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and accuracy of their references. The authorities cited were often recondite and obscure, yet it was evident that they had been sifted carefully and critically. The same may be said of the volume before us.

alliance. All the elements of Washington's greatness-his courage, hardihood, military prescience, and merciful disposition-are stamped indelibly on this the first act of his public life :

"In the middle of November, with an interpreter and four attendants, and Christopher Gist as a guide, he left Will's Creek, and following the Indian trace through forest solitudes, gloomy with the fallen leaves, and solemn sadness of late autumn, across mountains, rocky ravines, and streams, through sleet and snows, he rode in nine the spot, where, so long unheeded of men, the

Careful research had enabled Mr. Bancroft to throw new light on several points connected with the settlement and early history of his country. As his dates approach nearer to the present time, the sources of new information open on him in abundance. The MS. additions to our knowledge of the times treated of in these volumes are consid-days to the fork of the Ohio. How lonely was erable; but they are spread pretty fairly over the entire narrative-lending a new light to the events and adding a new trait to the characters rather than thrown into masses. The effect produced is more that of greater roundness and completion than of absolute change in old historical verdicts. We quote one out of iunnmerable instances of these minute but characteristic additions. The historian is speaking of the Duke of Newcastle, whose ignorant government of the colonies was one of the chief sources of their discontent:

"For nearly four-and-twenty years he remained minister for British America; yet to the last, the statesman, who was deeply versed in the statistics of elections, knew little of the continent of which he was the guardian. He addressed letters, it used to be confidently said, to 'the island of New England,' and could not tell but that Jamaica was in the Mediterranean. Heaps of colonial memorials and letters remained unread in his office; and a paper was almost sure of neglect unless some agent remained with him to see it opened. His frivolous nature could never glow with affection, or grasp a great idea, or analyze complex relations. After long research, I cannot find that he ever once attended seriously to an American question, or had a clear conception of one Amer

'We are

rapid Alleghany met nearly at right angles the deep and still' water of the Monongahela! At once Washington foresaw the destiny of the place. I spent some time,' said he, in viewing the rivers; the land in the Fork has the absolute command of both. The flat, well-timbered land all around the point lies very convenient for building.' After creating in imagination a fortress and a city, he and his party swam their horses across the Alleghany, and wrapt their blankets around them for the night, on its northwest bank. From the Fork the chief of the Delawares conducted Washington through rich alluvial fields to the pleasing valley at Logstown. There deserters from Louisiana discoursed of the route from New Orleans to Quebec, by way of the Wabash and the Maumee, and of a detachment from the lower province on its way to meet the French troops from Lake Erie, while Washington held close colloquy with the half-king; the one anxious to gain the west as a part of the territory of the ancient dominion, the other to preserve it for the Red Men. brothers,' said the half-king in council; 'we are one people; I will send back the French speechbelt, and will make the Shawnees and the Delawares do the same.' On the night of the twentyninth of November, the council-fire was kindled an aged orator was selected to address the French the speech which he was to deliver was debated and rehearsed; it was agreed that, unless the French would heed this third warning to quit the land, the Delawares also would be their enemies; and a very large string of black and white wampun was sent to the Six Nations as a prayer for ington, attended by the half-king, and envoys of aid. After these preparations, the party of Washthe Delawares, moved onwards to the post of the French at Venango. The officers there avowed the purpose of taking possession of the Ohio; and they mingled the praises of La Salle with boasts of their forts at Le Bouf and Erie, at Niagara, Toronto, and Frontenac. 'The English,' said they, In this volume we first meet with the can raise two men to our one; but they are too great character who is to be the hero of the dilatory to prevent any enterprise of ours.' The Revolution now looming before the reader. Delawares were intimidated or debauched; but Mr. Bancroft treats us to no full-length por- the half-king clung to Washington like a brother, trait of George Washington:-instead of a and delivered up his belt as he had promised. The picture he presents us with the man. Wash- rains of December had swollen the creeks. The ington comes before us at twenty-one,in for bridges. Thus they proceeded, now killing a messengers could pass them only by felling trees the chamber of Governor Dinwiddie, of Vir-buck and now a bear, delayed by excessive rains ginia; from whom he is accepting a perilous but most important mission-to cross the forests, rivers, and mountains which separate Williamsburg and Lake Erie, in the depths of a severe winter, and there endeavor to detach the Delaware Indians from the French

ican measure."

Walpole had told us that Newcastle did not know where Jamaica was:-the amusing address “Island of New England" Mr. Bancroft finds referred to in a manuscript letter of J. Q. Adams. It serves to suggest that what is usually thought to be a joke of Walpole's was probably the literal truth:-the man who is sufficiently innocent of geography to make New England an island, would have no difficulty in confounding the East and West Indies.

and snows, by mire and swamps, while Washington's quick eye discerned all the richness of the meadows. At Waterford, the limit of his journey, he found Fort Le Boeuf defended by cannon. Around it stood the barracks of the soldiers, rude log-cabins, roofed with bark. Fifty birch-bark canoes,

seven were wounded, including Gage and other field officers. Of the men, one half were killed or wounded. Braddock braved every danger. His secretary was shot dead; both his English aids were disabled early in the engagement, leaving the American alone to distribute his orders. 'I expected every moment,' said one whose eye was on Washington, 'to see him fall.' Nothing but the saved him. An Indian chief-I suppose a Shawnee-singled him out with his rifle, and bade others of his warriors do the same. Two horses were killed under him; four balls penetrated his coat. Some potent Manitou guards his life,' exclaimed the savage. 'Death,' wrote Washington, 'was levelling my companions on every side of me, but, by the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected. To the public,' said Davis, a learned divine, in the following month, I point out that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country.' Who is Mr. Washington?' asked Lord Halifax, a few months later. I know nothing of him,' he added, but that they say he behaved in Braddock's action as bravely as if he really loved the whistling of bullets.""

and one hundred seventy boats of pine, were al--among them, Sir Peter Halket,-and thirtyready prepared for the descent of the river, and materials were collected for building more. The Commander, Gardeur de St. Pierre, an officer of integrity and experience, and, for his dauntless courage, both feared and beloved by the Red Men, refused to discuss questions of right. I am here,' said he, by the orders of my general, to which I shall conform with exactness and resolution.' And he avowed his purpose of seizing every English-superintending care of Providence could have man within the Ohio Valley. France was resolved on possessing the great territory which her missionaries and travellers had revealed to the world. Breaking away from courtesies, Washington hastoned homewards to Virginia. The rapid current of French Creek dashed his party against rocks; in shallow places they waded, the water congealing on their clothes; where the ice had lodged in the bend of the rivers, they carried their canoe across the neck. At Venango, they found their horses, but so weak, the travellers went still on foot, heedless of the storm. The cold increased very fast; the paths grew worse by a deep snow continually freezing.' Impatient to get back with his despatches, the young envoy, wrapping himself in an Indian dress, with gun in hand and pack on his back, the day after Christmas quitted the usual path, and, with Gist for his sole companion, by aid of the compass, steered the nearest way Thus opened that career of glory, moderaacross the country for the Fork. An Indian, who tion, and success-thus, at the period of nashad lain in wait for him, fired at him from not fif- cent manhood were exhibited the marking teen steps' distance, but, missing him, became his traits of that serene and devoted characterprisoner. I would have killed him,' wrote Gist, which have placed the name of Washington but Washington forbade.' Dismissing their cap-on the noblest and loftiest pedestal in the tive at night, they walked about half a mile, then Temple of Fame. kindled a fire, fixed their course by the compass, Leaving for a while the only figure in that and continued travelling all night, and all the next day, till quite dark. Not till then did the weary, which the mind can dwell with any degree scene of miserable and savage warfare on wanderers 'think themselves safe enough to sleep,' and they encamped, with no shelter but the leaf- of trust and satisfaction, we will move to the less forest-tree. On reaching the Alleghany, with northeast of the English settlements, and fol one poor hatchet and a whole day's work, a raft low the story of the unhappy people of Acawas constructed and launched. But before they dia. Mr. Bancroft has drawn a touching picwere half over the river, they were caught in the ture of the homely virtues and obscure hap running ice, expecting every moment to be crush-piness of this rural population before the ined, unable to reach either shore. Putting out the setting pole to stop the raft, Washington was jerked into the deep water, and saved himself only by grasping at the raft-logs. They were obliged to "After repeated conquests and restorations, the make for an island. There lay Washington, im- treaty of Utrecht conceded Acadia, or Nova Scoprisoned by the elements; but the late Decem-tia, to Great Britain. Yet the name of Annapo ber night was intensely cold, and in the morning he found the river frozen. Not till he reached Gist's settlement, in January, 1754, were his toils lightened."

Washington reported the state of affairs on the Lakes, and active measures were consequently adopted. Of the rapid and brilliant development of his military genius, we are not now to trace the progress; but it is scarcely possible to read without a shudder of "the hair-breadth 'scapes" of the young man whose life was of such inestimable consequence to his country. Thus, in the battle fought by Braddock-to whom Washington acted as aide-de-camp against the French and Indians in 1755, he appeared to others as well as to himself to bear a charmed life. In this action, says Mr. Bancroft,

"Of eighty-six officers, twenty-six were killed

terference of the British officers changed their joy into wailing, and endowed their simple annals with a dark and tragic interest:

lis, the presence of a feeble English garrison, and the emigration of hardly five or six English families, were nearly all that marked the supremacy of England. The old inhabitants remained on the soil which they had subdued, hardly conscious that they had changed their sovereign. They still loved the language and the usages of their forefathers, and their religion was graven upon their souls. They promised submission to England; but such was the love with which France had inspired them, they would not fight against its standard or renounce its name. Though conquered they were French neutrals. For nearly forty years from the peace of Utrecht they had been forgotten or neglected, and had prospered in their seclusion. No tax-gatherer counted their folds, no magistrate dwelt in their hamlets. The parish priests made their records and regulated their successions. Their little disputes were settled among themselves, with scarcely an instance

of an appeal to English authority at Annapolis, The pastures were covered with their herds and flocks; and dikes, raised by extraordinary efforts of social industry, shut out the rivers and the tide from alluvial marshes of exuberant fertility. The meadows, thus reclaimed, were covered by richest grasses, or fields of wheat, that yielded fifty and thirty fold at the harvest. Their houses were built in clusters, neatly constructed and comfortably furnished, and around them all kinds of domestic fowls abounded. With the spinningwheel and the loom, their women made, of flax from their own fields, of fleeces from their own flock, coarse, but sufficient clothing. The few foreign luxuries that were coveted could be obtained from Annapolis or Louisburgh, in return for furs, or wheat, or cattle. Thus were the Acadians happy in their neutrality and in the abundance which they drew from their native land. They formed, as it were, one great family. Their morals were of unaffected purity. Love was sanctified and calmed by the universal custom of early marriages. The neighbors of the community would assist the new couple to raise their cottage, while the wilderness offered land. Their numbers increased, and the colony, which had begun only as the trading station of a company, with a monopoly of the fur trade, counted, perhaps, sixteen or seventeen thousand inhabitants."

The transfer of this colony from French to English rule could not fail to be productive of some untoward results. The native priests feared the introduction among them of heretical opinions:-the British officers treated the people with insolent contempt. "Their papers and records" says our historian, "were taken from them" by their new

masters:

"Was their property demanded for the public service they were not to be bargained with for the payment. The order may still be read on the Council records at Halifax. They must comply, it was written, without making any terms, immediately,' or 'the next courier would bring an order for military execution upon the delinquents.' And when they delayed in fetching firewood for their oppressors, it was told them from the governor, ' If they do not do it in proper time, the soldiers shall absolutely take their houses for fuel. The unoffending sufferers submitted meekly to the tyranny. Under pretence of fearing that they might rise in behalf of France, or seek shelter in Canada, or convey provisions to the French garrisons, they were ordered to surrender their boats and their firearms; and, conscious of innocence, they gave up their barges and their muskets, leaving themselves without the means of flight, and defenceless. Further orders were afterwards given to the English officers, if the Acadians behaved amiss to punish them at discretion; if the troops were annoyed, to inflict vengeance on the nearest, whether the guilty one or not,—' taking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.""

There is no reason to believe that these atrocious orders were not executed in the spirit in which they had been conceived. But worse remained to come :

"The Acadians cowered before their masters,

hoping forbearance; willing to take an oath of fealty to England; in their single-mindedness and sincerity, refusing to pledge themselves to bear arms against France. The English were masters of the sea, were undisputed lords of the country, and could exercise clemency without apprehension. Not a whisper gave a warning of their purpose till it was ripe for execution. But it had been determined upon' after the ancient device of Oriental despotism, that the French inhabitants of Acadia should be carried away into captivity to other parts of the British dominions. **France remembered the descendants of her sons in the hour of their affliction, and asked that they might have time to remove from the peninsula with their effects, leaving their lands to the English; but the answer of the British Minister claimed them as useful subjects, and refused them the liberty of transmigration. The inhabitants of Minas and the adjacent country pleaded with the British officers for the restitution of their boats and their guns, promising fidelity, if they could but retain their liberties, and declaring that not the want of arms, but their conscience, should engage them not to revolt. The memorial,' said Lawrence in Council, 'is highly arrogant, insidious and insulting.' The memorialists, at his summons, came submissively to Halifax. You want your canoes for carrying provisions to the enemy,' said he to them, though he knew no enemy was left in their vicinity. Guns are no part of your goods,' he continued, as by the laws of England all Roman Catholics are restrained from having arms, and are subject to penalties if arms are British subjects to talk of terms with the Crown, found in their houses. It is not the language of What excuse can you make for your presumption or capitulate about their fidelity and allegiance. in treating this government with such indignity as to expound to them the nature of fidelity? Manifest your obedience by immediately taking the oaths of allegiance in the common form before the Council.' The deputies replied that they would do as the generality of the inhabitants should determine; and they merely entreated leave to return home and consult the body of their people. The next day, the unhappy men, foreseeing the sorrows that menaced them, offered to swear allegiance unconditionally."

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But it was now too late. The savage purpose had been formed. That the cruelty might have no excuse, it happened that while the scheme was under discussion letters arrived leaving no doubt that all the shores of the Bay of Fundy were in the possession of the British. It only remained to be fixed how the exportation should be effected :

"To hunt them into the net was impracticable; artifice was therefore resorted to. By a general proclamation, on one and the same day, the scarcely conscious victims, 'both old men and young men, as well as all the lads of ten years of age,' were peremptorily ordered to assemble at their respective posts. On the appointed 5th of September, they obeyed. At Grand Pré, for example, 418 unarmed men came together. They were marched into the church, and its avenues were closed, when Winslow, the American commander, placed himself in their centre, and spoke :- You are convened together to manifest to you His Ma

ple ended:
Nor were the woes of this ill-treated peo-

jesty's final resolution to the French inhabitants of families seeking their companions, of sons anxof this his province. Your lands and tenements, ious to reach and relieve their parents, of mothers cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts, are mourning for their children. The wanderers sighforfeited to the crown, and you yourselves are toed for their native country; but to prevent their be removed from this his province. I am, through return, their villages, from Annapolis to the isthhis Majesty's goodness, directed to allow you li- mus, were laid waste. Their old homes were but berty to carry off your money and household ruins. In the district of Minas, for instance, 250 goods, as many as you can, without discommoding of their houses, and more than as many barns, the vessels you go in.' And he then declared were consumed. The live stock which belonged them the King's prisoners. Their wives and fa- to them, consisting of great numbers of horned milies shared their lot; their sons, 527 in number, cattle, hogs, sheep, and horses, were seized as their daughters, 576; in the whole, women and spoils and disposed of by the English officials. A babes and old men and children all included, 1,923 beautiful and fertile tract of country was reduced souls. The blow was sudden; they had left home to a solitude. There was none left round the but for the morning, and they never were to re-ashes of the cottages of the Acadians but the faithturn. Their cattle were to stay unfed in the ful watchdog, vainly seeking the hands that fed stalls, their fires to die out on their hearths. They him. Thickets of forest-trees choked their or had for that first day even no food for themselves chards; the ocean broke over their neglected or their children, and were compelled to beg for dikes, and desolated their meadows." bread. The 10th of September was the day for the embarkation of a part of the exiles. They were drawn up six deep, and the young men, 161 in number, were ordered to march first on board "Relentless misfortune pursued the exiles wherethe vessel. They could leave their farms and ever they fled. Those sent to Georgia, drawn by cottages, the shady rocks on which they had rea love for the spot where they were born as strong clined, their herds and their garners; but nature of the rivers of Babylon for their own temple and as that of the captive Jews, who wept by the side yearned within them, and they would not be separated from their parents. Yet of what avail from harbor to harbor; but when they had reach land, escaped to sea in boats, and went coasting was the frenzied despair of the unarmed youth? ed New England, just as they would have set sail They had not one weapon; the bayonet drove for their native fields, they were stopped by or them to obey; and they marched slowly and ders from Nova Scotia. Those who dwelt on the heavily from the chapel to the shore, between St. John's were torn once more from their new women and children, who kneeling, prayed for homes. When Canada surrendered, hatred with blessings on their heads, they themselves weep its worst venom pursued the 1,500 who remained ing, and praying, and singing hymns. The seniors south of the Ristigouche. Once more those who went next; the wives and children must wait till dwelt in Pennsylvania presented a humble petiother transport vessels arrived. The delay had tion to the Earl of Loudoun, then the British Comits horrors. The wretched people left behind were mander-in-Chief in America; and the cold-hearted kept together near the sea, without proper food or raiment, or shelter, till other ships came to seized their five principal men, who in their peer, offended that the prayer was made in French, take them away; and December with its appalling cold had struck the shivering, half-clad, own land had been persons of dignity and subbroken-hearted sufferers before the last of them stance, and shipped them to England, with the were removed. 'The embarkation of the inhabit-request that they might be kept from ever again ants goes on but slowly,' wrote Monckton, from Fort Cumberland, near which he had burned three hamlets, the most part of the wives of the men we have prisoners are gone off with their children, in hopes I would not send off their husbands without them.' Their hope was vain. Near Annapolis, a hundred heads of families fled to the woods, and a party was detached on the hunt to bring them in. Our soldiers hate them,' wrote an officer on this occasion, ‘and if they can but find a pretext to kill them, they will.' Did a prisoner seek to escape, he was shot down by the sentinel. Yet some fled to Quebec; more than 3,000 had withdrawn to Miramichi and the region south of the of peculiar character. The voyage of the Pil American history has at least one element Ristigouche; some found rest on the banks of the grim Fathers-the settlement of the Virginis St. John's and its branches; some found a lair in cavaliers the foundation of Pennsylvania, their native forests; some were charitably shel- though all events of profound moral interest, tered from the English in the wigwams of the savages. But 7,000 of these banished people were as well as productive of fine pictorial effects, driven on board ships, and scattered among the are not without parallels more or less close English colonies, from New Hampshire to Georgia in the varied tale of ancient and modern colalone; 1,020 to South Carolina alone. They were onization. But that which is distinctive and cast ashore without resources; hating the poor- peculiar in the story of American civilization house as a shelter for their offspring, and abhor-is, its struggle against the Red Men. Settlers, ring the thought of selling themselves as laborers. it is true, have often found themselves in Households, too, were separated; the colonial strange company. In Africa the Greek colnewspapers contained advertisements of members Ionizer elbowed the swarthy Ethiop. In South

vice as common sailors on board ships of war." becoming troublesome by being consigned to ser

been true," said they in one of their petitions, And so it was throughout:-“ We have "to our religion, and true to ourselves; yet nature appears to consider us only as the ob jects of public vengeance."—"I know not," writes Mr. Bancroft, "if the annals of the human race keep the records of wounds so wantonly inflicted, so bitter and so perennial as fell upon the French inhabitants of Acadia."

America the Spaniard stood beside the Peruvian and the Carib. Dutchmen have encountered the Malay and the Dyak. For two centuries English settlers have had to deal with the uncivilized races of the East and West-from the Bushmen of the Cape to the savages of New Zealand. But none of these races present the same attractive features as the brethren of the Iroquois and the Mohicans. About these latter there are points of romantic and chivalric interest. Though not free from the vices of the savage, they often exhibit virtues which might shame the European. There is something of dignity in their aspect and bearing. They are seldom without a natural and original poetic sense,-and their language has a wild Ossianic music. They are bold in metaphor and apt in natural illustration. A group of actors on the scene having characteristics so peculiar and so attrac

be correctly repeated to the head Council at Onondaga. An express messenger from the Miamis hurried across the mountains, bearing to the shrewd and able Dinwiddie, the Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, a belt of wampum, the scalp of a French Indian, and a feathered pipe, with letters from the dwellers on the Maumee and on the the former, we must look upon ourselves as lost, Wabash. Our good brothers of Virginia,' said if our brothers, the English, do not stand by us and give us arms.' Eldest brother,' pleaded the Picts and Windaws, this string of wampum assures you, that the French King's servants have spilled our blood, and eaten the flesh of three of our men. Look upon us and pity us, for we are in great distress. Our chiefs have taken up the hatchet of war. We have killed and eaten ten of the French and two of their negroes. We are your brothers; and do not think this is from our mouth only; it is from our very hearts.' Thus they solicited protection and revenge."

tive as the Red Skin is invaluable to a histoThe Duke of Newcastle was unequal to the rian whose tendency is to see events and note task of driving the soldiers of France from character under their most pictorial aspects. Canada or from the valley of the Mississippi. The part taken by the Indians in that war The North and South were both in the hands between the French and English in America of France. The route of the Ohio and the which ended in the conquest of Quebec and Mississippi had been discovered by adventhe expulsion of the Lilies from Canada is turers and missionaries of that nation; and narrated at great length by Mr. Bancroft,— a few years of quiet possession of the terriand the atrocious nature of the conflict is tory would have allowed French statesmen well brought out. At the commencement of to consolidate their power in those regions, the war, we are allowed a glimpse at a curi-and to draw a strong cordon around the enous war-council:

"Brothers,' said the Delawares to the Miamis, 'we desire the English and the Six Nations to put their hands upon your heads, and keep the French from hurting you. Stand fast in the chain of friendship with the Government of Virginia.' 'Brothers,' said the Miamis to the English, your country is smooth; your hearts are good; the dwellings of your governors are like the spring in its bloom. Brothers,' they added to the Six Nations, holding aloft a calumet ornamented with feathers, the French and their Indians have struck us, yet we kept this pipe unhurt; and they gave it to the Six Nations, in token of friendship with them and with their allies. A shell and a string of black wampum were given to signify the unity of heart; and that, though it was darkness to the westward, yet towards the sun-rising it was bright and clear. Another string of black wampum announced that the war-chiefs and braves of the Miamis held the hatchet in their hand, ready to strike the French. The widowed Queen of the Piankeshaws sent a belt of black shells intermixed with white. Brothers,' such were her words, I am left a poor, lonely woman, with one son, whom I commend to the English, the Six Nations, the Shawnees, and the Delawares, and pray them to take care of him.' The Weas produced a calumet. We have had this feathered pipe,' said they, 'from the beginning of the world; so that when it becomes cloudy, we can sweep the clouds away. It is dark in the west, yet we sweep all clouds away towards the sun-rising, and leave a clear and serene sky. Thus, on the alluvial lands of Western Ohio, began the contest that was to scatter death broadcast through the world. All the speeches were delivered again to the Deputies of the Nations, represented at Logstown, that they might

tire group of English colonies on the Atlantic bear at a critical moment on the arrangement seaboard. But Pitt's genius was brought to of this great question-and he conceived the project of breaking the Mississippi line and attacking the enemy in their strongholds on the St. Lawrence. Three expeditions were fitted out. Amherst and Wolfe were ordered to join the fleet under Boscawen, destined to act against Louisburgh-Forbes was sent to the Ohio Valley-Abercrombie was intrusted with the command against Crown Point and Ticonderoga, though Lord Howe was sent out with the last named as the real soul of the enterprise. Mr. Bancroft writes:

"None of the officers won favor like Lord high rank and great connections Howe added manHowe and Wolfe. Both were still young. To liness, humanity, capacity to discern merit, and judgment to employ it. As he reached America, he entered on the simple austerity of forest warfare. James Wolfe, but thirty-one years old, had already been eighteen years in the army; was at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and had won laurels at Laffeldt. Merit made him at two-and-twenty a lieutenant-colonel, and his active genius improved the discipline of his battalion. He was at once authoritative and humane, severe, yet indefatigably kind; modest, but aspiring and secretly conThe brave soldier dutifully scious of ability. gentle nature saw visions of happiness in scenes loved and obeyed his widowed mother, and his of domestic love, even while he kindled at the prospect of glory, as 'gunpowder at fire.'"

On the 28th of May the expedition reached Halifax.

"For six days after the British forces on their

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