BELEAGUERMENT
1775-1776
When Carleton finally turned at bay within the walls of
Quebec the British flag waved over less than a single
one out of the more than a million square miles that had
so recently been included within the boundaries of Canada.
The landward walls cut off the last half-mile of the
tilted promontory which rises three hundred feet above
the St Lawrence but only one hundred above the valley of
the St Charles. This promontory is just a thousand yards
wide where the landward walls run across it, and not much
wider across the world-famous Heights and Plains of
Abraham, which then covered the first two miles beyond.
The whole position makes one of Nature's strongholds when
the enemy can be kept at arm's length. But Carleton had
no men to spare for more than the actual walls and the
narrow little strip of the Lower Town between the base
of the cliff and the St Lawrence. So the enemy closed in
along the Heights' and among the suburbs, besides occupying
any point of vantage they chose across the St Lawrence
or St Charles.
The walls were by no means fit to stand a siege, a fact
which Carleton had frequently reported. But, as the
Americans had neither the men nor the material for a
regular siege, they were obliged to confine themselves
to a mere beleaguerment, with the chance of taking Quebec
by assault. One of Carleton's first acts was to proclaim
that every able-bodied man refusing to bear arms was to
leave the town within four days. But, though this had
the desired effect of clearing out nearly all the dangerous
rebels, the Americans still believed they had enough
sympathizers inside to turn the scale of victory if they
could only manage to take the Lower Town, with all its
commercial property and shipping, or gain a footing
anywhere within the walls.
There were five thousand souls left in Quebec, which was
well provisioned for the winter. The women, children,
and men unfit to bear arms numbered three thousand. The
'exempts' amounted to a hundred and eighty. As there was
a growing suspicion about many of these last, Carleton
paraded them for medical examination at the beginning of
March, when, a good deal more than half were found quite
fit for duty. These men had been malingering all winter
in order to skulk out of danger; so he treated them with
extreme leniency in only putting them on duty as a 'company
of Invalids.' But the slur stuck fast. The only other
exceptions to the general efficiency were a very few
instances of cowardice and many more of slackness. The
militia order-books have repeated entries about men who
turned up late for even important duties as well as about
others whose authorized substitutes were no better than
themselves. But it should be remembered that, as a whole,
the garrison did exceedingly good service and that all
the malingerers and serious delinquents together did not
amount to more than a tenth of its total, which is a
small proportion for such a mixed body.
The effective strength at the beginning of the siege was
eighteen hundred of all ranks. Only one hundred of these
belonged to the regular British garrison in Canada--a
few staff-officers, twenty-two men of the Royal Artillery,
and seventy men of the 7th Royal Fusiliers, a regiment
which was to be commanded in Quebec sixteen years later
by Queen Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent. The Fusiliers
and two hundred and thirty 'Royal Emigrants' were formed
into a little battalion under Colonel Maclean, a first-rate
officer and Carleton's right-hand man in action. 'His
Majesty's Royal Highland Regiment of Emigrants,' which
subsequently became the 84th Foot, now known as the 2nd
York and Lancaster, was hastily raised in 1775 from the
Highland veterans who had settled in the American colonies
after the Peace of 1763. Maclean's two hundred and thirty
were the first men he could get together in time to reach
Quebec. The only other professional fighters were four
hundred blue-jackets and thirty-five marines of H.M.SS.
_Lizard_ and _Hunter_, who were formed into a naval
battalion under their own officers, Captains Hamilton
and McKenzie, Hamilton being made a lieutenant-colonel
and McKenzie a major while doing duty ashore. Fifty
masters and mates of trading vessels were enrolled in
the same battalion. The whole of the shipping was laid
up for the winter in the Cul de Sac, which alone made
the Lower Town a prize worth taking. The 'British Militia'
mustered three hundred and thirty, the 'Canadian Militia'
five hundred and forty-three. These two corps included
practically all the official and business classes in
Quebec and formed nearly half the total combatants. Some
of them took no pay and were not bound to service beyond
the neighbourhood of Quebec, thus being very much like
the Home Guards raised all over Canada and the rest of
the Empire during the Great World War of 1914. All the
militia wore dark green coats with buff waistcoats and
breeches. The total of eighteen hundred was completed by
a hundred and twenty 'artificers,' that is, men who would
now belong to the Engineers, Ordnance, and Army Service
Corps. As the composition of this garrison has been so
often misrepresented, it may be as well to state distinctly
that the past or present regulars of all kinds, soldiers
and sailors together, numbered eight hundred and the
militia and other non-regulars a thousand. The French
Canadians, very few of whom were or had been regulars,
formed less than a third of the whole.
Montgomery and Arnold had about the same total number of
men. Sometimes there were more, sometimes less. But what
made the real difference, and what really turned the
scale, was that the Americans had hardly any regulars
and that their effectives rarely averaged three-quarters
of their total strength. The balance was also against
them in the matter of armament. For, though Morgan's
Virginians had many more rifles than were to be found
among the British, the Americans in general were not so
well off for bayonets and not so well able to use those
they had; while the artillery odds were still more against
them. Carleton's artillery was not of the best. But it
was better than that of the Americans. He decidedly
overmatched them in the combined strength of all kinds
of ordnance--cannons, carronades, howitzers, mortars,
and swivels. Cannons and howitzers fired shot and shell
at any range up to the limit then reached, between two
and three miles. Carronades were on the principle of a
gigantic shotgun, firing masses of bullets with great
effect at very short ranges--less than that of a long
musket-shot, then reckoned at two hundred yards. The
biggest mortars threw 13-inch 224-lb shells to a great
distance. But their main use was for high-angle fire,
such as that from the suburb of St Roch under the walls
of Quebec. Swivels were the smallest kind of ordnance,
firing one-, two-, or three-pound balls at short or medium
ranges. They were used at convenient points to stop
rushes, much like modern machine-guns.
Thanks chiefly to Cramahe, the defences were not nearly
so 'ruinous' as Arnold at first had thought them. The
walls, however useless against the best siege artillery,
were formidable enough against irregular troops and
makeshift batteries; while the warehouses and shipping
in the Lower Town were protected by two stockades, one
straight under Cape Diamond, the other at the corner
where the Lower Town turns into the valley of the St
Charles. The first was called the Pres-de-Ville, the
second the Sault-au-Matelot. The shipping was open to
bombardment from the Levis shore. But the Americans had
no guns to spare for this till April.
Montgomery's advance was greatly aided by the little
flotilla which Easton had captured at Sorel. Montgomery
met Arnold at Pointe-aux-Trembles, twenty miles above
Quebec, on the 2nd of December and supplied his little
half-clad force with the British uniforms taken at St
Johns and Chambly. He was greatly pleased with the
magnificent physique of Arnold's men, the fittest of an
originally well-picked lot. He still had some 'pusillanimous
wretches' among his own New Yorkers, who resented the
air of superiority affected by Arnold's New Englanders
and Morgan's Virginians. He felt a well-deserved confidence
in Livingston and some of the English-speaking Canadian
'patriots' whom Livingston had brought into his camp
before St Johns in September. But he began to feel more
and more doubtful about the French Canadians, most of
whom began to feel more and more doubtful about themselves.
On the 6th he arrived before Quebec and took up his
quarters in Holland House, two miles beyond the walls,
at the far end of the Plains of Abraham. The same day he
sent Carleton the following summons:
SIR;--Notwithstanding the personal ill-treatment I
have received at your hands--notwithstanding your
cruelty to the unhappy Prisoners you have taken, the
feelings of humanity induce me to have recourse to
this expedient to save you from the Destruction which
hangs over you. Give me leave, Sir, to assure you that
I am well acquainted with your situation. A great
extent of works, in their nature incapable of defence,
manned with a motley crew of sailors, the greatest
part our friends; of citizens, who wish to see us
within their walls, & a few of the worst troops who
ever stiled themselves Soldiers. The impossibility of
relief, and the certain prospect of wanting every
necessary of life, should your opponents confine their
operations to a simple Blockade, point out the absurdity
of resistance. Such is your situation! I am at the
head of troops accustomed to Success, confident of
the righteousness of the cause they are engaged in,
inured to danger, & so highly incensed at your
inhumanity, illiberal abuse, and the ungenerous means
employed to prejudice them in the mind of the Canadians
that it is with difficulty I restrain them till my
Batteries are ready from assaulting your works, which
afford them a fair opportunity of ample vengeance and
just retaliation. Firing upon a flag of truce, hitherto
unprecedented, even among savages, prevents my taking
the ordinary mode of communicating my sentiments.
However, I will at any rate acquit my conscience.
Should you persist in an unwarrantable defence, the
consequences be upon your own head. Beware of destroying
stores of any kind, Publick or Private, as you have
done at Montreal and in Three Rivers--If you do, by
Heaven, there will be no mercy shown.
Though Montgomery wrote bunkum like the common politician
of that and many a later age, he was really a brave
soldier. What galled him into fury was 'grave Carleton's'
quiet refusal to recognize either him or any other rebel
commander as the accredited leader of a hostile army. It
certainly must have been exasperating for the general of
the Continental Congress to be reduced to such expedients
as tying a grandiloquent ultimatum to an arrow and shooting
it into the beleaguered town. The charge of firing on
flags of truce was another instance of 'talking for
Buncombe.' Carleton never fired on any white flag. But
he always sent the same answer: that he could hold no
communication with any rebels unless they came to implore
the king's pardon. This, of course, was an aggravation
of his offensive calmness in the face of so much
revolutionary rage. To individual rebels of all sorts he
was, if anything, over-indulgent. He would not burn the
suburbs of Quebec till the enemy forced him to it, though
many of the houses that gave the Americans the best cover
belonged to rebel Canadians. He went out of his way to
be kind to all prisoners, especially if sick or wounded.
And it was entirely owing to his restraining influence
that the friendly Indians had not raided the border
settlements of New England during the summer. Nor was he
animated only by the very natural desire of bringing back
rebellious subjects to what he thought their true
allegiance, as his subsequent actions amply proved. He
simply acted with the calm dignity and impartial justice
which his position required.
Three days before Christmas the bombardment began in
earnest. The non-combatants soon found, to their equal
amazement and delight, that a good many shells did very
little damage if fired about at random. But news intended
to make their flesh creep came in at the same time, and
probably had more effect than the shells on the weak-kneed
members of the community. Seven hundred scaling-ladders,
no quarter if Carleton persisted in holding out, and a
prophecy attributed to Montgomery that he would eat his
Christmas dinner either in Quebec or in Hell--these were
some of the blood-curdling items that came in by petticoat
or arrow post. One of the most active purveyors of all
this bombast was Jerry Duggan, a Canadian 'patriot' barber
now become a Continental major.
But there was a serious side. Deserters and prisoners,
as well as British adherents who had escaped, all began
to tell the same tale, though with many variations.
Montgomery was evidently bent on storming the walls the
first dark night. His own orders showed it.
HEAD QUARTERS, HOLLAND HOUSE.
Near Quebec, 15th Decr. 1755.
The General having in vain offered the most favourable
terms of accommodation to the Governor of Quebec, &
having taken every possible step to prevail on the
inhabitants to desist from seconding him in his wild
scheme of defending the Town--for the speedy reduction
of the only hold possessed by the Ministerial Troops
in this Province--The soldiers, flushed with continual
success, confident of the justice of their cause, &
relying on that Providence which has uniformly protected
them, will advance with alacrity to the attack of
works incapable of being defended by the wretched
Garrison posted behind them, consisting of Sailors
unacquainted with the use of arms, of Citizens incapable
of Soldiers' duty, & of a few miserable Emigrants.
The General is confident that a vigorous & spirited
attack must be attended with success. The Troops shall
have the effects of the Governor, Garrison, & of such
as have been active in misleading the Inhabitants &
distressing the friends of liberty, equally divided
among them, except the 100th share out of the whole,
which shall be at the disposal of the General to be
given to such soldiers as distinguished themselves by
their activity & bravery, to be sold at public auction:
the whole to be conducted as soon as the City is in
our hands and the inhabitants disarmed.
It was a week after these orders had been written before
the first positive news of the threatened assault was
brought into town by an escaped British prisoner who,
strangely enough, bore the name of Wolfe. Wolfe's escape
naturally caused a postponement of Montgomery's design
and a further council of war. Unlike most councils of
war this one was full of fight. Three feints were to be
made at different points while the real attack was to be
driven home at Cape Diamond. But just after this decision
had been reached two rebel Montrealers came down and, in
another debate, carried the day for another plan. These
men, Antell and Price, were really responsible for the
final plan, which, like its predecessor, did not meet
with Montgomery's approval. Montgomery wanted to make a
breach before trying the walls. But he was no more than
the chairman of a committee; and this egregious committee
first decided to storm the unbroken walls and then changed
to an attack on the Lower Town only. Antell was Montgomery's
engineer. Price was a red-hot agitator. Both were better
at politics than soldiering. Their argument was that if
the Lower Town could be taken the Quebec militia would
force Carleton to surrender in order to save the warehouses,
shipping, and other valuable property along the waterfront,
and that even if Carleton held out in debate he would
soon be brought to his knees by the Americans, who would
march through the gates, which were to be opened by the
'patriots' inside.
Another week passed; and Montgomery had not eaten his
Christmas dinner either in Quebec or in the other place.
But both sides knew the crisis must be fast approaching;
for the New Yorkers had sworn that they would not stay
a minute later than the end of the year, when their term
of enlistment was up. Thus every day that passed made an
immediate assault more likely, as Montgomery had to strike
before his own men left him. Yet New Year's Eve itself
began without the sign of an alarm.
Carleton had been sleeping in his clothes at the Recollets',
night after night, so that he might be first on parade
at the general rendezvous on the Place d'Armes, which
stood near the top of Mountain Hill, the only road between
the Upper and the Lower Town. Officers and men off duty
had been following his example; and every one was ready
to turn out at a moment's notice.
A north-easterly snowstorm was blowing furiously, straight
up the St Lawrence, making Quebec a partly seen blur to
the nearest American patrols and the Heights of Abraham
a wild sea of whirling drifts to the nearest British
sentries. One o'clock passed, and nothing stirred. But
when two o'clock struck at Holland House Montgomery rose
and began to put the council's plan in operation. The
Lower Town was to be attacked at both ends. The
Pres-de-Ville barricade was to be carried by Montgomery
and the Sault-au-Matelot by Arnold, while Livingston was
to distract Carleton's attention as much as possible by
making a feint against the landward walls, where the
British still expected the real attack. Livingston's
Canadian fighting 'patriots' waded through the drifts,
against the storm, across the Plains, and took post close
in on the far side of Cape Diamond, only eighty yards
from the same walls that were to have been stormed some
days before. Jerry Duggan's parasitic Canadian 'patriots'
took post in the suburb of St John and thence round to
Palace Gate. Montgomery led his own column straight to
Wolfe's Cove, whence he marched in along the narrow path
between the cliff and the St Lawrence till he reached
the spot at the foot of Cape Diamond just under the right
of Livingston's line. Arnold, whose quarters were in the
valley of the St Charles, took post in St Roch, with a
mortar battery to fire against the walls and a column of
men to storm the Sault-au-Matelot. Livingston's and Jerry
Duggan's whole command numbered about four hundred men,
Montgomery's five hundred, Arnold's six. The opposing
totals were fifteen hundred Americans against seventeen
hundred British. There was considerable risk of confusion
between friend and foe, as most of the Americans, especially
Arnold's men, wore captured British uniforms with nothing
to distinguish them but odds and ends of their former
kits and a sort of paper hatband bearing the inscription
_Liberty or Death_.
A little after four the sentries on the walls at Cape
Diamond saw lights flashing about in front of them and
were just going to call the guard when Captain Malcolm
Fraser of the Royal Emigrants came by on his rounds and
saw other lights being set out in regular order like
lamps in a street. He instantly turned out the guards
and pickets. The drums beat to arms. Every church bell
in the city pealed forth its alarm into that wild night.
The bugles blew. The men off duty swarmed on to the Place
d'Armes, where Carleton, calm and intrepid as ever, took
post with the general reserve and waited. There was
nothing for him to do just yet. Everything that could
have been foreseen had already been amply provided for;
and in his quiet confidence his followers found their
own.
Towards five o'clock two green rockets shot up from
Montgomery's position beside the Anse des Meres under
Cape Diamond. This was the signal for attack. Montgomery's
column immediately struggled on again along the path
leading round the foot of the Cape towards the Pres-de-Ville
barricade. Livingston's serious 'patriots' on the top of
the Cape changed their dropping shots into a hot fire
against the walls; while Jerry Duggan's little mob of
would-be looters shouted and blazed away from safer cover
in the suburbs of St John and St Roch. Arnold's mortars
pitched shells all over the town; while his storming-party
advanced towards the Sault-au-Matelot barricade. Carleton,
naturally anxious about the landward walls, sent some of
the British militia to reinforce the men at Cape Diamond,
which, as he knew, Montgomery considered the best point
of attack. The walls lower down did not seem to be in
any danger from Jerry Duggan's 'patriots,' whose noisy
demonstration was at once understood to be nothing but
an empty feint. The walls facing the St Charles were well
manned and well gunned by the naval battalion. Those
facing the St Lawrence, though weak in themselves, were
practically impregnable, as the cliffs could not be scaled
by any formed body. The Lower Town, however, was by no
means so safe, in spite of its two barricades. The general
uproar was now so great that Carleton could not distinguish
the firing there from what was going on elsewhere. But
it was at these two points that the real attack was
rapidly developing.
The first decisive action took place at Pres-de-Ville.
The guard there consisted of fifty men--John Coffin, who
was a merchant of Quebec, Sergeant Hugh McQuarters of
the Royal Artillery, Captain Barnsfair, a merchant skipper,
with fifteen mates and skippers like himself, and thirty
French Canadians under Captain Chabot and Lieutenant
Picard. These fifty men had to guard a front of only as
many feet. On their right Cape Diamond rose almost sheer.
On their left raged the stormy St Lawrence. They had a
tiny block-house next to the cliff and four small guns
on the barricade, all double-charged with canister and
grape. They had heard the dropping shots on the top of
the Cape for nearly an hour and had been quick to notice
the change to a regular hot fire. But they had no idea
whether their own post was to be attacked or not till
they suddenly saw the head of Montgomery's column halting
within fifty paces of them. A man came forward cautiously
and looked at the barricade. The storm was in his face.
The defences were wreathed in whirling snow. And the men
inside kept silent as the grave. When he went back a
little group stood for a couple of minutes in hurried
consultation. Then Montgomery waved his sword, called
out 'Come on, brave boys, Quebec is ours!' and led the
charge. The defenders let the Americans get about half-way
before Barnsfair shouted 'Fire!' Then the guns and muskets
volleyed together, cutting down the whole front of the
densely massed column. Montgomery, his two staff-officers,
and his ten leading men were instantly killed. Some more
farther back were wounded. And just as the fifty British
fired their second round the rest of the five hundred
Americans turned and ran in wild confusion.
A few minutes later a man whose identity was never
established came running from the Lower Town to say that
Arnold's men had taken the Sault-au-Matelot barricade.
If this was true it meant that the Pres-de-Ville fifty
would be caught between two fires. Some of them made as
if to run back and reach Mountain Hill before the Americans
could cut them off. But Coffin at once threatened to kill
the first man to move; and by the time an artillery
officer had arrived with reinforcements perfect order
had been restored. This officer, finding he was not wanted
there, sent back to know where else he was to go, and
received an answer telling him to hurry to the
Sault-au-Matelot. When he arrived there, less than half
a mile off, he found that desperate street fighting had
been going on for over an hour.
Arnold's advance had begun at the same time as Livingston's
demonstration and Montgomery's attack. But his task was
very different and the time required much longer. There
were three obstacles to be overcome. First, his men had
to run the gauntlet of the fire from the bluejackets
ranged along the Grand Battery, which faced the St Charles
at its mouth and overlooked the narrow little street of
Sous-le-Cap at a height of fifty or sixty feet. Then they
had to take the small advanced barricade, which stood a
hundred yards on the St Charles side of the actual
Sault-au-Matelot or Sailor's Leap, which is the
north-easterly point of the Quebec promontory and nearly
a hundred feet high. Finally, they had to round this
point and attack the regular Sault-au-Matelot barricade.
This second barricade was about a hundred yards long,
from the rock to the river. It crossed Sault-au-Matelot
Street and St Peter Street, which were the same then as
now. But it ended on a wharf half-way down the modern St
James Street, as the outer half of this street was then
a natural strand completely covered at high tide. It was
much closer than the Pres-de-Ville barricade was to
Mountain Hill, at the top of which Carleton held his
general reserve ready in the Place d'Armes; and it was
fairly strong in material and armament. But it was at
first defended by only a hundred men.
The American forlorn hope, under Captain Oswald, got past
most of the Grand Battery unscathed. But by the time the
main body was following under Morgan the British
blue-jackets were firing down from the walls at less than
point-blank range. The driving snow, the clumps of bushes
on the cliff, and the little houses in the street below
all gave the Americans some welcome cover. But many of
them were hit; while the gun they were towing through
the drifts on a sleigh stuck fast and had to be abandoned.
Captain Dearborn, the future commander-in-chief of the
American army in the War of 1812, noted in his diary that
he 'met the wounded men very thick' as he was bringing
up the rear. When the forlorn hope reached the advanced
barricade Arnold halted it till the supports had come
up. The loss of the gun and the worrying his main body
was receiving from the sailors along the Grand Battery
spoilt his original plan of smashing in the barricade by
shell fire while Morgan circled round its outer flank on
the ice of the tidal flats and took it in rear. So he
decided on a frontal attack. When he thought he had a
fair chance he stepped to the front and shouted, 'Now,
boys, all together, rush!' But before he could climb the
barricade he was shot through the leg. For some time he
propped himself up against a house and, leaning on his
rifle, continued encouraging his men, who were soon firing
through the port-holes as well as over the top. But
presently growing faint from loss of blood he had to be
carried off the field to the General Hospital on the
banks of the St Charles.
The men now called out for a lead from Morgan, who climbed
a ladder, leaped the top, and fell under a gun inside.
In another minute the whole forlorn hope had followed
him, while the main body came close behind. The guard,
not strong in numbers and weak in being composed of young
militiamen, gave way but kept on firing. 'Down with your
arms if you want quarter!' yelled Morgan, whose men were
in overwhelming strength; and the guard surrendered. A
little way beyond, just under the bluff of the
Sault-au-Matelot, the British supports, many of whom were
Seminary students, also surrendered to Morgan, who at
once pressed on, round the corner of the Sault-au-Matelot,
and halted in sight of the second or regular barricade.
What was to be done now? Where was Montgomery? How strong
was the barricade; and had it been reinforced? It could
not be turned because the cliff rose sheer on one flank
while the icy St Lawrence lashed the other. Had Morgan
known that there were only a hundred men behind it when
he attacked its advanced barricade he might have pressed
on at all costs and carried it by assault. But it looked
strong, there were guns on its platforms, and it ran
across two streets. His hurried council of war over-ruled
him, as Montgomery's council had over-ruled the original
plan of storming the walls; and so his men began a
desultory fight in the streets and from the houses.
This was fatal to American success. The original British
hundred were rapidly reinforced. The artillery officer
who had found that he was not needed at the Pres-de-Ville
after Montgomery's defeat, and who had hurried across
the intervening half-mile, now occupied the corner houses,
enlarged the embrasures, and trained his guns on the
houses occupied by the enemy. Detachments of Fusiliers
and Royal Emigrants also arrived, as did the thirty-five
masters and mates of merchant vessels who were not on
guard with Barnsfair at the Pres-de-Ville. Thus, what
with soldiers, sailors, and militiamen of both races,
the main Sault-au-Matelot barricade was made secure
against being rushed like the outer one. But there was
plenty of fighting, with some confusion at close quarters
caused by the British uniforms which both sides were
wearing. A Herculean sailor seized the first ladder the
Americans set against the barricade, hauled it up, and
set it against the window of a house out of the far end
of which the enemy were firing. Major Nairne and Lieutenant
Dambourges of the Royal Emigrants at once climbed in at
the head of a storming-party and wild work followed with
the bayonet. All the Americans inside were either killed
or captured. Meanwhile a vigorous British nine-pounder
had been turned on another house they occupied. This
house was likewise battered in, so that its surviving
occupants had to run into the street, where they were
well plied with musketry by the regulars and militiamen.
The chance for a sortie then seeming favourable, Lieutenant
Anderson of the Navy headed his thirty-five merchant
mates and skippers in a rush along Sault-au-Matelot
Street. But his effort was premature. Morgan shot him
dead, and Morgan's Virginians drove the seamen back inside
the barricade.
Carleton had of course kept in perfect touch with every
phase of the attack and defence; and now, fearing no
surprise against the walls in the growing daylight, had
decided on taking Arnold's men in rear. To do this he
sent Captain Lawes of the Royal Engineers and Captain
McDougall of the Royal Emigrants with a hundred and twenty
men out through Palace Gate. This detachment had hardly
reached the advanced barricade before they fell in with
the enemy's rearguard, which they took by complete surprise
and captured to a man. Leaving McDougall to secure these
prisoners before following on, Lawes pushed eagerly
forward, round the corner of the Sault-au-Matelot cliff,
and, running in among the Americans facing the main
barricade, called out, 'You are all my prisoners!' 'No,
we're not; you're ours!' they answered. 'No, no,' replied
Lawes, as coolly as if on parade 'don't mistake yourselves,
I vow to God you're mine!' 'But where are your men?'
asked the astonished Americans; and then Lawes suddenly
found that he was utterly alone! The roar of the storm
and the work of securing the prisoners on the far side
of the advanced barricade had prevented the men who should
have followed him from understanding that only a few were
needed with McDougall. But Lawes put a bold face on it
and answered, 'O, Ho, make yourselves easy! My men are
all round here and they'll be with you in a twinkling.'
He was then seized and disarmed. Some of the Americans
called out, 'Kill him! Kill him!' But a Major Meigs
protected him. The whole parley had lasted about ten
minutes when McDougall came running up with the missing
men, released Lawes, and made prisoners of the nearest
Americans. Lawes at once stepped forward and called on the
rest to surrender. Morgan was for cutting his way through.
A few men ran round by the wharf and escaped on the tidal
flats of the St Charles. But, after a hurried consultation,
the main body, including Morgan, laid down their arms. This
was decisive. The British had won the fight.
The complete British loss in killed and wounded was
wonderfully small, only thirty, just one-tenth of the
corresponding American loss, which was large out of all
proportion. Nearly half of the fifteen hundred Americans
had gone--over four hundred prisoners and about three
hundred killed and wounded. Nor were the mere numbers
the most telling point about it; for the worse half
escaped--Livingston's Montreal 'patriots,' many of whom
had done very little fighting, Montgomery's time-expired
New Yorkers, most of whom wanted to go home, and Jerry
Duggan's miscellaneous rabble, all of whom wanted a
maximum of plunder with a minimum of war.
The British victory was as nearly perfect as could have
been desired. It marked the turn of the tide in a desperate
campaign which might have resulted in the total loss of
Canada. And it was of the greatest significance and
happiest augury because all the racial elements of this
new and vast domain had here united for the first time
in defence of that which was to be their common heritage.
In Carleton's little garrison of regulars and militia,
of bluejackets, marines, and merchant seamen, there were
Frenchmen and French Canadians, there were Englishmen,
Irishmen, Scotsmen, Welshmen, Orcadians, and Channel
Islanders, there were a few Newfoundlanders, and there
mere a good many of those steadfast Royal Emigrants who
may be fitly called the forerunners of the United Empire
Loyalists. Yet, in spite of this remarkable significance,
no public memorial of Carleton has ever been set up; and
it was only in the twentieth century that the Dominion
first thought of commemorating his most pregnant victory
by placing tablets to mark the sites of the two famous
barricades.
As soon as things had quieted down within the walls
Carleton sent out search-parties to bring in the dead
for decent burial and to see if any of the wounded had
been overlooked. James Thompson, the assistant engineer,
saw a frozen hand protruding from a snowdrift at
Pres-de-Ville. It was Montgomery's. The thirteen bodies
were dug out and Thompson was ordered to have a 'genteel
coffin made for Mr Montgomery,' who was buried in the
wall just above St Louis Gate by the Anglican chaplain.
Thompson kept Montgomery's sword, which was given to the
Livingston family more than a century later.
The beleaguerment continued, in a half-hearted way, till
the spring. The Americans received various small
reinforcements, which eventually brought their total up
to what it had been under Montgomery's command. But there
were no more assaults. Arnold grew dissatisfied and
finally went to Montreal; while Wooster, the new general,
who arrived on the 1st of April, was himself succeeded
by Thomas, an ex-apothecary, on the 1st of May. The suburb
of St Roch was burnt down after the victory; so the
American snipers were bereft of some very favourite cover,
and this, with other causes, kept the bulk of the besiegers
at an ineffective distance from the walls.
The British garrison had certain little troubles of its
own; for discipline always tends to become irksome after
a great effort. Carleton was obliged to stop the retailing
of spirits for fear the slacker men would be getting out
of hand. The guards and duties were made as easy as
possible, especially for the militia. But the 'snow-shovel
parade' was an imperative necessity. The winter was very
stormy, and the drifts would have frequently covered the
walls and even the guns if they had not promptly been
dug out. The cold was also unusually severe. One early
morning in January an angry officer was asking a sentry
why he hadn't challenged him, when the sentry said, 'God
bless your Honour! and I'm glad you're come, for I'm
blind!' Then it was found that his eyelids were frozen
fast together.
News came in occasionally from the outside world. There
was intense indignation among the garrison when they
learned that the American commanders in Montreal were
imprisoning every Canadian officer who would not surrender
his commission. Such an unheard-of outrage was worthy of
Walker. But others must have thought of it; for Walker
was now in Philadelphia giving all the evidence he could
against Prescott and other British officers. Bad news
for the rebels was naturally welcomed, especially anything
about their growing failure to raise troops in Canada.
On hearing of Montgomery's defeat the Continental Congress
had passed a resolution, addressed to the 'Inhabitants
of Canada' declaring that 'we will never abandon you to
the unrelenting fury of your and our enemies.' But there
were no trained soldiers to back this up; and the raw
militia, though often filled with zeal and courage, could
do nothing to redress the increasingly adverse balance.
In the middle of March the Americans sent in a summons.
But Carleton refused to receive it; and the garrison put
a wooden horse and a bundle of hay on the walls with a
placard bearing the inscription, 'When this horse has
eaten this bunch of hay we will surrender.' Some excellent
practice made with 13-inch shells sent the Americans
flying from their new battery at Levis; and by the 17th
of March one of the several exultant British diarists,
whose anonymity must have covered an Irish name, was able
to record that 'this, being St Patrick's Day, the Governor,
who is a true Hibernian, has requested the garrison to
put off keeping it till the 17th of May, when he promises,
they shall be enabled to do it properly, and with the
usual solemnities.'
A fortnight later a plot concerted between the American
prisoners and their friends outside was discovered just
in time. With tools supplied by traitors they were to
work their way out of their quarters, overpower the guard
at the nearest gate, set fire to the nearest houses in
three different streets, turn the nearest guns inwards
on the town, and shout 'Liberty for ever!' as an additional
signal to the storming-party that was to be waiting to
confirm their success. Carleton seized the chance of
turning this scheme against the enemy. Three safe bonfires
were set ablaze. The marked guns were turned inwards and
fired at the town with blank charges. And the preconcerted
shout was raised with a will. But the besiegers never stirred.
After this the Old-Countrymen among the prisoners, who had
taken the oath and enlisted in the garrison, were disarmed
and confined, while the rest were more strictly watched.
Two brave attempts were made by French Canadians to reach
Quebec with reinforcements, one headed by a seigneur,
the other by a parish priest. Carleton had sent word to
M. de Beaujeu, seigneur of Crane Island, forty miles
below Quebec, asking him to see if he could cut off the
American detachment on the Levis shore. De Beaujeu raised
three hundred and fifty men. But Arnold sent over
reinforcements. A habitant betrayed his fellow-countrymen's
advance-guard. A dozen French Canadians were then killed
or wounded while forty were taken prisoners; whereupon
the rest dispersed to their homes. The other attempt was
made by Father Bailly, whose little force of about fifty
men was also betrayed. Entrapped in a country-house these
men fought bravely till nearly half their number had been
killed or wounded and the valiant priest had been mortally
hit. They then surrendered to a much stronger force which
had lost more men than they.
This was on the 6th of April, just before Arnold was
leaving in disgust. Wooster made an effort to use his
new artillery to advantage by converging the fire of
three batteries, one close in on the Heights of Abraham,
another from across the mouth of the St Charles, and the
third from Levis. But the combination failed: the batteries
were too light for the work and overmatched by the guns
on the walls, the practice was bad, and the effect was
nil. On the 3rd of May the new general, Thomas, an
enterprising man, tried a fireship, which was meant to
destroy all the shipping in the Cul de Sac. It came on,
under full sail, in a very threatening manner. But the
crew lost their nerve at the critical moment, took to
the boats too soon, and forgot to lash the helm. The
vessel immediately flew up into the wind and, as the
tidal stream was already changing, began to drift away
from the Cul de Sac just when she burst into flame. The
result, as described by an enthusiastic British diarist,
was that 'she affoard'd a very pritty prospect while she
was floating down the River, every now & then sending up
Sky rackets, firing of Cannon or bursting of Shells, &
so continued till She disappear'd in the Channell.'
Three days later, on the 6th of May, when the beleaguerment
had lasted precisely five months, the sound of distant
gunfire came faintly up the St Lawrence with the first
breath of the dawn wind from the east. The sentries
listened to make sure; then called the sergeants of the
guards, who sent word to the officers on duty, who, in
their turn, sent word to Carleton. By this time there
could be no mistake. The breeze was freshening; the sound
was gradually nearing Quebec; and there could hardly be
room for doubting that it came from the vanguard of the
British fleet. The drums beat to arms, the church bells
rang, the news flew round to every household in Quebec;
and before the tops of the _Surprise_ frigate were seen
over the Point of Levy every battery was fully manned,
every battalion was standing ready on the Grand Parade,
and every non-combatant man, woman, and child was lining
the seaward wall. The regulation shot was fired across
her bows as she neared the city; whereupon she fired
three guns to leeward, hoisted the private signal, and
showed the Union Jack. Then, at last, a cheer went up
that told both friend and foe of British victory and
American defeat. By a strange coincidence the parole for
this triumphal day was St George, while the parole
appointed for the victorious New Year's Eve had been St
Denis; so that the patron saints of France and England
happen to be associated with the two great days on which
the stronghold of Canada was saved by land and sea.
The same tide brought in two other men-of-war. Some
soldiers of the 29th, who were on board the _Surprise_,
were immediately landed, together with the marines from
all three vessels. Carleton called for volunteers from
the militia to attack the Americans at once; and nearly
every man, both of the French- and of the English-speaking
corps, stepped forward. There was joy in every heart that
the day for striking back had come at last. The columns
marched gaily through the gates and deployed into line
at the double on the Heights outside. The Americans fired
a few hurried shots and then ran for dear life, leaving
their dinners cooking, and, in some cases, even their
arms behind them. The Plains were covered with flying
enemies and strewn with every sort of impediment to
flight, from a cannon to a loaf of bread. Quebec had been
saved by British sea-power; and, with it, the whole vast
dominion of which it was the key.