whole design. And after a march of ten days, he arrived with his army at Point au Tremble, within a few miles of Quebec.

Meanwhile general Murray had omitted no step that could be taken by an able and experienced officer for maintaining the important conquest committed to his care. But the garrison had suffered so much from excessive cold in the winter, and by the want of vegetables and fresh provisions, that he had not above three thousand men fit for service, when he received intelligence of the approach of the French army. With this sinall but gallant body, accustomed to conquer, he intrepidly resolved to meet the enemy in the field, in order to avoid the tedious hardships and the dangers of a siege, in an extensive town, with a sickly garrison, and all the inhabitants. secretly hostile to him. He accordingly marched out on the 28th of April to the heights of Abraham, and attacked M. de Levi with great impetuosity, near Sillery. But being out flanked, and ready to be surrounded by superior numbers, he was obliged to retire, after an obstinate dispute with the loss of one thousand men34.

The French lost above two thousand men in this action, without deriving any positive advantage from it; for general Murray, instead of being dispirited by his defeat, seemed only to be roused to more strenuous efforts. The same bold spirit, which had led him to encounter the enemy in the field with a handful of brave men, in hopes of obliging them to relinquish their enterprise, now animated him in the defence of Quebec with a feeble garrison, since defence was become necessary. Nor did the French general lose a moment in improving his victory. He opened trenches before the town on the very evening of the battle; but it was the eleventh of May before he could bring any batteries to bear on the fortifications. By that time general Murray had com

34. Letter from general Murray, in the Lond. Gazette, June 27, 1760. Knox's Campaigns, vol. ii,

pleted

pleted some out-works, and planted a numerous artillery on the ramparts; so that the French batteries were in a manner silenced, by the superior fire of the garrison. And the place was soon relieved, by the fortunate arrival of the English fleet, under Lord Colvil and commodore Swanton 35.

M. de Levi immediately raised the siege, and retired with the utmost precipitation toward Montreal; where the marquis de Vaudreuil, governor-general of Canada, had fixed his head-quarters, and was resolved to make a last stand. For this purpose he called in all his detachments, and collected around him the whole force of the colony.

He con

In the meantime general Amherst was diligently employed in taking measures for the utter subversion of the French power in that part of the new world. veyed instructions to general Murray, directing him to advance, by water to Montreal, with all the troops that could be spared from the garrison of Quebec. And colonel Haviland, by like orders, sailed with a detachment from Crown-Point, and took possession of Isle Aux Noix, which he found abandoned by the enemy, and thence proceeded directly for Montreal; while the commander in chief, with his own division, consisting of about ten thousand regulars and provincials, left the frontiers of New-York, and advanced to Oswego. There he was joined by a thousand Indians of the Six Nations, under sir William Johnson.

Amherst embarked on lake Ontario with his whole army; and after taking the fort of Isle Royale, which in a manner commands the source of the river St. Lawrence, he arrived by a tedious and dangerous voyage at Montreal, on the same day that general Murray landed near that place from Quebec. The two generals met with no opposition in disembarking their troops: and by a happy concurrence of circumstances, colonel Haviland, with the detachment under his command, arrived next day.

35. Id. ibid.

The

The junction of these three bodies, composed of the flower of the British forces in North-America, and the masterly dispositions made by the commanders, convinced Vaudreuil that all resistance would be ineffectual. He therefore demanded a capitulation; which was granted the 8th of September, and on terms more favourable than he had reason to expect in such circumstances. Montreal, Detroit, Michilimachinac, and every other place possessed by the French within the government of Canada, was surrendered to his Britannic majesty. But it was stipulated that the troops should be transported to old France; and the Canadians were secured in their property, and in the free exercise of their religion36.

This was an important conquest, and seemed to complete the great object of the war, the humiliation of the French in North-America. But while the arms of Great-Britain were carrying terror before them in Canada, the French emissaries from the province of Louisiana, had exercised their arts of insinuation so successfully among the neighbouring Indians, that the Cherokees, a powerful tribe, had commenced hostilities, toward the close of last campaign, against the more southern English colonies; plundering, massacring, and scalping the inhabitants of the back settlements. Mr. Littleton, governor of South-Carolina, repressed their ravages, and obliged them to sue for peace. They engaged to renounce the French interest, but renewed the war. Colonel Montgomery, with a regiment of Highlanders, a party of gre nadiers, and a body of provincial troops, made war upon them after their own manner, and severely chastised them for their breach of faith. But the consummation of vengeance was reserved for colonel Grant, who desolated the whole country of the Cherokees, destroyed fifteen of their towns, and laid them under the necessity of making the most humble submissions. They accord

36. Letters from general Amherst and general Murray, in Lond. Gazette, Oct. 1760. Knox's Campaigns, ubi sup.

ingly supplicated, and obtained the renewal of their treaties with England, at Charlestown, in 1761, with all the marks of a penitent spirit and pacific disposition; while the other savage tribes, over-awed by the fear of a similar visitation, seemed alike quietly disposed. The town of New-Orleans, and a few plantations higher on the Missisippi, alone remained to France of all her settlements in North-America: and these were too distant and feeble to molest the English colonies.

Nor was the success of the British arms less decisive in the East Indies. Encouraged by the taking of Vandivash, and his victory over Lally, colonel Coote resolved to invest Pondicherry, the only settlement of any consequence remaining to the French on the coast of Coromandel. But as the place was too strong, and the garrison too numerous to permit him to indulge a hope of carrying it by assault, or even by regular approaches, with any force that he could assemble, he blocked it up closely by land and sea, and reduced both the garrison and the inhabitants to the greatest distress for want of provisions.

DEC. 31.

In the midst of this distress, and when the blockade, which was formed in the beginning of June, had been continued for many months, the French were suddenly flattered with the prospect of relief. The English fleet, under admiral Stevens, was driven off the coast by a violent storm, and four ships of the line were lost. But such was the vigour of the officers and seamen, that before any supplies could be thrown into Pondicherry, it was again blocked up by a stout squadron. The blockade, by land, had already been changed into a regular siege, which was now carried on with redoubled vigour. A breach was made in the ramparts, and the inhabitants offered to capitulate; but as the governor paid no attention to their interests, the proposal was disregarded37.

37, Letter from colonel Coote, in Lond. Gazette, July 20, 1761.

Lally,

Lally, who was at all times a man of violent and turbulent passions, appears to have been disordered in his understanding after his unsuccessful attempt on Madrass. Greatly dissatisfied with the state of the French affairs in India, and with the conduct of the troops under his command, he thus expressed himself in the agitations of his disappointment: "Hell has spewed me into this country "of wickedness; and I wait, like Jonas, for the whale "to receive me in its belly." By his haughty and contemptuous behaviour, and the tyrannical exercise of his authority, under pretence of reforming abuses, he had early rendered himself equally odious to the governor and council of Pondicherry, and to the officers of the army, and therefore found his situation extremely disagreeable during the siege. "I would rather go to com"mand the Caffres," said he, "than remain in this 66 Sodom, which must sooner or later be destroyed by "the English fire, in default of that from heaven!" He made, however, a gallant defence.

The place being rendered utterly untenable, was surrendered to colonel Coote, on the 15th of January, 1761. The garrison were made prisoners of war, and a vast quantity of military stores, with a rich booty, fell into the hands of the victors38.

In consequence of the taking of Pondicherry, and the reduction of the small settlement of Mahie, on the coast of Malabar, (by which it was immediately followed) the French power in the east was utterly subverted; and the English became in a manner masters of the whole commerce of the vast peninsula of India, from the point of the Carnatic to the mouths of the Indus and Ganges, beside the almost exclusive trade of the rich and extensive provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orixa, which in some measure owned their dominion.

This wonderful acquisition of trade and territory, added to the conquest of Canada and the possession of Senegal, opened to the subjects of Great-Britain im

VOL. V.

38. Id ibid.

3.D

mense