"HERE DIED WOLFE VICTORIOUS"
In spite of her strong position, Quebec did not await the arrival of
the enemy with folded hands. Since 1720 walls and bastions of grey
stone had completely girded the city, but within that time no invasion
had tested its strength. Even now, in the midst of the most desperate
war the New World had ever known, Vaudreuil loudly proclaimed that the
fortress was impregnable; and his letters, promising annihilation to
his foolhardy foes, are painful gasconade. Yet with all this show of
assurance, he was careful to send through the parishes, calling out to
service every available man, and in some cases boys of thirteen and
fourteen years of age; while the women and children, hiding the
household valuables, withdrew from the river to places of safety.
A council of war had in the meantime decided to place the city under
cover of an intrenched camp, which Montcalm was at first in favour of
locating on the Plains of Abraham; but in view of the fact that the
bastions of the citadel and the batteries erected on the quays of
Lower Town were already in full command of the river, another site was
finally selected. Assuming that the enemy could never force his way up
the river past the city batteries, he concluded that the enemy must
land by way of the lowlands below the town; and Wolfe himself had a
like opinion until long after the investment had begun.
Since spring, when the proclamation of Vaudreuil had been read at the
doors of the country churches, a constant stream of men and boys had
been flowing towards Quebec; and by the middle of June Montcalm found
himself in command of more than sixteen thousand men, including
regulars, militia, and Indians. The mouth of the St. Charles had been
closed with a heavy boom of logs, in front of which was moored a
floating battery mounting five cannon; and behind it two stranded
hulks, armed with heavy ordnance, were able to sweep the Bay. From
this point to the height where, seven miles away, the Montmorency
leaped foaming over its dizzy precipice, the lowlands of Beauport had
been strongly fortified and intrenched. Redoubts had been erected at
all possible landing-places; and behind these vast earthworks which
followed the curving shore, the Canadian forces lay securely encamped.
The right wing, composed of the militia regiments of Quebec and Three
Rivers, under M. de Saint-Ours and M. de Bonne, took up its position
facing the city on the flats known as La Canardière; the centre,
stretching from the St. Charles to the Beauport river, consisted of
two thousand regulars under Brigadier Sénézergues; and the left,
including the Montreal militia, held the road from the Beauport to the
Montmorency. Montcalm established his headquarters in the centre,
wisely entrusting the left wing to the capable De Lévis, the right
being assigned to Bougainville.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE CITADEL TO-DAY]
[Illustration: _General the Marquis de Montcalm_]
Within the walls, the Chevalier de Ramézay commanded a garrison of
above a thousand men. Every gate but one had been closed and
barricaded, the Porte du Palais being left open to afford
communication between the city and the camp by way of a bridge of
boats across the St. Charles. Vaudreuil transferred the seat of
government to Beauport, taking up his quarters at the centre with
Montcalm; and those of the citizens who were not required to man the
ramparts removed themselves and their valuables for safety to the
country. Quebec was armed to the teeth. Three hundred feet above the
river rose the battery of the citadel; on a lower level the Castle
Battery frowned over towards Point Lévi, the Grand Battery commanding
the harbour; while, on the wharves of Lower Town, the Queen's,
Dauphin's, and Royal batteries were able to sweep the narrows. Even
though the English fleet might run this gauntlet of heavy ordnance,
the high cliffs for miles above the city remained practically
inaccessible, and at almost any point a hundred resolute men would
suffice to beat back an army. In the face of these preparations, it
seemed an act of madness to attempt the reduction of Quebec. But
within defences so secure the ardent spirits of the Canadian troops
were chafing at enforced inaction; for although diligently exercised
by their commanders, they still had leisure to think of the homes they
loved, where the corn would never be garnered.
On the English side Captain Cook, as his biographer relates, "was
employed to procure accurate soundings of the channel between the
Island of Orleans and the shore of Beauport--a service of great
danger, which could only be performed in the night-time. He had
scarcely finished when he was discovered, and a number of Indians in
canoes started to cut him off. The pursuit was so close that they
jumped in at the boat's stern as Cook leaped out to gain the
protection of the English sentinel. The boat was carried off by the
Indians. Cook, however, furnished the admiral with as correct a draft
of the channel and soundings as could afterwards have been made when
the English were in peaceable possession of Quebec."
[Illustration: HOPE GATE]
At length, towards the end of June, the invading ships sailed up the
channel south of the Isle of Orleans; twenty ships of the line, twenty
frigates, and a swarm of transports, bearing in all about nine
thousand men. But Quebec, so often threatened in the past, and ever
fortunate in resistance, gazed complacently down upon this imposing
fleet. Montcalm feared but one contingency, the co-operation of
Amherst with Wolfe from the west; and this, as we have seen, was a
needless anxiety. Disembarking, Wolfe pitched his camp at the western
end of the Isle of Orleans, four miles from Quebec. Before him rose
the portentous batteries of the city, and, on his right, the long
battle-line of Montcalm flaunted a desperate challenge. Remembering,
however, that defences stronger still had been carried at Louisbourg,
the English General confidently drew up his plans.
[Illustration: ADMIRAL SIR CHARLES SAUNDERS
(Under Wolfe before Quebec)]
The only vantage-ground left unoccupied by the French was the Heights
of Lévi, opposite the city, Montcalm having thought it unwise to
isolate there any portion of his force. Thither, accordingly,
Monckton's brigade was now despatched; and English batteries, rising
darkly on the high cliffs, were soon directing across the narrow
channel of the river that hail of shot which, within a month, had left
the Lower Town a heap of ashes, and dropped destruction upon the
crowded summit of the citadel. So galling grew this fire, that at last
a force was sent to destroy the English camp; and on the night of July
the 12th, fifteen hundred soldiers and Indians stole silently from
Sillery across the river. But as they picked their way through the
dark woods, trembling with the excitement of a dangerous adventure, a
sudden panic seized them, and in the confusion, the students of the
Seminary, who formed part of the column, opened fire upon their own
men. Discipline and order were at once discarded, and the whole party
rushed back in terror to the boats. At dawn they returned from this
unhappy and futile expedition, bringing new terrors to their
fellow-citizens, who nicknamed this bloodless effort the "Scholars'
Battle"; and Quebec again endured the misery of ceaseless bombardment.
With strange fatuity the French employed another device to destroy the
fleet of the invaders and carry terror into their ranks. A flotilla of
fire-ships was loaded to the gunwale with pitch, tar, powder bombs,
grenades, and scrap-iron; and towards midnight these floating
hell-boats slipped their moorings and drifted with the tide towards
the English fleet riding at the Point of Orleans. Tide and stream bore
them swiftly through the gloom; and at a given signal, fuses were
ignited and the crews escaped in boats. Sharp tongues of flame ran
along the bulwarks, and the loose powder sputtered and hissed. Then,
suddenly, the night was rent by explosion after explosion,
reverberating through the canons of the distant Laurentides, and
echoing along the river walls beyond Cap Tourmente. A lurid glare lit
up the broad harbour, the towers and minarets of the beleaguered city,
revealing in red light the full tents of the French army along the
Beauport lowlands.
To the English it was "the grandest fireworks that can possibly be
conceived"; but the French were in no mood to enjoy its harmless
effulgence. The fuses had been lighted half an hour too soon, and
before the tide of the north channel carried them to the English
fleet, the magnificent flotilla, upon which Quebec had squandered a
million _livres_, had become a squadron of blazing hulks which the
British sailors grappled and towed to shore. All night long their
impotent fires lit up the Bay, and by sunrise another hope of New
France had turned to ashes.
Although the unquenchable batteries of Point Lévi continued to pour
destruction upon Quebec, Wolfe saw that the defeat of Montcalm must
precede the capture of the city; and to this end he now directed his
attention. Beyond the rocky gorge of the Montmorency, a high open land
seemed to offer a possible avenue of attack upon the French camp
across the river, and thither the English General resolved to transfer
his main camp. On the night of the 8th of July he embarked with three
thousand men--the brigades of Townshend and Murray, a body of
grenadiers, light infantry, and the Sixtieth Regiment, or Royal
Americans. Before dawn they made a landing at the village of L'Ange
Gardien, and gained the heights after a slight skirmish with an
irregular body of native militia. Earthworks were hastily thrown up,
fascine batteries were erected, and Montcalm's reveille next
morning was a heavy cannonade from this new quarter.
[Illustration: THE MANOR-HOUSE AT BEAUPORT, MONTCALM'S HEADQUARTERS]
Wolfe had now divided his army into three camps, each so far removed
from the other that little or no help could be expected in case of
separate attack. Yet it was in vain that he tempted Montcalm to
battle. For weeks his guns roared challenge across the Montmorency;
but the cautious French General only shrugged his shoulders and
remarked: "Let him amuse himself where he is. If we drive him off he
may go to some place where he can do us harm." To discover this
vulnerable spot Wolfe would have risked much, as appears from his
daring instructions of the 18th of July. On this day the _Sutherland_
and several small frigates ran the gauntlet of the city batteries, and
racing through the hail of lead and iron falling from a hundred guns
upon the ramparts, they reached Cap Rouge above Quebec.
To the French the impossible had happened. Montcalm, therefore,
hastily detailed a small force to defend the cliffs; and the right
wing of the army under Bougainville was charged with the protection of
the city upon its flank, or landward side. To Wolfe, however, who
himself made the hazardous voyage in the _Sutherland_, the result of
the reconnaissance was not cheering. No point upon those rugged cliffs
seemed to offer a favourable landing; and he came back to his camp on
the Montmorency more than ever convinced that Montcalm's army could be
defeated only by a direct assault upon its strong intrenchments. This
desperate enterprise he essayed on the last day of July.
When the tide runs out past the Isle of Orleans, it leaves a wide
sandy beach at the foot of the cliffs between Beauport and
Montmorency, the mouth of the latter river also being hardly more than
knee-deep at ebb-tide. Aware of these conditions, the French had
erected a strong redoubt at the edge of the strand, and posted a large
force of musketeers in the intrenchments capping the heights above it.
This was the point which Wolfe selected for attack.
In the morning at high tide the _Centurion_, of sixty-four guns, took
up a position near the Montmorency ford and opened fire upon the
French redoubt. During this movement two armed transports detailed to
second her cannonade, running too close upon the shore, were stranded
with the receding tide. At the same time, the batteries of Wolfe's
camp across the river were pounding the enemy's flank. Towards noon
five thousand British soldiers pressed towards the point of attack;
some in boats from Point Lévi and Orleans, some crossing the ford from
Townshend's camp. The first to reach the spot were thirteen companies
of grenadiers and a detachment of Royal Americans, who having landed
from the boats, instead of waiting for Monckton's brigade which was
close behind, dashed boldly forward across the strand. The French gave
way before their impetuous rush, and abandoned the redoubt at the foot
of the hill. Then, suddenly, the crest of the ridge above them blazed
with musketry, and the cross-fire from the trenches poured a hail of
death upon their panting ranks. Up the terrible _glacis_ they still
strove to climb in the face of a splashing downpour of bullets. At
that moment the sky became overcast, and from the pall of cloud
hanging over Beauport a wild storm of rain broke over the battlefield.
It was impossible to scale the slippery rocks, the powder was drenched
and useless. Seeing the madness of further attack, Wolfe now sounded a
retreat. A force of less than a thousand men had attempted to storm a
bristling cliff whose double line of defence consisted of the muskets
of Canadian sharpshooters and the bayonets of Béarn, Guienne, and
Royal Roussillon; and before the order to retire was given, nearly
half their number had fallen in this bootless conflict on the Beauport
Flats.
It was now August, and the hopes of Quebec rose higher with the
advancing season. So far the English had scored no perceptible
success; and although the batteries of Point Lévi had laid the Lower
Town in ruins, and were still pounding at the high ramparts, the
defences of the city remained practically as strong as ever. The
steady bombardment, however, was causing much suffering and anxiety to
those inhabitants who had been unable to flee from the city; and for
two full days the Lower Town was in flames, the large company of
sappers and miners, detailed as a fire brigade, being powerless
against the conflagration. The walls of Notre Dame des Victoires kept
guard upon the poor wreck of its venerated altars, while in the Upper
Town the Cathedral tower had been shot away, and the Basilica itself
was half a ruin. Some of the rampart batteries were buried beneath the
_débris_ of demolished houses, and bursting shells ploughed up the
streets; moreover, the wooden palisade, hastily erected in the
Quartier du Palais to provide against a possible assault by way of the
St. Charles, had been destroyed by fire. At last forsaking the
dangerous walls of their exposed convents, the Ursulines and the nuns
of Hôtel-Dieu sought shelter further afield. The Hospital Général,
established by Bishop St. Vallier, Laval's successor, on a bend of the
St. Charles, being beyond the range of the English artillery, the
homeless poor flocked thither for refuge, until the convent and all
its _dépendances_ were filled to overflowing with miserable refugees.
The chapel was pressed into service as a ward for the wounded; and
holy Masses were said by special permission in the _choeur_. During
this time of trial Bishop Pontbriand remained in the city, exhorting
its defenders to be of good courage and cheering the wounded by his
ministrations; while, as if to counteract his influence for good, the
more heartless spirits were tempted to robbery and pillage--a
shameless addition to the general suffering promptly checked by a
gallows in the Place d'Armes.
[Illustration: General Sir Jeffery Amherst.
To whom Montreal surrendered 1760.]
Provisions had been plentiful enough up to midsummer; but as the siege
was prolonged beyond harvest time, and as Wolfe's soldiers were laying
the country waste in every direction as far as eye could see, it was
no wonder that Montcalm felt some anxiety for the feeding of fifteen
thousand troops. Moreover, an unexpected consequence of Wolfe's
repulse at Beauport now brought a new anxiety to the French; for
British operations were presently begun at a point above the city, to
the great peril of its food-supply. Admiral Holmes's division had
forced a passage up the river, soon to be joined by twelve hundred men
under Brigadier Murray, who had instructions to menace the city upon
its flank. Up and down the river this composite squadron cruised,
making feints now here, now there, exhausting the energies of
Bougainville and his column of fifteen hundred men, who were thus
forced to cover an exposed shore for a distance of fifty miles. Murray
attempted a landing at Pointe-aux-Trembles, but was beaten back; at
La Muletière he was also unsuccessful; but at Deschambault, forty-one
miles above the city, he was able to destroy a large quantity of
French stores without the loss of a man. Up to this time the French
had conveyed their supplies from Batiscan to St. Augustin by water,
and thence overland to Quebec, a distance of thirteen miles. But the
presence of Admiral Holmes's squadron rendered this method of
transport precarious, and an attempt was made to drive supplies
overland from Batiscan; but as this place was sixty-seven miles
distant from Quebec, famine laid its hand upon the city before they
could arrive. French transports were therefore compelled to run the
perilous blockade of the vigilant English fleet.
[Illustration: GENERAL HOSPITAL]
Meanwhile, upon the report of the slow but successful advance of
Amherst in the Richelieu Valley, news had come of the fall of Fort
Niagara. New France now retained no vestige of her Western empire.
Except for Bourlamaque at Isle-aux-Noix, Montreal had no defence
against British attack; and thither, on the ninth of August, Montcalm
despatched Lévis with eight hundred men. Even though Wolfe had failed
to carry the city by assault, the garrison were now thoroughly alarmed
at the protracted siege, and prayed for an early winter which must
drive the English out of the river. The militia of Montcalm's army
were deserting by hundreds, their fortitude breaking down as they saw
the sky reddened with the flames of the river parishes, and languished
under the strain of short rations.
Montcalm himself felt the pinch of a failing commissariat, but with
good-humour he made the best of the position. An example of his
whimsical mood and gay fortitude may be found in a menu he presents in
a letter to Lévis--
"Petits pâtés de cheval, à l'Espagnole.
Cheval à la mode.
Escalopes de cheval.
Filet de cheval à la brochu avec une poivarde bien liée.
Semelles de cheval au gratin."
On the other hand, the English army had its own discouragements. Night
after night, Canadian irregulars and Indians crept up to Wolfe's lines
to murder and scalp the outposts and sentries. Fever invaded the camp,
and, more than all else, the serious illness of the General himself
depressed the spirits of his men. Ceaseless anxiety over a hitherto
ineffective campaign had played sad havoc with the nervous,
high-strung temperament of the English commander; and the grey,
inaccessible city still rose grimly to mock his schemes. Only the most
invincible spirit could have borne so frail a body through those weeks
of hope deferred. A vague melancholy marked the line of his tall
ungainly figure; but resolution, courage, endurance, deep design,
clear vision, dogged will, and heroism shone forth from those
searching eyes, making of no account the incongruities of the sallow
features. Straight red hair, a nose thrust out like a wedge, and a
chin falling back from an affectionate sort of mouth, made, by an
antic of nature, the almost grotesque setting of those twin furnaces
of daring resolve, which, in the end, fulfilled the yearning hopes of
England.
August had nearly gone, and the gallant General, only thirty-two years
of age and already touched by the finger of death, lay sick in a
farmhouse at Montmorency. Success seemed even further away than it
had been in the early summer. Yet, in consultation with his three
brigadiers--Monckton, Townshend, and Murray--Wolfe had decided upon a
new and desperate plan.
"I know perfectly well you cannot cure me," he said to
the surgeon; "but pray make me up so that I may be
without pain for a few days, and able to do my duty; that
is all I want," To Pitt he wrote--and this was his last
despatch: "The obstacles we have met with in the
operations of the campaign are much greater than we had
reason to expect, or could foresee; not so much from the
number of the enemy (though superior to us), as from the
natural strength of the country, which the Marquis de
Montcalm seems wisely to depend upon. When I learned that
succours of all kinds had been thrown into Quebec--that
five battalions of regular troops, completed from the
best inhabitants of the country, some of the troops of
the colony, and every Canadian that was able to bear
arms, besides several nations of savages, had taken the
field in a very advantageous situation,--I could not
flatter myself that I should be able to reduce the place.
I sought, however, an occasion to attack their army,
knowing well that with these troops I was able to fight,
and hoping that a victory might disperse them....I found
myself so ill, and am still so weak, that I begged the
general officers to consult together for the general
utility. They are all of opinion that, as more ships and
provisions are now got above the town, they should try,
by conveying up a corps of four or five thousand men
(which is nearly the whole strength of the army after the
Points of Lévi and Orleans are left in a proper state of
defence), to draw the enemy from their present situation
and bring them to an action. I have acquiesced in the
proposal, and we are preparing to put it into execution."
Carrying out this new plan, Wolfe first abandoned his camp at
Montmorency, and for the moment concentrated his strength at Lévi and
Orleans. Then Admiral Holmes's division in the river above the city
was strengthened, and on the night of the 4th of September ships and
transports, carrying five months' provisions, silently and
successfully ran the blockade of the citadel's guns and anchored off
Cap Rouge. On the 5th, Murray, Monckton, and Townshend marched seven
battalions overland from Point Lévi to the mouth of the river
Etechemin opposite Sillery Cove; and on the 6th, Wolfe found himself
cruising above the town with twenty-two ships and thirty-six hundred
men.
Meanwhile, Montcalm and Vaudreuil were greatly perplexed and all
unconscious of the new designs and movements of the enemy. The
position at the Point of Orleans still seemed to be strongly occupied,
for every day Colonel Carleton paraded his men up and down in full
view of the camp at Beauport; the batteries at Point Lévi thundered
with their accustomed vehemence, and Admiral Saunders's division still
lay threateningly in the basin below the city. Thus the weakening of
these camps by twelve hundred men, who marched up the south shore to
join Wolfe, was not perceived by Montcalm. Above Quebec, Bourlamaque
was not less perplexed by the mysterious movements of Holmes's
squadron and the army transports. Up and down the river they sailed,
now threatening to land at Pointe-aux-Trembles, now at Sillery, and
greatly confusing the right wing of the French army by their complex
movements.
At last the great night came, starlit and serene. The camp-fires of
two armies spotted the shores of the wide river, and the ships lay
like wild-fowl in coveys above the town. At Beauport, an untiring
General of France, who, booted and spurred, through a hundred days had
snatched but a broken sleep, in the ebb of a losing game, now longed
for his adored Candiac, grieved for a beloved daughter's death, sent
cheerful messages to his aged mother and to his wife, and by the
deeper protests of his love, foreshadowed his own doom. At Cap Rouge,
a dying soldier of England, unperturbed and valiant, reached out a
finger to trace the last movement in the desperate campaign of a life
that had opened in Flanders at the age of sixteen, now closing as he
took from his bosom the portrait of his affianced wife, and said to
his old schoolfellow, "Give this to her, Jervis, for we shall meet no
more." Then, passing from the deck, silent and steady, no signs of
pain upon his face--so had the calm come to him as to nature, and to
this beleaguered city, before the whirlwind--he viewed the clustered
groups of boats filled with the flower of his army, settled down into
a menacing tranquillity. There lay the Light Infantry, Bragg's,
Kennedy's, Lascelles', Anstruther's Regiments, Fraser's Highlanders,
and the much-loved, much-blamed Louisbourg Grenadiers. Steady,
indomitable, silent as cats, precise as mathematicians, he could
trust them, as they loved his awkward, pain-twisted body and ugly red
hair. "Damme, Jack, didst ever take hell in tow before?" said a sailor
to his comrades as the marines, some days before, had grappled with a
second flotilla of French fire-ships. "Nay, but I've been in tow of
Jimmy Wolfe's red head; that's hell-fire, lad!" was the reply.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN JAMES COOK
(Piloted Wolfe's Army up the Harbour of Quebec)]
From boat to boat the General's eye passed, then shifted to the
ships--the _Squirrel_, the _Leostaff_, the _Seahorse_, and the
rest--and lastly, to the spot where lay the army of Bougainville. Now
an officer came towards him, who said, quietly, "The tide has turned,
sir." For reply, he made a swift motion towards the _Sutherland's_
maintop shrouds, and almost instantly lanterns showed in them. In
response, the crowded boats began to cast away. Immediately descending
the General passed into his boat, drew to the front, and drifted in
the current ahead of his gallant forces.
It was two hours after midnight when the boats began to move, and
slowly they ranged down the stream, silently steered and carried by
the ebbing tide. No paddle, no creaking oarlock broke the stillness;
but ever and anon the booming of a thirty-two pounder from the Point
Lévi battery echoed up the river walls.
To a young midshipman beside him, the General turned and said, "How
old are you, sir?"
"Seventeen, sir," was the reply.
"It is the most lasting passion," he said, musing. Then, after a few
moments' silence, he repeated aloud these verses from Gray's _Elegy_--
"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea;
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
* * * * *
"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour--
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
"Gentlemen," he said, "I would rather have written those lines than
take Quebec."
Meanwhile, the tide had swept the foremost boats round the headland
above the _Anse du Foulon_,[30] a tiny bay where Wolfe had determined
to land. Suddenly, down from the dark heights there came a challenge:
"_Qui vive?_"
"_La France_," answered an officer of Fraser's Highlanders, who had
learned French in Flanders.
"_À quel Régiment?_"
"_De la Reine_," responded the Highlander; and to disarm suspicion he
added, "_Ne faites pas de bruit, ce sont les vivres._" From a
deserter, the English had learned that a convoy of provisions was
expected down the river that night; and the officer's response
deceived the sentry.
[Note 30: Now known as Wolfe's Cove.]
The boats of the Light Infantry swung in to the shore. The twenty-four
volunteers, who had been given the hazardous task of scaling the cliff
and overpowering Vergor's guard at the top of the path, now commenced
the ascent. On the strand below, the van of Wolfe's army breathlessly
waited the signal to dash up the cliff to support their daring scouts.
Presently quick ringing shots told the anxious General that his men
had begun their work, and in a few moments a thin British cheer
claimed possession of the rocky pathway up which Wolfe's battalions
now swarmed in the misty grey of early morning.
While this army climbed up the steep way to the Heights of Abraham,
Admiral Saunders was bombarding Montcalm's intrenchments, and boats
filled with marines and soldiers made a feint of landing on the
Beauport flats, while shots, bombs, shells, and carcasses burst from
Point Lévi upon the town. At last, however, the French General grew
suspicious of the naval manoeuvres, and in great agitation he rode
towards the city. It was six in the morning as he galloped up the
slope of the St. Charles, and in utter amazement gazed upon the
scarlet ranks of Britain spread across the plain between himself and
Bougainville, and nearer to him, on the crest, the white-coated
battalion of Guienne which, the day before, he had ordered to occupy
the very heights where Wolfe now stood.
Montcalm summoned his army from the trenches at Beauport. In hot haste
they crossed the St. Charles, passed under the northern rampart of the
city, and in another hour the gates of St. Jean and St. Louis had
emptied out upon the battlefield a flood of defenders. It was a
gallant sight. The white uniforms of the brave regiments of the
line--Royal Roussillon, La Sarre, Guienne, Languedoc, Béarn--mixed
with the dark, excitable militia, the sturdy burghers of the town, a
band of _coureurs de bois_ in their picturesque hunters' costume, and
whooping Indians, painted and raging for battle. Bougainville had not
yet arrived from Cap Rouge, and for some mysterious reason Vaudreuil
lagged behind at Beauport. Nevertheless, Montcalm determined to attack
the English before they had time to intrench themselves. As for Wolfe,
he desired nothing better, for while the two forces were numerically
not unequal, yet every man among the invaders could be depended upon,
while even Montcalm had yet to test fully the undisciplined valour of
his Canadian militia.
[Illustration: _Admiral Earl St. Vincent_
_from a portrait by Hoppner_.]
Outside the city gates, the French at first took up their position on
a rising ground in three divisions, having an irregular surface
towards the St. Lawrence on their left, and extending across the
St. Louis and Ste. Foye roads towards the St. Charles on their right.
Indian and Canadian marksmen were posted among the trees and bushes
which skirted the plains. Montcalm himself took command of the centre,
at the head of the regiment of Languedoc, supported by the battalion
of Béarn. M. de Sénézergues led the left wing, composed of the
regiments of Guienne and Royal Roussillon, supported by the militia of
Three Rivers. The right, under M. de Saint-Ours, consisted of the
battalion of La Sarre and the militia of Quebec and Montreal.
Wolfe had first drawn up his army with its front towards the St. Louis
road, and its right towards the city, but afterwards he altered his
position. Confronting the French formation Brigadier Townshend, with
Amherst's and the Light Infantry, and Colonel Burton, with a battalion
of the Royal Americans, made up the British left, holding a position
near the Ste. Foye road, to meet the advance of Bougainville from the
west. The centre, under Murray, was composed of Lascelles',
Anstruther's, and Fraser's Highlanders; while Monckton commanded the
right, which included Bragg's, Otway's, Kennedy's, and the Louisbourg
Grenadiers, at whose head, after he had passed along the line, Wolfe
placed himself for the charge.
At eight o'clock the French sharpshooters opened fire upon the
British left, and skirmishers were thrown out to hold them in check,
or drive them from the houses where they sheltered themselves and
galled Townshend's men. Three field-pieces, brought from the city,
opened on the British brigades with roundshot and canister. The
invaders, however, made no return, and were ordered to lie down. No
restlessness, no anxiety marked those scarlet columns, whose patience
and restraint had been for two months in the crucible of a waiting
game. There was no man in all Wolfe's army but knew that final victory
or ruin hung upon the issue of that 13th of September.
From bushes, trees, coverts, and fields of grain came a ceaseless hail
of fire, and there fell upon the ranks a doggedness, a quiet anger,
which settled into grisly patience. These men had seen the stars go
down, the cold mottled light of dawn break over the battered city and
the heights of Charlesbourg; they had watched the sun come up, and
then steal away behind slow-travelling clouds and hanging mist; they
had looked over the unreaped cornfields, and the dull slovenly St.
Charles, knowing full well that endless leagues of country, north and
south, east and west, now lay for the last time in the balance. The
rocky precipice of the St. Lawrence cut off all possibility of
retreat, and their only help was in themselves. Yet no one faltered.
At ten o'clock Montcalm's three columns moved forward briskly, making
a wild rattle--two columns moving towards the left and one towards the
right, firing obliquely and constantly as they advanced. Then came
Wolfe's command to rise, and his army stood up and waited, their
muskets loaded with an extra ball. Suppressed rage filled the ranks as
they stood there and took that damnable fire without being able to
return a shot. Minute after minute passed. Then came the sharp command
to advance. Again the line was halted, and still the withering
discharge of musketry fell upon the long silent palisade of red.
At last, when the French were within forty yards, Wolfe raised his
sword, a command rang down the long line of battle, and with a crash
as of one terrible cannon-shot, the British muskets sang out together.
After the smoke had cleared a little, another volley followed with
almost the same precision. A light breeze lifted the smoke and mist,
and a wayward sunlight showed Montcalm's army retreating like a long
white wave from a rocky shore.
Thus checked and confounded, the French army trembled and fell back in
broken order. Then, with the order to charge, an exultant British
cheer arose, the skirling challenge of the bagpipes and the wild
slogan of the Highlanders sounding high over all. Like sickles of
death, the flashing broadswords of the clansmen clove through and
broke the battalions of La Sarre, and the bayonets of the
Forty-Seventh scattered the soldiers of Languedoc into flying
companies.
Early in the action Wolfe had been hit in the wrist by a bullet, but
he concealed this wound with his handkerchief. A few minutes later,
however, as he pressed forward, sword in hand, at the head of the
charging Louisbourg Grenadiers, a musket ball struck him in the
breast. They bore him, mortally wounded, to the rear.
"It's all over with me," he murmured. The mist of death was already
gathering in his eyes.
"They run; see how they run!" exclaimed Lieutenant Brown of the
Grenadiers, who supported him. "Who run?" demanded the General like
one roused from sleep. "The enemy, sir," responded the subaltern. "Go,
one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned Wolfe, with an earnestness
that detained the spirit in his almost lifeless body; "tell him to
march Webb's regiment down to the St. Charles to cut off their retreat
from the bridge."
Then, overcome at last, he turned on his side and whispered, "Now, God
be praised, I will die in peace!"