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"River of Saratoga," and some branches of Wood Creek, they reached the place where they had left their canoes, and found them safe. Rigaud says: “I gave leave to the Indians, at their request, to continue their fighting and ravaging, in small parties, towards Albany, Schenectady, Deerfield, Saratoga, or wherever they pleased, and I even gave them a few officers and cadets to lead them." These small ventures were more or less successful, and produced, in due time, a good return of scalps.

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The main body, now afloat again, sailed and paddled northward till they reached Crown Point. Rigaud rejoiced at finding a haven of refuge, for his wounded arm was greatly inflamed: "and it was time I should reach a place of repose. He and his men encamped by the fort and remained there for some time. An epidemic, apparently like that at Fort Massachusetts, had broken out among them, and great numbers were seriously ill.

Norton was lodged in a French house on the east side of the lake, at what is now called Chimney Point; and one day his guardian, De Muy, either thinking to impress him with the strength of the place, or with an amusing confidence in the minister's incapacity for making inconvenient military observations, invited him to visit the fort. He accepted the invitation, crossed over with the courteous officer, and reports the ramparts to have been twenty feet thick, about twenty feet high, and mounted with

above twenty cannon. The octagonal tower which

overlooked the ramparts, and answered in some sort to the donjon of a feudal castle, was a bomb-proof structure in vaulted masonry, of the slaty black limestone of the neighborhood, three stories in height, and armed with nine or ten cannon, besides a great number of patereroes, - a kind of pivot-gun much like a swivel.1

In due time the prisoners reached Montreal, whence they were sent to Quebec; and in the course of the next year those who remained alive were exchanged and returned to New England. Mrs. Smead and her infant daughter "Captivity" died in Canada, and, by a singular fatality, her husband had scarcely returned home when he was waylaid and killed by Indians. Fort Massachusetts was soon rebuilt by the province, and held its own thenceforth till the war was over. Sergeant Hawks became a lieutenant-colonel, and took a creditable part in the last French war.

For two years after the incursion of Rigaud the New England borders were scourged with partisan warfare, bloody, monotonous, and futile, with no event that needs recording, and no result beyond a momentary check to the progress of settlement. At length, in July, 1748, news came that the chief con

1 Kalm also describes the fort and its tower. Little trace of either now remains. Amherst demolished them in 1759, when he built the larger fort, of which the ruins still stand on the higher ground behind the site of its predecessor.

Of the twenty-two men in the fort when attacked, one, Knowlton, was killed by a bullet; one, Reed, died just after the surrender, ten died in Canada, and ten returned home. Report of Sergean Hawks.

tending powers in Furope had come to terms of agreement, and in the next October the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed. Both nations were tired of the weary and barren conflict, with its enormous cost and its vast entail of debt. It was agreed that conquests should be mutually restored. The chief conquest of England was Louisbourg, with the island of Cape Breton, won for her by the farmers and fishermen of New England. When the preliminaries of peace were under discussion, Louis XV. had demanded the restitution of the lost fortress; and George II. is said to have replied that it was not his to give, having been captured by the people of Boston. But his sense of justice was forced to yield to diplomatic necessity, for Louisbourg was the indispensable price of peace. To the indignation of the northern provinces, it was restored to its former own"The British ministers," says Smollett, "gave up the important island of Cape Breton in exchange for a petty factory in the East Indies" (Madras), and the King deigned to send two English noblemen to the French court as security for the bargain.

ers.

Peace returned to the tormented borders; the settlements advanced again, and the colonists found a short breathing space against the great conclusive struggle of the Seven Years' War.

1 N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 147.

APPENDIX.

A.

CHAPTER XVII. ENGLAND HAS NO RIGHTFUL TITLES TO NORTH AMERICA, EXCEPT THOSE WHICH MAY BE GRANTED HER BY FRANCE.

Second Memoire concernant les limites des Colonies presenté en 1720, par Bobé prêtre de la congregation de la Mission. à Versailles. Archives Nationales.

"

(Extracts, printed literatim.)

"L'année Dernier 1719 je presenté un Memoire Concernant les prétensions reciproques de la grande bretagne et de la france par Raport aux Colonies des deux Nations dans L'Amerique, et au Reglement des limites des dites Colonies. Je ne repete pas ce que j'ay dit dans ce memoire, je prie seulement que l'on pese bien tout ce que j'y dis pour Aneantir les prétensions des Anglois, et pour les Convaincre, s'ils veullent être de bonne foy, qu'elles sont des plus mal fondées, trés Exorbitantes, et mêmes injustes, qu'ayant usurpé sur La france presque tout ce qu'ils possedent en Amerique, ils deveroient luy rendre au lieu de luy demander, et qu'ils deveroient estimer Comme un tres grand avantage pour Eux, la Compensation que j'y propose pour finir cette affaire, laqu'elle, sans cette Compensation, renai VOL. II.- -17

tra toujours jusqu'a ce qu'enfin la france soit rentrée en paisible possession de tout ce qui luy appartient légitimement, et dont on ne L'a depoüilleé que par la force et La malheureuse Conjoncture des tems, qui sans doute tôt ou tard luy seront plus favorables.

"Il Est surprenant que les Anglois entendus Comme ils sont par Raport à leurs Interests, ne fassent pas attention qu'il Leurs est infiniment plus Avantageux de s'assurer, par un traité raisonnable, la tranquille et perpetuelle possession des payis ou ils etoient établis avant la paix D'utrecht, que de vouloir profiter des Conjonctures pour oster aux françois des payis qu'ils ne Cederont jamais de bon Coeur, et dont ils se rempareront quand ils trouveront l'occasion favorable pour Cela, se persuadant qu'il leur sera alors permis de reprendre par force, ce que par force on leurs à pris, et ce qu'ils ont été obligé de Ceder a Utrecht; et meme de reprendre au moins une partie des payis que l'angleterre à usurpez sur la france, qui ne les à jamais cedez par aucun traité que je scache. .

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"Jean Verazan par ordre de françois 1 fit La decouverte de tous les payis et Costes qui sont Entre le 33 et le 47: Degre de latitude, et y fit deux voyages dont le dernier fut en 1523 et par ordre et au nom du dit Roy francois 1 il prit possession de toute cette Coste et de tous ces payis, bien long tems avant que les Anglois y Eussent Eté.

"L'an 1562 Les françois s'établirent dans La Caroline. Champlain à La fin de la relation de ses voyages fait un chapitre exprez Dans lequel il prouve.

"1°. Que La france a pris possession de toutes les Costes et payis depuis la floride inclusivement jusqu'au fleuve S Laurent inclusivem!, avant tout autre prince chrêtien.

2°. Que nos roys ont eu, dez le Commancement des decouvertes des lieutenans generaux Dans ces payis et Costes.

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