Produced by Gardner Buchanan.
CHRONICLES OF CANADA
THE WINNING OF CANADA
A Chronicle of Wolfe
By William Wood
Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
In thirty-two volumes
Volume 11
TORONTO, 1915
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Any life of Wolfe can be artificially simplified by treating his purely
military work as something complete in itself and not as a part of a
greater whole. But, since such treatment gives a totally false idea
of his achievement, this little sketch, drawn straight from original
sources, tries to show him as he really was, a co-worker with the
British fleet in a war based entirely on naval strategy and inseparably
connected with international affairs of world-wide significance.
The only simplification attempted here is that of arrangement and
expression.
W.W.
Quebec, April 1914.
LIST OF CONTENTS
I. THE BOY
II. THE YOUNG SOLDIER
III. THE SEVEN YEARS' PEACE
IV. THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR
V. LOUISBOURG
VI. QUEBEC
VII. THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM
VIII. EPILOGUE--THE LAST STAND
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
CHAPTER I -- THE BOY, 1727-1741
Wolfe was a soldier born. Many of his ancestors had stood ready to fight
for king and country at a moment's notice. His father fought under the
great Duke of Marlborough in the war against France at the beginning of
the eighteenth century. His grandfather, his great-grandfather, his
only uncle, and his only brother were soldiers too. Nor has the martial
spirit deserted the descendants of the Wolfes in the generation now
alive. They are soldiers still. The present head of the family, who
represented it at the celebration of the tercentenary of the founding
of Quebec, fought in Egypt for Queen Victoria; and the member of it
who represented Wolfe on that occasion, in the pageant of the Quebec
campaign, is an officer in the Canadian army under George V.
The Wolfes are of an old and honourable line. Many hundreds of years ago
their forefathers lived in England and later on in Wales. Later still,
in the fifteenth century, before America was discovered, they were
living in Ireland. Wolfe's father, however, was born in England; and,
as there is no evidence that any of his ancestors in Ireland had married
other than English Protestants, and as Wolfe's mother was also English,
we may say that the victor of Quebec was a pure-bred Englishman. Among
his Anglo-Irish kinsmen were the Goldsmiths and the Seymours. Oliver
Goldsmith himself was always very proud of being a cousin of the man who
took Quebec.
Wolfe's mother, to whom he owed a great deal of his genius; was a
descendant of two good families in Yorkshire. She was eighteen years
younger than his father, and was very tall and handsome. Wolfe thought
there was no one like her. When he was a colonel, and had been through
the wars and at court, he still believed she was 'a match for all the
beauties.' He was not lucky enough to take after her in looks, except
in her one weak feature, a cutaway chin. His body, indeed, seems to have
been made up of the bad points of both parents: he had his rheumatism
from his father. But his spirit was made up of all their good points;
and no braver ever lived in any healthy body than in his own sickly,
lanky six foot three.
Wolfe's parents went to live at Westerham in Kent shortly after they
were married; and there, on January 2, 1727, in the vicarage--where
Mrs Wolfe was staying while her husband was away on duty with his
regiment--the victor of Quebec was born. Two other houses in the little
country town of Westerham are full of memories of Wolfe. One of these
was his father's, a house more than two hundred years old when he was
born. It was built in the reign of Henry VII, and the loyal subject
who built it had the king's coat of arms carved over the big stone
fireplace. Here Wolfe and his younger brother Edward used to sit in the
winter evenings with their mother, while their veteran father told them
the story of his long campaigns. So, curiously enough, it appears that
Wolfe, the soldier who won Canada for England in 1759, sat under the
arms of the king in whose service the sailor Cabot hoisted the flag of
England over Canadian soil in 1497. This house has been called Quebec
House ever since the victory in 1759. The other house is Squerryes
Court, belonging then and now to the Warde family, the Wolfes' closest
friends. Wolfe and George Warde were chums from the first day they met.
Both wished to go into the Army; and both, of course, 'played soldiers,'
like other virile boys. Warde lived to be an old man and actually did
become a famous cavalry leader. Perhaps when he charged a real enemy,
sword in hand, at the head of thundering squadrons, it may have flashed
through his mind how he and Wolfe had waved their whips and cheered like
mad when they galloped their ponies down the common with nothing but
their barking dogs behind them.
Wolfe's parents presently moved to Greenwich, where he was sent to
school at Swinden's. Here he worked quietly enough till just before he
entered on his 'teens. Then the long-pent rage of England suddenly burst
in war with Spain. The people went wild when the British fleet took
Porto Bello, a Spanish port in Central America. The news was cried
through the streets all night. The noise of battle seemed to be sounding
all round Swinden's school, where most of the boys belonged to naval and
military families. Ships were fitting out in English harbours. Soldiers
were marching into every English camp. Crowds were singing and cheering.
First one boy's father and then another's was under orders for the
front. Among them was Wolfe's father, who was made adjutant-general
to the forces assembling in the Isle of Wight. What were history and
geography and mathematics now, when a whole nation was afoot to fight!
And who would not fight the Spaniards when they cut off British sailors'
ears? That was an old tale by this time; but the flames of anger threw
it into lurid relief once more.
Wolfe was determined to go and fight. Nothing could stop him. There
was no commission for him as an officer. Never mind! He would go as a
volunteer and win his commission in the field. So, one hot day in July
1740, the lanky, red-haired boy of thirteen-and-a-half took his seat
on the Portsmouth coach beside his father, the veteran soldier of
fifty-five. His mother was a woman of much too fine a spirit to grudge
anything for the service of her country; but she could not help being
exceptionally anxious about the dangers of disease for a sickly boy in
a far-off land of pestilence and fever. She had written to him the very
day he left. But he, full of the stir and excitement of a big camp, had
carried the letter in his pocket for two or three days before answering
it. Then he wrote her the first of many letters from different seats of
war, the last one of all being written just before he won the victory
that made him famous round the world.
Newport, Isle of Wight, August 6th, 1740.
I received my dearest Mamma's letter on Monday last,
but could not answer it then, by reason I was at camp
to see the regiments off to go on board, and was too
late for the post; but am very sorry, dear Mamma, that
you doubt my love, which I'm sure is as sincere as
ever any son's was to his mother.
Papa and I are just going on board, but I believe
shall not sail this fortnight; in which time, if I
can get ashore at Portsmouth or any other town, I will
certainly write to you, and, when we are gone, by
every ship we meet, because I know it is my duty.
Besides, if it is not, I would do it out of love, with
pleasure.
I am sorry to hear that your head is so bad, which I
fear is caused by your being so melancholy; but pray,
dear Mamma, if you love me, don't give yourself up to
fears for us. I hope, if it please God, we shall soon
see one another, which will be the happiest day that
ever I shall see. I will, as sure as I live, if it is
possible for me, let you know everything that has
happened, by every ship; therefore pray, dearest Mamma,
don't doubt about it. I am in a very good state of
health, and am likely to continue so. Pray my love to
my brother. Pray my service to Mr Streton and his
family, to Mr and Mrs Weston, and to George Warde when
you see him; and pray believe me to be, my dearest
Mamma, your most dutiful, loving and affectionate son,
J. Wolfe.
To Mrs. Wolfe, at her house in Greenwich, Kent.
Wolfe's 'very good state of health' was not 'likely to continue so,'
either in camp or on board ship. A long peace had made the country
indifferent to the welfare of the Army and Navy. Now men were suddenly
being massed together in camps and fleets as if on Purpose to breed
disease. Sanitation on a large scale, never having been practised in
peace, could not be improvised in this hurried, though disastrously
slow, preparation for a war. The ship in which Wolfe was to sail had
been lying idle for years; and her pestilential bilge-water soon began
to make the sailors and soldiers sicken and die. Most fortunately, Wolfe
was among the first to take ill; and so he was sent home in time to save
him from the fevers of Spanish America.
Wolfe was happy to see his mother again, to have his pony to ride and
his dogs to play with. But, though he tried his best to stick to his
lessons, his heart was wild for the war. He and George Warde used to
go every day during the Christmas holidays behind the pigeon-house at
Squerryes Court and practise with their swords and pistols. One day they
stopped when they heard the post-horn blowing at the gate; and both of
them became very much excited when George's father came out himself with
a big official envelope marked 'On His Majesty's Service' and addressed
to 'James Wolfe, Esquire.' Inside was a commission as second lieutenant
in the Marines, signed by George II and dated at St James's Palace,
November 3, 1741. Eighteen years later, when the fame of the conquest
of Canada was the talk of the kingdom, the Wardes had a stone monument
built to mark the spot where Wolfe was standing when the squire handed
him his first commission. And there it is to-day; and on it are the
verses ending,
This spot so sacred will forever claim
A proud alliance with its hero's name.
Wolfe was at last an officer. But the Marines were not the corps for
him. Their service companies were five thousand miles away, while war
with France was breaking out much nearer home. So what was his delight
at receiving another commission, on March 25, 1742, as an ensign in the
12th Regiment of Foot! He was now fifteen, an officer, a soldier born
and bred, eager to serve his country, and just appointed to a regiment
ordered to the front! Within a month an army such as no one had
seen since the days of Marlborough had been assembled at Blackheath.
Infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers, they were all there when
King George II, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Cumberland came
down to review them. Little did anybody think that the tall, eager
ensign carrying the colours of the 12th past His Majesty was the man who
was to play the foremost part in winning Canada for the British crown.