The Dominion of Canada

II The All Red Series

The All Red Series is designed at once to quicken the interest of Englishmen in the extension and maintenance of the Empire, and to give an account of its constituent countries as they are to-day — their physical features, natural products, commerce, and social and political institutions. They are intended alike for the immediately practical use of emigrants or visitors, and for the study of those who stay at home.

Uniform with this volume

THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

BY

The Hon. Bernhard R. Wise

THE DOMINION OF NEW ZEALAND

Sir Arthur P. Douglas, Bt.

Other volumes in preparation

RT. HON. SIR WILFRID LAURIER, P.C, G.C.M.G., D.C.L., LL.D., K.C., PREMIER OF THE DOMINION OF CANADA

, BY

SECRETARY TO THE OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR CANADA

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1911 f'

i

In

'a

Part I Chap

I, EARLY HISTORY, 1497 . .

II. CANADA UNDER FRANCE, 1663-1760

III. FRENCH AND ENGLISH, 1756-1763

IV. CANADA UNDER BRITISH RULE, 1760-1791 V. REPRESENTATIVE INSTITUTIONS, 1791-1814

VI. POLITICAL STRIFE, 1815-1840

VII. CONFEDERATION

VIII. THE ERA OF CANADIAN RAILWAYS

IX. THE Hudson's bay company

X. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST

XI. THE UNDEVELOPED NORTH .

XII. BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA

XIII. THE DESTINY OF CANADA

Part II People And Social Conditions

I. THE AMERICAN " INVASION "

II. THE HABITANT

. 132 . 137

VI • CONTENTS

CHAP. pA(;r

III. UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS . . . 141

IV. THE CANADIAN INDIANS . , . . 145 V. SOCIAL LIFE TO-DAY OF CANADA , . .152

VI. THE LABOUR ORGANISATIONS OF CANADA . . 162

VII. THE CHIEF CITIES OF CANADA , . . 178

VIII. THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL AND THE HIGH COM- MISSIONER ...... 189

Part III Constitutional Parliament

I. CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY II. THE PARLIAMENT OF CANADA

III. DEFENCE

IV. BANKING AND CURRENCY IN BRITISH

AMERICX ....

V. CUSTOMS REVENUE AND TAXATION .

VI. EDUCATION

VII. TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATION .

VIII. POSTS AND TELEGRAPHS

IX. THE " ALL RED " ROUTE

X. AREA AND PHYSICAL FEATURES

XI. CLIMATE .....

XII. CANADIAN SCENERY

XIII. CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES

ETC.

NORTH

198 212 242

CONTENTS Vll

Part IV Production, Etc

CHAP. PAGE

I. CANADIAN AGRICULTURE .... 377

II. ECONOMIC MINERALS OF CANADA . . . 405

III. Canada's manufactures .... 426

IV. fisheries . 434

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE RT. HON. SIR WILFRID LAURIER

Frontispiece

MAIN STREET, PRINCE RUPERT, BRITISH COLUMBIA

THE PRINCE OF WALES, AFTERWARDS KING EDWARD VII, I CANADA .......

CHAMPLAIN MARKET, QUEBEC .....

A " STONY " SQUAW ......

REGATTA NORTH-WEST ARM, HALIFAX

CHAMPLAIN MARKET, QUEBEC, ANOTHER VIEW . VICTORIA MONUMENT, OTTAWA ....

THE RT. HON. LORD STRATHCONA ....

AN OX-CART : AN OCCASIONAL SIGHT IN NOVA SCOTIA

PARLIAMENTARY BUILDINGS, OTTAWA

LEGISLATIVE BUILDINGS, VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA

HAZELTON, BRITISH COLUMBIA .....

CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL GARDEN PLOTS, GUELPH, ONTARIO

VICTORIA BRIDGE, MONTREAL .....

HIGH-ROAD BRIDGE, RICHMOND ....

ON THE PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND RAILWAY

THE BASILICA, QUEBEC ......

FORDING THE GRAND FORKS RIVER, B.C.

CATTLE BRANDING, WESTERN CANADA

LOOKING TOWARDS BANFF FROM THE PALLISER RANGE (LAKE MINNEWANKA, WEST END) ....

BRAS d'oR LAKES, CAPE BRETON, NOVA SCOTIA .

A CANADIAN HAYFIELD ......

PEACH ORCHARD, WESTERN ONTARIO

FISH WHARF, ST. ANDREW'S .....

DRYING COD-FISH, ST. JOHN .....

FACING PAGE

108 132 146

160 180 182

364 368 380 398 434 436

[From " History of Britain," 1670.]

Brutus thus addresses Diana in the country of Leogecia :— " Goddess of Shades, and Huntress, who at will Walk'st on the rowling Sphear and through the deep. On thy third Reign the Earth look now, and tell What land, what seat of rest thou bid'st me seek. What certain seat, where I may worship thee For aye, with Temples vow'd and Virgin quires."

[To whom sleeping before the altar Diana, in a Vision that night

thus answer'd : — ] " Brutus, far to the West, in th' Ocean wide. Beyond the Realm of Gaul, a land there lies.

Sea girt it lies, where Giants dwelt of old, Now void, it fits fhy people ; thither bend Thy course, there shalt thou find a lasting seat, There to thy sons another Troy shall rise, And Kings be born of thee, whose dredded might Shall aw the World, and conquer nations bold."

{Fragment from Milton.)

Oxford Univ. Edition..

DOMINION OF CANADA

CHAPTER I Early History, 1497

From the day when Leif the Norseman sailed west in his Httle ship with the Dragon's head at the prow, the eyes of European adventurers had turned to the West for a solution of the mystery of the East. It remained for John Cabot, a cosmopolitan merchant, to bring to England the first definite news of that land we now call ■Canada. In searching for the origin of the Eastern spices in which he traded, he heard at Mecca of a series of caravans by which they came overland— a string which seemed to stretch out indefinitely towards the east : till the idea occurred to him that if their origin were so far to the eastward it might be quicker to seek them by sea from the west. So, in the Matthew, with eighteen sturdy hands he sailed in May, 1497, from Bristol, first north, and then, when Ireland was behind him, westward for a month. Passing Newfoundland to the starboard hand he first sighted land on St. John's Day, June 24th, 1497. This point (the Prima Vista) is popularly believed to have been the western extremity of Cape Breton, though Labrador and Newfoundland have also claimed the title.

After a quick passage home to announce the discovery, and receive his reward— of £10 !— from Henry VII, John Cabot with his son Sebastian sailed in the following year with five ships ; but no record of results exists, and he disappears unremarked from the pages of history. Other discoverers followed quickly, for in 1500 Juan de la Cosa's map showed flags with the cross of St. George extending from Cape Breton to a point which is probably intended for Cape Hatteras.

In 1501 Gaspar Cortereal ranged over Labrador and Newfoundland, and the next landmark in exploration was the landing of Jacques Cartier of St. Malo at Blanc Sablon — the first landing on Canadian soil — in 1534. A year later he was back again, and on August 10th, anchored in a small bay opposite Anticosti, which he named St. Lawrence — a name which was afterwards extended to the whole of the gulf and the river. In the same year the explorer ascended the River, landing at the Indian to\vns of Stadacona (Quebec) and Hochelaga (Montreal).

During the winter of 1542-3 the Sieur de Roberval wintered with a small garrison at Cap Rouge, near Quebec ; and then for a time the troubles in France which followed the death of Francis I put an end to active exploration on any large scale. With the return of peace a project for the colonisation of Canada was undertaken by the Marquis de la Roche ; but the expedition never reached its objective. Sixty convicts were landed on Sable Island and were left there without assistance for five years. Only twelve survived.

All this time. Englishmen had not been idle. Fishermen and traders had scoured the seas and eventually had made the port of St. John in Newfoundland. In 1576, Martin Frobisher was daring the ice in the Arctic seas for a realisation of his dream of the North-West Passage to Cathay. In 1579 Sir Francis Drake took possession of the Pacific Coast, and named the country New Albion. John Davis discovered the Davis Straits in 1585, and in the two following years made voyages to Arctic Canada. The fur-trade, too, had become an

THE FIRST LANDING

important one. Trappers and traders were meeting, and news from inland was borne by the ships back to their home ports.

The new epoch — the epoch of colonisation — began with the year 1603 when Samuel Champlain, a native of Brouage, in the Bay of Biscay, sailed under Pontgrave, a rich Breton merchant, with two vessels on a voyage of commerce and settlement. The voyage extended up the St. Lawrence as far as the Lachine Rapids. On the return of the explorers to France, a new company was formed immediately, headed by Sieur de Monts and Pierre du Guast, the Governor of Pons. Its objective was to explore the indefinite region known in the King's commission to de Monts as " La Cadie."^ This is the first record of that Acadia which was to become for the next century a battle-ground where French and English were to fight long and bitterly for possession.

The new expedition sailed in April, 1604. Two months later they sighted Nova Scotia, sailed up the Bay of Fundy to the harbour which we now know as Annapolis, but which de Monts called Port Royal, " the most commodious and pleasant place we have yet seen in this country." . At the head of the bay the expedition came to a river which falls into Passamaquoddy Bay — the river Sainte Croix — and on an islet in this stream was formed the first French settlement on the North East Coast of America.

A very short stay proved the site to be impossible, and the adventurers removed to Annopolis, or Port Royal, where a permanent settlement was founded. In the story of Port Royal, of its abandonment, of its resettlement, of its missionary enterprise, there is abundant romance. In spite of court intrigue, in spite of adverse influence of all kinds, the little colony struggled on. An expedition was even sent to extend the borders to the

1 Cadie : from the Micmac, Ahade, " a place of abundance."

other side of the Bay, when a stray Enghsh vessel discovered and destroyed it. This incident, the first breath of century-long strife — led to the discovery and destruction of Port Royal by the orders of Sir Thomas Dale, the Governor of Virginia.

While the little colony of Port Royal had been fighting for its life the restless spirit of Samuel Champlain drove him to lead another expedition of discovery up the St. Lawrence River where, in 1608, he founded Quebec, ^ the first city of New France. Twenty-eight settlers wintered there, and in the following year a garden of maize, wheat, barley and vegetables of all kinds was planted. In 1609, Champlain joined the Algonquin and Huron Indians in an expedition against the Iroquois, and in doing so alienated the most powerful race in the country ; but with this exception he conducted the affairs with sound judgment and a fine diplomacy.

The record of the next twenty years is occupied in accounts of fights with Indians, of explorations among the lakes and inland waterways and of missionary enterprise, and though much quiet progress was made, no outstanding features call for notice.

In 1627, Canada and Acadie were granted to " The Company of New France," or " The Hundred Associates," headed by the great Cardinal Richelieu ; and a modified form of feudal tenure was established in New France with the object of inducing men of good birth and means to enter and develop the country. The war between France and England hindered the project, and in the course of the operations Quebec was captured by the Enghsh, only to be returned to France at the end of hostilities, In 1635, Champlain — " the Father of New France," as he has been rightly called — died.

Three years later, the Iroquois attacked the Huron Indians, and in the course of the war practically

^ Quebec : from the Indian Kebek, a strait.

SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN

exterminated them as a nation ; and between 1642 and 1667 there were frequent and serious wars between the French and the Iroquois Indians, who had never forgotten Champlain's expedition.

Acadie was taken by the Enghsh and restored ; was transferred to the Enghsh and again, by the treaty of Breda (1667), given back to France. It was a period of great activity both in missionary enterprise and in exploration. Indeed, the two in many cases went hand-in-hand.

The year 1663 is a landmark in early Canadian history. The trading companies were obviously unequal to the task of developing the country : the Iroquois Indians were virtually masters of the St. Lawrence valley : and the white population of the country was afraid to leave the protection of the forts. Moreover, they were dependent for supplies almost entirely upon the French ships. The fate of the country hung in the balance. The land groaned for peace. Appeals were made to the King of France and, acting on the advice of the great Colbert, the young Louis XIV assumed control of New France and made it a Royal Province. Soldiers were sent to aid .the distressed settlers ; and, led by the Marquis de Tracy, expeditions forced their way into Iroquois country with such good effect that peace was soon made between the French and the Five Nations, and the distressed colony was free to develop its resources and extend its limited borders. The population rose from less than 2,000 in 1663 to over 4,000 in 1665, and for the first time in its history we read of the immigration of young unmarried girls who were destined to be the mothers of the early Canadian people. It seemed as though the little ship of New France was at last safe in haven.

2— (2137)

CHAPTER II Canada under France, 1663-1760

With the advent of Royal authority the company of New France collapsed and their successors, the French West Indian Company, formed in 1664, acquired many of their privileges and monopolies. No enterprise undertaken for private gain can ever hope to conduct its operations with the impartiality of a benevolent State ; and after a life of ten years, in which it did infinite harm, the French West Indian Company State-given monopoly ceased.

One of the difficulties which faced the rulers of the new country was the difficulty they found in keeping the colonists within the settlements. Ensnared by the speU of the forests the young men would disappear into the unknown, blazing a trail, living a primitive life, and pushing ever further into the Beyond. Penalties were even instituted to check this efflux, but without avail. The coureur du Bois, revelling in his escape from civilisation, happy in his solitude, remained the feature of the period.

Among the most noteworthy pioneers of this time must be mentioned the men of the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1670 a company of English Traders, known as " the Honourable Company of Adventurers from England trading into Hudson's Bay," received from Charles II a royal licence to trade in what was known as Prince Rupert's Land. Their first forts were built on the shores of the great Bay, and since they were only accessible to vessels from Europe during the summer months the story of the hardships encountered by the Traders is a record of the most stoical and heroic endurance. Naturally the French of the St. Lawrence Valley

EARLY STATE OF THE COUNTRY

looked with indignation at these outposts of England, and many of the forts were destroyed by Le Moyne d'lberville. But the forts were rebuilt and remained for many years the centres of a thriving trade. Indian trappers came from great distances to barter furs for the excellent provisions and clothing supphed by the Company.

In the north-west a company of French adventurers established themselves and explored westwards, it is said, as far as the outlying spurs of the Rocky Mountains ; but the wars between France and England came to end their enterprise, and the Hudson's Bay Company was left for a time supreme.. Later on, towards the end of the eighteenth century, a Canadian company of traders known as the North- West Company, established itself firmly, and the rivalry between the employes of the two companies often led to scenes of riot and bloodshed.

In returning to the general story of Canadian history, we come to one of the most famous names in the story of New France — the Comte de Frontenac. Appointed Governor in 1672, he ruled with an iron hand the variety of men under him. So overbearing of all restraint was he that at the end of ten years, his enemies at court triumphed, and he was recalled to France. He was replaced by La Barre, a timid and vacillating governor, whose weak policy towards the Indians sacrificed most of the prestige which Frontenac 's boldness had gained for France. He was quickly replaced by the Marquis of Denonville, an officer of Dragoons, in whose administration a successful expedition was despatched against the Hudson's Bay Company's fortified training posts.

At this time practically the whole trade of the Canadians was in direct barter. Very httle money was in the country and the people were always poor. In 1685 and onwards a peculiar currency was introduced, called " card-money." Common playing-cards were used, which bore the Crown, the Fleur-de-lis, with the amount of the value, and the signature of the official who issued them. In course of time the card-money became depreciated and worthless, though for nearly a hundred years no other currency existed.

During the winter of 1687 the Governor of Fort Frontenac treacherously seized a number of friendly Indians who had settled in , neutral villages near by. Some he sent to mission-stations, others to the French galleys. This the Iroquois never forgave, and one dark August night of 1689 a large band descended upon the hapless village of Lachine. Two hundred men, women and children were butchered, and over a hundred were carried away as prisoners. Now, Lachine was on the Island of Montreal, under the very nose of the Governor, and it was evident that a stronger hand must take the reins. So Frontenac was recalled from his retirement and resumed with characteristic energy the difficult task of governing Canada. His problem was made doubly difficult by the growth of English power, both to the south of him in New England and to the north in Hudson's Bay. War had been declared between France and England, an'd one of the schemes he first undertook was an attack on New York and Albany by land and sea. This was unsuccessful, but in 1690 he organised three expeditions against the English Colonies which were carried out with all the attendant inhumanities which in those days were peculiar to frontier warfare with Indian auxiliaries. These raids naturally led to reprisals by the English, and in the same year Port Royal was taken and other ports in Acadia were sacked. An abortive and disastrous attempt was made by Sir William Phips to take by assault the fortress of Quebec, and the settlements round Montreal were constantly harassed by the English and their Indian aUies. In 1693 and the following years attacks and counter-attacks succeeded one another briskly, resulting on the whole in favour of the

THE TREATY OF UTRECHT

French ; and so matters stood at the death of the great Frontenac in 1698. In 1701 his successor Calh^res brought about the earnestly desired peace with the Indians, thus opening the trade routes to the west by freeing them from the interference of the Iroquois.

The war of the Spanish Succession, which broke out in 1702, was mirrored in a fresh outbreak of border warfare between New England and Canada. After nine years of desultory lighting without tangible results on either side (unless the taking of the oft-captured Port Royal be counted), a powerful fleet was sent out to attempt the conquest of Canada under the command of Sir Hovenden Walker, one of the most incapable leaders in the pages of English history. After losing eight transports and nine hundred men in a storm at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, he decided to give up the project of besieging Quebec and returned to England without striking a blow.

What was more important to Canada than all this warlike parade was the extension of French settlements inland into the valleys of the south and the west. A fort had been built opposite the French missionary station of St. Ignace on the Strait of Machillimackinac, and it was now proposed to make the French headquarters at Detroit. This gave the French the key of the great lakes and cried check to the English expansion to the north and west. Frenchmen were pushing far into the valleys of the Illinois and the Wabash. The Mississippi was well explored and settlements founded.

The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) was a sad blow to French aspirations by giving to the English possession of Acadia, Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland (subject to French fishing rights). A clause was included providing that the French should never molest the Five Nations under the sovereignty of Great Britain.

During the years following on the Treaty of Utrecht the sovereignty of England was very lightly considered by the Home authorities. So hghtly, indeed, that Enghsh colonists coming out to settle in Nova Scotia, as Acadia will in future be called, had good cause for complaint. The only evidence of English possession was the dilapidated fort at Annapolis with an insignificant garrison, whilst emissaries went about amongst the French colonists telling of the eventual recovery of the country by the French, and fostering racial hatred among the Indians. English government was formally established in 1719.

England, indeed, had her hands full. In 1739 she was fighting Spain, Then followed the war of the Austrian Succession, and neither of them brought either profit or glory to her. The French, on the other hand, were making a great parade of their strength in New France. In 1720 was begun the building of a huge fort at Louisburg on Cape Breton — the lie Royale, as it was called — to guard the eastern approach to the St. Lawrence. For those days it was an enormous undertaking, and even on the modified plan, which had to be adopted for the sake of economy, the work cost the equivalent of ^2,000,000 of modern money. The fortress occupied an area of over a hundred acres, and was finely planned for defensive purposes. Yet in the spring of 1745, an expedition of 4,000 English colonists from New England, under Colonel Pepperell, besieged, and after forty days captured Louisburg, with the assistance of a fleet of thirteen vessels under Captain Tyng. By the articles of capitulation the garrison and residents — about 2,000 persons — were deported to France. Colonel Pepperell received the first colonial baronetcy ever created by England. Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, suggested the following up of this success by attacks on Montreal and Quebec, but the projects were abandoned for want of support at home.

Before the war ended, France made two attempts to acquire what she had lost at Cape Breton. In 1746

CAPTURE OF LOUISBURG

a fine fleet left La Rochelle but, attacked by the twin furies of storm and pestilence, it was checked at Halifax, and returned to France with a loss of two or three thousand men from disease and other casualties. A second expedition sent in the following year was met off Cape Finisterre by a superior English fleet and defeated.

In 1748 England, wearying of the struggle, made peace with France and, by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, gave back the hardly-won Island of Cape Breton in exchange for the commercial port of Madras which had been taken by the French in the West Indies. She retained, however, Nova Scotia.

At this time the French explorers were pushing west and south with amazing persistence, and fortified places had sprung up far beyond the present limits of Canada. At Detroit, Sault St. Marie and Mackinac the French held possession of the Great Lakes. They claimed exclusive rights from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi, and hearing that enterprising Englishmen were pushing along the valley of the Ohio, Governor Galissonniere despatched an expedition under Captain Celoron to claim the valley of the Ohio and its tributaries. This he did by affixing the French arms to trees, by burying lead plates along his line of route. The English in Virginia were aghast at the French incursion into country which they had regarded as pecuharly theirs, and the building of an English fort was begun at the Fork of the Ohio. This the Frencli captured before it was built and completed ; so that by 1755 the French dominion was complete — so far as any dominion could be reckoned complete which is merely guarded by a line of scattered forts in a more or less hostile country — from the great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Valley of the Ohio to the Valley of the Ilhnois. In Louisiana they had a few towns which included New Orleans, Mobile and Biloxi, and the settlement was managed by the Western Company, a huge speculative enterprise whose failure ruined thousands in France.

Whilst French expansion had been going on energetically in the south and west, England had begun to wake up to the importance of her possessions in America. To remedy the diplomatic mistake that had been made in giving up Cape Breton, Governor Shirley recommended that immigration into Nova Scotia should, be encouraged so as to counteract the influence of the strong French settlement there. In 1749, therefore — the year in v/hich Louisburg was surrendered, — the city of Halifax was founded on the west side of the harbour known as Chebucto. In 1752 the Halifax Gazette, the first newspaper of Canada, was published.

By the year 1755 the condition of affairs between France and England was again nearing one of the crises which periodically led to war, and in Nova Scotia the tension was particularly acute. The position of Nova Scotia, sandwiched between Cape Breton and French Canada, was precarious, and in view of the large and unfriendly majority of French inhabitants, a decisive step was decided on. The French Acadians generally had refused to subscribe to the oath of complete allegiance to Great Britain, and this was made the excuse for Governor Lawrence's action. Men, women and children to the number of about 6,000 were expelled from their homes and turned adrift in French Canada to find their way to food and shelter as best they could. It is quite a debatable point if it was the best method of attaining the end in view. The end, however, was attained and Nova Scotia and New Englanders slept the more peacefully when the expulsion was complete.

Next year, the smouldering embers of war burst forth once more, and France began her fight to the death for Canada.

CHAPTER III French and English, 1756-1763

The position of the two nations in America has been outhned in the foregoing pages, and before passing on to the account of the great war, which was now at hand, it may be smumarised in a sentence. French Canadians, as we have seen, were pushing down the rivers even as far as the Gulf of Mexico ; England round about Hudson's Bay held her own ; the west and north-west was a no-man's-land where only Indians and fur-traders roamed.

It must be remembered that France was a continental nation with ambitious designs in Europe. She gave only spasmodic attention to her colonial possessions in America, and at no time do the French diplomatists seem to have grasped the possibilities of a western empire. England, on the other hand, though her diplomacy blundered again and again in American affairs, was on the whole more alive to the possibilities, and if she neglected Canada. her eye was constantly upon the southern half of North America. Thus it was that when war came, the thirteen English colonies numbered close upon one and a quarter million inhabitants exclusive of negroes, whilst the total number of French in Canada and Louisiana amounted to no more than 80,000. The condition of the English settlers, too, was on the whole more prosperous than that of the French. Canadian commerce, never a plant of very sturdy growth, had not held up its head since the last war. The combined forces of Canadian regulars and militia, were generally numerically inferior to those of the British and Colonial forces, assisted by a powerful fleet.

In two points only had France the advantage. The natural barriers between the English Colonies and French Canada and the admirably chosen defences erected around Quebec and Montreal, were an enormous asset ; and in the nature of things, the French were acting upon interior lines of communication, so greatly appreciated by the strategist. To these were to be added the personal asset — immeasurably important-r— that for the first part of the war, at all events, the French were led by a military genius in the person of Montcalm in Quebec, whilst the English were handled by incompetents.

In 1756, then, there came to Quebec a man to whom France had entrusted the destinies of the Empire — Louis Joseph, Montcalm-Gozon de St. Veran — who became known to the world as Marquis de Montcalm. The English leader was Earl Loudoun of whom a wit of the period observed : " He is like St. George on the Signs : always on horseback, but never rides on." This incapable arranged a campaign against Lake Champlain and against Louisburg which ended in disaster.

Montcalm acted promptly. The Forts at Oswego, facing the French Fort Frontenac in Lake Ontario, were attacked and' destroyed ; and a year later Fort William Henry was taken. One of those scenes almost inseparable from a war where aborigines are employed marked the taking of Fort Wilham Henry, for in spite of Montcalm's efforts numbers of men, women and children were butchered in cold blood by the Indian auxiliaries.

In the same year (1757), a British expedition assembled in Halifax Bay, commanded by as fine a pair of bunglers as ever led brave men to destruction. Admiral Holburne, with fifteen ships of the line and three frigates, and Earl Loudoun, with 12,000 men, wasted valuable time, whilst Louisburg, their object of attack, was able to provide itself with men, food and ammunition. After a lapse of some months the English commanders decided not to risk an attack. Admiral Holburne, it is true,