brought a third considerable force against Montreal. There was
little fighting. The French withdrew to the common objective as their
enemy advanced. Early in September Levis had gathered at Montreal all
his available force, amounting now to scarcely more than two thousand
men, for Canadians and Indians alike had deserted him. The British
pressed in with the slow and inevitable rigor of a force of nature. On
the 7th of September their united army was before the town and Amherst
demanded instant surrender. The only thing for Vaudreuil to do was to
make the best terms possible. On the next day he signed a capitulation
which protected the liberties in property and religion of the Canadians
but which yielded the whole of Canada to Great Britain. The struggle for
North America had ended.

In the moment of triumph Amherst inflicted on the French army a deep
humiliation to punish the outrages committed by their Indian allies. In
the early days of the war Loudoun, the Commander-in-Chief in America,
had vowed that the British would make the French "sick of such inhuman
villainy" and teach them to respect "the laws of nature and humanity."
Washington speaks of his "deadly sorrow" at the dreadful outrages which
he saw, the ravishing of women, the scalping alive even of children.
Philadelphians had seen the grim spectacle of a wagon-load of corpses
brought by mourning friends and relatives of the dead and laid down at
the door of the Assembly to show to pacifist legislators what was really
happening. The French regular officers, as we have seen, had hated this
kind of warfare Bougainville says that his soul shuddered at the sights
in Montreal, where the whole town turned out to see an English prisoner
killed, boiled, and eaten by the savages. Worse still, captive mothers
were obliged to eat the flesh of their own children. The French believed
that they could not get on without the savage allies who committed these
outrages, and they were not strong enough to coerce them. Amherst, on
the other hand, held his Indians in check and rebuked outrage. Now
he was stern to punish what the French had permitted. He could write
proudly to a friend that the French were amazed at the order in which he
kept his own Indians. Not a man, woman, or child, he said, had been hurt
or a single atrocity committed. It was a vivid contrast with what had
taken place after the British surrender to Montcalm at Fort William
Henry. The day of retribution had come.