USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from its first beginnings to the present time; including chapters of newly-discovered, Vol. I > Part 96
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In addition to Wilkes-Barré the following places and localities in the United States were named for John Wilkes prior to the year 1800 : Wilkes County, in the north-eastern part of Georgia ; Wilkes County, in the north-western part of North Carolina ; Wilkesborough, a town- ship in the lastmentioned county ; Wilkesborough, a post-village (the county-seat of Wilkes County) in the abovementioned township.
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CHAPTER X.
THE RIGHT HON. ISAAC BARRE, SOLDIER, ORATOR, STATESMAN, AND AMERICA'S ADVOCATE AND CHAMPION.
"It is a good thing for all Americans, and it is an espe- cially good thing for young Americans, to remember the men who have given their lives in war and peace to the service of their fellow-countrymen ; and to keep in mind the feats of daring and personal prowess done in times past by some of the many champions of the Nation in the various crises of her history."
"In Westminster Hall, and other homes of oratory in Eng-
land, there have been as many noble blows struck, and as many
ica as there have been for the integrity of the British Empire." pregnant words uttered, in behalf of the independence of Amer-
-The Hon. Joseph H. Choate, London, May, 1900. -
In an interesting sketch entitled "Col. Isaac Barré," prepared with great care, and read before the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society,* Wilkes-Barré, November 16, 1900, Mr. Sidney Roby Miner states :
"It would probably surprise a stranger to find how little is known here of the men after whom our city was named-especially of Barré. From the fact that the "Encyclo- pædia Brittanica" contains no sketch of him, and scarcely the mention of his name, and the fact that in the few biographical encyclopædias where he is mentioned only the merest out- lines of his career are given, it might be inferred that he was a man of no prominence and little influence. On the contrary, he was, in his day, not only conspicuous and prominent, but a man of influence and power, feared and respected by his opponents for his talents, his oratory, his invective and his courage, and loved by his friends for quali- ties which are not dwelt upon by his biographers, but which may be inferred from his associates and their devotion to him."
When the present writer began, some years ago, to collect facts and incidents for this sketch of Colonel Barré, he was, just as Mr. Miner seems to have been, surprised at the apparent paucity as well as the in- accessibleness of such material. The French have a saying which runs somewhat in this wise: "The world never forgets its rich men. It may forget its great ones-will forget them, indeed, unless they have a drum beaten very loudly before them !" Isaac Barré was neither a rich nor a great man, but for many years he was a conspicuous and notable figure among the decent and lionorable men constituting a small section of the large body of office-holders who managed the affairs of Great Britain in the reign of George III. Moreover, during the period referred to he was highly regarded in this country as an ardent advocate and a sincere champion of America's rights. Why, then, has Colonel Barré * See "Proceedings and Collections" of that Society, VI : 113.
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been neglected by the encyclopedists and the biographers? Chiefly, we think, because he left no descendants ; wherefore, after the death of his personal friends and contemporary admirers, there was no one sufficiently interested in the subject of liis life to take it up at the proper time and deal with it fully and satisfactorily, or, in other words, beat the bio- graphic drum loudly and opportunely.
On the shore of the Bay of Biscay, on the western coast of France, lies La Rochelle. About the year 156S it became the headquarters of the Huguenots, and upon the signing by King Henry IV, in April, 1598, of the famous "perpetual and irrevocable" Edict of Nantes- whereby many important civil and religious concessions were granted to the Protestants of France-La Rochelle became a Huguenot strong- hold. In October, 1685, Louis XIV of France, by a proclamation, solemnly revoked and annulled the great and fundamental law enacted by his grandfather Henry at Nantes, and forbade the free exercise of the Protestant religion within the bounds of his dominions. Then began the depopulation of France, although the King pronounced the punish- ment of the galleys against those who sought liberty in flight, and ordered the confiscation of all the lands and houses which were sold by those proprietors who were preparing to quit the kingdom. Vigilant watch was kept at the frontiers, and frigates cruised along all the coasts, while proscription was organized en masse, and all the troopers in the land (who, on account of peace, were unemployed) were placed at the disposal of the Romish priests and bishops, to uphold their missions (known as the draggonades) with the sabre.
Within twenty years following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes France lost between 300,000 and 400,000 of her most active, industrious and enterprising citizens-including artisans and men of science and letters-who emigrated to England, Ireland, Switzerland, Holland and America. But, notwithstanding all the persecutions and emigrations, about two millions of the people in France continued to adhere to the Protestant religion. Meanwhile the episode in the history of French Protestantism known as the War of the Camisards had been begun and terminated, although it was not until 1710 that comparative peace was finally restored. Then, for upwards of ten years, the Protestants of France enjoyed partial repose -- the reign of Louis XIV coming to an end with his death in 1715, and being followed by the regency of the Duke of Orleans until 1723, when Louis XV ascended the throne. In 1724 this fourteen-year-old King issued a severe edict against the Protest- ants, at the instigation of the Jesuits, and again the emigrations from France began.
At that time there dwelt in the district of La Rochelle a well-to-do bourgeois named Barré,* who had two sons-Jean and Pierre. The family were Huguenots, and Pierre, the younger son-then about twenty-four years of age-anticipating and dreading a renewal of the cruel oppressions under which his parents had suffered in his youthful days and earlier, determined, with a number of his fellow countrymen, to take refuge in Ireland. Settling in Dublin Pierre (or Peter, in Englishi) Barré embarked in business, in a small way, as a grocer. The elder Barré and his son Jean continued to reside in or near La Rochelle, where the former died about 1739 and the latter in 1760.
* For the pronunciation of this surname see pages 523 and 524.
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Contemporary with the Barrés in the district of La Rochelle lived a family named Raboteau. About 1724 a daughter of this family was offered the alternative of marrying a Romanist for whom she did not care, or of lifelong devotion in a nunnery to a religion which she detested. There was only one means of escape, for, as during the former persecu- tions of the French Protestants, heavy penalties were placed upon emi- gration, ships-of-war guarded the coasts, and chains and the galleys were reserved for the fugitive. An uncle of Mademoiselle Raboteau, who had some time before settled in Dublin as a merchant, was in the habit of paying occasional trading visits in his own vessel to La Rochelle. His niece informed him of her unhappy plight, and implored his assist- ance. He consented to aid her, and concealed her in La Rochelle till the time for his sailing drew nigh, when, placing her in an empty cask, he conveyed her on board his ship and sailed for Dublin. There, in 1725, she became the wife of her compatriot émigré, Peter Barré.
But little is known of the early life of the Barres in Dublin. "From the nature of their exile," says Hugh F. Elliot in "Colonel Barré and His Times,"* "it is probable they were poor." It is stated in the "Dictionary of National Biography" that Peter Barré "rose by slow degrees to a position of eminence in Dublin commerce." He was a member of the Dublin Society of Arts and Husbandry from its founda- tion in 1750; in 1758 he was an Alderman of the city ; in 1766 he was the owner of a warehouse in Fleet Street and a country-house at Cul- len's Wood. He died about 1775, leaving to his son property in Dublin worth £300 a year. t
ISAAC BARRÉ, who seems to have been the only child of Peter and (Raboteau) Barré, was born at Dublin in 1726. He was entered as a "Pensioner" at Trinity College, Dublin, November 19, 1740, being then in the fifteenth year of his life. He became a "Scholar" in Facsimile of signature written in middle-life. 1744, and took his degree in the following year. It being the desire of his parents that he should prepare for the Bar, he began his legal studies as soon as he had been graduated at Trinity. During the brief period that he was engaged in these studies David Garrick, the celebrated English actor, who was then joint-manager with Sheridan of the Dublin Theater, charmed with the displays of Barré's acting in some private theatricals, urged him to go upon the stage-coupling his arguments with the liberal offer of £1,000 a year. But Barré's inclination all along was for a military life, and so in 1746 he gave up the Law, declined Garrick's attractive proposition, and applied for and received a commission as Ensign in the 32d Regiment of Foot, then stationed in Flanders.
The profession which Barré thus embraced, and of which he was destined to remain for many years an active but undistinguished mem- ber, was, during the middle of the eighteenth century, at its worst period in Great Britain. When Barré entered the army the War of the Austrian Succession was raging on the Continent. It had been carried on for some time with uniformi want of success, so far as the British contingent was concerned. Political corruption had sapped every branch and every rank of the British service. Commissions, promo-
* See Littell's Living Age, January 6, 1877.
t See The Gentleman's Magazine (London), August, 1817.
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tions and favors were placed in one great mart and sold to the highest political bidder. The discipline of the army was sacrificed to the dis- cipline of the House of Commons. Dissensions in the camp had already threatened the existence of the army, while divisions in the Cabinet pre- cluded any hope that these dissensions would ever be entirely healed. Moreover, the internal condition of the British army was no better than its administration. To the favored few, indeed, many rewards were offered. There were perquisites, the very names of some of which are now almost forgotten. There was very nearly complete immunity from service for the officers, and many of them spent more time at Ranelagh Gardens on the Thames than they did with their regiments. But to Barré, and men like him, the army presented a very different aspect. They had no society but that of their brother officers ; no reward but in the efficiency of their regiments.
"There was little in the officer of that day to recommend him. He was badly educated and very often profligate. He was the butt of satirists. Sometimes he was a school-boy, who staggered under the weight of his cockade ; sometimes a shopman, attempting a military bluster. As for the discipline of the men, nothing could be worse. In the 'March of the Guards to Finchley' Hogarth has presented to us the wildest scene of confusion and licentiousness."
THE MARCH TO FINCHLEY. A photo-reproduction of an engraving after the original painting by William Hogarth .*
* This picture was painted by William Hogarth (mentioned on pages 531 and 531) at some time be- tween the years 1740 and 1750, and was originally dedicated by him to George 11 ; but the King indig- hantly and rudely, though naturally enough, rejected this dedication. Thereupon Hogarth maliciously re-dedicated the picture to Frederick II, King of Prussia. It now adorns the walls of the Foundling Hospital, London. The scene depicted in the painting is laid in Tottenham Court Turnpike, with a view of Hampstead and Highgate in the background In the middle-distance is seen a body of soldiers march- ing in tolerable order, accompanied by their baggage-wagon. There is no order or regularity, however, among the soldiers in the foreground, owing, in part, to the narrowness of the passage through the gate, but more to the liberty and license allowed to the sons of Mars on quitting their homes.
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"To a young and aspiring man like Barré the first charms of such a profession must soon have yielded to a bitter sense of inortification. Crushed by the wealth of more fortunate comrades, with neither in- fluence to command favor nor means to purchase it, his future prospects must have appeared most disheartening. It is true that many of the statesmen of that and of a later time-Henry Pelham, Conway, Shel- burne, the great Pitt himself-were, or had been, soldiers; but these inen were all favored by political connection, and of political connection Barré was entirely destitute."*
After protracted negotiations the Continental war was ended by the peace concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle in October, 1748, whereby the House of Hanover retained the succession in its Gerinan States and in Great Britain. Barré's chance of snatching fame just then from any success- ful military exploit disappeared with the coming of peace; and there- after, for nine years, we lose sight of him. We know that he spent part of that time with his regiment in Scotland and part at Gibraltar (where the "32d" was stationed for four years), but of his manner of life we are quite ignorant. Walpole asserts that he employed the intervals of duty in assiduous study, and Elliot concludes that "it is likely enough that this was the case, as no man could have acquired such a mastery of speaking, unless he had studied literature carefully and cultivated the art of composition." October 1, 1755, Barré was promoted Lieutenant.
The seven years that succeeded the Peace of Aix-la-chapelle are described by Voltaire as among the happiest that Europe ever enjoyed. Commerce revived and the fine arts flourished, but, unfortunately, not all the elements of discord had yet been exterininated from Europe, and, in consequence, early in 1756 the Seven Years' War broke out. It was waged against Frederick the Great of Prussia by an alliance whose chief members were Austria, France and Russia. Frederick had the assist- ance of British subsidies and of some minor German States. France and England appeared as the leading Powers in this war, in which, how- ever, they had only a secondary interest, for their quarrel really lay in the New World. The ancient rivalry between these two nations had, by colonization, been extended to various quarters of the world, and their interests once more came into collision in America, resulting in a forinal declaration of war against France by England in May, 1756. As we have previously shown (on pages 261 and 297) a series of desultory conflicts, between the English on the one side and the French and their allies on the other, had been going on in America for two years prior to this declaration of war without being avowed by the mother countries. This struggle in America-known in our history as the French and Indian War-was closely connected and identified with the Seven Years' War.
When these wars broke out the Duke of Newcastle was the Britishi Premier, William Pitt (subsequently Earl of Chatham) was Paymaster General of the Forces, and William Murray (afterwards to be famous as Lord Mansfield); was Attorney General. Pitt soon attacked the Government, and was deprived of office. The people trusted Pitt as much as they distrusted Newcastle, and they determined to support the former. The hope, the force and the enterprise of the nation looked to Pitt, and to Pitt only, as the man who could save the country from what
* From Elliot's "Colonel Barré and His Times."
+ See pages 537 and 540.
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-to a people conscious of its own strength and its own resources-must have seemed a living death. Butt Pitt was still too much disliked by the King (George II) to be available for the position of leader in the House of Commons ; and so the Duke of Newcastle's Ministry soon fell. Then, for a short time, the Duke of Devonshire was at the head of a coalition Ministry which included Pitt ; but the old King did not stand this long (only from November, 1756, till May, 1757), and one day suddenly turned all the Ministers out of office. Finally, June 29, 1757, a coalition of another kind was formed, which included Newcastle and Pitt. The former took charge of the Treasury Department and was Premier. Pitt was Secretary of State, with the lead in the House of Commons and with the supreme direction of all war and foreign affairs. He now, for the first time, had matters all his own way and became, to all intents and purposes, Prime Minister.
The accession to power of this coalition Ministry gave to the war with France, in particular, a new aspect. England was now, under the lead of the high-spirited and ambitious Pitt, about to enter upon the greatest career of conquest in her history. However, says Lord Macaulay, "the first acts of the new Administration were characterized rather by vigor than by judgment." Pitt at once proceeded to take energetic measures against France, and first of all he organized an ex- pedition against Rochefort, an important French seaport and naval station, distant some eighteen miles from La Rochelle, previously mentioned.
Lieutenant Barré, longing for active duty in his profession, applied for permission to accompany this expedition in the capacity of a volun- teer. His request was granted, and he was attached to the 20th Regi- ment of Foot, whose Lieutenant Colonel was James Wolfe, * and another of whose officers was Lord Fitzmaurice, a native of Dublin, like Barré, and then only twenty years of age. Wolfe acted as Quartermaster Gen- eral of the Rochefort expedition, the troops of which were commanded by Sir Jolin Mordaunt, Wolfe's friend; Admiral Sir Edward Hawke being in command of the convoying fleet. The combined forces arrived off the French coast September 20th, and remained there ten days, effecting nothing. In fact, the expedition terminated most ingloriously, and brought disgrace to nearly all concerned. Wolfe came home very indignant. He wrote : "We return to England with reproach and dis- honor ! We blundered most egregiously on all sides-sea and land. No zeal, no ardor, no care and concern for the good and honor of the country." His own zeal and ardor, however, had been marked, and Admiral Hawke gave the King a good opinion of him. It soon be-
* JAMES WOLFE was born in the county of Kent, England, January 2, 1727. He came of Welsh-Irish- Yorkshire ancestry, and was the eldest son of Gen. Edward Wolfe, an officer of merit and distinction who served under the Duke of Marlborough. In 1742, at the age of fifteen, James Wolfe received an Ensign's commission in a regiment of foot soldiers. In 1743 he took part in the famous battle of Dettingen, as Adjutant of his regiment. June 12, 1745, he was appointed Brigade Major, and for the next three years served on the staff. He was a staff-officer at the battle of Culloden, where his regiment lost one-third of its men. In January, 1749, he obtained a commission as Major in the 20th Regiment of Foot, commanded by Lord George Sackville. For awhile, in the absence of the Colonel and the Lieutenant Colonel, Wolfe was in command of the regiment. In March. 1750, Lord Bury became Colonel of this regiment, and Wolfe was promoted Lieutenant Colonel. In February, 1757, Wolfe accepted the post of Quartermaster General in Ireland-which was usually held by a Colonel-in the hope of obtaining that rank ; but he was judged by his superiors to be too young for such promotion. The appointment to the Quartermaster Generalship did not take him away from his regiment (the "20th"), which then consisted of two battal- ions. (The subsequent events in the life of Wolfe are treated of in the following pages. )
After the death of Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, at the age of thirty-two years, the British fleet conveyed his body home. It was landed at Portsmouth with military honors November 17, 1759, and was buried at Greenwich, his ancestral home. November 21st, in the House of Commons, Pitt moved an Address for a public monument to Wolfe. This was ultimately erected in Westminster Abbey, but was not unveiled until October 4, 1773.
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came known that had Wolfe's counsels been followed the results would almost certainly have been different. Wolfe was really the only officer in the expedition whose conduct made him conspicuous. October 21, 1757, he was brevetted Colonel by direction of the King, and shortly afterwards the latter said to the Duke of Newcastle-who had suggested that Wolfe was a madman-"Mad, is he? Then I hope he will bite some others of my Generals !"
The Rochefort expedition marked a turning-point in the life of Isaac Barré, for his services attracted the attention of his superior officers and introduced him to the friendship and favor of Wolfe and Fitz- maurice, the two men who were to do more for him than anybody else in the world-for the former rescued him from obscurity after he had lingered a subaltern for eleven years, and the latter, a few years later, as Lord Shelburne, brought him into Parliament and became his patron and friend.
Reference is made on page 481 to the ineffective campaigns which were carried on by the English against the French in America in the years 1756 and 1757. Historians tell us that the lowest point ever touched by the Anglo-Saxon forces in America was reached in the Winter of 1757-'58, after the loss of Fort William Henry and Oswego. But by the beginning of 1758 Pitt had gained complete ascendency in the Government, and by his genius, "unequalled and almost inagical," had brought "the half moribund English nation into an ecstasy of patriotic ardor." His American program for 1758 was a new one only in the men who were to carry it out and the kind of spirit which ani- mated it; but these were the forces which brought the war to a victor- ious conclusion in about two years.
"Such a war, surely, was never before carried on. The trained and disciplined battalions of the Old World-regiments whose names were long famous in history-fought side by side with a heterogeneous militia, bodies of partizans, scouts, wood-rangers, coureurs-des-bois and savage and ferocious Indians. The campaigns were conducted under circum- stances of unparalleled difficulty through unbroken forests, over tower- ing mountain ranges, on the bosom of great waters, by the shores of exquisite lakes and on the banks of a great river. The battles won and lost were infinitely more dramatic in their elements, and the results to the world inore momentous, than those between greater forces in the familiar fields of Europe. * Ticonderoga was the least remembered, though one of the bloodiest, most desperate and most dramatic battles of our history, at once a glory and a shame-the inost humiliating reverse the English ever suffered at the hands of the French in America."
Early in January, 1758, Colonel Wolfe was summoned from Exeter to London, where he was offered the command of a brigade in the force which was to be sent against Cape Breton Island .* Pitt, with his wonderful insight into character, had selected Wolfe for this position. He accepted it, and by his influence Isaac Barré was detailed to the same expedition as Brigade Major. February 12, 1758, Wolfe and Barré embarked for Halifax, Nova Scotia, the place of rendezvous for the regular and Provincial forces. The fleet and transports (under command of Admiral Boscawen) numbered 157 vessels, and the land forces, con- sisting of more than 11,000 Regulars and 500 Provincials, were com-
* See page 297, next to the last paragraph, and page 481. seventh paragraph.
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manded by Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Amherst. The expedition set sail from Halifax on May 28th, and on June 1st Louisbourg, on Cape Breton, was sighted. Louisbourg was undoubledly the most important French stronghold in America. "It stood like a sentinel in the Atlantic to guard the maritime road to Canada, and was the first and strongest link of that chain of fortresses which had been destined to bind the rugged shores of the St. Lawrence with the sunny and fruitful regions of the Mississippi." The fort was built of stone, with walls more than thirty feet high, and a moat eiglity feet wide. So great was its strength that it was indiscriminately called the "Dunkirk of America" and the "Gib- raltar of America."
On June Sth the landing-boats were rowed from the transports to the shore of Gabarus Bay in three divisions-the third of which carried twelve companies of grenadiers, Fraser's regiment of Highlanders, 550 light infantry and some New England rangers under the command of Wolfe, with Barré as his Brigade Major. The siege of Louisbourg was begin, and, having been carried on for forty-nine days, the stronghold, with its garrison of 5,637 soldiers and sailors, was compelled to capiti- late on July 26th. That the success of this siege was mainly due to Wolfe's skill, boldness and activity was clearly understood, and he became popularly known as the "Hero of Louisbourg." At the end of the Cape Breton campaign, early in August, 1758, Wolfe pressed Am- herst to either make an attempt on Quebec or send help to Abercrombie, who had been repulsed at Ticonderoga .* Amherst set out to re-enforce Abercrombie, and Wolfe was sent with three battalions to destroy the French fishing-settlements on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Barré, as a member of Wolfe's staff, took part in this minor expedition. On the 30th of the following September Wolfe and Barré set sail for England, where they arrived November 1st. Barré immediately rejoined his regi- ment, and Wolfe, having reported at headquarters, repaired to Salisbury where the second battalion of his old regiment was stationed. During liis absence this battalion had been organized into a separate regiment (the "67th"), and the Colonelcy of it had been given to him.
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