The bits of wood were deposited in the temple of the sun, and her rank gave her access to the temple. She abstracted a number of the bits of wood, and thus precipitated the day of rising in that province. The Natchez, on the burning of the last piece, fell on the French, and, out of two hundred and twenty-two French, massacred two hundred,—men, women, and children. The remainder were women, whom they retained as prisoners. The Natchez, having accomplished this destruction, were astonished to find that not one of their allies had stirred; and the allies were equally astonished at the rising of the Natchez, whilst they had yet several pieces of wood remaining. The French, however, in the other parts of the country, were saved; fresh reinforcements arrived from Europe, and the unfortunate Natchez felt all the fury of their vengeance. Part were put to the sword; great numbers were caught and sent to St. Domingo, as slaves; the rest fled for safety into the country of the Chickasaws. The Chickasaws were called upon to give them up; but they had more sense of honour and humanity than Europeans,—they indignantly refused; and, when the French marched into their territories, to compel them by force, bravely attacked and repelled them, with repeated loss. As in Canada, Madagascar, India, and other places, the French reaped no permanent advantage from their treachery and cruelties, as the other European nations did. Louisiana was eventually ceded, in 1762, to the Spaniards, just as the French families, from Nova Scotia, Canada, St. Vincent, Granada, and other colonies won by the English, were flocking into it as a place of refuge. They had all the odium and the crime of aboriginal oppression, and left the earth so basely obtained, to the enjoyment of others no better than themselves. CHAPTER XXI. THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA. The man who finds an unknown country out, By giving it a name, acquires, no doubt, A gospel title, though the people there The pious Christian thinks not worth his care. Bar this pretence, and into air is hurled, The claim of Europe to the _Western World_. _Churchill._