action was established. The campaign of 1755 began with three expeditions against the French forts. In that against Crown Point, on Lake George, Captain McGinnes, of New Hampshire," fell on the French, at the head of 200 men, and completely routed them." After

turning the fortunes of the day, he fell, mortally wounded. The other two expeditions utterly failed. It was in covering the retreat of the one against Fort Du Quesne, that George Washington, then very young, first distinguished himself in arms.

The war, at this juncture, brought the "Irish Brigade" in the French armies to the Canadian frontier. They had been brought from the West Indies to the shores of the Saint Lawrence, for their country was with the lilies of France wherever they might grow. In 1756 and 7 they were at Oswego, under Montcalm, and probably participated in the capture of that fort, Fort George, and Fort William Henry.* Some of their number, leaving the service of the Bourbons, settled in the new world, and one, at least, attained to distinguished honors, in after years, under the flag of the Republic.†

In the campaigns of '58 and '59, fortune again returned to the British side. Louisburg was retaken, and Fort Du Quesne carried. Ticonderoga was at first assailed in vain, with terrible loss to the besiegers, but was taken at the second attack, as Niagara, and, finally, Quebec, were also. In 1760, English arms ended the dominion of the French, in Canada, as, twenty years later, French aid ended that of England, at Yorktown. So one nail drove out the other. The treaty of Paris, in 1763, gave America one master less; the treaty of Paris, 1783, gave her almost complete independence.

Among the officers who commanded under Wolf at the capture of Quebec, was an Irish gentleman, Richard

* O'Callaghan Documentary History of New York. It is strange that Forman, in his Memoir of the Brigade, and Mathew O'Connor, in his Military Memoirs, make no mention of their having seen the American "mainland."

+ General Hand. In memory of this celebrated legion, a portion of the Pennsylvania line, during the war of the Revolution, styled themselves "The Irish Brigade.'

Montgomery, then in his twenty-first year. He held the rank of colonel. John Stark, John Sullivan, and others, served their apprenticeship in the same Canadian war. Other days, and heavier responsibilities, were reserved for these brave men.

Each colony had its own Indian wars, which were the constant schools of the future soldiers of the Revolution. The formidable Delawares and Hurons kept the settlers of Pennsylvania and Western New York constantly on the alert, and trained to hardy enterprise the defenders of the new clearings.

The power of the Delawares was not thoroughly broken till after the Revolution, during the progress of which they were formidable auxiliaries to the Tories and British.. Many terrible stories of their cruelties and punishment yet linger in the valley of the Susquehanna. The escape of Pike, an Irish deserter from the British army, and three others, from ten Indian sentinels, near Tioga Point, is one of the best of these anecdotes, and might have furnished a subject to the author of the Leatherstocking Tales. Though less abused than Simon Butler, Pike required equal courage and skill, to overcome his guard, and tread back his way to Wyoming.

But it was on the southern frontier, adjoining the Spanish settlements, that Indian warfare was most formidable and implacable. The Spanish authorities in Florida constantly urged forward the fierce Yemasses to the re-conquest of the Carolinas. From the commencement of the century to the war of independence, the settlers on the Santee and Savannah never knew repose. The names of Governor Moore, Captains Lynch and Kearns, and of Marion, frequently appear as defenders of the whites. In this most trying warfare was trained that dauntless guerilla host, afterwards famous as "Marion's Men," among whom the names of Colonels Horry and McDonald, of Captains Conyers and McCauley, are so conspic

uous.

The peace of 1763 had scarcely been promulgated, when the question of taxing the colonies, in London, was

raised. In the British Parliament, in 1764, it was first nakedly brought forward. Previous to this, they had submitted to many arbitrary prohibitions on their woollen and iron manufactures, and their West Indian imports. In March, 1764, "the Stamp Act" was enacted at London, and Dr. Franklin wrote to Charles Thompson, one of the Irish settlers of Pennsylvania, "The sun of liberty is set; the Americans must light the lamps of industry and economy.' To which Thompson replied: "Be assured we shall light torches of quite another sort." In the Virginia Assembly, Patrick Henry, a gentleman of Scottish origin, in the beginning of 1765, exclaimed, "Cæsar had his Brutus, Charles had his Cromwell, and George the Third - (being interrupted with the cry of 'Treason,' he added)-may profit by their example. If that be treason, make the most of it!"

In the preliminary moral contest, which arose universally, the Irish settlers were not unrepresented. John Rutledge, in South Carolina, was the first man whose eloquence roused that state to the lever of resistance. In the east, Langdon and Sullivan seized the guns at Newcastle, which thundered at Bunker Hill. Washington, at Valley Forge, is reported to have said; "Place me in Rockbridge county, and I'll get men enough to save the Revolution." In Maryland, Charles Carrol of Carrolton, over the signature of "First Citizen," maintained the rights of the people, in a long and spirited controversy with Daniel Dulany, the royalist champion, "who had long stood the leading mind of Maryland. His services were well appreciated, and public meetings at Baltimore, Frederick, and Annapolis, confirmed the title he had assumed, and Maryland proudly owned Charles Carrol for her " First Citizen." Charles Thompson, of Pennsylvania, afterwards Secretary to Congress, was also one of the earliest and most fearless advocates of the principles on which the Revolution proceeded, that the country could reckon; and, happily, there was no scarcity of such men, of any European race.

*See Appendix No. II.

CHAPTER V.

OPENING OF THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA-IRISH AT BUNKER'S HILL DEATH OF MA JOR M'CLARY - GENERAL KNOX - THE CLINTONS THE PENNSYLVANIA LINEMOYLAN'S DRAGOONS.

THE period of that eventful Revolution, in which the emigrants, who had chastised the savages and expelled the French, were to turn the firelocks and cannon of England against herself, now opens before us. From the period of the Albany Conference, of 1754, the idea of confederation had filled the minds of the thoughtful, and from the capture of Louisburgh, the sense of self-protection animated the bold. It needed only in England a meddling minister and a perverse prince, to bring forth the great resistant qualities of the colonies, and these appeared in perfection in Lord North and George the Third.

It is not our place to enter into the preliminaries of this glorious contest, further than to say that the whole Irish race threw their weight into the colonial scale. The Irish Commons refused to vote 45,000 for the war. The Irish in England, headed by Burke, Barre, and Sheridan, spoke and wrote openly in defence of America; and the Irish in France, where several of them then held considerable employments, were equally zealous. Counts MacMahon, Dillon, and Roche Fermoy, General Conway, and other experienced officers, held themselves ready to volunteer into the American service; and afterwards, at the desire of the American agents in Paris, did so.

The Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, but the Tea Tax was enacted in 1767. This measure led to the general combination, which had its corresponding committee in every town and village, and which finally ripened into the Continental Army and the Continental Congress.

The first overt act was the massacre of some citizens of Boston, in State street, by a party of riotous red-coats. One of these earliest victims was a native of Ireland. The next aggression was on the other side, and of far greater significance. News having reached Portsmouth, N. H., that, the export of gunpowder into America was "proclaimed," Major John Sullivan and John Langdon, with a company of the townsmen, surprised the fort at Newcastle, took the captain and five men, carried off one hundred barrels of gunpowder, fifteen light cannon, and the entire of the small arms, all of which afterwards did effectual service at Bunker Hill. For this act, Sullivan and Langdon were elected to the Continental Congress, which met in May, 1775, and the former was, the same year, appointed by that body one of the eight brigadiers general of the first American army.

In April, 1775, open war began at Lexington. When the British forces were beaten back into Boston, Thomas Cargill, of Ballyshannon, settled at Concord, saved the town records from their ravages, and entered heartily in the war. The American companies formed at Cambridge, their chief outwork being on Bunker Hill, behind Charlestown, divided by the Charles River from Boston. They were commanded by General Artemas Ward, who stationed behind the breastwork, on the left of the main body, 800 New Hampshire militia, under Stark and Reid, both of Londonderry.* Here the first

* The contribution of the Irish settlement in New Hampshire, to the revolutionary forces, may be judged from the share of the small town of Bedford: Col. Daniel Moor, Major John Goffe, Capt. Thomas M'Laughlin, Lt. Joh. Patten, Joh. Patten, Jr., Sam. Patten, Jas. Patten, Robert Patten, John Gault, Isaac Riddle, John Riddle, Amos Martin, Jas. Martin, Stephen Goffe, (lost at sea,) Hugh Horton, (died in service,) Burns Chandler, (taken at the Cedars and never after heard of,) Samuel Moor, Samuel Barr, John Collahan, (killed,) James Moor, Robert Cornell, Ira Greer, Jones Cutting, Wm. Parker, John Hiller, John McAllister, Barnet McClair, John Griffer, Luke Gardiner, Robert Victorey, Robert Dalrymple, (killed,) Danl. Larkin, Samuel Patterson, James Patterson, Solomon Hemp, (killed,) John O'Niel, John Dorr, (killed,) George Hogg, Wm. Houston, Whitefield Gilmore, Zachariah Chandler, James Houston, Valentine Sullivan, (taken prisoner in the retreat from Canada, and died,) John Ross, John Steel, Stephen March, Robert Morril, John Tyrril, Patrick O'Murphy, Patrick O'Fling, Calvin Johnson, (died in service,) David Riddle, John Gardiner, and eighteen others, of whom three died in service. Hist. Coll. of N. H., vol. i., p. 291.