, he energetically opposed
the landing of the English, and maintained himself for two months in an
almost open place. When he was at last obliged to surrender, on the 26th
of July, Louisbourg was nothing but a heap of ruins; all the inhabitants
of the islands of St. John and Cape Breton were transported by the
victors to France.

Canada had by this time cost France dear; and she silently left it to its
miserable fate. In vain did the governor, the general, the commissariat
demand incessantly re-enforcements, money, provisions; no help came from
France. "We keep on fighting, nevertheless," wrote Montcalm to the
minister of war, "and we will bury ourselves, if necessary, under the
ruins of the colony." Famine, the natural result of neglecting the land,
went on increasing: the Canadians, hunters and soldiers as they were, had
only cleared and cultivated their fields in the strict ratio of their
daily wants; there was a lack of hands; every man was under arms;
destitution prevailed everywhere; the inhabitants of Quebec were reduced
to siege-rations; the troops complained and threatened to mutiny; the
enemy had renewed their efforts: in the campaign of 1758, the journals of
the Anglo-American colonies put their land forces at sixty thousand men.
"England has at the present moment more troops in motion on this
continent than Canada contains inhabitants, including old men, women,
and children," said a letter to Paris from M. Doreil, war commissioner.
Mr. Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, who had lately, come to the head of
the English government, resolved to strike the last blow at the French
power in America. Three armies simultaneously invaded Canada; on the
25th of June, 1759, a considerable fleet brought under the walls of
Quebec General Wolfe, a young and hopeful officer who had attracted
notice at the siege of Louisbourg. "If General Montcalm succeeds again
this year in frustrating our hopes," said Wolfe, "he may be considered an
able man; either the colony has resources that nobody knows of, or our
generals are worse than usual."

Quebec was not fortified; the loss of it involved that of all Canada; it
was determined to protect the place by an outlying camp; appeal was made
to the Indian tribes, lately zealous in the service of France, but now
detached from it by ill fortune and diminution of the advantages offered
them, and already for the most part won over by the English. The
Canadian colonists, exhausted by war