n was fifty-two.

[Footnote 606: _Abercromby to Pitt, 12 July, 1758._]

[Footnote 607: Great-uncle of the writer, and son of the Rev. Ebenezer
Parkman, a graduate of Harvard, and minister of Westborough, Mass.]

Pitt meant that the actual command of the army should be in the hands of
Brigadier Lord Howe,[608] and he was in fact its real chief; "the
noblest Englishman that has appeared in my time, and the best soldier in
the British army," says Wolfe.[609] And he elsewhere speaks of him as
"that great man." Abercromby testifies to the universal respect and love
with which officers and men regarded him, and Pitt calls him "a
character of ancient times; a complete model of military virtue."[610]
High as this praise is, it seems to have been deserved. The young
nobleman, who was then in his thirty-fourth year, had the qualities of a
leader of men. The army felt him, from general to drummer-boy. He was
its soul; and while breathing into it his own energy and ardor, and
bracing it by stringent discipline, he broke through the traditions of
the service and gave it new shapes to suit the time and place. During
the past year he had studied the art of forest warfare, and joined
Rogers and his rangers in their scouting-parties, sharing all their
hardships and making himself one of them. Perhaps the reforms that he
introduced were fruits of this rough self-imposed schooling. He made
officers and men throw off all useless incumbrances, cut their hair
close, wear leggings to protect them from briers, brown the barrels of
their muskets, and carry in their knapsacks thirty pounds of meal, which
they cooked for themselves; so that, according to an admiring Frenchman,
they could live a month without their supply-trains.[611] "You would
laugh to see the droll figure we all make," writes an officer. "Regulars
as well as provincials have cut their coats so as scarcely to reach
their waists. No officer or private is allowed to carry more than one
blanket and a bearskin. A small portmanteau is allowed each officer. No
women follow the camp to wash our linen. Lord Howe has already shown an
example by going to the brook and washing his own."[612]

[Footnote 608: Chesterfield, _Letters_, IV. 260 (ed. Mahon).]

[Footnote 609: _Wolfe to his Father, 7 Aug. 1758_, in Wright, 450.]

[Footnote 610: _Pitt to Grenville, 22 Aug. 1758_, in _Grenville Papers_,
I. 262.]

[Footnote 611: Pouchot, _Derniere Guerre de l'Amerique_, I. 140.]

[Footnote 61