CHAPTER X

THE CONQUEST OF CANADA (_continued_)

When Wolfe reached England from Louisbourg in November, 1758, he

wrote to Pitt offering himself for further service in America, 'and

particularly in the river St. Lawrence, if any operations are to be

carried on there.'[1] Before Christmas, Pitt had appointed him to

command an expedition in the coming year against Quebec.

[Footnote 1: Wolfe to Pitt, Nov. 22, 1758 (Wright's _Life of Wolfe_,

p. 464). There was some misunderstanding as to his return to England.

See the correspondence quoted by Mr. Kingsford in the note to vol.

iv, p. 155, of his _History_.]

[Sidenote: _Wolfe's early life and character._]

Wolfe was born at Westerham, in Kent, on January 2, 1727, and was

therefore not thirty-three years old when he was killed at Quebec in

September, 1759. He was the son of a soldier, and received his first

commission before he was fifteen. He was present at Dettingen, and at

Culloden; and, subsequently to the latter battle, after an interval

of fighting in the Netherlands, where he distinguished himself at the

battle of Laffeldt, he was stationed for a considerable time in

Scotland. Service in the Highlands, it may be noted, in Jacobite

times, was not bad training for service in North America. In

September, 1757, after the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, he took

part in the expedition against Rochefort, to the south of La

Rochelle, on the west coast of France--an enterprise as utterly

barren of results as was the Duke of Buckingham's venture against the

same area of coast when Charles I was King. Lord Howe and Wolfe {290}

were among the few who gained any credit from the expedition. In the

following year, Wolfe served at Louisbourg.

Horace Walpole writes of him: 'Ambition, activity, industry, passion

for the service, were conspicuous in Wolfe. He seemed to breathe for

nothing but fame, and lost no moments in qualifying himself to

compass his object.'[2] These words are partly true, but do not tell

the whole truth. Wolfe was ambitious, active, and industrious, but he

cared for more than fame alone. His dramatic death in the hour of

victory, while he was still very young, makes it impossible to form

an adequate estimate of his real worth as a soldier; but all that is

known of him points to his having been, in spite of persistent ill

health, a great military genius, and a rare leader of men. He seems

to have resembled Nelson in his fighting qualities, and to have had

the same lovable nature, coupled with a higher standard of life. Like

Nelson, in warfare he always took the offensive if possible--took it,

as at Quebec, in spite of smaller numbers and a less favourable

position. 'An offensive, daring kind of war will awe the Indians and

ruin the French,' were his words to Amherst in a letter written after

the taking of Louisbourg.[3]

[Footnote 2: Walpole's _Memoirs of the Reign of King George II_ (1847

ed.), vol. iii, p. 171.]

[Footnote 3: Louisbourg, Sept. 30, 1758 (Wright, p. 457).]

Like Nelson, he loved his men, and his men loved him. According to

the old story, when the Duke of Newcastle told the King that Wolfe

was mad, the King expressed a wish that he would bite his other

generals. This was precisely what Wolfe did. He infected to some

extent those above him, to a great extent those under his command. He

was a man after Pitt's own heart; wherever he was, he made himself

felt, giving a living fire and force to the army. Coupled with this

vitality was a thorough knowledge of his profession, gained not only

on actual battlefields and {291} training-grounds, but also from

voluminous reading.[4] Nature gave him a hot temper and fearless

independence of spirit; he was in consequence impatient, and perhaps

unduly critical, of the mistakes of those above him; but he was the

soul of honour and chivalry, and his private life was marked by

tender love for his mother, stanch attachment to his friends, and

kindness to all dependent upon him, including dumb animals. In his

lifetime he enjoyed 'a large share of the friendship and almost the

universal goodwill of mankind.'[5] In a word, English history has

produced no truer type of hero than James Wolfe.

[Footnote 4: In Wright's _Life of Wolfe_, pp. 342-5, is given a

letter of Wolfe's, dated July, 1756, recommending a long list of

books for a young soldier to read. Reference is made at the beginning

of the letter to a French book recently published (Turpin's _Essai

sur l'art de la guerre_), and it is interesting to find that Forbes,

in a letter to Pitt from Raestown, dated Oct. 20, 1758, stated that

in his march on Fort Duquesne he was acting on the principles laid

down in that book.]

[Footnote 5: From the 'Character of General Wolfe' in the _Annual

Register_ for 1759, p. 282.]

[Sidenote: _Wolfe's brigadiers. Monckton. Murray. George Townshend.

Carleton. Howe. Admiral Saunders._]

At the siege of Louisbourg, Wolfe was one of three brigadiers under

General Amherst. When he was given the command of the expedition

against Quebec, three brigadiers were placed under him--Monckton,

Townshend, and Murray. They were all of noble birth, and two of them

at any rate were good soldiers. Monckton, the senior of the three,

had shown his efficiency in Acadia, and at the siege of Louisbourg.

Murray proved his worth both before and after the capture of Quebec,

in a civil as well as in a military capacity. The least satisfactory

of the three was George Townshend, elder brother of the better known

Charles Townshend, not wanting in capacity, but deficient in loyalty

to his commander; a somewhat jealous and bitter-natured man, who had

the backing of political and aristocratic connexion. Horace Walpole

writes of him as a man 'whose proud and sullen and contemptuous

temper never suffered him to wait for thwarting his superiors till

risen to a level {292} with them. He saw everything in an ill-natured

and ridiculous light--a sure prevention of ever being seen himself in

a great or favourable one.'[6] The Quartermaster-General of the force

was Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, well known in Canadian

history, a great personal friend of Wolfe's, though out of favour

with the King. Howe, younger brother of the man whose untimely death

Wolfe so deeply lamented, commanded the light infantry, and led them

in the van of the force up the cliffs of Quebec. Lastly, an admirable

officer was in charge of the fleet, Saunders, who nineteen years

before had sailed round the world with Lord Anson in the _Centurion_.

[Footnote 6: _Memoirs of the Reign of King George II_ (1847 ed.),

vol. iii, pp. 171, 172.]

[Sidenote: _Small number of troops commanded by Wolfe._]

[Sidenote: _Start of the expedition._]

The troops, whom Wolfe and his officers commanded, were too few for

the difficult task with which they were entrusted. They were to have

numbered 12,000; as a matter of fact their total did not reach 9,000.

Some were in America already, but the large majority sailed from

England with Wolfe and Saunders, leaving England in the middle of

February, anchoring at Halifax at the end of April, moving on to

Louisbourg in May, when the ice was disappearing, and arriving in

front of Quebec towards the end of June--a small squadron, under

Admiral Durell, having already ascended the St. Lawrence in advance

of the main fleet. As they went up the river, 'the prevailing

sentimental toast amongst the officers' was 'British colours on every

French fort, port, and garrison in America.'[7]

[Footnote 7: From Knox's _Historical Journal of the Campaigns in

North America_ (London, 1769), vol. i, p. 279.]

[Sidenote: _General plan of campaign in North America._]

The expedition against Quebec was only part of a general plan of

campaign. While Wolfe was operating in the St. Lawrence, it was

intended that Amherst, the Commander-in-Chief, with a larger army,

should move northward by way of Lake Champlain; and, reducing the

French forts at {293} Ticonderoga and Crown Point, make his way to

the St. Lawrence, in time to co-operate with Wolfe's force, or to

draw off a number of the defenders of Quebec for the protection of

Montreal. As events turned out, Amherst gave little support to Wolfe.

On the contrary, the main French army under Montcalm went to and

remained at Quebec; and Wolfe, with the smaller force and far the

more difficult enterprise to undertake, had to rely on his own

resources alone. Montcalm had probably gauged the respective merits

of Amherst and Wolfe. Had Amherst been in command of the Quebec

expedition, and Wolfe leading the central advance, it is reasonable

to suppose that the French general would have entrusted the defence

of Quebec to a smaller force, and with the bulk of his army would

have confronted the more dangerous English leader on the line of Lake

Champlain.

[Sidenote: _Amherst's difficulties._]

Amherst, however, it is fair to note, had, as Commander-in-Chief, to

direct his attention to other points as well as the direct northern

line of advance. When the spring opened, the forts on the Mohawk

river had been re-established, and Fort Duquesne was held by the

small garrison which Forbes had placed there. But Oswego was still

desolate, and the English had no post on Lake Ontario. The French

held a strong position at Niagara; they commanded the routes from the

lakes to Fort Duquesne; they could bring reinforcements of Canadians

and Indians from the west as well as up the St. Lawrence--if any

could be spared from this quarter. Forbes, the leader in the west,

was dead. Under these circumstances a cautious commander, though not

perhaps a brilliant one, might hesitate to invade central Canada

until some further security was attained on the western side.

[Sidenote: _Prideaux sent against Niagara._]

[Sidenote: _Haldimand attacked at Oswego: he beats off the French._]

General Stanwix was accordingly sent to reinforce Fort Duquesne, and,

having made that position secure, to press forward, if possible, up

the Alleghany and French Creek rivers, in order to co-operate with

another force which, under General Prideaux, was ordered to ascend

the Mohawk river, {294} reoccupy Oswego, and from Oswego as the base

to attack Niagara. Prideaux concentrated his troops at Schenectady

towards the end of May, about 5,000 in number, including two

regiments of regulars. Sir William Johnson joined him with Indian

warriors from the Five Nations; and with him too, as second in

command, was Colonel Haldimand, like Bouquet a Swiss by birth, and

twenty years later Governor-General of Canada. Strengthening the

outposts on the line of communication as he advanced, Prideaux made

his way to Oswego, and, leaving Haldimand there to rebuild the fort,

started westwards on July 1 for Niagara, carrying his men in boats

along the southern shore of Lake Ontario. Soon after he left,

Haldimand's force at Oswego was attacked by 1,000 Canadians and

Indians, who came up the St. Lawrence under the command of St. Luc de

la Corne; but, though taken by surprise, the garrison beat off their

assailants with little loss.

[Sidenote: _Fort Niagara._]

The French fort at Niagara was in good condition for defence. It

stood in the angle between the Niagara river and the lake, on what is

now the American side of the river; a road had been made past the

falls, and there were two outposts, one above and the other below the

falls. A competent French officer, Pouchot, was in command; his

garrison, when the English appeared, numbered 500 men more or less,

and he sent messages to bring up reinforcements from the forts on the

Ohio route--Presque Ile, Fort Leboeuf, and Machault or Venango--in

addition to Indians and Rangers from Detroit and the west, who were

already coming down to the aid of Canada.

[Sidenote: _Death of Prideaux._]

[Sidenote: _Johnson takes command and defeats the French relief

force._]

[Sidenote: _Surrender of Niagara._]

On July 8 Prideaux summoned the fort to surrender, and, his summons

being rejected, began to invest the place. No great skill was shown

in the investment, and on July 20 the English general was

accidentally killed by the bursting of a shell from one of his own

guns. The command devolved on Johnson, who heard that a relief {295}

force was coming down Lake Erie--a force which numbered at least

1,200 men all told, and was led by some of the best border fighters

in Canada, including Ligneris, who had in the preceding year been in

charge of Fort Duquesne. Johnson marched out to intercept them on the

road between the fort and the falls, attacked them at once in front

and on the flank, and gained a complete victory. The French officers

were taken prisoners, their troops were utterly routed and broken up,

and the survivors retreated westward to Detroit, abandoning Lake Erie

and the whole of the Ohio country. It was on July 24 that the fight

took place, and on the following day Pouchot, having verified the

news of the French defeat, surrendered Niagara. One of the terms of

the surrender was that the prisoners should be protected from the

Indians by an English escort, the massacre at Fort William Henry

being evidently borne in mind; and on this condition six hundred

Frenchmen were sent to New York.

[Sidenote: _Result of its fall._]

Thus, for the second time, Sir William Johnson had rendered signal

service to the English cause; and with the fall of Niagara the French

lost all command of the lower lakes. Their only communication now

with Detroit and the far West was by the old route of the Ottawa

river, and their scheme of conquest in the lands of the Ohio was

wholly and for ever undone. 'The taking of Niagara broke off

effectually that communication, so much talked of and so much

dreaded, between Canada and Louisiana; and by this stroke one of the

capital political designs of the French, which gave occasion to the

present war, was defeated in its direct and immediate object.'[8] On

hearing of the success, Amherst sent up General Gage to replace

Prideaux, with orders to come down the St. Lawrence and join in the

combination against central Canada; but the force was small, Gage,

like Amherst, was cautious, and the summer passed {296} away without

any further success by the troops on Lake Ontario.

[Footnote 8: _Annual Register_ for 1759, p. 34.]

[Sidenote: _Amherst's advance._]

[Sidenote: _The French abandon Ticonderoga and Crown Point._]

While Prideaux and Johnson were operating against Niagara, Amherst

had begun his northward movement. He had carefully secured his

communications by fortified posts, and, before June ended, had

gathered a force of 11,000 men at the southern end of Lake George,

the scene of so many encampments and so much fighting. On July 21 he

embarked his troops, followed the line of Abercromby's advance in the

previous year, found the famous entrenchment, which had foiled

Abercromby's troops, deserted, but the fort itself still held. On the

evening of the twenty-sixth, however, deserters brought news that the

garrison was in retreat, and shortly afterwards a loud explosion told

its own tale. Ticonderoga had been abandoned and blown up. The French

commander opposed to Amherst was Bourlamaque, and his orders were to

fall back before the English to the outlet of Lake Champlain, where a

small island in the Richelieu river, the Ile aux Noix, could easily

be defended, blocking the enemy's advance on Montreal. He had a force

of over 3,000 men, the rearguard of which, consisting of 400 men, had

held Ticonderoga for two or three days, to cover the retreat of the

main force. On August 1, Crown Point was found to be abandoned also,

and the way north, down Lake Champlain, lay open to the invaders of

Canada. Amherst entered Crown Point on August 4, and on the following

day wrote to Pitt: 'I shall take fast hold of it, and not neglect at

the same time to forward every measure I can to enable me to pass

Lake Champlain.'

[Sidenote: _Amherst's inaction._]

Now was the time for the quick aggressive movement which Wolfe

practised and preached, but the Commander-in-Chief fell miserably

short of the occasion. August went by, and September, but Robert

Rogers and his Rangers, who harried the French Indians on the river

St. Francis {297} north-east of Lake Champlain, were the only

fighting members of Amherst's army. Time was spent in constructing a

new fort at Crown Point; in making a road eastward from Lake

Champlain, opposite Crown Point, to the Connecticut river; in

building vessels to overpower four little armed sloops, which

represented French naval enterprise on the lake. In the middle of

October Amherst embarked his troops to go north, met with wind and

storm, returned to Crown Point, and made all snug for the winter.

This was not the way to conquer Canada: the real work was done by

another man at another place. While the main English army loitered on

the shores of Lake Champlain, Wolfe had laid down his life in victory

on the Plains of Abraham.

[Illustration: Map of Quebec]

[Sidenote: _The harbour of Quebec._]

[Sidenote: _The northern bank of the St. Lawrence._]

By a Canadian Act of 1858, the harbour of Quebec, for the purposes of

the Act, is defined as extending from the Cap Rouge river, about

eight miles above Quebec, to the Montmorency, about the same distance

below the city. At Quebec, and for many miles above, the St. Lawrence

is a tidal river. Below Quebec the river flows due north-east, and is

divided into two channels by the island of Orleans, which also lies

due north-east and south-west, being twenty miles long with a maximum

breadth of six miles. The inland--the south-western--end of the

island points directly at the rock of Quebec, which runs out from the

northern shore of the St. Lawrence, facing straight down the river,

at four miles distance from the island. The two channels, looking up

stream, unite at the end of the island, and form a semicircular basin

just below Quebec, where the northern shore recedes. Immediately

above this basin the rock of Quebec on the north of the river, and

Point Levis on the southern mainland, jut out towards each other,

narrowing the St. Lawrence to a breadth of considerably less than a

mile. Above Quebec the upward course of the river is still south-west

by west. The northern bank is continuously steep, and at five to six

miles' distance from Quebec on this side is Sillery Cove. {298}

Between two and three miles further on, nearly due west, is Cap

Rouge. Over against Sillery the Chaudiere river flows in from the

south, forming in old days a possible route to the St. Lawrence for

those who followed up the course of the Kennebec from the coast of

Maine.[9]

[Footnote 9: See above, p. 123.]

Miles of river-side cliff culminate in the promontory on which Quebec

stands, and the south-western end of which is known as Cape Diamond.

From the river above the town, Quebec, if man combined with nature,

was almost inaccessible. Below, the eastern side of the city is girt

by the winding River St. Charles, beyond which are the meadows of

Beauport, with shoals in front and high ground behind; and, past the

little Beauport river, which is very roughly equidistant from the St.

Charles and the Montmorency, the northern bank of the St. Lawrence is

again more or less fringed with steep ground as far as, and beyond,

the falls, over which the Montmorency takes its way into the great

river.

[Sidenote: _The strength of the French position._]

Nature had given Quebec a position of unique strength; man had added

fortifications; and, when Wolfe came before it, 16,000 soldiers,

including French, Canadians, and Indians, were mustered for its

defence, under one of the most skilful generals of his day. There was

a garrison in Quebec itself; but the main army was encamped below the

city, and lined entrenchments from the St. Charles to the

Montmorency, Montcalm's head quarters being on the further side of

the Beauport river. To defeat an army nearly double the strength of

his own, and to take the citadel which, since the days of Kirke and

Champlain, had proved impregnable, was the hopeless task assigned to

Wolfe. It was a task which he accomplished.

[Sidenote: _Wolfe's troops superior in quality to Montcalm's._]

[Sidenote: _Importance of commanding the river._]

[Sidenote: _Co-operation of English army and navy._]

Over and above his own leadership, he had two points in his favour.

His troops were better than those commanded by Montcalm. The majority

of Montcalm's men were Canadian militia, disinclined for long

continuous service, {299} which kept them away from their farms, and,

while excellent for raiding purposes or for fighting under cover, not

to be relied on if ever they should be brought face to face with

English regiments in the open field. Wolfe, moreover, gained complete

command of the river. Such ships as the French possessed had been

sent high up the St. Lawrence out of harm's way; and, though the guns

of Quebec commanded the river strait immediately below the rock, as

the siege went on some of the English vessels, and many boats, were

taken past the promontory, so that the St. Lawrence was securely held

both below and above the city. In war and in peace English sailors

and soldiers have known how to support each other. At the sieges of

Louisbourg the admirals co-operated in every possible way with the

leaders of the land forces, and equally hearty was the co-operation

of the two arms of the service before Quebec. Admiral Saunders, with

Durell and Holmes, did all that men could do to second Wolfe in his

difficult enterprise.

[Sidenote: _The island of Orleans occupied._]

[Sidenote: _Vaudreuil's fireships._]

[Sidenote: _Point Levis occupied._]

Piloted by Canadian prisoners or by their own determined seamen, the

British ships had threaded their way up the St. Lawrence, and on June

26 anchored on the southern side of the Isle of Orleans. That night a

party of Rangers landed on the island, meeting with some slight

opposition, and the next day the whole force disembarked and marched

across the island towards its westernmost point, the Point of

Orleans. There the city of Quebec came in full view, 'at once a

tempting and a discouraging sight.'[10] Hardly had the troops landed

when, on the same day, a heavy storm broke upon the English ships,

and drove some of the transports ashore; while, little more than

twenty-four hours later, a new danger threatened the fleet in the

form of fireships sent down from Quebec. This was a pet scheme of

Vaudreuil, but, like the author of the scheme, the ships did nothing

more than splutter and make a noise, scaring the {300} English

outpost at the Point of Orleans. Some stranded, others were towed

ashore by the English sailors--none of them reached the fleet which

they were intended to destroy. On the evening of the next day, the

twenty-ninth, part of Monckton's brigade was carried across the mile

and a half of water which separates the island of Orleans at its

westernmost point from the mainland on the southern shore; on the

thirtieth the rest of the brigade was landed, and occupied Point

Levis. Here batteries were erected under fire from Quebec; and, after

a futile, half-hearted attempt had been made to dislodge the English

by a party of Canadians, who crossed the river higher up on the night

of July 12, the guns opened fire on the city opposite, and began the

work--which went on for weeks--of knocking its buildings to pieces.

[Footnote 10: _Annual Register_ for 1759, p. 35.]

[Sidenote: _Landing effected on the northern shore below the

Montmorency._]

[Sidenote: _Division of Wolfe's force._]

[Sidenote: _The English ships gain the upper river._]

[Sidenote: _Montcalm on the defensive._]

Before the batteries at Point Levis were complete, Wolfe had sent

troops across to the northern shore of the St. Lawrence, lower down

the river, and occupied the heights on the eastern side of the

Montmorency river, which more or less commanded the extreme left of

the French line, where Levis was stationed. The movement was not

effected without some loss to the Rangers, who were ambushed by a

party of Indians. The latter had crossed the Montmorency by a ford

above the falls, but the ford was too securely guarded on the French

side to justify any attempt on the part of Wolfe's small force to

attack in this direction. It was the English general's plan to

reconnoitre and threaten every point in turn of the French position,

to divide the enemy's forces if possible, and if possible to induce

Montcalm to take the offensive. With this object, Wolfe ran great

risks. One part of his army was at Point Levis, another below the

Montmorency, a third small detachment held the Point of Orleans. On

July 18 his ships began to run the gauntlet of the Quebec batteries

and reach the upper river, while boats were dragged overland by Point

Levis to co-operate above the city. A still further division of the

attacking force {301} was then made, and Carleton was sent some

eighteen miles up stream to land and raid on the northern shore. But

though the movement drew off a certain number of French troops from

the Beauport lines to watch the enemy above Quebec, Montcalm

persisted in playing a waiting game, in making no attack, and running

no risk. His policy was no doubt a sound one. It is true that Quebec

was being riddled with shot and shell, that the farmers and villagers

in the country round were suffering, that the Canadians and Indians

were losing heart at the apparent inaction of their leaders, but time

and place were on the side of the French, and as the weeks went on

the wisdom of patient defence became more and more apparent.

[Sidenote: _Frontal attack on the French lines by the Montmorency._]

At the end of July, Wolfe determined to try to force the French

entrenchments where they abutted on the Montmorency river. The plan

involved a frontal attack on a very strong position, and it was only

possible to make the attempt when the tide was out. At low tide the

Montmorency could be forded below the falls, and the General proposed

to land Monckton's brigade on the shore of the St. Lawrence, above

the Montmorency, in face of the French lines, and to support it by

marching Townshend's and Murray's troops, who held the heights below

the Montmorency, across the ford at the mouth of the latter river.

The two forces converging were to carry an advanced French redoubt

which stood on the flat a little beyond high-water mark, and, if the

French still refused battle, to assault the heights beyond.

[Sidenote: _The English repulsed with heavy loss._]

Monckton's men, embarked mainly at Point Levis, were moved up and

down the river through the day, keeping the French in doubt as to

where the attack would be made. A ship of war was anchored in a

position to cover the ford of the Montmorency, while two large

flat-bottomed boats carrying guns, or, as Knox called them, 'two

armed transport cats (catamarans) drawing little water,'[11] were

taken in {302} close to shore, and left to be stranded as the tide

went out. Towards evening the water was low, the guns opened fire,

and, after some delay in finding a landing-place, the men began to

disembark on the muddy edge of the river. The Grenadiers, with some

of the Royal Americans, who were first landed, rushed forward and

seized the redoubt, which the French abandoned. They then hurried on,

without waiting for the main body of troops, to attack the higher

ground behind. This premature movement ruined the enterprise.

Advancing without order or formation up slippery slopes, in a storm

of rain, under heavy fire, the Grenadiers were hurled back to the

redoubt with a loss of over 400 men, and were brought off by Wolfe,

who saw the uselessness of repeating the attack in the deepening

shades of evening. Some of the troops were re-embarked, the others

retreated in good order across the ford, and the day ended in

failure, though the bulk of the English army had taken no part in the

fight. In his General Order on the following day Wolfe commented

severely, and with reason, upon the 'impetuous, irregular, and

unsoldierlike proceedings' of the Grenadiers, reminding them that

'the Grenadiers could not suppose that they alone could beat the

French army.'[12] The blame for the disaster rested solely with the

soldiers of the advanced party, who, in eagerness to attack, lost all

order and discipline; but the effect was much the same as though the

leaders had blundered. The small English army had lost a number of

men, who could ill be spared; the defenders of Quebec gained heart,

their enemies were correspondingly dispirited.

[Footnote 11: Knox, vol. i, p. 354.]

[Footnote 12: Knox, vol. ii, p. 1.]

[Sidenote: _Operations on the upper river._]

[Sidenote: _Levis sent to Montreal to oppose Amherst._]

Wolfe still held his ground below the Montmorency, but moved more of

his men than before above Quebec. Here Murray was placed in command,

with Admiral Holmes in charge of the ships and boats. Bougainville,

with 1,500 men, was detached by Montcalm to watch the enemy's {303}

movements and to guard the northern shore; but, on both sides of the

river, both above and below the town, the English spread havoc and

destroyed supplies. The waterway being blocked by Holmes' vessels and

the country round Quebec being desolated, Montcalm's army could only

be fed by a toilsome overland transport of many miles, until the

means of transport failed, when provisions were again sent down the

river, running the blockade usually under cover of night. Meanwhile,

early in August, the French had learnt of the fall of Niagara and the

abandonment of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and to meet Amherst's

expected advance Levis was sent up to Montreal with 800 men. In this

respect, and in no other, Amherst's operations helped Wolfe. As

events turned out, it was of incalculable importance to the English

that, when the battle of Quebec took place, Montcalm's able

lieutenant was not on the field.

[Sidenote: _Critical position of Wolfe._]

[Sidenote: _His illness._]

[Sidenote: _His brigadiers recommend an attempt above the city._]

The position of the French was critical, but that of the English was

more critical still. The summer was waning. The English troops were

dwindling in numbers from casualties and disease. Worst of all, when

the middle of August was past, worn in mind and body, Wolfe was laid

low with fever in the camp at Montmorency. On his life, as the

soldiers who loved him knew, hung all the hopes of the expedition.

While recovering, but still unable to move, he submitted to his

brigadiers three alternative plans for attacking Montcalm's lines.

They met on August 29, and, rejecting all three proposals, counselled

an attempt above the city. 'We are of opinion,' they wrote, 'that the

most probable method of striking an effectual blow is to bring the

troops to the south shore, and to carry the operations above the

town. If we can establish ourselves on the north shore, the Marquis

de Montcalm must fight us on our own terms. We are between him and

his provisions, and between him and the army opposing General

Amherst.'[13] Their {304} advice, which was unanimous, was taken

without demur, and Wolfe proceeded with the desperate task of putting

it into execution.

[Footnote 13: Wright, p. 545.]

[Sidenote: _Wolfe's despondency._]

That he had little hope of success is shown by the tone of his

correspondence. In his last dispatch to Pitt, dated September 2, he

wrote, 'there is such a choice of difficulties, that I own myself at

a loss how to determine.'[14] To Admiral Saunders, two or three days

before, he had written of himself as 'a man that must necessarily be

ruined';[14] and in his last letter to his mother, written on August

31, he spoke of being determined to leave the service at the earliest

opportunity.[14] Townshend, meanwhile, in private, criticized him

much as Wolfe himself had criticized his superior officers the year

before. 'General Wolfe's health,' he wrote to his wife, 'is but very

bad: his generalship, in my poor opinion, is not a bit better.'[15]

Yet, sick and despondent as he was, Wolfe did not lie down in the

furrow. For past failures he blamed no one but himself; manfully he

faced the future in all its gloom; and, if Townshend felt little

confidence in his leading, the soldiers knew better; and he led them

to victory.

[Footnote 14: Wright, pp. 548, 549, 553.]

[Footnote 15: From the _Townshend Papers_. The letter is quoted in

full by Kingsford in his _History of Canada_, vol. iv, p. 226, note.]

[Sidenote: _Disposition of Wolfe's army at the end of August._]

At the end of August, the following was the disposition of the

English forces. Murray, with Admiral Holmes, was operating above the

city; Monckton was at Point Levis, and near him Admiral Saunders,

with the main English fleet, was anchored in the basin of Quebec.

Wolfe himself, with Townshend, was still encamped on the northern

shore below the Montmorency; and Admiral Durell, with the rearguard

of the fleet, was watching the river below. Amherst's successes were

known to Wolfe and his colleagues, but they soon learnt also that no

help could be expected from him. September was on them, and at the

end of September, or at {305} latest by the middle of October, the

campaign would close. Whatever had to be done must be done quickly.

[Sidenote: _The camp at the Montmorency broken up, and the troops

moved up the river._]

[Sidenote: _Montcalm deceived._]

On September 3 the English camp by the Montmorency was broken up, and

the troops were moved to the Point of Orleans and Point Levis. On the

fifth, Murray's troops, which had returned to Point Levis, were

marched up the southern shore and embarked on Holmes' vessels; they

were followed by battalions of Monckton's and Townshend's brigades;

and by September 7 nearly 4,000 troops, with the necessary supplies,

were moving up and down the river above Quebec, menacing a landing at

this point or at that, wearying Bougainville's force, now raised to

3,000 men, which, with its head quarters at Cap Rouge, was required

to keep pace with the enemy's fleet, and to guard the heights on the

northern bank of the St. Lawrence. Montcalm knew that the English

force above Quebec had been strengthened; but he seems not to have

known the full extent of Wolfe's preparations. English forces at

Point Levis and on the island of Orleans still faced the Beauport

lines, while Saunders' fleet lay directly off Quebec. The French

general regarded Wolfe's movements on the upper river as feints; the

main attack, if attack there should be, he expected below the town.

[Sidenote: _Preparation for the final attack._]

There was bad weather on September 7 and 8, and Wolfe landed a large

proportion of his men from the crowded transports high up on the

southern shore. Early on the twelfth they were put on board again,

and orders were issued for the coming night. Two days' provisions

each soldier took with him; and in the General Order, the last which

Wolfe issued, officers and men alike were bid to 'remember what their

country expects from them.' It was a signal such as Nelson gave at

the battle of Trafalgar.

[Sidenote: _The landing-place selected._]

On September 10, looking through his telescope from the southern

shore across the river, Wolfe had noted a path running up the

opposite bank from a little cove rather more {306} than a mile and a

half higher up the river than the citadel of Quebec. The place was

known as the Anse au Foulon, and now bears the name of Wolfe's Cove.

The bank is between 200 and 300 feet high, and at the top were to be

seen the tents of a French outpost. Here he determined to attempt a

landing. On the night of the twelfth the troops, whom he had on

board, were to drop down the river with the ebbing tide, half going

on in boats, the rest following in the transports, while another

smaller force, left under Colonel Burton at Point Levis, was to move

up the southern shore, to be ferried across in support of the attack.

Saunders, meanwhile, as night came on, was to threaten the Beauport

lines.

[Sidenote: _Fortune favours Wolfe._]

Fortune had hitherto been unkind to Wolfe; now all went well. The

many chances which a night attack involves, when the crisis came, all

favoured the English. Their boats, as they came down stream, were

taken by the sentries for French provision boats, which had been

expected. Bougainville, who, before night fell and before the tide

turned, had seen the ships drift up stream instead of down, was

completely misled. Montcalm looked for danger from the fleet in front

of him, and knew not what the tide was bringing down.

[Sidenote: _The descent of the river._]

[Sidenote: _The landing._]

[Sidenote: _French picket surprised._]

[Sidenote: _The heights gained and line of battle formed._]

It was about two o'clock in the morning of the thirteenth when the

boats cast off from the ships, and took their way down stream. Howe

led with twenty-four men of the light infantry, who had volunteered

for the first ascent. Close behind was Wolfe himself; and it has been

told in many books, how, as the stream bore him on in darkness to

glory and the grave, he repeated the well-known lines of Gray's

Elegy.[16] The leading boat was carried a little below the spot where

the path runs down to the shore. About four o'clock in the morning,

an hour before daybreak, the men scrambled up the side of the wooded

cliff, and surprised the French picket at the top. Its commander,

Vergor, who had surrendered {307} Fort Beausejour in Acadia, was

wounded when trying to escape, and taken prisoner. The way being

clear, the rest of the troops followed. The boats, having discharged

their first cargo, brought off the remainder of the force from the

transports, and carried over Burton's men from the opposite bank.

About six o'clock, the daylight of a cloudy morning showed the whole

army at the top of the cliffs; and, moving forward towards Quebec,

Wolfe formed his line of battle within a mile of the city, on the

part of the plateau known as the Plains of Abraham.

[Footnote 16: Gray's _Elegy written in a Country Churchyard_ was

first published in 1751.]

Between four and five thousand men had been landed; but some were

kept in reserve, or left to guard the landing, and less than 4,000

men formed the fighting line. Monckton's brigade on the right abutted

on the edge of the cliffs. Murray held the centre with three

regiments, the 47th, the 58th, and the 78th Highlanders.[17]

Townshend was posted on the left. The left could be turned, for the

force was too small to extend across the plain; and therefore, while

the rest of the troops faced Quebec, Townshend's men, drawn up at

right angles to their comrades, fronted the high ground known as the

Cote St. Genevieve, which overlooks the river St. Charles above the

city. Howe's light infantry covered the rear. One gun[18] had been

dragged up the cliff; but, when the fight began, the English had no

other artillery. The French in this respect were in not much better

case, {308} for they hurried to the battlefield with few big guns to

back them. The fight was one of infantry alone.

[Footnote 17: The 78th Highlanders, who fought with Wolfe, were not

the ancestors of the present regiment of that number. The regiments

of the present day who carry Quebec on their colours are the 15th

(1st battalion East Yorkshire Regiment), the 28th (1st battalion

Gloucestershire Regiment), the 35th (1st battalion Royal Sussex), the

43rd (1st battalion Oxfordshire Light Infantry), the 47th (1st

battalion Loyal North Lancashire), the 48th (1st battalion

Northamptonshire Regiment), the 58th (2nd battalion Northamptonshire

Regiment), and the 60th Rifles (two battalions).]

[Footnote 18: Townshend's dispatch of Sept. 20 says distinctly 'we

had been able to bring up but one gun.' Knox, on the other hand,

says, 'About eight o'clock we had two pieces of short brass

six-pounders playing on the enemy' (Knox, vol. ii, pp. 70, 128).]

[Sidenote: _Montcalm hurries to give battle._]

Saunders' pretence at landing on the Beauport shore had kept

Montcalm's army on the alert all the night. At six in the morning,

riding towards Quebec, the French general learnt that the English had

landed, and saw in the distance the enemy's lines. He brought his

troops from Beauport with what speed he could; crossed the St.

Charles; passed by or through the city; and marshalled his force

beyond for instant fight. He had with him, it would seem, not more

than 5,000 men. The garrison of Quebec remained within the walls, and

a large proportion of the army did not leave their encampment, for

the further lines by the Montmorency were some miles distant, and the

shore had still to be protected. He might have waited to bring up

more troops, and to give time to Bougainville to operate in the

enemy's rear; but his communications were threatened, his supplies

were short, Wolfe, if given breathing space, could throw up

entrenchments, and with his command of the river, make his position

absolutely safe. The one hope was to hurl him back over the cliffs,

while yet his foothold was insecure; and to strike before the ardour

of the Canadians and Indians had time to cool.

[Sidenote: _The battle of Quebec._]

[Sidenote: _Defeat of the French._]

[Sidenote: _Death of Wolfe._]

Between nine and ten o'clock the French were in battle array, and

advanced over a little ridge which lay between Wolfe's army and

Quebec. Wolfe's soldiers had had two hours' rest, and steadily moved

forward, reserving their fire by the General's orders. At forty

yards' distance the word of command was given; and two volleys of

musketry decided the battle. The fire came from the whole English

line, the French fell like corn under the reaper's scythe, a charge

with bayonets and claymores followed, 'the Highlanders chased them

vigorously towards Charles river, and the 58th to the suburb close to

John's Gate.'[19] Montcalm's army {309} became a routed rabble.

Stricken already earlier in the fight, Wolfe on the right, while

preparing to lead the final charge, received his death wound. He was

carried to the rear; heard, while still conscious, that the enemy

were in flight; turned on his side, thanked God, and died in peace.

[Footnote 19: Knox, vol. ii, p. 71.]

[Sidenote: _Death of Montcalm._]

[Sidenote: _Monckton wounded._]

[Sidenote: _Townshend in command._]

It was all over before noon. The English casualties numbered between

six and seven hundred, the French lost double that number, and they

too were bereft of their leader. As Montcalm retreated towards Quebec

with his flying troops, he was shot through the body. He reached a

house in the city, lingered for some hours, and, before the following

day broke, like Wolfe he had gone to his rest. 'It was a very

singular affair,' was Horace Walpole's cold-blooded comment; 'the

generals on both sides slain, the second in command wounded; in

short, very near what battles should be, in which only the principals

ought to suffer.'[20] The French lost not only Montcalm, but also the

officer next in rank on the field. On the English side, Monckton, who

would have succeeded Wolfe, was severely wounded, though he was able,

on the fifteenth, to sign a short and simple dispatch, reporting the

'very signal victory'; and the command devolved on Townshend.

Threatened by Bougainville, who came up too late from behind with

2,000 men, and retreated again, Townshend recalled his troops and

entrenched them; cannon and supplies were brought up from the river,

and communication with the ships was made safe.

[Footnote 20: _Letters of Horace Walpole_, vol. iii, p. 258 (Letter

of Oct. 19, 1759).]

[Sidenote: _Disorderly retreat of the French._]

Behind the St. Charles the French were all in confusion. Vaudreuil

called a council of war, and determined on an immediate retreat,

abandoning all the lines which Montcalm had held so long and so well,

and leaving the garrison of Quebec to surrender, as soon as

provisions failed. The retreat began that same night with no

semblance of order; and, circling inland past the English lines, the

fugitives made {310} their way towards Montreal, hurrying in panic

far beyond Cap Rouge, where Bougainville was still stationed, to

Jacques Cartier, thirty miles distant from Quebec.

[Sidenote: _Siege of Quebec._]

[Sidenote: _Levis rallies the French too late._]

[Sidenote: _The city surrenders._]

With Wolfe and Montcalm expired the genius of either army. It was

characteristic of Wolfe that, while dying, he sent an order to cut

off the French retreat; but in the interval between the battle on the

thirteenth and the capitulation of Quebec on the eighteenth, we do

not read that any attempt was made to intercept the French, nor did

Saunders land men to occupy the deserted Beauport lines. Townshend

steadily made his trenches and besieged in form; while the French

commandant of Quebec, Ramesay, with a weak garrison, and little or no

food, was urged by his own people to capitulate. He had orders from

Vaudreuil to surrender in due time, and, though counter messages

came, they came too late. Too late Levis at Montreal had heard of the

disaster; hurrying back, he turned the beaten troops at Jacques

Cartier; he started with them on the eighteenth to save Quebec; but

on that very morning Quebec was given up. The afternoon before, an

assault on the town was threatened above, while a landing from the

river was threatened below. Distrusting the promises of relief,

Ramesay yielded to the pressure put on him by soldiers and civilians

alike; at eight o'clock, on the morning of the eighteenth, the terms

of surrender were signed; and that same day advanced parties of the

English army held the gates of Quebec.

[Sidenote: _Murray left in charge._]

[Sidenote: _Saunders sails for home,_]

The English commanders debated whether or not they could hold the

city through the coming winter, and determined at all hazards to do

so. Murray was placed in command with a garrison of about 7,000 men;

a month passed in repairing the fortifications, in landing and

storing supplies; and on October 18, Admiral Saunders, with the first

portion of the fleet, set sail for England. As he neared home, at the

entrance of the Channel, he learnt that Hawke was about to engage a

French fleet from Brest. He sailed {311} off to join him 'without

landing his glory,'[21] but came too late, for Hawke had already

fought his fight and won his victory in Quiberon Bay. Saunders had

deserved well of his country, for without his active, untiring

support the land forces would never have taken Quebec. He outlived

Wolfe for sixteen years, and was privately buried in Westminster

Abbey in December, 1775.

[Footnote 21: Letter from Horace Walpole dated 'November 30th, of the

great year' (1759), vol. iii, p. 268.]

[Sidenote: _and Townshend._]

Townshend, too, went home, his enemies said, to exaggerate his own

merits and belittle Wolfe's memory. An anonymous letter to 'an

honourable brigadier-general,' attributed to Junius among others,[22]

appeared in the following year, and attacked him with bitterness,

some of which he probably deserved. He passed into political life,

and as Viceroy of Ireland achieved a doubtful repute.

[Footnote 22: See the _Grenville Papers_, 1852, 3rd ed. Introductory

notes relating to Lord Temple and the authorship of Junius at the

beginning of vol. iii, pp. lxxxviii-xc.]

[Sidenote: _Wolfe's body brought to England._]

Wolfe's body was brought to England, and buried where his father had

been laid earlier in the year, in the vaults of Greenwich parish

church. A monument to him, voted by Parliament, stands in Westminster

Abbey, and his name lives, and will for ever live, in the hearts of

men.

[Sidenote: _Cotton's letters to Grenville._]

The news of his victory and death, and of the fall of Quebec, reached

England on October 17. It came but two or three days after his latest

dispatches, which gave little hope of success. There are two

interesting letters among the _Grenville Papers_, written to

Grenville by the Rev. Nathaniel Cotton, from on board the _Princess

Amelia_ at Ile Madame in the St. Lawrence. The first is dated August

27 to September 6; the second bears the date of September 20. The

first, repeating former letters, is not hopeful. It points out the

insufficiency of Wolfe's force, the necessity of co-operation on the

part of Amherst; and it refers to 'unrevealed causes' militating

against the enterprise, {312} which may be taken to mean want of

harmony between Wolfe and Townshend. The later letter begins with the

following words: 'I have the satisfaction to acquaint you that

through the smiles of Providence we are in safe and quiet possession

of Quebec.'[23]

[Footnote 23: _Grenville Papers_, vol. i, pp. 318-26.]

[Sidenote: _Reception of the news in England._]

Very dramatic was the revulsion of feeling in England, when all was

known. No submarine cables then told the story of the war from day to

day. Only a few dispatches and letters at long intervals were brought

over the Atlantic, recording at first slow progress, then reverse,

disappointment, and the General's sickness and despondency. The rock

of Quebec seemed still impregnable; and, as the bright summer waned

into autumn, public confidence gave place to gloom. Then in

mid-October, when to North American lands the Indian summer gives a

second brightness, tidings came from over the sea that the victory

was won, and that the price paid for it was the life of Wolfe. There

followed, as Burke well said, a 'mourning triumph.'[24] Joy was

sobered by the sense of loss, and the picture of a desolate home

appealed, as it always appeals, to Englishmen's minds. They thought

of the mother, lately widowed, now childless, whose sickly son had

been her joy and pride; and many, we may not doubt, thought also of

the French home, whose master had gone out and came not again.

[Footnote 24: _Annual Register_ for 1759, p. 43.]

[Sidenote: _Was Wolfe's attack a great military feat?_]

The question naturally suggests itself, whether Wolfe's landing and

attack was a desperate venture, justified only by success, the last

throw of the dice by a man who had described himself as one who must

necessarily be ruined; or whether it was the supreme effort of a

military genius? It is impossible to study the story without coming

to the conclusion that the second is the true view. No doubt fortune

favoured him; no doubt the enterprise was full of risk; but from

first to last as little as possible was left to {313} chance, and

from first to last a master mind made itself felt. The main point to

remember is that he had secured absolute command of the river;

wherever therefore he landed, on high ground not commanded by the

enemy's guns, if for a few hours only he could make good his landing,

his way of retreat was absolutely safe. Montcalm knew this, and hence

his immediate attack. Then we have the movements which baffled

Montcalm and Bougainville alike; we have time and place calculated to

a nicety, every commander and every man told what to do and doing it,

the landing effected by break of day, the battlefield carefully

selected, the men duly rested, the battle line cautiously and safely

formed, the respective merits of the two forces accurately

gauged--the one, in Wolfe's own words, a small number of good

soldiers, the other 'a numerous body of armed men (I cannot call it

an army).'[25] There was no rush or hurry about the landing, the

advance, or the fight. The soldiers kept their fire till told to use

it: they charged when and not until their leader bade them. The whole

was a thought-out feat of steady daring.

[Footnote 25: Wolfe to his mother, Aug. 31, and to Lord Holderness,

Sept. 9 (Wright's _Life of Wolfe_, pp. 553, 563).]

[Sidenote: _If Wolfe had not succeeded._]

Another question which is worth considering is: What would have been

the result if Wolfe had not succeeded, if Quebec had not been taken,

and the English fleet had sailed off down the St. Lawrence, either

carrying the army home, or leaving it, as at one time during the

siege had been contemplated, to go into winter quarters at the Ile

aux Coudres lower down the river? A failure would have been recorded,

and Wolfe above all others would have so regarded it; but,

notwithstanding, the expedition would not have been in vain. Quebec

would have been left in ruins, the banks of the St. Lawrence, with

emptied farms and homesteads, would have been a scene of desolation;

though Montcalm would have lived to fight again, Canada in all human

probability {314} must have fallen. For Canada was being starved out;

and, if the French Government a year before could spare but few

troops and supplies for New France, much less were the necessary

troops and supplies likely to be forthcoming after another year of

exhausting war on the Continent. On December 16, Amherst wrote to

Pitt from New York: 'From the present posts His Majesty's army is now

in possession of, if no stroke was to be made, Canada must fall or

the inhabitants starve.' He wrote with information given him by one

of his officers, Major Grant, who had been a prisoner in Canada.

Grant's words were: ''Tis believed that the colony, though in great

distress, may subsist for a year, without receiving supplies from

France'; but it could only subsist by using up all the live stock in

the land. The English command of the water was killing Canada, the

farmers and peasantry were sickening of the war; though Amherst wrote

after the fall of Quebec, the saving of Quebec would in no way have

fed Canada.

[Sidenote: _Results of his success on the future history of Canada._]

Unless, then, some great reversal of existing conditions had taken

place, or unless peace had been declared, Canada would have been

conquered, even if Wolfe had not triumphed and Quebec had not fallen

in September, 1759. But widely different would have been the result

on after history, and herein lies the true lesson to be drawn from

the record of the siege and capture of Quebec, and of the death of

Wolfe and Montcalm. It is the most conclusive answer, if answer were

needed, to those--fifty years ago they were many--who ignore or

minimize the effect of sentiment on the making and the preserving of

nations. The noble picturesqueness of the story, its accompaniments

of heroism and death, were of untold value in the work of

reconciliation; and of untold value was the legacy to a yet unformed

people of one of the great landmarks in history. In a sense, which it

is easier to feel than to express, two rival races, under two rival

leaders, unconsciously joined hands on the Plains of Abraham. The

{315} noise of war seemed to be stilled, the bitterness of competing

races and creeds to be allayed, by sharing in an episode which

appealed to all time and to all mankind. The dramatic ending of the

old order blessed the birth of the new; the instinct of human pathos

brought men together; and out of divergent elements made a nation.

Born far away in different lands, in death Wolfe and Montcalm were

not divided; and the soil on which they died has become the sacred

heritage of a people, whose union is stronger than the divisions of

religion, language, and race.

[Sidenote: _Successes of England in 1759._]

In the _Annual Register_ for 1759,[26] summing up the results of the

year to Great Britain, Burke wrote: 'In no one year since she was a

nation, has she been favoured with so many successes, both by sea and

land, and in every quarter of the globe.' It was a bright year for

England in every sense of the word. The sun had shone upon her soil

and upon her arms. In America, in India, at Minden, at Quiberon, she

had triumphed. 'I call it this ever warm and victorious year,' wrote

Walpole on October 21, 'we have not had more conquest than fine

weather. One would think we had plundered East and West Indies of

sunshine.'[27]

[Footnote 26: p. 56.]

[Footnote 27: _Letters of Horace Walpole_, vol. iii, p. 259 (Letter

of Oct. 21, 1759).]

[Sidenote: _The winter at Quebec._]

[Sidenote: _Levis' plans for recovering the city._]

The winter which followed was a trying one for the garrison at

Quebec. They held the battered town, amid constant rumours of attack,

ill provided with warm clothing, with scanty supplies of firewood,

suffering much from sickness, and, as Knox tells us, in arrears of

pay, 'from which they might derive many comforts and refreshments

under their present exigencies.'[28] Outposts were established at

Point Levis, Sainte Foy, Lorette, and Cap Rouge; and here and there

skirmishes took place with parties of the enemy. Levis was at

Montreal, bent upon recovering Quebec. When the English fleet had

left, he sent messages to France to ask that {316} provisions might

be sent as early as possible in the coming year, with ships of war,

timed to arrive in the St. Lawrence before the English should return,

and numerous enough to hold the river for France. Meanwhile, he

debated whether or not to attack Quebec in mid-winter, and attempt to

carry it by a _coup de main_; but eventually determined to await the

coming of spring and the opening of the waters. Thus the anxious

winter passed, and the middle of April came. Attack became imminent,

and Murray knew it. He ordered the French residents to leave Quebec,

called in his outposts, and with a force sadly reduced by sickness

awaited Levis' army.

[Footnote 28: vol. ii, p. 241.]

[Sidenote: _His advance in the spring of 1760._]

At the end of October the effective strength of the garrison had been

7,313. On March 1 the number of fighting men, owing to scurvy and

other diseases, was reduced to 4,800;[29] and, though April, with its

milder weather, saw the beginning of recovery, the English force was

greatly outmatched by the enemy, for Levis had with him, all told, at

least 10,000 men.[30] About April 20, the French advance from

Montreal began. The troops were brought down the river in ships and

boats, and, landing some thirty miles above Quebec, crossed the Cap

Rouge river and marched on to Lorette and Sainte Foy.

[Footnote 29: Knox, vol. ii, p. 267.]

[Footnote 30: Knox gives the French numbers as 15,000, against 3,140

English (p. 295).]

[Sidenote: _The battle of Sainte Foy, and defeat of the English._]

On April 27, Murray offered battle at Sainte Foy; but the French made

no move, and he fell back to Quebec, leaving Levis to occupy Sainte

Foy that same night. Before seven o'clock on the next morning he

marched out again, bent on fighting, if possible, before Levis had

secured his position, and anxious not to be cooped up behind the

fortifications of Quebec, too weak to withstand a vigorous

bombardment. The English force numbered 3,140 men, with eighteen

pieces of cannon; and, as the men carried entrenching tools, it {317}

would seem that Murray contemplated throwing up lines outside the

city. The battle took place on the same plateau where Wolfe and

Montcalm had fought; it lasted about the same time, for two hours;

but the result was widely different. Seeing the French still on the

march, and not yet in battle order, Murray ordered an immediate

attack. His artillery did good execution, and, on the right and left

wings, the light infantry and the Rangers respectively won an initial

success. But the tide soon turned. On the right the advancing English

were drawn into swampy ground; on the left they came under fire from

French troops covered by the woods. Outnumbered and outflanked, the

whole force was compelled to retreat into Quebec, having lost their

guns and 1,100 men. The French losses appear to have been heavier,

numbering according to some accounts from 1,800 to 2,000 men.

[Sidenote: _Critical position of Murray._]

[Sidenote: _Levis loses his opportunity._]

Murray's position was now exceedingly critical. Two days after the

battle no more than 2,100 soldiers were returned as fit for duty; but

the General and his men were fully determined not to lose Quebec. On

May 1 he sent off a frigate to Louisbourg and Halifax to hasten

relief; and, day and night alike, officers and men worked with common

spirit, strengthening the defences, and mounting the guns. The French

lost their opportunity. Had they attacked the town at once, before

the garrison had recovered from the effects of the defeat, 'Quebec

would,' in Captain Knox's opinion, 'have reverted to its old

masters';[31] and the leisurely nature of Levis' operations seems to

bear out the view, to which French prisoners gave currency, that he

had only intended to invest the town, and wait the arrival of a

French fleet.

[Footnote 31: p. 301.]

[Sidenote: _Relief of Quebec._]

He landed his stores and munitions at the Anse au Foulon, Wolfe's

landing-place, and gradually pushed forward his lines, while the

English position in front of him steadily {318} grew stronger, and in

the besieged garrison confidence took the place of despondency. A

storm on the river, it was reported in the city, cost the French

guns, provisions, and ammunition. Bourlamaque, who, as an engineer by

training, was placed in charge of the siege, was wounded; and when,

on the forenoon of May 9, a strange ship sailed up the river into the

basin of Quebec, and hoisted the English colours, little doubt could

be left that any attempt to regain the city would be in vain. The

ship in question was the _Lowestoft_ frigate, and she brought 'the

agreeable intelligence of a British fleet being masters of the St.

Lawrence, and nigh at hand to sustain us.'[32] The news, in Captain

Knox's words, was as grateful as when the garrison of Vienna, hard

pressed by the Turks, beheld Sobieski's army marching to their

relief.

[Footnote 32: Knox, vol. ii, p. 310.]

[Sidenote: _Retreat of Levis._]

But one swallow does not make a summer, and some days passed before

any other British ships appeared. On May 11 the French batteries

opened, answered by 150 guns from Quebec: and bombardment went on

without much damage, until, on the evening of the fifteenth, the

_Vanguard_ ship of war and the _Diana_ frigate anchored before

Quebec. The next morning the British ships passed up the river at

flood tide, and attacked a small French squadron above the city. The

French commander, Vauquelin, made a brave fight, but his few little

vessels were nearly all destroyed. On that night and on the

seventeenth, the French were in full retreat with the English at

their heels. Guns, scaling ladders, baggage, ammunition, sick and

wounded, were left behind. The siege of Quebec was raised, the

English, after the disastrous battle of April 28, not having lost

more than thirty men; and Murray, by his brave and able defence, made

more than amends for his previous reverse.

[Sidenote: _Reception in England of the news of Murray's defeat and

subsequent relief._]

In England the news of his defeat, followed after a short interval by

the news of his relief, resulted in a curious reproduction of the

excitement of the previous year. In a letter {319} dated June 19,

1760, Mr. Jenkinson in London wrote to Grenville, 'We all here blame

Mr. Murray, and are not at all satisfied with the reasons he assigns

for leaving the town to attack the enemy ... As it is, however, I

understand that there are no expectations that it (Quebec) can be

saved, and indeed I am told that Murray himself gives little reason

to hope it. The relief from Amherst is certainly impossible, and I do

not think that he has ever shown activity enough to make one hope

that he would make an attempt vigorous enough, even if there was a

mere chance of success.'[33] On the following ninth of July, we have

in the same _Grenville Papers_ a letter from the Duke of Newcastle to

Lord Temple, referring to 'the great and almost unexpected event of

recovering Quebec and turning the loss entirely upon the French.'[33]

Similarly Horace Walpole, on hearing the bad news, wrote: 'We are on

a sudden reading our book backwards.' The good news came, and he

chronicled it with 'Quebec is come to life again.'[34] Many cold and

hot fits had been the result of news from North America since the

year 1755; but, with the failure of Levis to retake Quebec, English

anxiety as to the issue of the strife was finally dispelled. What was

left was work for which Amherst was eminently suited, steady crushing

out of the remains of resistance, slow and certain invasion, where no

brilliant effort was needed or required.

[Footnote 33: _Grenville Papers_, vol. i, pp. 343-5.]

[Footnote 34: _Letters of Horace Walpole_, vol. iii, pp. 317, 323

(Letters of June 20 and 28, 1760).]

[Sidenote: _The final advance on Montreal._]

[Sidenote: _Murray ascends the river._]

A threefold English advance on Montreal was planned. Murray was to

move up the river from Quebec. Brigadier Haviland was to force the

passage of the Ile aux Noix at the end of Lake Champlain, and strike

the St. Lawrence opposite Montreal. Amherst himself, with the main

army, starting from Oswego on Lake Ontario, was to come down the

river from the west. Murray was first in motion. He embarked {320}

2,400 men on ships and boats, and on July 14 took his way up stream,

followed and joined on August 17 by two regiments from Louisbourg,

which was being dismantled and abandoned. The troops went slowly up

the river, passed French outposts at various points, landed here and

there, here and there exchanged shots, and were often supplied with

provisions by the peasantry, who preferred bargaining to fighting,

and many of whom took the oath of allegiance. At Sorel, at the mouth

of the Richelieu river, Bourlamaque was stationed with a

comparatively strong force to prevent a junction between Murray and

Haviland, who was coming down from Lake Champlain; but no battle took

place, and, after Murray had reluctantly burnt the deserted houses of

the inhabitants of Sorel, who were absent in arms, the English on the

river, and the French on either bank, moved onward side by side

towards Montreal. By the end of August, Murray was encamped on an

island a few miles below Montreal, gradually gathering intelligence

of Haviland's and Amherst's advance; and on September 7 he landed on

the island of Montreal itself. During the voyage up the river two

facts had become manifest. One was that the country higher up the St.

Lawrence was less impoverished, and supplies were more plentiful,

than in the neighbourhood of Quebec. The other was that the

Canadians, who still had something to lose, were anxious for peace.

The constant advance of the English, the obvious futility of

Vaudreuil's boasts and threats, the good treatment of the inhabitants

who offered no resistance, had due effect. The country side

surrendered, the militia deserted, the French regulars began to

follow suit; and the few remaining troops, driven back on Montreal,

recognized the hopelessness of their position.

[Sidenote: _Haviland's advance._]

Haviland started from Crown Point on August 11 with about 3,500 men,

including Rogers with some of his Rangers, and a few Indians. He took

with him also some {321} light artillery. The boats which carried the

force made their way to the northern end of Lake Champlain, entered

the Richelieu river, and on the twentieth landed some of the troops

on the eastern bank of the river, over against the Ile aux Noix. Here

Bougainville was stationed with a considerable force, behind

fortifications which had been strengthened in the previous winter.

Some miles further on down the Richelieu river, at St. John's,

another French force was in position, under an officer named

Roquemaure. Bougainville gave Haviland, in Knox's words, 'the trouble

to break ground and erect batteries';[35] but the English, having

attacked and taken the French vessels which lay below the Ile aux

Noix, and cut off the garrison's retreat by the river, Bougainville

crossed from the island to the western bank on the twenty-seventh,

and made his way with difficulty through the woods to St. John's,

where he joined Roquemaure. On the twenty-eighth the few men left on

the Ile aux Noix surrendered; on the twenty-ninth the French

abandoned St. John's also; the fort at Chambly surrendered on

September 1; as Haviland advanced, the Canadians deserted wholesale;

and the remains of Bougainville's and Roquemaure's troops, falling

back to the St. Lawrence, joined Bourlamaque's force, and were

carried over to the island of Montreal. By September 6, Haviland's

army was encamped at Longueuil on the southern shore of the river,

directly opposite Montreal.

[Footnote 35: Knox, vol. ii, p. 394.]

[Sidenote: _Amherst's advance._]

[Sidenote: _La Presentation._]

By the end of July, Amherst's army was assembling at Albany. The

colonial troops came up slowly, and valuable time was lost. The

General moved on to Schenectady, left that place on June 21, and

reached Oswego on July 9. At Oswego he stayed for a month, waiting

for the full complement of the expedition, and collecting the boats

on which the force was to descend the St. Lawrence. Sir William

Johnson joined him with a number of Indians, {322} while the white

troops reached a total of 10,000 men, rather more than half of whom

were regulars. On August 10 the army embarked. They sailed and rowed

to the end of Lake Ontario, entered the St. Lawrence, made their way

through the Thousand Islands, and by the fifteenth reached the French

mission station of La Presentation, now Ogdensburg, at the mouth of

the Oswegatchie river, where the Abbe Piquet--the apostle of the

Iroquois, as he was called--had, since the year 1749, endeavoured to

win the Five Nations to the French.[36]

[Footnote 36: See _Documentary History of New York_, vol. i, pp.

433-40 (Papers relating to the early settlement at Ogdensburg). The

Abbe Piquet retired in this year (1760) to Louisiana, and thence to

France, where he died in 1781. His mission on the Oswegatchie river,

or Riviere de la Presentation, was a good sample of the aggressive

French missions in Canada. Its object was to bring over the western

tribes of the Five Nations to the French religion and French

interests.]

[Sidenote: _Fort Levis taken._]

[Sidenote: _Amherst before Montreal._]

A little lower down, on an island in the St. Lawrence, at the head of

the rapids, the French had a fortified outpost. They called the

island Ile Royale, and the fort upon it Fort Levis. The officer in

charge was Pouchot, who had commanded at Niagara in the preceding

year, and had been exchanged with other prisoners. From the

eighteenth to the twenty-fourth of August, Amherst attacked the fort.

From either bank, and from the neighbouring islands, the British guns

poured in their fire, supported by the armed vessels of the

expedition; and on the twenty-fifth, after a brave defence, Pouchot

surrendered. On the thirty-first, Amherst began the descent of the

rapids, watched by La Corne and a band of Canadians. A number of

boats were lost, and eighty-four men were drowned; but the main body

was carried safely onward, and by September 5 reached the Ile Perrot,

a few miles above the island of Montreal. On the sixth, Amherst

landed at Lachine, and, marching forward, encamped that night

directly in front of Montreal.

[Sidenote: _Negotiations for surrender._]

[Sidenote: _Montreal capitulates, and with it the whole of Canada._]

The next day the French commanders negotiated for {323} surrender,

Murray having meanwhile landed on the island, and begun his march

towards Montreal, on the opposite side to that on which Amherst was

encamped. Vaudreuil and Levis tried to extract better terms from

Amherst than the latter was inclined to grant; and Levis, in

particular, strove hard to modify the provision that all the French

troops in Canada should lay down their arms, and not serve again

during the war. His protests were in vain. Amherst returned answer in

strong words, that he was resolved by the terms of the capitulation

to mark his sense of the infamous conduct of which the French troops

had been guilty, in exciting the savages to barbarities in the course

of the war. With 2,400 men opposed to about 17,000 in the three

English forces, the Frenchmen had no option but to surrender. On

September 8 the terms of capitulation were signed, and the whole of

Canada passed into the keeping of Great Britain.

[Sidenote: _Amherst on the conduct of the French Indians._]

Amherst's reference to French dealings with the Indians, and to the

dealings of the Indians in French employ, the authority for which is

Captain Knox's book, deserves to be noted. When two white races are

pitted against each other in savage lands, the final mastery will

rest with the one which, less than the other, comes down to the

savage level. The French had sinned more than the English in this

respect; and it is significant that, at the surrender of Niagara,

they stipulated for protection against the Indian allies of the

English, and that at the surrender of Montreal they made a similar

request. On the second occasion Amherst answered, and answered truly,

that no cruelties had been committed by the Indians on the English

side. A few days before, at the taking of Fort Levis, a large

proportion of Johnson's Indians had deserted when not allowed to use

their scalping knives; and probably the majority of the English

shared Captain Knox's opinion of them, that 'this is quite uniform

with their conduct on all occasions whenever {324} opportunity seems

to offer for their being serviceable to us.'[37] The truth was that

the English did not love the Indians or Indian ways; they suffered in

consequence while the fate of war was still in the balance; but in

the end they gained, as a ruling race, for the humanity of Amherst

and the men whom he commanded stood to the credit of Great Britain in

the coming time.

[Footnote 37: Knox, vol. ii, p. 413. According to Knox, Johnson

collected 1,330 Indians belonging to seventeen tribes. This number

was reduced at the time of embarkation to 706, and afterwards by

desertion to 182.]

[Sidenote: _End of the war._]

With the capitulation of Montreal, the war in North America ended.

Already in the past July some French ships bringing supplies, which

had reached the Baie des Chaleurs in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, had

been followed up and destroyed in the Restigouche river by Commander

Byron; and while Montreal was being given up, a detachment from the

English garrison at Quebec reduced the French outpost at Jacques

Cartier. The surrender of Montreal included all Canada, and Robert

Rogers was sent by Amherst to take over Detroit, Michillimackinac,

and other of the western outposts of New France. They were peaceably

occupied at the time, but three years later were the scene of hard

fighting in consequence of the dangerous Indian rising under Pontiac.

Amherst himself left Canada almost immediately, but remained in

America as Commander-in-Chief, having his head quarters at New York,

until peace was signed, when he returned to England. Vaudreuil and

his subordinates went back to France, to be brought heavily to

account for their shortcomings; and until the peace, or rather until

Pontiac's revolt had been put down a year later, Canada remained

under military rule.

[Sidenote: _Canada under military rule._]

There were three Governors, subordinate to the

Commander-in-Chief--General Murray at Quebec, Colonel Burton at Three

Rivers, and General Gage, who eventually took over {325} Amherst's

command, at Montreal. Matters seem to have gone in the main smoothly.

The Canadian people, worn with war, desired only rest and fair

dealing, and fair dealing they received at the hands of the British

commanders, among whom Murray was a conspicuously humane man.

Criminal jurisdiction was placed in the hands of British officers,

but civil cases were left to be settled by the captains of militia in

the various parishes according to the custom of the people, with the

right of appeal to the Governor. More publicity was given by

proclamation to the orders and regulations of the Governors than had

been the case in French times; and though the status was one of

military occupation, there was a nearer approach to freedom, or at

any rate more even-handed justice, than in the days when Bigot and

his confederates robbed the peasantry in the name of the French King.

[Sidenote: _Events in Europe._]

[Sidenote: _Death of King George II._]

[Sidenote: _Rise of Bute and resignation of Pitt._]

Meanwhile events moved fast in Europe. The fall of Montreal was

followed in a few weeks' time by the death of King George II. He died

on October 25, 1760, and with the accession of George III there came

a change in English policy. The 'King's friends,' as they were

called, by intrigue and bribery gradually gained power. Bute, the

royal favourite, led them, and strongly supported a peace policy. In

March, 1761, he became a Secretary of State, and in the following

October Pitt resigned. Success had perhaps told against the great

English minister. The main work to which he had put his hand had been

accomplished; among the colleagues who intrigued against him, or who

resented his imperious leadership, there may well have been in some

minds an honest wish to give the country rest and to lighten the

heavy burdens which war imposed. Already peace negotiations with

France had been opened, but the discovery that the French Government

had formed a secret compact with Spain stiffened Pitt's policy, and

he urged the desirability of striking the first blow and declaring

war against {326} Spain. On this issue he parted company with the

other ministers, except Lord Temple, and retired from office. A few

months later, in May, 1762, Newcastle resigned, and Bute was left

supreme.

[Sidenote: _Greatness of Pitt._]

No eulogy on Pitt can exaggerate the services which he rendered to

England. 'He revived the military genius of our people, he supported

our allies, he extended our trade, he raised our reputation, he

augmented our dominions.'[38] He gave to the world a splendid

illustration of an English statesman who was as good as his word;

who, unlike the ordinary run of Parliamentary leaders, did not shift

his course or seek for compromise. He believed in the destiny of his

country, and shaped that destiny on world-wide lines. His faults,

which were not few, are forgiven by his countrymen, for he loved

England much.

[Footnote 38: _Annual Register_ for 1761, p. 47.]

[Sidenote: _War with Spain._]

[Sidenote: _English reverse in Newfoundland._]

The mean men who supplanted him could not undo what he had done. The

beginning of the year 1762 saw them at war with Spain, and still

Englishmen struck blow after blow. In 1761, while Pitt was still in

office, Belle Ile, off the French coast, had been taken, and in the

West Indies and in India there had been gains. In 1762 more West

Indian islands were captured, and Spain lost for the time Havana in

the West, the Philippines in the East. Curiously enough the one

reverse experienced by the English was in North America, St. John's

in Newfoundland being surprised and taken in June, 1762, though it

was recovered in the following September.

[Sidenote: _The Peace of Paris._]

In spite of continued success Bute was resolved on peace, the

negotiations being entrusted to the Duke of Bedford, who was one of

the extreme peace party. The preliminaries were concluded in

November, 1762; they were approved by Parliament, and on February 10,

1763, the Peace of Paris was signed. Under its provisions the French

King renounced all pretensions to Nova Scotia or Acadia, and ceded

'in full {327} right Canada with all its dependencies, as well as the

island of Cape Breton and all the other islands and coasts in the

gulf and river St. Lawrence.' A line drawn down the middle of the

river Mississippi defined the inland frontier; all territory on the

left side of the river, 'except the town of New Orleans and the

island in which it is situated,' being ceded to Great Britain. Two

clauses, however, in the treaty marred the completeness of the

cession. They renewed the rights of fishing and drying on part of the

Newfoundland coast, which had been given to French subjects by the

Treaty of Utrecht; and they ceded in full right to the King of France

the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, to serve as a shelter to

French fishermen, on condition that the islands should not be

fortified. Here were the seeds of future trouble, sown by other hands

than those of Pitt. Yet, considering the character and inclinations

of the men who held power in England at this critical time, the

country had reason to congratulate itself on the result of the

negotiations.[39] Spain paid for her interference in the quarrel with

France by the loss of Florida, which became a British possession; in

turn she received from France Louisiana. Thus the Seven Years' War

ended, {328} closing the story of New France; and on the line of the

St. Lawrence, under British rule, grew up the Canadian nation.

[Footnote 39: Lord Chesterfield's views on the preliminaries of the

Peace of Paris, not yet fully known when he wrote, are interesting.

In a letter dated Nov. 13, 1762 (1775 ed., vol. iv, pp. 190, 191,

Letter 328), he writes, 'We have by no means made so good a bargain

with France (i.e. as with Spain), for in truth what do we get by it

except Canada, with a very proper boundary of the river Mississippi,

and that is all? As for the restrictions upon the French fishery in

Newfoundland, they are very well _per la predica_, and for the

Commissary whom we shall employ, for he will have a good salary from

hence to see that those restrictions are complied with, and the

French will double that salary, that he may allow them all to be

broken through. It is plain to me that the French fishery will be

exactly what it was before the war.... But, after all I have said,

the articles are as good as I expected with France, when I considered

that no one single person, who carried on this negotiation on our

parts, was ever concerned or consulted in any negotiation before.

Upon the whole then the acquisition of Canada has cost us four score

millions sterling.']

NOTE.--For the above, see the books specified at the end of the

preceding chapter.

In these two chapters the original dispatches have been consulted,

and much use has been made of

KNOX'S _Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America_

(London, 1769).

{329}