TO THE FORE
At the first sign of spring, General Montcalm prepared to take the field and
oppose a steady resistance to an attack which it was generally believed would
be made upon Quebec by way of Lakes Champlain and Ontario.
He was sitting in his tent one afternoon, in company with General Bougainville
and Chevalier Levis. On a table before them maps were spread out, and Montcalm
was explaining his plan of defence, supposing the English should attempt a
regular siege of Quebec.
“I do not believe it possible for the English to approach the town,” he said.
“All round, on the high ground overlooking it, I shall station the principal
part of the army; the right wing will extend along the river St. Charles and
the left on to Montmorenci; by this means our troops will cover an area of
from seven to eight miles. The steep ground rises almost from the water’s
edge, and the guns from the citadel itself will do the rest. Are you not both
of my opinion?”
“We are,” said Levis. “If we can hold out till the winter, I believe we shall
see the last of the English.”
Even while he was speaking, voices were heard outside the tent, and the
sentinel, looking in, said,--
“A soldier with a despatch for the General.”
“Let him come in,” said Montcalm, looking up.
A Canadian, recognisable as such by his dress, entered. He was covered with
dust, and had evidently ridden hard. He laid a letter on the table before the
General.
“Who has sent you?” asked Montcalm, as he opened the despatch.
“Captain Langlade,” was the ready answer.
The General’s face grew visibly sterner as he read, and when he had finished,
he laid the letter on the table, kept his hand upon it, and said
emphatically,--
“The decisive moment is approaching, gentlemen. This letter is to inform me
that the English with a great fleet are within three leagues of Quebec; they
have on board a large army, commanded by the young General Wolfe. We know full
well what sort of man he is! The fate of Canada is now in the balance.”
“And you will come forth victorious, General, as you did at Fort William Henry
and Ticonderoga,” said Levis.
“God grant it!” answered the General. “I think our measures are well taken,”
he said, turning to the two officers. “In my opinion, unless there be treason
in the camp, the English will never make themselves masters of the town. I
believe it to be impregnable.”
“I am certain that, with intrenchments, I could hold the city with three or
four thousand men,” said Bougainville; adding, “In a few days we shall muster
sixteen thousand men in and round its walls. There is nothing to fear; let the
English come!”
“I am satisfied you are right,” answered the General.
Then, turning to the man who had brought the message, he said, “You will
return at once to Captain Langlade, and tell him we shall join the army at
Quebec as quickly as possible. And now, gentlemen, we will call a general
council of officers, and then to-morrow at dawn _en route_; we are approaching
the end.”
“And a good thing too,” said Bougainville. “We have shilly-shallied long
enough. It is time the English understood once for all that we intend to
remain masters of Canada, and to hold the fortress upon which old Samuel
Champlain first planted the French flag.”
The following day the whole forces of the French and Colonial army were on
their way to Quebec. Only three battalions were left at Ticonderoga, and a
strong detachment placed so as to resist any possible attack by Lake Ontario.
The French took up positions at the mouth of the St. Charles on the east, and
the river Montmorenci on the north-east, which Montcalm had fortified with the
greatest possible skill. Across the mouth of the St. Charles a boom of logs
chained together was placed, protected by mounted cannon. A bridge of boats
crossing the river connected the city with the camp. All the gates of Quebec
except that of St. Charles were closed and barricaded. A hundred and six
cannon were mounted on the walls, whilst on the river there was a floating
battery of twelve heavy pieces, a number of gunboats, and eight fireships.
The army for the defence mustered, they posted sixteen thousand men, for the
most part advantageously, behind defensive works. A large portion of these
were Canadians, who were of little use in the open field, but fought well
behind intrenchments; there were also upwards of a thousand Indians from the
brave tribes of the Iroquois, or five nations. It was at the end of June, and
the country round Quebec, naturally fertile, was in the height of its summer
glory. On the curving shore from the St. Charles to the rocky gorge of
Montmorenci, for a distance of seven to eight miles, were to be seen the
whitewashed dwellings of the parish of Beauport, and the fields on both sides
studded with tents, huts, and Indian wigwams. Midway between the little river
of Beauport, on a rising ground, stood a large stone house, round which tents
were thickly clustered. Here Montcalm had his headquarters.
Looking down upon her defenders, Quebec sat perched upon her rock, a
congregation of stone houses, palaces, convents, and hospitals; the uniformity
being broken by the green trees of the seminary gardens, the spires of the
cathedral, the Convent of the Ursulines, and the monastic buildings of the
Recollets and the Jesuits. A firm, solid mass she looked in the summer
sunshine, unconquered, and it seemed unconquerable. A lovable town, quaint
even then, with its one-storied houses, built heavily of stone and stuccoed
brick, with two dormer windows full of house plants in each roof. Here and
there, higher still, a weather-worn wood-coloured gallery was seen,
pent-roofed and balustered, geraniums showing through the balusters, and white
doves circling around and cooing upon the windowsills. Such as she was in her
homely fashion, French and English alike looked up to her--the one with loving
pride, the other with covetous desire.
On the 26th of June the English fleet anchored off the Island of Orleans, a
few miles below Quebec. A small party attempting to land was opposed by the
Canadians, but they were beaten off, and the whole army then landed.
When William Pitt gave the command of the English army in Canada to General
Wolfe, it was but natural that such an act should arouse feelings of jealousy
in men older than himself, and under whose orders he had served in the earlier
part of the campaign. Wolfe himself was more alive to the responsibility than
to the honour which was almost thrust upon him. The state of his health was
most precarious; in fact, he was rarely free from acute pain, and it required
an immense power of self-command and energy to enable him to bear up against
fatigue and mental anxiety. Nevertheless, he had accepted the command
unhesitatingly, and with the determination of conquering Quebec and adding
this new jewel to the English crown.
To accomplish this he knew that half measures were no longer feasible. From
the end of the Island of Orleans he could see and judge the full strength of
the enemy; three great batteries frowned down upon him from above Quebec,
behind which rose the redoubts and parapets of Cape Diamond, whilst three
other batteries down to the river’s edge guarded the lower part of the town.
The whole country round was covered with earthworks, redoubts, and
intrenchments; the river with floating batteries, fireships, and other engines
of war. His first act was to issue a proclamation in the king’s name:--
“His Excellency Major-General James Wolfe, Commander-in-Chief of
his Britannic Majesty’s troops now stationed in the river St.
Lawrence, to the people of Canada.
“My king and master George III., justly irritated against France,
has resolved to humble her pride and to revenge the insults she
has inflicted on the English colonies. With this purpose in view
he has sent me, at the head of a formidable army, with a fleet
which has already advanced almost into the centre of their chief
city, to deprive France of all her establishments in North
America, and to proclaim British rule. This is my mission, and by
the grace of God I hope to carry it into effect.
James Wolfe.”
This done, he took possession of Point Levis, a promontory on the south bank
of the St. Lawrence, where the current narrows into a deep stream of only a
mile in breadth. General Monckton occupied this point with four battalions,
and shelled the lower town across the river, but the citadel was beyond his
reach. Wolfe’s army consisted of nine thousand troops: it should have amounted
to fourteen thousand, but at the last moment the orders for some of the West
Indian troops to join were countermanded; this was probably partly due to
jealousy at Wolfe’s having been nominated to the chief command.
The two armies were stationed opposite each other on either side of the river.
Vaudreuil, as Governor of Canada, still held command, and by his mistakes
frequently hampered Montcalm’s action. Had he planted guns in such a manner as
to fire down on the English fleet, it could never have taken up a position so
near the city; he failed to do this, however, and the result was that the
English fleet passed up the river in safety, to the astonishment of the
Canadians, who, until then, had believed it impossible for large ships to be
brought up the St. Lawrence.
Again, very shortly after the landing of the English army on the Island of
Orleans, Vaudreuil made a desperate attempt to destroy the English fleet by
launching fireships against it. The English sentries at the farther end of the
island saw in the middle of the night vessels coming down the river. These
ships were really filled with pitch, tar, and all sorts of combustibles mixed
with shells and grenades, and the decks crowded with a number of cannon
crammed with grape shot and musket balls. Suddenly they became like pillars of
flame, and advanced with tremendous explosion and noise. But the French
officers had lost their nerve, and set fire to the ships too soon. The
English, after their first surprise, recovered their coolness, lowered their
boats, and the sailors rowed out to meet the fireships, and by means of
grapnels they towed them towards land, where they were stranded and left to
burn themselves out.
Thus the fight might truly be said to have begun. To lookers on, and at this
distance of time, it almost bears the aspect of a duel, the two principal
actors standing out boldly in relief, fighting not for themselves, but for
their countries, and, to a certain extent, for their religion. Catholic
France, Protestant England! Noble men in every sense of the word, worthy of
each other, their names have come down to posterity linked together--“Wolfe
and Montcalm.”