They expected to be consulted before plans of campaign
were completed. The defeat of Braddock in 1755 had made them turn
to the prosperous cause of France. Vaudreuil gave them what they
hardly required--encouragement to wage war in their own way. The
more brutal and ruthless the war on the English, he said, the
more quickly would their enemies desire the kind of peace that
France must have. The result was that the western frontiers of
the English colonies became a hell of ruthless massacre. The
savages attacked English settlements whenever they found them
undefended. A pioneer might go forth in the morning to his labor
and return in the evening to find his house in ashes and his wife
and children lying dead with the scalps torn from their heads as
trophies of savage prowess.
For years, until the English gained the upper hand over the
French, this awful massacre went on. Hundreds of women and
children perished. Vaudreuil reported with pride to the French
court the number of scalps taken, and in his annals such
incidents were written down as victories, He warned Montcalm that
he must not be too strict with the savages or some day they would
take themselves off and possibly go over to the English and leave
the French without indispensable allies.
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