ern potentates, grown up to considerable importance. The British monarchy then began to think that their trans-atlantic possessions were worth defending. The king began to profess the most fatherly solicitude for his American subjects; and his ministry most earnestly called upon them to defend themselves, and most graciously condescended to furnish a few British regulars, and a full quota of British officers to command all the American troops. A sort of predatory warfare was carried on between the christian English and French, and the heathen Indians, who espoused the cause of that great father, over the great water, who offered the strongest allurements, and gave them the most encouragement for gratifying their insatiable thirst for blood, carnage and plunder. General Braddock was despatched to America, with a small body of troops, and was joined by that prodigy of a man, designed to begin his splendid military career in aiding the British monarch to secure the colonies from French rapacity, and afterwards to lead his countrymen in wresting them from British tyranny-GEORGE WASHINGTON. Gen. Braddock, as commander in chief, and Col. Washington, the next in command, advanced upon the savage foe. The commander, claiming that importance which a man versed in the science of war-familiar with military tactics, and determined to slay savages secundem artem, lost his own life, and much of his force, by rashness and ignorance of savage warfare. The cool courage and consummate judgment of Washington saved the remnant of an army, the whole of which had been exposed to destruction by his superior in command. The American, or what was then called the provincial troops, were almost invariably successful when led by their own commanders.* * Vide English and American histories of the "French War." In May 1756, war was formally declared by Britain against France; and in June following, by France against Britain. Another host of British officers arrived from Europe, amongst whom were Lord Loudon, Gen. Abercrombie, Gen. Webb, Gen. Hopson, &c. &c. One after the other made his entry and his exit, like actors at a theatre, per forming sometimes a comic, sometimes a tragic, and more frequently a tragi-comic part; and then retiring behind the scenes, followed by the hisses of some, the pity of others, and the contempt of all. At the close of the year 1758, by the tardiness, cowardice or ignorance of British generals, the British colonies in America were all but an appendage to the French monarchy. Americans, although loyal in the first degree to his Britannic Majesty, formed the most contemptible opinion of his ministry and his generals. Even a loyal British historian and biographer, speaking of the campain of 1758, says, "That it ended to the eternal disgrace of those who then commanded the armies, and directed the councils of Great-Britain.” In 1759 the Genius of war and carnage seemed to have crossed the Atlantic, and to have commenced his terrific reign in North America. But that merciful Being, under whose protecting arm the infant colonies were planted, still sustained them--"QUI TRANSTULIT SUSTINET." A great and powerful friend of America, as yet but little known, advanced forward in all the majesty of innate greatness. A lowering and portentous cloud hung over his king, his country, and her colonies. "He stood alone-modern degeneracy had not reached him-With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England." The classical reader will immediately call to This is the motto of the Arms of Connecticut. mind the first of orators, the greatest of statesmen, and the noblest of men, WILLIAM PITT, 66 name which strikes all human titles dead ;" and which needed not the ennobling title of Earl of Chatham" to add to his native greatness. He was the master spirit, under Providence, who directed the storm that was raging in two hemispheres. Profoundly versed in the science of human nature, he selected his officers for the reason, that they would confer more honour upon the station they filled, than they could derive from it. Gen. AMHERST and Gen. WOLFE, were made commanders in America. The cool and judicious course pursued by the first, reminds the historian of the Roman Fabius, and the fire and energy of the last, of Scipio. This wonderful man, WILLIAM PITT, who dared, in youth, to repel manfully an attack from the imperious Walpole, dared also, although but a commoner, to expose the effeminacy of a degenerated English nobility. He cared little for the gaudy and evanescent splendour of royalty, but placed his reliance upon the bone and muscle of his country--THE YEOMANRY. His views, like the rapidity of the passage of light, were directed to America. His prescience assured him that Anglo-Americans, who had encountered the dangers of the ocean-the appalling horrors of savage warfare-the dismaying prospects of famine, and all the calamities which "flesh is heir to," were the men upon whom his king must place his reliance, to defend his American possessions. He addressed the governours of the several colonies. Although distinct in regard to interest, and different in form of government, he pathetically and energetically appealed to the interest, the pride, the patriotism, the loyalty, and, what was paramount, the religion of all. His spirit operated upon the despairing Americans, like a shock of electricity upon a morbid system,--it infused life and vigour. A single paragraph will suffice for the remaining part of this introduction, so far as it relates to the war of 1755. The Americans, aided by a few of their English brethren, went on conquering and to conquer, until the two Canadas --the two Floridas, and half of the Mississippi, were added de facto to the British crown, but de jure to the Americans, by the Peace of Paris in 1763. The nation now looked upon their immense territory in North America as indefeasibly its own, and rested contented in regard to it. Its views were withdrawn from the West, and directed to the East. With that avarice and cupidity which reminds the biblical scholar of the daughters of the horse leach, "crying Give, give," its views were extended to India. While they were conquering regions which before were conquered by effeminacy, wealth, and luxury, the Americans, without aspiring to conquest or dominion, were unambitiously engaged in the innocent and laudable pursuit of drawing wealth from their own resources, and drawing the wealth of other regions into the bosom of their country. The "mother country," as Britain was then called, with a rapacity unparralleled in the history of plunder, carnage and bloodshed, was ravishing from the unoffending natives of Asia, the fairest and richest portion of that continent, which may be called the parent of the world. Neither the Law that came by Moses, nor the Grace promulgated by the Gospel, restrained Englishmen from inundating the country in blood, in order to wrest from it its treasures.* * The language of two British poets, That thieves at home must hang; but he that puts Neither the deleterious effects of the climate, nor agony in the black hole of Calcutta, could restrain these relentless marauders, from accomplishing their diabolical work. As soon may we expect that the grave will say "it is enough," as to see a nation of misers satisfied with gold. But Col. Clive was immortalized, and the British treasury was enriched, and that's enough!! But notwithstanding the immense acquisition of wealth from the East, Great-Britain was in the depth of national bankruptcy, as she fancied she was at the height of national glory. To keep up her sinking credit, and to enable her to prosecute her objects of unhallowed ambition, she resolved to replenish her coffers by draining from her American subjects their hard earned gains. The British parliament little knew what "stern stuff” it had to deal with upon the west side of the Atlantic. Englishmen, however, might have learned, in the war of 1755, that their American brethren had bone and muscle sufficient to conquer the best French generals, and their best troops; Indian sachems and their best warriors. The statesmen of Old England supposed that Americans would not have the temerity to resist the mandates of their European mother. They supposed that they felt grateful for. the protection extended to them, not remembering that the colonists had protected themselves by their own men and their own money; and that the wealth acquired by Britain, by monopolizing their trade, very far overbalanced the money expended in aiding them. But that imperious monarchy was determined to show their power over the colonies, whether it acquired wealth by it or not. "Into his overgorg'd and bloated purse "One murder makes a villain-millions a hero !” |