DURING THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR
Realising that even a nominal peace could no longer be maintained,
England threw down the gauntlet in the spring of 1756 by formally
declaring war. Three weeks later France responded to the challenge,
and presently the four corners of the earth were shaken by the most
terrible conflict of the century. England's alliance with Prussia drew
Austria and Russia into the war on the other side; and notwithstanding
the smallness of his kingdom, the military genius of Frederick the
Great was able to hold the three proudest powers of Europe at bay,
while Clive and Wolfe smote off the heads of the triple alliance in
India and North America. The history of Quebec is concerned with only
the latter campaign.
The Marquis de Montcalm, the newly appointed commander of the forces
in Canada, arrived about the middle of May, bringing with him the
Chevalier de Lévis, Bourlamaque, and Bougainville, all of them better
generals than those to whom the fatuous Duke of Newcastle entrusted
the leadership of the English army. Montcalm himself is indeed one of
the most heroic and gallant figures in French Canadian history--the
personage, _par excellence_, of the closing chapter of French
dominion.
Born at his father's château in Candiac in 1712, he inherited all the
martial impetuosity of the southern noblesse. At fifteen he was an
ensign in the regiment of Hainaut, at seventeen a captain; and, in the
campaigns of Bohemia and Italy, his conspicuous valour won him quick
promotion. At forty-four he was a General, commanding the troops of
Louis XV. in New France. In appearance he was under middle height,
slender, and graceful in movement. Keen clear eyes lighted up a
handsome face, and wit sparkled upon his lips.
The Governor, Vaudreuil, son of a former ruler, was a Canadian by
birth, and accordingly prejudiced against officers who came from
France. A veiled antagonism springing up between himself and Montcalm
was a source of weakness to the French cause in America, and darkened
the closing struggle of the devoted French Canadians to keep the land
for their mother-country.
Montcalm on his arrival at once took stock, so to speak, of his
command. His two battalions of La Sarre and Royal Roussillon added
about twelve hundred men to the troops of the line already in New
France. These, it will be remembered, consisted of the battalions of
Artois and Bourgogne,--now the garrison at Louisbourg,--and the
battalions of La Reine, Languedoc, Guienne, and Béarn, numbering in
all about three thousand men. Besides these, about two thousand
_troupes de la marine_ constituted the permanent military
establishment. Last of all came the militia, nominally made up of all
the male inhabitants of Canada between the ages of sixteen and sixty,
but rarely mustering more than two thousand men. Such was the soldiery
in New France under Montcalm; and to them were added the Indian
allies, whose numbers rose or fell with the fortune of war.
Against a Canadian population of less than seventy thousand, the
English colonies could count more than a million souls; and although
they lacked cohesion, and, indeed, regular military establishment of
any kind, their greater wealth and numbers fore-told the inevitable
result of the struggle. At first the tide of war set against the
English: an event to be expected with Newcastle guiding the ship of
state, and believing in his generals, Loudon, Webb, and Abercrombie,
vain and obtuse military martinets, who fumbled their opportunities,
mismanaged their campaigns, and learned no lessons from their
failures.
From Oswego, on the south-east corner of Lake Ontario, the English
had planned to attack Fort Frontenac and Fort Niagara, so cutting off
New France from her western outposts. But Montcalm, with the speed and
energy that marked his character, determined to act upon the
offensive. With three thousand men he hurried to Fort Frontenac, and
crossed the lake under cover of the night. In the morning the garrison
of Oswego found themselves besieged. The cannonade on both sides was
brief but vigorous; but the French fought with greater spirit, their
dash and resource were disconcerting, and presently this, the most
important English stronghold of the west, was compelled to capitulate.
Sixteen hundred prisoners, a hundred pieces of artillery, and a vast
quantity of stores and ammunition fell into the hands of the
triumphant French. Having thus secured the west, Montcalm hurried back
to Lake Champlain, and intrenched himself at Carillon, by this means
to prevent an invasion of Canada by way of the Richelieu. Owing to the
lateness of the season, however, his opponents undertook no new
expedition that year, and waited for the spring.
In 1757 Loudon conceived the idea of attacking Louisbourg, and
accordingly he withdrew his troops to Halifax in order to co-operate
with an English squadron under Admiral Holbourne. Loudon's
incompetency alone would have fore-doomed so hazardous an undertaking;
but once more the elements fought on the side of France, and
Holbourne's fleet was shattered by a storm.
So far Montcalm had maintained a defensive attitude in the Richelieu
valley, but taking advantage of Loudon's diversion towards Louisbourg,
he now resolved upon attacking Fort William Henry, strongly held by
over two thousand English troops. Moving out of his intrenchments at
Carillon, therefore, and supported by Lévis and Bougainville, he
advanced up the valley with six thousand soldiers and over a thousand
Indians. Monro, the British commandant, sharply rejected the summons
to surrender, and Montcalm began the investment of the fort.
Fourteen miles away, General Webb lay encamped at Fort Edward with
twenty-six hundred men, and to him Monro sent for assistance. But the
timorous Webb had no stomach for a fight. Huddling behind his
breastworks, he listened to the booming of the fierce cannonade across
the hills, but made no move to save Fort William Henry. Monro, seeing
himself thus abandoned, his powder gone, his ramparts and bastions
shattered by Montcalm's heavy artillery, at length asked for terms.
Surrendering their arms, the garrison marched out with the honours of
war, drums beating; but they also marched into one of the most
shameful disasters recorded in American history.
[Illustration: DE LÉVIS]
Frenzied by the protracted siege, and burning with vengeance for
their slain in the trenches, the savage allies of the French burst all
restraint and fell upon the disarmed garrison. In vain Montcalm,
Lévis, and Bourlamaque begged, threatened, and even interposed their
own bodies to prevent a massacre. Defenceless men, women, and children
were tomahawked in cold blood, or reserved for more leisurely
torment. Some of the poor fugitives, fleeing at the first war-whoop,
reached Fort Edward through the woods. Four hundred of the captives
were eventually rescued by the French, while the Indians, decamping
after their carnival of blood, carried two hundred wretched victims
back to their lodges. Then followed the work of demolishing Fort
William Henry, and soon its blazing ruins, a funeral pyre for the
slaughtered garrison, lit up the summer night, and cast a lurid flame
soon to kindle the avenging wrath of England.
To these ill-boding events, moreover, the loss of Minorca was now
added, until England at last refused to endure longer the incapacity
of Newcastle, and clamoured for the appointment of Pitt. "England has
long been in labour," commented Frederick of Prussia, "and at last she
has brought forth a man." From that moment the fortune of war was
changed. Corruption and divided counsels no longer paralysed the
government, and the Great Commoner, healthy minded, rugged, and
enthusiastic, now stood to middle-class England as an embodiment of
strength and purpose, which sent new blood coursing through her veins
and braced her for the gathering storm.
To America, where the clouds were darkest, Pitt first turned his
attention. Louisbourg, Carillon, Duquesne, and Quebec must be brought
low, if, as was his purpose, French power was not only to be crushed
but absolutely destroyed. And towards this goal Pitt moved swiftly at
the head of a nation as resolute as himself. Loudon and Webb were
instantly recalled, and Amherst, Wolfe, and Howe were appointed in
their places, the last being ordered to second Abercrombie, whom Pitt
had reluctantly retained in his command.
The years since 1745 had been years of growing strength for
Louisbourg, and in 1758 it almost equalled Quebec itself in
importance. Its capable commandant, the Chevalier de Drucour, counted
four thousand citizens and three thousand men-at-arms for his
garrison; while twelve battleships, mounting five hundred and
forty-four guns, and manned by three thousand sailors and marines,
rode at anchor in the rock-girt harbour, the fortress itself, with its
formidable outworks, containing two hundred and nineteen cannon and
seventeen mortars. Bold men only could essay the capture of such a
fortress, but such were Wolfe, Amherst, and Admiral Boscawen, whose
work it was to do.
The fleet and transports sailed from Halifax, bearing eleven thousand
six hundred men full of spirit and faith in their commanders. All
accessible landing-places at Louisbourg had been fortified by the
French; but in spite of this precaution and a heavy surf, Wolfe's
division gained the beach and carried the redoubts at Freshwater
Cove. A general landing having been thus effected, Wolfe marched round
the flank of the fortress to establish a battery at Light-house Point.
The story may only be outlined here. First the French were forced to
abandon Grand Battery, which frowned over the harbour, then the Island
Battery was silenced. On the forty-third day of the siege, a frigate
in the harbour was fired by shells, and drifting from her moorings,
destroyed two sister ships. Four vessels which had been sunk at the
mouth of the harbour warded Boscawen's fleet from the assault, but did
not prevent six hundred daring blue-jackets from seizing the _Prudent_
and _Bienfaisant_, the two remaining ships of the French squadron.
Meanwhile, zigzag trenches crept closer and closer to the walls, upon
which the heavy artillery now played at short range with deadly
effect. Bombs and grenades hissed over the shattering ramparts and
burst in the crowded streets; roundshot and grape tore their way
through the wooden barracks; while mortars and musketry poured a hail
of shell and bullet upon the brave defenders. Nothing could save
Louisbourg now that Pitt's policy of Thorough had got headway. On the
26th of July a white flag fluttered over the Dauphin's Bastion; and by
midnight of that date Drucour had signed Amherst's terms enjoining
unconditional surrender.
Then the work of demolition commenced. The mighty fortress, which had
cast a dark shadow over New England for almost half a century, "the
Dunkirk of America," must stand no longer as a menace. An army of
workmen laboured for months with pick and spade and blasting-powder
upon those vast fortifications; yet nothing but an upheaval of nature
itself could obliterate all traces of earthwork, ditch, _glacis_, and
casemate, which together made up the frowning fortress of Louisbourg.
To-day grass grows on the Grand Parade, and daisies blow upon the
turf-grown bastions; but who may pick his way over those historic
mounds of earth without a sigh for the buried valour of bygone years!
In the Richelieu valley, meanwhile, the armies of England and France
had met in even fiercer conflict. Montcalm lay intrenched at Carillon
at the head of the battalions of La Sarre, Languedoc, Berry, Royal
Roussillon, La Reine, Béarn, and Guienne, three thousand six hundred
men in all. To this high rocky battlement overlooking Lake Champlain,
the French had hastily added a rugged outwork of felled trees on the
crest of a flanking hill. The ridge thus fortified now looked down
upon a valley stripped of its timber, but covered with rugged stumps
and a maze of stakes and branches, which, while affording no cover for
an enemy, presented insuperable obstacles to his advance.
On came Abercrombie at the head of fifteen thousand men, offering the
most imposing military spectacle yet seen in the New World. They
advanced in three divisions--the regulars in the centre, commanded by
the gallant Lord Howe, and a blue column of provincials on either
flank. To the martial music of their bands or the shrill notes of the
bagpipe they gaily marched through the midsummer woods, the
Forty-Second Highlanders in the van.
As the army drew near to the French position, Lord Howe pressed
forward to reconnoitre the approaches. This young nobleman, although
but thirty-four years of age, had already reached the top of his
profession. Keen and daring, with a hand of steel in a glove of
velvet, and a magnetism that charmed the regular and the provincial
alike, Lord Howe had become the soul of Abercrombie's army; and as he
fell in this engagement, shot through the breast by a skirmisher's
bullet, that army at once declined to its ruin.
Notwithstanding this loss, Abercrombie swept on along the Indian
trail; and when Montcalm looked down from the rough ramparts of
Carillon upon that splendid pageant, all hope of saving his stronghold
was banished. All hope save one. The indiscretion of the English
General might lead him to decide upon assault instead of siege. The
inept Abercrombie did not disappoint him--Carillon was to be taken at
the point of the bayonet!
All day long the fearless battalions of Old and New England hurled
themselves against the fatal breastwork; all day long those steady
columns of British infantry, headed by Campbell's Highlanders,
brilliantly valiant, pressed up the rough _glacis_ under a cross-fire
which swept them front and flank. At night two thousand of
Abercrombie's stubborn soldiery lay dead upon the field. Their
splendid valour had been all in vain against the invisible musketeers
of Montcalm, Lévis, and Bourlamaque.
Among the slain was the brave Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, of whom
Parkman relates the following legend:--
"The ancient castle of Inverawe stands by the banks of
the Awe, in the midst of the wild and picturesque scenery
of the Western Highlands. Late one evening, before the
middle of the eighteenth century, as the laird, Duncan
Campbell, sat alone in the hall, there was a loud
knocking at the gate; and opening it, he saw a stranger,
with torn clothing and kilt besmeared with blood, who, in
a breathless voice, begged for asylum. He went on to say
that he had killed a man in a fray, and that the pursuers
were at his heels. Campbell promised to shelter him.
'Swear on your dirk!' said the stranger; and Campbell
swore. He then led him to a secret recess in the depths
of the castle.
"Scarcely was he hidden when again there was a loud
knocking at the gate, and two armed men appeared. 'Your
cousin Donald has been murdered, and we are looking for
the murderer!'
"Campbell, remembering his oath, professed to have no
knowledge of the fugitive; and the men went on their way.
"The laird, in great agitation, lay down to rest in a
large dark room, when at length he fell asleep. Waking
suddenly in bewilderment and terror, he saw the ghost of
the murdered Donald standing by his bedside, and heard a
hollow voice pronounce the words: '_Inverawe! Inverawe!
blood has been shed. Shield not the murderer!_'
"In the morning, Campbell went to the hiding-place of the
guilty man, and told him that he could harbour him no
longer. 'You have sworn on your dirk!' he replied; and
the laird of Inverawe, greatly perplexed and troubled,
made a compromise between conflicting duties, promised
not to betray his guest, led him to the neighbouring
mountain, and hid him in a cave.
"In the next night, as he lay tossing in feverish
slumbers, the same stern voice awoke him, the ghost of
his cousin Donald stood again at his bedside, and again
he heard the same appalling words: '_Inverawe! Inverawe!
blood has been shed. Shield not the murderer!_' At the
break of day he hastened, in strange agitation, to the
cave; but it was empty, the stranger was gone. At night,
as he strove in vain to sleep, the vision appeared once
more, ghastly pale, but less stern of aspect than before.
'_Farewell, Inverawe!_' it said; '_farewell, till we meet
at Ticonderoga!_'[28]
"The strange man dwelt in Campbell's memory. He had
joined the Black Watch, or Forty-Second Regiment, then
employed in keeping order in the turbulent Highlands. In
time he became its major; and a year or two after the war
broke out he went with it to America. Here, to his
horror, he learned that it was ordered to the attack of
Ticonderoga. His story was well known among his brother
officers. They combined among themselves to disarm his
fears; and when they reached the fatal spot they told him
on the eve of the battle, 'This is not Ticonderoga; we
are not there yet; this is Fort George,' But in the
morning he came to them with haggard looks. 'I have seen
him! You have deceived me! He came to my tent last night!
This is Ticonderoga! I shall die to-day!'
"And his prediction was fulfilled."[29]
[Footnote 28: Ticonderoga, the Indian name for the fort of Carillon.]
[Footnote 29: Parkman, _Montcalm and Wolfe_, vol. ii., Appendix.]
However magnificent was the triumph of the French arms at Carillon, it
could not balance the loss of Louisbourg; and before the summer of
1758 had ended, the heart of Quebec was wrung with news of further
disasters. Crossing Lake Ontario with a force of three thousand
colonials, Colonel Bradstreet appeared suddenly before Fort Frontenac.
In spite of the abundant store of furs, ammunition, and implements of
war which the lake fort contained, its garrison had been hopelessly
weakened to supply troops for the Richelieu district, and when
surprised by Bradstreet it consisted of but one hundred and ten
soldiers. Without firing a shot, the commandant, De Noyan, surrendered
the position.
This blow cut New France into halves, severing the western forts from
their base of supplies, and effectually destroying what remained of
French influence over the wavering Indian tribes. Meanwhile, General
Forbes, with six thousand men, was marching from Philadelphia to
attack Fort Duquesne. After three months of hardship he arrived at the
junction of the Ohio and Monongahela; but the commandant De Ligneris
had not awaited his coming, and the fort now lay in ashes, having been
destroyed by its own garrison when it became clear that succour could
no longer be expected from Quebec.
Quebec itself, though up to this time beyond the range of actual war,
was in the usual throes of civil discord. If Vaudreuil, the Governor,
had previously been jealous of Montcalm, the recent success achieved
by the latter at Carillon now doubled his resentment. Casting about
for any conceivable point of criticism, Vaudreuil blamed the General
for not turning Abercrombie's retreat into a rout. Regarding this
inspiration, Montcalm writes to Bourlamaque: "I ended by saying
quietly 'that when I went to war I did the best I could; and that when
one is not pleased with one's lieutenants, one had better take the
field in person.' He was very much moved, and muttered between his
teeth that perhaps he would; at which I said that I should be
delighted to serve under him. Madame de Vaudreuil wanted to put in her
word. I said: 'Madame, saving due respect, permit me to have the
honour to say that ladies ought not to talk war.' She kept on. I said:
'Madame, saving due respect, permit me to have the honour to say that
if Madame de Montcalm were here, and heard me talking war with
Monsieur le Marquis de Vaudreuil, she would remain silent.'"
Thus the cloaked strife between the General and the so-called Canadian
party proceeded. Vaudreuil wrote earnestly to the Court to have
Montcalm recalled; while Montcalm, who was not blind to the
malversations of Bigot and his clique, made this matter the burden of
some of his official letters. The result was a rebuke administered to
Vaudreuil and the Intendant, which further heated their feeling
against Montcalm. Bougainville was despatched to France to lay an
account of the dire distress of Canada before the Court. Montcalm's
letters highly commended the envoy, but Vaudreuil as promptly
described him as a creature of the General, and their quarrel did not
help New France at the Royal Court. Berryer, the Colonial Minister,
received Bougainville coldly, and to his appeal for help replied: "Eh,
Monsieur, when the house is on fire one cannot concern one's self with
the stable." But the Canadian envoy responded, with caustic wit, "At
least, Monsieur, nobody will say that you talk like a _horse_."
Berryer's remark, however, exactly described the state of affairs.
Worsted by Clive at Plassey, and by Frederick the Great at Leuthen and
Rossbach, even the loss of Louisbourg, the Forts Duquesne and
Frontenac, could hardly add to France's cup of bitterness, and to save
herself in Europe she was prepared for sacrifice in America. Within
the single twelvemonth during which Pitt had been at the helm of
England, France had altered her pretentious claim upon almost the
whole of North America to the extremely reasonable demand for a
foothold on the river St. Lawrence. Even this last claim was now
assailed; and as she fell back into her last intrenchments, the armies
of England advanced to the final encounter.
[Illustration: GOVERNOR OF NEWFOUNDLAND, 1759]
The general hopelessness of the situation in Canada is reflected in
a letter written by the Minister of War, M. de Belleisle, to Montcalm,
under the date 19th February, 1759: "Besides increasing the dearth of
provisions, it is to be feared that reinforcements, if despatched,
would fall into the power of the English. The King is unable to send
succours proportional to the force the English can place in the field
to oppose you....You must confine yourself to the defensive, and
concentrate all your forces within as narrow limits as possible. It is
of the last importance to preserve some footing in Canada. However
small the territory preserved may be, it is indispensable that _un
pied_ should be retained in North America, for if all be once lost it
would become impossible to recover it."
And Montcalm wrote in reply: "For my part, and that of the troops
under me, we are ready to fall with the colony, and to be buried in
its ruins." And later: "If we are left without a fleet at Quebec, the
enemy can come there; and Quebec taken, the colony is lost....If the
war continues, Canada will belong to the English in course of this
campaign or the next. If peace be made, the colony is lost unless
there be a total change of management." Lévis bore similar testimony
to the discouragement caused to the colonials by the indifferent
attitude of the Government of France. "I see," he wrote, "that it is
necessary to defend ourselves foot by foot, fighting to the death;
for it will be better for the King's service that we should die with
arms in our hands than for us to accept disgraceful terms of surrender
like those permitted at the capitulation of Cape Breton."
The plan of the campaign of 1759 embraced simultaneous attacks upon
Quebec and Montreal. The former was entrusted to Wolfe and Admiral
Saunders, and the latter to Amherst. The French, on their part,
disposed their troops entirely upon the defensive, Montcalm and
Vaudreuil, commanders of the regulars and the militia, concentrating
their soldiers round Quebec; while Bourlamaque, with less than four
thousand men, was despatched to hold the gateway of the Richelieu
against Amherst.
Bourlamaque first took up his position at Carillon, but on the
approach of the English he blew up the walls of his fortress and
retired to Crown Point. Meanwhile the deliberate Amherst marched
slowly forward, building forts as he went, in this mistaken zeal for
military efficiency defeating the purpose of Pitt, which was, to make
a strong diversion for covering Wolfe's movement upon the St.
Lawrence. It was August before he arrived at Crown Point. This
fortress, however, the wily Bourlamaque had previously abandoned for
the stronger position of Isle-aux-Noix, at the outlet of Lake
Champlain.
Even then Amherst refrained from hurrying forward to overwhelm the
French with his superior numbers; and when at length autumn came, he
was still advancing cautiously from Crown Point. But Wolfe no longer
needed his help.