praying &c." The Acadian families were torn from their homes, loaded on vessels, and distributed in the colonies, where many of them suffered severely before they could find a livelihood; and some families were forever separated.

In the summer of 1755 an expedition of fifteen hundred men under the British general Braddock, sent against Fort Duquesne, met a dramatic fate. Braddock was within seven miles of his destination, when a force of French and Indians, about one half of his strength, sallied out and totally defeated him. His regulars were brave but did not understand bush fighting, and Braddock would not allow even the militia to fight from behind trees; hence a third of his officers and men were killed, and the remainder, regulars and provincials alike, Washington says, “ran as sheep pursued by dogs."

Braddock's defeat opened a road directly to the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania, which were harried by the Indians; but, through the exertions of Sir William Johnson, the Six Nations were held neutral. Two campaigns followed without decisive result. The English lost Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario; and, while attempting to force the Lake Champlain route, lost Fort William Henry, where the French were unable to prevent their Indian allies from massacring the prisoners.

years of conquest

In May, 1756, Great Britain declared war against France, and the general European struggle began, commonly called the Seven Years' War. It extended even to India, where Lord 100. Three Clive assured British supremacy against both French and natives at the battle of Plassey, 1757. Elsewhere Great (1758-1760) Britain suffered humiliating defeats. Then the English people insisted that William Pitt, an ardent and impulsive man, a powerful speaker, and a great administrator, be put at the head of affairs; and affairs began to mend. Fort Duquesne, and Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario, were taken in 1758; and the French were so weakened at sea that they could not prevent the second capture of Louisburg.

To invade Canada, Pitt now selected General James Wolfe, a model commander, endowed with the English bulldog tenacity, and at the same time with the soldier's skill and dar

ing. With 9000 men and a fleet Wolfe besieged the strong fortress of Quebec, defended by 14,000 men ably commanded by the Marquis de Montcalm. Wolfe forced and won a battle on the Plains of Abraham, above the town (September 13, 1759), but was himself mortally wounded. "They run, see how they run,' cried a bystander. Who runs!' demanded our hero, with

great earnestness. . . .

The Officer answered, 'The enemy, Sir; Egad, they give way everywhere.' The dying general issued his orders

Knox, Historical

Journal, 69

quickly; then turning on his side, he said, 'Now, God be praised, I will die in peace."" In a few days Quebec surrendered, and the next year Montreal fell. In 1762 Manila and Havana were captured from Spain by British fleets. Hostilities were ended in all parts of the world by the peace of Paris (February 10, 1763). Manila was not held, and Cuba was given up; but the British took Spanish Florida in exchange, besides annexing Canada and Cape Breton, and the whole Mississippi valley east of the river, except the Island of Orleans. France had already transferred to Spain the part of Louisiana lying west of the Mississippi, together with New Orleans. Of all her North American pos

101. Exclusion of

the French

from North

America

(1763)

sessions, France retained only the two little islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon and some of the West Indies.

The treaty left the British undisputed owners of all the territory between the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, Hudson Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean. The British government, by royal proclamation, October 7, 1763, erected three new provinces, Quebec, East Florida, and West Florida, and

extended Georgia to the St. Marys River. Instead of adding new area to any of the other colonies, several of which had once had charters extending west to the Pacific, the proclamation cut off all the old colonies from the Mississippi basin by a clause providing that "no governor, or commander in chief of our other colonies or plantations in America do . . grant, warrant or survey or pass patents for lands beyond the heads or sources of any of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the west or northwest." That country was to be reserved for the occupation of the Indians. At that time the French whites and half-breeds east of the Mississippi were not more than 6000 in all; and south of the Ohio the only Europeans were a few score traders and officials.

The English began at once to mismanage the Indians. As Sir William Johnson said, they served out "harsh treatment, 102. Indian angry words, and in short, everything which can be neighbors thought of to inspire . . . dislike." When they un(1763-1768) dertook to send out garrisons to the little French posts

northwest of the Ohio River in 1763, a dangerous Indian war blazed out under the leadership of the great chief Pontiac. Several posts were taken and the garrisons massacred, but the British commander, Colonel Bouquet, soon broke down the Indian rising.

By the treaty of Fort Stanwix with the Six Nations (1768), a dividing boundary line was drawn from Wood Creek, a tributary of Oneida Lake, in central New York, southward and then westward to the west branch of the Susquehanna, thence across to the Allegheny River, and down the Ohio to the mouth of the Tennessee. This was an acknowledgment that the Iroquois, already in effect wards of the colony of New York, controlled territory outside the valley of the Hudson and the New York lakes. New relations were established in the South with the five tribes of Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles, who had about 14,000 "guns," or fighting men. In

1768 the British got their first treaty of land cession from the Cherokees, and began to establish an influence in the region between Georgia and Louisiana.

103. Sum

From 1689 to 1763 the international history of America is the history of the downfall of the French colonial power. At the beginning France had Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Canada, and claims to Newfoundland and Hudson Bay; and she colonized Louisiana and asserted title to the whole Mississippi valley, though she occupied only a narrow fringe along the Gulf coast and a few settlements on the river.

The year 1713 is the great turning point, because in the treaty of Utrecht the French were obliged to cede Acadia to Great Britain. In 1754 came a trial of strength for the Ohio valley, in which for three years the French held their own. Then in 1758 came the change; one French defense after another gave way, and the capture of Quebec in 1759 broke their hold on Canada. In 1763 they were compelled to give up every square foot of their splendid empire on the mainland, and retained only the two little islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon south of Newfoundland, and their possessions in the West Indies, including part of Haiti. Thenceforward the Anglo-Saxons controlled the destinies of North America.

TOPICS

mary

(1) Was William III. interested in the colonies? (2) Make a Suggestive list of wars in which the Iroquois took part. topics (3) Make a list of captures and conquests of French territory in North America by the English, 1603-1750. (4) Why was Port Royal so often attacked? (5) Why did the Tuscaroras join the Five Nations? (6) What claim had the French and the English to Hudson Bay ? (7) Why did the Spaniards allow the French to settle on the lower Mississippi? (8) Make a list of attacks on English seacoast settlers by the French and Spanish, 1607-1750. (9) What claim had the English to the Ohio valley? (10) Was it necessary to deport the Acadians? (11) Why was the peace of 1763 unpopular?