Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst
Field Marshal Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, served as an officer in the British Army and as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. Amherst is best known as the architect of Britain's successful campaign to conquer the territory of New France during the Seven Years' War. Under his command, British forces captured the cities of Louisbourg, Quebec City and Montreal, as well as several major fortresses, he was the first British Governor General in the territories that became Canada. Numerous places and streets are named in both Canada and the United States. Amherst's legacy is controversial due to his expressed desire to exterminate the race of indigenous people during Pontiac's War, his advocacy of biological warfare in the form of gifting blankets infected with smallpox as a weapon; this has led to a reconsideration of his legacy. In 2017, the City of Montreal removed his name from a street in the city; the city of Amherst, Nova Scotia is considering renaming in light of recent movements to reconsider the naming of "towns and monuments that celebrate past war heroes whom, seen through today's ethical lens are not people who behaved in ways that we respect today," as is the town of Amherstburg, Ontario.
Born the son of Jeffrey Amherst, a Kentish lawyer, Elizabeth Amherst, Jeffery Amherst was born in Sevenoaks, England, on 29 January 1717. His brothers included Lieutenant General William Amherst. At an early age, he became a page to the Duke of Dorset. Amherst became an ensign in the Grenadier Guards in 1735. Amherst served in the War of the Austrian Succession becoming an aide to General John Ligonier and participating in the Battle of Dettingen in June 1743 and the Battle of Fontenoy in May 1745. Promoted to lieutenant colonel on 25 December 1745, he saw action at the Battle of Rocoux in October 1746, he became an aide to the Duke of Cumberland, the commander of the British forces, saw further action at the Battle of Lauffeld in July 1747. In February 1756, Amherst was appointed commissar to the Hessian forces, assembled to defend Hanover as part of the Army of Observation: as it appeared a French invasion attempt against Britain itself was imminent, Amherst was ordered in April to arrange the transportation of thousands of the Germans to southern England to bolster Britain's defences.
He was made colonel of the 15th Regiment of Foot on 12 June 1756. By 1757 as the immediate danger to Britain had passed the troops were moved back to Hanover to join a growing army under the Duke of Cumberland and Amherst fought with the Hessians under Cumberland's command at the Battle of Hastenbeck in July 1757: the Allied defeat there forced the army into a steady retreat northwards to Stade on the North Sea coast. Amherst was left dispirited by the retreat and by the Convention of Klosterzeven by which Hanover agreed to withdraw from the war: he began to prepare to disband the Hessian troops under his command, only to receive word that the Convention had been repudiated and the Allied force was being reformed. Amherst gained fame during the Seven Years' War in the North American campaign known in the United States as the French and Indian War when he led the British attack on Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island in June 1758. In the wake of this action, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the British army in North America and colonel-in-chief of the 60th Regiment in September 1758.
Amherst led an army against French troops on Lake Champlain, where he captured Fort Ticonderoga in July 1759, while another army under William Johnson took Niagara in July 1759 and James Wolfe besieged and captured Quebec with a third army in September 1759. Amherst served as the nominal Crown Governor of Virginia from 12 September 1759. From July 1760, Amherst led an army down the Saint Lawrence River from Fort Oswego, joined with Brigadier Murray from Quebec and Brigadier Haviland from Ile-aux-Noix in a three-way pincer, captured Montreal, ending French rule in North America on 8 September, he infuriated the French commanders by refusing them the honours of war. Half the continent changed hands "at the scratch of a pen." The British settlers proclaimed a day of thanksgiving. Boston newspapers recount how the occasion was celebrated with a parade, a grand dinner in Faneuil Hall, music and firing of cannon. Rev. Thomas Foxcroft of the First Church in Boston offered thus: The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad...
Long had it been the common opinion, Delenda est Carthago, Canada must be conquered, or we could hope for no lasting quiet in these parts. We behold His Majesty's victorious troops treading upon the high places of the enemy, their last fortress delivered up, the whole country surrendered to the King of Britain in the person of his general, the intrepid, the serene, the successful Amherst. In recognition of this victory, Amherst was appointed Governor-General of British North America in September 1760 and promoted to major-general on 29 November 1760, he was appointed Knight of the Order of the Bath on 11 April 1761. From his base at New York, Amherst oversaw the dispatch of troops under Monckton and Haviland to take part in British expeditions in the West Indies that led to the British capture of Dominica in 1761 and Martinique and Cuba in 1762; the uprising of many Native American tribes in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region referred to as Pontiac's War after one of its most notable le
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1871 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg, where its capital was Berlin; the kings of Prussia were from the House of Hohenzollern. Prussia was a great power from the time it became a kingdom, through its predecessor, Brandenburg-Prussia, which became a military power under Frederick William, known as "The Great Elector". Prussia continued its rise to power under the guidance of Frederick II, more known as Frederick the Great, the third son of Frederick William I. Frederick the Great was instrumental in starting the Seven Years' War, holding his own against Austria, Russia and Sweden and establishing Prussia's role in the German states, as well as establishing the country as a European great power.
After the might of Prussia was revealed it was considered as a major power among the German states. Throughout the next hundred years Prussia went on to win many battles, many wars; because of its power, Prussia continuously tried to unify all the German states under its rule, although whether Austria would be included in such a unified German domain was an ongoing question. After the Napoleonic Wars led to the creation of the German Confederation, the issue of more unifying the many German states caused revolution throughout the German states, with each wanting their own constitution. Attempts at creation of a federation remained unsuccessful and the German Confederation collapsed in 1866 when war ensued between its two most powerful member states and Austria; the North German Confederation, which lasted from 1867 to 1871, created a closer union between the Prussian-aligned states while Austria and most of Southern Germany remained independent. The North German Confederation was seen as more of an alliance of military strength in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War but many of its laws were used in the German Empire.
The German Empire lasted from 1871 to 1918 with the successful unification of all the German states under Prussian hegemony, this was due to the defeat of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. The war united all the German states against a common enemy, with the victory came an overwhelming wave of nationalism which changed the opinions of some of those, against unification. In 1871, Germany unified into a single country, minus Austria and Switzerland, with Prussia the dominant power. Prussia is considered the legal predecessor of the unified German Reich and as such a direct ancestor of today's Federal Republic of Germany; the formal abolition of Prussia, carried out on 25 February 1947 by the fiat of the Allied Control Council referred to an alleged tradition of the kingdom as a bearer of militarism and reaction, made way for the current setup of the German states. However, the Free State of Prussia, which followed the abolition of the Kingdom of Prussia in the aftermath of World War I, was a major democratic force in Weimar Germany until the nationalist coup of 1932 known as the Preußenschlag.
The Kingdom left a significant cultural legacy, today notably promoted by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which has become one of the largest cultural organisations in the world. In 1415 a Hohenzollern Burgrave came from the south to the March of Brandenburg and took control of the area as elector. In 1417 the Hohenzollern was made an elector of the Holy Roman Empire. After the Polish wars, the newly established Baltic towns of the German states, including Prussia, suffered many economic setbacks. Many of the Prussian towns could not afford to attend political meetings outside of Prussia; the towns were poverty stricken, with the largest town, having to borrow money from elsewhere to pay for trade. Poverty in these towns was caused by Prussia's neighbours, who had established and developed such a monopoly on trading that these new towns could not compete; these issues led to feuds, trade competition and invasions. However, the fall of these towns gave rise to the nobility, separated the east and the west, allowed the urban middle class of Brandenburg to prosper.
It was clear in 1440 how different Brandenburg was from the other German territories, as it faced two dangers that the other German territories did not, partition from within and the threat of invasion by its neighbours. It prevented partition by enacting the Dispositio Achillea, which instilled the principle of primogeniture to both the Brandenburg and Franconian territories; the second issue was resolved through expansion. Brandenburg was surrounded on every side by neighbours whose boundaries were political. Any neighbour could consume Brandenburg at any moment; the only way to defend herself was to absorb her neighbours. Through negotiations and marriages Brandenburg but expanded her borders, absorbing neighbours and eliminating the threat of attack; the Hohenzollerns were made rulers of the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1518. In 1529 the Hohenzollerns secured the reversion of the Duchy of Pomerania after a series of conflicts, acquired its eastern part following the Peace of Westphalia. In 1618 the Hohenzollerns inherited the Duchy of Prussia, since 1511 ruled by Hohenzollern Albrecht of Brandenburg Prussia, who in 1525 converted the Teutonic Order ruled state to a Protestant Duchy by accepting fiefdom of the crown of Poland.
It was ruled in a personal union with Brandenburg
Battle of Carillon
The Battle of Carillon known as the 1758 Battle of Ticonderoga, was fought on July 8, 1758, during the French and Indian War. It was fought near Fort Carillon on the shore of Lake Champlain in the frontier area between the British colony of New York and the French colony of New France. In the battle, which took place on a rise about three-quarters of a mile from the fort itself, a French army of about 3,600 men under General Marquis de Montcalm and the Chevalier de Levis decisively defeated an overwhelmingly numerically superior force of British troops under General James Abercrombie, which frontally assaulted an entrenched French position without using field artillery, a lack that left the British and their allies vulnerable and allowed the French to win a decisive victory; the battle was the bloodiest of the American theater of the war, with over 3,000 casualties suffered. French losses were about 400. American historian Lawrence Henry Gipson wrote of Abercrombie's campaign that "no military campaign was launched on American soil that involved a greater number of errors of judgment on the part of those in positions of responsibility".
Many military historians have cited the Battle of Carillon as a classic example of tactical military incompetence. Abercrombie, confident of a quick victory, ignored several viable military options, such as flanking the French breastworks, waiting for his artillery, or laying siege to the fort. Instead, relying on a flawed report from a young military engineer, ignoring some of that engineer's recommendations, he decided in favor of a direct frontal assault on the entrenched French, without the benefit of artillery. Montcalm, while concerned about the weak military position of the fort, conducted the defense with spirit. However, due in part to a lack of time, he committed strategic errors in preparing the area's defenses that a competent attacker could have exploited, he made tactical errors that made the attackers' job easier; the fort, abandoned by its garrison, was captured by the British the following year, it has been known as Fort Ticonderoga since. This battle gave the fort a reputation for impregnability that had an effect on future military operations in the area.
Despite several large-scale military movements through the area, in both the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War, this was the only major battle fought near the fort's location. Fort Carillon is situated on a point of land between Lake Champlain and Lake George, at a natural point of conflict between French forces moving south from Canada and the St. Lawrence River Valley across the lake toward the Hudson Valley, British forces moving up the Hudson from Albany; the fort was sited with Lake Champlain with Mount Independence rising on the far side. To the south of the fort lay the mouth of the La Chute River, which drains Lake George; the river was non-navigable, there was a portage trail from the northern end of Lake George to the location of a sawmill the French had built to assist in the fort's construction. The trail crossed the La Chute twice. To the north of the fort was a road going to Fort St. Frédéric. To the west was a low rise of land, beyond which lay Mount Hope, a rise that commanded part of the portage trail, but was too far from the fort to pose it any danger.
The most serious geographic defect in the fort's location was Mount Defiance, which lay to the south of the fort, across the La Chute River. This 900 foot hill, steep and densely forested, provided an excellent firing position for cannon aimed at the fort. Nicolas Sarrebource de Pontleroy, Montcalm's chief engineer, said of the fort's site, "Were I to be entrusted with the siege of it, I should require only six mortars and two cannon." Prior to 1758, the French and Indian War had gone poorly for the British, whose military met few of its objectives. Following a string of French victories in 1757 in North America, coupled with military setbacks in Europe, William Pitt gained full control of the direction of British military efforts in the Seven Years' War. Embarking on a strategy that emphasized defense in Europe, where France was strong, offense in North America, where France was weak, he resolved to attack New France in three strategic campaigns. Large-scale campaigns were planned to capture Fort Duquesne on the Pennsylvania frontier and the fortress at Louisbourg.
The third campaign, assigned to General James Abercrombie, was to launch an attack against Canada through the Champlain Valley. Pitt would have preferred to have George Howe, a skilled tactician and a dynamic leader, lead this expedition, but seniority and political considerations led him to appoint the undistinguished Abercrombie instead. Howe was appointed a brigadier general, placed as Abercrombie's second in command; the French, who had started construction on Fort Carillon in 1755, used it as a launching point for the successful siege of Fort William Henry in 1757. Despite that and other successes in North America in 1757, the situation did not look good for them in 1758; as early as March, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, the commanding general responsible of the French forces in North America, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, New France's governor, were aware that the British were planning to send large numbers of troops against them, that they would h
New York City
The City of New York called either New York City or New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural and media capital of the world, exerts a significant impact upon commerce, research, education, tourism, art and sports; the city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of, a separate county of the State of New York. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898; the city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York City is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. In 2017, the New York metropolitan area produced a gross metropolitan product of US$1.73 trillion. If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world. New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan.
The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, it has been the country's largest city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U. S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is an international symbol of the U. S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, environmental sustainability, as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, with the city having three of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013 and receiving a record 62.8 million tourists in 2017. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world. Times Square, iconic as the world's "heart" and its "Crossroads", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, a major center of the world's entertainment industry.
The names of many of the city's landmarks and parks are known around the world. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top universities in the world. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. In 1664, the city was named in honor of the Duke of York.
James's older brother, King Charles II, had appointed the Duke proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, which England had seized from the Dutch. During the Wisconsinan glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth; the erosive forward movement of the ice contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers. In the precolonial era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape, whose homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island; the first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown. He named it Nouvelle Angoulême. A Spanish expedition led by captain Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio.
The Padrón Rea
Siege of Louisbourg (1758)
The Siege of Louisbourg was a pivotal operation of the Seven Years' War in 1758 that ended the French colonial era in Atlantic Canada and led directly to the loss of Quebec in 1759 and the remainder of French North America the following year. The British government realized that with the Fortress of Louisbourg under French control, the Royal Navy could not sail up the St. Lawrence River unmolested for an attack on Quebec. After an expedition against Louisbourg in 1757 led by Lord Loudon was turned back due to a strong French naval deployment, the British under the leadership of William Pitt resolved to try again with new commanders. Pitt assigned the task of capturing the fortress to Major General Jeffery Amherst. Amherst's brigadiers were Charles Lawrence, James Wolfe and Edward Whitmore, command of naval operations was assigned to Admiral Edward Boscawen; the chief engineer was John Henry Bastide, present at the first siege of Louisbourg in 1745 and was chief engineer at Fort St Philip, Minorca, in 1756 when the British had surrendered the fort and island to the French after a long siege.
As they had in 1757, the French planned to defend Louisbourg by means of a large naval build-up. However, the British blockaded the French fleet sailing from Toulon when it arrived in Cartagena, defeated a French relief force at the Battle of Cartagena; the French abandoned their attempt to reinforce Louisbourg from the Mediterranean, only 11 ships were available to oppose the British off Louisbourg. Most of the cannons and men were moved inside the fort and five ships were sunk to block the entrance to the harbour. On 9 July, Echo tried to slip out of the harbour under the cover of a dense fog, but was intercepted and seized by HMS Scarborough and HMS Junon; this left the French with only five half-empty ships in the harbour: Célèbre, Capricieux and Bienfaisant. British forces assembled at Halifax, Nova Scotia where army and navy units spent most of May training together as the massive invasion fleet came together. After a large gathering at the Great Pontack, on 29 May the Royal Navy fleet departed from Halifax for Louisbourg.
The fleet consisted of 40 men-of-war. Housed in these ships were 14,000 soldiers all of whom were regulars; the force was divided into three divisions: Red, commanded by James Wolfe, commanded by Charles Lawrence and White commanded by Edward Whitmore. On 2 June the British force anchored 3 miles from Louisbourg; the French commander (and governor of Île-Royale, the Chevalier de Drucour, had at his disposal some 3,500 regulars as well as 3,500 marines and sailors from the French warships in the harbour. However, unlike the previous year, the French navy was unable to assemble in significant numbers, leaving the French squadron at Louisbourg outnumbered five to one by the British fleet. Drucour ordered trenches to be prepared and manned by some 2,000 French troops, along with other defences, such as an artillery battery, at Kennington Cove. Weather conditions in the first week of June made any landing impossible and the British were only able to mount a bombardment of the improvised shore defenses of Gabarus Bay from a frigate.
However, conditions improved, at daybreak on 8 June Amherst launched his assault using a flotilla of large boats, organized in seven divisions, each commanded by one of his brigadiers. French defenses were successful and after heavy losses, Wolfe ordered a retreat. However, at the last minute, a boatload of light infantry in Wolfe's division found a rocky inlet protected from French fire and secured a beachhead. Wolfe redirected the rest of his division to follow. Outflanked, the French retreated back to their fortress. Continuing heavy seas and the difficulty inherent to moving siege equipment over boggy terrain delayed the commencement of the formal siege. In the meantime, Wolfe was sent with 1,220 picked men around the harbour to seize Lighthouse Point, which dominated the harbour entrance; this he did on 12 June. After eleven days, on 19 June, the British artillery batteries were in position and the orders were given to open fire on the French; the British battery consisted of seventy mortars of all sizes.
Within hours, the guns had destroyed damaged several buildings. On 21 July a mortar round from a British gun on Lighthouse Point struck a 64-gun French ship of the line, Le Célèbre, set it ablaze. A stiff breeze fanned the fire, shortly after Le Célèbre caught fire, two other French ships, L'Entreprenant and Le Capricieux, had caught fire. L'Entreprenant sank in the day, depriving the French of the largest ship in the Louisbourg fleet; the next major blow to French morale came on the evening of 23 July, at 10:00. A British "hot shot" set the King's Bastion on fire; the King's Bastion was the fortress headquarters and the largest building in North America in 1758. Its destruction eroded confidence and reduced morale in the French troops and their hopes to lift the British siege. Most historians regard the British actions of 25 July as the "straw that broke the camel's back". Using a thick fog as cover, Admiral Boscawen sent a cutting-out party to destroy the last two French ships in the harbour.
The British raiders eliminated these two French ships of the line, capturing Bienfaisant and burning Prudent, thus clearing the way for the Royal Navy to enter the harbour. James Cook, who became famous as an explorer, took part in this operation and recorded it in his ship's log book. On 26 July the Fren
Saint Lawrence River
The Saint Lawrence River is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. The Saint Lawrence River flows in a north-easterly direction, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean and forming the primary drainage outflow of the Great Lakes Basin, it traverses the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, is part of the international boundary between Ontario and the U. S. state of New York. This river provides the basis for the commercial Saint Lawrence Seaway; the Saint Lawrence River begins at the outflow of Lake Ontario and flows adjacent to Gananoque, Morristown, Massena, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Quebec City before draining into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the largest estuary in the world. The estuary begins at the eastern tip of just downstream from Quebec City; the river becomes tidal around Quebec City. The Saint Lawrence River runs 3,058 kilometres from the farthest headwater to the mouth and 1,197 km from the outflow of Lake Ontario; these numbers include the estuary. The farthest headwater is the North River in the Mesabi Range at Minnesota.
Its drainage area, which includes the Great Lakes, the world's largest system of freshwater lakes, is 1,344,200 square kilometres, of which 839,200 km2 is in Canada and 505,000 km2 is in the United States. The basin covers parts of Ontario and Quebec in Canada, parts of Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, nearly the entirety of the state of Michigan in the United States; the average discharge below the Saguenay River is 16,800 cubic metres per second. At Quebec City, it is 12,101 m3/s; the average discharge at the river's source, the outflow of Lake Ontario, is 7,410 m3/s. The Saint Lawrence River includes Lake Saint-Louis south of Montreal, Lake Saint Francis at Salaberry-de-Valleyfield and Lac Saint-Pierre east of Montreal, it encompasses four archipelagoes: the Thousand Islands chain near Alexandria Bay, New York and Kingston, Ontario. Other islands include Île d'Orléans near Quebec City and Anticosti Island north of the Gaspé, it is the second longest river in Canada.
Lake Champlain and the Ottawa, Saint-Maurice, Saint-François and Saguenay rivers drain into the Saint Lawrence. The Saint Lawrence River is in a seismically active zone where fault reactivation is believed to occur along late Proterozoic to early Paleozoic normal faults related to the opening of the Iapetus Ocean; the faults in the area comprise the Saint Lawrence rift system. According to the United States Geological Survey, the Saint Lawrence Valley is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division, containing the Champlain and Northern physiographic section. However, in Canada, where most of the valley is, it is instead considered part of a distinct Saint Lawrence Lowlands physiographic division, not part of the Appalachian division at all; the Norse explored the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in the 11th century and were followed by fifteenth and early sixteenth century European mariners, such as John Cabot, the brothers Gaspar and Miguel Corte-Real. The first European explorer known to have sailed up the Saint Lawrence River itself was Jacques Cartier.
At that time, the land along the river was inhabited by the St. Lawrence Iroquoians; because Cartier arrived in the estuary on Saint Lawrence's feast day, he named it the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The Saint Lawrence River is within the U. S. and as such is that country's sixth oldest surviving European place-name. The earliest regular Europeans in the area were the Basques, who came to the St Lawrence Gulf and River in pursuit of whales from the early 16th century; the Basque whalers and fishermen traded with indigenous Americans and set up settlements, leaving vestiges all over the coast of eastern Canada and deep into the Saint Lawrence River. Basque commercial and fishing activity reached its peak before the Armada Invencible's disaster, when the Spanish Basque whaling fleet was confiscated by King Philip II of Spain and destroyed; the whaling galleons from Labourd were not affected by the Spanish defeat. Until the early 17th century, the French used the name Rivière du Canada to designate the Saint Lawrence upstream to Montreal and the Ottawa River after Montreal.
The Saint Lawrence River served as the main route for European exploration of the North American interior, first pioneered by French explorer Samuel de Champlain. Control of the river was crucial to British strategy to capture New France in the Seven Years' War. Having captured Louisbourg in 1758, the British sailed up to Quebec the following year thanks to charts drawn up by James Cook. British troops were ferried via the Saint Lawrence to attack the city from the west, which they did at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham; the river was used again by the British to defeat the French siege of Quebec under the Chevalier de Lévis in 1760. In 1809, the first steamboat to ply its trade on the St. Lawrence was built and operated by John Molson and associates, a scant two years after Fulton's steam-powered navigation of the Hudson River; the Accommodation with ten passengers made her maiden voyage from Montreal to Quebec City in 66 hours, for 30 of which she was at anch
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War known as the American War of Independence, was an 18th-century war between Great Britain and its Thirteen Colonies which declared independence as the United States of America. After 1765, growing philosophical and political differences strained the relationship between Great Britain and its colonies. Patriot protests against taxation without representation followed the Stamp Act and escalated into boycotts, which culminated in 1773 with the Sons of Liberty destroying a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor. Britain responded by closing Boston Harbor and passing a series of punitive measures against Massachusetts Bay Colony. Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, they established a shadow government which wrested control of the countryside from the Crown. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, establishing committees and conventions that seized power. British attempts to disarm the Massachusetts militia in Concord led to open combat on April 19, 1775.
Militia forces besieged Boston, forcing a British evacuation in March 1776, Congress appointed George Washington to command the Continental Army. Concurrently, the Americans failed decisively in an attempt to invade Quebec and raise insurrection against the British. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted for independence, issuing its declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe launched a British counter-offensive, capturing New York City and leaving American morale at a low ebb. However, victories at Trenton and Princeton restored American confidence. In 1777, the British launched an invasion from Quebec under John Burgoyne, intending to isolate the New England Colonies. Instead of assisting this effort, Howe took his army on a separate campaign against Philadelphia, Burgoyne was decisively defeated at Saratoga in October 1777. Burgoyne's defeat had drastic consequences. France formally allied with the Americans and entered the war in 1778, Spain joined the war the following year as an ally of France but not as an ally of the United States.
In 1780, the Kingdom of Mysore attacked the British in India, tensions between Great Britain and the Netherlands erupted into open war. In North America, the British mounted a "Southern strategy" led by Charles Cornwallis which hinged upon a Loyalist uprising, but too few came forward. Cornwallis Cowpens, he retreated to Yorktown, intending an evacuation, but a decisive French naval victory deprived him of an escape. A Franco-American army led by the Comte de Rochambeau and Washington besieged Cornwallis' army and, with no sign of relief, he surrendered in October 1781. Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tories in Parliament, the surrender gave them the upper hand. In early 1782, Parliament voted to end all offensive operations in America, but the war continued overseas. Britain scored a major victory over the French navy. On September 3, 1783, the belligerent parties signed the Treaty of Paris in which Great Britain agreed to recognize the sovereignty of the United States and formally end the war.
French involvement had proven decisive. Spain failed in its primary aim of recovering Gibraltar; the Dutch were compelled to cede territory to Great Britain. In India, the war against Mysore and its allies concluded in 1784 without any territorial changes. Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765 to pay for British military troops stationed in the American colonies after the French and Indian War. Parliament had passed legislation to regulate trade, but the Stamp Act introduced a new principle of a direct internal tax. Americans began to question the extent of the British Parliament's power in America, the colonial legislatures argued that they had exclusive right to impose taxes within their jurisdictions. Colonists condemned the tax because their rights as Englishmen protected them from being taxed by a Parliament in which they had no elected representatives. Parliament argued that the colonies were "represented virtually", an idea, criticized throughout the Empire. Parliament did repeal the act in 1766, but it affirmed its right to pass laws that were binding on the colonies.
From 1767, Parliament began passing legislation to raise revenue for the salaries of civil officials, ensuring their loyalty while inadvertently increasing resentment among the colonists, opposition soon became widespread. Enforcing the acts proved difficult; the seizure of the sloop Liberty in 1768 on suspicions of smuggling triggered a riot. In response, British troops occupied Boston, Parliament threatened to extradite colonists to face trial in England. Tensions rose after the murder of Christopher Seider by a customs official in 1770 and escalated into outrage after British troops fired on civilians in the Boston Massacre. In 1772, colonists in Rhode Island burned a customs schooner. Parliament repealed all taxes except the one on tea, passing the Tea Act in 1773, attempting to force colonists to buy East India Company tea on which the Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to Parliamentary supremacy; the landing of the tea was resisted in all colonies, but the governor of Massachusetts permitted British tea ships to remain in Boston Harbor, so the Sons of Liberty destroyed the tea chests in what became known as the "Boston Tea Party".
Parliament passed punitive legislation. It closed Boston Harbor until the tea was paid for and revoked the Massachusetts Charter, taking upon themselves the right to directly appoint the Massachusetts Governor's Council. Additionally, t
Prussia
Dutch Republic
Great Britain
