was less diligently fortified. A small distance above the town a narrow pathway led from the shore up the adjacent rocks. So rugged and impervious was the ascent by this place, that no precautions were thought necessary for the defence of it. Here the British general designed to assail his enemy where he was least apprehensive of danger. Embarking his whole army upon the fleet, he moved up, during the day, a few leagues above the town; and amusing his vigilant adversary by a feint debarkation, waited until darkness had concealed his designs. A strong detachment being put on board of the flatbottomed boats, floated down with the stream, and under the obscurity of midnight, to the place of descent. Wolfe, who conducted the enterprise in person, first leaped upon the shore. At the head of his brave associates, he ascended amongst the dark and craggy precipices of the mountain; and by mutual assistance, by the aid of the projecting rocks, branches of trees, and roots that grew amongst the cliffs, they reached the elevation unperceived. He advanced with silent celerity and dispersed the guard. The rest of his legions followed; and the whole army with the return of the morning, were displayed upon the heights of Abraham.

Montcalm, who, secure in his inaccessible entrenchments, had mocked, during the whole siege,

the impotent and futile projects of his adversary, was now constrained to submit the fate of Quebec, and of the war, to the hazard of an unequal battle. With a force composed, for the most part, of militia and Indians, inferior in numbers as well as discipline, he marched out to encounter, upon their own ground, an army of veteran soldiers, who, animated by the successful temerity of their chief, and fired by his spirit, now hurled the weapons of provocation and defiance. After a fruitless attempt, by his Indians and Canadian militia, to make a diversion of the English force, the French commander, opposed in the order of battle to his formidable antagonist, led on his regular troops. They advanced with a rapid step and commenced the engagement with impetuosity and valour. The English, with a more temperate courage, reserving their fire, awaited the enemies' approach, and began the charge with an irresistible and destructive slaughter. The action soon became general, and was sustained with all the obstinate bravery which national antipathies or emulation, which despair or success could inspire. Montcalm, amidst the universal havoc of those legions who had been the companions of his glory while they lived, sunk in the heat of the battle. The British general, at the same time, animating his men by his presence and example, fought with heroic courage amidst

the fury of the engagement, and signalized his valour by the forfeit of his life. When these officers had disappeared from the scene of action, the conflict was sustained with various and doubtful success, until their second in command had likewise perished. The left wing of the French at last being charged by the bayonet with great violence, was thrown into confusion, and, after many obstinate struggles to renew the attack, driven from the field. The disorder soon afterwards communicated to the centre and to the right wing; the rout became general, resistance ceased, and victory perched upon the banners of Great Britain.

In strength of numbers, and magnitude of slaughter, this battle holds but an humble and subordinate station, amongst the splendid victories of the world; but the important consequences of it, the heroic spirit, variety of incidents, and tragic dignity with which the whole scene was exhibited, bestow upon it a lively interest with posterity. The two generals, who had been borne from the midst of the conflict, survived just long enough to witness the issue of it. They closed their mortal career with expressions of joy and satisfaction; the one, that he had not lived to witness the humiliation of his defeat; the other, that he died victoriously. The memory of the brave Montcalm, is preserved by his countrymen with af

fection; with sympathy for his fate and admiration of his virtues. The intrepid and indefatigable Wolfe, has received, what he most courted in his life, a glorious immortality, and stands preeminent in the short list of British heroes, who have adorned the annals of the new world.

Quebec capitulated to the English army, and was garrisoned by five thousand men. The French power was now in the glimmerings of extinction; a last effort was nevertheless made to reanimate the expiring flame. During the whole of the following year, a desultory warfare was carried on, which assumed, in some instances, a sanguinary character. Quebec was besieged, in its turn, by the French, and the English army repulsed before its walls, with the loss of one thousand men. But this attempt proving abortive, the remnants of the French army, having exhausted every means of resistance, stipulating for the Canadians, the enjoyment of their religion and property, renounced the conflict. On the eighth of September 1760, they surrendered to the arms of his Britannic majesty. A definitive treaty was concluded, three years aferwards, at Paris, by which the whole of the possessions east of the Mississippi, with the exception of the Island of Orleans, was annexed to the dominions of Great Britain.

CHAPTER IV.

The causes which produced immediately the Independence of the Colonies.

DURING the first joy occasioned by the prosperous termination of the war with France, much cordiality subsisted between Great Britain and her American subjects; and all those distrusts and animosities, which had so often disquieted their political harmony, were for a while, lost in mutual congratulations. But avarice and ambition, those great destroyers of the wisdom and happiness of mankind, and which, at all times, prevailed in the provincial government of the mother country, even over a sense of her own interest, permitted but a short triumph to these benevolent feelings.

Two years had not yet expired, since the restoration of peace, when the colonists, from the midst of their transient anticipations of a long prosperity, were borne into the tumults of a more solemn and sanguinary conflict. In the late war they had fought