Amherst moved his headquarters west to Oswego in July 1760 to organize an attack against Montreal via the St. Lawrence. Murray's orders were to proceed along the river from the other end and join up with Haviland. Together Murray and Haviland were to close in on Montreal from the north, while Amherst attacked from the south.
Lévis's position was desperate. The enemy outnumbered him and were traveling with mountains of supplies. But if he could not deny his attackers victory, he could at least, he hoped, stall it. His best hope was to delay the main force under Amherst, which might allow him time to fend off the weaker forces coming at him from the north. To help him, he looked to the old soldier François Pouchot, the officer who had so admirably sustained the long siege at Niagara.
Lévis dispatched Pouchot up the St. Lawrence to complete the fortifications at the river's first set of rapids near the mission of La Presentation* With his usual zeal Pouchot went to work, and within a few weeks he managed to erect a strong post, Fort Lévis, that covered nearly two-thirds of the low-lying island.49
As was his wont, Amherst massed his army slowly. From Oswego he wrote Pitt, "I have an army that can take Canada, and I will do it."50 On August 10 "at the Peep of day the whole embarked," consisting of ten thousand men, mostly regulars, but including provincials from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut as well. Also along were more than seven hundred Indians under William Johnson.51
The main body moved in bateaux crammed with tons of supplies. After three days on the lake the army entered the St. Lawrence. It passed Frontenac, moved into the current, and floated downstream through the treacherous Thousand Islands. Light infantry, provincials, and Indian scouts ranged along both banks of the river, providing security. By August 16, Amherst's advance guard was within a few miles of Pouchot. The next morning the brig L'Outaoais, the last remaining vessel in the French fleet on the lakes, sortied against the British. A swarm of British row galleys descended on it. After a three-hour battle the brig surrendered and was taken into Amherst's service.52
Amherst planned his approach to Fort Lévis very carefully, even though Pouchot's weak garrison could not do much more than puff smoke at the passing British. Had he wished, Amherst could have easily leapfrogged past Fort Lévis and been on his way to Montreal, but he was determined to pause and humble Pouchot. Pouchot, the great delayer, had put out the bait, and Amherst took it.
The British took two days to complete their encirclement of the island, and then five more to position cannon. Finally, on the twenty-third Amherst's batteries opened up. Remarkably, Pouchot held out for two days before surrendering. Amherst then spent four days rebuilding the fort he had just destroyed, renaming it William Augustus. At the price of twelve men dead and forty wounded, Pouchot and his brave garrison had delayed Amherst for nearly two weeks.53
Amherst's Indian allies voiced their displeasure. Having come across the lake with the British and fought against the French, they expected to be rewarded by being permitted to sack the fort, strip the French, and take prisoners for ransom and revenge. Johnson made the case for his allies and asked Amherst to grant them their customary reward. If they were not satisfied, he warned, they would abandon the campaign and return home. Amherst could not have cared less. His disdain for Indians was even greater than his disgust with provincials. He summarily rejected Johnson's request, telling him that "he believed his army fully sufficient for the service he was going upon, without their [Indian] assistance. . . . he could not prevail on himself to purchase [their friendship] at the expense of countenancing the horrid barbarities they wanted to perpetrate."54 Johnson did his best to disguise the unpleasant news, but his friends were not fooled. Disgusted at the faithlessness of their allies, by morning more than six hundred warriors had left.
Aside from the departure of his Indian allies, Amherst's losses thus far had been minimal, and the only remaining obstacle between his army and Montreal was the wild rapids of the St. Lawrence. On the thirty-first Amherst renewed his sluggish advance downriver. Rumors of rocks and rapids raised anxiety among the men. For more than a century, French soldiers, trappers, and missionaries had paddled this route. To Amherst and his men, however, the ferocious white water of the St. Lawrence was new.
Amherst's first division managed to make eighteen miles downriver through rapids "more frightful than dangerous" until they reached Isle aux Chat (Cat Island), where they encamped for the night. The next day Brigadier Thomas Gage brought the second division. Together the divisions shot the Long Sault Rapids, where Amherst reported that "broken waves" filled the bateaux and a corporal and three soldiers of the Royal Highlanders were lost. That night they encamped at Johnson Point near the entrance to Lake St. Francis. The following morning the whole force proceeded two-thirds of the distance across the calm waters of the lake to Pointe aux Boudets (Point Bodet). "Very violent Rain and Wind" held the army at the point for an extra day, but finally on September 4 they rowed across the remainder of the lake and reentered the current to face the most dangerous rapids between them and Montreal. It was "the worst part of the river."55
Eighty-four men drowned in this eighteen-mile stretch of white water, more men than Amherst had lost to enemy action in the entire campaign. Tired, wet, and weary, Amherst's army encamped on the Isle Perrot near the head of the La Chine Rapids, where the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers join. After a day of rest the army broke camp on the sixth and prepared for the final push to Montreal. A few hours later they landed without opposition within a few miles of the city. That afternoon Murray, coming upriver from Quebec, landed on the east side opposite the city. The following morning Colonel Haviland's men emerged from the woods near Murray's camp. Montreal was besieged.56
Neither the walls of Montreal nor the garrison within were sufficient to offer more than token resistance to the British. Most of the militia and Indians had already left, and even some of the regulars had deserted. As Amherst's engineers prepared the siege, Vaudreuil, Lévis, and Bigot discussed surrender. They had barely three thousand men. Although the situation was hopeless, Vaudreuil opted to play for time, sending the elegant Anglophile Bougainville to offer Amherst conditions: a one-month ceasefire. That drew a quick rejection from Amherst, who responded that the French had until noon to surrender or suffer the consequences. More talk followed until finally Vaudreuil agreed to a full and complete surrender. The terms were generous and allowed the French troops, both the Troupes de la Marine and la Terre, the right to parole, that is, the freedom to return home, offering in exchange a pledge not to fight again in this war against the British. In one particular, however, Amherst stepped outside the canon. He refused to offer his foe the "honors of war." Lévis protested vigorously, but Amherst was firm. The French, according to him, had excited "the savages to perpetrate the most horrid and unheard of barbarities."57 Yes or no were the only answers that Amherst would accept.
Lévis and his fellow officers were stung. They were not, they felt, responsible for the "barbarities" of their allies and believed that as many "barbarities" had been committed on the British side as on the French. To save the city and preserve the honor of his soldiers, Lévis asked Vaudreuil's permission to withdraw and make a last stand. Vaudreuil dismissed the chevalier's bravado and signed the capitulation. In a final act of defiance Lévis ordered the regimental colors burned. In retaliation Amherst threatened to search the personal luggage of the French officers, an insult of the first order. Lévis stood firm in his defiance, and Amherst backed down. The French officers were secure in their personal baggage, and Amherst was denied the honor of presenting the colors of a vanquished enemy to his king.58
At six o'clock on the morning of September 8, almost a year after the battle on the Plains of Abraham, Amherst announced the surrender of the French and ordered his troops to cease operations. That night the general entered in his journal, "I believe never three Armys, setting out from different and very distant Parts from each other joyned in the center, as was intended, better than we did, and it could n
ot fail of having the effect of which I have just now seen the consequence."59 The next morning grenadiers and light infantry under the command of Brigadier Frederick Haldimand entered Montreal and marched to the Place d'Arms.
Vaudreuil's capitulation included all the troops in Canada. Over several weeks the news reached across the lakes and down the Ohio Valley. The war in North America was over. The fate of North America, however, was yet to be decided.
*Ogdensburg, New York.
(12)
Pitt Departs, the War Expands
I will be responsible for nothing that I do not direct.
—William Pitt, minutes of cabinet meeting, October 12, 1761
No one had a greater stake in the fate of North America than its native inhabitants. On September 16, 1760, eight days after Vaudreuil surrendered to Amherst, a delegation of Canadian Iroquois arrived at Montreal to meet with William Johnson. Johnson opened the council by thanking "the Great Spirit above who allows us to meet together this Day in so Friendly a Manner." The chiefs responded by celebrating the renewal "and strengthening [of] the old Covenant Chain which before this War subsisted between us." They were pleased, they told Johnson, that the road from their villages to Albany was once again open for trade. They promised to return all captives and to "burry the french hatchet we have made use of, in the bottomless Pit."1
In return for burying the hatchet, the Iroquois asked for three concessions.
There is one thing we understand [British] have great Plenty of, which is Liquor, as that is the only thing [which] can turn our heads and prove fatal to us, we... entreat you in the most earnest Manner not to suffer any of your People to sell or give any to us.
It is proper for you to know the Way our Affairs were managed while under the Care of the french [which] is that Smiths &etc were allowed to work for Us upon the Government expense.
We are heartily thankful to the Genlfor his Goodness in allowing our Priests to remain & instruct us as usual, and we shall endeavour to make a good Use of it, as He is now the head of all here, & had subdued our former Superiors, who maintained our Priests, they must now suffer & cannot subsist without your Assistance; Therefore we beg you will not be worse than our former Friends the french. And also beg that you will regulate Trade so that we may not be imposed upon by [the] People our new [Allies].2
These requests reflected the growing plight of all the Indians who had watched, and sometimes fought, during the war. Whether they were French or English allies, the war had exacerbated their growing reliance upon European goods and technology, but their own declining economic condition made it difficult for them to afford them. The British victory in North America accelerated this downward spiral of Indian impoverishment. Whatever might be said of French attitudes toward the Indians, an economic relationship based on the fur trade was far more tolerant of native culture than the expansionist agrarianism characteristic of English settlement.
Despite promises of renewed friendship, Johnson's meeting at Montreal spelled somber times ahead for the northern tribes. Tidings from Pennsylvania carried equal concern for the natives of the colonies to the south. By a royal charter of 1662 Charles II granted to Connecticut not only the land within the generally acknowledged boundaries of the colony but also a narrow swath of territory that stretched from Narragansett Bay to the South Sea. Neither the king nor his ministers had any notion of what they had given away, so it was not surprising that two decades later they presented William Penn a charter granting to him portions of the land previously given to Connecticut. In neither case did the king consult with either the Delaware or the Iroquois, who both claimed a portion of this territory in northern Pennsylvania and southern New York known as the Wyo ming Valley.
While legal title to this rich agricultural region stood contested for nearly one hundred years, in a practical sense the issue of who owned the valley was moot. The tide of white settlement had yet to reach that far inland, and in any case, the presence of powerful Indian forces allied with the French made the Wyoming Valley too dangerous for farmers to settle. Beginning in 1753, however, the region began to open up as European immigration grew and Indian influence lessened. Land-hungry settlers and speculators eyed the valley with keen interest. Attention peaked in Connecticut—which had a claim to the valley—where farmers laid plans to develop the Wyoming. In 1753 they gathered at the town of Windham, Connecticut, and formed the Susquehanna Company. The company's purpose was to buy land in the Wyoming Valley. The next year the company stockholders took advantage of the gathering at Albany and hired the infamous John Lydius to treat with the Indians at the conference in order to acquire title to the valley. Lydius did as he was told, and by any method he could employ. Unfortunately, the Iroquois who sold the land to Lydius also sold the same parcels to Pennsylvania interests. These convoluted machinations might have led to immediate conflict had anyone actually tried to settle on the disputed lands, but the explosion of warfare in the area intervened.3
With the surrender of Duquesne to Forbes, and the collapse of French power in the west, the Wyoming Valley took on new luster. Denying that they had ever abandoned or sold their ancestral claim, both Delaware and Iroquois, with the support of William Johnson, asserted that they still owned the valley. The colony of Pennsylvania, led by William Denny, put forth its own claim, and so too did the Susquehanna Company investors, who produced documentary evidence to support their position. It is difficult to know where the smell of fraud was the strongest.
As the parties contended, sharp divisions formed. On one side were the Connecticut men, and on the other were Denny and William Johnson. In a remarkable turnabout these two men who had spent most of the war tossing barbs at each other, combined to keep Connecticut at bay. To succeed, they needed Indian support—especially from the omnipresent Delaware Teedyuscung. On June 18, 1762, the disputing parties gathered at Easton, Pennsylvania. With Johnson presiding, they met almost every day for ten days. Teedyuscung laid out the Indian grievances. It was a matter of Indian oral tradition versus European documents. The Indians recounted what had been said at previous councils. The Pennsylvanians laid documents on the table that disputed their oral testimony. When Teedyuscung asked that the Indians have their own clerk to record the proceedings, Johnson replied that he was "surprised" at the request and assured Teedyuscung that the king's clerk—that is, the person appointed and paid for by Johnson—would make a good record. Suspicious of having his fate resting in documents he did not understand, four days into the conference Teedyuscung spoke in council to Johnson, "I desire you'll let me have the Writings which were read yesterday, that I may have time to Consider of them, as We did not understand what was said." He then added: "You promised to see Justice done, but when you refused to let me have a Clerk, I began to Fear you intended to do as George Croghan did, when We were here five years since,—King George has ordered you to hear me, and all the Indians fully. But how do you think I can make Answer at once to as many Papers as your Clerk was four Hours reading, in a Language I do not understand, and which have not been interpreted to me?"4
As soon as Teedyuscung finished, the Quaker leader Israel Pemberton stood and spoke in his support. Other Quakers chimed in, and Johnson found himself in an embarrassing position. The next day Johnson responded vigorously, charging that Teedyuscung and the Quakers were "Abusing" him and showing "Contempt." Something unrecorded occurred that evening that caused a sea change in the tone of the meeting. In the morning Teedyuscung announced that he and the other Indian leaders present "were ready . . . to Sign a release for all the Lands in Dispute."5 No one has ever been able to explain the overnight change of heart. Bribery is a distinct possibility.
If Teedyuscung did receive payment, he did not live long enough to enjoy it. He spent lavishly, at least by his poor standards, trying to ape his white neighbors. He wore their clothes, lived in a settler's style cabin, and drank cheap English rum. His ill behavior undermined his standing in both the European and Indian camps. Although he railed a
gainst the inevitable white invasion of the Wyoming Valley, there was little he could do to prevent the takeover. On April 19, 1763, he and his wife burned to death when their cabin was engulfed in a fire of suspicious origin.6
By any measure the Indians were the biggest losers in the war, but the French in Canada suffered as well. While officers and men of the Troupes de la Terre, along with the Creole elite, including Vaudreuil and Bigot, boarded ships at Quebec to return to France, most of the sixty thousand French-speaking Canadians remained in their native land. Since there were so many of them, an Acadian-style cleansing was not possible, nor was it necessary. Incorporating these Francophone Roman Catholics into an Anglo empire, however, posed problems. The example of the conquered Scots and the Irish weighed on British minds. In Ireland, and to a lesser degree in Scotland, military defeat had been followed by land confiscation, religious discrimination, and political disenfranchisement. Repression is costly. Military occupation and constabularies are expensive to maintain, and their presence often provokes violence. If the Acadian and Celtic examples were followed in Canada, it would likely result in a heavy bill of costs.
Equally unacceptable, however, was the notion of extending to Canada the laissez-faire policy of previous administrations that had encouraged the American colonies to assert their own prerogatives and challenge the authority of king and Parliament. Both the king and his ministers were determined not to repeat in Canada the mistakes they had made in America. In their goal of imposing firm rule over Canada, the English enjoyed two great advantages. First, unlike the British colonies, Canada had no experience in self-government. The colony lived in the Bourbon world of "enlightened" despotism. Representative government had no meaning other than the occasional meetings of the elite summoned to rubber-stamp the decisions of the king's servants. No French Canadian could claim that the new English rulers were taking his/her rights since they had so few to begin with. Second, whatever attachment the French Canadians felt for France was severely compromised by the arrogant behavior of the men the king sent to defend them. Not only did they fail to beat the British but their haughty and dismissive attitude toward all things Canadian was alienating. In short, French Canadians cared little for Louis XV and his government. What did matter to them was the preservation of their culture and religion.
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