1759
The Heights of Abraham
Wolfe was deeply moved by the disaster at the heights of Montmorenci,
and in a General Order on the next day he rebuked the grenadiers for
their precipitation. "Such impetuous, irregular, and unsoldierlike
proceedings destroy all order, make it impossible for the commanders to
form any disposition for an attack, and put it out of the general's
power to execute his plans. The grenadiers could not suppose that they
could beat the French alone."
The French were elated by their success. "Everybody," says the
commissary Berniers, "thought that the campaign was as good as ended,
gloriously for us." They had been sufficiently confident even before
their victory; and the bearer of a flag of truce told the English
officers that he had never imagined they were such fools as to attack
Quebec with so small a force. Wolfe, on the other hand, had every reason
to despond. At the outset, before he had seen Quebec and learned the
nature of the ground, he had meant to begin the campaign by taking post
on the Plains of Abraham, and thence laying siege to the town; but he
soon discovered that the Plains of Abraham were hardly more within his
reach than was Quebec itself. Such hope as was left him lay in the
composition of Montcalm's army. He respected the French commander, and
thought his disciplined soldiers not unworthy of the British steel; but
he held his militia in high scorn, and could he but face them in the
open field, he never doubted the result. But Montcalm also distrusted
them, and persisted in refusing the coveted battle.
Wolfe, therefore, was forced to the conviction that his chances were of
the smallest. It is said that, despairing of any decisive stroke, he
conceived the idea of fortifying Isle-aux-Coudres, and leaving a part of
his troops there when he sailed for home, against another attempt in the
spring. The more to weaken the enemy and prepare his future conquest, he
began at the same time a course of action which for his credit one would
gladly wipe from the record; for, though far from inhuman, he threw
himself with extraordinary intensity into whatever work he had in hand,
and, to accomplish it, spared others scarcely more than he spared
himself. About the middle of August he issued a third proclamation to
the Canadians, declaring that as they had refused his offers of
protection and "had made such ungrateful returns in practising the most
unchristian barbarities against his troops on all occasions, he could no
longer refrain in justice to himself and his army from chastising them
as they deserved." The barbarities in question consisted in the frequent
scalping and mutilating of sentinels and men on outpost duty,
perpetrated no less by Canadians than by Indians. Wolfe's object was
twofold: first, to cause the militia to desert, and, secondly, to
exhaust the colony. Rangers, light infantry, and Highlanders were sent
to waste the settlements far and wide. Wherever resistance was offered,
farmhouses and villages were laid in ashes, though churches were
generally spared. St. Paul, far below Quebec, was sacked and burned, and
the settlements of the opposite shore were partially destroyed. The
parishes of L'Ange Gardien, Château Richer, and St. Joachim were wasted
with fire and sword. Night after night the garrison of Quebec could see
the light of burning houses as far down as the mountain of Cape
Tourmente. Near St. Joachim there was a severe skirmish, followed by
atrocious cruelties. Captain Alexander Montgomery, of the forty-third
regiment, who commanded the detachment, and who has been most unjustly
confounded with the revolutionary general, Richard Montgomery, ordered
the prisoners to be shot in cold blood, to the indignation of his own
officers.[753] Robineau de Portneuf, curé of St. Joachim, placed himself
at the head of thirty parishioners and took possession of a large stone
house in the adjacent parish of Château Richer, where for a time he held
the English at bay. At length he and his followers were drawn out into
ambush, where they were surrounded and killed; and, being disguised as
Indians, the rangers scalped them all.[754]
[Footnote 753: Fraser _Journal_. Fraser was an officer under Montgomery,
of whom he speaks with anger and disgust.]
[Footnote 754: Knox, II. 32. Most of the contemporary journals mention
the incident.]
Most of the French writers of the time mention these barbarities without
much comment, while Vaudreuil loudly denounces them. Yet he himself was
answerable for atrocities incomparably worse, and on a far larger scale.
He had turned loose his savages, red and white, along a frontier of six
hundred miles, to waste, burn, and murder at will. "Women and children,"
such were the orders of Wolfe, "are to be treated with humanity; if any
violence is offered to a woman, the offender shall be punished with
death." These orders were generally obeyed. The English, with the single
exception of Montgomery, killed none but armed men in the act of
resistance or attack; Vaudreuil's war-parties spared neither age nor
sex.
Montcalm let the parishes burn, and still lay fast intrenched in his
lines of Beauport. He would not imperil all Canada to save a few hundred
farmhouses; and Wolfe was as far as ever from the battle that he
coveted. Hitherto, his attacks had been made chiefly below the town;
but, these having failed, he now changed his plan and renewed on a
larger scale the movements begun above it in July. With every fair wind,
ships and transports passed the batteries of Quebec, favored by a hot
fire from Point Levi, and generally succeeded, with more or less damage,
in gaining the upper river. A fleet of flatboats was also sent thither,
and twelve hundred troops marched overland to embark in them, under
Brigadier Murray. Admiral Holmes took command of the little fleet now
gathered above the town, and operations in that quarter were
systematically resumed.
To oppose them, Bougainville was sent from the camp at Beauport with
fifteen hundred men. His was a most arduous and exhausting duty. He must
watch the shores for fifteen or twenty miles, divide his force into
detachments, and subject himself and his followers to the strain of
incessant vigilance and incessant marching. Murray made a descent at
Pointe-aux-Trembles, and was repulsed with loss. He tried a second time
at another place, was met before landing by a body of ambushed
Canadians, and was again driven back, his foremost boats full of dead
and wounded. A third time he succeeded, landed at Deschambault, and
burned a large building filled with stores and all the spare baggage of
the French regular officers. The blow was so alarming that Montcalm
hastened from Beauport to take command in person; but when he arrived
the English were gone.
Vaudreuil now saw his mistake in sending the French frigates up the
river out of harm's way, and withdrawing their crews to serve the
batteries of Quebec. Had these ships been there, they might have
overpowered those of the English in detail as they passed the town. An
attempt was made to retrieve the blunder. The sailors were sent to man
the frigates anew and attack the squadron of Holmes. It was too late.
Holmes was already too strong for them, and they were recalled. Yet the
difficulties of the English still seemed insurmountable. Dysentery and
fever broke out in their camps, the number of their effective men was
greatly reduced, and the advancing season told them that their work must
be done quickly, or not done at all.
On the other side, the distress of the French grew greater every day.
Their army was on short rations. The operations of the English above the
town filled the camp of Beauport with dismay, for troops and Canadians
alike dreaded the cutting off of their supplies. These were all drawn
from the districts of Three Rivers and Montreal; and, at best, they were
in great danger, since when brought down in boats at night they were apt
to be intercepted, while the difficulty of bringing them by land was
extreme, through scarcity of cattle and horses. Discipline was relaxed,
disorder and pillage were rife, and the Canadians deserted so fast, that
towards the end of August two hundred of them, it is said, would
sometimes go off in one night. Early in the month the disheartening news
came of the loss of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the retreat of
Bourlamaque, the fall of Niagara, and the expected advance of Amherst
on Montreal. It was then that Levis was despatched to the scene of
danger; and Quebec was deplorably weakened by his absence. About this
time the Lower Town was again set on fire by the English batteries, and
a hundred and sixty-seven houses were burned in a night. In the front of
the Upper Town nearly every building was a ruin. At the General
Hospital, which was remote enough to be safe from the bombardment, every
barn, shed, and garret, and even the chapel itself, were crowded with
sick and wounded, with women and children from the town, and the nuns of
the Ursulines and the Hôtel-Dieu, driven thither for refuge. Bishop
Pontbriand, though suffering from a mortal disease, came almost daily to
visit and console them from his lodging in the house of the curé at
Charlesbourg.
Towards the end of August the sky brightened again. It became known that
Amherst was not moving on Montreal, and Bourlamaque wrote that his
position at Isle-aux-Noix was impregnable. On the twenty-seventh a
deserter from Wolfe's army brought the welcome assurance that the
invaders despaired of success, and would soon sail for home; while there
were movements in the English camps and fleet that seemed to confirm
what he said. Vaudreuil breathed more freely, and renewed hope and
confidence visited the army of Beauport.
Meanwhile a deep cloud fell on the English. Since the siege began, Wolfe
had passed with ceaseless energy from camp to camp, animating the
troops, observing everything, and directing everything; but now the pale
face and tall lean form were seen no more, and the rumor spread that the
General was dangerously ill. He had in fact been seized by an access of
the disease that had tortured him for some time past; and fever had
followed. His quarters were at a French farmhouse in the camp at
Montmorenci; and here, as he lay in an upper chamber, helpless in bed,
his singular and most unmilitary features haggard with disease and drawn
with pain, no man could less have looked the hero. But as the needle,
though quivering, points always to the pole, so, through torment and
languor and the heats of fever, the mind of Wolfe dwelt on the capture
of Quebec. His illness, which began before the twentieth of August, had
so far subsided on the twenty-fifth that Knox wrote in his Diary of that
day: "His Excellency General Wolfe is on the recovery, to the
inconceivable joy of the whole army." On the twenty-ninth he was able
to write or dictate a letter to the three brigadiers, Monckton,
Townshend, and Murray: "That the public service may not suffer by the
General's indisposition, he begs the brigadiers will meet and consult
together for the public utility and advantage, and consider of the best
method to attack the enemy." The letter then proposes three plans, all
bold to audacity. The first was to send a part of the army to ford the
Montmorenci eight or nine miles above its mouth, march through the
forest, and fall on the rear of the French at Beauport, while the rest
landed and attacked them in front. The second was to cross the ford at
the mouth of the Montmorenci and march along the strand, under the
French intrenchments, till a place could be found where the troops might
climb the heights. The third was to make a general attack from boats at
the Beauport flats. Wolfe had before entertained two other plans, one of
which was to scale the heights at St. Michel, about a league above
Quebec; but this he had abandoned on learning that the French were there
in force to receive him. The other was to storm the Lower Town; but this
also he had abandoned, because the Upper Town, which commanded it, would
still remain inaccessible.
The brigadiers met in consultation, rejected the three plans proposed in
the letter, and advised that an attempt should be made to gain a footing
on the north shore above the town, place the army between Montcalm and
his base of supply, and so force him to fight or surrender. The scheme
was similar to that of the heights of St. Michel. It seemed desperate,
but so did all the rest; and if by chance it should succeed, the gain
was far greater than could follow any success below the town. Wolfe
embraced it at once.
Not that he saw much hope in it. He knew that every chance was against
him. Disappointment in the past and doom in the future, the pain and
exhaustion of disease, toils, and anxieties "too great," in the words of
Burke, "to be supported by a delicate constitution, and a body unequal
to the vigorous and enterprising soul that it lodged," threw him at
times into deep dejection. By those intimate with him he was heard to
say that he would not go back defeated, "to be exposed to the censure
and reproach of an ignorant populice." In other moods he felt that he
ought not to sacrifice what was left of his diminished army in vain
conflict with hopeless obstacles. But his final resolve once taken, he
would not swerve from it. His fear was that he might not be able to
lead his troops in person. "I know perfectly well you cannot cure me,"
he said to his physician; "but pray make me so that I may be without
pain for a few days, and able to do my duty: that is all I want."
In a despatch which Wolfe had written to Pitt, Admiral Saunders
conceived that he had ascribed to the fleet more than its just share in
the disaster at Montmorenci; and he sent him a letter on the subject.
Major Barré kept it from the invalid till the fever had abated. Wolfe
then wrote a long answer, which reveals his mixed dejection and resolve.
He owns the justice of what Saunders had said, but adds: "I cannot leave
out that part of my letter to Mr. Pitt which you object to. I am
sensible of my own errors in the course of the campaign, see clearly
wherein I have been deficient, and think a little more or less blame to
a man that must necessarily be ruined, of little or no consequences. I
take the blame of that unlucky day entirely upon my own shoulders, and I
expect to suffer for it." Then, speaking of the new project of an attack
above Quebec, he says despondingly: "My ill state of health prevents me
from executing my own plan; it is of too desperate a nature to order
others to execute." He proceeds, however, to give directions for it. "It
will be necessary to run as many small craft as possible above the town,
with provisions for six weeks, for about five thousand, which is all I
intend to take. My letters, I hope, will be ready to-morrow, and I hope
I shall have strength to lead these men to wherever we can find the
enemy."
On the next day, the last of August, he was able for the first time to
leave the house. It was on this same day that he wrote his last letter
to his mother: "My writing to you will convince you that no personal
evils worse than defeats and disappointments have fallen upon me. The
enemy puts nothing to risk, and I can't in conscience put the whole army
to risk. My antagonist has wisely shut himself up in inaccessible
intrenchments, so that I can't get at him without spilling a torrent of
blood, and that perhaps to little purpose. The Marquis de Montcalm is at
the head of a great number of bad soldiers, and I am at the head of a
small number of good ones, that wish for nothing so much as to fight
him; but the wary old fellow avoids an action, doubtful of the behavior
of his army. People must be of the profession to understand the
disadvantages and difficulties we labor under, arising from the uncommon
natural strength of the country."
On the second of September a vessel was sent to England with his last
despatch to Pitt. It begins thus: "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 of Montcalm seems wisely to depend upon. When I learned that
succors 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." Then, after recounting the
events of the campaign with admirable clearness, he continues: "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 Levi 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." The
letter ends thus: "By the list of disabled officers, many of whom are of
rank, you may perceive that the army is much weakened. By the nature of
the river, the most formidable part of this armament is deprived of the
power of acting; yet we have almost the whole force of Canada to oppose.
In this situation there is such a choice of difficulties that I own
myself at a loss how to determine. The affairs of Great Britain, I know,
require the most vigorous measures; but the courage of a handful of
brave troops should be exerted only when there is some hope of a
favorable event; however, you may be assured that the small part of the
campaign which remains shall be employed, as far as I am able, for the
honor of His Majesty and the interest of the nation, in which I am sure
of being well seconded by the Admiral and by the generals; happy if our
efforts here can contribute to the success of His Majesty's arms in any
other parts of America."
Some days later, he wrote to the Earl of Holdernesse: "The Marquis of
Montcalm has a numerous body of armed men (I cannot call it an army),
and the strongest country perhaps in the world. Our fleet blocks up the
river above and below the town, but can give no manner of aid in an
attack upon the Canadian army. We are now here [_off Cap-Rouge_] with
about thirty-six hundred men, waiting to attack them when and wherever
they can best be got at. I am so far recovered as to do business; but my
constitution is entirely ruined, without the consolation of doing any
considerable service to the state, and without any prospect of it." He
had just learned, through the letter brought from Amherst by Ensign
Hutchins, that he could expect no help from that quarter.
Perhaps he was as near despair as his undaunted nature was capable of
being. In his present state of body and mind he was a hero without the
light and cheer of heroism. He flattered himself with no illusions, but
saw the worst and faced it all. He seems to have been entirely without
excitement. The languor of disease, the desperation of the chances, and
the greatness of the stake may have wrought to tranquillize him. His
energy was doubly tasked: to bear up his own sinking frame, and to
achieve an almost hopeless feat of arms.
Audacious as it was, his plan cannot be called rash if we may accept the
statement of two well-informed writers on the French side. They say that
on the tenth of September the English naval commanders held a council on
board the flagship, in which it was resolved that the lateness of the
season required the fleet to leave Quebec without delay. They say
further that Wolfe then went to the Admiral, told him that he had found
a place where the heights could be scaled, that he would send up a
hundred and fifty picked men to feel the way, and that if they gained a
lodgment at the top, the other troops should follow; if, on the other
hand, the French were there in force to oppose them, he would not
sacrifice the army in a hopeless attempt, but embark them for home,
consoled by the thought that all had been done that man could do. On
this, concludes the story, the Admiral and his officers consented to
wait the result.[755]
[Footnote 755: This statement is made by the Chevalier Johnstone, and,
with some variation, by the author of the valuable _Journal tenu à
l'Armée que commandoit feu M. le Marquis de Montcalm._ Bigot says that,
after the battle, he was told by British officers that Wolfe meant to
risk only an advance party of two hundred men, and to reimbark if they
were repulsed.]
As Wolfe had informed Pitt, his army was greatly weakened. Since the end
of June his loss in killed and wounded was more than eight hundred and
fifty, including two colonels, two majors, nineteen captains, and
thirty-four subalterns; and to these were to be added a greater number
disabled by disease.
The squadron of Admiral Holmes above Quebec had now increased to
twenty-two vessels, great and small. One of the last that went up was a
diminutive schooner, armed with a new swivels, and jocosely named the
"Terror of France." She sailed by the town in broad daylight, the
French, incensed at her impudence, blazing at her from all their
batteries; but she passed unharmed, anchored by the Admiral's ship, and
saluted him triumphantly with her swivels.
Wolfe's first move towards executing his plan was the critical one of
evacuating the camp at Montmorenci. This was accomplished on the third
of September. Montcalm sent a strong force to fall on the rear of the
retiring English. Monckton saw the movement from Point Levi, embarked
two battalions in the boats of the fleet, and made a feint of landing at
Beauport. Montcalm recalled his troops to repulse the threatened attack;
and the English withdrew from Montmorenci unmolested, some to the Point
of Orleans, others to Point Levi. On the night of the fourth a fleet of
flatboats passed above the town with the baggage and stores. On the
fifth, Murray, with four battalions, marched up to the River Etechemin,
and forded it under a hot fire from the French batteries at Sillery.
Monckton and Townshend followed with three more battalions, and the
united force, of about thirty-six hundred men, was embarked on board the
ships of Holmes, where Wolfe joined them on the same evening.
These movements of the English filled the French commanders with
mingled perplexity, anxiety, and hope. A deserter told them that Admiral
Saunders was impatient to be gone. Vaudreuil grew confident. "The
breaking up of the camp at Montmorenci," he says, "and the abandonment
of the intrenchments there, the reimbarkation on board the vessels above
Quebec of the troops who had encamped on the south bank, the movements
of these vessels, the removal of the heaviest pieces of artillery from
the batteries of Point Levi,--these and the lateness of the season all
combined to announce the speedy departure of the fleet, several vessels
of which had even sailed down the river already. The prisoners and the
deserters who daily came in told us that this was the common report in
their army."[756] He wrote to Bourlamaque on the first of September:
"Everything proves that the grand design of the English has failed."
[Footnote 756: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct. 1759._]
Yet he was ceaselessly watchful. So was Montcalm; and he, too, on the
night of the second, snatched a moment to write to Bourlamaque from his
headquarters in the stone house, by the river of Beauport: "The night is
dark; it rains; our troops are in their tents, with clothes on, ready
for an alarm; I in my boots; my horses saddled. In fact, this is my
usual way. I wish you were here; for I cannot be everywhere, though I
multiply myself, and have not taken off my clothes since the
twenty-third of June." On the eleventh of September he wrote his last
letter to Bourlamaque, and probably the last that his pen ever traced.
"I am overwhelmed with work, and should often lose temper, like you, if
I did not remember that I am paid by Europe for not losing it. Nothing
new since my last. I give the enemy another month, or something less, to
stay here." The more sanguine Vaudreuil would hardly give them a week.
Meanwhile, no precaution was spared. The force under Bougainville above
Quebec was raised to three thousand men.[757] He was ordered to watch
the shore as far as Jacques-Cartier, and follow with his main body every
movement of Holmes's squadron. There was little fear for the heights
near the town; they were thought inaccessible.[758] Even Montcalm
believed them safe, and had expressed himself to that effect some time
before. "We need not suppose," he wrote to Vaudreuil, "that the enemy
have wings;" and again, speaking of the very place where Wolfe
afterwards landed, "I swear to you that a hundred men posted there would
stop their whole army."[759] He was right. A hundred watchful and
determined men could have held the position long enough for
reinforcements to come up.
[Footnote 757: _Journal du Siége_ (Bibliothêque de Hartwell). _Journal
tenu à l'Armée, etc. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct._ 1759.]
[Footnote 758: Pontbriand, _Jugement impartial._]
[Footnote 759: _Montcalm à Vaudreuil, 27 Juillet. Ibid., 29 Juillet,
1759_.] The hundred men were there. Captain de Vergor, of the colony
troops, commanded them, and reinforcements were within his call; for the
battalion of Guienne had been ordered to encamp close at hand on the
Plains of Abraham.[760] Vergor's post, called Anse du Foulon, was a mile
and a half from Quebec. A little beyond it, by the brink of the cliffs,
was another post, called Samos, held by seventy men with four cannon;
and, beyond this again, the heights of Sillery were guarded by a hundred
and thirty men, also with cannon.[761] These were outposts of
Bougainville, whose headquarters were at Cap-Rouge, six miles above
Sillery, and whose troops were in continual movement along the
intervening shore. Thus all was vigilance; for while the French were
strong in the hope of speedy delivery, they felt that there was no
safety till the tents of the invader had vanished from their shores and
his ships from their river. "What we knew," says one of them, "of the
character of M. Wolfe, that impetuous, bold, and intrepid warrior,
prepared us for a last attack before he left us."
[Footnote 760: Foligny, _Journal mémoratif. Journal tenu à l'Armée_,
etc.]
[Footnote 761: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct._ 1759.]
Wolfe had been very ill on the evening of the fourth. The troops knew
it, and their spirits sank; but, after a night of torment, he grew
better, and was soon among them again, rekindling their ardor, and
imparting a cheer that he could not share. For himself he had no pity;
but when he heard of the illness of two officers in one of the ships, he
sent them a message of warm sympathy, advised them to return to Point
Levi, and offered them his own barge and an escort. They thanked him,
but replied that, come what might, they would see the enterprise to an
end. Another officer remarked in his hearing that one of the invalids
had a very delicate constitution. "Don't tell me of constitution," said
Wolfe; "he has good spirit, and good spirit will carry a man through
everything."[762] An immense moral force bore up his own frail body and
forced it to its work.
[Footnote 762: Knox, II. 61, 65.]
Major Robert Stobo, who, five years before, had been given as a hostage
to the French at the capture of Fort Necessity, arrived about this time
in a vessel from Halifax. He had long been a prisoner at Quebec, not
always in close custody, and had used his opportunities to acquaint
himself with the neighborhood. In the spring of this year he and an
officer of rangers named Stevens had made their escape with
extraordinary skill and daring; and he now returned to give his
countrymen the benefit of his local knowledge.[763] His biographer says
that it was he who directed Wolfe in the choice of a landing-place.[764]
Be this as it may, Wolfe in person examined the river and the shores as
far as Pointe-aux-Trembles; till at length, landing on the south side a
little above Quebec, and looking across the water with a telescope, he
descried a path that ran with a long slope up the face of the woody
precipice, and saw at the top a cluster of tents. They were those of
Vergor's guard at the Anse du Foulon, now called Wolfe's Cove. As he
could see but ten or twelve of them, he thought that the guard could not
be numerous, and might be overpowered. His hope would have been stronger
if he had known that Vergor had once been tried for misconduct and
cowardice in the surrender of Beauséjour, and saved from merited
disgrace by the friendship of Bigot and the protection of
Vaudreuil.[765]
[Footnote 763: Letters in _Boston Post Boy,_ No. 97, and _Boston Evening
Post,_ No. 1,258.]
[Footnote 764: _Memoirs of Major Robert Stobo._ Curious, but often
inexact.]
[Footnote 765: See _supra_, p. 186.]
The morning of the seventh was fair and warm, and the vessels of Holmes,
their crowded decks gay with scarlet uniforms, sailed up the river to
Cap-Rouge. A lively scene awaited them; for here were the headquarters
of Bougainville, and here lay his principal force, while the rest
watched the banks above and below. The cove into which the little river
runs was guarded by floating batteries; the surrounding shore was
defended by breastworks; and a large body of regulars, militia, and
mounted Canadians in blue uniforms moved to and fro, with restless
activity, on the hills behind. When the vessels came to anchor, the
horsemen dismounted and formed in line with the infantry; then, with
loud shouts, the whole rushed down the heights to man their works at the
shore. That true Briton, Captain Knox, looked on with a critical eye
from the gangway of his ship, and wrote that night in his Diary that
they had made a ridiculous noise. "How different!" he exclaims, "how
nobly awful and expressive of true valor is the customary silence of the
British troops!"
In the afternoon the ships opened fire, while the troops entered the
boats and rowed up and down as if looking for a landing-place. It was
but a feint of Wolfe to deceive Bougainville as to his real design. A
heavy easterly rain set in on the next morning, and lasted two days
without respite. All operations were suspended, and the men suffered
greatly in the crowded transports. Half of them were therefore landed on
the south shore, where they made their quarters in the village of St.
Nicholas, refreshed themselves, and dried their wet clothing, knapsacks,
and blankets.
For several successive days the squadron of Holmes was allowed to drift
up the river with the flood tide and down with the ebb, thus passing and
repassing incessantly between the neighborhood of Quebec on one hand,
and a point high above Cap-Rouge on the other; while Bougainville,
perplexed, and always expecting an attack, followed the ships to and fro
along the shore, by day and by night, till his men were exhausted with
ceaseless forced marches.[766]
[Footnote 766: Joannès, Major de Quebec, _Mémoire sur la Campagne de_
1759.]
At last the time for action came. On Wednesday, the twelfth, the troops
at St. Nicholas were embarked again, and all were told to hold
themselves in readiness. Wolfe, from the flagship "Sutherland," issued
his last general orders. "The enemy's force is now divided, great
scarcity of provisions in their camp, and universal discontent among the
Canadians. Our troops below are in readiness to join us; all the light
artillery and tools are embarked at the Point of Levi; and the troops
will land where the French seem least to expect it. The first body that
gets on shore is to march directly to the enemy and drive them from any
little post they may occupy; the officers must be careful that the
succeeding bodies do not by any mistake fire on those who go before
them. The battalions must form on the upper ground with expedition, and
be ready to charge whatever presents itself. When the artillery and
troops are landed, a corps will be left to secure the landing-place,
while the rest march on and endeavor to bring the Canadians and French
to a battle. The officers and men will remember what their country
expects from them, and what a determined body of soldiers inured to war
is capable of doing against five weak French battalions mingled with a
disorderly peasantry."
The spirit of the army answered to that of its chief. The troops loved
and admired their general, trusted their officers, and were ready for
any attempt. "Nay, how could it be otherwise," quaintly asks honest
Sergeant John Johnson, of the fifty-eighth regiment, "being at the heels
of gentlemen whose whole thirst, equal with their general, was for
glory? We had seen them tried, and always found them sterling. We knew
that they would stand by us to the last extremity."
Wolfe had thirty-six hundred men and officers with him on board the
vessels of Holmes; and he now sent orders to Colonel Burton at Point
Levi to bring to his aid all who could be spared from that place and the
Point of Orleans. They were to march along the south bank, after
nightfall, and wait further orders at a designated spot convenient for
embarkation. Their number was about twelve hundred, so that the entire
forced destined for the enterprise was at the utmost forty-eight
hundred.[767] With these, Wolfe meant to climb the heights of Abraham in
the teeth of an enemy who, though much reduced, were still twice as
numerous as their assailants.[768]
[Footnote 767: See Note, end of chapter.]
[Footnote 768: Including Bougainville's command. An escaped prisoner
told Wolfe, a few days before, that Montcalm still had fourteen thousand
men. _Journal of an Expedition on the River St. Lawrence._ This meant
only those in the town and the camps of Beauport. "I don't believe their
whole army amounts to that number," wrote Wolfe to Colonel Burton, on
the tenth. He knew, however, that if Montcalm could bring all his troops
together, the French would outnumber him more than two to one.]
Admiral Saunders lay with the main fleet in the Basin of Quebec. This
excellent officer, whatever may have been his views as to the necessity
of a speedy departure, aided Wolfe to the last with unfailing energy and
zeal. It was agreed between them that while the General made the real
attack, the Admiral should engage Montcalm's attention by a pretended
one. As night approached, the fleet ranged itself along the Beauport
shore; the boats were lowered and filled with sailors, marines, and the
few troops that had been left behind; while ship signalled to ship,
cannon flashed and thundered, and shot ploughed the beach, as if to
clear a way for assailants to land. In the gloom of the evening the
effect was imposing. Montcalm, who thought that the movements of the
English above the town were only a feint, that their main force was
still below it, and that their real attack would be made there, was
completely deceived, and massed his troops in front of Beauport to repel
the expected landing. But while in the fleet of Saunders all was uproar
and ostentatious menace, the danger was ten miles away, where the
squadron of Holmes lay tranquil and silent at its anchorage off
Cap-Rouge.
It was less tranquil than it seemed. All on board knew that a blow would
be struck that night, though only a few high officers knew where.
Colonel Howe, of the light infantry, called for volunteers to lead the
unknown and desperate venture, promising, in the words of one of them,
"that if any of us survived we might depend on being recommended to the
General."[769] As many as were wanted--twenty-four in all--soon came
forward. Thirty large bateaux and some boats belonging to the squadron
lay moored alongside the vessels; and late in the evening the troops
were ordered into them, the twenty-four volunteers taking their place in
the foremost. They held in all about seventeen hundred men. The rest
remained on board.
[Footnote 769: _Journal of the Particular Transactions during the Siege
of Quebec_. The writer, a soldier in the light infantry, says he was one
of the first eight who came forward. See _Notes and Queries_, XX. 370.]
Bougainville could discern the movement, and misjudged it, thinking that
he himself was to be attacked. The tide was still flowing; and, the
better to deceive him, the vessels and boats were allowed to drift
upward with it for a little distance, as if to land above Cap-Rouge.
The day had been fortunate for Wolfe. Two deserters came from the camp
of Bougainville with intelligence that, at ebb tide on the next night,
he was to send down a convoy of provisions to Montcalm. The necessities
of the camp at Beauport, and the difficulties of transportation by land,
had before compelled the French to resort to this perilous means of
conveying supplies; and their boats, drifting in darkness under the
shadows of the northern shore, had commonly passed in safety. Wolfe saw
at once that, if his own boats went down in advance of the convoy, he
could turn the intelligence of the deserters to good account.
He was still on board the "Sutherland." Every preparation was made, and
every order given; it only remained to wait the turning of the tide.
Seated with him in the cabin was the commander of the sloop-of-war
"Porcupine," his former school-fellow, John Jervis, afterwards Earl St.
Vincent. Wolfe told him that he expected to die in the battle of the
next day; and taking from his bosom a miniature of Miss Lowther, his
betrothed, he gave it to him with a request that he would return it to
her if the presentiment should prove true.[770]
[Footnote 770: Tucker, _Life of Earl St. Vincent_, I. 19. (London,
1844.)]
Towards two o'clock the tide began to ebb, and a fresh wind blew down
the river. Two lanterns were raised into the maintop shrouds of the
"Sutherland." It was the appointed signal; the boats cast off and fell
down with the current, those of the light infantry leading the way. The
vessels with the rest of the troops had orders to follow a little later.
To look for a moment at the chances on which this bold adventure hung.
First, the deserters told Wolfe that provision-boats were ordered to go
down to Quebec that night; secondly, Bougainville countermanded them;
thirdly, the sentries posted along the heights were told of the order,
but not of the countermand;[771] fourthly, Vergor at the Anse du Foulon
had permitted most of his men, chiefly Canadians from Lorette, to go
home for a time and work at their harvesting, on condition, it is said,
that they should afterwards work in a neighboring field of his own;[772]
fifthly, he kept careless watch, and went quietly to bed; sixthly, the
battalion of Guienne, ordered to take post on the Plains of Abraham,
had, for reasons unexplained, remained encamped by the St. Charles;[773]
and lastly, when Bougainville saw Holmes's vessels drift down the
stream, he did not tax his weary troops to follow them, thinking that
they would return as usual with the flood tide.[774] But for these
conspiring circumstances New France might have lived a little longer,
and the fruitless heroism of Wolfe would have passed, with countless
other heroisms, into oblivion.
[Footnote 771: _Journal tenu à l'Armée_, etc.]
[Footnote 772: _Mémoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760.]
[Footnote 773: Foligny, _Journal mémoratif. Journal à l'Armée_, etc.]
[Footnote 774: Johnstone, _Dialogue. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5
Oct._1759.]
For full two hours the procession of boats, borne on the current,
steered silently down the St. Lawrence. The stars were visible, but the
night was moonless and sufficiently dark. The General was in one of the
foremost boats, and near him was a young midshipman, John Robison,
afterwards professor of natural philosophy in the University of
Edinburgh. He used to tell in his later life how Wolfe, with a low
voice, repeated Gray's _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_ to the officers
about him. Probably it was to relieve the intense strain of his
thoughts. Among the rest was the verse which his own fate was soon to
illustrate,--
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
P/
"Gentlemen," he said, as his recital ended, "I would rather have written
those lines than take Quebec." None were there to tell him that the hero
is greater than the poet.
As they neared their destination, the tide bore them in towards the
shore, and the mighty wall of rock and forest towered in darkness on
their left. The dead stillness was suddenly broken by the sharp _Qui
vive!_ of a French sentry, invisible in the thick gloom. _France!_
answered a Highland officer of Fraser's regiment from one of the boats
of the light infantry. He had served in Holland and spoke French
fluently.
_À quel régiment?_
_De la Reine_, replied the Highlander. He knew that a part of that corps
was with Bougainville. The sentry, expecting the convoy of provisions,
was satisfied, and did not ask for the password.
Soon after, the foremost boats were passing the heights of Samos, when
another sentry challenged them, and they could see him through the
darkness running down to the edge of the water, within range of a
pistol-shot. In answer to his questions, the same officer replied, in
French: "Provision-boats. Don't make a noise; the English will hear
us."[775] In fact, the sloop-of-war "Hunter" was anchored in the stream
not far off. This time, again, the sentry let them pass. In a few
moments they rounded the headland above the Anse du Foulon. There was no
sentry there. The strong current swept the boats of the light infantry a
little below the intended landing-place.[776] They disembarked on a
narrow strand at the foot of heights as steep as a hill covered with
trees can be. The twenty-four volunteers led the way, climbing with what
silence they might, closely followed by a much larger body. When they
reached the top they saw in the dim light a cluster of tents at a short
distance, and immediately made a dash at them. Vergor leaped from bed
and tried to run off, but was shot in the heel and captured. His men,
taken by surprise, made little resistance. One or two were caught, the
rest fled.
[Footnote 775: See a note of Smollett, _History of England_, V. 56 (ed.
1805). Sergeant Johnson, Vaudreuil, Foligny, and the _Journal of
Particular Transactions_ give similar accounts.]
[Footnote 776: _Saunders to Pitt_, 20 Sept. _Journal of Sergeant
Johnson_. Compare Knox, II. 67.]
The main body of troops waited in their boats by the edge of the strand.
The heights near by were cleft by a great ravine choked with forest
trees; and in its depths ran a little brook called Ruisseau St.-Denis,
which, swollen by the late rains, fell plashing in the stillness over a
rock. Other than this no sound could reach the strained ear of Wolfe but
the gurgle of the tide and the cautious climbing of his advance-parties
as they mounted the steeps at some little distance from where he sat
listening. At length from the top came a sound of musket-shots, followed
by loud huzzas, and he knew that his men were masters of the position.
The word was given; the troops leaped from the boats and scaled the
heights, some here, some there, clutching at trees and bushes, their
muskets slung at their backs. Tradition still points out the place,
near the mouth of the ravine, where the foremost reached the top. Wolfe
said to an officer near him: "You can try it, but I don't think you'll
get up." He himself, however, found strength to drag himself up with the
rest. The narrow slanting path on the face of the heights had been made
impassable by trenches and abattis; but all obstructions were soon
cleared away, and then the ascent was easy. In the gray of the morning
the long file of red-coated soldiers moved quickly upward, and formed in
order on the plateau above.
Before many of them had reached the top, cannon were heard close on the
left. It was the battery at Samos firing on the boats in the rear and
the vessels descending from Cap-Rouge. A party was sent to silence it;
this was soon effected, and the more distant battery at Sillery was next
attacked and taken. As fast as the boats were emptied they returned for
the troops left on board the vessels and for those waiting on the
southern shore under Colonel Burton.
The day broke in clouds and threatening rain. Wolfe's battalions were
drawn up along the crest of the heights. No enemy was in sight, though a
body of Canadians had sallied from the town and moved along the strand
towards the landing-place, whence they were quickly driven back. He had
achieved the most critical part of his enterprise; yet the success that
he coveted placed him in imminent danger. On one side was the garrison
of Quebec and the army of Beauport, and Bougainville was on the other.
Wolfe's alternative was victory or ruin; for if he should be overwhelmed
by a combined attack, retreat would be hopeless. His feelings no man can
know; but it would be safe to say that hesitation or doubt had no part
in them.
He went to reconnoitre the ground, and soon came to the Plains of
Abraham, so called from Abraham Martin, a pilot known as Maître Abraham,
who had owned a piece of land here in the early times of the colony. The
Plains were a tract of grass, tolerably level in most parts, patched
here and there with cornfields, studded with clumps of bushes, and
forming a part of the high plateau at the eastern end of which Quebec
stood. On the south it was bounded by the declivities along the St.
Lawrence; on the north, by those along the St. Charles, or rather along
the meadows through which that lazy stream crawled like a writhing
snake. At the place that Wolfe chose for his battle-field the plateau
was less than a mile wide.
Thither the troops advanced, marched by files till they reached the
ground, and then wheeled to form their line of battle, which stretched
across the plateau and faced the city. It consisted of six battalions
and the detached grenadiers from Louisbourg, all drawn up in ranks three
deep. Its right wing was near the brink of the heights along the St.
Lawrence; but the left could not reach those along the St. Charles. On
this side a wide space was perforce left open, and there was danger of
being outflanked. To prevent this, Brigadier Townshend was stationed
here with two battalions, drawn up at right angles with the rest, and
fronting the St. Charles. The battalion of Webb's regiment, under
Colonel Burton, formed the reserve; the third battalion of Royal
Americans was left to guard the landing; and Howe's light infantry
occupied a wood far in the rear. Wolfe, with Monckton and Murray,
commanded the front line, on which the heavy fighting was to fall, and
which, when all the troops had arrived, numbered less than thirty-five
hundred men.[777]
[Footnote 777: See Note, end of chapter.]
Quebec was not a mile distant, but they could not see it; for a ridge of
broken ground intervened, called Buttes-à-Neveu, about six hundred paces
off. The first division of troops had scarcely come up when, about six
o'clock, this ridge was suddenly thronged with white uniforms. It was
the battalion of Guienne, arrived at the eleventh hour from its camp by
the St. Charles. Some time after there was hot firing in the rear. It
came from a detachment of Bougainville's command attacking a house where
some of the light infantry were posted. The assailants were repulsed,
and the firing ceased. Light showers fell at intervals, besprinkling the
troops as they stood patiently waiting the event.
Montcalm had passed a troubled night. Through all the evening the cannon
bellowed from the ships of Saunders, and the boats of the fleet hovered
in the dusk off the Beauport shore, threatening every moment to land.
Troops lined intrenchments till day, while the General walked the field
that adjoined his headquarters till one in the morning, accompanied by
the Chevalier Johnstone and Colonel Poulariez. Johnstone says that he
was in great agitation, and took no rest all night. At daybreak he heard
the sound of cannon above the town. It was the battery at Samos firing
on the English ships. He had sent an officer to the quarters of
Vaudreuil, which were much nearer Quebec, with orders to bring him word
at once should anything unusual happen. But no word came, and about six
o'clock he mounted and rode thither with Johnstone. As they advanced,
the country behind the town opened more and more upon their sight; till
at length, when opposite Vaudreuil's house, they saw across the St.
Charles, some two miles away, the red ranks of British soldiers on the
heights beyond.
"This is a serious business," Montcalm said; and sent off Johnstone at
full gallop to bring up the troops from the centre and left of the camp.
Those of the right were in motion already, doubtless by the Governor's
order. Vaudreuil came out of the house. Montcalm stopped for a few words
with him; then set spurs to his horse, and rode over the bridge of the
St. Charles to the scene of danger.[778] He rode with a fixed look,
uttering not a word.[779]
[Footnote 778: Johnstone, _Dialogue_.]
[Footnote 779: _Malartic à Bourlamaque,--Sept_. 1759.]
The army followed in such order as it might, crossed the bridge in hot
haste, passed under the northern rampart of Quebec, entered at the
Palace Gate, and pressed on in headlong march along the quaint narrow
streets of the warlike town: troops of Indians in scalp-locks and
war-paint, a savage glitter in their deep-set eyes; bands of Canadians
whose all was at stake,--faith, country, and home; the colony regulars;
the battalions of Old France, a torrent of white uniforms and gleaming
bayonets, La Sarre, Languedoc, Roussillon, Béarn,--victors of Oswego,
William Henry, and Ticonderoga. So they swept on, poured out upon the
plain, some by the gate of St. Louis, and some by that of St. John, and
hurried, breathless, to where the banners of Guienne still fluttered on
the ridge.
Montcalm was amazed at what he saw. He had expected a detachment, and he
found an army. Full in sight before him stretched the lines of Wolfe:
the close ranks of the English infantry, a silent wall of red, and the
wild array of the Highlanders, with their waving tartans, and bagpipes
screaming defiance. Vaudreuil had not come; but not the less was felt
the evil of a divided authority and the jealousy of the rival chiefs.
Montcalm waited long for the forces he had ordered to join him from the
left wing of the army. He waited in vain. It is said that the Governor
had detained them, lest the English should attack the Beauport shore.
Even if they did so, and succeeded, the French might defy them, could
they but put Wolfe to rout on the Plains of Abraham. Neither did the
garrison of Quebec come to the aid of Montcalm. He sent to Ramesay, its
commander, for twenty-five field-pieces which were on the Palace
battery. Ramesay would give him only three, saying that he wanted them
for his own defence. There were orders and counter-orders;
misunderstanding, haste, delay, perplexity.
Montcalm and his chief officers held a council of war. It is said that
he and they alike were for immediate attack. His enemies declare that he
was afraid lest Vaudreuil should arrive and take command; but the
Governor was not a man to assume responsibility at such a crisis. Others
say that his impetuosity overcame his better judgment; and of this
charge it is hard to acquit him. Bougainville was but a few miles
distant, and some of his troops were much nearer; a messenger sent by
way of Old Lorette could have reached him in an hour and a half at most,
and a combined attack in front and rear might have been concerted with
him. If, moreover, Montcalm could have come to an understanding with
Vaudreuil, his own force might have been strengthened by two or three
thousand additional men from the town and the camp of Beauport; but he
felt that there was no time to lose, for he imagined that Wolfe would
soon be reinforced, which was impossible, and he believed that the
English were fortifying themselves, which was no less an error. He has
been blamed not only for fighting too soon, but for fighting at all. In
this he could not choose. Fight he must, for Wolfe was now in a position
to cut off all his supplies. His men were full of ardor, and he resolved
to attack before their ardor cooled. He spoke a few words to them in his
keen, vehement way. "I remember very well how he looked," one of the
Canadians, then a boy of eighteen, used to say in his old age; "he rode
a black or dark bay horse along the front of our lines, brandishing his
sword, as if to excite us to do our duty. He wore a coat with wide
sleeves, which fell back as he raised his arm, and showed the white
linen of the wristband."[780]
[Footnote 780: _Recollections of Joseph Trahan_, in _Revue Canadienne_,
IV.]
The English waited the result with a composure which, if not quite real,
was at least well feigned. The three field-pieces sent by Ramesay plied
them with canister-shot, and fifteen hundred Canadians and Indians
fusilladed them in front and flank. Over all the plain, from behind
bushes and knolls and the edge of cornfields, puffs of smoke sprang
incessantly from the guns of these hidden marksmen. Skirmishers were
thrown out before the lines to hold them in check, and the soldiers were
ordered to lie on the grass to avoid the shot. The firing was liveliest
on the English left, where bands of sharpshooters got under the edge of
the declivity, among thickets, and behind scattered houses, whence they
killed and wounded a considerable number of Townshend's men. The light
infantry were called up from the rear. The houses were taken and
retaken, and one or more of them was burned.
Wolfe was everywhere. How cool he was, and why his followers loved him,
is shown by an incident that happened in the course of the morning. One
of his captains was shot through the lungs; and on recovering
consciousness he saw the General standing at his side. Wolfe pressed his
hand, told him not to despair, praised his services, promised him early
promotion, and sent an aide-de-camp to Monckton to beg that officer to
keep the promise if he himself should fall.[781]
[Footnote 781: Sir Denis Le Marchant, cited by Wright, 579. Le Marchant
knew the captain in his old age. Monckton kept Wolfe's promise.]
It was towards ten o'clock when, from the high ground on the right of
the line, Wolfe saw that the crisis was near. The French on the ridge
had formed themselves into three bodies, regulars in the centre,
regulars and Canadians on right and left. Two field-pieces, which had
been dragged up the heights at Anse du Foulon, fired on them with
grapeshot, and the troops, rising from the ground, prepared to receive
them. In a few moments more they were in motion. They came on rapidly,
uttering loud shouts, and firing as soon as they were within range.
Their ranks, ill ordered at the best, were further confused by a number
of Canadians who had been mixed among the regulars, and who, after
hastily firing, threw themselves on the ground to reload.[782] The
British advanced a few rods; then halted and stood still. When the
French were within forty paces the word of command rang out, and a crash
of musketry answered all along the line. The volley was delivered with
remarkable precision. In the battalions of the centre, which had
suffered least from the enemy's bullets, the simultaneous explosion was
afterwards said by French officers to have sounded like a cannon-shot.
Another volley followed, and then a furious clattering fire that lasted
but a minute or two. When the smoke rose, a miserable sight was
revealed: the ground cumbered with dead and wounded, the advancing
masses stopped short and turned into a frantic mob, shouting, cursing,
gesticulating. The order was given to charge. Then over the field rose
the British cheer, mixed with the fierce yell of the Highland slogan.
Some of the corps pushed forward with the bayonet; some advanced
firing. The clansmen drew their broadswords and dashed on, keen and
swift as bloodhounds. At the English right, though the attacking column
was broken to pieces, a fire was still kept up, chiefly, it seems, by
sharpshooters from the bushes and cornfields, where they had lain for an
hour or more. Here Wolfe himself led the charge, at the head of the
Louisbourg grenadiers. A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped his
handkerchief about it and kept on. Another shot struck him, and he still
advanced, when a third lodged in his breast. He staggered, and sat on
the ground. Lieutenant Brown, of the grenadiers, one Henderson, a
volunteer in the same company, and a private soldier, aided by an
officer of artillery who ran to join them, carried him in their arms to
the rear. He begged them to lay him down. They did so, and asked if he
would have a surgeon. "There's no need," he answered; "it's all over
with me." A moment after, one of them cried out: "They run; see how they
run!" "Who run?" Wolfe demanded, like a man roused from sleep. "The
enemy, sir. Egad, they give way everywhere!" "Go one of you, to Colonel
Burton," returned the dying man; "tell him to march Webb's regiment down
to Charles River, to cut off their retreat from the bridge." Then,
turning on his side, he murmured, "Now, God be praised, I will die in
peace!" and in a few moments his gallant soul had fled.
[Footnote 782: "Les Canadiens, qui étaient mêlés dans les bataillons, se
passèrent de tirer et, dès qu'ils l'eussent fait, de mettre ventre a
terre pour charger, ce qui rompit tout l'ordre." _Malartic a
Bourlamaque, 25 Sept._ 1759.]
Montcalm, still on horseback, was borne with the tide of fugitives
towards the town. As he approached the walls a shot passed through his
body. He kept his seat; two soldiers supported him, one on each side,
and led his horse through the St. Louis Gate. On the open space within,
among the excited crowd, were several women, drawn, no doubt, by
eagerness to know the result of the fight. One of them recognized him,
saw the streaming blood, and shrieked, "_O mon Dieu! mon Dieu! le
Marquis est tué!_" "It's nothing, it's nothing," replied the
death-stricken man; "don't be troubled for me, my good friends." _("Ce
n'est rien, ce n'est rien; ne vous affligez pas pour moi, mes bonnes
amies.")_
NOTE: There are several contemporary versions of the dying words of
Wolfe. The report of Knox, given above, is by far the best attested.
Knox says that he took particular pains at the time to learn them
accurately from those who were with Wolfe when they were uttered.
The anecdote of Montcalm is due to the late Hon. Malcolm Fraser, of
Quebec. He often heard it in his youth from an old woman, who, when a
girl, was one of the group who saw the wounded general led by, and to
whom the words were addressed.
_Force of the English and French at the Battle of Quebec._--The tabular
return given by Knox shows the number of officers and men in each corps
engaged. According to this, the battalions as they stood on the Plains
of Abraham before the battle varied in strength from 322 (Monckton's) to
683 (Webb's), making a total of 4,828, including officers. But another
return, less specific, signed _George Townshend, Brigadier,_ makes the
entire number only 4,441. Townshend succeeded Wolfe in the command; and
this return, which is preserved in the Public Record Office, was sent to
London a few days after the battle. Some French writers present put the
number lower, perhaps for the reason that Webb's regiment and the third
battalion of Royal Americans took no part in the fight, the one being in
the rear as a reserve, and the other invisible, guarding the landing
place. Wolfe's front line, which alone met and turned the French attack,
was made up as follows, the figures including officers and men:--
/$
Thirty-fifth Regiment .... 519 Twenty-eighth Regiment 421
Fifty-eighth " .... 335 Forty-seventh " . 360
Seventy-eighth " .... 662 Forty-third " .. 327
Louisbourg Grenadiers 241 Light Infantry ........ 400
Making a total of 3,265.
$/
The French force engaged cannot be precisely given. Knox, on
information received from "an intelligent Frenchman," states the
number, corps by corps, the aggregate being 7,520. This, on examination,
plainly appears exaggerated. Fraser puts it at 5,000; Townshend
at 4,470, including militia. Bigot says, 3,500, which may
perhaps be as many as actually advanced to the attack, since
some of the militia held back. Including Bougainville's command,
the militia and the artillerymen left in the Beauport camp, the
sailors at the town batteries, and the garrison of Quebec, at least
as many of the French were out of the battle as were in it; and
the numbers engaged on each side seem to have been about equal.
For authorities of the foregoing chapter, see Appendix I.