Canada having been conquered, the British arms were next directed against the French West India Islands, General Monckton, in November, 1761, sailed from New York, with two line-of-battle ships, a hundred transports and twelve thousand regular and colonial troops. Among his officers were Gates and Montgomery, afterwards celebrated in the Revolutionary War. The expedition was completely successful, and all the islands then in possession of the French, were wrested from them. A family compact between the different branches of the house of Bourbon, had engaged Spain to side with France, and declare war against Great Britain. To humble this new enemy was the next object of her arms, and an expedition was shortly afterwards sent out, which, in August, 1762, wrested Havana from Spain. The arms of England were every where triumphant, her cruisers swept the seas, and her rivals were obliged to consent to a humiliating peace.[1] On the 3d of November, 1762, the preliminaries of peace were signed at Fontainebleau, by which the whole of North America, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, was ceded to Great Britain. The island and city of New Orleans were ceded to Spain, with all Louisiana west of the Mississippi, then almost in a state of nature. Havana was also restored to her in lieu of Florida, which, divided into East and West Florida, now became provinces of the British empire in America. On the 10th of February, 1763, the peace of Paris was publicly ratified, between the contending powers.
It was in this same year that a wide spread combination among the Indians, led to fearful ravages on their part. The Delawares and Shawanese, now occupying the banks of the Muskingum, Sciota, and Miami, provoked by being crowded rudely by the settlers, fast pouring across the Alleganies, and perhaps incited by the artful representation of French fur traders, made a simultaneous attack, in June, along the whole frontier of Pennsylvania and Virginia. The noted Pontiac, a man of superior ability, was the moving spirit of this confederation, and it tasked to the utmost, the powerful influence of Sir William Johnson, to keep the Six Nations from joining Pontiac against the white men.[2] The English traders were plundered and slain, and the posts between the Ohio and Lake Erie, were surprised and taken. Only Niagara, Detroit, and Fort Pitt held out, the two latter being closely blockaded; and the troops which Amherst sent to relieve them did not reach their destination without severe encounters. This onslaught provoked a bloody
- ↑ "The present contest for territorial and commercial supremacy had extended even to the East Indies, thus, as it were, encircling the globe. A twenty years' struggle in Hindostan, between the French and English East India Companies, had ended in the complete triumph of the English, securing to them the dominion of the Carnatic and Bengal; the beginning of that career of territorial aggrandizement in India, since so remarkably carried out.—"Hildreth's "History of the United States," vol. ii., p. 501.
- ↑ As our limits do not admit of details, we must refer the reader to Mr. Parkman's admirably written volume, "History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac and the War of the North American Tribes against the English Colonies, after the Conquest of Canada."
