No Crying Wolfe Please

 

The Plains of Abraham.

It sounds so biblical. 

 

The kind of place where there would be a lot of smiting

of foes while seven eyed lambs having seven horns

warn of the impending Apocalypse.

Jeesh.

I was so disappointed when I learned that the battle for what

eventually came to be known as Canada took place on

Sept. 13, 1759 in a field owned by a farmer named Abraham Martin. 

But I was so grateful someone long ago had the presence of

mind not to call it 'The Plains of Martin'.

Anyway.

The Seven year's War continued to rage in the New and Old Worlds

after the expulsion of the Acadians. 

The French decided that it was too dangerous to send more

troops to New France because getting them there meant crossing

the ocean and there was only one country that 'ruled the waves'

in those days and it wasn't France.

They decided to keep their army in Europe and fight like the dickens. 

They reasoned that when peace came they would trade some of

their newly conquered European possessions to get back what

they had lost in North America.

I'm sure that plan looked great on paper.

But in the end France had nothing to trade.

So when French General Montcalm died from wounds suffered

on the Plains of Abraham French hopes for an empire in North

America died with him.

 

The British General, Wolfe, died too, but that didn't matter, he,

(supposedly), died happy because the 4500 British regulars had

crushed the 4500 ill-trained French militia.

But then the Brits made a BIG mistake.

Figuring all of those Puritans and Pilgrims in the 13 colonies

would be happy to see the end of the French and their Papist

ways, they sent them the bill for the war.

But the 13 colonies weren't happy about this.

It was 1763 and they weren't happy at all.