[Footnote 1:  Read Parkman’s Montcalm and Wolfe, Vol.  I., pp. 318-380.]

William Pitt was one of the greatest Englishmen that ever lived.  He could see exactly what to do, and he could pick out exactly the right man to do it.  No wonder, then, that as soon as he came into power the British began to gain victories.

%88.  The Victories of 1758.%—­Once more the French were attacked at their three vulnerable points, and this time with success.  In 1758 Louisburg surrendered to Amherst and Boscawen.  In that same year Washington captured Fort Duquesne, which, in honor of the great Prime Minister, was called Fort Pitt.  A provincial officer named Bradstreet destroyed Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario.  This was a heavy blow to the French; for with Fort Frontenac gone and Fort Duquesne in English hands, the Ohio was cut off from Quebec.

An attack on Ticonderoga, however, was repulsed by Montcalm with dreadful loss to the English.

%89.  The Victories of 1759; Wolfe.%—­But the defeat was only temporary.  At the siege of Louisburg a young officer named James Wolfe had greatly distinguished himself, and in return for this was selected by Pitt to command an expedition to Quebec.  The previous attempts to reach that city had been by way of Lake George.  The expedition of Wolfe sailed up the St. Lawrence, and landed below the city.

Quebec stands on the summit of a high hill with precipitous sides, and was then the most strongly fortified city in America.  To take it seemed almost impossible.  But the resolution of Wolfe overcame every obstacle:  on the night of September 12, 1759, he led his troops to the foot of the cliff, climbed the heights, and early in the morning had his army drawn up in battle array on the Plains of Abraham, as the plateau behind the city was called.  There a great battle was fought between the French, led by Montcalm, and the British, led by Wolfe.  The British triumphed, and Quebec fell; but Wolfe and Montcalm were among the dead.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Parkman’s Montcalm and Wolfe, Chaps. 25-27; A. Wright’s Life of Wolfe; Sloan’s French War and the Revolution, Chaps. 6-9.]

[Illustration:  European Possessions 1763]

Ticonderoga and Crown Point had been captured a few weeks before.  Montreal was taken in 1760, and the long struggle between the French and the English in America ended in the defeat of the French.  The war dragged on in Europe till 1763, when peace was made at Paris.

%90.  France driven out of America.%—­With all the details of the treaty we are not concerned.  It is enough for us to know that France divided her possessions on this continent between Great Britain and Spain.  To Great Britain she gave Canada and Cape Breton, and all the islands save two in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  Entering what is now the United States, she drew a line down the middle of the Mississippi River from its source to a point just north of New Orleans.  To Great Britain she surrendered all her territory east of this line.  To Spain she gave all her possessions to the west of this line, together with the city of New Orleans.  But Great Britain, during the war, had taken Havana from Spain.  To get this back, Spain now gave up Florida in exchange.