her history than his biography.

In 1761 he was wounded at the storming of Port Andro during the attack on Belle Isle off the west coast of France. In 1762 he was wounded at Havana in the West Indies. After that he enjoyed four years of quietness at home. Then came the exceedingly difficult task of guiding Canada through twelve years of turbulent politics and most subversive war.

CHAPTER II

GENERAL MURRAY 1759-1766

Both armies spent a terrible winter after the Battle of the Plains. There was better shelter for the French in Montreal than for the British among the ruins of Quebec. But in the matter of food the positions were reversed. Nevertheless the French gallantly refused the truce offered them by Murray, who had now succeeded Wolfe. They were determined to make a supreme effort to regain Quebec in the spring; and they were equally determined that the habitants should not be free to supply the British with provisions.

In spite of the state of war, however, the French and British officers, even as prisoners and captors, began to make friends. They had found each other foemen worthy of their steel. A distinguished French officer, the Comte de Malartic, writing to Levis, Montcalm's successor, said: 'I cannot speak too highly of General Murray, although he is our enemy.' Murray, on his part, was equally loud and generous in his praise of the French. The Canadian seigneurs found fellow-gentlemen among the British officers. The priests and nuns of Quebec found many fellow-Catholics among the Scottish and Irish troops, and nothing but courteous treatment from the soldiers of every rank and form of religion. Murray directed that 'the compliment of the hat' should be paid to all religious processions. The Ursuline nuns knitted long stockings for the bare-legged Highlanders when the winter came on, and presented each Scottish officer with an embroidered St Andrew's Cross on the 30th of November, St Andrew's Day. The whole garrison won the regard of the town by giving up part of their rations for the hungry poor; while the habitants from the surrounding country presently began to find out that the British were honest to deal with and most humane, though sternly just, as conquerors.

In the following April Levis made his desperate throw for victory; and actually did succeed in defeating Murray outside the walls of Quebec. But the British fleet came up in May; and that summer three British armies converged on Montreal, where the last doomed remnants of French power on the St Lawrence stood despairingly at bay. When Levis found his two thousand effective French regulars surrounded by eight times as many British troops he had no choice but to lay down the arms of France for ever. On the 8th of September 1760 his gallant little army was included in the Capitulation of Montreal, by which the whole of Canada passed into the possession of the British Crown.

Great Britain had a different general idea for each one of the four decades which immediately followed the conquest of Canada. In the sixties the general idea was to kill refractory old French ways with a double dose of new British liberty and kindness, so that Canada might gradually become the loyal fourteenth colony of the Empire in America. But the fates were against this benevolent scheme. The French Canadians were firmly wedded to their old ways of life, except in so far as the new liberty enabled them to throw off irksome duties and restraints, while the new English-speaking 'colonists' were so few, and mostly so bad, that they became the cause of endless discord where harmony was essential. In the seventies the idea was to restore the old French-Canadian life so as not only to make Canada proof against the disaffection of the Thirteen Colonies but also to make her a safe base of operations against rebellious Americans. In the eighties the great concern of the government was to make a harmonious whole out of two very widely differing parts—the long-settled French Canadians and the newly arrived United Empire Loyalists. In the nineties each of these parts was set to work out its own salvation under its own provincial constitution.

Carleton's is the only personality which links together all four decades—the would-be American sixties, the French-Canadian seventies, the Anglo-French-Canadian eighties, and the bi-constitutional nineties—though, as mentioned already, Murray ruled Canada for the first seven years, 1759-66.

James Murray, the first British governor of Canada, was a younger son of the fourth Lord Elibank. He was just over forty, warm-hearted and warm-tempered, an excellent French scholar, and every inch a soldier. He had been a witness for the defence of Mordaunt at the court-martial held to try the authors of the Rochefort fiasco in 1757. Wolfe, who was a witness on the other side, referred to him later on as 'my old antagonist Murray.' But Wolfe knew a good man when he saw one and gave his full confidence to his 'old antagonist' both at Louisbourg and Quebec. Murray was not born under a lucky star. He saw three defeats in three successive wars. He began his service with the abortive attack on pestilential Cartagena, where Wolfe's father was present as adjutant-general. In mid-career he lost the battle of Ste Foy. [Footnote: See The Winning of Canada, chap. viii. See also, for the best account of this battle and other events of the year between Wolfe's victory and the surrender of Montreal, The Fall of Canada, by George M. Wrong. Oxford, 1914.] And his active military life ended with his surrender of Minorca in 1782. But he was greatly distinguished for honour and steadfastness on all occasions. An admiring contemporary described him as a model of all the military virtues except prudence. But he had more prudence and less genius than his admirer thought; and he showed a marked talent for general government. The problem before him was harder than his superiors could believe. He was expected to prepare for assimilation some sixty-five thousand 'new subjects' who were mostly alien in religion and wholly alien in every other way. But, for the moment, this proved the least of his many difficulties because no immediate results were required.

While the war went on in Europe Canada remained nominally a part of the enemy's dominions, and so, of course, was subject to military rule. Sir Jeffery Amherst, the British commander-in-chief in America, took up his headquarters in New York. Under him Murray commanded Canada from Quebec. Under Murray, Colonel Burton commanded the district of Three Rivers while General Gage commanded the district of Montreal, which then extended to the western wilds. [Footnote: See The War Chief of the Ottawas, chap. iii.]

Murray's first great trouble arose in 1761. It was caused by an outrageous War Office order that fourpence a day should be stopped from the soldiers to pay for the rations they had always got free. Such gross injustice, coming in time of war and applied to soldiers who richly deserved reward, made the veterans 'mad with rage.' Quebec promised to be the scene of a wild mutiny. Murray, like all his officers, thought the stoppage nothing short of robbery. But he threw himself into the breach. He assembled the officers and explained that they must die to the last man rather than allow the mutineers a free hand. He then held a general parade at which he ordered the troops to march between two flag-poles on pain of instant death, promising to kill with his own hands the first man who refused. He added that he was ready to hear and forward any well-founded complaint, but that, since insubordination had been openly threatened, he would insist on subordination being publicly shown. Then, amid tense silence, he gave the word of command—Quick, March!—while every officer felt his trigger. To the immense relief of all concerned the men stepped off, marched straight between the