the very magnitude and peril of his attempt, and fortune extended her proverbial favour to the brave. His active powers revived with the near prospect of decisive action; he soon recovered his health, so far

as to be able to conduct the enterprise on which he was resolved to stake his fame; and in the execution of it, displayed a force of judgment, and a deliberate valour and intrepidity that rivalled and vindicated the heroism of its conception."

On the night of the 12th of September, the attempt to land was successfully made, and by daybreak, on the 13th, the whole army was arrayed on the summit of the Heights of Abraham. Montcalm, though astonished at the temerity and boldness of the British, instantly quitted his encampment, crossed the St. Charles, and the two armies were drawn up in battle array opposite to each other. About nine o'clock in the morning, the action was commenced, by the French advancing vigorously to the charge, and in a few moments the conflict became general along the whole line. Wolfe having been wounded in the wrist and in the groin, continued to lead on his troops without manifesting any signs of pain, until a third bullet pierced his breast, and he fell mortally wounded. General Monckton, who succeeded to the command, was soon obliged by a dangerous wound to resign the command to General Townshend. Montcalm was about the same time mortally wounded, and the second in command, General Senezergus, also fell. The loss of their general only incited the English to fresh acts of the most daring heroism, while the death of Montcalm seemed to produce a contrary effect upon the French; who soon began to retreat on all sides. A thousand of the enemy were killed in the * Grahame's Colonial History.

EXPULSION OF THE FRENCH FROM CANADA. 113

battle and pursuit, and about the same number captured; the remainder of the army fled, some to Quebec, and others to Trois Rivières and Montreal. The English lost, in killed and wounded, less than six hundred men.

On the 17th of September, five days after the battle, the city of Quebec, the capital of New France, was surrendered to the English, and garrisoned by five thousand men under General Murray.

Quebec was in great danger of being retaken during the winter, but was saved by the good conduct of General Murray. In the summer of 1760, he concerted with General Amherst a combined attack upon Montreal, which was still held for France, by the Marquis de Vandreuil. The march of the two armies was planned with such precision that they both, by different routes, arrived before Montreal on the same day. The French general, perceiving from the skilful movements and superior numbers of the British armies that resistance would be ineffectual, demanded a capitulation, and on the 8th of September, 1760, he surrendered Montreal and all Canada to the British; which was finally secured to them by the treaty of Paris, concluded February 10, 1763. Thus ended the colonial empire of France in North America; for though she still possessed the infant colony of Louisiana and the growing town of New Orleans, yet this settlement was so thinly peopled, and possessed such meagre resources, that had it not been for the supplies of provisions which it received from the British colonies, it could scarcely have maintained itself for a year.

HE marriage of Washington took place in 1759. It was in the month of May, 1758, that he undertook a journey from Fort Loudoun to Williamsburg, in the course of which he first became acquainted with Mrs. Custis, his future wife. The Virginia regiment being in want of many of the necessary munitions of war, and the Assembly not seeming to heed the representations of the commanding officers, Sir John St. Clair, the quarter-master of the army under General Forbes, thought it expedient to despatch Colonel Washington, to represent to the president of the council, then acting as governor, the posture of affairs at Winchester, and to obviate, by personal explanation, any doubts that might arise from the best written narrative; with instructions to urge upon the council and Assembly the necessity of putting the Virginia troops in a fit condition to proceed and aid in the capture of Fort Duquesne. Washington's first