A Historical Geography of the British Colonies Part 34

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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed 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 anch.o.r.ed before Quebec. The next morning the British ships pa.s.sed 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 a.s.signs 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 pa.s.sage 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, pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e 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 a.s.sembling 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 _Doc.u.mentary 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.