With the English occupation of Fort Duquesne, the campaigning of 1758 in North America came to an end. It been a long season, and for England distinctly a successful though also to a certain extent a disappointing one. 'I do not reckon that we have been fortunate this year in America,' wrote Wolfe on December 1; 'our force was so superior to the enemy's that we might hope for greater success.'[43] He wrote in ignorance that Fort Duquesne had been taken, but, notwithstanding, his view of the situation was the true one. At Louisbourg, Fort Frontenac, Fort Duquesne, there had been great and substantial successes. At Ticonderoga there had been a bad check; but the French had made nothing of it afterwards. They were now on the defensive and playing a losing game. Yet that more might and should have been done by the English commanders with their great superiority of numbers cannot be doubted. Had Wolfe been in Amherst's place, and Lord Howe in Abercromby's, the year 1758 might well have been the last year of French rule in North America. But the end was only postponed for a short time, the resources of Canada in men and in supplies were becoming insufficient to sustain the war: the country was practically in a state of blockade; and Bougainville, who was sent at the beginning of winter to France to plead the cause of Canada, met with little success. A very few soldiers, some supplies, and honours for the generals, were the result of his mission. France was engrossed in the war in Europe, and not as many hundreds were sent to North America as England sent thousands. Vaudreuil, in the meantime, was intriguing against Montcalm, whose genius and determination had prolonged the unequal {288} fight, and on whom, with Levis and Bourlamaque, lay the heavy burden of defending a ruined State, and checking, at this point and at that, the flowing tide of English invasion. [Footnote 43: Wright, p. 464.] NOTE.--For the above see, among modern books, KINGSFORD'S _History of Canada_, vols. iii and iv; PARKMAN'S _Montcalm and Wolfe_; and WRIGHT'S _Life of Wolfe_. {289} CHAPTER X THE CONQUEST OF CANADA (_continued_) When Wolfe reached England from Louisbourg in November, 1758, he wrote to Pitt offering himself for further service in America, 'and particularly in the river St. Lawrence, if any operations are to be carried on there.'[1] Before Christmas, Pitt had appointed him to command an expedition in the coming year against Quebec. [Footnote 1: Wolfe to Pitt, Nov. 22, 1758 (Wright's _Life of Wolfe_, p. 464). There was some misunderstanding as to his return to England. See the correspondence quoted by Mr. Kingsford in the note to vol. iv, p. 155, of his _History_.] [Sidenote: _Wolfe's early life and character._]