MONTCALM ON LAKE Gåv. for Halifax with all the troops at t ship, bomi-kete... a. on board six loa.. force Lord LouJOL. ELLI,« ture reaches Salia. again took the t.. the preceding Sir Wm. Jam commanded tection to t ficer, Co that nu Moutea ineffectua to be m Crow: with 1Ludian advag a fie the prinse L -r f 1 re CHAPTER XXIII. Washington recovers his Health. - Again in Command at Fort Loudoun. Administration of Pitt. - Loudoun succeeded by General Abercrombie. - Military Arrangements. Washington Commander-in-chief of the Virginia Forces. - Amherst against Louisburg. - General Wolfe. gomery. Capture of Louisburg. MontAbercrombie on Lake George. Death of Lord Howe. - Repulse of Abercrombie - Success of Bradstreet at Oswego. 66 OR several months Washington was af flicted by returns of his malady, accom panied by symptoms indicative, as he thought, of a decline. My constitution," writes he to his friend Colonel Stanwix, "is much impaired, and nothing can retrieve it but the greatest care and the most circumspect course of life. This being the case, as I have now no prospect left of preferment in the military way, and despair of rendering that immediate service which my country may require from the person commanding its troops, I have thoughts of quitting my command and retiring from all public business, leaving my post to be filled by some other person more capable of the task, and who may, perhaps, have his endeavors crowned with better success tinue in what really was his favorite career, and at the beginning of April he was again in comman at Fort Loudoun. Mr. Francis Fauquier had been appointed successor to Dinwiddie, and, until he should arrive, Mr. John Blair, president of the council, had, from his office, charge of the Movernment. lu the latter Washington had a fend who appreciated his character and services, and was disposed to carry out his plans. The general aspect of affairs, also, was more antimating. Under the able and intrepid adminis Gration of Wilam Pitt, who had control of the Brited cabinet, an effort was made to retrieve the disgraces of the late American campaign, and to carry on the war with greater vigor. The instructions for a common fund were discontinued; there was no more talk of taxation by parliament. Lord Loudoun, from whom so much had been anticipated, bad disappointed by his inactivity, and boon relieved from a command in which he had attempted much and done so little. His friends alleged that his inactivity was owing to a want of unanimity and coöperation in the colonial governments, which paralyzed all his well meant ellats. Franklin, it is probable, probed the matter with his usual sagacity when he characterized lum as a man "entirely made up of indecision.” - Lake St. George on the signs, he was always on horseback, but never rode on.” On the return of his lordship to England, the general command in America devolved on Majorgeneral Abercrombie, and the forces into three detached bodies; one, ADMINISTRATION OF PITT. 283 general Amherst, was to operate in the north with the fleet under Boscawen, for the reduction of Louisburg and the island of Cape Breton; another, under Abercrombie himself, was to proceed against Ticonderoga and Crown Point on Lake Champlain; and the third, under Brigadier-general Forbes, who had the charge of the middle and southern colonies, was to undertake the reduction of Fort Duquesne. The colonial troops were to be supplied, like the regulars, with arms, ammunition, tents, and provisions, at the expense of government, but clothed and paid by the colonies; for which the king would recommend to Parliament a proper compensation. The provincial officers appointed by the governors, and of no higher rank than colonel, were to be equal in command, when united in service with those who held direct from the king, according to the date of their commissions. By these wise provisions of Mr. Pitt, a fertile cause of heartburnings and dissensions was removed. It was with the greatest satisfaction Washington saw his favorite measure at last adopted, the reduction of Fort Duquesne; and he resolved to continue in the service until that object was accomplished. In a letter to Stanwix, who was now a brigadier-general, he modestly requested to be mentioned in favorable terms to General Forbes, "not," said he, "as a person who would depend upon him for further recommendation to military preferment (for I have long conquered all such inclinations, and shall serve this campaign merely for the purpose of affording my best en |