Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/398

Wolfe to Quebec in 1750. he was in the battle on the Plains of Abraham, where he checked the flight of the French. In July. 1760, he was appointed brigade-major, preparatory to marching to Mon- treal, and he became major of the 95th foot, 16 Aug., 1762. Maj. St. Leger was chosen by George III., at Gen. Burgoyne's recommendation, to be the leader of the expedition against Port Stanwix, and justified their confidence in him, in his advance from Oswego, by his precautions against surprise and by his stratagem at Oriskany. and his general conduct of the siege of that fort up to the panic that was produced by the rumor of the approach of Arnold, which forced him to raise it. At'tiT the failure of this expedition he was pro- moted, in 1780, to colonel in the army, the highest rank he ever attained, and, becoming a leader of rangers under the immediate command of Gen. Haldimand, he carried on a guerilla warfare, with headquarters at Montreal. In the summer of 1781 he proposed a plan for the capture of Gen. Philip Schuyler, which, however, failed in its object. In the autumn of the same year, in obedience to the orders of Haldimand, who was anxious to persuade Vermont to return to her allegiance, he ascended Lake Champlain with a strong force to Ticonder- oga, in the expectation of meeting the Vermont commissioners, Ira Allen and Joseph Fay: but, hearing a rumor of the surrender ot Connvallis, he retreated to St. John, without accomplishing his mission. He was commandant of the royal forces in Canada in the autumn of 1784. and his name appears in the array lists for the last time in 1785. St . Lrger pi >--e-ed some literary talent, as is shown both by his letters to Burgoyne and the Briti-h ministry, and by his volume entitled "St. Leger's Journal of Occurrences in America "(London. 1 ,'>-iii.

ST. LUC, La Corne de, French soldier, I), in 1712; d. in Montreal, Canada, 1 Oct., 1784. Hebe- longed to a family that was noted in Canadian an- nals for the number of its military members. His father was Jean Louis de la Corne. who held the office of town mayor of Three Rivers, and in 171!) was major-general of troops at Quebec, and his brother was the Chevalier Pierre la Corne 17. /.). but he signed his name La Corne St. Luc. During French supremacy in Canada he was an active par- tisan leader against the English. He was engaged in 1746 in scouting in the vicinity of Lake St. Sacra- ment and Fort St. Frederick in June, 1747, nearly captured Fort Clinton (now Schuylerville, N. V. i. and during the remainder of the old French war was busily employed in ambuscades against con-

nid small parties of the enemy. He was pi-c-

ent in 1757 as a captain in Montcalm's expedition against Fort William Henry, and led the Indians of the left column. He served with great credit at the battle of Ticonderoga in 1758, where he carried off a convoy of 150 of Gen. Abercrombie's wagons. He took part in the battle on the Plains of Abraham in 1760. and again at the victory of St. Fi >y. near Quebec, where he was wounded. When hostilities began between Great Britain and her American colonies, he at once espoused the cause of the crown, and successfully incited the In- dians of the north and northwest to take up arms against the colonists. He was with the party that captured Ethan Allen, and with Gen. Carleton when he was repulsed by Col. Seth War- ner. St. Luc was taken prisoner in 1775, and sent to New York, but, returning to Canada in May. 1777. he became the leader of the Indians in the Burgoyne campaign. When Jane Mct'iva o/. '.) was killed, and Burgoyne demanded that the murderers should be given up, St. Luc reminded him of the consequences, and thus secured im- munity for his savage followers. He was accused by Burgoyne of deserting with his Indians at tin- critical moment at Bennington, and denounced by him in parliament as a runaway. At the close o"f the war he wa* appointed a member of the legis- lative council in Canada, and stoutly defended the political rights of the Canadians at an epoch when they were not always respected. He was a man of education, talent, and courage. His modes of warfare were brutal and sanguinary, and his un- relenting hostility to the colonists manifest* tin- most bitter vindictiveness.

ST. LUSSON, Simon Francois Daumont. Sieur de, French officer, lived in the 17th century. He was the deputy of the intendant of the French government in Canada, Jean Talon, who on 3 Sept., 1670, commissioned him to search for copper-mines and confer with the tribes about Lake Superior. Nicolas Perrot, who had visited the lake country a few months before, accompanied him as interpre- ter. On 5 May. 1675. St. Lusson concluded a treaty, with imposing ceremonies, in the presence of tin- Jesuit inissiiinaric-i tlicn in Upper Canada, at Saiilt Ste. Marie, with the principal chiefs of the Sauks. Menomonees, Pottawattamies. Winnebagoes, and other tribes, seventeen in all. and formally took possession of the region surrounding Lakes Huron and Superior in the name of the king of France. The costly presents to the Indians and other ex- penses of the expedition were more than repaid by the gifts of furs that he received in return.

SAINT MEMIN, Charles Balthazar Julien Ferre de, artist, b. in Dijon, France, 12 March, 1770; d. there, 23 June, 1852. He was entered as a cadet in the military school in Paris, 1 April, 1784, and appointed ensign, 27 April, 1788. At the opening of the French revolution he was loyal to the crown, and joined the array of the princes, serving until it was disbanded, when he retired to Switzerland, and came thence to this country. He landed in Canada in 1793, but soon af- terward reached. New York. While with the army he had given at- tention to drawing and painting, and in Swit- zerland he had learned to carve and gild wood. A compatriot named Chretien had invented

a machine in 1786

which he called a physionotraee, by means of which the human profile could be copied with mathematical accuracy. It had great success in France, and Saint Memin determined to introduce it into this country. He constructed such a machine with his own hands, according to his understanding of it, and also made a pantograph, by which to reduce the original design. His life-size profiles on pink paper, finished in black crayon, were reduced by the pantograph to a size small emu 114)1 to be engraved within a perfect circle two inches in diameter. The machine, of course, only gae the outline, the finishing being done in one case with crayon, and in the other with the graver ami roulette, by which means he took in thi- country more than 800 portraits. The drawing and engraved plate, with a dozen proofs became the