The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 4, January, 1885Various
History
The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 4, January, 1885
Various
Massachusetts -- Periodicals; New England -- Periodicals
When light came it revealed to the Rangers lines of scalps, mostly
English, to the number of six hundred, strung upon poles above the
door-ways. Thereupon, every house except three containing supplies was
fired, and their destruction brought death to a few who had before
escaped it by concealing themselves in the cellars. Ere noon two hundred
Indian braves had perished and their accursed village had been
obliterated.
The operations of the next year (1760) ended this long and fierce
struggle. The attempted re-capture of Quebec by the French was their
final effort. The army of the Lakes embarked from Crown Point for
Montreal on the sixteenth day of August. "Six hundred Rangers and
seventy Indians in whale-boats, commanded by Major Rogers, all in a line
abreast, formed the advance guard." He and his men encountered some
fighting on the way from Isle a Mot to Montreal, but no serious obstacle
retarded their progress. The day of their arrival Monsieur de Vaudveuil
proposed to Major General Amherst a capitulation, which soon after
terminated the French dominion in North America.
The English troops, as will be remembered, entered Montreal on the
evening of the eighth of September. On the morning of the twelfth Major
Rogers was ordered by General Amherst to proceed westward with two
companies of Rangers and take possession of the western forts, still
held by the French, which, by the terms of the capitulation, were to be
surrendered.
He embarked about noon the next day with some two hundred Rangers in
fifteen whale-boats, and advanced to the west by the St. Lawrence and
the Lakes. On the seventh of November they reached the mouth of the
Cuyahoga, where the beautiful city of Cleveland now stands. The cross of
St. George had never penetrated the wilderness so far before. Here they
encamped and were soon after waited upon by messengers from the great
chieftain Pontiac, asking by what right they entered upon his territory
and the object of their visit. Rogers informed them of the downfall of
the French in America, and that he had been sent to take possession of
the French forts surrendered to the English by the terms of the
capitulation. Pontiac received his message remarking that he should
stand in his path until morning, when he would return to him his answer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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