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He purposed also to chastise, even in their most sequestered receptacles, this ruthless race. Having descended the Ohio, he directed his march northward, towards Kaskaskias, the principal village of the Canadian establishments. The republicans came upon the inhabitants in sleep, and met with very little resistance. They afterwards scoured the adjacent country, and seized other places of the settlement. Filled with dismay, the inhabitants hastened to swear allegiance to the United States. Thence, colonel Clarke marched against the barbarian tribes; he penetrated into their inmost retreats and most secret recesses, and put all to sword and fire.

The savages experienced in their own huts and families those calamities which they had so frequently carried home to others. This castigation rendered them, for a while, more timid in their excursions, and encouraged the Americans to defend themselves.

A similar expedition was undertaken, some time after, by another colonel Butler, against the tories and Indians of the banks of the Susquehanna; the same who had been the authors of the ruin of Wyoming. He ravaged and burned several villages, the houses, barns, harvests, mills, every thing was laid in ashes and desolation. The inhabitants had been apprised in season, and had made their escape, else they would doubtless have paid dearly for Wyoming. The Americans having accomplished their object, retired within their limits, but not without having encountered excessive fatigues and no little peril. Thus terminated the Indian war of this year. The republicans had not only to combat the English in front, and to repel the savages and refugees who assailed them in rear; they were also not a little infested by the disaffected within the country. Of this class none were more animated than the Quakers. At first, they had embraced, or at least appeared to embrace, the principles of the revolution, and even still there existed among them several of the most distinguished patriots, such as generals Greene and Mifflin. Nevertheless, the greater number inclined for England, whether because they were weary of the length of the war, or that they had merely desired the reformation of the laws, and not independence. Perhaps too, they had persuaded themselves, that after the conquest of Philadelphia, all America would be reduced, without difficulty, and that therefore it was useful to their interests to appease the victor by a prompt submission, in order to obtain favors from the British government, which would be refused to the more obstinate. They at least showed themselves forward to serve the English, as guides and as spies. Several of them, as we have related, had been sent out of the state, or imprisoned. Some had even suffered at Philadelphia the penalties denounced against those who conspired against liberty, and held correspondence with the enemy. The republicans hoped, by these examples, to cure the restless spirit of

the opposite party. The efforts of the discontented were not however greatly to be feared; the open assurance and consent of the friends of the revolution easily triumphed over the secret artifices of their adversaries.

In the meantime, the marquis de la Fayette, desiring to serve his king in the war, which he doubted not was about to break out in Europe, and hoping also to promote by his representations the cause of the United States with the French government, requested of Congress permission to repass the Atlantic.

Washington, who bore him a sincere affection, and who considered, besides, the importance of his name, was desirous that only a temporary leave might be granted him, without the discontinuance of his appointments. He wrote to Congress, accordingly, and they readily acceded to his views; they, moreover, addressed a letter to the marquis, returning him their thanks for the disinterested zeal which led him to America, and for the services he had rendered to the United. States, by the exertion of his courage and abilities on so many signal occasions. They also directed doctor Franklin to present him with a sword decorated with devices commemorative of his achievements. Finally, they recommended him strongly to the most christian king. The marquis de la Fayette took leave of Congress, and sailed for Europe, with the intention of returning as soon as possible. On his arrival in France, he was received equally well by the king and by the people. Franklin delivered him the sword, engraved with the emblems of his brilliant exploits. He was represented wounding the British lion, and receiving a branch of laurel from the hands of America, released from her chains. America herself was figured by a crescent, with these words; Crescam, ut prosim. On the other side was inscribed, Cur non? the motto which M. de la Fayette had chosen at his departure from France. This masterpiece of art appeared a recompense worthy of the valiant defender of America.

The count d'Estaing still lay at anchor in the harbor of Boston, where he was occupied in victualling his fleet. This operation would have been of very difficult accomplishment, from the scarcity of wheat experienced by the northern colonies since the interruption of their commerce with those of the south, if the privateers of New England had not made so considerable a number of prizes, that not only the fleet, but also the inhabitants of Massachusetts and Connecticut were thereby abundantly supplied. Admiral Byron was no sooner arrived at New York, than he applied himself with the utmost diligence to refitting his ships, in order to resume the sea. The moment he was prepared for it, he got under sail, and stood for Boston, for the purpose of observing the motions of the French squadron. But the adverse fortune which attended him from Europe to America, seemed still to pursue him on these shores. A furious tempest having driven him off the coast, his ships were again so damaged and shat

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tered, that he was constrained to take shelter in Rhode Island. count d'Estaing embraced this opportunity of quitting the harbor of Boston unmolested, and sailed the third of November for the West Indies; where he was called by the orders of his sovereign, and the events of the war. The English, well knowing his designs, and the weakness of the garrisons in the islands of their dependency, commodore Hotham departed the same day from Sandy Hook, and also shaped his course for the West Indies, with six ships of war. They had on board five thousand land troops, commanded by major-general Grant. Admiral Byron followed him the fourteenth of December, with all his fleet.

About the same time colonel Campbell embarked at New York, with a strong corps of English and Germans, upon an expedition against Georgia. He was convoyed by commodore Hyde Parker, with a squadron of a few ships. Thus the theatre of the war, after several campaigns in the provinces of the north and of the centre, was all at once transported into the islands and states of the south.

END OF BOOK TENTH.

BOOK ELEVENTH.

1778. D'ESTAING and Hotham, were not yet arrived in the West Indies, when commodore Evans had made a descent upon the two islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, both very favorably situated for the fishery of Newfoundland. Being almost without defence, he occupied them easily; and, as if he had wished to efface every vestige of the French domination, he imitated the conduct of barbarians, and utterly destroyed the habitations, storehouses, and scaffoldings which had been constructed for the use of the fishery. He afterwards embarked all the inhabitants, who, with the garrisons, amounted to two thousand souls, and sent them to Europe.

The French made themselves ample amends for this loss, by seizing, as they did soon after, the island of Dominica; which being situated between Guadaloupe and Martinico, was of the last consequence to the future operations in that part. Of this the British government was not ignorant, and therefore had fortified it with diligence, and furnished it with a formidable artillery. But, neither the garrison nor the munitions corresponded to the importance of its local position; the public magazines were nearly empty, and all the soldiers in the island scarcely amounted to five hundred; the greater part militia. For a long time, the members of the opposition in parliament, and the merchants of London, had complained aloud that the islands of the West Indies were left without sufficient garrisons, and, as it were, abandoned to the discretion of the enemy. But all these remonstrances had been vain; whether the war of America bad absorbed all the cares of the ministers, or that it had deprived them of the means of sending troops into those islands. The French, on the contrary, were in such force in their colonies, as to be in a condition not only to defend themselves, but also to attack their neighbors. Moreover, they had been the first to receive the news of the declaration of war in Europe. The English frigates despatched to announce it, had fallen into the power of the French, upon the coasts of St. Domingo; so that admiral Barrington, who was stationed at Barbadoes with two ships of the line and two frigates, was first informed of the state of affairs from the manifesto published at Martinico, by the marquis de Bouille, governor of that island. The capture of the frigates had likewise apprised him, that war was not only declared, but commenced. This admiral showed himself very undecided with respect to the course he had to pursue; not having new instructions, he felt bound to adhere to the old, which required him to continue in the station of Barbadoes.

The marquis de Bouille, an active man, and prompt in taking his resolutions, willing to avail himself of the uncertainty and weakness

of the English, determined to commence his operations with an enterprise of importance. Having embarked with two thousand land troops in eighteen transports, under convoy of the frigates Tourterelle, Diligente, and Amphitrite, he arrived at the island of Dominica, the seventh of September, about daybreak. He immediately put all his forces on shore. M. de Fonteneau, protected by the fire of the Diligente, pushed forward to Fort Cachac, and seized it without resistance. The English cannonaded briskly from Fort Roseau, and the battery of Lubieres. Nevertheless, M. de la Chaise, at the head of the rangers of the Auxerrese regiment, advanced impetuously up to the battery; the French soldiers entered by the embrasures, and, grappling the mouths of the cannon, made themselves masters of them. During this time, the viscount de Damas had gained the heights which commanded Fort Roseau, and the marquis de Bouille, with the main body of his troops, had entered the suburbs. The frigate Tourterelle also battered the fort on her part; the English, however, defended themselves with vigor. But at length, governor Stuart, seeing his forces so inferior, and the French about to scale for the assault, demanded to capitulate. The marquis de Bouille, whether with intent to engage by his moderation the governors of other English islands to surrender more easily, or because he feared the arrival of Barrington, who was very near, or, as it should be presumed, merely consulting the generosity of his own character, granted the most honorable conditions to the enemy. The garrison were treated with all the honors of war, and the inhabitants secured in the possession of all their property; no change was to be made in the laws or the administration of justice. If, at the termination of the war, the island should be ceded to France, they were to have the option of retaining their present system of government, or of conforming to that established in the French islands. They were also to be at liberty, in such case, to retire with all their property, wherever they might see fit; those who should remain, were not to be bound to any duty to the king of France, more than what they had owed to their natural sovereign.

The French found on the fortifications and in the magazines an hundred and sixty-four pieces of excellent cannon, and twenty-four mortars, besides a certain quantity of military stores. The privateers that were found in the ports of the island, were either destroyed or carried away. The capitulation was observed with the strictest fidelity; no kind of plunder or irregularity was permitted. As a recompense for their services upon this occasion, the general distributed among his soldiers a pecuniary gratification. He remained but a short time at Dominica, and having left the marquis Duchilleau for governor, with a garrison of fifteen hundred men, he returned to Martinico. But if the moderation and generosity of the marquis de Bouille were deserving of the highest encomium, the conduct of

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