The Duke of Newcastle was unequal to the task of driving the soldiers of France from Canada or from the valley of the Mississippi. The North and South were both in the hands of France. The route of the Ohio and the Mississippi had been discovered by adventurers and missionaries of that nation; and a few years of quiet possession of the territory would have allowed French statesmen to consolidate their power in those regions, and to draw a strong cordon around the entire group of English colonies on the Atlantic sea-board. But Pitt's genius was brought to bear at a critical moment on the arrangement of this great question--and he conceived the project of breaking the Mississippi line and attacking the enemy in their strongholds on the St. Lawrence. Three expeditions were fitted out. Amherst and Wolfe were ordered to join the fleet under Boscawen, destined to act against Louisburgh--Forbes was sent to the Ohio Valley--Abercrombie was intrusted with the command against Crown Point and Ticonderoga, though Lord Howe was sent out with the last named as the real soul of the enterprise. Mr. Bancroft writes:
"None of the officers won favor like Lord Howe and Wolfe. Both were still young. To high rank and great connections Howe added manliness, humanity, capacity to discern merit, and judgment to employ it. As he reached America, he entered on the simple austerity of forest warfare. James Wolfe, but thirty-one years old, had already been eighteen years in the army; was at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and had won laurels at Laffeldt. Merit made him at two-and-twenty a lieutenant-colonel, and his active genius improved the discipline of his battalion. He was at once authoritative and humane, severe, yet indefatigably kind; modest, but aspiring and secretly conscious of ability. The brave soldier dutifully loved and obeyed his widowed mother, and his gentle nature saw visions of happiness in scenes of domestic love, even while he kindled at the prospect of glory, as 'gunpowder at fire.'"
On the 28th of May the expedition reached Halifax.--