rld; that the French troops between Montreal and Quebec numbered
nine thousand men, besides Indians, commanded, too, by so great a
general as Montcalm. Still all of these expeditions were successful.
Quebec and Niagara were taken, and Crown Point and Ticonderoga were
abandoned.

The most difficult part of the enterprise was the capture of Quebec,
which was one of the most brilliant military exploits ever performed,
and which raised the English general to the very summit of military
fame. He was disappointed in the expected cooeperation of General
Amherst, and he had to take one of the strongest fortresses in the
world, defended by troops superior in number to his own. He succeeded
in climbing the almost perpendicular rock on which the fortress was
built, and in overcoming a superior force. Wolfe died in the attack,
but lived long enough to hear of the flight of the enemy. Nothing
could exceed the tumultuous joy in England with which the news of the
fall of Quebec was received; nothing could surpass the interest with
which the distant expedition was viewed; and the depression of the
French was equal to the enthusiasm of the English. Wolfe gained an
immortal name, and a monument was erected to him in Westminster Abbey.
But Pitt reaped the solid and substantial advantages which resulted
from the conquest of Canada, which soon followed the reduction of
Quebec. He became the nation's idol, and was left to prosecute the
various wars in which England was engaged, in his own way.

[Sidenote: Victories of Clive in India.]

While the English armies, under the direction of Pitt, were wresting
from the French nearly all their possessions in America, Clive was
adding a new empire to the vast dominions of Great Britain. India was
conquered, and the British power firmly planted in the East. Moreover,
the English allies on the continent--the Prussians--obtained great
victories, which will be alluded to in the chapter on Frederic the
Great. On all sides the English were triumphant, and were intoxicated
with joy. The stocks rose, and the bells rang almost an incessant peal
for victories.

In the midst of these public rejoicings, King George II. died. He was
a sovereign who never secured the affections of the nation, whose
interests he sacrificed to those of his German electorate, "He had
neither the qualities which make libertinism attractive nor the
qualities which make dulness respectable. He had been a bad son, and
he made a wors