The Conquest of New France Part 4

Montcalm had with him a capable staff and a goodly number of young officers, gay, debonair, thinking not of great political designs about America but chiefly of their own future careers in France, and facing death lightheartedly enough. Next to Montcalm in command was the Chevalier de Uvis, a member of a great French family and himself destined to attain the high rank of Marshal of France, and a capable though not a brilliant soldier, whose chief gift was tact and the art of managing men. Third in command was the Chevalier de Bourlamaque, a quiet, reserved man, with no striking social gifts and in consequence not likely at first to make a good impression, though Montcalm, who was at the beginning a little doubtful of his quality, came in the end to rely upon him fully. The most brilliant man in that company was the young Colonel de Bougainville, Montcalm's chief aide-de-camp. Though only twenty-seven years old he was already famous in the world of science and was destined to be still more famous as a great navigator, to live through the whole period of the French Revolution, and to die only on the eve of the fall of Napoleon. In 1756 he was too young and clever to be always prudent in speech. It is from his quick eye and eager pen that we learn much of the inner story of these last days of New France. Montcalm discusses frankly in his letters these and other officers, with whom he was on the whole well pleased. In his heart he could echo the words of Bougainville as he watched the brilliant spectacle of the embarkation at Brest: "What a nation is ours! Happy is he who leads and is worthy of it."

It was in this spirit of confidence that Montcalm faced the struggle in America. For him sad days were to come and his sunny, vivacious, southern temperament caused him to suffer keenly. At first, however, all was full of brilliant promise. So eager was he that, when his ships lay becalmed in the St. Lawrence some thirty miles below Quebec, he landed and drove to the city. It is the most beautiful country in the world, he writes, highly cultivated, with many houses, the peasants living more like the lesser gentry of France than like peasants, and speaking excellent French. He found the hospitality in Quebec such that a Parisian would be surprised at the profusion of good things of every kind. The city was, he thought, like the best type of the cities of France. The Canadian climate was health-giving, the sky clear, the summer not unlike that of Languedoc, but the winter trying, since the severe weather caused the inhabitants to remain too much indoors. He described the Canadian ladies as witty, lively, devout, those of Quebec amusing themselves at play, sometimes for high stakes; those of Montreal, with conversation and dancing. He confessed that one of them proved a little too fascinating for his own peace of mind. The intolerable thing was the need to meet and pay court to the Indians whom the Governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, regarded as valuable allies. These savages, brutal, changeable, exacting, Montcalm from the first despised. It filled him with disgust to see them swarming in the streets of Montreal, sometimes carrying bows and arrows, their coa.r.s.e features worse disfigured by war-paint and a gaudy headdress of feathers, their heads shaven, with the exception of one long scalp-lock, their gleaming bodies nearly naked or draped with dirty buffalo or beaver skins. What allies for a refined grand seigneur of France! It was a costly burden to feed them. Sometimes they made howling demands for brandy and for bouillon, by which they meant human blood. Many of them were cannibals. Once Montcalm had to give some of them, at his own cost, a feast of three oxen roasted whole. To his disgust, they gorged themselves and danced round the room shouting their savage war-cries.

The Governor of Canada, Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, belonged to one of the most ancient families of France, related to that of Levis. He had been born in Canada where his father was Governor for the long period of twenty-two years, from 1703 to 1725, and in his outlook and prejudices he was wholly of New France, with a pa.s.sionate devotion to its people, and a deep resentment at any airs of superiority a.s.sumed by those who came from old France. A certain admiration is due to Vaudreuil for his championship of the Canadians and even of the savages of the land of his birth against officers of his own rank and caste who came from France. There was in Canada the eternal cleavage in outlook and manners between the Old World and the New, which is found in equal strength in New England, and which was one of the chief factors in causing the American Revolution. Vaudreuil, born at Quebec in 1698, had climbed the official ladder step by step until, in 1742, he had been made Governor of Louisiana, a post he held for three years. He succeeded the Marquis Duquesne as Governor of Canada in the year before Montcalm arrived. He meant well but he was a vain man, always a leading figure in the small society about him, and obsessed by a fussy self-importance. He was not clever enough to see through flattery. The Intendant Bigot, next to the Governor the most important man in Canada, an able and corrupt rascal, knew how to manage the Governor and to impose his own will upon the weaker man. Vaudreuil and his wife between them had a swarm of needy relatives in Canada, and these and other Canadians who sought favors from the Governor helped to sharpen his antagonism to the officers from France. Vaudreuil believed himself a military genius. It was he and not Montcalm who had the supreme military command, and he regarded as an unnecessary intruder this general officer sent out from France.

Now that Montcalm was come, Vaudreuil showed a malignant alertness, born of jealousy, to snub and check him. Outward courtesies were, of course, maintained. Vaudreuil could be bland and Montcalm restrained, in spite of his southern temperament, but their dispatches show the bitterness in their relations. The court of France encouraged not merely the leaders but even officers in subordinate posts to communicate to it their views. A voluble correspondence about affairs in Canada has been preserved. Vaudreuil himself must have tried the patience of the French ministers for he wrote at prodigious length, exalting his own achievements to the point of being ludicrous. At the same time he belittled everything done by Montcalm, complained that he was ruining the French cause in America, hinted that he was in league with corrupt elements in Canada, and in the end even went so far as to request his recall in order that the more pliant Levis might be put in his place. The letters of Montcalm are more reserved. Unlike Vaudreuil, he never stooped to falsehood. He knew that he was under the orders of the Governor and he accepted the situation. When operations were on hand, Vaudreuil would give Montcalm instructions so ambiguous that if he failed he would be sure to get the discredit, while, if he succeeded, to Vaudreuil would belong the glory.

War is, at best, a cruel business. In Europe its predatory barbarity was pa.s.sing away and there the lives of prisoners and of women and children were now being respected. Montcalm had been reared under this more civilized code, and he and his officers were shocked by what Vaudreuil regarded as normal and proper warfare. In 1756 the French had a horde of about two thousand savages, who had flocked to Montreal from points as far distant as the great plains of the West. They numbered more than thirty separate tribes or nations, as in their pride they called themselves, and each nation had to be humored and treated as an equal, for they were not in the service of France but were her allies. They expected to be consulted before plans of campaign were completed. The defeat of Braddock in 1755 had made them turn to the prosperous cause of France. Vaudreuil gave them what they hardly required-encouragement to wage war in their own way. The more brutal and ruthless the war on the English, he said, the more quickly would their enemies desire the kind of peace that France must have. The result was that the western frontiers of the English colonies became a h.e.l.l of ruthless ma.s.sacre. The savages attacked English settlements whenever they found them undefended. A pioneer might go forth in the morning to his labor and return in the evening to find his house in ashes and his wife and children lying dead with the scalps torn from their heads as trophies of savage prowess.

For years, until the English gained the upper hand over the French, this awful ma.s.sacre went on. Hundreds of women and children perished. Vaudreuil reported with pride to the French court the number of scalps taken, and in his annals such incidents were written down as victories, He warned Montcalm that he must not be too strict with the savages or some day they would take themselves off and possibly go over to the English and leave the French without indispensable allies. He complained of the lofty tone of the French regular officers towards both Indians and Canadians, and a.s.sured the French court that it was only his own tact which prevented an open breach.

Canada lay exposed to attack by three routes by Lake Ontario, by Lake Champlain, and by the St. Lawrence and the sea. It was vital to control the route to the West by Lake Ontario, vital to keep the English from invading Canada by way of Lake Champlain, vital to guard the St. Lawrence and keep open communications with France. Montcalm first directed his attention to Lake Ontario. Oswego, lying on the south sh.o.r.e, was a fort much prized by the English as a base from which they could attack the French Fort Frontenac on the north side of the lake and cut off Canada from the West. If the English could do this, they would redeem the failure of Braddock and possibly turn the Indians from a French to an English alliance.

The French, in turn, were resolved to capture and destroy Oswego. In the summer of 1756, they were busy drawing up papers and instructions for the attack. Montcalm wrote to his wife that he had never before worked so hard. He kept every one busy, his aide-de-camp, his staff, and his secretaries. No detail was too minute for his observation. He regulated the changes of clothes which the officers might carry with them. He inspected hospitals, stores, and food, and he even ordered an alteration in the method of making bread. He reorganized the Canadian battalions and in every quarter stirred up new activity. He was strict about granting leave of absence. Sometimes his working day endured for twenty hours-to bed at midnight and up again at four o'clock in the morning. He went with Levis to Lake Champlain to see with his own eyes what was going on there. Then he turned back to Montreal. The discipline among the Canadian troops was poor and he stiffened it, thereby naturally causing great offense to those who liked slack ways and hated to take trouble about sanitation and equipment. He held interminable conferences with his Indian allies. They were astonished to find that the great soldier of whom they had heard so much was so small in stature, but they noted the fire in his eye. He despised their methods of warfare and notes with a touch of irony that, while every other barbarity continues, the burning of prisoners at the stake has rather gone out of fashion, though the savages recently burned an English woman and her son merely to keep in practice.

Montcalm made his plans secretly and struck suddenly. In the middle of August, 1756, he surprised and captured Oswego and took more than sixteen hundred prisoners. Of these, in spite of all that he could do, his Indians murdered some. The blow was deadly. The English lost vast stores; and now the French controlled the whole region of the Great Lakes. The Indians were on the side of the rising power more heartily than ever, and the unhappy frontier of the English colonies was so harried that murderous savages ventured almost to the outskirts of Philadelphia. Montcalm caused a Te Deum to be sung on the scene of his victory at Oswego. In August he was back in Montreal where again was sung another joyous Te Deum. He wrote letters in high praise of some of his officers, especially of Bourlamaque, Malartic, and La Pause, the last "un homme divin." Some of the Canadian officers, praised by Vaudreuil, he had tried and found wanting. "Don't forget," he wrote to Levis, "that Mercier is a feeble ignoramus, Saint Luc a prattling boaster, Montigny excellent but a drunkard. The others are not worth speaking of, including my first lieutenant-general Rigaud." This Rigaud was the brother of Vaudreuil. When the Governor wrote to the minister, he, for his part, said that the success of the expedition was wholly due to his own vigilance and firmness, aided chiefly by this brother, "mon frere," and Le Mercier, both of whom Montcalm describes as inept. Vaudreuil adds that only his own tact kept the Indian allies from going home because Montcalm would not let them have the plunder which they desired.

Montcalm struck his next blow at the English on Lake Champlain. In July, 1757, he had eight thousand men at Ticonderoga, at the northern end of Lake George. Two thousand of these were savages drawn from more than forty different tribes-a lawless horde whom the French could not control. A Jesuit priest saw a party of them squatting round a fire in the French camp roasting meat on the end of sticks and found that the meat was the flesh of an Englishman. English prisoners, sick with horror, were forced to watch this feast. The priest's protest was dismissed with anger: the savages would follow their own customs; let the French follow theirs. The truth is that the French had been only too successful in drawing the savages to them as allies. They formed now one-quarter of the whole French army. They were of little use as fighters and probably, in the long run, the French would have been better off without them. If, however, Montcalm had caused them to go, Vaudreuil would have made frantic protests, so that Montcalm accepted the necessity of such allies.

Each success, however, brought some new horrors at the hands of the Indians. Montcalm captured Fort William Henry, at the southern end of Lake George, in August, a year after the taking of Oswego. Fort William Henry was the most advanced English post in the direction of Canada. The place had been left weak, for the Earl of Loudoun, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in America, was using his resources for an expedition against Louisbourg, which wholly failed. Colonel Monro, the brave officer in command at Fort William Henry, made a strong defense, but was forced to surrender. The terms were that he should march out with his soldiers and the civilians of the place, and should be escorted in safety to Fort Edward, about eighteen miles to the south. This time the savages surpa.s.sed themselves in treachery and savagery. They had formally approved of the terms of surrender, but they attacked the long line of defeated English as they set out on the march, butchered some of their wounded, and seized hundreds of others as prisoners. Montcalm did what he could and even risked his life to check the savages. But some fifty English lay dead and the whole savage horde decamped for Montreal carrying with them two hundred prisoners.

Montcalm burned Fort William Henry and withdrew to Ticonderoga at the north end of the lake. Why, asked Vaudreuil, had he not advanced further south into English territory, taken Fort Edward-weak, because the English were in a panic-menaced Albany itself, and advanced even to New York? Montcalm's answer was that Fort Edward was still strong, that he had no transport except the backs of his men to take cannon eighteen miles by land in order to batter its walls, and that his Indians had left him. Moreover, he had been instructed to hasten his operations and allow his Canadians to go home to gather the ripening harvest so that Canada might not starve during the coming winter. Vaudreuil pressed at the French court his charges against Montcalm and without doubt produced some effect. French tact was never exhibited with more grace than in the letters which Montcalm received from his superiors in France, urging upon him with suave courtesy the need of considering the sensitive pride of the colonial forces and of guiding with a light rein the barbaric might of the Indian allies. It is hard to imagine an English Secretary of State administering a rebuke so gently and yet so unmistakably. Montcalm well understood what was meant. He knew that some intrigue had been working at court but he did not suspect that the Governor himself, all blandness and compliments to his face, was writing to Paris voluminous attacks on his character and conduct.

In the next summer (1758) Montcalm won another great success. He lay with his forces at Ticonderoga. The English were determined to press into the heart of Canada by way of Lake Champlain. All through the winter, after the fall of Fort William Henry, they had been making preparations on a great scale at Albany. By this time Amherst and Wolfe were on the scene in America, and they spent this summer in an attack on Louisbourg which resulted in the fall of the fortress. On the old fighting ground of Lake Champlain and Lake George, the English were this year making military efforts such as the Canadian frontier had never before seen. William Pitt, who now directed the war from London, had demanded that the colonies should raise twenty thousand men, a number well fitted to dismay the timid legislators of New York and Pennsylvania. At Albany fifteen thousand men came marching in by detachments-a few of them regulars, but most of them colonial militia who, as soon as winter came on, would scatter to their homes. The leader was General Abercromby-a leader, needless to say, with good connections in England, but with no other qualification for high command.

On July 5, 1758, there was a sight on Lake George likely to cause a flutter of anxiety in the heart of Montcalm at Ticonderoga. In a line of boats, six miles long, the great English host came down the lake and, early on the morning of the sixth, landed before the fort which Montcalm was to defend. The soul of the army had been a brilliant young officer, Lord Howe, who shared the hardships of the men, washed his own linen at the brook, and was the real leader trusted by the inept Abercromby. It was a tragic disaster for the British that at the outset of the fight Howe was killed in a chance skirmish. Montcalm's chief defense of Ticonderoga consisted in a felled forest. He had cut down hundreds of trees and, on high ground in front of the fort, made a formidable abbatis across which the English must advance. Abercromby had four men to one of Montcalm. Artillery would have knocked a pa.s.sage through the trunks of the trees which formed the abbatis. Abercromby, however, did not wait to bring up artillery. He was confident that his huge force could beat down opposition by a rapid attack, and he made the attack with all courage and persistence. But the troops could not work through the thicket of fallen trunks and, as night came on, they had to withdraw baffled. Next day Lake George saw another strange spectacle-a British army of thirteen thousand men, the finest ever seen hitherto in America, retreating in a panic, with no enemy in pursuit. Nearly two thousand English had fallen, while Montcalm's loss was less than four hundred. He planted a great cross on the scene of the fight with an inscription in Latin that it was G.o.d who had wrought the victory. All Canada had a brief period of rejoicing before the gloom of final defeat settled down upon the country.

CHAPTER IX. Montcalm At Quebec

The rejoicing in Canada was brief. Before the end of the year the British were victorious at both the eastern and western ends of the long battle-line. Louisbourg had fallen in July; Fort Duquesne, in November. Fort Frontenac-giving command of Lake Ontario and, with it, the West-had surrendered to Bradstreet in August just after Montcalm's victory at Ticonderoga. The Ohio was gone. The great fortress guarding the gateway to the Gulf was gone. The next English attack would fall on Quebec. Montcalm had told Vaudreuil in the autumn, with vigorous precision, that the period of petty warfare, for taking scalps and burning houses, was past. It was time now to defend the main trunk of the tree and not the outer branches. The best Canadians should be incorporated into and trained in the battalions of regulars. The militia regiments themselves should be clothed and drilled like regular soldiers. Interior posts, such as Detroit, should be held by the smallest possible number of men. This counsel enraged Vaudreuil. Montcalm, he wrote, was trying to upset everything. Vaudreuil was certain that the English would not attack Quebec.

There is a melancholy greatness in the last days of Montcalm. He was fighting against fearful odds. With only about three thousand trained regulars and perhaps four times as many untrained Canadians and savages, he was confronting Britain's might on sea and land which was now thrown against New France. From France itself Montcalm knew that he had nothing to hope. In the autumn of 1758 he sent Bougainville to Versailles. That brilliant and loyal helper managed to elude the vigilance of the British fleet, reached Versailles, and there spent some months in varied and resourceful attempts to secure aid for Canada. He saw ministers. He procured the aid of powerful connections of his own and of his fellow-officers in Canada. He went to what was at this time the fountainhead of authority at the French court, and it was not the King. "The King is nothing," wrote Bougainville, "the Marchioness is all-powerful-prime minister." Bougainville saw the Marchioness, Madame de Pompadour, and read to her some of Montcalm's letters. She showed no surprise and said nothing-her habit, as Bougainville said. By this time the name of Montcalm was one to charm with in France. Bougainville wrote to him "I should have to include all France if I should attempt to give a list of those who love you and wish to see you Marshal of France. Even the little children know your name." There had been a time when the court thought the recall of Montcalm would be wise in the interests of New France. Now it was Montcalm's day and the desire to help him was real. France, however, could do little. Ministers were courteous and sympathetic; but as Berryer, Minister of Marine, said to Bougainville, with the house on fire in France, they could not take much thought of the stable in Canada.

This Berryer was an inept person. He was blindly ignorant of naval affairs, coa.r.s.e, obstinate, a placeman who owed his position to intrigue and favoritism. His only merit was that he tried to cut down expenditure, but in regard to the navy this policy was likely to be fatal. It is useless, said this guardian of France's marine, to try to rival Britain on the sea, and the wise thing to do is to save money by not spending it on ships. Berryer even sold to private persons stores which he had on hand for the use of the fleet. If the house was on fire he did not intend, it would seem, that much should be left to burn. The old Due de Belle-Isle, Minister of War, was of another type, a fine and efficient soldier. He explained the situation frankly in a letter to Montcalm. Austria was an exigent ally, and Frederick of Prussia a dangerous foe. France had to concentrate her strength in Europe. The British fleet, he admitted, paralyzed efforts overseas. There was no certainty, or even probability, that troops and supplies sent from France would ever reach Canada. France, the Duke said guardedly, was not without resources. She had a plan to strike a deadly blow against England and, in doing so, would save Canada without sending overseas a great army. The plan was nothing less than the invasion of England and Scotland with a great force, the enterprise which, nearly half a century later, Napoleon conceived as his master stroke against the proud maritime state. During that winter and spring France was building a great number of small boats with which to make a sudden descent and to land an army in England.

If this plan succeeded, all else would succeed. Montcalm must just hold on, conduct a defensive campaign and, above all, retain some part of Canada since, as the Duke said with prophetic foresight, if the British once held the whole of the country they would never give it up. Montcalm himself had laid before the court a plan of his own. He estimated that the British would have six men to his one. Rather than surrender to them, he would withdraw to the far interior and take his army by way of the Ohio to Louisiana. The design was a wild counsel of despair for he would be cut off from any base of supplies, but it shows the risks he was ready to tale. In him now the court had complete confidence. Vaudreuil was instructed to take no military action without seeking the counsel of Montcalm. "The King," wrote Belle-Isle to Montcalm, "relies upon your zeal, your courage and your resolution." Some little help was sent. The British control of the sea was not complete; since more than twenty French ships eluded British vigilance, bringing military stores, food (for Canada was confronted by famine), four hundred soldiers, and Bougainville himself, with a list of honors for the leaders in Canada. Montcalm was given the rank of Lieutenant-General and, but for a technical difficulty, would have been made a Marshal of France.

All this reliance upon Montcalm was galling to Vaudreuil. This weak man was entirely in the hands of a corrupt circle who recognized in the strength and uprightness of Montcalm their deadly enemy. An incredible plundering was going on. Its strength was in the blindness of Vaudreuil. The secretary of Vaudreuil, Gra.s.set de Saint-Sauveur, an ignorant and greedy man, was a member of the ring and yet had the entire confidence of the Governor. The scale of the robberies was enormous. Bigot, the Intendant, was stealing millions of francs; Cadet, the head of the supplies department, was stealing even more. They were able men who knew how to show diligence in their official work. More than once Montcalm praises the resourcefulness with which Bigot met his requirements. But it was all done at a fearful cost to the State. Under a.s.sumed names the ring sold to the King, of whose interests they were the guardians, supplies at a profit of a hundred or a hundred and fifty per cent. They made vast sums out of transport. They drew pay for feeding hundreds of men who were not in the King's service. They received money for great bills of merchandise never delivered and repeated the process over and over again. To keep the Indians friendly the King sent presents of guns, ammunition, and blankets. These were stolen and sold. Even the bodies of Acadians were sold. They were hired out for their keep to a contractor who allowed them to die of cold and hunger. Hundreds of the poor exiles perished. The nemesis of a despotic system is that, however well-intentioned it may be, its officials are not controlled by an alert public opinion and yet must be trusted by their master. France meant well by her colony but the colony, unlike the English colonies, was not taught to look after itself. While nearly every one in Canada understood what was going on, it was another thing to inform those in control in France. La Porte, the secretary of the colonial minister, was in the service of the ring. He intercepted letters which should have made exposures. Until found out, he had the ear of the minister and echoed the tone of lofty patriotism which Bigot a.s.sumed in his letters to his superiors.

History has made Montcalm one of its heroes-and with justice. He was a remarkable man, who would have won fame as a scholar had he not followed the long family tradition of a soldier's career. Bougainville once said that the highest literary distinction of a Frenchman, a chair in the Academy, might be within reach of Montcalm as well as the baton of a Marshal of France. He had a prodigious memory and had read widely. His letters, written amid the trying conditions of war, are nervous, direct, pregnant with meaning, the notes of a penetrating intelligence. He had deep family affection. "Adieu, my heart, I believe that I love you more than ever I did before"; these were the last words of what he did not know was to be his last letter to his wife. In the midst of a gay scene at Montreal, in the spring of 1759, he writes to Bourlamaque, then at Lake Champlain, with acute longing for the south of France in the spring. For six or seven months in the year he could receive no letters and always the British command of the sea made their expected arrival uncertain. "When shall I be again at the Chateau of Candiac, with my plantations, my oaks, my oil mill, my mulberry trees? O good G.o.d." He lays bare his spirit especially to Bourlamaque, a quiet, efficient, thoughtful man, like himself, and enjoins him to burn the letters-which he does not, happily for posterity. Scandal does not touch him but, like most Frenchmen, he is dependent on the society of women. He lived in a house on the ramparts of Quebec and visited constantly the salons of his neighbor in the Rue du Parloir, the beautiful and witty Madame de la Naudiere. In two or three other households he was also intimate and the Bishop was a sympathetic friend. His own tastes were those of the scholar, and more and more, during the long Canadian winters, he enjoyed evenings of quiet reading. The elder Mirabeau, father of the revolutionary leader of 1789, had just published his "Ami des Hommes" and this we find Montcalm studying. But above all he reads the great encyclopaedia of Diderot. By 1759 seven of the huge volumes had been issued. They startled the intellectual world of the time and Montcalm set out to read them, omitting the articles which had no interest for him or which he could not understand. C is a copious letter in an encyclopaedia, and Montcalm found excellent the articles on Christianity, College, Comedy, Comet, Commerce, Council, and so on. Wolfe-soon to be his opponent-had the same taste for letters. The two men, unlike in body, for Wolfe was tall and Montcalm the opposite, were alike in spirit, painstaking students as well as men of action.

At first Montcalm had not realized what was the deepest shadow in the life of Canada. Perhaps chiefly because Vaudreuil was always at Montreal, Montcalm preferred Quebec and was surprised and charmed by the life of that city. It had, he said, the air of a real capital. There were fair women and brave men, sumptuous dinners with forty or fifty covers, brilliantly lighted salons, a vivid social life in which he was much courted. The Intendant Bigot was agreeable and efficient. Soon, however, Montcalm had misgivings. It was a gambling age, but he was staggered by the extent of the gambling at the house of the Intendant. He did not wish to break with Bigot, and there was perhaps some weakness in his failure to denounce the orgies from which his conscience revolted. He warned his own officers but he could not control the colonial officers, and Vaudreuil was too weak to check a man like Bigot. Whence came the money? In time, Montcalm understood well enough. He himself was poor. To discharge the duties of his position he was going into debt, and he had even to consider the possible selling of his establishment in France. He had to beg the court for some financial relief. At the same time he saw about him a wild extravagance. There was famine in Canada. During the winter of 1758-59 the troops were put on short rations and, in spite of their bitter protests, had to eat horse flesh. Suffering and starvation bore heavily on the poor. Through lack of food people fell fainting in the streets. But the circle of Bigot paid little heed and feasted, danced, and gambled. Montcalm pours out his soul to Bourlamaque. He spends, he says, sleepless nights, and his mind is almost disordered by what he sees. In his journal he notes his own fight with poverty and its contrast with the careless luxury of a crowd of worthless hangers-on making four or five hundred thousand francs a year and insulting decency by their lavish expenditure. One of the ring, a clerk with a petty salary, a base creature, spends more on carriages, horses, and harness than a foppish and reckless young member of the nouveaux-riches would spend in France. Corruption in Canada is protected by corruption in France. Montcalm cries out with a devotion which his sovereign hardly deserved, though it was due to France herself, "O King, worthy of better service, dear France, crushed by taxes to enrich greedy knaves!"

The weary winter of 1758-59 at length came to an end. In May the ships already mentioned arrived from France, bringing Bougainville and, among other things, the news that Pitt was sending great forces for a decisive attack on Canada. At that very moment, indeed, the British ships were entering the mouth of the St. Lawrence. Canada had already been cut off from France. Montcalm held many councils with his officers. The strategy decided upon was to stand at bay at Quebec, to strike the enemy if he should try to land, and to hold out until the approach of winter should force the retirement of the British fleet.

CHAPTER X. The Strategy Of Pitt

During four campaigns the British had suffered humiliating disasters. It is the old story in English history of caste privilege and deadly routine bringing to the top men inadequate in the day of trial. It has happened since, even in our own day, as it has happened so often before. It seems that imminent disaster alone will arouse the nation to its best military effort. In 1757, however, England was thoroughly aroused. Failure then on her own special element, the sea, touched her vitally. Admiral Byng-through sheer cowardice, as was charged-had failed to attack a French fleet aiding in the siege of the island of Minorca which was held by the English, and Minorca had fallen to the French. Such was the popular clamor at this disaster that Byng was tried, condemned, and shot. There was also an upheaval in the government. At no time in English history were men more eager for the fruits of office; and now, even in a great crisis, the greed for spoils could not be shaken off. The nation demanded a conduct of the war which sought efficiency above all else. The politicians, however, insisted on government favors.

In the end a compromise was reached. At the head of the government was placed a politician, the Duke of Newcastle, who loved jobbery and patronage in politics and who doled out offices to his supporters. At the War Office was placed Pitt with a free hand to carry on military operations. He was the terrible cornet of horse who had harried Walpole in the days when that minister was trying to keep out of war. He knew and even loved war; his fierce national pride had been stirred to pa.s.sion by the many humiliations at the hand of France; and now he was resolved to organize, to spend, and to fight, until Britain trampled on France. He had the nation behind him. He bullied and frightened the House of Commons. Members trembled if Pitt turned on them. By his fiery energy, by making himself a terror to weakness and incompetence, he won for Britain the Seven Years' War.

Though Pitt became Secretary of State for War in June, 1757, not until 1758 did the tide begin to turn in America. But when it did turn, it flowed with resistless force. In little more than a year the doom of New France was certain. The first great French reverse was at a point where the naval and military power of Britain could unite in attack. Pitt well understood the need of united action by the two services. Halifax became the radiating center of British activities. Here, in 1757, before Pitt was well in the saddle, a fleet and an army gathered to attack Louisbourg-an enterprise not carried out that year partly because France had a great fleet on the spot, and partly, too, on account of the bad quality of British leadership.

Only in the campaign of 1758 did Pitt's dominance become effective. With him counted one quality and one alone, efficiency. The old guard at the War Office were startled when men with rank, years, influence, and every other claim but competence for their tasks, were pa.s.sed over, and young and obscure men were given high command. To America in the spring of 1758 were sent officers. .h.i.therto little known. Edward Boscawen, Commander of the Fleet, and veteran among these leaders, was a comparatively young man, only forty-seven; Jeffrey Amherst, just turned forty, was Commander-in-Chief on land. Next in command to Amherst was James Wolfe, aged thirty.

These young and vigorous men knew the value of promptness or they would not have been tolerated under Pitt. Before the end of May, 1758, Boscawen was in Halifax harbor with a fleet of some forty warships and a mult.i.tude of transports. On board were nearly twelve thousand soldiers, more than eleven thousand of them British regulars. The colonial forces now play a minor part in the struggle; Pitt was ready to send from England all the troops needed. The array at Halifax, the greatest yet seen in America, numbered about twenty thousand men, including sailors. Before the first of June the fleet was on its way to Louisbourg. The defense was stubborn; and James Wolfe, who led the first landing party, had abundant opportunity to prove his courage and capacity. By the end of July, however, Louisbourg had fallen, and nearly six thousand prisoners were in the hands of the English. It was the beginning of the end.

In the autumn Wolfe was back in England, where he was quickly given command of the great expedition which was planned against Quebec for the following year. Admiral Sir Charles Saunders, who seems almost old compared with Wolfe, for he was nearly fifty, was in chief command of the fleet. Amherst had remained in America as Commander-in-Chief, and was taking slow, deliberate, thorough measures for the last steps in the conquest of New France.

To be too late had been the usual fate of the many British expeditions against Canada. No one, however, dared to be late under Pitt. On February 17, 1759, the greatest fleet that had ever put out for America left Portsmouth. More than two hundred and fifty ships set their sails for the long voyage. There were forty-nine warships, carrying fourteen thousand sailors and marines, and two hundred other ships manned by perhaps seven thousand men in the merchant service, but ready to fight if occasion offered. Altogether nearly thirty thousand men now left the sh.o.r.es of England to attack Canada.

There is a touch of doom for France in the fact that its own lost fortress of Louisbourg was to be the rendezvous of the fleet. Saunders, however, arrived so early that the entrance to Louisbourg was still blocked with ice, and he went on to Halifax. In time he returned to Louisbourg, and from there the great fleet sailed for Quebec. The voyage was uneventful. We can picture the startled gaze of the Canadian peasants as they saw the stately array, many miles long, pa.s.s up the St. Lawrence. On the 26th of June, Wolfe and Saunders were in the basin before Quebec and the great siege had begun which was to mark one of the turning-points in history.

Nature had furnished a n.o.ble setting for the drama now to be enacted. Quebec stands on a bold semicircular rock on the north sh.o.r.e of the St. Lawrence. At the foot of the rock sweeps the mighty river, here at the least breadth in its whole course, but still a flood nearly a mile wide, deep and strong. Its currents change ceaselessly with the ebb and flow of the tide which rises a dozen feet, though the open sea is eight hundred miles away. Behind the rock of Quebec the small stream of the St. Charles furnishes a protection on the landward side. Below the fortress, the great river expands into a broad basin with the outflow divided by the Island of Orleans. In every direction there are cliffs and precipices and rising ground. From the north sh.o.r.e of the great basin the land slopes gradually into a remote blue of wooded mountains. The a.s.sailant of Quebec must land on low ground commanded everywhere from heights for seven or eight miles on the east and as many on the west. At both ends of this long front are further natural defenses-at the east the gorge of the Montmorency River, at the west that of the Cap Rouge River.

Wolfe's desire was to land his army on the Beauport sh.o.r.e at some point between Quebec and Montmorency. But Montcalm's fortified posts, behind which lay his army, stretched along the sh.o.r.e for six miles, all the way from the Montmorency to the St. Charles. Wolfe had a great contempt for Montcalm's army-"five feeble French battalions mixed with undisciplined peasants." If only he could get to close quarters with the "wily and cautious old fox," as he called Montcalm! Already the British had done what the French had thought impossible. Without pilots they had steered their ships through treacherous channels in the river and through the dangerous "Traverse" near Cap Tourmente. Captain Cook, destined to be a famous navigator, was there to survey and mark the difficult places, and British skippers laughed at the forecasts of disaster made by the pilots whom they had captured on the river. The French were confident that the British would not dare to take their ships farther up the river past the cannonade of the guns in Quebec, though this the British accomplished almost without loss.

Wolfe landed a force upon the lower side of the gorge at Montmorency and another at the head of the Island of Orleans. He planted batteries at Point Levis across the river from Quebec, and from there he battered the city. The pleasant houses in the Rue du Parloir which Montcalm knew so well were knocked into rubbish, and its fascinating ladies were driven desolate from the capital. But this bombardment brought Wolfe no nearer his goal. On the 31st of July he made a frontal attack on the flats at Beauport and failed disastrously with a loss of four hundred men. Time was fighting for Montcalm.

By the 1st of September Wolfe's one hope was in a surprise by which he could land an army above Quebec, the nearer to the fortress the better. Its feeble walls on the landward side could not hold out against artillery. But Bougainville guarded the high sh.o.r.e and marched his men incessantly up and down to meet threatened attacks. On the heights, the battalion of Guienne was encamped on the Plains of Abraham to guard the Foulon. This was a cove on the river bank from which there was a path, much used by the French for dragging up provisions, leading to the top of the cliff at a point little more than a mile from the walls of the city. On the 6th of September the battalion of Guienne was sent back to the Beauport lines by order of Vaudreuil. Montcalm countermanded the order, but was not obeyed, and Wolfe saw his chance. For days he threatened a landing, above and below Quebec, now at one point, now at another, until the French were both mystified and worn out with incessant alarms. Then, early on the morning of the 13th of September, came Wolfe's master-stroke. His men embarked in boats from the warships lying some miles above Quebec, dropped silently down the river, close to the north sh.o.r.e, made sentries believe that they were French boats carrying provisions to the Foulon, landed at the appointed spot, climbed up the cliff, and overpowered the sleeping guard. A little after daylight Wolfe had nearly five thousand soldiers, a "thin red line," busy preparing a strong position on the Plains of Abraham, while the fleet was landing cannon, to be dragged up the steep hill to bombard the fortress on its weakest side.

Montcalm had spent many anxious days. He had been incessantly on the move, examining for himself over and over again every point, Cap Rouge, Beauport, Montmorency, reviewing the militia of which he felt uncertain, inspecting the artillery, the commissariat, everything that mattered. At three o'clock in the morning of one of these days he wrote to Bourlamaque, at Lake Champlain, noting the dark night, the rain, his men awake and dressed in their tents, everyone alert. "I am booted and my horses are saddled, which is in truth my usual way of spending the night. I have not undressed since the twenty-third of June." On the evening of the 12th of September the batteries at Point Levis kept up a furious fire on Quebec. There was much activity on board the British war-ships lying below the town. Boats filled with men rowed towards Beauport as if to attempt a landing during the night. Here the danger seemed to lie. At midnight the British boats were still hovering off the sh.o.r.e. The French troops manned the entrenched lines and Montcalm was continually anxious. A heavy convoy of provisions was to come down to the Foulon that night, and orders had been given to the French posts on the north sh.o.r.e above Quebec to make no noise. The arrival of the convoy was vital, for the army was pressed for food. Montcalm was therefore anxious for its fate when at break of day he heard firing from the French cannon at Samos, above Quebec. Had the provisions then been taken by the English? Near his camp all now seemed quiet. He gave orders for the troops to rest, drank some cups of tea with his aide-de-camp Johnstone, a Scotch Jacobite, and at about half-past six rode towards Quebec to the camp of Vaudreuil to learn why the artillery was firing at Samos. Immediately in front of the Governor's house he learned the momentous news. The English were on the Plains of Abraham. Soon he had the evidence of his own eyes. On the distant heights across the valley he could see the redcoats.

No doubt Montcalm had often pondered this possibility and had decided in such a case to attack at once before the enemy could entrench and bring up cannon. A rapid decision was now followed by rapid action. He had a moment's conversation with Vaudreuil. The French regiments on the right at Vaudreuil's camp, lying nearest to the city, were to march at once. To Johnstone he said, "The affair is serious," and then gave orders that all the French left, except a few men to guard the ravine at Montmorency, should follow quickly to the position between Quebec and the enemy, a mile away. Off to this point he himself galloped. Already, by orders of officers on the spot, regiments were gathering between the walls of the city and the British. The regiments on the French right at Beauport were soon on the move towards the battlefield, but two thousand of the best troops still lay inactive beyond Beauport. Johnstone declares that Vaudreuil countermanded the order of Montcalm for these troops to come to his support and ordered that not one of them should budge. There was haste everywhere. By half-past nine Montcalm had some four thousand men drawn up between the British and the walls of Quebec. He hoped that Bougainville, advancing from Cap Rouge, would be able to a.s.sail the British rear: "Surely Bougainville understands that I must attack."

The crisis was, over in fifteen minutes. Montcalm attacked at once. His line was disorderly. His center was composed of regular troops, his wings of Canadians and Indians. These fired irregularly and lay down to reload, thus causing confusion. The French moved forward rapidly; the British were coming on more slowly. The French were only some forty yards away when there was an answering fire from the thin red line; for Wolfe had ordered his men to put two b.a.l.l.s in their muskets and to hold their fire for one dread volley. Then the roar from Wolfe's center was like that of a burst of artillery; and, when the smoke cleared, the French battalions were seen breaking in disorder from the shock, the front line cut down by the terrible fire. A bayonet charge from the redcoats followed. Some five thousand trained British regulars bore down, working great slaughter on four thousand French, many of them colonials who had never before fought in the open. The rout of the French was complete. Some fled to safety behind the walls of Quebec, others down the Cote Ste. Genevieve and across the St. Charles River, where they stopped pursuit by cutting the bridge. Both Wolfe and Montcalm were mortally wounded after the issue of the day was really decided, and both survived to be certain, the one of victory, the other of defeat. Wolfe died on the field of battle. Montcalm was taken into a house in Quebec and died early the next morning. It is perhaps the only incident in history of a decisive battle of world import followed by the death of both leaders, each made immortal by the tragedy of their common fate.

At two o'clock in the afternoon of the day of defeat, Vaudreuil held a tumultuous council of war. It was decided to abandon Quebec, where Montcalm lay dying and to retreat up the St. Lawrence to Montreal, to the defense of which Levis had been sent before the fight. That night the whole French army fled in panic, leaving their tents standing and abandoning quant.i.ties of stores. Vaudreuil who had talked so bravely about death in the ruins of Canada, rather than surrender, gave orders to Ramezay, commanding in Quebec, to make terms and haul down his flag. On the third day after the battle, the surrender was arranged. On the fourth day the British marched into Quebec, where ever since their flag has floated.

Meanwhile, Amherst, the Commander-in-Chief of the British armies in America, was making a toilsome advance towards Montreal by way of Lake Champlain. He had occupied both Ticonderoga and Crown Point, which had been abandoned by the French. Across his path lay Bourlamaque at Isle aux Noix. Another British army, having captured Niagara, was advancing on Montreal down the St. Lawrence from Lake Ontario. Amherst, however, made little progress this year in his menace to Montreal and soon went into winter quarters, as did the other forces elsewhere. The British victory therefore was as yet incomplete.

The year 1759 proved dire for France. She was held fast by her treaty with Austria and at ruinous cost was ever sending more and more troops to help Austria against Prussia. The great plan of which Belle-Isle had written to Montcalm was the chief hope of her policy. England was to be invaded and London occupied. If this were done, all else would be right. It was not done. France could not parry Pitt's blows. In Africa, in the West Indies, in India, the British won successes which meant the ruin of French power in three continents. French admirals like Conflans and La Clue were no match for Boscawen, Hawke, and Rodney, all seamen of the first rank, and made the stronger because dominated by the fiery Pitt.

They kept the French squadrons shut up in their own ports. When, at last, on November 20, 1759, Conflans came out of Brest and fought Hawke at Quiberon Bay, the French fleet was nearly destroyed, and the dream of taking London ended in complete disaster.

CHAPTER XI. The Fall Of Canada