MAKERS OF EMPIRE.
ROBERT CLIVE, THE DARING IN WAR.
“_War, disguised as commerce, came;_
_Britain, carrying sword and flame,_
_Won an empire._”
YOU are now permitted to peep into the citadel of Arcot, the old capital
of the Carnatic. Its walls are ruinous, its ramparts unfitted for guns,
its battlements too low to protect soldiers. The town is in the hands of
four thousand native troops, assisted by one hundred and fifty
Frenchmen. Within the fort there are but a hundred and twenty Europeans
and two hundred Sepoys. Their stock of provisions is very low. At the
request of the Sepoys the Europeans take the rice, while the faithful
natives contrive to keep body and soul together on the water in which it
has been boiled. The defenders are daily diminishing in number from
starvation, disease, and the musketry fire of the enemy, but there is no
talk of surrender. You judge that their leader must be a man of no
common courage and resolution, and you are right. Within yonder room
their young English captain is placidly sleeping, though he knows that
the enemy is about to assault his feeble post.
Already he has been offered honourable terms and a bribe of money if he
will but yield. He has rejected both with the utmost scorn and defiance,
though he knows full well that the capture of the fort means the death
of every man in it. In haughty tones the young Englishman has told the
prince who commands the besieging army that his father is a usurper,
that his forces are a mere rabble, and that he will do well to think
twice before he sends such poltroons against English soldiers. It is now
the 14th day of November, and on the 30th of August last he and his
little army marched through a violent storm of thunder and rain, and
captured the fort without striking a blow. He has already held out for
seventy-five days, hoping hourly for relief. But he has not been
inactive. Time after time he and his little band have sallied forth and
inflicted considerable damage on the besiegers. The artillery of the
enemy has already made much havoc; two great breaches gape in the walls.
Every attempt to storm them has failed. Now the enemy is in overwhelming
force, and to-day an assault is to be made; yet the commander of the
post lies calmly sleeping, though a touch on the shoulder will awaken
him and bring him on to the walls to direct the defence. He has made all
arrangements; he has done all that man can do. Now he is recruiting his
exhausted strength for the critical struggle that awaits him.
To-day is the most solemn festival in the Mohammedan calendar, a day on
which the followers of Mohammed believe that he who falls in fight
against the infidel will enter at once into Paradise. The religious
enthusiasm of the besiegers is almost a frenzy, and they have further
increased their madness by a free use of the intoxicating drug which
they call bhang. They are ready to go to death with eager joy; no man of
them will flinch from the most dangerous duty; all are zealous for the
privilege of sacrificing their lives.
Suddenly you hear the discharge of three bombs. It is the signal for the
attack. Our young Englishman is awake now, and you get your first
glimpse of him. One glance at his face convinces you that he is a
warrior of warriors, that there is not a particle of fear in his whole
composition, that he is a born leader of men. His Sepoys positively
worship him. They believe him to be more than mortal. Whatever he
commands they obey. Their devotion to him exceeds that of the Tenth
Legion to Cæsar and of the Old Guard to Napoleon.
Such is Robert Clive, a young man of twenty-five, who left his
Shropshire home as the scapegrace of the family. In his home at Styche
and in the grammar school of Market Drayton he acquired a most
unenviable reputation—always in mischief, ready to use his fists on the
slightest provocation, an idle, worthless dunce. In desperation his
father packed him off to India as a book-keeper; but he has exchanged
the pen for the sword, and has now found his vocation. It is he who
suggested this desperate enterprise, and to-day he is about to lay the
foundations of his great fame.
The attack has begun. A vast multitude of besiegers is beneath the walls
carrying ladders, while against the four points where the fort is
weakest—the two gates and the two breaches—organized and simultaneous
attacks are preparing. Huge elephants, with their foreheads armed with
iron plates, are driven forward, and you expect that the gates will be
smashed to matchwood by the impact of these living battering-rams. But
watch! Now you see Clive directing his men to pour their fire into the
elephants. They do so, and the huge beasts, stung by the bullets, turn
round and trample under foot the dense masses of men behind them. The
enemy has been hoist with his own petard.
There is a wild rush into the north-west breach, which is blocked with
yelling natives. Suddenly you hear a volley, and down go scores of the
assailants. Clive has dug trenches behind the breaches, and his men are
in them pouring a murderous fire on the living, struggling mass that
swarms through the gap in the wall. As soon as the guns are discharged
they are handed to the rear-rank men to be loaded, and others charged
and primed are received in exchange. Three field-pieces now open fire,
and every shot tells. After three desperate onsets the enemy is driven
back.
Meanwhile the south-west breach is attacked. Water fills one part of the
ditch which protects it, and on this the foe has launched a raft crowded
with soldiers, who are urging it towards the shattered walls. The
gunners at this post fire wildly and their aim is bad. Clive springs to
the gun and works it himself. In three discharges he has cleared the
raft and torn it asunder. Many of its occupants are drowning in the
ditch, the remainder are swimming back to the bank.
The fight has now lasted an hour, and four hundred of the assailants are
dead. The grand attack has failed. There is firing during the night, but
when day breaks the besiegers are nowhere to be seen. They have
hurriedly abandoned the town, leaving their artillery and ammunition
behind them.
At once India rings with the praises of Clive. Reinforced, he proceeds
upon his victorious career, and the natives tremble at his name. Within
the next three years, by his marvellous energy and skill, he will
establish British supremacy in India.
Now we must hark back in order to understand the meaning of the struggle
which we have just witnessed. The East India Company, in whose service
Clive had enlisted, was established as far back as the days of Queen
Elizabeth. It was founded for trade, and it attended closely to
business. When Clive arrived in India its territory consisted of a few
square miles of land, for which rent was paid to native rajas. Its
troops were scarcely sufficient to man the ill-constructed forts which
had been erected at Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, and a few other places to
protect the warehouses. Most of the soldiers in the service of the
Company were natives, and were neither furnished with European weapons
nor disciplined according to European methods. The white servants of the
Company were simply traders, whose business it was to make advances to
manufacturers, ship cargoes, and in other ways push the business
interests of their employers. Most of the younger clerks, of whom Clive
was one, were miserably paid, while the older ones enriched themselves
by trading on their own account.
A French East India Company had also been founded, but at the outset it
met with much less success than the English Company. At the close of the
seventeenth century it possessed little more than the small town of
Pondicherry, which still remains in French hands. At this time the
Moguls, the descendants of the Mohammedan conquerors of Northern India,
dominated the land; but a few years later their power fell to pieces,
and India was splintered into little independent kingdoms. The land was
given over to civil war; every nawab, or governor, quarrelled and fought
with his neighbours. The feebleness of the native rulers and the
disturbed state of the country positively invited the European traders,
both English and French, to conquest. Hitherto they had been merely
competitors for commerce; soon they were to become rivals for dominion.
Such was the condition of affairs when Clive sailed for India. He was
very homesick and depressed during the long voyage round the Cape, and
when he arrived he had spent all his money and contracted some debts. He
was stationed at Fort George, Madras, where he was wretchedly lodged and
badly paid, and engaged in duties ill-suited to his daring, ardent
nature. On more than one occasion he got into scrapes and received
reprimands. Twice he attempted suicide, and twice the pistol which he
snapped at his own head failed to go off. “It appears I am destined for
something,” he said, and, as you already know, his prophecy proved true.
In the year of his arrival in India (1744) war was declared by Britain
against France, and the struggle in Europe led to the long fight for
supremacy in India.
Dupleix, the French Governor of Pondicherry, was a man of great
ambition, and he now conceived the idea of founding a great French
empire in India. Himself an able soldier, he made two most important
discoveries. First, he observed that the native armies could not stand
against men disciplined in the European fashion; and, secondly, he
perceived that the natives could be brought under European discipline by
European officers. Forthwith he began to enlist Sepoys, or native
soldiers, and to arm and discipline them after the French manner. With
these Sepoys he intended to intervene in the disputes of the native
rulers, and by taking first this side, and then that, gradually win
India for France.
A French expedition appeared before Madras, captured Fort George, and
seized the contents of the warehouses as prize of war. Some of the
servants of the Company, including Clive, were paraded through the
streets of Pondicherry in triumphal procession, and treated with great
indignity. Clive, in the disguise of a Mohammedan, managed to escape
from the town by night and make his way to Fort St. David, a small
British settlement one hundred miles south of Madras. Here he begged an
ensign’s commission in the service of the Company, and at twenty-one
entered upon his military career.
He took part in Admiral Boscawen’s unsuccessful siege of Pondicherry,
where he distinguished himself, and in his twenty-fifth year was
promoted to be a captain. Shortly after the failure at Pondicherry peace
was proclaimed. Nevertheless, there was but a short cessation of
hostilities in India; for though British and French were supposed to
have sheathed the sword, a great struggle for power was about to begin
both in India and in America. Before long there was open war, which at
first went greatly in favour of France.
Dupleix, continuing his rapid and brilliant career, had intervened in
the affairs of the two great native states of Hyderabad and the
Carnatic, and had managed to get his own candidates placed on the
thrones of both these states. Thus he was practically master of South
India. Civil war, however, continued in the Carnatic, where the French
nominee was besieging Trichinopoly, the last stronghold of his rival.
Trichinopoly was about to fall, and its fall would mean the complete
supremacy of the French in India. At the critical moment Clive persuaded
the Governor of Madras to entrust him with a small force to attack
Arcot, the capital of the nawab whom Dupleix was supporting. By doing
so, he hoped to draw off the nawab’s forces from the siege of
Trichinopoly. You already know how splendidly he defended Arcot, and how
he forced the enemy to raise the siege. By 1753 he had completely undone
the work of Dupleix.
Worn out by anxiety and fatigue, he now returned to England. He had gone
out ten years before, a friendless, wayward boy; he now returned, at the
age of twenty-eight, to find himself greeted as one of Britain’s most
famous soldiers. Naturally, his father and mother and the other members
of his family were overjoyed to learn that naughty, idle Bobby had
developed into a famous man, the theme of all tongues, honoured and
praised by the greatest in the land. The East India Company thanked him
for his services in the warmest terms, and offered him a sword set with
diamonds. This he refused to accept unless a similar one was given to
his friend and commander Lawrence. With his prize-money Clive helped to
pay off some of his father’s debts, and to redeem the family estate.
In 1755 Clive returned to India. He had only just arrived when terrible
news reached him. Suraj-ud-Dowlah, the Nawab of Bengal, a fiend in human
shape, whose amusement as a child was to torture beasts and birds, and
his pastime as a man to watch the sufferings of his fellow-creatures,
had attacked the British settlement at Calcutta, and had seized one
hundred and forty-six Europeans. These he thrust into a chamber known as
the “Black Hole.” It was eighteen feet by fourteen, and its cubical
content was twenty feet square. When ordered to enter the cell the
prisoners imagined that the soldiers were joking, and as the nawab had
promised them their lives they laughed aloud at the absurdity of the
idea that they could possibly exist during the stifling heat of a Bengal
June night in such a confined space. They discovered their error when
they were driven in at the point of the sword. The windows were small
and barred, and soon the air was poisonous. The horrors that followed
are almost too terrible to recount. The poor creatures cried for mercy,
they strove to break in the door, they offered large bribes to their
jailers; but all to no purpose. Nothing could be done without the
nawab’s orders, and he was asleep and could not be awaked. Many went
mad; they trampled each other down, and fought like wild beasts for
places at the windows. The murderers outside mocked at their agonies,
holding lights to the bars, and shouting with laughter as they beheld
the struggles of their victims. When day broke and the doors were opened
only twenty-three ghastly figures staggered out into the sunlight. A
hundred and twenty-three corpses were flung promiscuously into a pit dug
for the purpose.
The rage and anger of the British in India can well be imagined. Clive
hastened to Bengal to avenge the awful outrage. He had nine hundred
Europeans and fifteen hundred Sepoys with which to oppose
Suraj-ud-Dowlah’s huge army. After a short, sharp fight the enemy fled
in confusion, leaving baggage, guns, and cattle in the hands of the
victors. This battle of Plassey, fought on June 23, 1757, secured for
the British the province of Bengal, the richest and most populous
province of India.
The battle, however, was not won without grave treachery. Prior to the
battle Clive learned that Mir Jaffier, Suraj-ud-Dowlah’s chief
commander, had formed a plot against his master. He managed to get into
communication with the disaffected general through the agency of one
Omichand, a wily, unscrupulous Bengali merchant. This man held the
thread of the whole plot in his hands; one word whispered by him in the
ear of Suraj-ud-Dowlah would have meant the lives of all the
conspirators. Omichand claimed £300,000 sterling as the price of his
secrecy and assistance, and insisted that an article regarding his
claims should be inserted in the treaty between Clive and Mir Jaffier.
Clive now descended to conduct for which he cannot be defended, though
excuses may be made. He knew he had to do with a villain, and he
determined to defeat him by his own knavish acts. Two treaties were
drawn up—the one, on white paper, was real; the other, on red paper,
was a sham. The red paper contained the promise to pay Omichand’s
demand; there was no mention of it in the white paper. Clive now added
his signature, and forged that of Admiral Watson to the red paper, which
was handed to Omichand. The treaty to which Mir Jaffier agreed was on
the white paper.
When Suraj-ud-Dowlah was overcome, Mir Jaffier received the throne of
Bengal as his reward. According to the terms of the treaty, he granted
territorial and other rights to the East India Company, and gave Clive a
gift of £200,000. “It is now time,” said Clive, “to undeceive Omichand.”
Turning to the man, Clive’s interpreter said, “Omichand, the red treaty
is a trick. You are to have nothing.” Omichand fell back insensible, and
afterwards relapsed into a state of idiocy. Soon after, Mir Jaffier was
besieged by the eldest son of the Great Mogul; but Clive marched to his
relief, and the besiegers melted away. Then Mir Jaffier in gratitude
made over to Clive the yearly rent, amounting to £30,000, which the
British paid for the lands which they occupied about Calcutta. Probably
Clive was justified in accepting this present, but it gave his enemies a
powerful handle against him. In 1760 Clive returned to England, and was
everywhere greeted as a “heaven-born general.” He became member of
Parliament for Shrewsbury, and received an Irish peerage. His fortune,
acquired by spoils, presents, and grants, actually yielded him £40,000 a
year.
In 1765 he returned to India as governor-general, and set himself the
task of purifying the administration of the Company. The officials and
military commanders received very small salaries; but these they turned
into fortunes by “shaking the pagoda tree”—that is, by blackmail,
extortion, and corruption of all kinds. Clive attempted to stop these
practices, and though his reforms were bitterly opposed, he left the
Company’s service much purer than he found it. In the process he raised
up a host of enemies, who in 1767, when he finally returned to England
in shattered health, brought about his impeachment for corrupt
practices, especially with reference to the Omichand affair and the
present from Mir Jaffier. During the Parliamentary inquiry, Clive, when
confronted by hostile evidence, remarked, “Mr. Chairman, at this moment
I stand astonished at my own moderation!” The House of Commons evaded a
decision on his conduct by passing a resolution that Lord Clive “had
rendered great and meritorious services to his country.” He was
acquitted, but the acquittal was really a vote of censure. Clive, broken
in health, keenly sensitive to the disgrace of the verdict, and
enfeebled in mind by the use of opium, felt the disgrace keenly. During
one of the fits of deep depression to which he was subject, he ended his
life by his own hand (November 1774).
Thus perished, in his forty-ninth year, the great Clive. His faults were
many, but his merits outweighed them, and he must always stand high in
the roll of British empire-makers. “Our island has scarcely ever
produced a man more truly great either in arms or in council.” Let this
be his epitaph.
[Illustration: =Clive at Bay.=]
The natives of India believed that Clive bore a charmed life. On one
occasion, when he was resting along with several of his men, a party of
Frenchmen fired into the room which he occupied, killing the man next to
him. Clive rushed out, and finding himself confronted by six Frenchmen,
loudly ordered them to lay down their arms as they were surrounded. The
native allies of the French fled, and the assailants themselves took
refuge in a temple. Next day they surrendered.
[Illustration]
JAMES WOLFE, CONQUEROR OF CANADA.
“_Wolfe, where’er he fought,_
_Put so much of his heart into his act_
_That his example had a magnet’s force,_
_And all were swift to follow whom all loved._”
Once more you see a young soldier advancing. He is a hero of heroes, yet
never was the soul of a hero enshrined in a more unhero-like frame. His
features are homely, his hair is fiery-red, his shoulders are narrow,
and his limbs are veritable spindle-shanks. But look at his eyes, and
you will instantly forget his plain features and his rickety body. They
are bright, searching, brimful of intelligence and vivacity, and speak
eloquently of the indomitable spirit within. This is James Wolfe, the
man who gave us Canada—“eldest daughter of the Empire”—that vast land
of fertile prairie, dense forest, widespreading pasture, rich mines,
unrivalled waterways, fine cities, and, above all, of a sturdy nation,
heart-warm towards the mother-country, and eager to give her tangible
proofs of kinship and affection. Wolfe gave Canada to the Empire at the
price of his heart’s blood. In one “crowded hour of glorious life” he
gave us the heritage of this majestic land, already the greatest and
most prosperous of all British lands beyond the seas, and yearly
advancing towards a mighty destiny.
James Wolfe was a soldier from his youth. His father was an officer of
distinction; his mother a woman of great sweetness and charm, deeply
beloved by her two sons, of whom James was the elder. He was born on
June 2, 1727, at Westerham in Kent. Of his brief boyhood’s days we know
little—indeed, there are but meagre details of his whole life. We know,
however, that he was a delicate, sensitive, highly-strung boy, who
inherited his mother’s frailty though not her beauty. We know, too, that
he saw little of his father, who was almost constantly absent from home
on active service. Nevertheless, he was tenderly and judiciously reared
by his devoted mother.
When a mere schoolboy—a little over fifteen years of age—he became an
ensign, and carried the colours in one of his Majesty’s regiments. From
the beginning of his career he set himself to study the art of war, and
at sixteen he was adjutant of his regiment, then serving in Flanders. He
discharged his duties with great intelligence, and very early
demonstrated his capacity for leading men. Even though an adjutant, he
had not lost his schoolboy tastes, for we find him writing to his mother
warmly thanking her for a plum-cake which she had sent him.
At twenty-one he had seen seven campaigns, and was a major. He had been
present at the victories of Dettingen and Culloden, and it is said that
on the latter battlefield he proved the nobility of his nature by
refusing to shoot a wounded Highlander when ordered to do so by
“Butcher” Cumberland. It is also said that he recommended the enlistment
of Highlanders as soldiers in the British army. This may or may not be
true, but it is certain that the Highland regiments first began to win
their great renown under his command.
At thirty years of age he had acquired the reputation of a capable,
active, zealous officer, but so far he had given little indication of
the great fame which was soon to be his. In 1758 he first crossed the
Atlantic; and here we may interrupt the narrative in order to explain
the condition of affairs at that time in America. By the middle of the
eighteenth century the British had established themselves in thirteen
colonies along the Atlantic coast from Florida to Nova Scotia. The
French had chosen Quebec as their capital, and had occupied Acadia (now
the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) and the valley of the
St. Lawrence from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes. A new England and a
new France had thus grown up in the New World.
New England grew rapidly in population and wealth. New France also
prospered, though in a lesser degree. Its progress was hindered by
constant warfare with the Indians, by the trading enterprise of the
British, and by the interference of the home government. The two white
races constantly advanced their frontiers, and their outposts drew
nearer and nearer to each other every year. Border strife between the
rival nations soon became frequent. In 1690, for example, the British
settlers invaded New France to revenge themselves for the plunder of
certain frontier stations. The invaders were driven back, but for years
afterwards the French and the British kept up an irregular warfare.
During the War of the Spanish Succession a powerful British fleet which
was protecting the colonies seized that part of Acadia now known as Nova
Scotia.
Though Britain had colonized the whole Atlantic seaboard from Florida to
Nova Scotia, her territories had not advanced inland beyond the great
barrier of the Alleghany Mountains. France, in addition to Canada,
possessed the colony of Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi. She
claimed that Louisiana stretched to the head-waters of the Mississippi
and its tributary the Ohio. Had this claim been allowed, the British
seaboard colonies would have been shut in on the west, and prevented
from extending to the rich plains of the interior. Already the British
needed elbow-room, for they numbered some 2,000,000, while the French in
all the vast territory which they claimed could only muster 180,000.
The French now proposed to link Louisiana with Canada by a chain of
forts along the Mississippi and the Ohio. The three northern links in
the chain were Fort Ticonderoga, at the end of Lake Champlain; Fort
Niagara, near the great falls; and Fort Duquesne, on the Ohio River,
where the great manufacturing town of Pittsburg now stands. The first
and last of these forts were close to the English back settlements,
which were constantly ravaged by Indians in the pay of France. In 1754,
while Britain was ringing with the fame of Clive fresh from his great
defence of Arcot, a party of Virginian militia made a dash at Fort
Duquesne under the leadership of George Washington, soon to be the
greatest name in American history. The attack, however, was
unsuccessful. This was the beginning of the great struggle between the
French and the British for the possession of North America.
Next year General Braddock, who had been sent out to be
commander-in-chief in America, marched against the French at the head of
2,200 British regulars and American settlers. He cut his way through
almost impenetrable forest, but when eight miles from the fort fell into
an ambuscade. The Indians and French were hidden in bushes and behind
trees, and they poured volley after volley into the British ranks. The
settlers wished to fight in the Indian fashion, and take cover behind
the trees; but Braddock thought this mode of warfare cowardly, and so
they fought in the open until so many of the British were killed that a
retreat had to be sounded. Soon the retreat became a flight, and but for
Washington and his Virginians, Braddock’s little army would probably
have been cut off to a man. The consequences of this defeat were
terrible. The French let loose the Indians on the outlying British
settlements, and the woods rang with the screams of tortured victims.
For a time France was supreme on the American continent.
In 1758 the British outlook was black indeed, and at home men trembled
in hourly expectation of a French invasion. England was in a very bad
way indeed; but the hour found the man, and that man was William Pitt.
He sketched out a bold plan of campaign in America. Simultaneous attacks
were to be made on Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Niagara, and on Quebec, the
key to New France. Pitt looked around for a general after his own heart.
He found him in James Wolfe, a young soldier with the daring, skill, and
determination to accomplish what the great statesman planned. Merit and
merit alone decided Pitt’s choice, and a better choice was never made.
Wolfe had just returned from the capture of the chief fort in Acadia,
where as brigadier under General Amherst he had covered himself with
glory, and had earned the proud title of “hero of Louisbourg.” When Pitt
offered the command of the new expedition to Wolfe he jumped at the
chance. “Mr. Pitt,” he said, “may dispose of my slight carcass as he
pleases.” The Duke of Newcastle, then Prime Minister, was shocked at
Pitt’s choice. He told the king that Wolfe was mad. “Mad is he?” said
George; “then I hope he will bite some others of my generals.”
On February 17, 1759, Wolfe sailed for Canada with a strong fleet and
9,000 troops. During the voyage he suffered tortures from sea-sickness.
In May he was in the harbour of Louisbourg, and on the sixteenth of June
he weighed anchor for Quebec, the troops cheering and the officers
drinking this toast, “British colours on every French fort, port, and
garrison in America.”
Quebec, the most historic spot in all the New World, has not inaptly
been called the Gibraltar of America. It stands on the nose of a rocky
peninsula shaped like a bull’s head and facing eastward. On the south
and east sides it rises by steep cliffs to a rocky summit. On south,
east, and north it is defended by rivers: to the south flows the great
St. Lawrence River, which expands on the east into a broad basin upon
which the navies of the world might ride; while on the north the
peninsula is protected by the estuary of the river St. Charles. The town
itself consists of two parts—a lower town, which huddles by the water
side, and an upper town, which climbs the cliffs. High on the summit is
the grim and frowning citadel. Let us ascend to this historic fortress
and gaze in admiration on the scene which unfolds itself. The lower
town, with its steep streets, its old gabled houses, its public
buildings, and numerous churches with their tin-covered cupolas and
minarets, rises sharply from the water’s edge. Opposite to us, on the
other side of the river, is Point Levis, and to the east is the
beautiful Isle of Orleans. On our left, across the basin, is the
Montmorency River, which hurls itself over a precipice to mingle its
waters with those of the great river. To our right extend the famous
Plains of Abraham, now purchased and preserved as a national park
consecrated to great historical memories. Such is the Quebec of to-day.
In the year 1759 it presented a much ruder aspect, though it was then
lively and important, and had been made almost impregnable by walls,
bastions, and fortified gates.
Within this city Vaudreuil, its bombastic, corrupt governor, and his
gang of unscrupulous officials kept up a feeble imitation of the
luxurious court of France. They robbed the king, their master, and they
robbed the Canadians committed to their protection. “Are the walls of
Quebec made of gold?” asked Lewis when official after official returned
to France bloated with wealth. New France was honeycombed with
peculation and fraud, and there was but one honest, incorruptible man
amongst the greedy horde. He was Lewis Joseph, Marquis of Montcalm, a
soldier of unblemished repute and no mean scholar. His life was one long
struggle with the governor, who thwarted him in every possible way, and
arrogated to himself all the credit and honour which his noble colleague
managed to win.
Montcalm had early news of Wolfe’s errand, and he hastily collected
every able-bodied man and every boy who could hold a gun within the
walls of the town. “Never,” said he, “was Canada in a state so critical
and full of peril.” Quebec was already strong by nature, and Montcalm
proceeded to make it stronger still by art. Redoubts, batteries, and
lines of entrenchment were thrown up along the lofty, curving shores
from the St. Charles River to the Montmorency, and a boom of logs and
hulks mounted with cannon barricaded the former river. Fourteen thousand
men lined the earthworks, and one or two thousand more manned the guns
of the fortress. When Wolfe arrived on the 21st of June, Quebec was
well-nigh impregnable.
Wolfe landed his men on the Isle of Orleans, and soon realized the
desperate character of the task which he had undertaken. To take Quebec
seemed impossible. The cliffs to his left were edged with palisades and
capped with redoubts, while on his right was a far-extended line of
entrenchments, ending at the foaming cataract of Montmorency. There
seemed to be no chink in the wall of defence. For weeks Wolfe lay
inactive, wearing himself to a shadow in the attempt to find a weak spot
against which he might hurl his army.
He seized Point Levis, and from it bombarded the city, only a mile away.
Fierce as his fire was, it did nothing to help him to capture the place.
At length, tired of inactivity, he attempted on the 31st of July to gain
a footing on the north shore of the St. Lawrence by landing his men at
the Montmorency Falls and climbing to the plateau above. In this he was
successful; but though his guns now played on the flank of Montcalm’s
entrenchments, the city of his desire was as far off as ever. “You may
demolish the town,” said the bearer of a flag of truce, “but you shall
never get inside it.” “I will take Quebec,” replied Wolfe, “if I stay
here until November.”
A frontal attack on the Beauport Heights was a complete failure, and
Wolfe lost more than two hundred men. He was now almost worn out. His
pale face and tall, lean form were no more seen going to and fro amongst
his soldiers. He lay dangerously ill, and his life was almost despaired
of. He felt his failure intensely, especially as news now arrived that
the attacks on Ticonderoga and Niagara had been successful. Meanwhile
the British fleet had accomplished a great feat. Despite a furious
cannonade from the guns of Quebec, ship after ship had managed to sail
up the river past the forts, and now were able to threaten the city from
a position which the French believed to be unattainable by the enemy.
On the 20th of August the young general was about again, and was
diligently searching the steep, rocky shore above Quebec for a possible
landing-place. At last, about three miles from the city, at a place now
called Wolfe’s Cove, he discovered a goat track that wound up the wooded
precipice for two hundred and fifty feet above the St. Lawrence. A
French guard was stationed at the top, but Wolfe thought it could easily
be surprised. Had he known that the captain in charge had gained a
reputation for cowardice, and had allowed his men to go home to dig up
their potatoes, his hopes would have been higher. At any rate he was now
resolved to climb the Heights of Abraham and meet Montcalm’s army at the
very gates of Quebec.
Now let us pass on to the fateful night of September 13, 1759. Under
cover of the darkness the British flotilla of boats moved silently with
muffled oars towards the landing-place. Wolfe, who was in the leading
boat, began in a low whisper to recite the beautiful lines of Gray’s
“Elegy.” He came to the noble verse—
“The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour;
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”
“Now, gentlemen,” he said, “I would rather have written those lines than
take Quebec.”
The boats drifted on in death-like silence. Suddenly, as the tide bore
them inshore and the mighty wall of rock loomed above them, they were
sharply challenged by a sentry. “Qui vive?” he cried. A Highland officer
replied in good French, “La France.” “Of what regiment?” demanded the
sentry. “The Queen’s,” answered the Highlander, and the sentry was
satisfied. A sigh of relief escaped from the commander, and the boats
glided on. Presently another sentry challenged, but he too was deceived.
In a few moments more the boats lightly ran aground in a little cove.
The men disembarked silently and scrambled up the wooded precipice on
their hands and knees. The French guard at the top was captured, and
loud British huzzas proclaimed that at last a footing had been gained on
the coveted spot. Before the day broke Wolfe had marshalled his men on
the Heights of Abraham, and in the gray dawn they saw the city almost
within their grasp. When they became visible, Montcalm was greatly
alarmed. “This is a serious business,” he said. Bugles and mounted
messengers called in his troops. To save the citadel he was obliged to
abandon his entrenchments and give fight in the open.
The battle that followed was singularly brief in duration, yet it
settled the fate of Canada. The French advanced, firing rapidly; but the
British reserved their fire until the enemy was within close range. Then
a fearful hail of bullets sped from their muskets. The French wavered,
and as the British reloaded and advanced, they turned and fled. Wolfe
was wounded in the wrist as he led the charge, but he wrapped a
handkerchief about the wound and pushed on. Soon after another bullet
struck him in the breast. “Don’t let my men see me drop,” he said as
they carried him to the rear. Here he lay, his eyes glazed, and his life
fast ebbing away. Suddenly one of the little group about him cried,
“They run; see, they run!” The dying man roused himself as though from
sleep. “Who run?” he asked. “The enemy, sir,” was the reply; “they give
way everywhere.” The dying flame of life flickered up for a moment, and
he gave a clear, emphatic order for cutting off the retreat. This done,
he turned on his side, murmuring, “Now God be praised, I die happy.”
Wolfe was dead.
His gallant foe, Montcalm, was also stricken down in the fight. “How
long have I to live?” he asked of his surgeon. “Twelve hours, more or
less,” was the reply. “So much the better,” said the dying man; “I shall
not live to see the surrender of Quebec.” Before passing away, he wrote
to the British commander beseeching him to show mercy to the townsfolk.
“Do not let them perceive,” he said, “that they have changed masters. Be
their protector, as I have been their father.” It is to Britain’s honour
that she has observed this dying request of a great and good man with
scrupulous care. The French Canadian of to-day would be the first to say
that under the Union Jack he retains his faith and language, his old
laws and cherished institutions, and that under British rule his liberty
has been enlarged and his prosperity established.
On September 18, 1759, the British flag was hoisted on the citadel of
Quebec. At home the news was received with rapturous joy. “The whole
nation rose up and felt itself the stronger for Wolfe’s victory.” The
scattered remnants of the French fell back on Montreal, and in the next
autumn they were surrounded and forced to surrender. The victory of the
British was complete; the destiny of Canada was fixed for ever.
A tribute to the joint memory of the two leaders who in death were not
divided now stands in the public gardens of Quebec, and on the
battlefield is a simple obelisk with the plain inscription, “Here died
Wolfe, victorious.”
And here we leave James Wolfe “alone with his glory.” He died, as he
wished to die, a soldier’s death, and he leaves to future ages a noble
example of high honour, strict integrity, and noble devotion to duty.
[Illustration: =DEATH OF WOLFE.=
(_From the picture by Benjamin West, P.R.A._)]
[Illustration: =The Battle of Trafalgar, and the Victory of Lord Nelson
over the French and Spanish Fleets,= =October 21, 1805.=
(_From the picture by Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., in the National Gallery
of British Art._)]
[Illustration]