Fragile Freedom

It had been just over three years after General James Wolfe met the Marquis de Saint-Veran, General Louis-Joseph Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham. Though it would cost both commanders their lives, it would be the turning point in the war that would lead to the inevitable British victory in North America. Not even the French successes at the Battle of Quebec could turn that tide anymore. Now, with the Treaty of Paris signed by France, England and Spain, that vast Northern territory that once belonged to Louis XV now rested in the hands of his nation’s ancient enemy. Soon it would fall upon the shoulders of the newly appointed Governor-General, Jeffery Amherst, the chief architect of the British victory, to secure the peace as, as Francis Parkman, author of France and England in North America, would observe, “Half of the continent had changed hands at the scratch of a pen.” Perhaps had the Court of St. James chosen any other man some level of conciliation with the Native tribes could have been reached. Yet, fo