A School History of the United States by John Bach McMaster

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[Illustration: JOIN, or DIE.]

In publishing one of these in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, Franklin
inserted the above picture at the top of the account.[1]

[Footnote 1: There is an old superstition, then very generally believed,
that if one cuts a snake in pieces and allows the pieces to touch, the
snake will not die, but will live and become whole again. By this
picture Franklin meant that unless the colonies joined for defense
against the French they would die; that is, be conquered.]

%81. Albany Plan of Union.%--The picture was apt for the following
reason. The Lords of Trade in London had ordered the colonies to send
delegates to Albany to make a treaty with the Iroquois Indians, and to
this congress Franklin purposed to submit a plan for union against the
French. The plan drawn up by the congress was not approved by the
colonies, so the scheme of union came to naught.

%82. Washington's Expedition.%--Meanwhile great events were happening
in the west. When Washington met Ensign Ward at Cumberland and heard the
story of the surrender, he was at a loss just what to do; but knowing
that he was expected to do something, he decided to go to a storehouse
which the Ohio Company had built at the mouth of a stream called
Redstone Creek in southwestern Pennsylvania. Pushing along, cutting as
he went the first road that ever led down to the valley of the
Mississippi from the Atlantic slope, he reached a narrow glade called
the Great Meadows and there began to put up a breastwork which he named
Fort Necessity. While so engaged news came that the French were near.
Washington thereupon took a few men, and, coming suddenly on the French,
killed or captured them all save one. Among the dead was Jumonville, the
leader of the party. Well satisfied with this exploit, Washington pushed
on with his entire force towards the Ohio. But, hearing that the French
were advancing, he fell back to Fort Necessity, and there awaited them.
He did not wait long; for the French and Indians came down in great
force, and on July 4, 1754, forced him, after a brave resistance, to
surrender. He was allowed to march out with drums beating and flags
flying.[1]

[Footnote 1: Lodge's _George Washington_, pp. 69-74; Winsor's _The
Mississippi Basin_, pp. 294-315.]

%83. The French and Indian War.%--Thus was begun what the colonists
called the French and Indian War, but what was really a struggle
between the French and the British for the possession of America.
Knowing it to be such, both sides made great preparations for the
contest. The French stood on the defensive. The British made the attack,
and early in 1755 sent over one of their ablest officers, Major General
Edward Braddock, to be commander in chief in America. He summoned the
colonial governors to meet him at Alexandria, Va., where a plan for a
campaign was agreed on.

%84. Plan for the War.%--Vast stretches of dense and almost
impenetrable forest then separated the colonies of the two nations, but
through this forest were three natural highways of communication: 1.
Lake George, Lake Champlain, and the St. Lawrence River. 2. The Hudson,
the Mohawk, Lake Ontario, and the Niagara River. 3. The Potomac to Fort
Cumberland, and through the forest to Fort Duquesne.

It was decided, therefore, to have four expeditions.

1. One was to go north from New York to Lake Champlain, take the French
fort at Crown Point, and move against Quebec.

2. Another was to sail from New England and make such a demonstration
against the French towns to the northeast, as would prevent the French
in that quarter going off to defend Quebec and Crown Point.

3. The third was to start from Albany, go up the Mohawk, and down the
Oswego River to Lake Ontario, and along its shores to the Niagara River.

4. The fourth was to go from Fort Cumberland across Pennsylvania to Fort
Duquesne.

%85. Braddock's Defeat, July 9, 1755.%--Braddock took command of this
last expedition and made Washington one of his aids. For a while he
found it impossible to move his army, for in Virginia horses and wagons
were very scarce, and without them he could not carry his baggage or
drag his cannon. At last Benjamin Franklin, then deputy
postmaster-general of the colonies, persuaded the farmers of
Pennsylvania, who had plenty, to rent the wagons and horses to
the general.

All this took time, so that it was June before the army left Fort
Cumberland and literally began to cut its way through the woods to Fort
Duquesne. The march was slow, but all went well till the troops had
crossed the Monongahela River and were but eight miles from the fort,
when suddenly the advance guard came face to face with an army of
Indians and French. The Indians and French instantly hid in the bushes
and behind trees, and poured an incessant fire into the ranks of the
British. They, too, would gladly have fought in Indian fashion. But
Braddock thought this cowardly and would not allow them to get behind
trees, so they stood huddled in groups, a fine mark for the Indians,
till so many were killed that a retreat had to be ordered. Then they
fled, and had it not been for Washington and his Virginians, who covered
their flight, they would probably have been killed to a man.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Vol. I., Chap. 7, pp.
162-187; T.J. Chapman's _The French in the Allegheny Valley_, pp. 60-72;
Sargeant's _History of Braddock's Expedition_.]

Braddock was wounded just as the retreat began, and died a few days
later.

%86. The Other Expeditions.%--The expedition against Niagara was a
failure. The officer in command did not take his army further than
Oswego on Lake Ontario.

The expedition against Crown Point was partially successful, and a
stubborn battle was fought and a victory won over the French on the
shores of that beautiful sheet of water which the English ever after
called Lake George in honor of the King.

%87. War declared.%--Up to this time all the fighting had been done
along the frontier in America. But in May, 1756, Great Britain formally
declared war against France. The French at once sent over Montcalm,[1]
the very ablest Frenchman that ever commanded on this continent, and
there followed two years of warfare disastrous to the British. Montcalm
took and burned Oswego, won over the Indians to the cause of France, and
was about to send a strong fleet to attack New England, when, toward the
end of 1757, William Pitt was made virtually (though not in name) Prime
Minister of England.

[Footnote 1: Read Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Vol. I., pp. 318-380.]

William Pitt was one of the greatest Englishmen that ever lived. He
could see exactly what to do, and he could pick out exactly the right
man to do it. No wonder, then, that as soon as he came into power the
British began to gain victories.

%88. The Victories of 1758.%--Once more the French were attacked at
their three vulnerable points, and this time with success. In 1758
Louisburg surrendered to Amherst and Boscawen. In that same year
Washington captured Fort Duquesne, which, in honor of the great Prime
Minister, was called Fort Pitt. A provincial officer named Bradstreet
destroyed Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario. This was a heavy blow to the
French; for with Fort Frontenac gone and Fort Duquesne in English hands,
the Ohio was cut off from Quebec.

An attack on Ticonderoga, however, was repulsed by Montcalm with
dreadful loss to the English.

%89. The Victories of 1759; Wolfe.%--But the defeat was only
temporary. At the siege of Louisburg a young officer named James Wolfe
had greatly distinguished himself, and in return for this was selected
by Pitt to command an expedition to Quebec. The previous attempts to
reach that city had been by way of Lake George. The expedition of Wolfe
sailed up the St. Lawrence, and landed below the city.

Quebec stands on the summit of a high hill with precipitous sides, and
was then the most strongly fortified city in America. To take it seemed
almost impossible. But the resolution of Wolfe overcame every obstacle:
on the night of September 12, 1759, he led his troops to the foot of the
cliff, climbed the heights, and early in the morning had his army drawn
up in battle array on the Plains of Abraham, as the plateau behind the
city was called. There a great battle was fought between the French, led
by Montcalm, and the British, led by Wolfe. The British triumphed, and
Quebec fell; but Wolfe and Montcalm were among the dead.[1]

[Footnote 1: Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Chaps. 25-27; A. Wright's
_Life of Wolfe;_ Sloan's _French War and the Revolution_, Chaps. 6-9.]

[Illustration: European Possessions 1763]

Ticonderoga and Crown Point had been captured a few weeks before.
Montreal was taken in 1760, and the long struggle between the French and
the English in America ended in the defeat of the French. The war
dragged on in Europe till 1763, when peace was made at Paris.

%90. France driven out of America.%--With all the details of the
treaty we are not concerned. It is enough for us to know that France
divided her possessions on this continent between Great Britain and
Spain. To Great Britain she gave Canada and Cape Breton, and all the
islands save two in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Entering what is now the
United States, she drew a line down the middle of the Mississippi River
from its source to a point just north of New Orleans. To Great Britain
she surrendered all her territory east of this line. To Spain she gave
all her possessions to the west of this line, together with the city of
New Orleans. But Great Britain, during the war, had taken Havana from
Spain. To get this back, Spain now gave up Florida in exchange.

At the end of the war with France, Great Britain thus found herself in
possession of Canada and all that part of the United States which lies
between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, the little strip at the mouth
of the river alone excepted.

SUMMARY

We have now come to the time when the third European power was driven
from our country. The first was Sweden when New Sweden was captured by
the Dutch. The second was Holland when New Netherland was captured by
the English. The third was France.

1. The struggle for the French possessions in America may be divided
into two periods: A. That from 1689 to 1748, when the contest was for
Acadia and New France. B. That from 1754 to 1763, when the struggle was
for Louisiana as well as New France.

2. The first war, "King William's," was indecisive, but the second,
"Queen Anne's," ended (1713) in the transfer of Acadia to England.

3. After the treaty of Utrecht, 1713, the French began seriously to take
possession of the Mississippi valley, and began a chain of forts to
stretch from New Orleans and Mobile to Montreal.

4. "King George's War" interrupted this work for a few years
(1744-1748), but in 1749 Celeron was sent to bury plates in the valleys
of the Allegheny and Ohio and claim them in the name of France.

5. The next step after claiming the valleys was to take armed
possession, and in 1752 the French began to build forts.

6. This alarmed the governor of Virginia, who sent Washington to bid the
French leave the Allegheny valley. When they refused, troops were sent
to build a fort on the site of what is now Pittsburg; but these men,
under Trent and Ward, were driven away, as were also the reinforcements
under Washington (1764).

7. Braddock (with Washington) was next sent against the French, who had
built Fort Duquesne. He was surprised by the Indians (July 9, 1755),
defeated, and killed.

8. The "French and Indian War" thus opened was fought with varying
success till 1760, when the British held Quebec, Montreal, Fort
Duquesne, and all the other French strongholds in America. In 1763 peace
was made, and nearly all the French possessions east of the Mississippi
River were surrendered to the British.

* * * * *
THE FRENCH DRIVEN FROM AMERICA:

THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW FRANCE AND ACADIA:

King William's War:

1690. Sir W. Phips takes Port Royal.
Sir W. Phips attacks Quebec.
Montreal attacked.
1690-1697. The New York and New England frontier ravaged by the
French and Indians.
1697. Peace of Ryswick. Port Royal given back to the French.

Queen Anne's War. Acadia lost to the French:

1702-1713. Frontier of New England ravaged.
1710. Port Royal again taken.
1711. Quebec again attacked.
1713. Peace of Utrecht. Acadia held by the English.

King George's War:

1744. French attack Canso and Annapolis (Port Royal).
1745. Louisburg (Cape Breton Island) taken.
1748. Louisburg given back to the French.

THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW FRANCE AND LOUISIANA.

Occupation of Louisiana:

1699. The French at the mouth of the Mississippi.
1701. The occupation of the valley begun.
1701-1748. The chain of forts joining New Orleans and Montreal.
1749. The French on the Allegheny. Celeron's expedition. The buried
plates.
1753. The French fortify the Allegheny valley.

The French and Indian War:

1754-1763. The struggle for final possession.
1758. The capture of Louisburg.
1759. The capture of Quebec.
1760. The capture of Montreal.
1763. The French abandon America.

CHAPTER IX

LIFE IN THE COLONIES IN 1763

%91. Things unknown in 1763.%--Had a traveler landed on our shores in
1763 and made a journey through the English colonies in America, he
would have seen a country utterly unlike the United States of to-day.
The entire population, white man and black, freeman and slave, was not
so great as that of New York or Philadelphia or Chicago in our time. If
we were to write a list of all the things we now consider as real
necessaries of daily life and mark off those unknown to the men of 1763,
not one quarter would remain. No man in the country had ever seen a
stove, or a furnace, or a friction match, or an envelope, or a piece of
mineral coal. From the farmer we should have to take the reaper, the
drill, the mowing machine, and every kind of improved rake and plow, and
give him back the scythe, the cradle, and the flail. From our houses
would go the sewing machine, the daily newspaper, gas, running water;
and from our tables, the tomato, the cauliflower, the eggplant, and many
varieties of summer fruits. We should have to destroy every railroad,
every steamboat, every factory and mill, pull down every line of
telegraph, silence every telephone, put out every electric light, and
tear up every telegraphic cable from the beds of innumerable rivers and
seas. We should have to take ether and chloroform from the surgeon, and
galvanized iron and India rubber from the arts, and give up every sort
of machine moved by steam.

[Illustration: Lamp and sadiron]

[Illustration: Postrider (Footnote: From an old print, 1760)]

%92. State of the Arts, Sciences, and Industry.%--The appliances left
on the list, because in some form they were known to the men of 1763,
would now be thought crude and clumsy. There were printing presses in
those days,--perhaps fifty in all the colonies. But they were small,
were worked by hand, and were so slow that the most expert pressman
using one of them could not have printed so much in three working days
as a modern steam press can run off in five minutes. There was a general
post, and Benjamin Franklin was deputy postmaster-general for the
northern district of the colonies. But the letters were carried thirty
miles a day by postriders on horseback, and there were never more than
three mails a week between even the great towns. Every Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday a postrider left New York city for Philadelphia.
Every Monday and Thursday another left New York for Boston. Once each
week a rider left for Albany on his way to Quebec. On the first
Wednesday of each month a packet boat sailed from New York for Falmouth,
England, with the mail, and this was the only mail between Great Britain
and her American colonies. We put electricity to a thousand uses; but in
1763 it was a scientific toy. Franklin had just proved by his experiment
with the kite that lightning and electricity were one and the same, and
several other men were amusing themselves and their hearers by ringing
bells, exploding powder, and making colored sparks. But it was put to no
other use. If we take up a daily newspaper published in one of our great
cities and read the column of wants, we find in them twenty occupations
now giving a comfortable living to millions of men. Yet not one of these
twenty existed in 1763. The district messenger, the telegraph operator,
the typewriter, the stenographer, the bookkeeper, the canvasser, the
salesman, the commercial traveler, the engineer, the car driver, the
hackman, the conductor, the gripman, the brakeman, the electrician, the
lineman, the elevator boy, and a host of others, follow trades and
occupations which had no existence in the middle of the
eighteenth century.

Run away, the 23d of this Instant _January_, from _Silas Crispin_
of _Burlington_, Taylor, a Servant Man named _Joseph Morris, _by
Trade a Taylor, aged about 22 Years, of a middle Stature, swarthy
Complexion, light gray Eyes, his Hair clipp'd off, mark'd with
a large pit of the Small Pox on one Cheek near his Eye, had on
when he went away a good Felt Hat, a yelowish Drugget Coat with
Pleits behind, an old Ozenbrigs Vest, two Ozenbrigs Shirts, a pair
of Leather Breeches handsomely worm'd and flower'd up the Knees,
yarn Stockings and good round toe'd Shoes. Took with him a large
pair of Sheers crack'd in one of the Bows & mark'd with the Word
[_Savoy_]. Whoever takes up the said Servant, and secures him so
that his Matter may have him again, shall have _Three Pounds_
Reward besides reasonable Charges, paid by me _Silas Griffin._

From a Philadelphia newspaper

%93. Labor.%--On the other hand, if we take up a newspaper of that
day and read the advertisements, we find that a great deal of what
existed then does not exist now. The newspapers were published in a few
of the large towns, and appeared not every day, but once a week. In the
largest of them would be from seventy-five to eighty advertisements,
setting forth that such a merchant had just received from England or the
West Indies a stock of new goods which he would sell for cash; that the
_Charming Nancy_ would sail in a few weeks for Londonderry in Ireland,
or for Barbados, or for Amsterdam in Holland, and wanted a cargo; that a
tract of land or a plantation would be sold "at vendue," or, as we say,
at auction; that a reward of five pistoles would be paid for the arrest
of "a lusty negroe man" or an "indented servant" or an "apprentice lad,"
who had run away from his owner or master. Very rarely is a call made
for a mechanic or a workman of any sort.

[Illustration: From a Philadelphia newspaper]

The reason for this was two fold. In the first place, negro slavery
existed in all the thirteen colonies. In the second place, there were
thousands of whites in many of the colonies in a state of temporary
servitude, which was sometimes voluntary and sometimes involuntary.

Those who served against their will were convicts and felons, not only
men and women who had been guilty of stealing, cheating, and the like,
but also forgers, counterfeiters, and murderers, who were transported by
thousands from the English prisons to the colonies and sold into slavery
or service for seven or fourteen years.[1] Advertisements are extant in
which the masters from whom such servants have run away warn the people
to beware of them.

[Footnote 1: One act of Parliament, for instance, provided that persons
sentenced to be whipped or branded might, if they wished, escape the
punishment by serving seven years in the colonies, and never returning
to England. Another allowed convicts sentenced to death to commute the
sentence by serving fourteen years.]

But all "indented" or bond servants were not criminals. Many were
reputable persons who sold themselves into service for a term of years
in return for transportation to America. Others, generally boys and
young women, had been kidnaped and sold by the persons who stole them.

%94. Indentured Servants.%--In the case of such as came voluntarily,
carefully drawn agreements called indentures would be made in writing.
The captain of the ship would agree to bring the emigrant to America.
The emigrant would agree in return to serve the captain three or five
years. When the ship reached port, the captain would advertise the fact
that he had carpenters, tailors, farmers, shoemakers, etc., for sale,
and whoever wanted such labor would go on board the ship and for perhaps
fifty dollars buy a man bound to serve him for several years in return
for food, clothes, and lodging. Not only men, but also women and
children, were sold in this way, and were known as "indented servants,"
or "redemptioners," because they redeemed their time of service with
labor. Their lot seems to have been a hard one; for the young men were
constantly running away, and the newspapers are full of advertisements
offering rewards for their arrest.

What we call the workingman, the day laborer, the mechanic, the mill
hand, had no existence as classes. The great corporations, railroads,
express companies, mills, factories of every sort, which now cover our
land and give employment to five times as many men and women as lived in
all the colonies in 1763, are the creatures of our own time.

[Illustration: Wigs and wig bag]

[Illustration: Flax wheel]

%95. No Manufacturers.%--For this state of things England was largely
to blame. For one hundred years past every kind of manufacture that
could compete with the manufactures of the mother country had been
crushed by law. In order to help her iron makers, she forbade the
colonists to set up iron furnaces and slitting mills. That her cloth
manufacturers might flourish, she forbade the colonists to send their
woolen goods to any country whatever, or even from one colony to
another. Under this law it was a crime to knit a pair of mittens or a
pair of socks and send them from Boston to Providence or from New York
to Newark, or from Philadelphia across the Delaware to New Jersey. In
the interest of English hatters the colonists were not allowed to send
hats to any foreign country, nor from one colony to another, and a
serious effort was made to prevent the manufacture of hats in America.
People in this country were obliged to wear English-made hats. Taking
the country through, every saw, every ax, every hammer, every needle,
pin, tack, piece of tape, and a hundred other articles of daily use came
from Great Britain.

Every farmhouse, however, was a little factory, and every farmer a
jack-of-all-trades. He and his sons made their own shoes, beat out nails
and spikes, hinges, and every sort of ironmongery, and constructed much
of the household furniture. The wife and her daughters manufactured the
clothing, from dressing the flax and carding the wool to cutting the
cloth; knit the mittens and socks; and during the winter made straw
bonnets to sell in the towns in the spring.

Even in such towns as were large enough to support a few artisans, each
made, with the help of an apprentice, and perhaps a journeyman, all the
articles he sold.

[Illustration: Hand loom[1]]

%96. The Cities.%--If we take a map of our country and run over the
great cities of to-day, we find that except along the seacoast hardly
one existed, in 1765, even in name. Detroit was a little French
settlement surrounded with a high stockade. New Orleans existed, and St.
Louis had just been founded, but they both belonged to Spain. Mobile and
Pensacola and Natchez and Vincennes consisted of a few huts gathered
about old French forts. There was no city, no town worthy of the name,
in the English colonies west of the Alleghany Mountains. Along the
Atlantic coast we find Portsmouth, Boston, Providence, New Haven, New
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Alexandria, Williamsburg, Charleston,
Savannah, and others of less note. But the largest of these were mere
collections of a few hundred houses ranged along streets, none of which
were sewered and few of which were paved or lighted. The watchman went
his rounds at night with rattle and lantern, called out the hours and
the state of the weather, and stopped and demanded the name of every
person found walking the streets after nine o'clock. To travel on Sunday
was a serious and punishable offense, as it was on any day to smoke in
the streets, or run from house to house with hot coals, which in those
days, when there were no matches, were often used instead of flint and
steel to light fires.

[Footnote 1: From an old loom in the National Museum, Washington.]

[Illustration: Colonial mansion in Charleston]

Travel between the large towns was almost entirely by sailing vessel, or
on horseback. The first stagecoach-and-four in New England began its
trips in 1744. The first stage between New York and Philadelphia was not
set up till 1756, and spent three days on the road.

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