1759, 1760
Sainte-Foy
The fleet was gone; the great river was left a solitude; and
the chill days of a fitful November passed over Quebec in
alternations of rain and frost, sunshine and snow. The troops,
driven by cold from their encampment on the Plains, were all
gathered within the walls. Their own artillery had so battered
the place that it was not easy to find shelter. The Lower Town
was a wilderness of scorched and crumbling walls. As you
ascend Mountain Street, the Bishop's Palace, on the right, was
a skeleton of tottering masonry, and the buildings on the left
were a mass of ruin, where ragged boys were playing at seesaw
among the fallen planks and timbers.[815] Even in the Upper
Town few of the churches and public buildings had escaped.
The Cathedral was burned to a shell. The solid front of the
College of the Jesuits was pockmarked by numberless cannon-balls,
and the adjacent church of the Order was wofully shattered.
The church of the Recollects suffered still more. The bombshells
that fell through the roof had broken into the pavement, and as
they burst had thrown up the bones and skulls of the dead from
the graves beneath.[816] Even the more distant Hôtel-Dieu was
pierced by fifteen projectiles, some of which had exploded in the
halls and chambers.[817]
[Footnote 815: Drawings made on the spot by Richard Short. These drawings,
twelve in number, were engraved and published in 1761.]
[Footnote 816: Short's _Views in Quebec_, 1759. Compare Pontbriand,
in _N.Y. Col. Docs._, X. 1,057.]
[Footnote 817: Casgrain, _Hôtel-Dieu de Québec_, 445.]
The Commissary-General, Berniers, thus describes to
Bourlamaque the state of the town: "Quebec is nothing but
a shapeless mass of ruins. Confusion, disorder, pillage reign
even among the inhabitants, for the English make examples of
severity every day. Everybody rushes hither and thither, without
knowing why. Each searches for his possessions, and, not
finding his own, seizes those of other people. English and
French, all is chaos alike. The inhabitants, famished and
destitute, escape to the country. Never was there seen such a
sight."[818]
[Footnote 818: _Berniers à Bourlamaque, 27 Sept. 1759_.]
Quebec swarmed with troops. There were guardhouses at
twenty different points; sentinels paced the ramparts, squads
of men went the rounds, soldiers off duty strolled the streets,
some in mitre caps and some black three-cornered hats; while
a ceaseless rolling of drums and a rigid observance of military
forms betrayed the sense of a still imminent danger. While
some of the inhabitants left town, others remained, having no
refuge elsewhere. They were civil to the victors, but severe
towards their late ruler. "The citizens," says Knox, "particularly
the females, reproach M. Vaudreuil upon every occasion,
and give full scope to bitter invectives." He praises the agreeable
manners and cheerful spirit of the Canadian ladies, concerning
whom another officer also writes: "It is very surprising
with what ease the gayety of their tempers enables them to
bear misfortunes which to us would be insupportable. Families
whom the calamities of war have reduced from the height of
luxury to the want of common necessaries laugh, dance, and
sing, comforting themselves with this reflection--_Fortune de
guerre_. Their young ladies take the utmost pains to teach our
officers French; with what view I know not, if it is not that
they may hear themselves praised, flattered, and courted without
loss of time."[819]
[Footnote 819: _Alexander Campbell to John Floyd, 22 Oct. 1759_. Campbell
was a lieutenant of the Highlanders; Lloyd was a Connecticut
merchant.]
Knox was quartered in a small stable, with a hayloft above
and a rack and manger at one end: a lodging better than fell
to the lot of many of his brother officers; and, by means of a
stove and some help from a carpenter, he says that he made
himself tolerably comfortable. The change, however, was an
agreeable one when he was ordered for a week to the General
Hospital, a mile out of the town, where he was to command
the guard stationed to protect the inmates and watch the
enemy. Here were gathered the sick and wounded of both armies,
nursed with equal care by the nuns, of whom Knox speaks with gratitude
and respect. "When our poor fellows were ill and ordered to be removed
from their odious regimental hospital to this general receptacle, they
were indeed rendered inexpressibly happy. Each patient has his bed, with
curtains, allotted to him, and a nurse to attend him. Every sick
or wounded officer has an apartment to himself, and is attended
by one of these religious sisters, who in general are young,
handsome, courteous, rigidly reserved, and very respectful.
Their office of nursing the sick furnishes them with opportunities
of taking great latitudes if they are so disposed; but I
never heard any of them charged with the least levity." The
nuns, on their part, were well pleased with the conduct of
their new masters, whom one of them describes as the "most
moderate of all conquerors."
"I lived here," Knox continues, "at the French King's table,
with an agreeable, polite society of officers, directors, and commissaries.
Some of the gentlemen were married, and their ladies honored us with their
company. They were generally cheerful, except when we discoursed on
the late revolution and the affairs of the campaign; then they seemingly
gave way to grief, uttered by profound sighs, followed by an _O mon
Dieu!_" He walked in the garden with the French officers,
played at cards with them, and passed the time so pleasantly
that his short stay at the hospital seemed an oasis in his hard
life of camp and garrison.
Mère de Sainte-Claude, the Superior, a sister of Ramesay,
late commandant of Quebec, one morning sent him a note of
invitation to what she called an English breakfast; and though
the repast answered to nothing within his experience, he says
that he "fared exceedingly well, and passed near two hours
most agreeably in the society of this ancient lady and her
virgin sisters."
The excellent nuns of the General Hospital are to-day what
their predecessors were, and the scene of their useful labors
still answers at many points to that described by the careful
pen of their military guest. Throughout the war they and the
nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu had been above praise in their assiduous
devotion to the sick and wounded.
Brigadier Murray, now in command of Quebec, was a gallant
soldier, upright, humane, generous, eager for distinction,
and more daring than prudent. He befriended the Canadians,
issued strict orders against harming them in person or property,
hanged a soldier who had robbed a citizen of Quebec, and
severely punished others for slighter offences of the same sort.
In general the soldiers themselves showed kindness towards the
conquered people; during harvest they were seen helping them
to reap their fields, without compensation, and sharing with
them their tobacco and rations. The inhabitants were disarmed,
and required to take the oath of allegiance. Murray reported
in the spring that the whole country, from Cap-Rouge downward,
was in subjection to the British Crown.[820]
[Footnote 820: _Murray to Pitt, 25 May, 1760_. Murray, _Journal,
1759, 1760_.]
Late in October it was rumored that some of the French
ships in the river above Quebec were preparing to run by the
batteries. This was the squadron which had arrived in the
spring with supplies, and had lain all summer at Batiscan, in
the Richelieu, and at other points beyond reach of the English.
After nearly a month of expectancy, they at length appeared,
anchored off Sillery on the twenty-first of November, and tried
to pass the town on the dark night of the twenty-fourth. Seven
or eight of them succeeded; four others ran aground and were
set on fire by their crews, excepting one which was stranded
on the south shore and abandoned. Captain Miller, with a lieutenant
and above forty men, boarded her; when, apparently through their
own carelessness, she blew up.[821] Most of the party were killed
by the explosion, and the rest, including the two officers, were
left in a horrible condition between life and death. Thus they
remained till a Canadian, venturing on board in search of plunder,
found them, called his neighbors to his aid, carried them to his
own house, and after applying, with the utmost kindness, what simple
remedies he knew, went over to Quebec and told of the disaster.
Fortunately for themselves, the sufferers soon died.
[Footnote 821: _Murray to Amherst, 25 Jan. 1760_. Not, as some believed, by
a train laid by the French.]
December came, and brought the Canadian winter, with
its fierce light and cold, glaring snowfields, and piercing blasts
that scorch the cheek like a firebrand. The men were frost-bitten
as they dug away the dry, powdery drifts that the wind had piled
against the rampart. The sentries were relieved every hour; yet feet
and fingers were continually frozen. The clothing of the troops was
ill-suited to the climate, and, though stoves had been placed in the
guard and barrack rooms, the supply of fuel constantly fell short.
The cutting and dragging of wood was the chief task of the garrison
for many weeks. Parties of axemen, strongly guarded, were always at work in
the forest of Ste.-Foy, four or five miles from Quebec, and the
logs were brought to town on sledges dragged by the soldiers.
Eight of them were harnessed in pairs to each sledge; and as
there was always danger from Indians and bushrangers, every
man carried his musket slung at his back. The labor was prodigious;
for frequent snowstorms made it necessary again and again to beat a
fresh track through the drifts. The men bore their hardships with
admirable good humor; and once a party of them on their return, dragging
their load through the street, met a Canadian, also with a load of wood,
which was drawn by a team of dogs harnessed much like themselves. They
accosted them as yoke-fellows, comrades, and brothers; asked
them what allowance of pork and rum they got; and invited
them and their owner to mess at the regimental barracks.
The appearance of the troops on duty within the town, as
described by Knox, was scarcely less eccentric. "Our guards
on the grand parade make a most grotesque appearance in
their different dresses; and our inventions to guard us against
the extreme rigor of this climate are various beyond imagination.
The uniformity as well as nicety of the clean, methodical
soldier is buried in the rough, fur-wrought garb of the frozen
Laplander; and we rather resemble a masquerade than a body
of regular troops, insomuch that I have frequently been accosted
by my acquaintances, whom, though their voices were familiar to me,
I could not discover, or conceive who they were. Besides, every man
seems to be in a continual hurry; for instead of walking soberly
through the streets, we are obliged to observe a running or trotting pace."
Early in January there was a storm of sleet, followed by
severe frost, which glazed the streets with ice. Knox, being
ordered to mount guard in the Lower Town, found the descent
of Mountain Street so slippery that it was impossible to walk
down with safety, especially as the muskets of the men were
loaded; and the whole party, seating themselves on the ground,
slid one after another to the foot of the hill. The Highlanders,
in spite of their natural hardihood, suffered more from the cold
than the other troops, as their national costume was but a
sorry defence against the Canadian winter. A detachment of
these breechless warriors being on guard at the General
Hospital, the nuns spent their scanty leisure in knitting for
them long woollen hose, which they gratefully accepted, though
at a loss to know whether modesty or charity inspired the gift.
From the time when the English took possession of Quebec,
reports had come in through deserters that Lévis meant to attack
and recover it. Early in November there was a rumor that he was about
to march upon it with fifteen thousand men. In December word came
that he was on his way, resolved to storm it on or about the twenty-second,
and dine within the walls, under the French flag, on Christmas Day.
He failed to appear; but in January a deserter said that he had prepared
scaling-ladders, and was training his men to use them by assaults
on mock ramparts of snow. There was more tangible evidence
that the enemy was astir. Murray had established two fortified outposts,
one at Ste.-Foy, and the other farther on, at Old Lorette. War-parties
hovered round both, and kept the occupants in alarm. A large body of
French grenadiers appearedat the latter place in February, and drove
off a herd of cattle; when a detachment of rangers, much inferior in
number, set upon them, put them to flight, and recovered the plunder.
At the same time a party of regulars, Canadians, andIndians took up a
strong position near the church at Point Levi, and sent a message to the
English officers that a large company of expert hairdressers were ready
to wait upon them whenever they required their services. The allusion
was of course to the scalp-lifting practices of the Indians and
bushrangers.
The river being now hard frozen, Murray sent over a detachment
of light infantry under Major Dalling. A sharp fight ensued on the snow,
around the church, and in the neighboringforest, where the English
soldiers, taught to use snow-shoes by the rangers, routed the enemy, and
killed or captured a considerable number. A third post was then established
at the church and the priest's house adjacent. Some days after, the
French came back in large numbers, fortified themselves with
felled trees, and then attacked the English position. The firing
being heard at Quebec, the light infantry went over to the
scene of action, and Murray himself followed on the ice, with
the Highlanders and other troops. Before he came up, the
French drew off and retreated to their breastwork, where they
were attacked and put to flight, the nimble Highlanders capturing
a few, while the greater part made their escape.
As it became known that the French held a strong post at
Le Calvaire, near St. Augustin, two days' march from Quebec,
Captain Donald MacDonald was sent with five hundred men
to attack it. He found the enemy behind a breastwork of logs
protected by an abattis. The light infantry advanced and
poured in a brisk fire; on which the French threw down their
arms and fled. About eighty of them were captured; but their
commander, Herbin, escaped, leaving to the victors his watch,
hat and feather, wine, liquor-case, and mistress. The English
had six men wounded and nearly a hundred frost-bitten.[822]
[Footnote 822: Knox, II. 275. Murray, _Journal_. Fraser, _Journal_.
Vaudreuil, in his usual way, multiplies the English force by three.]
Captain Hazen and his rangers soon after had a notable
skirmish. They were posted in a house not far from the station
at Lorette. A scout came in with news that a large party of
the enemy was coming to attack them; on which Hazen left a
sergeant and fourteen men in the house, and set out for Lorette
with the rest to ask a reinforcement. On the way he met the
French, who tried to surround him; and he told his men to
fall back to the house. They remonstrated, saying that they
"felt spry," and wanted to show the regulars that provincials
could fight as well as red-coats. Thereupon they charged the
enemy, gave them a close volley of buckshot and bullets, and
put them to flight; but scarcely had they reloaded their guns
when they were fired upon from behind. Another body of assailants had
got into their rear, in order to cut them off. Theyfaced about,
attacked them, and drove them back like the first. The two French
parties then joined forces, left Hazen topursue his march, and
attacked the fourteen rangers in the house, who met them with a
brisk fire. Hazen and his men heard the noise; and, hastening back,
fell upon the rear of the French, while those in the house sallied
and attacked them infront. They were again routed; and the rangers
chased them two miles, killing six of them and capturing seven. Knox,
in whose eyes provincials usually find no favor, launches this
time into warm commendation of "our simply honest New England men."
Fresh reports came in from time to time that the French
were gathering all their strength to recover Quebec; and late
in February these stories took a definite shape. A deserter from
Montreal brought Murray a letter from an officer of rangers,
who was a prisoner at that place, warning him that eleven
thousand men were on the point of marching to attack him.
Three other deserters soon after confirmed the news, but
added that the scheme had met with a check; for as it was intended
to carry the town by storm, a grand rehearsal had taken
place, with the help of scaling-ladders planted against the wall
of a church; whereupon the Canadians rushed with such zeal
to the assault that numerous broken legs, arms, and heads
ensued, along with ruptures, sprains, bruises, and dislocations;
insomuch, said the story, that they became disgusted with the
attempt. All remained quiet till after the middle of April, when
the garrison was startled by repeated assurances that at the first
breaking-up of the ice all Canada would be upon them. Murray
accordingly ordered the French inhabitants to leave the town
within three days.[823]
[Footnote 823: _Ordonnance faite à Québec le 21 Avril, 1760, par son
Excellence, Jacques Murray_.]
In some respects the temper of the troops was excellent. In
the petty warfare of the past winter they had generally been
successful, proving themselves a match for the bushrangers
and Indians on their own ground; so that, as Sergeant Johnson
remarks, in his odd way, "Very often a small number of our
men would put to flight a considerable party of those Cannibals."
They began to think themselves invincible; yet they had
the deepest cause for anxiety. The effective strength of the garrison
was reduced to less than half, and of those that remained
fit for duty, hardly a man was entirely free from scurvy. The
rank and file had no fresh provisions; and, in spite of every
precaution, this malignant disease, aided by fever and dysentery,
made no less havoc among them than among the crews of Jacques Cartier
at this same place two centuries before. Of about seven thousand men
left at Quebec in the autumn, scarcely more than three thousand were
fit for duty on the twenty-fourth of April.[824] About seven hundred
had found temporary burial in the snowdrifts, as the frozen ground was
impenetrable as a rock.
[Footnote 824: _Return of the present State of His Majesty's Forces
in Garrison at Quebec, 24 April, 1760_ (Public Record Office).]
Meanwhile Vaudreuil was still at Montreal, where he says
that he "arrived just in time to take the most judicious measures
and prevent General Amherst from penetrating into thecolony."[825]
During the winter some of the French regulars were kept in garrison
at the outposts, and the rest quartered on the inhabitants; while the
Canadians were dismissed to theirhomes, subject to be mustered again
at the call of the Governor. Both he and Lévis were full of the hope
of retaking Quebec. He had spies and agents among Murray's soldiers;
and though the citizens had sworn allegiance to King George,
some of them were exceedingly useful to his enemies. Vaudreuil
had constant information of the state of the garrison. He knew that
the scurvy was his active and powerful ally, and that the hospitals
and houses of Quebec were crowded withthe sick. At the end of March
he was informed that more than half the British were on the sick-list;
and it was presentlyrumored that Murray had only two thousand men able
to bear arms.[826] With every allowance for exaggeration in these reports,
it was plain that the French could attack their invaders in
overwhelming force.
[Footnote 825: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 30 Oct. 1759_.]
[Footnote 826: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 15 Avril, 1760_.]
The difficulty was to find means of transportation. The depth
of the snow and the want of draught animals made it necessary
to wait till the river should become navigable; but preparation
was begun at once. Lévis was the soul of the enterprise. Provisions
were gathered from far and near; cannon, mortars, and munitions of
war were brought from the frontier posts, and butcher-knives were
fitted to the muzzles of guns to servethe Canadians in place of
bayonets. All the workmen aboutMontreal were busied in making tools
and gun-carriages. Stores were impressed from the merchants; and
certain articles, which could not otherwise be had, were smuggled,
with extraordinary address, out of Quebec itself.[827] Early in
spring the militia received orders to muster for the march. There
were doubts and discontent; but, says a contemporary, "sensible
people dared not speak, for if they did they were set down as
English." Some there were who in secret called the scheme
"Lévis' folly;" yet it was perfectly rational, well conceived,
and conducted with vigor and skill. Two frigates, two sloops-of-war,
and a number of smaller craft still remained in the river, under
command of Vauquelin, the brave officer who haddistinguished himself
at the siege of Louisbourg. The storesand cannon were placed on
board these vessels, the army embarkedin a fleet of bateaux, and on
the twentieth of April thewhole set out together for the scene of
action. They comprised eight battalions of troops of the line and
two of colony troops; with the colonial artillery, three thousand
Canadians, and four hundred Indians. When they left Montreal, their
effective strength, besides Indians, is said by Lévis to have been six
thousand nine hundred and ten, a number which was increased
as he advanced by the garrisons of Jacques-Cartier, Déschambault,
and Pointe-aux-Trembles, as well as by the Canadians on both side
of the St. Lawrence below Three Rivers; forVaudreuil had ordered
the militia captains to join his standard, with all their followers,
armed and equipped, on pain of death.[828] These accessions appear
to have raised his force to between eight and nine thousand.
[Footnote 827: __Vaudreuil au Ministre, 23 Avril, 1760_.]
[Footnote 828: _Vaudreuil aux Capitaines de Milice, 16 Avril, 1760_. I am
indebted to Abbé H.R. Casgrain for a copy of this letter.]
The ice still clung to the river banks, the weather was bad,
and the navigation difficult; but on the twenty-sixth the army
landed at St. Augustin, crossed the river of Cap-Rouge on
bridges of their own making, and moved upon the English outpost
at Old Lorette. The English abandoned it and fell backto Ste.-Foy.
Lévis followed. Night came on, with a gale from the southeast, a
driving rain, and violent thunder, unusual at that season. The road,
a bad and broken one, led through themarsh called La Suède. Causeways
and bridges broke down under the weight of the marching columns and
plunged the men into water, mud, and half-thawed ice. "It was a
frightful night," says Lévis; "so dark that but for the flashes of
lightning we should have been forced to stop." The break of day found
the vanguard at the edge of the woods bordering the farther
side of the marsh. The storm had abated; and they saw before
them, a few hundred yards distant, through the misty air, a
ridge of rising ground on which stood the parish church of
Ste.-Foy, with a row of Canadian houses stretching far to
right and left. This ridge was the declivity of the plateau of
Quebec; the same which as it approaches the town, some five
or six miles towards the left, takes the names of Côte d'Abraham
and Côte Ste.-Geneviève. The church and the houses were occupied by
British troops, who, as the French debouchedfrom the woods, opened
on them with cannon, and compelledthem to fall back. Though the ridge
at this point is not steep, the position was a strong one; but had
Lévis known how fewwere as yet there to oppose him, he might have
carried it byan assault in front. As it was, he resolved to wait
till night, and then flank the enemy by a march to the right along
the border of the wood.
It was the morning of Sunday, the twenty-seventh. Till late
in the night before, Murray and the garrison of Quebec were
unaware of the immediate danger; and they learned it at last
through a singular stroke of fortune. Some time after midnight
the watch on board the frigate "Racehorse," which hadwintered in
the dock at the Lower Town, heard a feeble cryof distress from the
midst of the darkness that covered the St. Lawrence. Captain Macartney
was at once informed of it; and, through an impulse of humanity,
he ordered a boat to put outamid the drifting ice that was sweeping
up the river with thetide. Guided by the faint cries, the sailors
found a man lying on a large cake of ice, drenched, and half dead
with cold; and, taking him with difficulty into their boat, they
carried him to the ship. It was long before he was able to speak
intelligibly; but at last, being revived by cordials and other remedies,
he found strength to tell his benefactors that he was a sergeant of
artillery in the army that had come to retake Quebec; that in
trying to land a little above Cap-Rouge, his boat had been
overset, his companions drowned, and he himself saved by
climbing upon the cake of ice where they had discovered him;
that he had been borne by the ebb tide down to the Island of
Orleans, and then brought up to Quebec by the flow; and,
finally, that Lévis was marching on the town with twelve
thousand men at his back.
He was placed in a hammock and carried up Mountain
Street to the quarters of the General, who was roused from
sleep at three o'clock in the morning to hear his story. The
troops were ordered under arms; and soon after daybreak
Murray marched out with ten pieces of cannon and more than
half the garrison. His principal object was to withdraw the
advanced posts at Ste.-Foy, Cap-Rouge, Sillery, and Anse du
Foulon. The storm had turned to a cold, drizzling rain, and the
men, as they dragged their cannon through snow and mud,
were soon drenched to the skin. On reaching Ste.-Foy, they
opened a brisk fire from the heights upon the woods which now
covered the whole army of Lévis; and being rejoined by the
various outposts, returned to Quebec in the afternoon, after
blowing up the church, which contained a store of munitions
that they had no means of bringing off. When they entered
Quebec a gill of rum was served out to each man; several
houses in the suburb of St. Roch were torn down to supply
them with firewood for drying their clothes; and they were left
to take what rest they could against the morrow. The French,
meanwhile, took possession of the abandoned heights; and
while some filled the houses, barns, and sheds of Ste.-Foy and
its neighborhood, others, chiefly Canadians, crossed the
plateau to seek shelter in the village of Sillery.
Three courses were open to Murray. He could defend Quebec,
fortify himself outside the walls on the Buttes-à-Neveu,
or fight Lévis at all risks. The walls of Quebec could not withstand
a cannonade, and he had long intended to intrench his army on the
Buttes, as a better position of defence; but the ground, frozen like
a rock, had thus far made the plan impracticable. Even now, though
he surface was thawed, the soil beneath was still frost-bound, making
the task of fortificationextremely difficult, if indeed the French
would give him time for it. Murray was young in years, and younger
still in impulse. He was ardent, fearless, ambitious, and emulous
of the fame of Wolfe. "The enemy," he soon after wrote to Pitt, "was
greatly superior in number, it is true; but when I considered
that our little army was in the habit of beating the enemy, and
had a very fine train of field artillery; that shutting ourselves
at once within the walls was putting all upon the single chance
of holding out for a considerable time a wretched fortification,
I resolved to give them battle; and, half an hour after six in
the morning, we marched with all the force I could muster,
namely, three thousand men."[829] Some of these had left the
hospitals of their own accord in their eagerness to take part in
the fray.
[Footnote 829: _Murray to Pitt, 25 May, 1760_.]
The rain had ceased; but as the column emerged from St.
Louis Gate, the scene before them was a dismal one. As yet
there was no sign of spring. Each leafless bush and tree was
dark with clammy moisture; patches of bare earth lay oozy and
black on the southern slopes: but elsewhere the ground was
still covered with snow, in some places piled in drifts, and
everywhere sodden with rain; while each hollow and depression
was full of that half-liquid, lead-colored mixture of snow and
water which new England schoolboys call "slush," for all
drainage was stopped by the frozen subsoil. The troops had
with them two howitzers and twenty field-pieces, which had
been captured when Quebec surrendered, and had formed a
part of that very battery which Ramesay refused to Montcalm
at the battle of the autumn before. As there were no horses, the
cannon were dragged by some of the soldiers, while others
carried picks and spades; for as yet Murray seems not to have
made up his mind whether to fortify or fight. Thus they advanced
nearly half a mile; till reaching the Buttes-à-Neveu, they formed
in order of battle along their farther slopes, on thesame ground
that Montcalm had occupied on the morning of his death.
Murray went forward to reconnoitre. Immediately before
him was a rising ground, and, beyond it, a tract of forest called
Sillery Wood, a mile or more distant. Nearer, on the left, he
could see two blockhouses built by the English in the last
autumn, not far from the brink of the plateau above the Anse
du Foulon where Wolfe climbed the heights. On the right, at
the opposite brink of the plateau, was a house and a fortified
wind mill belonging to one Dumont. The blockhouses, the mill,
and the rising ground between them were occupied by the
vanguard of Lévis' army; while, behind, he could descry the
main body moving along the road from Ste.-Foy, then turning,
battalion after battalion, and rapidly marching across the
plateau along the edge of Sillery Wood. The two brigades of
the leading column had already reached the blockhouses by
the Anse du Foulon, and formed themselves as the right wing
of the French line of battle; but those behind were not yet in
position.
Murray, kindling at the sight, thought that so favorable a
moment was not to be lost, and ordered an advance. His line
consisted of eight battalions, numbering a little above two
thousand. In the intervals between them the cannon were
dragged through slush and mud by five hundred men; and, at
a little distance behind, the remaining two battalions followed
as a reserve. The right flank was covered by Dalling's light
infantry; the left by Hazen's company of rangers and a hundred
volunteers under Major MacDonald. They all moved forward
till they were on nearly the same ground where Wolfe's army had
been drawn up. Then the cannon unlimbered, andopened on the French
with such effect that Lévis, who was on horseback in the middle
of the field, sent orders to the corpsof his left to fall back
to the cover of the woods. The movement caused some disorder.
Murray mistook it for retreat, and commanded a farther advance.
The whole British line, extending itself towards the right, pushed
eagerly forward: in doing which it lost the advantage of the
favorable position it had occupied; and the battalions of the
right soon found themselves on low grounds, wading in half-melted
snow, which in some parts was knee deep. Here the cannon could no
longer be worked with effect. Just in front, a small brook ran along
the hollow, through soft mud and saturated snowdrifts, then
gurgled down the slope on the right, to lose itself in the
meadows of the St. Charles. A few rods before this brook
stood the house and windmill of Dumont, occupied by five
companies of French grenadiers. The light infantry at once
attacked them. A furious struggle ensued, till at length the
French gave way, and the victors dashed forward to follow
up their advantage. Their ardor cost them dear. The corps on
the French left, which had fallen back into the woods, now
advanced again as the cannon ceased to play, rushing on without
order but with the utmost impetuosity, led by a gallant old
officer, Colonel Dalquier, of the battalion of Béarn. A bullet in
the body could not stop him. The light infantry were overwhelmed;
and such of them as were left alive were driven back in confusion
upon the battalions behind them, along the front of which they
remained dispersed for some minutes, preventing the troops from
firing on the advancing French, whothus had time to reform their
ranks. At length the light infantrygot themselves out of the way
and retired to the rear, where, having lost nearly all their officers,
they remained during the rest of the fight. Another struggle followed
for the house and mill of Dumont, of which the French again got
possession, to be again driven out; and it remained, as if by mutual
consent, unoccupied for some time by either party. For above an hour
more the fight was hot and fierce. "We drove them back as
long as we had ammunition for our cannon," says Sergeant
Johnson; but now it failed, and no more was to be had, because,
in the eccentric phrase of the sergeant, the tumbrils were "bogged
in deep pits of snow."
While this was passing on the English right, it fared still
worse with them on the left. The advance of the line was no
less disastrous here than there. It brought the troops close to
the woods which circled round to this point from the French
rear, and from which the Canadians, covered by the trees, now
poured on them a deadly fire. Here, as on the right, Lévis had
ordered his troops to fall back for a time; but when the fire of
the English cannon ceased, they advanced again, and their
artillery, though consisting of only three pieces, played its part
with good effect. Hazen's rangers and MacDonald's volunteers
attacked and took the two adjacent blockhouses, but could not
hold them. Hazen was wounded, MacDonald killed, and their
party overpowered. The British battalions held their ground
till the French, whose superior numbers enabled them to extend
themselves on both sides beyond the English line, made a
furious attack on the left wing, in front and flank. The reserves
were ordered up, and the troops stood for a time in sullen
desperation under the storm of bullets; but they were dropping
fast in the blood-stained snow, and the order came at length
to fall back. They obeyed with curses: "Damn it, what is falling
back but retreating?"[830] The right wing, also outflanked,
followed the example of the left. Some of the corps tried to
drag off their cannon; but being prevented by the deep mud
and snow they spiked the pieces and abandoned them. The
French followed close, hoping to cut off the fugitives from
the gates of Quebec; till Lévis, seeing that the retreat, though
precipitate, was not entirely without order, thought best to
stop the pursuit.
[Footnote 830: Knox, II. 295.]
The fight lasted about two hours, and did credit to both
sides. The Canadians not only showed their usual address and
courage when under cover of woods, but they also fought well
in the open field; and the conduct of the whole French force
proved how completely they had recovered from the panic of
the last autumn. From the first they were greatly superior in
number, and at the middle and end of the affair, when they
had all reached the field, they were more than two against
one.[831] The English, on the other hand, besides the opportunity
of attacking before their enemies had completely formed, had
a vastly superior artillery and a favorable position, both which
advantages they lost after their second advance.
[Footnote 831: See Appendix K.]
Some curious anecdotes are told of the retreat. Colonel
Fraser, of the Highlanders, received a bullet which was no
doubt half spent, and which, with excellent precision, hit the
base of his queue, so deadening the shock that it gave him no
other inconvenience than a stiff neck. Captain Hazen, of the
rangers, badly wounded, was making his way towards the gate,
supported by his servant, when he saw at a great distance
a French officer leading a file of men across a rising ground;
whereupon he stopped and told the servant to give him his
gun. A volunteer named Thompson, who was near by and who
tells the story, thought that he was out of his senses; but Hazen
persisted, seated himself on the ground, took a long aim, fired,
and brought down his man. Thompson congratulated him. "A
chance shot may kill the devil," replied Hazen; and resigning
himself again to the arms of his attendant, he reached the
town, recovered from his wound, and lived to be a general of
the Revolution.[832]
[Footnote 832: Thompson, deceived by Hazen's baptismal name, Moses,
thought that he was a Jew. (_Revue Canadienne_, IV, 865.) He was,
however, of an old New England Puritan family. See the Hazen
genealogy in _Historic-Genealogical Register_, XXXIII.]
The English lost above a thousand, or more than a third
of their whole number, killed, wounded, and missing.[833] They
carried off some of their wounded, but left others behind;
and the greater part of these were murdered, scalped, and
mangled by the Indians, all of whom were converts from the
mission villages. English writers put the French loss at two
thousand and upwards, which is no doubt a gross exaggeration.
Lévis declares that the number did not exceed six or eight hundred;
but afterwards gives a list which makes it eight hundred and
thirty-three.
[Footnote 833: _Return of Killed, Wounded, and Missing_, signed J. Murray.]
Murray had left three or four hundred men to guard Quebec
when the rest marched out; and adding them to those who had returned
scathless from the fight, he now had about twenty-four hundred rank
and file fit for duty. Yet even the troops that were rated as effective
were in so bad a condition that the hyperbolical Sergeant Johnson
calls them "half-starved, scorbutic skeletons." That worthy soldier,
commonly a model of dutiful respect to those above him, this time so
far forgets himself as to criticise his general for the "mad,
enthusiastic zeal" by which he nearly lost the fruits of Wolfe's
victory. In fact, the fate of Quebec trembled in the balance.
"We were too few and weak to stand an assault," continues
Johnson, "and we were almost in as deep a distress as we
could be." At first there was some drunkenness and some
plundering of private houses; but Murray stopped the one by
staving the rum-barrels of the sutlers, and the other by hanging
the chief offender. Within three days order, subordination,
hope, and almost confidence were completely restored. Not
a man was idle. The troops left their barracks and lay in tents
close to their respective alarm posts. On the open space by
St. Louis Gate a crowd of convalescents were busy in filling
sand-bags to strengthen the defences, while the sick and
wounded in the hospitals made wadding for the cannon. The
ramparts were faced with fascines, of which a large stock
had been provided in the autumn; _chevaux-de-frise_ were
planted in exposed places; an outwork was built to protect
St. Louis Gate; embrasures were cut along the whole length
of the walls; and the French cannon captured when the town
was taken were planted against their late owners. Every man
was tasked to the utmost of his strength; and the garrison,
gaunt, worn, besmirched with mud, looked less like soldiers
than like overworked laborers.
The conduct of the officers troubled the spirit of Sergeant
Johnson. It shocked his sense of the fitness of things to see
them sharing the hard work of the private men, and he thus
gives utterance to his feelings: "None but those who were
present on the spot can imagine the grief of heart the soldiers
felt to see their officers yoked in the harness, dragging up
cannon from the Lower Town; to see gentlemen, who were set over them
by His Majesty to command and keep them to their duty, working at
the batteries with the barrow, pickaxe, and spade." The effect,
however, was admirable. The spirit of the men rose to the crisis.
Murray, no less than his officers, had all their confidence; for if
he had fallen into a fatal error, he atoned for it now by unconquerable
resolution and exhaustless fertility of resource. Deserters said that
Lévis would assault the town; and the soldiers replied: "Let him come on;
he will catch a Tartar."
Lévis and his army were no less busy in digging trenches
along the stony back of the Buttes-à-Neveu. Every day the
English fire grew hotter; till at last nearly a hundred and fifty
cannon vomited iron upon them from the walls of Quebec,
and May was well advanced before they could plant a single
gun to reply. Their vessels had landed artillery at the Anse
du Foulon; but their best hope lay in the succors they daily
expected from the river below. In the autumn Lévis, with a
view to his intended enterprise, had sent a request to Versailles
that a ship laden with munitions and heavy siege-guns should be sent
from France in time to meet him at Quebec in April; while he looked
also for another ship, which had wintered at Gaspé, and which therefore
might reach him as soon as navigation opened. The arrival of these
vessels would have made the position of the English doubly critical; and,
on the other hand, should an English squadron appear first,
Lévis would be forced to raise the siege. Thus each side
watched the river with an anxiety that grew constantly more
intense; and the English presently descried signals along the
shore which seemed to say that French ships were moving
up the St. Lawrence. Meantime, while doing their best to
compass each other's destruction, neither side forgot the
courtesies of war. Lévis heard that Murray liked spruce-beer
for his table, and sent him a flag of truce with a quantity of
spruce-boughs and a message of compliment; Murray responded
with a Cheshire cheese, and Lévis rejoined with a present of
partridges.
Bad and scanty fare, excessive toil, and broken sleep were
telling ominously on the strength of the garrison when, on the
ninth of May, Murray, as he sat pondering over the fire at
his quarters in St. Louis Street, was interrupted by an officer
who came to tell him that there was a ship-of-war in the
Basin beating up towards the town. Murray started from his
revery, and directed that British colors should be raised immediately
on Cape Diamond.[834] The halyards being out of order, a sailor
climbed the staff and drew up the flag to its place. The news had
spread; men and officers, divided between hope and fear, crowded
to the rampart by the Château, where Durham Terrace now overlooks
the St. Lawrence, and every eye was strained on the approaching ship,
eager to see whether she would show the red flag of England or the
white one of France. Slowly her colors rose to the mast-head and
unfurled to the wind the red cross of St. George. It was the
British frigate "Lowestoffe." She anchored before the Lower
Town, and saluted the garrison with twenty-one guns. "The
gladness of the troops," says Knox, "is not to be expressed.
Both officers and soldiers mounted the parapet in the face
of the enemy and huzzaed with their hats in the air for almost
an hour. The garrison, the enemy's camp, the bay, and circumjacent
country resounded with our shouts and the thunder of our artillery;
for the gunners were so elated that they did nothing but load and
fire for a considerable time. In short, the general satisfaction
is not to be conceived, except by a person who had suffered the
extremities of a siege, and been destined, with his brave friends
and countrymen, to the scalping-knives of a faithless conqueror
and his barbarious allies." The "Lowestoffe" brought news that a
British squadron was at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and would
reach Quebec in a few days.
[Footnote 834: Thompson in _Revue Canadienne_, IV. 866.]
Lévis, in ignorance of this, still clung to the hope that
French ships would arrive strong enough to overpower the
unwelcome stranger. His guns, being at last in position,
presently opened fire upon a wall that was not built to bear
the brunt of heavy shot; but an artillery better and more
numerous than his own almost silenced them, and his gunners
were harassed by repeated sallies. The besiegers had now no
real chance of success unless they could carry the place by
storm, to which end they had provided abundant scaling-ladders
as well as petards to burst in the gates. They made, however, no
attempt to use them. A week passed, when, on the evening of the
fifteenth, the ship of the line "Vanguard" and the frigate "Diana"
sailed into the harbor; and on the next morning the "Diana" and
the "Lowestoffe" passed the town to attack the French vessels
in the river above. These were six in all,--two frigates, two
smaller armed ships, and two schooners; the whole under command
of the gallant Vauquelin. He did not belie his reputation; fought
his ship with persistent bravery till his ammunition was spent,
refused even then to strike his flag, and being made prisoner,
was treated by his captors with distinguished honor. The
other vessels made little or no resistance. One of them threw
her guns overboard and escaped; the rest ran ashore and
were burned.
The destruction of his vessels was a death-blow to the
hopes of Lévis, for they contained his stores of food and
ammunition. He had passed the preceding night in great agitation;
and when the cannonade on the river ceased, he hastened to raise the
siege. In the evening deserters from hiscamp told Murray that the
French were in full retreat; on which all the English batteries
opened, firing at random through the darkness, and sending cannon-balls
_en ricochet_, bowling by scores together, over the Plains of
Abraham on the heels of the retiring enemy. Murray marched out at
dawn of day to fall upon their rear; but, with a hundred and
fifty cannon bellowing behind them, they had made such speed that,
though he pushed over the marsh to Old Lorette, he could not overtake
them; they had already crossed the river of Cap-Rouge. Why, with
numbers still superior, they went off in such haste, it is hard to
say. They left behind them thirty-four cannon and six mortars, with
petards, scaling-ladders, tents, ammunition, baggage, intrenching
tools, many of their muskets, and all their sick and wounded.
The effort to recover Quebec did great honor to the enterprise
of the French; but it availed them nothing, served only
to waste resources that seemed already at the lowest ebb,
and gave fresh opportunity of plunder to Cadet and his crew,
who failed not to make use of it.
After the battle of Ste.-Foy Murray sent the frigate "Racehorse"
to Halifax with news of his defeat, and from Halifax it was sent
to England. The British public were taken by surprise. "Who the
deuce was thinking of Quebec?" says Horace Walpole. "America was
like a book one has read and done with; but here we are on a
sudden reading our book backwards." Ten days passed, and then
came word that the siege was raised and that the French were gone;
upon which Walpole wrote to General Conway: "Well, Quebec is
come to life again. Last night I went to see the Holdernesses.
I met my Lady in a triumphal car, drawn by a Manx horse,
thirteen little fingers high, with Lady Emily. Mr. Milbank
was walking by himself in ovation after the car, and they
were going to see the bonfire at the alehouse at the corner.
The whole procession returned with me; and from the Countess's
dressing-room we saw a battery fired before the house, the mob crying,
'God bless the good news!' These are all the particulars I know of the
siege. My Lord would have showed me the journal; but we amused ourselves
much better in going to eat peaches from the new Dutch stoves
[_hothouses_]."
NOTE: On the battle of Ste.-Foy and the subsequent siege,
Lévis, _Guerre du Canada. Relation de la seconde Bataille de
Québec et du Siége de cette Ville_ (there are several copies of this
paper, with different titles and some variation). _Murray to Amherst,
30 April, 1760_. Murray, _Journal kept at Quebec from Sept.
18, 1759, to May 17, 1760_ (Public Record Office, _America and
West Indies_, XCIX.). _Murray to Pitt, 25 May, 1760_. _Letter from
an Officer of the Royal Americans at Quebec, 24 May, 1760_ (in
_London Magazine_ and several periodical papers of the time).
Fraser, _Journal_ (Quebec Hist. Soc.); Johnstone, _Campaign of
1760_ (Ibid.). _Relation de ce qui s'est passé au Siége de Québec,
par une Religieuse de l'Hôpital Général_ (Ibid.). _Memoirs of the
Siege of Quebec_, by Sergeant John Johnson. _Mémoires sur le
Canada, 1749-1760_. Letters of Lévis, Bourlamaque, and Vaudreuil,
May, June, 1760. Several letters from officers at Quebec
in provincial newspapers. Knox, II. 292-322. _Plan of the Battle
and Situation of the British and French on the Heights of Abraham,
the 28th of April, 1760_,--an admirable plan, attached to
the great plan of operations at Quebec before mentioned, and
necessary to an understanding of the position and movements of
the two armies (British Museum, King's Maps).
The narratives of Mante, Entick, Wynne, Smith, and other
secondary writers give no additional light. On the force engaged
on each side, see Appendix K.