FROM 1756 TO 1763
Bigot at Quebec--New France on verge of ruin--Bigot's vampires suck
country's lifeblood--Scene on lake--Massacre at Fort William
Henry--Louisburg besieged--Surrender of famous fort--The attack at
Ticonderoga--Abercrombie's forces flee--Wolfe sails for Quebec--Signal
fires forewarn approach of enemy--Both sides become scalp
raiders--English fail at Montmorency--Slip silently down the great
river--The two armies face each other--Death of Montcalm--Why New
France fell
How stand both sides at the opening of the year 1756, on the verge of
the Seven Years' War,--the struggle for a continent?
There has been open war for more than a year, but war is not formally
declared till May 18, 1756.
Take Acadia first.
The French have been expelled. The infamous Le Loutre is still in
prison in England, and when he is released, in 1763, he toils till his
death, in 1773, trying to settle the Acadian refugees on some of the
French islands of the English Channel. The smiling farms of Grand Pré
and Port Royal lie a howling waste. Only a small English garrison
holds Annapolis, where long ago Marc L'Escarbot and Champlain held
happy revel; and the seat of government has been transferred to
Halifax, now a settlement and fort of some five thousand people. So
much for the English. Across a narrow arm of the sea is Isle Royal or
Cape Breton, where the French are intrenched as at a second Gibraltar
in the fortress of Louisburg. Since the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
restored the fort to the French, millions have been spent strengthening
its walls, adding to the armaments; but Intendant Bigot has had charge
of the funds, and Intendant Bigot has a sponge-like quality of
absorbing all funds that flow through his hands. Cannon have been
added, but there are not enough balls to go round. The walls have been
repaired, but with false filling (sand in place of mortar), so that the
first shatter of artillery will send them clattering down in wet
plaster.
Take the Ohio next.
"Beautiful River" is the highway between New France and Louisiana. By
Braddock's defeat the English have been driven out to a man. Matters
are a thousandfold worse than before, for {242} the savage allies of
the French now swarm down the bush road cut by Braddock's army and
carry bloody havoc to all the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania and
Virginia. How many pioneers perished in this border war will never be
known. It is a tale by itself, and its story is not part of Canada's
history. George Washington was the officer in charge of a thousand
bushfighters to guard this frontier.
Take the valley of Lake Champlain.
This is the highway of approach to Montreal north, to Albany south.
Johnson had defeated Dieskau here, but neither side was strong enough
to advance from the scene of battle into the territory of the enemy.
The English take possession of Lake George and intrench themselves at
the south end in Fort William Henry. Sir William Johnson strings a
line of forts up the Mohawk River towards Oswego on Lake Ontario, and
he keeps his forest rangers, under the famous scout Major Robert
Rogers, scouring the forest and mountain trails of Lake Champlain for
French marauder and news of what the French are doing. Rogers'
Rangers, too, are a story by themselves, but a story which does not
concern Canada. Skating and snowshoeing by winter, canoeing by night
in summer, Rogers passed and repassed the enemy's lines times without
number, as if his life were charmed, though once his wrist was shot
when he had nothing to stanch the blood but the ribbon tying his wig,
and once he stumbled back exhausted to Fort William Henry, to lie
raging with smallpox for the winter. Among the forest rangers of New
Hampshire and New York, Major Robert Rogers was without a peer. No
danger was too great, no feat too daring, for his band of scouts. The
English have established Fort William Henry at the south end of Lake
George. The French checkmate the move by strengthening Crown Point on
Lake Champlain and moving a pace farther south into English
territory,--to Carillon, where the waters of Lake George pour into
Champlain. Here on a high angle between the river and the lake,
commanding all travel north and south, the French build Carillon or
Fort Ticonderoga.
{243} As for the Great Northwest, New France with her string of
posts--Frontenac, Niagara, Detroit, Michilimackinac, Kaministiquia
(Fort William), Fort Rogue (Winnipeg), Portage la Prairie--stretches
clear across to the foothills of the Rockies. The English fur traders
of Hudson Bay have, in 1754, sent Anthony Hendry up the Saskatchewan,
but when Hendry comes back with word of equestrian Indians--the
Blackfeet on horseback--and treeless plains, the English set him down
as a lying impostor. Indians on horseback! They had never seen
Indians but in canoes and on snowshoes! Hendry was dismissed as
unreliable, and no Englishman went up the Saskatchewan for another ten
years.
If the disasters of 1755 did nothing more, they at last stirred the
home governments to action. Earl Loudon is sent out in 1756 to command
the English, and to New France in May comes Louis Joseph, Marquis de
Montcalm, age forty-four, soldier, scholar, country gentleman, with a
staff composed of Chevalier de Lévis, Bourlamaque, and one
Bougainville, to become famous as a navigator.
Though New France consists of a good three quarters of America, things
are in evil plight that causes Montcalm many sleepless nights.
Vaudreuil, the French governor, descendant of that Vaudreuil who long
ago set the curse of Indian warfare on the borders of New England, had
expected to be appointed chief commander of the troops and jealously
resents Montcalm's coming. With the Governor is leagued Intendant
Bigot, come up from Louisburg. Bigot is a man of sixty, of noble
birth, a favorite of the butterfly woman who rules the King of
France,--the Pompadour,--and he has come to New France to mend his
fortunes. How he planned to do it one may guess from his career at
Louisburg; but Quebec offered better field, and it was to Bigot's
interest to ply Montcalm and Vaudreuil with such tittle-tattle of
enmity as would foment jealousy, keep their attention on each other,
and their eyes off his own doings. As he had done at Louisburg, so he
now did at Quebec. The King was requisitioned for enormous sums to
strengthen the fort. Bigot's {244} ring of friends acted as
contractors. The outlay was enormous, the results trifling. "I
think," complained the King, "that Quebec must be fortified in gold, it
has cost so much." It was time of war. Enormous sums were to be
expended for presents to keep the Indians loyal; and the King complains
that he cannot understand how baubles of beads and powderhorns cost so
much, or how the western tribes seem to become more and more numerous,
or how the French officers, who distribute the presents, become
millionaires in a few years. A friend of Bigot's handled these funds.
There are meat contracts for the army. A worthless, lowbred scamp is
named commissary general. He handles these contracts, and he, too,
swiftly graduates into the millionaire class, is hail-fellow well met
with Bigot, drinks deep at the Intendant's table, and gambles away as
much as $40,000 in a single night. It is time of war, and it is time
of famine too; for the crops have failed. Every inhabitant between the
ages of fifteen and fifty has been drafted into the army. Not counting
Indians, there is an army of fifteen to twenty thousand to be fed; so
Bigot compels the habitants to sell him provisions at a low price.
These provisions he resells to the King for the army and to the
citizens at famine prices. The King's warehouse down by the
Intendant's palace becomes known as La Friponne,--The Cheat.
And though the country is on verge of ruin, though poor people of the
three towns are rioting in the streets for food, old women cursing the
little wizened Intendant with his pimpled face as he rolls past
resplendent in carriage with horses whose harness is a blaze of silver,
the troops threatening to mutiny because they are compelled to use
horse flesh,--though New France is hovering over a volcano of disaster,
they dance to their death, thoughtless as butterflies, gay as children,
these manikin imitators of the French court, who are ruining New France
that they may copy the vices of an Old World playing at kingcraft. The
regular troops are uniformed in white with facings of blue and red and
gold and violet, three-cornered hat, and leather leggings to knee.
What with chapel bells ringing and ringing, and bugle {245} call and
counter call echoing back from Cape Diamond; what with Monsieur Bigot's
prancing horses and Madame Péan's flashy carriage,--Madame Péan of whom
Bigot is so enamored he has sent her husband to some far western post
and passes each evening at her gay receptions,--what with the grounding
of the sentry's arms and the parade of troops, Quebec is a gay place
these years of black ruin, and the gossips have all they can do to keep
track of the amours and the duels and the high personages cultivating
Madame Péan; for cultivated she must be by all who covet place or
power. A word from Madame Péan to Bigot is of more value than a bribe.
Even Montcalm and De Lévis attend her revels.
[Illustration: RUINS OF CHÂTEAU BIGOT]
Twenty people sup with Monsieur Bigot each night, either at the
Intendant's palace down by Charles River, or nine miles out towards
Beauport, where he has built himself the Forest Hermitage, now known as
Château Bigot,--a magnificent country manor house of red brick, hidden
away among the hills with the gay shrubberies of French gardens set
down in an American wilderness. Supper over by seven, the guests sit
down to play, and the amount a man may gamble is his social barometer,
whether {246} he lose or win, cheat or steal. If dancing follows
gambling, the rout will not disperse till seven in the morning. What
time is left of the twenty-four hours in a day will be devoted to
public affairs.
Montcalm's salary is only 25,000 francs, or $5,000. To maintain the
dignity of the King, the commander in chief must keep the pace, and he
too gives weekly suppers, with places set for forty people, "whom I
don't know," he writes dejectedly to his wife, "and don't want to know;
and wish that I might spend the evenings quietly in my own chamber."
To Montcalm, who was of noble birth with no shamming, this lowbred
pretense and play at courtcraft became a bore; to his staff of
officers, a source of continual amusement; but De Lévis presently falls
victim to a pair of fine eyes possessed by the wife of another man.
War filled the summers, but the winters were given up to social life;
and of all midwinter social gayeties the most important was the
official visit of the Governor and the Intendant to Montreal. By this
time a good road had been cut from Quebec to Montreal along the north
shore, and the sleighs usually set out in January or February. Bigot
added to the occasion all the prestige of a social rout. All the grand
dames and cavaliers of Quebec were invited. Baggage was sent on ahead
with servants to break the way, find quarters for the night, and
prepare meals. After a dinner at the Intendant's palace the sleighs
set out, two horses to each, driven tandem because the sleigh road was
too narrow for a team. Each sleigh held only two occupants, and to the
damage done by fair eyes was added the glow of exhilaration from
driving behind spirited horses in frosty air with the bells of a
hundred carryalls ringing across the snow. At seven was pause for
supper. High play followed till ten. Then early to bed and early to
rise and on the road again by seven in the morning! In Montreal was
one continual round of dinners and dances. Between times, appointments
were made to the military posts and trading stations of the Up-Country.
He who wanted a good post must pay his court to Madame Péan. No wonder
Montcalm breathed a sigh of relief when Lent put a stop to the gayeties
and he could quietly pass his evenings with the Sulpician priests.
{247} To break from Bigot's ring during the war was impossible.
Creatures of his choosing filled the army, handled the supplies,
controlled the Indians; and when the King's reproof became too sharp,
Bigot simply threatened to resign, which wrought consternation, for no
man of ability would attempt to unwind the tangle of Bigot's dishonesty
during a critical war. Montcalm wrote home complaints in cipher. The
French government bided its time, and Bigot tightened his vampire
suckers on the lifeblood of the dying nation. The whole era is a theme
for the allegory of artist or poet.
[Illustration: PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, OTTAWA]
[Illustration: QUEBEC, CHÂTEAU FRONTENAC AND THE CITADEL]
Montcalm had arrived in May of 1756. By midsummer he was leading three
thousand French artillerymen across Lake Ontario from Fort Frontenac
(Kingston), to attack the English post on the south side, Oswego.
Inside the fort walls were seven hundred raw English provincials, ill
of scurvy from lack of food. The result need scarcely be told. Seven
hundred ill men behind wooden walls had no chance against three
thousand soldiers in health with heavy artillery. To take the English
by surprise, Montcalm had crossed the lake on August 4 by night. Two
days later all the transport ships had landed the troops and the cannon
had actually been mounted before the English knew of the enemy's
presence. On the east side of the river was Fort Ontario, a barricade
of logs built in the shape of a star, housing an outguard of three
hundred and seventy men. On discovering the French, the sentry spiked
their cannon, threw their powder in the river, and retired at midnight
inside Oswego's walls. Working like beavers, Montcalm's men dragged
twenty cannon to a hill commanding the fort, known as "Fort Rascal"
because the outfort there was useless to the English. Before
Montcalm's cannonade Oswego's walls, plastered with clay and rubble,
fell like the staves of a dry barrel. The English sharpshooters then
hid behind pork barrels placed in three tiers filled with sand; but
Colonel Mercer, their officer, was literally cut in two by a cannon
shot, and the women, cooped up inside the barracks, begged the officers
to avoid Indian massacre by surrender. {248} A white flag was waved.
Including women, something under a thousand English surrendered
themselves prisoners to Montcalm. The Indians fell at once to mad
plunder. Spite of the terms of honorable surrender, the English were
stripped of everything, and only Montcalm's promise of $10,000 worth of
presents to the savages prevented butchery. The victors decamped to
Montreal, well pleased with the campaign of 1756. It need not be told
that there were constant raids and counter raids along the frontier
during the entire year.
Loudon, the English commander, did not arrive in New York till well on
in midsummer of 1756, and he found far different material from the
trained bushfighters in the hands of Montcalm. The English soldiers
were raw provincial recruits, dressed, at best, in buckskin, but for
the most part in the rough homespun which they had worn when they had
left plow and carpenter's bench and fishing boat. While Montcalm was
capturing Oswego, Loudon was licking his rough recruits into shape,
"making men out of mud" for the campaign of 1757. Indeed, it was said
of Loudon, and the saying stuck to him as characteristic of his
campaign, that he resembled the wooden horse figure of a tavern
sign,--always on horseback but never rode forward. Instead of striking
at Lake Champlain or on the Ohio, where the French were aggressors,
Loudon planned to repeat the brilliant capture of Louisburg. July of
1857 found him at Halifax planting vegetable gardens to prevent
scurvy,--"the cabbage campaign" it was derisively called,--and waiting
for Gorham's rangers to reconnoiter Louisburg. Gorham's scouts brought
back word that the French admiral had come in with twenty-four
men-of-war and seven thousand men. To overpower such strength meant a
prolonged siege. It was already August. Loudon sailed back to New
York without firing a gun, while the English fleet, trying to
reconnoiter Louisburg, suffered terrible shipwreck.
[Illustration: THE EARL OF LOUDON]
Montcalm was not the enemy to let the chance of Loudon's absence from
the scene of action pass unimproved. While Loudon is pottering at
Halifax, Montcalm marshals his troops to the {249} number of eight
thousand, including one thousand Indians at Carillon or Ticonderoga,
where Lake George empties into Lake Champlain. Portaging two hundred
and fifty flatboats with as many birch canoes up the river, the French
invade the mountain wilderness of Lake George. Towards the end of
July, Lévis leads part of the troops by land up the west shore towards
the English post of Fort William Henry. Montcalm advances on the lake
with the flatboats and canoes, and the rafts with the heavy artillery.
Each night Lévis' troops kindle their signal fires on the mountain
slope, and each night Montcalm from the lake signals back with torches.
It needs artist's brush to paint the picture: the forested mountains
green and lonely and silent in the shimmering sunlight of the summer
sky; the lake gold as molten metal in the fire of the setting sun; the
soldiers in their gay uniforms of white and blue, hoisting tent cloths
on oar sweeps for sails as a breeze dimples the waters; the French
voyageurs clad in beaded buckskin chanting some ditty of Old-World fame
to the rhythmic dip of the Indian paddles; the Indians naked, painted
for war, with a glitter in their eyes of a sinister intent which they
have no mind to tell Montcalm; and then, at the south of Lake George,
nestling between the hills and the water, the little palisaded
fort,--Fort William Henry,--with gates fast shut and two thousand
bushfighters behind the walls, weak from an epidemic of smallpox, and,
as usual, so short of provisions that siege means starvation.
{250} Twenty miles southeastward is another English fort,--Fort
Edward,--where General Webb with sixteen hundred men is keeping the
road barred against advance to Albany. Soon as scouts bring word to
Fort William Henry of the advancing French, Lieutenant Monro sends
frantic appeal to Webb for more men; but Webb has already sent all the
men he can spare. If he leaves Fort Edward, the French by a flank
movement through the woods can march on Albany, so Monro unplugs his
seventeen cannon, locks his gates, and bides his fate.
Montcalm follows the same tactics as at Oswego,--brings heavy artillery
against slab walls. For the first week of August, eight hundred of his
men are digging trenches by night to avoid giving target for the fiery
bombs whizzing through the dark from Monro's cannon. By day they lie
hidden in the woods with a cordon of sharpshooters encircling the fort,
Montcalm encamped on the west to prevent help from Sir William Johnson
up the Mohawk, Lévis on the southeast to cut off aid from Webb. Monro
sends yet one last appeal for help: two thousand men against eight
thousand,--the odds are eloquent of his need! Montcalm's scouts let
the messenger pass through the lines as if unseen, but they make a
point of catching the return messenger and holding Webb's answer that
he cannot come, till their cannon have torn great wounds in the fort
walls. Then Bougainville blindfold carries Webb's answer to Monro and
demands the surrender of the fort. Monro still has a little
ammunition, still hopes against hope that Johnson or Webb or Loudon
will come to the rescue, and he keeps his big guns singing over the
heads of the French in their trenches till all the cannon have burst
but seven, and there are not ten rounds of shells left. Then Colonel
Young, with a foot shot off, rides out on horseback waving a white
flag. Three hundred English have been killed, as many again are
wounded or ill of smallpox, and to the remaining garrison of sixteen
hundred Montcalm promises safe conduct to General Webb at Fort Edward.
Then the English march out. That night--August 9--the vanquished
English camp with Montcalm's forces. The Indians, meanwhile, ramping
through the fort for plunder, {251} have maddened themselves with
traders' rum! Before daybreak they have butchered all the wounded
lying in the hospital and cut to pieces the men ill of smallpox,--a
crime that brought its own punishment in contagion. Next morning, when
the French guard tried to conduct the disarmed English along the trail
to Fort Edward, the Indians snatched at the clothing, the haversacks,
the tent kit of the marchers. With their swords the French beat back
the drunken horde. In answer, the war hatchets were waved over the
heads of the cowering women. The march became a panic; the panic, a
massacre; and for twenty-four hours such bedlam raged as might have put
fiends to shame. The frenzied Indians would listen to no argument but
blows; and when the English prisoners appealed to the French for
protection, the French dared not offend their savage allies by fighting
to protect the English victims. "Take to the woods," they warned the
men, and the women were quickly huddled back to shelter of the fort.
Of the men, sixty were butchered on the spot and some seven hundred
captured to be held for ransom. The remnant of the English soldiers,
along with the women, were held till the Indian frenzy had spent
itself, then sent to Fort Edward. August 16 a torch was put to the
combustibles of the fort ruins, and as the French boats glided out on
Lake George for the St. Lawrence, explosion after explosion, flame
leaping above flame, proclaimed that of Fort William Henry there would
remain naught but ashes and charred ruins and the skeletons of the
dead. So closed the campaign of 1857 [Transcriber's note: 1757?]. For
three years hand running England had suffered defeat.
The spring of 1758 witnessed a change. The change was the rise to
power of a man who mastered circumstances instead of allowing them to
master him. Such men are the milestones of human progress, whether
heroes, or quiet toilers unknown to the world. The man was Pitt, the
English statesman. Instead of a weak ministry fighting the
machinations of France, it was now Pitt versus Pompadour, the English
patriot against the light woman who ruled the councils of France.
{252} From fighting weakly on the defensive, England sprang into the
position of aggressor all along the line. The French were to be
attacked at all points simultaneously, at Louisburg on the east, at
Ticonderoga or Carillon on Lake Champlain, at Duquesne on the Ohio, at
Frontenac on Lake Ontario, and finally at Quebec itself. London is
recalled as commander in chief. Abercrombie succeeds to the position,
with the brilliant young soldier, Lord Howe, as right-hand man; but
Pitt takes good care that there shall be good chiefs and good
right-hand men at _all_ points. The one mistake is Abercrombie,--"Mrs.
Nabby Crombie" the soldiers called him. He was an indifferent,
negative sort of man; and indifferent, negative sorts of people, by
their dishwater goodness, can sometimes do more harm in critical
positions than the branded criminal. Red tape had forced him on Pitt,
but Pitt trusted to the excellence of the subordinate officers,
especially Lord Howe.
Louisburg first!
No more dillydallying and delay "to plant cabbages!" The thing is to
reach Louisburg before the French have entered the harbor. Men-of-war
are stationed to intercept the French vessels coming from the
Mediterranean, and before winter has passed Admiral Boscawen has sailed
for America with one hundred and fifty vessels, including forty
men-of-war, frigates, and transports carrying twelve thousand men.
General Amherst is to command the land forces, and with Amherst is
Brigadier James Wolfe, age thirty-one, a tall, slim, fragile man, whose
delicate frame is tenanted by a lion spirit; or, to change the
comparison, by a motive power too strong for the weak body that held
it. By May the fleet is in Halifax. By June Amherst has joined
Boscawen, and the ships beat out for Louisburg through heavy fog, with
a sea that boils over the reefs in angry surf.
Louisburg was in worse condition than during the siege of 1745. The
broken walls have been repaired, but the filling is false,--sand grit.
Its population is some four thousand, of whom three thousand eight
hundred are the garrison. On the ships lying in the harbor are three
thousand marines, a defensive force, in all, {253} of six thousand
eight hundred. On walls and in bastions are some four hundred and
fifty heavy guns, cannon, and mortars. Imagine a triangle with the
base to the west, the two sides running out to sea on the east. The
fort is at the apex. The wall of the base line is protected by a
marsh. On the northeast side is the harbor protected by reefs and
three batteries. Along the south side, Drucourt, the French commander,
has stationed two thousand men at three different points where landing
is possible, to construct batteries behind barricades of logs.
[Illustration: BOSCAWEN]
Fog had concealed the approach of the English, but such a ground swell
was raging over the reefs as threatened any ship with instant
destruction. For a week Amherst and Wolfe and Lawrence row up and down
through the roiling mist and raging surf and singing winds to take
stock of the situation. With those batteries at the landing places
there is only one thing to do,--cannonade them, hold their attention in
a life-and-death fight while the English soldiers scramble through the
surf for the shore. From sunrise to sundown of the 8th furious
cannonading set the green seas churning and tore up the French
barricades as by hurricane. At sunset the firing ceased, and three
detachments of troops launched out in whaleboats at three in the
morning, two of the detachments to make a feint of landing, while Wolfe
with the other division was to run through the surf for the shore at
Freshwater Cove. The French were not deceived. They let Wolfe
approach within range, when the log barricade flashed to flame with a
thousand sharpshooters. Wolfe had foreseen the snare and had waved his
{254} troops off when he noticed that two boat loads were rowing ashore
through a tremendous surf under shelter of a rocky point. Quickly he
signaled the other boats to follow. In a trice the boats had smashed
to kindling on the reefs, but the men were wading ashore, muskets held
high over head, powder pouches in teeth, and rushed with bayonets
leveled against the French, who had dashed from cover to prevent the
landing. This unexpected landing had cut the French off from
Louisburg. Retreating in panic, they abandoned their batteries and
fifty dead. The English had lost one hundred and nine in the surf. It
is said that Wolfe scrambled from the water like a drowned rat and led
the rush with no other weapon in hand but his cane.
[Illustration: THE SIEGE OF LOUISBURG (From a contemporary print)]
To land the guns through the jostling sea was the next task. It was
done, as in 1745, by a pontoon bridge of small boats, but the work took
till the 29th of June. Wolfe, meanwhile, has marched with twelve
hundred men round to the rear of the marsh and comes so suddenly on the
Grand and Lighthouse Batteries, which defend the harbor, that the
French abandon them to retreat within the walls. This gives the
English such control of the harbor entrance that Drucourt, the French
commander, sinks six of his ships across the channel to bar out
Boscawen's fleet, the masts of the sunken, vessels sticking above the
water. Amherst's men are working like demons, building a road for the
cannon across the marsh and trenching up to the back wall; but they
work only at night and are undiscovered by the French till the 9th of
July. Then the French rush out with a whoop to drive them off, but the
English already have their guns mounted, and Drucourt's men are glad to
dash for shelter behind the cracking walls. It now became a game of
cannon play pure and simple. Boscawen from harbor front hurls his
whistling bombs overhead, to crash through roofs inside the walls.
Wolfe from the Lighthouse Battery throws shells and flaming
combustibles straight into the midst of the remaining French fleet. At
last, on July 21st, masts, sails, tar ropes, take fire in a terrible
conflagration, and three of the fleet burn to the water line with
terrific explosions of their powder magazines; then the flames hiss out
above {255} the rocking hulls. Only two ships are left to the French,
and the deep bomb-proof casemates inside the fort between outer and
inner walls, where the families and the wounded have been sheltered,
are now in flame. Amherst loads his shells with combustibles and pours
one continuous rain of fiery death on the doomed fort. The houses,
which are of logs, flame like kindling wood, and now the timber work of
the stone bastions is burning from bombs hurtling through the roofs.
The walls crash down in masses. The scared surgeons, all bloody from
amputating shattered limbs, no longer stand in safety above their
operating tables. It is said that Madame Drucourt, the Governor's
wife, actually stayed on the walls to encourage the soldiers, with her
own hands fired some of the great guns, and, when the overworked
surgeons flagged from terror and lack of sleep, it was Madame Drucourt
who attended to the wounded. Drucourt is for holding out to the death,
until one dark night the English row into the harbor and capture his
two last ships. Then Drucourt asks for terms, July 26; but the terms
are stern,--utter surrender,--and Drucourt would have fought till every
man fell from the walls, had not one of the civil officers rushed after
the commander's messenger carrying {256} the refusal, and shouted
across the ditches to the English: "We accept! We surrender! We
accept your terms!"
Counting soldiers, marines, and townspeople, in all five thousand
French pass over to Amherst, to be carried prisoners on Boscawen's
fleet to England. Wolfe was for proceeding at once to Quebec, but
Amherst considered the season too late and determined to complete the
work where he was. One detachment goes to receive the surrender of
Isle St. John, henceforth known as Prince Edward Island. Another
division proceeds up St. John River, New Brunswick, burning all
settlements that refuse unconditional surrender. Wolfe's grenadiers
are sent to reduce Gaspé and Miramichi and northern New Brunswick. And
now, lest blundering statecraft for a second time return the captured
fort to France, Amherst and Boscawen order the complete disarmament and
destruction of Louisburg. What cannon cannot be removed are tumbled
into the marsh or upset into the sea. The stones from the walls are
carried away to Halifax. By 1760, of Louisburg, the glory of New
France, the pride of America, there remains not a vestige but grassed
slopes overgrown by nettles, ditches with rank growth of weeds, stone
piles where the wild vines grow, and an inner yard where the cows of
the fisher folk pasture.
Not a poor beginning for the campaign of 1758, though bad enough news
has come from Major General Abercrombie, which was the real explanation
of Amherst's refusal to push on to Quebec.
Abercrombie, with fifteen thousand men, the pick of the regulars and
provincials, had launched out on Lake George on the 5th of July with
over one thousand boats, to descend the lake northward to the French
fort of Carillon or Ticonderoga. Again, it would require artist's
brush to paint the scene. Rogers' Rangers, dressed in buckskin, led
the way in birch canoes. Lord Howe was there, dressed like a
bushfighter; and with bagpipes setting the echoes ringing amid the
lonely mountains, were the Highland regiments in their tartan plaids.
Flags floated from the prow of every boat. Each battalion had its own
regimental {257} band. Scarcely a breath dimpled the waters of the
lake, and the sun shone without a cloud. Little wonder those who
passed through the fiery Aceldama that was to come, afterwards looked
back on this scene as the fairest in their lives.
[Illustration: AMHERST]
Montcalm had only arrived at Ticonderoga on June 30th. There was no
doubting the news. His bushrovers brought in word that the English
were advancing in such multitudes their boats literally covered the
lake. It looked as if the fate of Fort William Henry were to be
reversed. Montcalm never dreamed of Abercrombie attacking without
artillery. To stay cooped up in the fort would invite destruction.
Therefore Montcalm ordered his men out to construct a circular
breastwork from the River of the Chutes on the southeast, which empties
Lake George, round towards Lake Champlain on the northwest. Huge trees
were felled, pile on pile, top-most branches spiked and pointed
outwards. Behind these Montcalm intrenched his four thousand men,
lying in lines three deep, with grenadiers in reserve behind to step up
as the foremost lines fell. At a cannon signal from the fort the men
were to rise to their places, but not to fire till the English were
entangled in the brushwood. It was blisteringly hot weather. It is
said that the troops took off their heavy three-cornered hats and lay
in their shirt sleeves, hand on musket, speaking no word, but waiting.
{258} On came the English in martial array, pausing in the Narrows at
five o'clock for the troops' evening meal, moving on before daylight of
July 6 to the landing place. The Rangers had brought in word that
Lévis was coming posthaste to Montcalm's aid. Abercrombie thought to
defeat Montcalm before reënforcements could come; and now he committed
his cardinal error. He advanced across the portage without his heavy
artillery. Halfway over, the voice of the French scouts rang out, "Who
goes there?" "French," answer the English soldiers; but the French
were not tricked. The ambushed scouts fired. Lord Howe, the very
spirit of the English army, dropped dead, shot through the breast,
though the English avenged his loss by cutting the French scouts to
pieces. On the night of the 7th the English army bivouacked in sight
of the French barricade. Promptly at twelve o'clock next day a cannon
shot from Ticonderoga brought every Frenchman behind the tree line to
his place at a leap. Abercrombie had ordered his men to rush the
barricade. There was fearful silence till the English were within
twenty paces of the trees. There they broke from quick march to a run
with a wild halloo! Death unerring blazed from the French
barricade,--not bullets only, but broken glass and ragged metal that
tore hideous wounds in the ranks of the English. Caught in the
brushwood, unable even to see their foes, the maddened troops wavered
and fell back. Again Abercrombie roared the order to charge. Six
times they hurled themselves against the impassable wall, and six times
the sharpshooters behind the lines met the advance with a rain of fire.
The Highland troops to the right went almost mad. Lord John Murray,
their commander, had fallen, and not a tenth of their number remained
unwounded; but the broadswords wrought small havoc against the spiked
branches of the log barricade. Obstinate as he was stupid, Abercrombie
kept his men at the bloody but futile attempt till the sun had set
behind the mountains, etching the sad scene with the long painted
shadows. Already almost two thousand English had fallen,--seven
hundred killed, the rest wounded. The French behind the barricade,
where Montcalm marched up and down in his shirt {259} sleeves, grimed
with smoke, encouraging the men, had lost less than four hundred. In a
spirit of hilarious bravado a young Frenchman sprang to the top of the
barricade and waved a coat on the end of his bayonet. Mistaking it for
a flag of surrender, the English ceased firing and dashed up with
muskets held on the horizontal above heads. They were actually scaling
the wall when a French officer, realizing the blunder, roared: "Shoot!
shoot! you fools! Don't you see those men will seize you?"
[Illustration: THE COUNTRY ROUND TICONDEROGA]
Cleaning guns and eating snatches of food, Montcalm's men slept that
night in their places behind the logs. Montcalm had passed from man to
man, personally thanking the troops for their valor. When daylight
came over the hills with wisps of fog like cloud banners from the
mountain tops, and the sunlight pouring gold mist through the valley,
the French rose and rubbed their eyes. They could scarcely believe it!
Surely Abercrombie would come back with his heavy guns. Like the mists
of the morning the English had vanished. Far down the lake they were
retreating in such panic terror they had left their baggage. Places
were found on the portage by French scouts where the English had fled
in such haste, marchers had lost their boots in the mud and not stopped
to {260} find them. Such was the battle of Carillon, or
Ticonderoga,--good reason for Amherst refusing to go on to Quebec.
The year closed with two more victories for the English. Brigadier
John Forbes and Washington succeeded in cutting their way up to Fort
Duquesne by a new road. They found the fort abandoned, and, taking
possession in November, renamed it Pittsburg after the great English
statesman. The other victory was at Frontenac, or Kingston. As the
French had concentrated at Lake Champlain, leaving Frontenac unguarded,
Bradstreet gained permission from Abercrombie to lead three thousand
men across Lake Ontario against La Salle's old fur post. Crossing from
the ruins of old Oswego, Bradstreet encamped beneath the palisades of
Frontenac on the evening of August 25. By morning he had his cannon in
range for the walls. Inside the fort Commandant de Noyan had less than
one hundred men. At seven in the evening of August 27 he surrendered.
Bradstreet permitted the prisoners to go down to Montreal on parole, to
be exchanged for English prisoners held in Quebec. Furs to the value
of $800,000, twenty cannon, and nine vessels were captured. Bradstreet
divided the loot among his men, taking for himself not so much as a
penny's worth. The fort was destroyed. So were the vessels. The guns
and provisions were carried across the lake and deposited at Fort
Stanwix, east of old Oswego. The loss of Duquesne on the Ohio and Fort
Frontenac on Lake Ontario cut French dominion in America in two.
Henceforth there was no highway from New France to Louisiana. In
September, Abercrombie was recalled. Amherst became chief commander.
Wolfe had gone home to England ill. It was while sojourning at the
fashion resort, Bath, that he fell desperately in love with a Miss
Lowther, to whom he became engaged. Then came the summons from Pitt to
meet the cabinet ministers in the war office of London. Wolfe was
asked to take command of the campaign in 1759 against Quebec. It had
been his ambition in Louisburg to proceed at once against Quebec. Here
was his opportunity. {261} It need not be told, he took it. Amherst
now, on the field south of Lake Champlain, received 10 pounds a day as
commander in chief. For the greater task of reducing Quebec, Wolfe was
to receive 2 pounds a day. Under him were to serve Monckton,
Townshend, and Murray. Admiral Saunders was to command the fleet.
Wolfe advised sending a few ships beforehand to guard the entrance to
the St. Lawrence, and Durell was dispatched for this purpose long
before the main armaments set out. By April 30 the combined fleet and
army were at Halifax, Wolfe with a force of some 8500 men. Wolfe, now
only in his thirty-third year, had been the subject of such jealousy
that he was actually compelled to sail from Louisburg in June without
one penny of ready money in his army chest. Underling officers, whose
duty it was to advance him money on credit, had raised difficulties.
[Illustration: GENERAL JAMES WOLFE]
Cheers and cheers yet again rent the air as the fleet at last set out
for the St. Lawrence, the soldiers on deck shouting themselves hoarse
as Louisburg faded over the watery horizon, the officers at table the
first night out at sea drinking toast after toast to _British colors on
every French fort in America_.
At Quebec was fast and furious preparation for the coming siege.
Bougainville had been sent to France from Lake Champlain in 1758 with
report of the victory at Ticonderoga. In vain {262} he appealed for
more money, more men for the coming conflict! The French government
sent him back to Quebec with a bundle of advice and platitudes and
titles and badges and promotions and soft words, but of the sinew which
makes war, men and money, France had naught to spare. The rumor of the
English invasion was confirmed by Bougainville. Every man capable of
bearing arms was called to Quebec except the small forces at the
outposts, and Bourlamaque at Champlain was instructed if attacked by
Amherst to blow up Fort Carillon, then Crown Point, and retire. Grain
was gathered into the state warehouses, and so stripped of able-bodied
men were the rural districts that the crops of 1759 were planted by the
women and children. Fire ships and rafts were constructed, the channel
of St. Charles River closed by sinking vessels, and a bridge built
higher up to lead from Quebec City across the river eastward to
Beauport and Montmorency. Along the high cliffs of the St. Lawrence
from Montmorency Falls to Quebec were constructed earthworks and
intrenchments to command the approach up the river. What frigates had
come in with Bougainville were sent higher up the St. Lawrence to be
out of danger; but the crews, numbering 1400, were posted on the
ramparts of Upper Town. Counting mere boys, Quebec had a defensive
force variously given as from 9000 to 14,000; but deducting raw levies,
who scarcely know the rules of the drill room, it is doubtful if
Montcalm could boast of more than 5000 able-bodied fighters. Still he
felt secure in the impregnable strength of Quebec's natural position.
July 29, when the enemy lay encamped beneath his trenches, he could
write, "Unless they [the English] have wings, they cannot cross a river
and effect a landing and scale a precipice." One cruel feature there
was of Quebec's preparations. To keep the habitants on both sides the
river loyal, Vaudreuil, the governor, issued a proclamation telling the
people that the English intended to massacre the inhabitants, men,
women, and children. Meanwhile, morning, noon, and night, the chapel
bells are ringing . . . ringing . . . lilting . . . and calling the
faithful to prayers for the destruction of the heretic invader! Nuns
lie prostrate day and night in prayer for the {263} country's
deliverance from the English. Holy processions march through the
streets, nuns and priests and little children in white, and rough
soldiery in the uniforms with the blue facings, to pray Heaven's aid
for victory. And while the poor people starve for bread, poultry is
daily fattened on precious wheat that it may make tenderest meat for
Intendant Bigot's table, where the painted women and drunken gamblers
and gay officers nightly feast!
[Illustration: BOUGAINVILLE]
Signal fires light up the hills with ominous warning as the English
fleet glides slowly abreast the current of the St. Lawrence, now
pausing to sound where the yellow riffle of the current shows shallows,
now following the course staked out by flags, here depending on the
Frenchman, whom they have compelled to act as pilot! Nightly from hill
to hill the signal fires leap to the sky, till one flames from Cape
Tourmente, and Quebec learns that the English are surely very near.
Among the Englishmen who are out in the advance boats sounding is a
young man, James Cook, destined to become a great navigator.
June 25, sail after sail, frigate after frigate bristling with cannon,
literally swarming with soldiers and marines, glide round the end of
Orleans Island through driving rain and a squall, and to clatter of
anchor chains and rattle of falling sails, come to rest. "Pray Heaven
they be wrecked as Sir Hovenden Walker's fleet was wrecked long ago,"
sigh the nuns of Quebec. If they had {264} prayed half as hard that
their corrupt rulers, their Bigots and their kings and their painted
women whose nod could set Europe on fire with war,--if the holy
sisterhood had prayed for this gang of vampires whose vices had brought
doom to the land, to be swallowed in some abyss, their prayers might
have been more effective with Heaven.
Next day a band of rangers lands from Wolfe's ships and finds the
Island of Orleans deserted. On the church door the curé has pinned a
note, asking the English not to molest his church; and expressing
sardonic regret that the invaders have not come soon enough to enjoy
the fresh vegetables of his garden.
Wolfe for the first time gazes on the prize of his highest
ambition,--Quebec. He is at Orleans, facing the city. To his right is
the cataract of Montmorency. From the falls past Beauport to St.
Charles River, the St. Lawrence banks are high cliffs. Above the
cliffs are Montcalm's intrenched fighters. Then the north shore of the
St. Lawrence suddenly sheers up beyond St. Charles River into a lofty,
steep precipice. The precipice is Quebec City: Upper Town and the
convents and the ramparts and Castle St. Louis nestling on an upper
ledge of the rock below Cape Diamond; Lower Town crowding between the
foot of the precipice and tide water. Look again how the St. Lawrence
turns in a sharp angle at the precipice. Three sides of the city are
water,--St. Charles River nearest Wolfe, then the St. Lawrence across
the steep face of the rock, then the St. Lawrence again along a still
steeper precipice to the far side. Only the rear of the city is
vulnerable; but it is walled and inaccessible.
Quebec was a prize for any commander's ambition; but how to win it?
The night of June 28 is calm, warm, pitch-dark, the kind of summer
night when the velvet heat touches you as with a hand. The English
soldiers of the crowded transports have gone ashore, when suddenly out
of the darkness glide fire ships as from an under world, with flaming
mast poles, and hulls in shadow, roaring with fire, throwing out
combustibles, drifting straight down on the tide towards the English
fleet. But the French have managed {265} badly. They have set the
ships on fire too soon. The air is torn to tatters by terrific
explosions that light up the outlines of the city spires and churn the
river to billows. Then the English sailors are out in small boats,
avoiding the suck of the undertow. Throwing out grappling hooks, they
tow the flaming fire rafts away from their fleet. It is the first play
of the game, and the French have lost.
[Illustration: THE SITE OF QUEBEC AND THE GROUND OCCUPIED DURING THE
SIEGE OF 1759]
Monckton goes ashore south on Point Lévis side next day. Townshend has
landed his troops east of the Montmorency on the north shore. It is
the second play of the game, and Wolfe has violated every rule of war,
for he has separated his forces in three divisions close to a powerful
enemy. He is counting on Montcalm's policy, however, and Montcalm's
play is to lie inactive, sleeping in his boots, refusing to be lured to
battle till winter drives the English off. It is usual in all accounts
of the great struggle to find that certain facts have been suppressed.
Let us frankly confess that when the English rangers went foraging they
brought back French scalps, and when the French Indians went scouting
they returned with English scalps. However, manners were improving.
Strict orders are given: this is not a war on women; neither women nor
children are to be touched. Wolfe posts proclamations on the parish
churches, calling on the habitants to stand neutral. In answer, they
tear the proclamations down. {266} By July 12 Wolfe's batteries on the
south side of the river are preparing to shell the city. A band of
five hundred students and habitants rows across from Quebec by night to
dislodge the English gunners, but mistaking their own shots for the
shots of the enemy, fall on each other in the dark and retreat in wild
confusion. Then the English cannon begin to do business. In a single
day half the houses of Lower Town are battered to bits, and high-tossed
bombs have plunged through roofs of Upper Town, burning the cathedral
and setting a multitude of lesser buildings on fire. In the confusion
of cannonade and counter-cannonade and a city on fire, shrouding the
ruins in a pall of smoke, some English ships slip up the river beyond
Quebec, but there the precipice of the river bank is still steeper, and
Bougainville is on guard with two thousand men. For thirty miles
around the English rangers have laid the country waste. Still Montcalm
refuses to come out and fight.
The enforced inaction exasperates Wolfe, whose health is failing him,
and who sees the season passing, no nearer the object of his ambition
than when he came. As he had stormed the batteries of Louisburg, so
now he decides to storm the heights of Montmorency. To any one who has
stood on the knob of rock above the gorge where the cataract plunges to
the St. Lawrence, or has scrambled down the bank slippery with spray,
and watched the black underpool whirl out to the river, Wolfe's venture
must seem madness; for French troops lined the intrenchments above the
cliff, and below a redoubt or battery had been built. Below the
cataract, when the tide ebbed, was a place which might be forded. From
sunrise to sunset all the last days of July, Wolfe's cannon boomed from
Lévis across the city, from the fleet in mid channel, from the land
camp on the east side of Montmorency. Montcalm rightly guessed, this
presaged a night assault. To hide his design, Wolfe kept his
transports shifting up and down the St. Lawrence, as if to land at
Beauport halfway to the city. All the same, two armed transports, as
if by chance, managed to get themselves stranded just opposite the
redoubt below the cliff, where their cannon would protect a landing.
Montcalm saw the move and strengthened the troops behind the earthworks
on the {267} top of the cliff. Toward sunset the tide ebbed, and at
that time cannon were firing from all points with such fury that the
St. Lawrence lay hidden in smoke. As the air cleared, two thousand men
were seen wading and fording below the falls. There was a rush of the
tall grenadiers for the redoubt. The French retreated firing, and the
cliff above poured down an avalanche of shots. At that moment Wolfe
suffered a cruel and unforeseen check. A frightful thunderstorm burst
on the river, lashing earth and air to darkness. It was impossible to
see five paces ahead or to aim a shot. The cliff roared down with
miniature rivulets and the slippery clay bank gave to every step of the
climbers slithering down waist-deep in mud and weeds. Powder was
soaked. As the rain ceased, Indians were seen sliding down the cliff
to scalp the wounded. Wolfe ordered a retreat. The drums rolled the
recall and the English escaped pellmell, the French hooting with
derision at the top of the banks, the English yelling back strong oaths
for the enemy to come out of its rat hole and fight like men. At the
ford the men, soaked like water rats, and a sorry rabble, got into some
sort of rank and burned the two stranded vessels as they passed back to
the east side. In less than an hour four hundred and forty-three men
had fallen, the most of them killed, many both dead and wounded, into
the hands of the Indian scalpers.
One can guess Wolfe's fearful despair that night. A month had passed.
He had accomplished worse than nothing. In another month the fleet
must leave the St. Lawrence to avoid autumn storms. Fragile at all
times, Wolfe fell ill, ill of fever and of chagrin, and those officers
over whose head he had been promoted did not spare their criticisms,
their malice. It is so easy to win battles of life and war in theory.
As for Quebec, it was felt the siege was over, the contest won. Still
bad news had come from the west. Niagara had fallen before the
English, and the forts on Lake Champlain were abandoned to Amherst.
Nothing now barred the English advance down the Richelieu to Montreal.
Montcalm dispatches Lévis to Montreal with eight hundred men.
{268} Why did Amherst not come to Wolfe's aid? His enemies say because
the commanding general was so sure the siege of Quebec would fail that
he did not want any share of the blame. That may be unjust. Amherst
was of the slow, cautious kind, who marched doggedly to victory. He
may not have wished to risk a second Ticonderoga. Wolfe's position was
now desperate. His only alternatives were success or ruin. "You can't
cure me," he told his surgeon, "but mend me up so I can go on for a few
days." What he did in those few days left his name immortal. Robert
Stobo, who had been captured from Washington's battalions on the Ohio,
and who knew every foot of Quebec from five years of captivity, had
escaped, joined Wolfe, and drawn plans of all surroundings. From his
ship above Quebec Wolfe could see there was one path just behind the
city where men might ascend to the Plains of Abraham outside the rear
wall, but the path was guarded, and Bougainville's troops patrolled
westward as far as Cape Rouge.
[Illustration: LOUIS JOSEPH, MARQUIS DE MONTCALM]
It was now September. From their trenches above the river the French
could see the English evacuating camp at Montmorency. They were
jubilant. Surely the English were giving up the siege. Night after
night English transports loaded with soldiers ascended the St. Lawrence
above Quebec. What did it mean? Was it a feint to draw Montcalm's men
away from the east side? {269} The French general was sleeplessly
anxious. He had not passed a night in bed since the end of June. The
fall rains were beginning, and another month of work in the trenches
meant half the army invalided.
The most of the English fleet was working up and down with the tide
between the western limits of Quebec and Cape Rouge, nine miles away.
Bougainville's force was increased to three thousand men, and he was
ordered to keep especial watch westward. The steepness of the
precipice was guard enough near the town. Wednesday, the 12th of
September, the English troops were ordered to hold themselves in
readiness. They passed the day cleaning their arms, and were ordered
not to speak after nightfall or permit a sound to be heard from the
ranks. Admiral Saunders with the main fleet was to feign attack on the
east side of the city. Admiral Holmes with Wolfe's army, now numbering
not four thousand men, was to glide down with the tide from Cape Rouge
above Quebec. Because the main fleet lay on the east side Montcalm
felt sure the attack would come from that quarter. Deserters had
brought word to Wolfe that some flatboats with provisions were coming
down the river to Quebec that night.
Here, then, the position! Saunders on the east side, opposite
Beauport, feigning attack; Montcalm watching him from the Beauport
cliffs; Wolfe nine miles up the river west of the city; Bougainville
watching him, watching too for those provisions, for Quebec was down to
empty larder.
It is said that as Wolfe rested in his ship, the _Sutherland_, off Cape
Rouge, he felt strange premonition of approaching death, and repeated
the words of Gray's "Elegy,"--"The paths of glory lead but to the
grave,"--but this has been denied. Certainly he had such strange
consciousness of impending death that, taking a miniature of his
fiancée from his breast, he asked a fellow-officer to return it to her.
About midnight the tide began to ebb, and two lanterns were hung as a
sign from the masthead of the _Sutherland_. Instantly all the ships
glided silent as the great river down with the tide. The night was
moonless. Near the little bridle path now known as Wolfe's Cove the
ships draw {270} ashore. Sharp as iron on stone a sentry's voice rings
out, "Who goes?"
"The French," answers an officer, who speaks perfect French.
"What regiment?"
"The Queen's," replies the officer, who chances to know that
Bougainville has a regiment of that name. Thinking they were the
provision transports, this sentry was satisfied. Not so another. He
ran down to the water's edge, and peering through the darkness called,
"Why can't you speak louder?"
"Hush you! We 'll be overheard," answers the English officer in French.
Thus the English boats glided towards the little bridle path that led
up to the rear of the city. Wolfe's Cove is not a path steep as a
stair up the face of a rock, as the most of the schoolbooks teach; it
is a little weed-grown, stony gully, easy to climb, but slant and
narrow, where I have walked many a night to drink from the spring near
the foot of the cliff.
Twenty-four volunteers lead the way up the stony path, silent and agile
as cats. At the top are the tents of the sentries, who rush from their
couches to be overpowered by the English. Before daybreak the whole
army has ascended to the plateau behind the city, known as the Plains
of Abraham. No use entering here into the dispute whether Wolfe took
his place where the goal now stands, or farther back from the city
wall. Roughly speaking, the main line of Wolfe's forces, three deep,
with himself, Monckton, and Murray in command, faced the rear of Quebec
about three quarters of a mile from what was then the wall. To his
left was the wooded road now known as St. Louis. He posts Townshend
facing this, at right angles to his front line. Another battalion lay
in the woods to the rear. There were, besides, a reserve regiment, and
a battalion to guard the landing.
What was Wolfe's position? Behind him lay Bougainville with three
thousand French soldiers, fresh and in perfect condition. In front lay
Quebec with three thousand more. To his right was the river; to his
left, across the St. Charles, Montcalm's main army of five thousand
men. "When your enemies blunder, {271} don't interrupt them," Napoleon
is reported to have advised. If some one had not blundered badly now,
it might have been a second Ticonderoga with Wolfe; but some one did
blunder most tragically.
Montcalm had come from the trenches above Beauport, where he had been
guarding against Saunders' landing, and he had ordered hot tea and beer
served to the troops, when he happened to look across the St. Charles
River towards Quebec. It had been cloudy, but the sun had just burst
out; and there, standing in the morning light, were the English in
battle array, red coat and tartan kilt, grenadier and Highlander, in
the distance a confused mass of color, which was not the white uniform
of the French.
"This is a serious business," said Montcalm hurriedly to his aide.
Then, spurs to his big black horse, he was galloping furiously along
the Beauport road, over the resounding bridge across the St. Charles,
up the steep cobblestone streets that lead from Lower to Upper Town,
and out by the St. Louis road to the Plains of Abraham. In Quebec all
was confusion. _Who_ had given the order for the troops to move out
against the English without waiting for Bougainville to come from Cape
Rouge? But there they were, huddling, disorderly columns that crowded
on each other, filing out of the St. Louis and St. John Gates, with a
long string of battalions following Montcalm up from the St. Charles.
And Ramezay, who was commandant of the city, refused to send out part
of his troops; and Vaudreuil, who was at Beauport, delayed to come; and
though Montcalm waited till ten o'clock, Bougainville did not come up
from Cape Rouge with his three thousand men. Easy to criticise and say
Montcalm should have waited till Bougainville and Vaudreuil came. He
could _not_ wait, for Wolfe's position cut his forces in two, and the
army was without supplies. With his four thousand five hundred men he
accepted fate's challenge.
Bagpipes shrilling, English flags waving to the wind, the French
soldiers shouting riotously, the two armies moved towards each other.
Then the English halted, silent, motionless {272} statues. The men
were refreshed, for during the four hours' wait from daylight, Wolfe
had permitted them to rest on the grassed plain. The French came
bounding forward, firing as they ran, and bending down to reload. The
English waited till the French were but forty yards away. "They were
not to throw away their fire," Wolfe had ordered. Now forty yards, if
you measure it off in your mind's eye, is short space between hostile
armies. It is not as wide as the average garden front in a suburban
city. Then suddenly the thin red line of the English spoke in a crash
of fire. The shots were so simultaneous that they sounded like one
terrific crash of ear-splitting thunder. The French had no time to
halt before a second volley rent the air. Then a clattering fire
rocketed from the British like echoes from a precipice. With wild
halloo the British were charging, . . . charging, . . . charging, the
Highlanders leading with their broadswords flashing overhead and their
mountain blood on fire, Wolfe to the fore of the grenadiers till a shot
broke his wrist! Wrapping his handkerchief about the wound as he ran,
the victorious young general was dashing forward when a second shot hit
him and a third pierced his breast. He staggered a step, reeled, fell
to the ground. Three soldiers and an officer ran to his aid and
carried him in their arms to the rear. He would have no surgeon. It
was useless, he said. "But the day is ours, and see that you keep it,"
he muttered, sinking back unconscious. A moment later he was roused by
wild, hilarious, jubilant, heart-shattering shouts.
"Gad! they run! See how they run!" said an English voice.
"_Who_--run?" demanded Wolfe, roused as if from the sleep of death.
"The enemy, sir. They give way . . . everywhere."
"Go, one of you," commanded the dying general; "tell Colonel Burton to
march Webb's regiment down Charles River to cut off retreat by the
bridge. Now God be praised!" he added, sinking back; "I die in peace!"
And the spirit of Wolfe had departed, leaving as a heritage a New
Empire of the North, and an immortal fame.
[Illustration: DEATH OF WOLFE (From the painting by Benjamin West)]
{273}
Fate had gone hard against the gallant Montcalm. The first volley from
the English line had mowed his soldiers down like ripe wheat. At the
second volley the ranks broke and the ground was thick strewn with the
dead. When the English charged, the French fled in wildest panic
downhill for the St. Charles. Wounded and faint, Montcalm on his black
charger was swept swiftly along St. Louis road in the blind stampede of
retreat. Near the walls a ball passed through his groins. Two
soldiers caught him from falling, and steadied him on either side of
his horse through St. Louis gate, where women, waiting in mad anxiety,
saw the blood dripping over his horse.
"My God! My God! Our marquis is slain!" they screamed.
"It is nothing,--nothing,--good friends; don't trouble about me,"
answered the wounded general as he passed for the last time under the
arched gateway of St. Louis road.
"How long have I to live?" he asked the surgeon into whose house he had
been carried.
"Few hours, my lord."
"So much the better," answered Montcalm. "I shall not live to see
Quebec surrendered."
Before daylight, he was dead. Wrapped in his soldier's cloak, laid in
a rough box, the body was carried that night to the Ursuline Convent,
where a bursting bomb had scooped a great hole in the floor. Sad-eyed
nuns and priests crowded the chapel. By torchlight, amid tears and
sobs, the body was laid to rest.
Both generals had died as they had lived,--gallantly. To-day both are
regarded as heroes and commemorated by monuments; but how did their
governments treat them? Of course there were wild huzzas in London and
solemn memorial services over Wolfe; but when his aged mother
petitioned the government that her dead son's salary might be computed
at 10 pounds a day,--the salary of a commander in chief,--instead of 2
pounds a day, she was refused in as curtly uncivil a note as was ever
penned. Montcalm had died in debt, and when his family petitioned the
French government to pay these debts, the King thought it should be
done, but he did not take the trouble to see that his {274} good
intention was carried out. It was easy and cheaper for orators to talk
of heroes giving their lives for their country. There are no better
examples in history of the truth that glory and honor and true service
must be their own reward, independent of any compensation, any
suffering, any sacrifice.
Though the panic retreat continued for hours and Quebec was not
surrendered for some days, the battle was practically decided in ten
minutes. The campaign of the next year was gallant but fruitless. In
April, before the fleet has come back to the English, De Lévis throws
himself with the remnants of the French army against the rear wall of
Quebec; and as Montcalm had come out to fight Wolfe, so Murray marches
out to fight De Lévis. Both sides claimed the battle of Ste. Foye as
victory, but another such victory would have exterminated the English.
Lévis outside the walls, Murray glad to be inside the walls, each side
waited for the spring fleet. If France had come to Canada's aid, even
yet the country might have been won, for sickness had reduced Murray's
army to less than three thousand able men; but the flag that flaunted
from the ship that sailed into the harbor of Quebec on the 9th of May
was British. That decided Canada's fate. De Lévis retreated swiftly
for Montreal, but by September the slow-moving General Amherst has
closed in on Montreal from the west, and up the St. Lawrence from the
east proceeds General Murray. De Lévis and Vaudreuil had less than two
thousand fighting men at Montreal. September 8th they capitulated, and
three years later, by the Treaty of Paris, Canada passed under the
dominion of England. Officers, many of the nobility, Bigot and his
crew, sailed for France, where the Intendant's ring were put on trial
and punished for their corruption and misrule. Bigot suffered
banishment and the confiscation of property. The other members of his
clique received like sentences.
Spite of the hopes of her devoted founders,--like Champlain and
Maisonneuve,--spite of the blood of her martyrs and the prayers of her
missionaries, spite of all the pathfinding of her {275} explorers,
spite of the dauntless warfare of her soldier knights,--like Frontenac
and Iberville and Montcalm,--New France had fallen.
Why?
For two reasons: because of England's sea power; because of the
unblushing, shameless, gilded corruption of the French court, which
cared less for the fate of Canada than the leer of a painted fool
behind her fan. But be this remembered,--and here was the hand of
overruling Destiny or Providence,--the fall of New France, like the
fall of the seed to the ready soil, was the rebirth of a new nation.
Henceforth it is not New France, the appendage of an Old World nation.
It is Canada,--a New Dominion.
To-day wander round Quebec. Tablets and monuments consecrate many of
the old hero days. Though the British government rebuilt a line of
walls in the early eighteen hundreds, you will find it hard to trace
even a vestige of the old French walls. Mounds tell you where there
were bastions. A magnificent boulevard tops the most of the old
ramparts. An imposing hotel stands where Castle St. Louis once frowned
over the St. Lawrence. Of the palace where the Intendant held his
revels there are not even ruins. If you drive out past Beauport, you
will find at the end of a nine-mile forest path the crumbling brick
walls of Château Bigot, the Hermitage, half buried, in the days when I
visited it, with rose vines and orchard trees gone wild. That is all
you will find of the court clique whose folly brought Canada's doom;
but as you drive back from Beauport there towers the city from the
rocky heights above the St. Lawrence,--chapel spire and cross and domed
cathedral roofs aglint in the sunlight like a city of gold. The
church, baptized by the blood of its martyrs, is there in pristine
power; and the fruitful meadows bear witness to the prosperity of the
habitant on whom the burden fell in the days of the ancient régime.
Who shall say that habitant and church do not deserve the place of
power they hold in the government of the Dominion?
{276}