Our
young braves run to battle with the swiftness of the fawn. If you
will not fight, the French will drive us from our hunting grounds.
The English King does not aid us, we must join the strong. Who is
strong? Who is strong? The French! The English have become weak."
War was now really declared between France and Britain and fighting
took place in Europe as well as in America. And in America things
went ill for the British. Defeats and disasters followed each other,
things were muddled and went wrong continually. For truth to tell
the British had no great leader either in England or in America,
while the French had the Marquess Montcalm, one of the best soldiers
in the French army, as their commander-in-chief.
At length, however, a great man came to power in England. This
was William Pitt, known as the Great Commoner. He was, it has been
said, the first Englishman of his time, and he made England the
first country in the world. He was a great judge of men, and he
had a happy way of choosing the right man for the right place. So
now instead of defeats came victories, not only in America, but all
over the world. "We are forced to ask every morning," said a witty
man of the time, "what victory there has been for fear of missing
one."
In America Louisburg fell once more into the hands of the British.
Fort Duquesne too was taken, and the misery of Braddock's disaster
was wiped out.
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