troubled waves of faction, this combination of the longdissevered words, Ministerial and Patriot, was owing in ́no small degree to the newly established concord between the statesman at the Foreign Office and the intriguer at the Treasury. According to Horace Walpole's just description, "Mr. Pitt DOES every thing; the Duke of Newcastle GIVES 'every thing. As long as they can agree in this partition they may do what they will."* Thus also Lord Chesterfield tells us, with his usual quiet touch of satire: "Domestic "affairs go just as they did; the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. "Pitt jog on like man and wife; that is, seldom agreeing, "often quarrelling, but, by mutual interest upon the whole, “not parting." ** But no doubt a still more efficient cause of the unanimity in Parliament at this time may be found in the growing success and glory of our arms, under Pitt's administration, and the equally augmented confidence of the people in his counsels.

Thus ended the year 1758. But, before dismissing it, let me not leave wholly unnoticed, although I cannot relate in detail, the gallant actions of the British Navy. In the course of that year we captured or destroyed sixteen French men of war, forty-nine privateers, and 104 merchant ships. In the latter respect, however, the enemy had the advantage; for their capture of merchant ships exceeded 300, while of our privateers they took only seven, and of our men of war only three. We had also seized 176 neutral ships, as laden with French colonial produce or with military stores; these ships were chiefly Dutch, and engaged us for some time in acrimonious discussions with the Government of Holland.***

During the course of this war, both by land and sea, it has been alleged, — perhaps unjustly, that the French dispirited by their worthless government, and their growing sense of public misrule, did not fight with altogether their usual gallantry and ardour. - Early in 1759, however, our

*To Sir H. Mann, November 27. 1758.

**To his son, May 18. 1758.

*** Entick's History of the War, vol. iii. p. 396-423.

1759.

HAVRE BOMBARDED.

153

manifold successes stung even the feeble Court of Versailles into something like enterprise. A descent upon our own shores was threatened in good earnest; at Havre, and several other ports, flat-bottomed boats were seen building for the projected invasion, and large fleets were equipped at Toulon and at Brest, besides a small squadron at Dunkirk, under the command of Thurot, a brave and skilful seaman. But these measures were neither sufficiently extensive nor yet well-timed. A superior British fleet rode the Channel, - a superior British force lined the coast *; both were supported by the unanimous public feeling at home, and each seemed fully able to defeat, nay, even to destroy, the hostile armament whenever it advanced. — Pitt had taken vigorous and timely steps, both in defence and in retaliation. In May he brought down a Royal Message that His Majesty might be enabled to march the regiments of Militia out of their several counties, and he made a noble speech on this occasion, finely distinguishing between the various kinds of fear; "this," he said, "is a magnanimous fear." - In July, under his instructions, Admiral George Rodney anchored in the roads of Havre, and began a bombardment, which continued for fifty-two hours without intermission, to the damage of that flourishing town - to the destruction of many of the newconstructed boats. - In August, the Toulon fleet under M. de La Clue, on its way to take part in these northern operations, was pursued by Admiral Boscawen from Gibraltar, and attacked off Lagos in Algarve, when, of its largest ships, two were captured, and two others run ashore. This victory, however, involved us in a protracted negotiation with the Portuguese, who complained, with reason, that the neutrality of their coasts had been violated.** - An English squadron

-

* "All the country squires are in regimentals. A pedestal is making "for little Lord Montfort, that he may be placed at the head of the Cam"bridgeshire Militia!"— H. Walpole to Mann, August 1. 1759.

**See, in the Appendix, Mr. Pitt's letters to Mr. Hay (Sept. 12. 1759) and to Lord Kinnoul (May 30. 1760). "You will," "he says, "take care to "avail yourself of all the circumstances of extenuation. . . . . "be particularly attentive," adds the Minister, with his

But you will usual lofty

an Eng

in the Downs watched the armament at Dunkirk; lish fleet under Sir Edward Hawke blockaded Brest. The necessity of providing for defence at home in no degree damped Pitt's ardour for foreign conquest. An expedition was despatched against the French islands in the West Indies, consisting of six regiments and several ships of war, and commanded by General Hopson and Commodore Moore. Martinico was their first object, but after a descent, and a consideration of the defences, the troops were re-embarked, and the destination was changed to Guadaloupe. That island is of great fertility and importance; its population being then about 10,000 whites and 30,000 negro slaves, whose value (thank God that we have survived the age of such computations!) was not less than 1,250,000Z. * The town of Basseterre was besieged and bombarded, until some stores of rum catching fire obliged the garrison to retire to an entrenched camp on the adjoining hills. From this position they were forced by the English, with some loss; and a capitulation for the whole island was signed on the 1st of May. - General Hopson having died of a fever, the command had devolved on General Barrington, but as he was disabled by the gout the principal merit of this expedition belongs to Colonel Clavering.

A still more important aim of Pitt's enterprise was the conquest of Canada. The other French dominions and dependencies in North America had already fallen like outposts, but Canada, as the citadel, remained, the last and greatest of all. That province is thought to derive its name from the Indian word KANATA, which denotes a collection of huts, but which the first discoverers mistook as applying to the country.** It had been settled, or, at least, explored, by the French, so early as the reign of Francis the First, but it was not until the next century that the cities of Quebec and

spirit, "not to employ any favourable circumstances to justify what the "Law of Nations condemns."

* Entick's History, vol. iv. p. 175.

** Colonial Library, by R. M. Martin, Esq., vol. i. Introduction; and a note to Charlevoix, Nouvelle France, vol. i. p. 9.

155

Montreal arose; - the former in connection with the Commercial Company of the West Indies, the latter with the religious seminary of St. Sulpice. Louis XIV., however, early in his reign decided on resuming the rights of the Crown, and forming Canada into a Royal Government. In 1759 the population of this colony was 60,000 souls; scarcely so rapid has been the growth of its prosperitythan the annual amount of its immigration eighty-three years afterwards. * - In fact, few countries were ever more highly gifted with whatever can conduce to the welfare and the greatness of a people; a fertile soil, abundant and excellent timber, navigable lakes and rivers, a rigorous but healthy and invigorating climate.

more

In comparing together the French and the English colouists in North America at this period of 1759, we shall find, as is acknowledged by the French historians, the English far superior in numbers and wealth, in trade and industry.** But, on the other hand, the French had reaped no small advantage from their more lively temper and more conciliatory manners; they had attached to themselves much the greater proportion of the Red Indian tribes. It is true that the English as well as the French could claim the assistance of some of these savage allies, who, besides fighting with courage or suffering with firmness, were ever ready to destroy defenceless property, to fire unguarded outposts, to murder and to scalp their prisoners, atrocities which both English and French accused each other by turns of secretly directing, and which it is certain at least that neither were sufficiently zealous to prevent. But by far the larger numbers of this Indian race, from the mouth of the St.

* Mr. Buchanan, Agent of Emigration, estimates the total accession to the population of Canada during 1842 (deducting those immigrants who merely took the province on their way to the United States) as at least 50,000. (Report to Sir Charles Bagot, December 31. 1842.)

** Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vol. xxix. p. 172. Père Charlevoix says, in 1721: "Il regne dans la Nouvelle Angleterre une opulence dont il "semble qu'on ne sait point profiter, et dans la Nouvelle France une 64 pauvreté cachée par un air d'aisance." (Nouvelle France, vol. iii. p. 80.)

Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi, had become estranged from the English and friendly to the French. No man was more skilful in maintaining this attachment, or employing it in war, than the Marquis de Montcalm, the French General in Canada, and the second in authority to their Governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil. Montcalm was born at Nismes in 1712; he had attained high rank in the service of his country at home, and no less high praise for skill, honour, and intrepidity. To cope with such an adversary on his own ground, within sight of his own walls of Quebec, required no common mind;- a hero was needed, — but a hero was found, when the execution of Pitt's designs on Canada was wisely committed to WOLFE.

The father of our hero, General Edward Wolfe, a veteran from the wars of Marlborough, had on his retirement fixed himself at Westerham in Kent, where he rented the vicarage house as his residence. In that house his eldest son James was born, in 1726. At the early age of fourteen the boy entered the army. He was present at the battles of Dettingen in 1742, of Fontenoy in 1745, and of Lauffeld in 1747. Such was his conduct on the last occasion as to attract the notice and receive the thanks of his chief, the Duke of Cumberland. After the peace, being already, at the age of twenty-two, a Lieutenant Colonel, he was quartered in Scotland, and then in the south of England. Nature had done but little for him in either comeliness or vigour; he had flaming red hair, and, contrary to the fashion of the times, wore no powder to conceal it. Even from his early youth he had suffered severely through the stone; and the seeds of other fatal diseases were deep-laid in his constitution. Nor were his first address and manner engaging, although in private life he was esteemed by all who knew him, as upright, religious, and humane. It is observed by himself in writing to his mother: "My nature requires some extraordinary "events to produce itself. I want that attention and those "assiduous cares that commonly go along with good-nature "and humanity. In the common occurrences of life I own