harsh,
and polysyllabical; and their speech consists of hyperbolical metaphors
and similies, which invest it with an air of dignity and heighten the
expression. They manage their conferences by means of wampum, a kind of
bead formed of a hard shell, either in single strings, or sewed in
broad belts of different dimensions, according to the importance of the
subject. Every proposition is offered, every answer made, every promise
corroborated, every declaration attested, and every treaty confirmed, by
producing and interchanging these belts of wampum. The conferences were
continued from the eighth to the twenty-sixth day of October, when
every article was settled to the mutual satisfaction of all parties. The
Indian deputies were gratified with a valuable present, consisting
of looking-glasses, knives, tobacco-boxes, sleeve-buttons, thimbles,
sheers, gun-locks, ivory combs, shirts, shoes, stockings, hats,
caps, handkerchiefs, thread, clothes, blankets, gartering, serges,
watch-coats, and a few suits of laced clothes for their chieftains.
To crown their happiness, the stores of rum were opened; they drank
themselves into a state of brutal intoxication, and next day returned in
peace to their respective places of habitation.

PLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN.

This treaty with the Indians, who had been debauched from the interest
of Great Britain, auspiciously paved the way for those operations which
had been projected against the French settlements in Canada. Instead
of employing the whole strength of the British arms in North America
against one object, the ministry proposed to divide the forces, and make
impressions on three different parts at once, that the enemy might be
divided, distracted, and weakened, and the conquest of Canada completed
in one campaign. That the success might be the more certain, the
different expeditions were planned in such a manner as to co-operate
with each other, and even join occasionally; so practicable was it
thought for them to maintain such a correspondence as would admit of
a junction of this nature. The project of this campaign imported, that
general Wolfe, who had distinguished himself so eminently in the siege
of Louis-bourg, should proceed up the river St. Laurence, as soon as the
navigation should be clear of ice, with a body of eight thousand men,
and a considerable squadron of ships from England, to undertake the
siege of Quebec, the capital of Canada: that general Amherst, who
comma