True Stories from History and Biography Page 11

  In the first years of the war, there were many disasters on the English side. Among these was the loss of Fort Oswego, in 1756, and of Fort William Henry, in the following year. But the greatest misfortune that befell the English, during the whole war, was the repulse of General Abercrombie, with his army, from the ramparts of Ticonderoga, in 1758. He attempted to storm the walls; but a terrible conflict ensued, in which more than two thousand Englishmen and New Englanders were killed or wounded. The slain soldiers now lie buried around that ancient fortress. When the plough passes over the soil, it turns up here and there a mouldering bone.

  Up to this period, none of the English generals had shown any military talent. Shirley, the Earl of Loudon, and General Abercrombie, had each held the chief command, at different times; but not one of them had won a single important triumph for the British arms. This ill success was not owing to the want of means; for, in 1758, General Abercrombie had fifty thousand soldiers under his command. But the French general, the famous Marquis de Montcalm, possessed a great genius for war, and had something within him, that taught him how battles were to be won.

  At length, in 1759, Sir Jeffrey Amherst was appointed commander-in-chief of all the British forces in America. He was a man of ability, and a skilful soldier. A plan was now formed for accomplishing that object, which had so long been the darling wish of the New Englanders, and which their fathers had so many times attempted. This was the conquest of Canada.

  Three separate armies were to enter Canada, from different quarters. One of the three, commanded by General Prideaux, was to embark on Lake Ontario, and proceed to Montreal. The second, at the head of which was Sir Jeffrey Amherst himself, was destined to reach the River St. Lawrence, by the way of Lake Champlain, and then go down the river to meet the third army. This last, led by General Wolfe, was to enter the St. Lawrence from the sea, and ascend the river to Quebec. It is to Wolfe and his army that England owes one of the most splendid triumphs, ever written in her history.

  Grandfather described the siege of Quebec, and told how Wolfe led his soldiers up a rugged and lofty precipice, that rose from the shore of the river to the plain on which the city stood. This bold adventure was achieved in the darkness of night. At day-break, tidings were carried to the Marquis de Montcalm, that the English army was waiting to give him battle on the plains of Abraham. This brave French general ordered his drums to strike up, and immediately marched to encounter Wolfe.

  He marched to his own death. The battle was the most fierce and terrible, that had ever been fought in America. General Wolfe was at the head of his soldiers, and while encouraging them onward, received a mortal wound. He reclined against a stone, in the agonies of death; but it seemed as if his spirit could not pass away, while the fight yet raged so doubtfully. Suddenly, a shout came pealing across the battle-field—"They flee! they flee!" and, for a moment, Wolfe lifted his languid head. "Who flee?" he inquired. "The French," replied an officer. "Then I die satisfied!" said Wolfe, and expired in the arms of victory.

  "If ever a warrior's death were glorious, Wolfe's was so!" said Grandfather; and his eye kindled, though he was a man of peaceful thoughts, and gentle spirit. "His life-blood streamed to baptize the soil which he had added to the dominion of Britain! His dying breath was mingled with his army's shout of victory!"

  "Oh, it was a good death to die!" cried Charley, with glistening eyes. "Was it not a good death, Laurence?"

  Laurence made no reply; for his heart burned within him, as the picture of Wolfe, dying on the blood-stained field of victory, arose to his imagination; and yet, he had a deep inward consciousness, that, after all, there was a truer glory than could thus be won.

  "There were other battles in Canada, after Wolfe's victory," resumed Grandfather; "but we may consider the Old French War as having terminated with this great event. The treaty of peace, however, was not signed until 1763. The terms of the treaty were very disadvantageous to the French; for all Canada, and all Acadia, and the island of Cape Breton, in short, all the territories that France and England had been fighting about, for nearly a hundred years—were surrendered to the English."

  "So, now, at last," said Laurence, "New England had gained her wish. Canada was taken!"

  "And now there was nobody to fight with, but the Indians," said Charley.

  Grandfather mentioned two other important events. The first was the great fire of Boston, in 1700, when the glare from nearly three hundred buildings, all in flames at once, shone through the windows of the Province House, and threw a fierce lustre upon the gilded foliage and lion's head of our old chair. The second event was the proclamation, in the same year, of George the Third as king of Great Britain. The blast of the trumpet sounded from the balcony of the Town House, and awoke the echoes far and wide, as if to challenge all mankind to dispute King George's title.

  Seven times, as the successive monarchs of Britain ascended the throne, the trumpet-peal of proclamation had been heard by those who sat in our venerable chair. But, when the next king put on his father's crown, no trumpet-peal proclaimed it to New England! Long before that day, America had shaken off the royal government.

  Chapter XI

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  Now that Grandfather had fought through the Old French War, in which our chair made no very distinguished figure, he thought it high time to tell the children some of the more private history of that praiseworthy old piece of furniture.

  "In 1757," said Grandfather, "after Shirley had been summoned to England, Thomas Pownall was appointed governor of Massachusetts. He was a gay and fashionable English gentleman, who had spent much of his life in London, but had a considerable acquaintance with America. The new governor appears to have taken no active part in the war that was going on; although, at one period, he talked of marching against the enemy, at the head of his company of cadets. But, on the whole, he probably concluded that it was more befitting a governor to remain quietly in our chair, reading the newspapers and official documents."

  "Did the people like Pownall?" asked Charley.

  "They found no fault with him," replied Grandfather. "It was no time to quarrel with the governor, when the utmost harmony was required, in order to defend the country against the French. But Pownall did not remain long in Massachusetts. In 1759, he was sent to be governor of South Carolina. In thus exchanging one government for another, I suppose he felt no regret, except at the necessity of leaving Grandfather's chair behind him."

  "He might have taken it to South Carolina," observed Clara.

  "It appears to me," said Laurence, giving the rein to his fancy, "that the fate of this ancient chair was, somehow or other, mysteriously connected with the fortunes of old Massachusetts. If Governor Pownall had put it aboard the vessel in which he sailed for South Carolina, she would probably have lain wind-bound in Boston harbor. It was ordained that the chair should not be taken away. Don't you think so, Grandfather?"

  "It was kept here for Grandfather and me to sit in together," said little Alice, "and for Grandfather to tell stories about."

  "And Grandfather is very glad of such a companion, and such a theme," said the old gentleman, with a smile. "Well, Laurence, if our oaken chair, like the wooden Palladium of Troy, was connected with the country's fate, yet there appears to have been no supernatural obstacle to its removal from the Province House. In 1760, Sir Francis Bernard, who had been governor of New Jersey, was appointed to the same office in Massachusetts. He looked at the old chair, and thought it quite too shabby to keep company with a new set of mahogany chairs, and an aristocratic sofa, which had just arrived from London. He therefore ordered it to be put away in the garret."

  The children were loud in their exclamations against this irreverent conduct of Sir Francis Bernard. But Grandfather defended him, as well as he could. He observed, that it was then thirty years since the chair had been beautified by Governor Belcher. Most of the gilding was worn off by the frequent scourings which it had undergone, beneath the hands of a black slave. The damask c
ushion, once so splendid, was now squeezed out of all shape, and absolutely in tatters, so many were the ponderous gentlemen who had deposited their weight upon it, during these thirty years.

  Moreover, at a council held by the Earl of Loudon with the governors of New England, in 1757, his lordship, in a moment of passion, had kicked over the chair with his military boot. By this unprovoked and unjustifiable act, our venerable friend had suffered a fracture of one of its rungs.

  "But," said Grandfather, "our chair, after all, was not destined to spend the remainder of its days in the inglorious obscurity of a garret. Thomas Hutchinson, lieutenant-governor of the province, was told of Sir Francis Bernard's design. This gentleman was more familiar with the history of New England than any other man alive. He knew all the adventures and vicissitudes through which the old chair had passed, and could have told, as accurately as your own Grandfather, who were the personages that had occupied it. Often, while visiting at the Province House, he had eyed the chair with admiration, and felt a longing desire to become the possessor of it. He now waited upon Sir Francis Bernard, and easily obtained leave to carry it home."

  "And I hope," said Clara, "he had it varnished and gilded anew."

  "No," answered Grandfather. "What Mr. Hutchinson desired was to restore the chair, as much as possible, to its original aspect, such as it had appeared, when it was first made out of the Earl of Lincoln's oak-tree. For this purpose he ordered it to be well scoured with soap and sand and polished with wax, and then provided it with a substantial leather cushion. When all was completed to his mind, he sat down in the old chair, and began to write his History of Massachusetts."

  "Oh, that was a bright thought in Mr. Hutchinson!" exclaimed Laurence. "And, no doubt, the dim figures of the former possessors of the chair flitted around him, as he wrote, and inspired him with a knowledge of all that they had done and suffered while on earth."

  "Why, my dear Laurence," replied Grandfather, smiling, "if Mr. Hutchinson was favored with any such extraordinary inspiration, he made but a poor use of it in his History; for a duller piece of composition never came from any man's pen. However, he was accurate, at least, though far from possessing the brilliancy or philosophy of Mr. Bancroft."

  "But, if Hutchinson knew the history of the chair," rejoined Laurence, "his heart must have been stirred by it."

  "It must, indeed," said Grandfather. "It would be entertaining and instructive, at the present day, to imagine what were Mr. Hutchinson's thoughts, as he looked back upon the long vista of events with which this chair was so remarkably connected."

  And Grandfather allowed his fancy to shape out an image of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, sitting in an evening reverie by his fireside, and meditating on the changes that had slowly passed around the chair.

  A devoted monarchist, Hutchinson would heave no sigh for the subversion of the original republican government, the purest that the world had seen, with which the colony began its existence. While reverencing the grim and stern old Puritans as the founders of his native land, he would not wish to recall them from their graves, nor to awaken again that king-resisting spirit, which he imagined to be laid asleep with them forever. Winthrop, Dudley, Bellingham, Endicott, Leverett, and Bradstreet! All these had had their day. Ages might come and go, but never again would the people's suffrages place a republican governor in their ancient Chair of State!

  Coming down to the epoch of the second charter, Hutchinson thought of the ship-carpenter Phips, springing from the lowest of the people, and attaining to the loftiest station in the land. But, he smiled to perceive that this governor's example would awaken no turbulent ambition in the lower orders, for it was a king's gracious boon alone that made the ship-carpenter a ruler. Hutchinson rejoiced to mark the gradual growth of an aristocratic class, to whom the common people, as in duty bound, were learning humbly to resign the honors, emoluments, and authority of state. He saw,—or else deceived himself—that, throughout this epoch, the people's disposition to self-government had been growing weaker, through long disuse, and now existed only as a faint traditionary feeling.

  The Lieutenant-Governor's reverie had now come down to the period at which he himself was sitting in the historic chair. He endeavored to throw his glance forward, over the coming years. There, probably, he saw visions of hereditary rank, for himself and other aristocratic colonists. He saw the fertile fields of New England, portioned out among a few great landholders, and descending by entail from generation to generation. He saw the people a race of tenantry, dependent on their lords. He saw stars, garters, coronets, and castles.

  "But," added Grandfather, turning to Laurence, "the Lieutenant-Governor's castles were built nowhere but among the red embers of the fire, before which he was sitting. And, just as he had constructed a baronial residence for himself and his posterity, the fire rolled down upon the hearth, and crumbled it to ashes!"

  Grandfather now looked at his watch, which hung within a beautiful little ebony Temple, supported by four Ionic columns. He then laid his hand on the golden locks of little Alice, whose head had sunk down upon the arm of our illustrious chair.

  "To bed, to bed, dear child!" said he. "Grandfather has put you to sleep, already, by his stories about these FAMOUS OLD PEOPLE!"

  PART III

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  Chapter I

  *

  On the evening of New Year's day, Grandfather was walking to and fro, across the carpet, listening to the rain which beat hard against the curtained windows. The riotous blast shook the casement, as if a strong man were striving to force his entrance into the comfortable room. With every puff of the wind, the fire leaped upward from the hearth, laughing and rejoicing at the shrieks of the wintry storm.

  Meanwhile, Grandfather's chair stood in its customary place by the fireside. The bright blaze gleamed upon the fantastic figures of its oaken back, and shone through the open-work, so that a complete pattern was thrown upon the opposite side of the room. Sometimes, for a moment or two, the shadow remained immovable, as if it were painted on the wall. Then, all at once, it began to quiver, and leap, and dance, with a frisky motion. Anon, seeming to remember that these antics were unworthy of such a dignified and venerable chair, it suddenly stood still. But soon it began to dance anew.

  "Only see how grandfather's chair is dancing!" cried little Alice.

  And she ran to the wall, and tried to catch hold of the flickering shadow; for to children of five years old, a shadow seems almost as real as a substance.

  "I wish," said Clara, "Grandfather would sit down in the chair, and finish its history."

  If the children had been looking at Grandfather, they would have noticed that he paused in his walk across the room, when Clara made this remark. The kind old gentleman was ready and willing to resume his stories of departed times. But he had resolved to wait till his auditors should request him to proceed, in order that they might find the instructive history of the chair a pleasure, and not a task.

  "Grandfather," said Charley, "I am tired to death of this dismal rain, and of hearing the wind roar in the chimney. I have had no good time all day. It would be better to hear stories about the chair, than to sit doing nothing, and thinking of nothing."

  To say the truth, our friend Charley was very much out of humor with the storm, because it had kept him all day within doors, and hindered him from making trial of a splendid sled, which Grandfather had given him for a New Year's gift. As all sleds, now-a-days, must have a name, the one in question had been honored with the title of Grandfather's Chair, which was painted in golden letters, on each of the sides. Charley greatly admired the construction of the new vehicle, and felt certain that it would outstrip any other sled that ever dashed adown the long slopes of the Common.

  As for Laurence, he happened to be thinking, just at this moment, about the history of the chair. Kind old Grandfather had made him a present of a volume of engraved portraits, representing the features of eminent and famous people of all countries. Among them Laurenc
e found several who had formerly occupied our chair, or been connected with its adventures. While Grandfather walked to and fro across the room, the imaginative boy was gazing at the historic chair. He endeavored to summon up the portraits which he had seen in his volume, and to place them, like living figures, in the empty seat.

  "The old chair has begun another year of its existence, to-day," said Laurence. "We must make haste, or it will have a new history to be told before we finish the old one."

  "Yes, my children," replied Grandfather, with a smile and a sigh, "another year has been added to those of the two centuries, and upward, which have passed since the Lady Arbella brought this chair over from England. It is three times as old as your Grandfather; but a year makes no impression on its oaken frame, while it bends the old man nearer and nearer to the earth; so let me go on with my stories while I may."

  Accordingly, Grandfather came to the fireside, and seated himself in the venerable chair. The lion's head looked down with a grimly good-natured aspect, as the children clustered around the old gentleman's knees. It almost seemed as if a real lion were peeping over the back of the chair, and smiling at the group of auditors, with a sort of lion-like complaisance. Little Alice, whose fancy often inspired her with singular ideas, exclaimed that the lion's head was nodding at her, and that it looked as if it were going to open its wide jaws and tell a story.