Vaudreuil
au Ministre de la Marine, 10 Sept. 1760. Levis au Ministre de la
Guerre, 27 Nov. 1760_.]
[Footnote 855: _Le Ministre a Vaudreuil, 5 Dec. 1760_.]
[Footnote 856: _Le Ministre au Vicomte de Vaudreuil, Frere du Gouverneur,
21 Dec. 1760_.]
It is true that Vaudreuil had in some measure drawn this
reproach upon himself by his boastings about the battles he
would fight; yet the royal displeasure was undeserved. The
Governor had no choice but to give up the colony; for Amherst had
him in his power, and knew that he could exact what terms he pleased.
Further resistance could only have ended in surrender at the discretion
of the victor, and the protest of Levis was nothing but a device to save
his own reputation and that of his brother officers from France.
Vaudreuil had served the King and the colony in some respects
with ability, always with an unflagging zeal; and he loved
the land of his birth with a jealous devotion that goes far
towards redeeming his miserable defects. The King himself,
and not the servants whom he abandoned to their fate, was
answerable for the loss of New France.
Half the continent had changed hands at the scratch of a
pen. Governor Bernard, of Massachusetts, proclaimed a day
of thanksgiving for the great event, and the Boston newspapers
recount how the occasion was celebrated with a parade of the cadets
and other volunteer corps, a grand dinner in Faneuil Hall, music,
bonfires, illuminations, firing of cannon, and, above all, by sermons
in every church of the province; for the heart of early New England
always found voice through her pulpits.
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