[A] Les Ecossais en France, Vol. II., P. 449.
[B] Formerly, inward bound ships, instead of taking the south channel
lower down than Goose Island, struck over from Cape Tourmente, and took
the south channel between Madame Island and Pointe Argentenay.
[C] General Abercrombie's army consisted of 6,000 regular troops and
7,000 provincials, according to the English; but the French gave them
out to be 6,300 troops, and 13,000 provincials--in all 19,300 men.
[D] The French say the English lost between four and five thousand men.
[E] Unfortunately, the plans here alluded to do not accompany the
manuscript.
[F] This contest is generally denominated the Battle of the
Monongahela. Capt. Daniel Liénard de Beaujeu commanded the Canadians,
and achieved a most brilliant victory over General Braddock and George
Washington; the English losing their provisions, baggage, fifteen
cannon, many small arms, the military chest, Braddock's papers.
Washington, after the battle, wrote: "We have been beaten, shamefully
beaten, by a handful of French."--(J. M. L.)
[G] De Vergor's post apparently stood about a 100 yards to the east of
the spot on which Wolfe's Field-cottage has since been built. The ruins
still exist.--(J. M. L.)
[H] De Vergor's guard was composed chiefly of Militiamen from
Lorette, who on that day had obtained leave to go and work on
their farms, provided they also worked on a farm Captain De Vergor
owned.--"_Mémoires sur les Affaires de la Colonie de 1749-60._" Some
historians have intimated that De Vergor--a _protége_ of Bigot's--was a
traitor to his King.--(J. M. L.)
[I] I incline more to General Wolfe's opinion than what Voltaire
reports in the war of 1781, to have been the King of Prussia's
maxim:--"That we ought always to do what the enemy is afraid of." Where
the enemy is afraid of anything in particular, he has there his largest
force, and is there more on his guard than anywhere else.--(MANUSCRIPT
NOTE.)
[J] Bigot's coterie.--(J. M. L.)
[K] It was reported in Canada, that the ball which killed that great,
good and honest man, was not fired by an English musket. But I never
credited this.
[L] Arnoux gave me this account of his last moments.--MANUSCRIPT NOTES.
[M] The place where Montcalm died appears yet shrouded in doubt. It
is stated, in Knox's Journal, that, on being wounded, Montcalm was
conveyed to the General Hospital, towards which the French squadrons
in retreat had to pass to regain, over the bridge of boats, their camp
at Beauport. The General Hospital was also the head-quarters of the
wounded--both English and French. It has been supposed that Arnoux's
house, where Montcalm was conveyed, stood in St. Louis street. No where
does it appear that Montcalm was conveyed to his own residence on the
ramparts (on which now stands the residence of R. H. Wurtele, Esquire).
As the city surrendered five days after the great battle, it was likely
to be bombarded--and, moreover, one-third of the houses in it had been
burnt and destroyed--we do not see why the wounded General should have
been conveyed from the battle-field to the Château St. Louis--certainly
an exposed situation in the event of a new bombardment; and, moreover,
the city itself, after and during the battle, was considered so
insecure that the French army, instead of retreating to it for shelter,
hurried past the General Hospital, over the bridge, to their camp at
Beauport. There is a passage in Lieutenant-Colonel Beatson's Notes
on the Plains of Abraham, which we give:--"The valiant Frenchman
(Montcalm), regardless of pain, relaxed not his efforts to rally his
broken battalions in their hurried retreat towards the city until he
was shot through the loins, when within a few hundred yards of St.
Louis Gate.[N] And so invincible was his fortitude that not even the
severity of this mortal stroke could abate his gallant spirit or alter
his intrepid bearing. Supported by two grenadiers--one at each side of
his horse--he re-entered the city; and in reply to some women who, on
seeing blood flow from his wounds as he rode down St. Louis street, on
his way to the Château, exclaimed: _Oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu! le Marquis
est tuê!!!_ he courteously assured them that he was not seriously hurt,
and begged of them not to distress themselves on his account.--_Ce
n'est rien! ce n'est rien! Ne vous affligez pas pour moi, mes bonnes
amies._"[O]
[N] M. GARNEAU, in his _Histoire du Canada_, says:--"The two
Brigadier-Generals, M. de Semezergues and the Baron de St. Ours, fell
mortally wounded; and MONTCALM (who had already received two wounds),
while exerting himself to the utmost to rally his troops and preserve
order in the retreat, was also mortally wounded in the loins by a
musket-ball. He was at that moment between _Les Buttes-a-Neveu_ and St.
Louis Gate." From the city, on the one side, and from the battle-field,
on the other, the ground rises until the two slopes meet and form
a ridge; the summit of which was formerly occupied by a windmill
belonging to a man named _Neveu_ or _Nepveu_. About midway between this
ridge and St. Louis Gate, and to the southward of the St. Louis Road,
are some slight eminences, still known by the older French residents as
_Les Buttes-a-Nepveu_ or _Neveu's hillocks_, and about three-quarters
of a mile distant from the spot where the British line charged.--R. S.
BEATSON.
[O] For these particulars I am indebted to my friend Mr. G. B.
Faribault--a gentleman well known in Canada for his researches into
the history of the Colony; whose information on this subject was
derived from his much respected fellow-citizen the Hon. John Malcolm
Frazer--grandson of one of WOLFE'S officers, and now (1854) one of the
oldest inhabitants of Quebec; where, in his childhood and youth, he
had the facts, as above narrated, often described to him by an elderly
woman who, when about eighteen years of age, was an eye-witness of the
scene.--R. S. BEATSON.
[P] This bakehouse appears to have been some where at the foot of
Abraham's hill.
[Q] The excavations of these French works are very visible to this
day behind Mr. G. H. Parke's residence, Ringfield, Charlesbourg road.
The hornwork appears to have covered about twelve acres of ground,
surrounded by a ditch.
[R] It crossed the St. Charles a little higher up than the Marine
Hospital, at the foot of Crown street.--(J. M. L.)
[S] A small bridge supported on masonry has since been built at this
spot, exactly across the main road at Brown's mills.--(J. M. L.)
[T] The deliberations of the council of war, called at M. Daine's,
Mayor of Quebec, on the 15th September, 1759, published in de Ramsay's
Memoires, in 1861, by the Literary and Historical Society, have done an
effective, though a tardy, justice to de Ramsay's memory.--(J. M. L.)
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Simple typographical errors were corrected.
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Text contains apparent parenthesized references to a map, but this book
contained no maps, diagrams, or illustrations.
Page 3: "heartily" was misprinted as "heartly".
Page 3: "buried there magnificently" was misprinted as "their".
Page 8: "without trembling." should be punctuated with a question mark.
Page 28: "analize" was printed that way.
Page 30: "radient" was printed that way.
Page 30: "LaRochebeaucourt" is printed as "La Rochebaucourt" on page 59.
Page 50: Footnote M has two footnotes of its own (N and O). In this
eBook, they've been resequenced as normal footnotes.
Page 59: "La Rochebaucourt" is printed as "La Rochebeaucourt" on page
30.