The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf, by
William Wood
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Title: The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf
Volume 11 (of 32)
Author: William Wood
Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8728]
Last Updated: February 7, 2013
Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WINNING OF CANADA ***
Produced by Gardner Buchanan and David Widger
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
CONTENTS
AUTHOR'S NOTE
CHAPTER I — THE BOY, 1727-1741
CHAPTER II — THE YOUNG SOLDIER, 1741-1748
CHAPTER III — THE SEVEN YEARS' PEACE,
1748-1755
CHAPTER IV — THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR,
1756-1763
CHAPTER V — LOUISBOURG, 1758
CHAPTER VI — QUEBEC, 1759
CHAPTER VII — THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM,
September 13, 1759
CHAPTER VIII — EPILOGUE—THE LAST
STAND
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
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.
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.
CHAPTER II — THE YOUNG SOLDIER, 1741-1748
Wolfe's short life may be divided into four periods, all easy to remember,
because all are connected with the same number-seven. He was fourteen
years a boy at home, with one attempt to be a soldier. This period lasted
from 1727 to 1741. Then he was seven years a young officer in time of war,
from 1741 to 1748. Then he served seven years more in time of peace, from
1748 to 1755. Lastly, he died in the middle, at the very climax, of the
world-famous Seven Years' War, in 1759.
After the royal review at Blackheath in the spring of 1742 the army
marched down to Deptford and embarked for Flanders. Wolfe was now off to
the very places he had heard his father tell about again and again. The
surly Flemings were still the same as when his father knew them. They
hated their British allies almost as much as they hated their enemies. The
long column of redcoats marched through a scowling mob of citizens, who
meanly grudged a night's lodging to the very men coming there to fight for
them. We may be sure that Wolfe thought little enough of such mean people
as he stepped out with the colours flying above his head. The army halted
at Ghent, an ancient city, famous for its trade and wealth, and defended
by walls which had once resisted Marlborough.
At first there was a good deal to do and see; and George Warde was there
too, as an officer in a cavalry regiment. But Warde had to march away; and
Wolfe was left without any companion of his own age, to pass his spare
time the best way he could. Like another famous soldier, Frederick the
Great, who first won his fame in this very war, he was fond of music and
took lessons on the flute. He also did his best to improve his French; and
when Warde came back the two friends used to go to the French theatre.
Wolfe put his French to other use as well, and read all the military books
he could find time for. He always kept his kit ready to pack; so that he
could have marched anywhere within two hours of receiving the order. And,
though only a mere boy-officer, he began to learn the duties of an
adjutant, so that he might be fit for promotion whenever the chance should
come.
Months wore on and Wolfe was still at Ghent. He had made friends during
his stay, and he tells his mother in September: 'This place is full of
officers, and we never want company. I go to the play once or twice a
week, and talk a little with the ladies, who are very civil and speak
French.' Before Christmas it had been decided at home—where the
war-worn father now was, after a horrible campaign at Cartagena—that
Edward, the younger son, was also to be allowed to join the Army. Wolfe
was delighted. 'My brother is much to be commended for the pains he takes
to improve himself. I hope to see him soon in Flanders, when, in all
probability, before next year is over, we may know something of our
trade.' And so they did!
The two brothers marched for the Rhine early in 1743, both in the same
regiment. James was now sixteen, Edward fifteen. The march was a terrible
one for such delicate boys. The roads were ankle-deep in mud; the weather
was vile; both food and water were very bad. Even the dauntless Wolfe had
to confess to his mother that he was 'very much fatigued and out of order.
I never come into quarters without aching hips and knees.' Edward, still
more delicate, was sent off on a foraging party to find something for the
regiment to eat. He wrote home to his father from Bonn on April 7: 'We can
get nothing upon our march but eggs and bacon and sour bread. I have no
bedding, nor can get it anywhere. We had a sad march last Monday in the
morning. I was obliged to walk up to my knees in snow, though my brother
and I have a horse between us. I have often lain upon straw, and should
oftener, had I not known some French, which I find very useful; though I
was obliged the other day to speak Latin for a good dinner. We send
for everything we want to the priest.'
That summer, when the king arrived with his son the Duke of Cumberland,
the British and Hanoverian army was reduced to 37,000 half-fed men. Worse
still, the old general, Lord Stair, had led it into a very bad place.
These 37,000 men were cooped up on the narrow side of the valley of the
river Main, while a much larger French army was on the better side,
holding bridges by which to cut them off and attack them while they were
all clumped together. Stair tried to slip away in the night. But the
French, hearing of this attempt, sent 12,000 men across the river to hold
the place the British general was leaving, and 30,000 more, under the Duc
de Gramont, to block the road at the place towards which he was evidently
marching. At daylight the British and Hanoverians found themselves cut
off, both front and rear, while a third French force was waiting to pounce
on whichever end showed weakness first. The King of England, who was also
Elector of Hanover, would be a great prize, and the French were eager to
capture him. This was how the armies faced each other on the morning of
June 27, 1743, at Dettingen, the last battlefield on which any king of
England has fought in person, and the first for Wolfe.
The two young brothers were now about to see a big battle, like those of
which their father used to tell them. Strangely enough, Amherst, the
future commander-in-chief in America, under whom Wolfe served at
Louisbourg, and the two men who succeeded Wolfe in command at Quebec—Monckton
and Townshend—were also there. It is an awful moment for a young
soldier, the one before his first great fight. And here were nearly a
hundred thousand men, all in full view of each other, and all waiting for
the word to begin. It was a beautiful day, and the sun shone down on a
splendidly martial sight. There stood the British and Hanoverians, with
wooded hills on their right, the river and the French on their left, the
French in their rear, and the French very strongly posted on the rising
ground straight in their front. The redcoats were in dense columns, their
bayonets flashing and their colours waving defiance. Side by side with
their own red cavalry were the black German cuirassiers, the blue German
lancers, and the gaily dressed green and scarlet Hungarian hussars. The
long white lines of the three French armies, varied with royal blue,
encircled them on three sides. On the fourth were the leafy green hills.
Wolfe was acting as adjutant and helping the major. His regiment had
neither colonel nor lieutenant-colonel with it that day; so he had plenty
to do, riding up and down to see that all ranks understood the order that
they were not to fire till they were close to the French and were given
the word for a volley. He cast a glance at his brother, standing straight
and proudly with the regimental colours that he himself had carried past
the king at Blackheath the year before. He was not anxious about 'Ned'; he
knew how all the Wolfes could fight. He was not anxious about himself; he
was only too eager for the fray. A first battle tries every man, and few
have not dry lips, tense nerves, and beating hearts at its approach. But
the great anxiety of an officer going into action for the first time with
untried men is for them and not for himself. The agony of wondering
whether they will do well or not is worse, a thousand times, than what he
fears for his own safety.
Presently the French gunners, in the centre of their position across the
Main, lit their matches and, at a given signal, fired a salvo into the
British rear. Most of the baggage wagons were there; and, as the shot and
shell began to knock them over, the drivers were seized with a panic.
Cutting the traces, these men galloped off up the hills and into the woods
as hard as they could go. Now battery after battery began to thunder, and
the fire grew hot all round. The king had been in the rear, as he did not
wish to change the command on the eve of the battle. But, seeing the
panic, he galloped through the whole of his army to show that he was going
to fight beside his men. As he passed, and the men saw what he intended to
do, they cheered and cheered, and took heart so boldly that it was hard
work to keep them from rushing up the heights of Dettingen, where
Gramont's 30,000 Frenchmen were waiting to shoot them down.
Across the river Marshal Noailles, the French commander-in-chief, saw the
sudden stir in the British ranks, heard the roaring hurrahs, and supposed
that his enemies were going to be fairly caught against Gramont in front.
In this event he could finish their defeat himself by an overwhelming
attack in flank. Both his own and Gramont's artillery now redoubled their
fire, till the British could hardly stand it. But then, to the rage and
despair of Noailles, Gramont's men, thinking the day was theirs, suddenly
left their strong position and charged down on to the same level as the
British, who were only too pleased to meet them there. The king, seeing
what a happy turn things were taking, galloped along the front of his
army, waving his sword and calling out, 'Now, boys! Now for the honour of
England!' His horse, maddened by the din, plunged and reared, and would
have run away with him, straight in among the French, if a young officer
called Trapaud had not seized the reins. The king then dismounted and put
himself at the head of his troops, where he remained fighting, sword in
hand, till the battle was over.
Wolfe and his major rode along the line of their regiment for the last
time. There was not a minute to lose. Down came the Royal Musketeers of
France, full gallop, smash through the Scots Fusiliers and into the line
in rear, where most of them were unhorsed and killed. Next, both sides
advanced their cavalry, but without advantage to either. Then, with a
clear front once more, the main bodies of the French and British infantry
rushed together for a fight to a finish. Nearly all of Wolfe's regiment
were new to war and too excited to hold their fire. When they were within
range, and had halted for a moment to steady the ranks, they brought their
muskets down to the 'present.' The French fell flat on their faces and the
bullets whistled harmlessly over them. Then they sprang to their feet and
poured in a steady volley while the British were reloading. But the second
British volley went home. When the two enemies closed on each other with
the bayonet, like the meeting of two stormy seas, the British fought with
such fury that the French ranks were broken. Soon the long white waves
rolled back and the long red waves rolled forward. Dettingen was reached
and the desperate fight was won.
Both the boy-officers wrote home, Edward to his mother; James to his
father. Here is a part of Edward's letter:
My brother and self escaped in the engagement and,
thank God, are as well as ever we were in our lives,
after not only being cannonaded two hours and
three-quarters, and fighting with small arms [muskets
and bayonets] two hours and one-quarter, but lay the
two following nights upon our arms; whilst it rained
for about twenty hours in the same time, yet are ready
and as capable to do the same again. The Duke of
Cumberland behaved charmingly. Our regiment has got
a great deal of honour, for we were in the middle of
the first line, and in the greatest danger. My brother
has wrote to my father and I believe has given him a
small account of the battle, so I hope you will excuse
it me.
A manly and soldier-like letter for a boy of fifteen! Wolfe's own is much
longer and full of touches that show how cool and observant he was, even
in his first battle and at the age of only sixteen. Here is some of it:
The Gens d'Armes, or Mousquetaires Gris, attacked the
first line, composed of nine regiments of English
foot, and four or five of Austrians, and some
Hanoverians. But before they got to the second line,
out of two hundred there were not forty living. These
unhappy men were of the first families in France.
Nothing, I believe, could be more rash than their
undertaking. The third and last attack was made by
the foot on both sides. We advanced towards one another;
our men in high spirits, and very impatient for
fighting, being elated with beating the French Horse,
part of which advanced towards us; while the rest
attacked our Horse, but were soon driven back by the
great fire we gave them. The major and I (for we had
neither colonel nor lieutenant-colonel), before they
came near, were employed in begging and ordering the
men not to fire at too great a distance, but to keep
it till the enemy should come near us; but to little
purpose. The whole fired when they thought they could
reach them, which had like to have ruined us. However,
we soon rallied again, and attacked them with great
fury, which gained us a complete victory, and forced
the enemy to retire in great haste. We got the sad
news of the death of as good and brave a man as any
amongst us, General Clayton. His death gave us all
sorrow, so great was the opinion we had of him. He
had, 'tis said, orders for pursuing the enemy, and if
we had followed them, they would not have repassed
the Main with half their number. Their loss is computed
to be between six and seven thousand men, and ours
three thousand. His Majesty was in the midst of the
fight; and the duke behaved as bravely as a man could
do. I had several times the honour of speaking with
him just as the battle began and was often afraid of
his being dashed to pieces by the cannon-balls. He
gave his orders with a great deal of calmness and
seemed quite unconcerned. The soldiers were in high
delight to have him so near them. I sometimes thought
I had lost poor Ned when I saw arms, legs, and heads
beat off close by him. A horse I rid of the colonel's,
at the first attack, was shot in one of his hinder
legs and threw me; so I was obliged to do the duty of
an adjutant all that and the next day on foot, in a
pair of heavy boots. Three days after the battle I
got the horse again, and he is almost well.
Shortly after Dettingen Wolfe was appointed adjutant and promoted to a
lieutenancy. In the next year he was made a captain in the 4th Foot while
his brother became a lieutenant in the 12th. After this they had very few
chances of meeting; and Edward, who had caught a deadly chill, died alone
in Flanders, not yet seventeen years old. Wolfe wrote home to his mother:
Poor Ned wanted nothing but the satisfaction of seeing
his dearest friends to leave the world with the greatest
tranquillity. It gives me many uneasy hours when I
reflect on the possibility there was of my being with
him before he died. God knows it was not apprehending
the danger the poor fellow was in; and even that would
not have hindered it had I received the physician's
first letter. I know you won't be able to read this
without shedding tears, as I do writing it. Though it
is the custom of the army to sell the deceased's
effects, I could not suffer it. We none of us want,
and I thought the best way would be to bestow them on
the deserving whom he had an esteem for in his lifetime.
To his servant—the most honest and faithful man I
ever knew—I gave all his clothes. I gave his horse
to his friend Parry. I know he loved Parry; and for
that reason the horse will be taken care of. His other
horse I keep myself. I have his watch, sash, gorget,
books, and maps, which I shall preserve to his memory.
He was an honest and good lad, had lived very well,
and always discharged his duty with the cheerfulness
becoming a good officer. He lived and died as a son
of you two should. There was no part of his life that
makes him dearer to me than what you so often
mentioned—he pined after me.
It was this pining to follow Wolfe to the wars that cost poor Ned his
life. But did not Wolfe himself pine to follow his father?
The next year, 1745, the Young Pretender, 'Bonnie Prince Charlie,' raised
the Highland clans on behalf of his father, won several battles, and
invaded England, in the hope of putting the Hanoverian Georges off the
throne of Great Britain and regaining it for the exiled Stuarts. The Duke
of Cumberland was sent to crush him; and with the duke went Wolfe. Prince
Charlie's army retreated and was at last brought to bay on Culloden Moor,
six miles from Inverness. The Highlanders were not in good spirits after
their long retreat before the duke's army, which enjoyed an immense
advantage in having a fleet following it along the coast with plenty of
provisions, while the prince's wretched army was half starved. We may be
sure the lesson was not lost on Wolfe. Nobody understood better than he
that the fleet is the first thing to consider in every British war. And
nobody saw a better example of this than he did afterwards in Canada.
At daybreak on April 16, 1746, the Highlanders found the duke's army
marching towards Inverness, and drew up in order to prevent it. Both
armies halted, each hoping the other would make the mistake of charging.
At last, about one o'clock, the Highlanders in the centre and right could
be held back no longer. So eager were they to get at the redcoats that
most of them threw down their muskets without even firing them, and then
rushed on furiously, sword in hand. ''Twas for a time,' said Wolfe, 'a
dispute between the swords and bayonets, but the latter was found by far
the most destructable [sic] weapon.' No quarter was given or taken on
either side during an hour of desperate fighting hand to hand. By that
time the steady ranks of the redcoats, aided by the cavalry, had killed
five times as many as they had lost by the wild slashing of the claymores.
The Highlanders turned and fled. The Stuart cause was lost for ever.
Again another year of fighting: this time in Holland, where the British,
Dutch, and Austrians under the Duke of Cumberland met the French at the
village of Laffeldt, on June 21, 1747. Wolfe was now a brigade-major,
which gave him the same sort of position in a brigade of three battalions
as an adjutant has in a single one; that is, he was a smart junior officer
picked out to help the brigadier in command by seeing that orders were
obeyed. The fight was furious. As fast as the British infantry drove back
one French brigade another came forward and drove the British back. The
village was taken and lost, lost and taken, over and over again. Wolfe,
though wounded, kept up the fight. At last a new French brigade charged in
and swept the British out altogether. Then the duke ordered the Dutch and
Austrians to advance: But the Dutch cavalry, right in the centre, were
seized with a sudden panic and galloped back, knocking over their own men
on the way, and making a gap that certainly looked fatal. But the right
man was ready to fill it. This was Sir John Ligonier, afterwards
commander-in-chief of the British Army at the time of Wolfe's campaigns in
Canada. He led the few British and Austrian cavalry, among them the famous
Scots Greys, straight into the gap and on against the dense masses of the
French beyond. These gallant horsemen were doomed; and of course they knew
it when they dashed themselves to death against such overwhelming odds.
But they gained the few precious moments that were needed. The gap closed
up behind them; and the army was saved, though they were lost.
During the day Wolfe was several times in great danger. He was thanked by
the duke in person for the splendid way in which he had done his duty. The
royal favour, however, did not make him forget the gallant conduct of his
faithful servant, Roland: 'He came to me at the hazard of his life with
offers of his service, took off my cloak and brought a fresh horse; and
would have continued close by me had I not ordered him to retire. I
believe he was slightly wounded just at that time. Many a time has he
pitched my tent and made the bed ready to receive me, half-dead with
fatigue.' Nor did Wolfe forget his dumb friends: 'I have sold my poor
little gray mare. I lamed her by accident, and thought it better to
dismiss her the service immediately. I grieved at parting with so faithful
a servant, and have the comfort to know she is in good hands, will be very
well fed, and taken care of in her latter days.'
After recovering from a slight wound received at Laffeldt Wolfe was
allowed to return to England, where he remained for the winter. On the
morrow of New Year's Day, 1748, he celebrated his coming of age at his
father's town house in Old Burlington Street, London. In the spring,
however, he was ordered to rejoin the army, and was stationed with the
troops who were guarding the Dutch frontier. The war came to an end in the
same year, and Wolfe went home. Though then only twenty-one, he was
already an experienced soldier, a rising officer, and a marked man.
CHAPTER III — THE SEVEN YEARS' PEACE, 1748-1755
Wolfe was made welcome in England wherever he went. In spite of his youth
his name was well known to the chief men in the Army, and he was already a
hero among the friends of his family. By nature he was fond of the society
of ladies, and of course he fell in love. He had had a few flirtations
before, like most other soldiers; but this time the case was serious. The
difference was the same as between a sham fight and a battle. His choice
fell on Elizabeth Lawson, a maid of honour to the Princess of Wales. The
oftener he saw her the more he fell in love with her. But the course of
true love did not, as we shall presently see, run any more smoothly for
him than it has for many another famous man.
In 1749, when Wolfe was only twenty-two, he was promoted major of the 20th
Regiment of Foot. He joined it in Scotland, where he was to serve for the
next few years. At first he was not very happy in Glasgow. He did not like
the people, as they were very different from the friends with whom he had
grown up. Yet his loneliness only added to his zeal for study. He had left
school when still very young, and he now found himself ignorant of much
that he wished to know. As a man of the world he had found plenty of gaps
in his general knowledge. Writing to his friend Captain Rickson, he says:
'When a man leaves his studies at fifteen, he will never be justly called
a man of letters. I am endeavouring to repair the damages of my education,
and have a person to teach me Latin and mathematics.' From his experience
in his own profession, also, he had learned a good deal. In a letter to
his father he points out what excellent chances soldiers have to see the
vivid side of many things: 'That variety incident to a military life gives
our profession some advantages over those of a more even nature. We have
all our passions and affections aroused and exercised, many of which must
have wanted their proper employment had not suitable occasions obliged us
to exert them. Few men know their own courage till danger proves them, or
how far the love of honour or dread of shame are superior to the love of
life. This is a knowledge to be best acquired in an army; our actions are
there in presence of the world, to be fully censured or approved.'
Great commanders are always keen to learn everything really worth while.
It is only the little men who find it a bore. Of course, there are plenty
of little men in a regiment, as there are everywhere else in the world;
and some of the officers were afraid Wolfe would insist on their doing as
he did. But he never preached. He only set the example, and those who had
the sense could follow it. One of his captains wrote home: 'Our acting
colonel here is a paragon. He neither drinks, curses, nor gambles. So we
make him our pattern.' After a year with him the officers found him a
'jolly good fellow' as well as a pattern; and when he became their
lieutenant-colonel at twenty-three they gave him a dinner that showed he
was a prime favourite among them. He was certainly quite as popular with
the men. Indeed, he soon became known by a name which speaks for itself—'the
soldier's' friend.'
By and by Wolfe's regiment marched into the Highlands, where he had fought
against Prince Charlie in the '45. But he kept in touch with what was
going on in the world outside. He wrote to Rickson at Halifax, to find out
for him all he could about the French and British colonies in America. In
the same letter, written in 1751, he said he should like to see some
Highland soldiers raised for the king's army and sent out there to fight.
Eight years later he was to have a Highland regiment among his own army at
Quebec. Other themes filled the letters to his mother. Perhaps he was
thinking of Miss Lawson when he wrote: 'I have a certain turn of mind that
favours matrimony prodigiously. I love children. Two or three manly sons
are a present to the world, and the father that offers them sees with
satisfaction that he is to live in his successors.' He was thinking more
gravely of a still higher thing when he wrote on his twenty-fifth
birthday, January 2, 1752, to reassure his mother about the strength of
his religion.
Later on in the year, having secured leave of absence, he wrote to his
mother in the best of spirits. He asked her to look after all the little
things he wished to have done. 'Mr Pattison sends a pointer to Blackheath;
if you will order him to be tied up in your stable, it will oblige me
much. If you hear of a servant who can dress a wig it will be a favour
done me to engage him. I have another favour to beg of you and you'll
think it an odd one: 'tis to order some currant jelly to be made in a
crock for my use. It is the custom in Scotland to eat it in the morning
with bread.' Then he proposed to have a shooting-lodge in the Highlands,
long before any other Englishman seems to have thought of what is now so
common. 'You know what a whimsical sort of person I am. Nothing pleases me
now but hunting, shooting, and fishing. I have distant notions of taking a
very little house, remote upon the edge of the forest, merely for sport.'
In July he left the Highlands, which were then, in some ways, as wild as
Labrador is now. About this time there was a map made by a Frenchman in
Paris which gave all the chief places in the Lowlands quite rightly, but
left the north of Scotland blank, with the words 'Unknown land here,
inhabited by the "Iglandaires"!' When his leave began Wolfe went first to
Dublin—'dear, dirty Dublin,' as it used to be called—where his
uncle, Major Walter Wolfe, was living. He wrote to his father: 'The
streets are crowded with people of a large size and well limbed, and the
women very handsome. They have clearer skins, and fairer complexions than
the women in England or Scotland, and are exceeding straight and well
made'; which shows that he had the proper soldier's eye for every pretty
girl. Then he went to London and visited his parents in their new house at
the corner of Greenwich Park, which stands to-day very much the same as it
was then. But, wishing to travel, he succeeded, after a great deal of
trouble, in getting leave to go to Paris. Lord Bury was a friend of his,
and Lord Bury's father, the Earl of Albemarle, was the British ambassador
there. So he had a good chance of seeing the best of everything. Perhaps
it would be almost as true to say that he had as good a chance of seeing
the worst of everything. For there were a great many corrupt and
corrupting men and women at the French court. There was also much misery
in France, and both the corruption and the misery were soon to trouble New
France, as Canada was then called, even more than they troubled Old France
at home.
Wolfe wished to travel about freely, to see the French armies at work, and
then to go on to Prussia to see how Frederick the Great managed his
perfectly disciplined army. This would have been an excellent thing to do.
But it was then a very new thing for an officer to ask leave to study
foreign armies. Moreover, the chief men in the British Army did not like
the idea of letting such a good colonel go away from his regiment for a
year, even though he was going with the object of making himself a still
better officer. Perhaps, too, his friends were just a little afraid that
he might join the Prussians or the Austrians; for it was not, in those
days, a very strange thing to join the army of a friendly foreign country.
Whatever the reason, the long leave was refused and he went no farther
than Paris.
Louis XV was then at the height of his apparent greatness; and France was
a great country, as it is still. But king and government were both
corrupt. Wolfe saw this well enough and remembered it when the next war
broke out. There was a brilliant society in 'the capital of civilization,'
as the people of Paris proudly called their city; and there was a great
deal to see. Nor was all of it bad. He wrote home two days after his
arrival.
The packet [ferry] did not sail that night, but we
embarked at half-an-hour after six in the morning and
got into Calais at ten. I never suffered so much in
so short a time at sea. The people [in Paris] seem to
be very sprightly. The buildings are very magnificent,
far surpassing any we have in London. Mr Selwin has
recommended a French master to me, and in a few days
I begin to ride in the Academy, but must dance and
fence in my own lodgings. Lord Albemarle [the British
ambassador] is come from Fontainebleau. I have very
good reason to be pleased with the reception I met
with. The best amusement for strangers in Paris is
the Opera, and the next is the playhouse. The theatre
is a school to acquire the French language, for which
reason I frequent it more than the other.
In Paris he met young Philip Stanhope, the boy to whom the Earl of
Chesterfield wrote his celebrated letters; 'but,' says Wolfe, 'I fancy he
is infinitely inferior to his father.' Keeping fit, as we call it
nowadays, seems to have been Wolfe's first object. He took the same care
of himself as the Japanese officers did in the Russo-Japanese War; and for
the same reason, that he might be the better able to serve his country
well the next time she needed him. Writing to his mother he says:
I am up every morning at or before seven and fully
employed till twelve. Then I dress and visit, and dine
at two. At five most people go to the public
entertainments, which keep you till nine; and at eleven
I am always in bed. This way of living is directly
opposite to the practice of the place. But no
constitution could go through all. Four or five days
in the week I am up six hours before any other fine
gentleman in Paris. I ride, fence, dance, and have a
master to teach me French. I succeed much better in
fencing and riding than in the art of dancing, for
they suit my genius better; and I improve a little in
French. I have no great acquaintance with the French
women, nor am likely to have. It is almost impossible
to introduce one's self among them without losing a
great deal of money, which you know I can't afford;
besides, these entertainments begin at the time I go
to bed, and I have not health enough to sit up all
night and work all day. The people here use umbrellas
to defend them from the sun, and something of the same
kind to secure them from the rain and snow. I wonder
a practice so useful is not introduced into England.
While in Paris Wolfe was asked if he would care to be military tutor to
the Duke of Richmond, or, if not, whether he knew of any good officer whom
he could recommend. On this he named Guy Carleton, who became the young
duke's tutor. Three men afterwards well known in Canada were thus brought
together long before any of them became celebrated. The Duke of Richmond
went into Wolfe's regiment. The next duke became a governor-general of
Canada, as Guy Carleton had been before him. And Wolfe—well, he was
Wolfe!
One day he was presented to King Louis, from whom, seven years later; he
was to wrest Quebec. 'They were all very gracious as far as courtesies,
bows, and smiles go, for the Bourbons seldom speak to anybody.' Then he
was presented to the clever Marquise de Pompadour, whom he found having
her hair done up in the way which is still known by her name to every
woman in the world. It was the regular custom of that time for great
ladies to receive their friends while the barbers were at work on their
hair. 'She is extremely handsome and, by her conversation with the
ambassador, I judge she must have a great deal of wit and understanding.'
But it was her court intrigues and her shameless waste of money that
helped to ruin France and Canada.
In the midst of all these gaieties Wolfe never forgot the mother whom he
thought 'a match for all the beauties.' He sent her 'two black laced hoods
and a vestale for the neck, such as the Queen of France wears.' Nor
did he forget the much humbler people who looked upon him as 'the
soldier's friend.' He tells his mother that his letters from Scotland have
just arrived, and that 'the women of the regiment take it into their heads
to write to me sometimes.' Here is one of their letters, marked on the
outside, 'The Petition of Anne White':
Collonnell,—Being a True Noble-hearted Pittyful
gentleman and Officer your Worship will excuse these
few Lines concerning ye husband of ye undersigned,
Sergt. White, who not from his own fault is not behaving
as Hee should towards me and his family, although good
and faithfull till the middle of November last.
We may be sure 'Sergt. White' had to behave 'as Hee should' when Wolfe
returned!
In April, to his intense disgust, Wolfe was again in Glasgow.
We are all sick, officers and soldiers. In two days
we lost the skin off our faces with the sun, and the
third were shivering in great coats. My cousin Goldsmith
has sent me the finest young pointer that ever was
seen; he eclipses Workie, and outdoes all. He sent me
a fishing-rod and wheel at the same time, of his own
workmanship. This, with a salmon-rod from my uncle
Wat, your flies, and my own guns, put me in a condition
to undertake the Highland sport. We have plays, we
have concerts, we have balls, with dinners and suppers
of the most execrable food upon earth, and wine that
approaches to poison. The men of Glasgow drink till
they are excessively drunk. The ladies are cold to
everything but a bagpipe—I wrong them—there is not
one that does not melt away at the sound of money.'
By the end of this year, however, he had left Scotland for good. He did
not like the country as he saw it. But the times were greatly against his
doing so. Glasgow was not at all a pleasant place in those narrowly
provincial days for any one who had seen much of the world. The Highlands
were as bad. They were full of angry Jacobites, who could never forgive
the redcoats for defeating Prince Charlie. Yet Wolfe was not against the
Scots as a whole; and we must never forget that he was the first to
recommend the raising of those Highland regiments which have fought so
nobly in every British war since the mighty one in which he fell.
During the next year and part of the year following, 1754-55, Wolfe was at
Exeter, where the entertainments seem to have been more to his taste than
those at Glasgow. A lady who knew him well at this time wrote: 'He was
generally ambitious to gain a tall, graceful woman to be his partner, as
well as a good dancer. He seemed emulous to display every kind of virtue
and gallantry that would render him amiable.'
In 1755 the Seven Years' Peace was coming to an end in Europe. The shadow
of the Seven Years' War was already falling darkly across the prospect in
America. Though Wolfe did not leave for the front till 1757, he was
constantly receiving orders to be ready, first for one place and then for
another. So early as February 18, 1755, he wrote to his mother what he
then thought might be a farewell letter. It is full of the great war; but
personal affairs of the deeper kind were by no means forgotten. 'The
success of our fleet in the beginning of the war is of the utmost
importance.' 'It will be sufficient comfort to you both to reflect that
the Power which has hitherto preserved me may, if it be His pleasure,
continue to do so. If not, it is but a few days more or less, and those
who perish in their duty and the service of their country die honourably.'
The end of this letter is in a lighter vein. But it is no less
characteristic: it is all about his dogs. 'You are to have Flurry instead
of Romp. The two puppies I must desire you to keep a little longer. I
can't part with either of them, but must find good and secure quarters for
them as well as for my friend Caesar, who has great merit and much good
humour. I have given Sancho to Lord Howe, so that I am reduced to two
spaniels and one pointer.' It is strange that in the many books about dogs
which mention the great men who have been fond of them—and most
great men are fond of dogs—not one says a word about Wolfe. Yet 'my
friend Caesar, who has great merit and much good humour,' deserves to be
remembered with his kind master just as much, in his way, as that other
Caesar, the friend of Edward VII, who followed his master to the grave
among the kings and princes of a mourning world.
CHAPTER IV — THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR, 1756-1763
Wolfe's Quebec campaign marked the supreme crisis of the greatest war the
British Empire ever waged: the war, indeed, that made the Empire. To get a
good, clear view of anything so vast, so complex, and so glorious, we must
first look at the whole course of British history to see how it was that
France and England ever became such deadly rivals. It is quite wrong to
suppose that the French and British were always enemies, though they have
often been called 'historic' and 'hereditary' foes, as if they never could
make friends at all. As a matter of fact, they have had many more
centuries of peace than of war; and ever since the battle of Waterloo, in
1815, they have been growing friendlier year by year. But this happy state
of affairs is chiefly because, as we now say, their 'vital interests no
longer clash'; that is, they do not both desire the same thing so keenly
that they have to fight for it.
Their vital interests do not clash now. But they did clash twice in the
course of their history. The first time was when both governments wished
to rule the same parts of the land of France. The second time was when
they both wished to rule the same parts of the oversea world. Each time
there was a long series of wars, which went on inevitably until one side
had completely driven its rival from the field.
The first long series of wars took place chiefly in the fourteenth century
and is known to history as the Hundred Years' War. England held, and was
determined to hold, certain parts of France. France was determined never
to rest till she had won them for herself. Whatever other things the two
nations were supposed to be fighting about, this was always the one cause
of strife that never changed and never could change till one side or other
had definitely triumphed. France won. There were glorious English
victories at Cressy and Agincourt. Edward III and Henry V were two of the
greatest soldiers of any age. But, though the English often won the
battles, the French won the war. The French had many more men, they fought
near their own homes, and, most important of all, the war was waged
chiefly on land. The English had fewer men, they fought far away from
their homes, and their ships could not help them much in the middle of the
land, except by bringing over soldiers and food to the nearest coast. The
end of it all was that the English armies were worn out; and the French
armies, always able to raise more and more fresh men, drove them, step by
step, out of the land completely.
The second long series of wars took place chiefly in the eighteenth
century. These wars have never been given one general name; but they
should be called the Second Hundred Years' War, because that is what they
really were. They were very different from the wars that made up the first
Hundred Years' War, because this time the fight was for oversea dominions,
not for land in Europe. Of course navies had a good deal to do with the
first Hundred Years' War and armies with the second. But the navies were
even more important in the second than the armies in the first. The Second
Hundred Years' War, the one in which Wolfe did such a mighty deed, began
with the fall of the Stuart kings of England in 1688 and went on till the
battle of Waterloo in 1815. But the beginning and end that meant most to
the Empire were the naval battles of La Hogue in 1692 and Trafalgar in
1805. Since Trafalgar the Empire has been able to keep what it had won
before, and to go on growing as well, because all its different parts are
joined together by the sea, and because the British Navy has been, from
that day to this, stronger than any other navy in the world.
How the French and British armies and navies fought on opposite sides,
either alone or with allies, all over the world, from time to time, for
these hundred and twenty-seven years; how all the eight wars with
different names formed one long Second Hundred Years' War; and how the
British Navy was the principal force that won the whole of this war, made
the Empire, and gave Canada safety then, as it gives her safety now—all
this is much too long a story to tell here. But the gist of it may be told
in a very few words, at least in so far as it concerns the winning of
Canada and the deeds of Wolfe.
The name 'Greater Britain' is often used to describe all the parts of the
British Empire which lie outside of the old mother country. This 'Greater
Britain' is now so vast and well established that we are apt to forget
those other empires beyond the seas which, each in its own day, surpassed
the British Empire of the same period. There was a Greater Portugal, a
Greater Spain, a Greater Holland, and a Greater France. France and Holland
still have large oversea possessions; and a whole new-world continent
still speaks the languages of Spain and Portugal. But none of them has
kept a growing empire oversea as their British rival has. What made the
difference? The two things that made all the difference in the world were
freedom and sea-power. We cannot stop to discuss freedom, because that is
more the affair of statesmen; but, at the same time, we must not forget
that the side on which Wolfe fought was the side of freedom. The point for
us to notice here is that all the freedom and all the statesmen and all
the soldiers put together could never have made a Greater Britain,
especially against all those other rivals, unless Wolfe's side had also
been the side of sea-power.
Now, sea-power means more than fighting power at sea; it means trading
power as well. But a nation cannot trade across the sea against its rivals
if its own ships are captured and theirs are not. And long before the
Second Hundred Years' War with France the other sea-trading empires had
been gradually giving way, because in time of war their ships were always
in greater danger than those of the British were. After the English Navy
had defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588 the Spaniards began, slowly but
surely, to lose their chance of making a permanent Greater Spain. After
the great Dutch War, when Blake defeated Van Tromp in 1653, there was no
further chance of a permanent Greater Holland. And, even before the Dutch
War and the Armada, the Portuguese, who had once ruled the Indian Ocean
and who had conquered Brazil, were themselves conquered by Spain and shut
out from all chance of establishing a Greater Portugal.
So the one supreme point to be decided by the Second Hundred Years' War
lay between only two rivals, France and Britain. Was there to be a Greater
France or a Greater Britain across the seas? The answer depended on the
rival navies. Of course, it involved many other elements of national and
Imperial power on both sides. But no other elements of power could have
possibly prevailed against a hostile and triumphant navy.
Everything that went to make a Greater France or a Greater Britain had to
cross the sea—men, women, and children, horses and cattle, all the
various appliances a civilized people must take with them when they settle
in a new country. Every time there was war there were battles at sea, and
these battles were nearly always won by the British. Every British victory
at sea made it harder for French trade, because every ship between France
and Greater France ran more risk o being taken, while every ship between
Britain and Greater Britain stood a better chance of getting safely
through. This affected everything on both competing sides in America.
British business went on. French business almost stopped dead. Even the
trade with the Indians living a thousand miles inland was changed in
favour of the British and against the French, as all the guns and knives
and beads and everything else that the white man offered to the Indian in
exchange for his furs had to come across the sea, which was just like an
enemy's country to every French ship, but just like her own to every
British one. Thus the victors at sea grew continually stronger in America,
while the losers grew correspondingly weaker. When peace came, the French
only had time enough to build new ships and start their trade again before
the next war set them back once more; while the British had nearly all
their old ships, all those they had taken from the French, and many new
ones.
But where did Wolfe come in? He came in at the most important time and
place of all, and he did the most important single deed of all. This
brings us to the consideration of how the whole of the Second Hundred
Years' War was won, not by the British Navy alone, much less by the Army
alone, but by the united service of both, fighting like the two arms of
one body, the Navy being the right arm and the Army the left. The heart of
this whole Second Hundred Years' War was the Seven Years' War; the British
part of the Seven Years' War was then called the 'Maritime War'; and the
heart of the 'Maritime War' was the winning of Canada, in which the
decisive blow was dealt by Wolfe.
We shall see presently how Navy and Army worked together as a united
service in 'joint expeditions' by sea and land, how Wolfe took part in two
other joint expeditions before he commanded the land force of the one at
Quebec, and how the mighty empire-making statesman, William Pitt, won the
day for Britain and for Greater Britain, with Lord Anson at the head of
the Navy to help him, and Saunders in command at the front. It was thus
that the age-long vexed question of a Greater France or a Greater Britain
in America was finally decided by the sword. The conquering sword was that
of the British Empire as a whole. But the hand that wielded it was Pitt;
the hilt was Anson, the blade was Saunders, and the point was Wolfe.
CHAPTER V — LOUISBOURG, 1758
In 1755 Wolfe was already writing what he thought were farewell letters
before going off to the war. And that very year the war, though not
formally declared till the next, actually did break out in America, where
a British army under Braddock, with Washington as his aide-de-camp, was
beaten in Ohio by the French and Indians. Next year the French, owing to
the failure of Admiral Byng and the British fleet to assist the garrison,
were able to capture Minorca in the Mediterranean; while their new general
in Canada, Montcalm, Wolfe's great opponent, took Oswego. The triumph of
the French fleet at Minorca made the British people furious. Byng was
court-martialled, found guilty of failure to do his utmost to save
Minorca, and condemned to death. In spite of Pitt's efforts to save him,
the sentence was carried out and he was shot on the quarter-deck of his
own flagship. Two other admirals, Hawke and Saunders, both of whom were
soon to see service with Wolfe, were then sent out as a 'cargo of courage'
to retrieve the British position at sea. By this time preparations were
being hurried forward on every hand. Fleets were fitting out. Armies were
mustering. And, best of all, Pitt was just beginning to make his influence
felt.
In 1757, the third year of war, things still went badly for the British at
the front. In America Montcalm took Fort William Henry, and a British
fleet and army failed to accomplish anything against Louisbourg. In Europe
another British fleet and army were fitted out to go on another joint
expedition, this time against Rochefort, a great seaport in the west of
France. The senior staff officer, next to the three generals in command,
was Wolfe, now thirty years of age. The admiral in charge of the fleet was
Hawke, as famous a fighter as Wolfe himself. A little later, when both
these great men were known throughout the whole United Service, as well as
among the millions in Britain and in Greater Britain, their names were
coupled in countless punning toasts, and patriots from Canada to Calcutta
would stand up to drink a health to 'the eye of a Hawke and the heart of a
Wolfe.' But Wolfe was not a general yet; and the three pottering old men
who were generals at Rochefort could not make up their minds to do
anything but talk. These generals had been ordered to take Rochefort by
complete surprise. But after spending five days in front of it, so that
every Frenchman could see what they had come for, they decided to
countermand the attack and sail home.
Wolfe was a very angry and disgusted man. Yet, though this joint
expedition was a disgraceful failure, he had learned some useful lessons,
which he was presently to turn to good account. He saw, at least, what
such expeditions should not attempt; and that a general should act boldly,
though wisely, with the fleet. More than this, he had himself made a plan
which his generals were too timid to carry out; and this plan was so good
that Pitt, now in supreme control for the next four years, made a note of
it and marked him down for promotion and command.
Both came sooner than any one could have expected. Pitt was sick of fleets
and armies that did nothing but hold councils of war and then come back to
say that the enemy could not be safely attacked. He made up his mind to
send out real fighters with the next joint expedition. So in 1758 he
appointed Wolfe as the junior of the three brigadier-generals under
Amherst, who was to join Admiral Boscawen—nicknamed 'Old
Dreadnought'—in a great expedition meant to take Louisbourg for good
and all.
Louisbourg was the greatest fortress in America. It was in the extreme
east of Canada, on the island of Cape Breton, near the best
fishing-grounds, and on the flank of the ship channel into the St
Lawrence. A fortress there, in which French fleets could shelter safely,
was like a shield for New France and a sword against New England. In 1745,
just before the outbreak of the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland, an army of
New Englanders under Sir William Pepperrell, with the assistance of
Commodore Warren's fleet, had taken this fortress. But at the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, when Wolfe had just come of age, it was given
back to France.
Ten years later, when Wolfe went out to join the second army that was sent
against it, the situation was extremely critical. Both French and British
strained every nerve, the one to hold, the other to take, the greatest
fortress in America. A French fleet sailed from Brest in the spring and
arrived safely. But it was not nearly strong enough to attempt a sea-fight
off Louisbourg, and three smaller fleets that were meant to join it were
all smashed up off the coast of France by the British, who thus knew,
before beginning the siege, that Louisbourg could hardly expect any help
from outside. Hawke was one of the British smashers this year. The next
year he smashed up a much greater force in Quiberon Bay, and so made 'the
eye of a Hawke and the heart of a Wolfe' work together again, though they
were thousands of miles apart and one directed a fleet while the other
inspired an army.
The fortress of Louisbourg was built beside a fine harbour with an
entrance still further defended by a fortified island. It was garrisoned
by about four thousand four hundred soldiers. Some of these were hired
Germans, who cared nothing for the French; and the French-Canadian and
Indian irregulars were not of much use at a regular siege. The British
admiral Boscawen had a large fleet, and General Amherst an army twelve
thousand strong. Taking everything into account, by land and sea, the
British united service at the siege was quite three times as strong as the
French united service. But the French ships, manned by three thousand
sailors, were in a good harbour, and they and the soldiers were defended
by thick walls with many guns. Besides, the whole defence was conducted by
Drucour, as gallant a leader as ever drew sword.
Boscawen was chosen by Pitt for the same reason as Wolfe had been, because
he was a fighter. He earned his nickname of 'Old Dreadnought' from the
answer he made one night in the English Channel when the officer of the
watch called him to say that two big French ships were bearing down on his
single British one. 'What are we to do, sir?' asked the officer. 'Do?'
shouted Boscawen, springing out of his berth, 'Do?—Why, damn 'em,
fight 'em, of course!' And they did. Amherst was the slow-and-sure kind of
general; but he had the sense to know a good man when he saw one, and to
give Wolfe the chance of trying his own quick-and-sure way instead.
A portion of the British fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Hardy had
been cruising off Louisbourg for some time before Boscawen's squadron hove
in sight on June 2. This squadron was followed by more than twice its own
number of ships carrying the army. All together, there were a hundred and
fifty-seven British vessels, besides Hardy's covering squadron. Of course,
the men could not be landed under the fire of the fortress. But two miles
south of it, and running westward from it for many miles more, was Gabarus
Bay with an open beach. For several days the Atlantic waves dashed against
the shore so furiously that no boat could live through their breakers. But
on the eighth the three brigades of infantry made for three different
points, [Footnote: White Point, Flat Point, and Kennington Cove. See the
accompanying Map of the siege.] respectively two, three, and four miles
from the fortress. The French sent out half the garrison to shoot down the
first boatloads that came in on the rollers. To cover the landing, some of
Boscawen's ships moved in as close as they could and threw shells inshore:
but without dislodging the enemy.
Each of the three brigades had its own flag—one red, another blue,
and the third white. Wolfe's brigade was the red, the one farthest west
from Louisbourg, and Wolfe's did the fighting. While the boats rose and
fell on the gigantic rollers and the enemy's cannon roared and the waves
broke in thunder on the beach, Wolfe was standing up in the stern-sheets,
scanning every inch of the ground to see if there was no place where a few
men could get a footing and keep it till the rest had landed. He had
first-rate soldiers with him: grenadiers, Highlanders, and light infantry.
The boats were now close in, and the French were firing cannon and muskets
into them right and left. One cannon-ball whizzed across Wolfe's own boat
and smashed his flagstaff to splinters. Just then three young light
infantry officers saw a high ledge of rocks, under shelter of which a few
men could form up. Wolfe, directing every movement with his cane, like
Gordon in China a century later, shouted to the others to follow them; and
then, amid the crash of artillery and the wild welter of the surf, though
many boats were smashed and others upset, though some men were shot and
others drowned, the landing was securely made. 'Who were the first
ashore?' asked Wolfe, as the men were forming up under the ledge. Two
Highlanders were pointed out. 'Good fellows!' he said, as he went up to
them and handed each a guinea.
While the ranks were forming on the beach, the French were firing into
them and men were dropping fast. But every gap was closed as soon as it
was made. Directly Wolfe saw he had enough men he sprang to the front;
whereupon they all charged after him, straight at the batteries on the
crest of the rising shore. Here there was some wild work for a minute or
two, with swords, bayonets, and muskets all hard at it. But the French now
saw, to their dismay, that thousands of other redcoats were clambering
ashore, nearer in to Louisbourg, and that these men would cut them off if
they waited a moment longer. So they turned and ran, hotly pursued, till
they were safe in under the guns of the fortress. A deluge of shot and
shell immediately belched forth against the pursuing British, who wisely
halted just out of range.
After this exciting commencement Amherst's guns, shot, shell, powder,
stores, food, tents, and a thousand other things had all to be landed on
the surf-lashed, open beach. It was the sailors' stupendous task to haul
the whole of this cumbrous material up to the camp. The bluejackets,
however, were not the only ones to take part in the work, for the ships'
women also turned to, with the best of a gallant goodwill. In a few days
all the material was landed; and Amherst, having formed his camp, sat down
to conduct the siege.
Louisbourg harbour faces east, runs in westward nearly a mile, and is over
two miles from north to south. The north and south points, however, on
either side of its entrance, are only a mile apart. On the south point
stood the fortress; on the north the lighthouse; and between were several
islands, rocks, and bars that narrowed the entrance for ships to only
three cables, or a little more than six hundred yards. Wolfe saw that the
north point, where the lighthouse stood, was undefended, and might be
seized and used as a British battery to smash up the French batteries on
Goat Island at the harbour mouth. Acting on this idea, he marched with
twelve hundred men across the stretch of country between the British camp
and the lighthouse. The fleet brought round his guns and stores and all
other necessaries by sea. A tremendous bombardment then silenced every
French gun on Goat Island. This left the French nothing for their defence
but the walls of Louisbourg itself.
Both French and British soon realized that the fall of Louisbourg was only
a question of time. But time was everything to both. The British were
anxious to take Louisbourg and then sail up to Quebec and take it by a
sudden attack while Montcalm was engaged in fighting Abercromby's army on
Lake Champlain. The French, of course, were anxious to hold out long
enough to prevent this; and Drucour, their commandant at Louisbourg, was
just the man for their purpose. His wife, too, was as brave as he. She
used to go round the batteries cheering up the gunners, and paying no more
attention to the British shot and shell than if they had been only
fireworks. On June 18, just before Wolfe's lighthouse batteries were ready
to open fire, Madame Drucour set sail in the venturesome Echo, a
little French man-of-war that was making a dash for it, in the hope of
carrying the news to Quebec. But after a gallant fight the Echo had
to haul down her colours to the Juno and the Sutherland. We
shall hear more of the Sutherland at the supreme moment of Wolfe's
career.
Nothing French, not even a single man, could now get into or out of
Louisbourg. But Drucour still kept the flag up, and sent out parties at
night to harass his assailants. One of these surprised a British post,
killed Lord Dundonald who commanded it, and retired safely after being
almost cut off by British reinforcements. Though Wolfe had silenced the
island batteries and left the entrance open enough for Boscawen to sail
in, the admiral hesitated because he thought he might lose too many ships
by risking it. Then the French promptly sank some of their own ships at
the entrance to keep him out. But six hundred British sailors rowed in at
night and boarded and took the only two ships remaining afloat. The others
had been blown up a month before by British shells fired by naval gunners
from Amherst's batteries. Drucour was now in a terrible, plight. Not a
ship was left. He was completely cut off by land and sea. Many of his
garrison were dead, many more were lying sick or wounded. His foreigners
were ready for desertion. His French Canadians had grown down-hearted. All
the non-combatants wished him to surrender at once. What else could he do
but give in? On July 27 he hauled down the fleurs-de-lis from the great
fortress. But he had gained his secondary object; for it was now much too
late in the year for the same British force to begin a new campaign
against Quebec.
Wolfe, like Nelson and Napoleon, was never content to 'let well enough
alone,' if anything better could possibly be done. When the news came of
Montcalm's great victory over Abercromby at Ticonderoga, he told Amherst
he was ready to march inland at once with reinforcements. And after
Louisbourg had surrendered and Boscawen had said it was too late to start
for Quebec, he again volunteered to do any further service that Amherst
required. The service he was sent on was the soldier's most disgusting
duty; but he did it thoroughly, though he would have preferred anything
else. He went with Hardy's squadron to destroy the French settlements
along the Gulf of St Lawrence, so as to cut off their supplies from the
French in Quebec before the next campaign.
After Rochefort Wolfe had become a marked man. After Louisbourg he became
an Imperial hero. The only other the Army had yet produced in this war was
Lord Howe, who had been killed in a skirmish just before Ticonderoga.
Wolfe knew Howe well, admired him exceedingly, and called him 'the noblest
Englishman that has appeared in my time, and the best soldier in the
army.' He would have served under him gladly. But Howe—young,
ardent, gallant, yet profound—was dead; and the hopes of discerning
judges were centred on Wolfe. The war had not been going well, and this
victory at Louisbourg was the first that the British people could really
rejoice over with all their heart.
The British colonies went wild with delight. Halifax had a state ball, at
which Wolfe danced to his heart's content; while his unofficial partners
thought themselves the luckiest girls in all America to be asked by the
hero of Louisbourg. Boston and Philadelphia had large bonfires and many
fireworks. The chief people of New York attended a gala dinner. Every
church had special thanksgivings.
In England the excitement was just as great, and Wolfe's name and fame
flew from lip to lip all over the country. Parliament passed special votes
of thanks. Medals were struck to celebrate the event. The king stood on
his palace steps to receive the captured colours, which were carried
through London in triumph by the Guards and the Household Brigade. And
Pitt, the greatest—and, in a certain sense, the only—British
statesman who has ever managed people, parliament, government, navy, and
army, all together, in a world-wide Imperial war—Pitt, the
eagle-eyed and lion-hearted, at once marked Wolfe down again for higher
promotion and, this time, for the command of an army of his own. And ever
since the Empire Year of 1759 the world has known that Pitt was right.
CHAPTER VI — QUEBEC, 1759
In October 1758 Wolfe sailed from Halifax for England with Boscawen and
very nearly saw a naval battle off Land's End with the French fleet
returning to France from Quebec. The enemy, however, slipped away in the
dark. On November 1 he landed at Portsmouth. He had been made full colonel
of a new regiment, the 67th Foot (Hampshires), and before going home to
London he set off to see it at Salisbury. [Footnote: Ten years later a
Russian general saw this regiment at Minorca and was loud in his praise of
its all-round excellence, when Wolfe's successor in the colonelcy, Sir
James Campbell, at once said: 'The only merit due to me is the strictness
with which I have followed the system introduced by the hero of Quebec.']
Wolfe's old regiment, the 20th (Lancashire Fusiliers), was now in Germany,
fighting under the command of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, and was soon
to win more laurels at Minden, the first of the three great British
victories of 1759—Minden, Quebec, and Quiberon.
Though far from well, Wolfe was as keen as ever about anything that could
possibly make him fit for command. He picked out the best officers with a
sure eye: generals and colonels, like Carleton; captains; like Delaune, a
man made for the campaigns in Canada, who, as we shall see later, led the
'Forlorn Hope' up the Heights of Abraham. Wolfe had also noted in a third
member of the great Howe family a born leader of light infantry for
Quebec. Wolfe was very strong on light infantry, and trained them to make
sudden dashes with a very short but sharp surprise attack followed by a
quick retreat under cover. One day at Louisbourg an officer said this
reminded him of what Xenophon wrote about the Carduchians who harassed the
rear of the world-famous 'Ten Thousand.' 'I had it from Xenophon' was
Wolfe's reply. Like all great commanders, Wolfe knew what other great
commanders had done and thought, no matter to what age or nation they
belonged: Greek, Roman, German, French, British, or any other. Years
before this he had recommended a young officer to study the Prussian Army
Regulations and Vauban's book on Sieges. Nor did he forget to read the
lives of men like Scanderbeg and Ziska, who could teach him many unusual
lessons. He kept his eyes open everywhere, all his life long, on men and
things and books. He recommended his friend. Captain Rickson, who was then
in Halifax, to read Montesquieu's not yet famous book The Spirit of
Laws, because it would be useful for a government official in a new
country. Writing home to his mother from Louisbourg about this new
country, that is, before Canada had become British, before there was much
more than a single million of English-speaking people in the whole New
World, and before most people on either side of the Atlantic understood
what a great oversea empire meant at all, he said: 'This will sometime
hence, be a vast empire, the seat of power and learning. Nature has
refused them nothing, and there will grow a people out of our little spot,
England, that will fill this vast space, and divide this great portion of
the globe with the Spaniards, who are possessed of the other half of it.'
On arriving in England Wolfe had reported his presence to the
commander-in-chief, Lord Ligonier, requesting leave of absence in order
that he might visit his relatives. This was granted, and the Wolfe family
met together once more and for the last time.
Though he said little about it, Wolfe must have snatched some time for
Katherine Lowther, his second love, to whom he was now engaged. What had
happened between him and his first love, Miss Lawson, will probably never
be known. We know that his parents were opposed to his marrying her.
Perhaps, too, she may not have been as much in love as he was. But, for
whatever reason, they parted. Then he fell in love with beautiful
Katherine Lowther, a sister to the Earl of Lonsdale and afterwards Duchess
of Bolton.
Meanwhile Pitt was planning for his Empire Year of 1759, the year of
Ferdinand at Minden, Wolfe at Quebec, and Hawke in Quiberon Bay. Before
Pitt had taken the war in hand nearly everything had gone against the
British. Though Clive had become the British hero of India in 1757, and
Wolfe of Louisbourg in 1758, there had hitherto been more defeats than
victories. Minorca had been lost in 1756; in America Braddock's army had
been destroyed in 1755; and Montcalm had won victories at Oswego in 1756,
at Fort William Henry in 1757, and at Ticonderoga in 1758. More than this,
in 1759 the French were preparing fleets and armies to invade England,
Ireland, and Scotland; and the British people were thinking rather of
their own defence at home than of attacking the French abroad.
Pitt, however, rightly thought that vigorous attacks from the sea were the
best means of defence at home. From London he looked out over the whole
world: at France and her allies in the centre, at French India on his far
left, and at French Canada on his far right; with the sea dividing his
enemies and uniting his friends, if only he could hold its highways with
the British Navy.
To carry out his plans Pitt sent a small army and a great deal of money to
Frederick the Great, to help him in the middle of Europe against the
Russians, Austrians, and French. At the same time he let Anson station
fleets round the coast of France, so that no strong French force could get
at Britain or Greater Britain, or go to help Greater France, without a
fight at sea. Then, having cut off Canada from France and taken her
outpost at Louisbourg, he aimed a death-blow at her very heart by sending
Saunders, with a quarter of the whole British Navy, against Quebec, the
stronghold of New France, where the land attack was to be made by a little
army of 9,000 men under Wolfe. Even this was not the whole of Pitt's plan
for the conquest of Canada. A smaller army was to be sent against the
French on the Great Lakes, and a larger one, under Amherst, along the line
of Lake Champlain, towards Montreal.
Pitt did a very bold thing when he took a young colonel and asked the king
to make him a general and allow him to choose his own brigadiers and staff
officers. It was a bold thing, because, whenever there is a position of
honour to be given, the older men do not like being passed over and all
the politicians who think of themselves first and their country afterwards
wish to put in their own favourites. Wolfe, of course, had enemies.
Dullards often think that men of genius are crazy, and some one had told
the king that Wolfe was mad. 'Mad, is he?' said the king, remembering all
the recent British defeats on land 'then I hope he'll bite some of my
other generals!' Wolfe was not able to give any of his seniors his own and
Lord Howe's kind of divine 'madness' during that war. But he did give a
touch of it to many of his juniors; with the result that his Quebec army
was better officered than any other British land force of the time.
The three brigadiers next in command to Wolfe—Monckton, Townshend,
and Murray—were not chosen simply because they were all sons of
peers, but because, like Howe and Boscawen, they were first-rate officers
as well. Barre and Carleton were the two chief men on the staff. Each
became celebrated in later days, Barre in parliament, and Carleton as both
the saviour of Canada from the American attack in 1775 and the first
British governor-general. Williamson, the best gunnery expert in the whole
Army, commanded the artillery. The only troublesome officer was Townshend,
who thought himself, and whose family and political friends thought him,
at least as good a general as Wolfe, if not a better one. But even
Townshend did his duty well. The army at Halifax was supposed to be twelve
thousand, but its real strength was only nine thousand. The difference was
mostly due to the ravages of scurvy and camp fever, both of which, in
their turn, were due to the bad food supplied by rascally contractors. The
action of the officers alone saved the situation from becoming desperate.
Indeed, if it had not been for what the officers did for their men in the
way of buying better food, at great cost, out of their own not well-filled
pockets, there might have been no army at all to greet Wolfe on his
arrival in America.
The fleet was the greatest that had ever sailed across the seas. It
included one-quarter of the whole Royal Navy. There were 49 men-of-war
manned by 14,000 sailors and marines. There were also more than 200
vessels—transports, store ships, provision ships, etc.—manned
by about 7,000 merchant seamen. Thus there were at least twice as many
sailors as soldiers at the taking of Quebec. Saunders was a most capable
admiral. He had been flag-lieutenant during Anson's famous voyage round
the world; then Hawke's best fighting captain during the war in which
Wolfe was learning his work at Dettingen and Laffeldt; and then Hawke's
second-in-command of the 'cargo of courage' sent out after Byng's disgrace
at Minorca. After Quebec he crowned his fine career by being one of the
best first lords of the Admiralty that ever ruled the Navy. Durell, his
next in command, was slower than Amherst; and Amherst never made a short
cut in his life, even to certain success. Holmes, the third admiral, was
thoroughly efficient. Hood, a still better admiral than any of those at
Quebec, afterwards served under Holmes, and Nelson under Hood; which links
Trafalgar with Quebec. But a still closer link with 'mighty Nelson' was
Jervis, who took charge of Wolfe's personal belongings at Quebec the night
before the battle and many years later became Nelson's commander-in-chief.
Another Quebec captain who afterwards became a great admiral was Hughes,
famous for his fights in India. But the man whose subsequent fame in the
world at large eclipsed that of any other in this fleet was Captain Cook,
who made the first good charts of Canadian waters some years before he
became a great explorer in the far Pacific.
There was a busy scene at Portsmouth on February 17, when Saunders and
Wolfe sailed in the flagship H.M.S. Neptune, of 90 guns and a crew of 750
men. She was one of the well-known old 'three-deckers,' those 'wooden
walls of England' that kept the Empire safe while it was growing up. The
guard of red-coated marines presented arms, and the hundreds of
bluejackets were all in their places as the two commanders stepped on
board. The naval officers on the quarter-deck were very spick and span in
their black three-cornered hats, white wigs, long, bright blue, gold-laced
coats, white waistcoats and breeches and stockings, and gold-buckled
shoes. The idea of having naval uniforms of blue and white and gold—the
same colours that are worn to-day—came from the king's seeing the
pretty Duchess of Bedford in a blue-and-white riding-habit, which so
charmed him that he swore he would make the officers wear the same colours
for the uniforms just then being newly tried. This was when the Duke of
Bedford was first lord of the Admiralty, some years before Pitt's great
expedition against Quebec.
The sailors were also in blue and white; but they were not so spick and
span as the officers. They were a very rough-and-ready-looking lot. They
wore small, soft, three-cornered black hats, bright blue jackets, open
enough to show their coarse white shirts, and coarse white duck trousers.
They had shoes without stockings on shore, and only bare feet on board.
They carried cutlasses and pistols, and wore their hair in pigtails. They
would be a surprising sight to modern eyes. But not so much so as the
women! Ships and regiments in those days always had a certain number of
women for washing and mending the clothes. There was one woman to about
every twenty men. They drew pay and were under regular orders just like
the soldiers and sailors. Sometimes they gave a willing hand in action,
helping the 'powder-monkeys'—boys who had to pass the powder from
the barrels to the gunners—or even taking part in a siege, as at
Louisbourg.
The voyage to Halifax was long, rough, and cold, and Wolfe was sea-sick as
ever. Strangely enough, these ships coming out to the conquest of Canada
under St George's cross made land on St George's Day near the place where
Cabot had raised St George's cross over Canadian soil before Columbus had
set foot on the mainland of America. But though April 23 might be a day of
good omen, it was a very bleak one that year off Cape Breton, where ice
was packed for miles and miles along the coast. On the 30th the fleet
entered Halifax. Slow old Durell was hurried off on May 5 with eight
men-of-war and seven hundred soldiers under Carleton to try to stop any
French ships from getting up to Quebec. Carleton was to go ashore at
Isle-aux-Coudres, an island commanding the channel sixty miles below
Quebec, and mark out a passage for the fleet through the 'Traverse' at the
lower end of the island of Orleans, thirty miles higher up.
On the 13th Saunders sailed for Louisbourg, where the whole expedition was
to meet and get ready. Here Wolfe spent the rest of Map, working every day
and all day. His army, with the exception of nine hundred American
rangers, consisted of seasoned British regulars, with all the weaklings
left behind; and it did his heart good to see them on parade. There was
the 15th, whose officers still wear a line of black braid on their
uniforms in mourning for his death. The 15th and five other regiments—the
28th, 43rd, 47th, 48th, and 58th—were English. But the 35th had been
forty years in Ireland, and was Irish to a man. The whole seven regiments
were dressed very much alike: three-cornered, stiff black hats with black
cockades, white wigs, long-tailed red coats turned back with blue or white
in front, where they were fastened only at the neck, white breeches, and
long white gaiters coming over the knee. A very different corps was the
78th, or 'Fraser's,' Highlanders, one of the regiments Wolfe first
recommended and Pitt first raised. Only fourteen years before the Quebec
campaign these same Highlanders had joined Prince Charlie, the Young
Pretender, in the famous ''45.' They were mostly Roman Catholics, which
accounts for the way they intermarried with the French Canadians after the
conquest. They had been fighting for the Stuarts against King George, and
Wolfe, as we have seen, had himself fought against them at Culloden. Yet
here they were now, under Wolfe, serving King George. They knew that the
Stuart cause was lost for ever; and all of them, chiefs and followers
alike, loved the noble profession of arms. The Highlanders then wore
'bonnets' like a high tam-o'-shanter, with one white curly feather on the
left side. Their red coats were faced with yellow, and they wore the
Fraser plaid hung from the shoulders and caught up, loopwise, on both
hips. Their kilts were very short and not pleated. Badger sporrans,
showing the head in the middle, red-and-white-diced hose, and buckled
brogues completed their wild but martial dress, which was well set off by
the dirks and claymores that swung to the stride of the mountaineer.
Each regiment had one company of grenadiers, picked out for their size,
strength, and steadiness, and one company of light infantry, picked out
for their quickness and good marksmanship. Sometimes all the grenadier
companies would be put together in a separate battalion. The same thing
was often done with the light infantry companies, which were then led by
Colonel Howe. Wolfe had also made up a small three-company battalion of
picked grenadiers from the five regiments that were being left behind at
Louisbourg to guard the Maritime Provinces. This little battalion became
famous at Quebec as the 'Louisbourg Grenadiers.' The grenadiers all wore
red and white, like the rest, except that their coats were buttoned up the
whole way, and instead of the three-cornered hats they wore high ones like
a bishop's mitre. The artillery wore blue-grey coats turned back with red,
yellow braid, and half-moon-shaped black hats, with the points down
towards their shoulders.
The only remaining regiment is of much greater interest in connection with
a Canadian campaign. It was the 60th Foot, then called the Royal
Americans, afterwards the Sixtieth Rifles or 'Old Sixtieth,' and now the
King's Royal Rifle Corps. It was the first regiment of regulars ever
raised in Greater Britain, and the first to introduce the rifle-green
uniform now known all over the Empire, especially in Canada, where all
rifle regiments still follow 'the 60th's' lead so far as that is possible.
Many of its officers and men who returned from the conquest of Canada to
their homes in the British colonies were destined to move on to Canada
with their families as United Empire Loyalists. This was their first war;
and they did so well in it that Wolfe gave them the rifleman's motto they
still bear in token of their smartness and dash—Celer et Audax.
Unfortunately they did not then wear the famous 'rifle green' but the
ordinary red. Unfortunately, too, the rifleman's green has no connection
with the 'green jackets of American backwoodsmen in the middle of the
eighteenth century.' The backwoodsmen were not dressed in green as a rule,
and they never formed any considerable part of the regiment at any time.
The first green uniform came in with the new 5th battalion in 1797; and
the old 2nd and 3rd battalions, which fought under Wolfe, did not adopt it
till 1815. It was not even of British origin, but an imitation of a German
hussar uniform which was itself an imitation of one worn by the
Hungarians, who have the senior hussars of the world. But though Wolfe's
Royal Americans did not wear the rifle green, and though their coats and
waistcoats were of common red, their uniforms differed from those of all
other regiments at Quebec in several particulars. The most remarkable
difference was the absence of lace, an absence specially authorized only
for this corps, and then only in view of special service and many bush
fights in America. The double-breasted coats were made to button across,
except at the top, where the lapels turned back, like the cuffs and
coat-tails. All these 'turnbacks' and the breeches were blue. The very
long gaiters, the waist and cross belts, the neckerchief and hat piping
were white. Wearing this distinctively plain uniform, and led by their
buglers and drummers in scarlet and gold, like state trumpeters, the Royal
Americans could not, even at a distance, be mistaken for any other
regiment.
On June 6 Saunders and Wolfe sailed for Quebec with a hundred and
forty-one ships. Wolfe's work in getting his army safely off being over,
he sat down alone in his cabin to make his will. His first thought was for
Katherine Lowther, his fiancee, who was to have her own miniature
portrait, which he carried with him, set in jewels and given back to her.
Warde, Howe, and Carleton were each remembered. He left all the residue of
his estate to 'my good mother,' his father having just died. More than a
third of the whole will was taken up with providing for his servants. No
wonder he was called 'the soldier's friend.'
There was a thrilling scene at Louisbourg as regiment after regiment
marched down to the shore, with drums beating, bugles sounding, and
colours flying. Each night, after drinking the king's health, they had
drunk another toast—'British colours on every French fort, port, and
garrison in North America.' Now here they were, the pick of the Army and
Navy, off with Wolfe to raise those colours over Quebec, the most
important military point on the whole continent. On they sailed, all
together, till they reached the Saguenay, a hundred and twenty miles below
Quebec. Here, on the afternoon of June 20, the sun shone down on a sight
such as the New World had never seen before, and has never seen again. The
river narrows opposite the Saguenay and is full of shoals and islands; so
this was the last day the whole one hundred and forty-one vessels sailed
together, in their three divisions, under those three ensigns—'The
Red, White, and Blue'—which have made the British Navy loved,
feared, and famous round the seven seas. What a sight it was! Thousands
and thousands of soldiers and sailors crowded those scores and scores of
high-decked ships; while hundreds and hundreds of swelling sails gleamed
white against the sun, across the twenty miles of blue St Lawrence.
Wolfe, however, was not there to see it. He had gone forward the day
before. A dispatch-boat had come down from Durell to say that, in spite of
his advanced squadron, Bougainville, Montcalm's ablest brigadier, had
slipped through with twenty-three ships from France, bringing out a few
men and a good deal of ammunition, stores, and food. This gave Quebec some
sorely needed help. Besides, Montcalm had found out Pitt's plan; and
nobody knew where the only free French fleet was now. It had wintered in
the West Indies. But had it sailed for France or the St Lawrence? At the
first streak of dawn on the 23rd Durell's look-out off Isle-aux-Coudres
reported many ships coming up the river under a press of sail. Could the
French West Indian fleet have slipped in ahead of Saunders, as
Bougainville had slipped in ahead of Durell himself? There was a tense
moment on board of Durell's squadron and in Carleton's camp, in the pale,
grey light of early morning, as the bugles sounded, the boatswains blew
their whistles and roared their orders, and all hands came tumbling up
from below and ran to battle quarters with a rush of swift bare feet. But
the incoming vanship made the private British signal, and both sides knew
that all was well.
For a whole week the great fleet of one hundred and forty-one ships worked
their way through the narrow channel between Isle-aux-Coudres and the
north shore, and then dared the dangers of the Traverse, below the island
of Orleans, where the French had never passed more than one ship at a
time, and that only with the greatest caution. The British went through
quite easily, without a single accident. In two days the great Captain
Cook had sounded and marked out the channel better than the French had in
a hundred and fifty years; and so thoroughly was his work done that the
British officers could handle their vessels in these French waters better
without than with the French pilots. Old Captain Killick took the Goodwill
through himself, just next ahead of the Richmond, on board of which
was Wolfe. The captured French pilot in the Goodwill was sure she
would be lost if she did not go slow and take more care. But Killick
laughed at him and said: 'Damn me, but I'll convince you an Englishman can
go where a Frenchman daren't show his nose!' And he did.
On June 26 Wolfe arrived at the west end of the island of Orleans, in full
view of Quebec. The twenty days' voyage from Louisbourg had ended and the
twelve weeks' siege had begun. At this point we must take the map and
never put it aside till the final battle is over. A whole book could not
possibly make Wolfe's work plain to any one without the map. But with the
map we can easily follow every move in this, the greatest crisis in both
Wolfe's career and Canada's history.
What Wolfe saw and found out was enough to daunt any general. He had a
very good army, but it was small. He could count upon the help of a mighty
fleet, but even British fleets cannot climb hills or make an enemy come
down and fight. Montcalm, however, was weakened by many things. The
governor, Vaudreuil, was a vain, fussy, and spiteful fool, with power
enough to thwart Montcalm at every turn. The intendant, Bigot, was the
greatest knave ever seen in Canada, and the head of a gang of official
thieves who robbed the country and the wretched French Canadians right and
left. The French army, all together, numbered nearly seventeen thousand,
almost twice Wolfe's own; but the bulk of it was militia, half starved and
badly armed. Both Vaudreuil and Bigot could and did interfere disastrously
with the five different forces that should have been made into one army
under Montcalm alone—the French regulars, the Canadian regulars, the
Canadian militia, the French sailors ashore, and the Indians. Montcalm had
one great advantage over Wolfe. He was not expected to fight or manoeuvre
in the open field. His duty was not to drive Wolfe away, or even to keep
Amherst out of Canada. All he had to do was to hold Quebec throughout the
summer. The autumn would force the British fleet to leave for ice-free
waters. Then, if Quebec could only be held, a change in the fortunes of
war, or a treaty of peace, might still keep Canada in French hands. Wolfe
had either to tempt Montcalm out of Quebec or get into it himself; and he
soon realized that he would have to do this with the help of Saunders
alone; for Amherst in the south was crawling forward towards Montreal so
slowly that no aid from him could be expected.
Montcalm's position certainly looked secure for the summer. His left flank
was guarded by the Montmorency, a swift river that could be forded only by
a few men at a time in a narrow place, some miles up, where the dense bush
would give every chance to his Indians and Canadians. His centre was
guarded by entrenchments running from the Montmorency to the St Charles,
six miles of ground, rising higher and higher towards Montmorency, all of
it defended by the best troops and the bulk of the army, and none of it
having an inch of cover for an enemy in front. The mouth of the St Charles
was blocked by booms and batteries. Quebec is a natural fortress; and
above Quebec the high, steep cliffs stretched for miles and miles. These
cliffs could be climbed by a few men in several places; but nowhere by a
whole army, if any defenders were there in force; and the British fleet
could not land an army without being seen soon enough to draw plenty of
defenders to the same spot. Forty miles above Quebec the St Lawrence
channel narrows to only a quarter of a mile, and the down current becomes
very swift indeed. Above this channel was the small French fleet, which
could stop a much larger one trying to get up, or could even block most of
the fairway by sinking some of its own ships. Besides all these defences
of man and nature the French had floating batteries along the north shore.
They also held the Levis Heights on the south shore, opposite Quebec, so
that ships crowded with helpless infantry could not, without terrible
risk, run through the intervening narrows, barely a thousand yards wide.
A gale blowing down-stream was the first trouble for the British fleet.
Many of the transports broke loose and a good deal of damage was done to
small vessels and boats. Next night a greater danger threatened, when the
ebb-tide, running five miles an hour, brought down seven French fireships,
which suddenly burst into flame as they rounded the Point of Levy. There
was a display of devil's fireworks such as few men have ever seen or could
imagine. Sizzling, crackling, and roaring, the blinding flames leaped into
the jet-black sky, lighting up the camps of both armies, where thousands
of soldiers watched these engines of death sweep down on the fleet. Each
of the seven ships was full of mines, blowing up and hurling shot and
shell in all directions. The crowded mass of British vessels seemed doomed
to destruction. But the first spurt of fire had hardly been noticed before
the men in the guard boats began to row to the rescue. Swinging the
grappling-hooks round at arm's length, as if they were heaving the lead,
the bluejackets made the fireships fast, the officers shouted, 'Give way!'
and presently the whole infernal flotilla was safely stranded. But it was
a close thing and very hot work, as one of the happy-go-lucky Jack tars
said with more force than grace, when he called out to the boat beside
him: 'Hullo, mate! Did you ever take hell in tow before?'
Vaudreuil now made Montcalm, who was under his orders, withdraw the men
from the Levis Heights, and thus abandon the whole of the south shore in
front of Quebec. Wolfe, delighted, at once occupied the same place, with
half his army and most of his guns. Then he seized the far side of the
Montmorency and made his main camp there, without, however, removing his
hospitals and stores from his camp on the island of Orleans. So he now had
three camps, not divided, but joined together, by the St Lawrence, where
the fleet could move about between them in spite of anything the French
could do. He then marched up the Montmorency to the fords, to try the
French strength there, and to find out if he could cross the river, march
down the open ground behind Montcalm, and attack him from the rear. But he
was repulsed at the first attempt, and saw that he could do no better at a
second. Meanwhile his Levis batteries began a bombardment which lasted two
months and reduced Quebec to ruins.
Yet he seemed as far off as ever from capturing the city. Battering down
the houses of Quebec brought him no nearer to his object, while Montcalm's
main body still stood securely in its entrenchments down at Beauport.
Wolfe now felt he must try something decisive, even if desperate; and he
planned an attack by land and water on the French left. Both French and
British were hard at work on July 31. In the morning Wolfe sent one
regiment marching up the Montmorency, as if to try the fords again, and
another, also in full view of the French, up along the St Lawrence from
the Levis batteries, as if it was to be taken over by the ships to the
north shore above Quebec. Meanwhile Monckton's brigade was starting from
the Point of Levy in row-boats, the Centurion was sailing down to
the mouth of the Montmorency, two armed transports were being purposely
run ashore on the beach at the top of the tide, and the Pembroke,
Trent, Lowestoff, and Racehorse were taking up
positions to cover the boats. The men-of-war and Wolfe's batteries at
Montmorency then opened fire on the point he wished to attack; and both of
them kept it up for eight hours, from ten till six. All this time the
Levis batteries were doing their utmost against Quebec. But Montcalm was
not to be deceived. He saw that Wolfe intended to storm the entrenchments
at the point at which the cannon were firing, and he kept the best of his
army ready to defend it.
Wolfe and the Louisbourg Grenadiers were in the two armed transports when
they grounded at ten o'clock. To his disgust and to Captain Cook's
surprise both vessels stuck fast in the mud nearly half a mile from shore.
This made the grenadiers' muskets useless against the advanced French
redoubt, which stood at high-water mark, and which overmatched the
transports, because both of these had grounded in such a way that they
could not bring their guns to bear in reply. The stranded vessels soon
became a death-trap. Wolfe's cane was knocked out of his hand by a cannon
ball. Shells were bursting over the deck, smashing the masts to pieces and
sending splinters of wood and iron flying about among the helpless
grenadiers and gunners. There was nothing to do but order the men back to
the boats and wait. The tide was not low till four. The weather was
scorchingly hot. A thunderstorm was brewing. The redoubt could not be
taken. The transports were a failure. And every move had to be made in
full view of the watchful Montcalm, whose entrenchments at this point were
on the top of a grassy hill nearly two hundred feet above the muddy beach.
But Wolfe still thought he might succeed with the main attack at low tide,
although he had not been able to prepare it at high tide. His Montmorency
batteries seemed to be pitching their shells very thickly into the French,
and his three brigades of infantry were all ready to act together at the
right time. Accordingly, for the hottest hours of that scorching day,
Monckton's men grilled in the boats while Townshend's and Murray's waited
in camp. At four the tide was low and Wolfe ordered the landing to begin.
The tidal flats ran out much farther than any one had supposed. The
heavily laden boats stuck on an outer ledge and had to be cleared, shoved
off, refilled with soldiers, and brought round to another place. It was
now nearly six o'clock; and both sides were eager for the fray.
Townshend's and Murray's brigades had forded the mouth of the Montmorency
and were marching along to support the attack, when, suddenly and
unexpectedly, the grenadiers spoiled it all! Wolfe had ordered the
Louisbourg Grenadiers and the ten other grenadier companies of the army to
form up and rush the redoubt. But, what with the cheering of the sailors
as they landed the rest of Monckton's men, and their own eagerness to come
to close quarters at once, the Louisbourg men suddenly lost their heads
and charged before everything was ready. The rest followed them pell-mell;
and in less than five minutes the redoubt was swarming with excited
grenadiers, while the French who had held it were clambering up the grassy
hill into the safer entrenchments.
The redoubt was certainly no place to stay in. It had no shelter towards
its rear; and dozens of French cannon and thousands of French muskets were
firing into it from the heights. An immediate retirement was the only
proper course. But there was no holding the men now. They broke into
another mad charge, straight at the hill. As they reached it, amid a storm
of musket balls and grape-shot, the heavens joined in with a terrific
storm of their own. The rain burst in a perfect deluge; and the hill
became almost impossible to climb, even if there had been no enemy pouring
death-showers of fire from the top. When Wolfe saw what was happening he
immediately sent officers running after the grenadiers to make them come
back from the redoubt, and these officers now passed the word to retire at
once. This time the grenadiers, all that were left of them, obeyed. Their
two mad rushes had not lasted a quarter of an hour. Yet nearly half of the
thousand men they started with were lying dead or wounded on that fatal
ground.
Wolfe now saw that he was hopelessly beaten and that there was not a
minute to lose in getting away. The boats could take only Monckton's men;
and the rising tide would soon cut off Townshend's and Murray's from their
camp beyond the mouth of the Montmorency. The two stranded transports,
from which he had hoped so much that morning, were set on fire; and, under
cover of their smoke and of the curtain of torrential rain, Monckton's
crestfallen men got into their boats once more. Townshend's and Murray's
brigades, enraged at not being brought into action, turned to march back
by the way they had come so eagerly only an hour before. They moved off in
perfect order; but, as they left the battlefield, they waved their hats in
defiance at the jeering Frenchmen, challenging them to come down and fight
it out with bayonets hand to hand.
Many gallant deeds were done that afternoon; but none more gallant than
those of Captain Ochterloney and Lieutenant Peyton, both grenadier
officers in the Royal Americans. Ochterloney had just been wounded in a
duel; but he said his country's honour came before his own, and, sick and
wounded as he was, he spent those panting hours in the boats without a
murmur and did all he could to form his men up under fire. In the second
charge he fell, shot through the lungs, with Peyton beside him, shot
through the leg. When Wolfe called the grenadiers back a rescue party
wanted to carry off both officers, to save them from the scalping-knife.
But Ochterloney said he would never leave the field after such a defeat;
and Peyton said he would never leave his captain. Presently a Canadian
regular came up with two Indians, grabbed Ochterloney's watch, sword and
money, and left the Indians to finish him. One of these savages clubbed
him with a musket, while the other shot him in the chest and dashed in
with a scalping-knife. In the meantime, Peyton crawled on his hands and
knees to a double-barrelled musket and shot one Indian dead, but missed
the other. This savage now left Ochterloney, picked up a bayonet and
rushed at Peyton, who drew his dagger. A terrible life-and-death fight
followed; but Peyton at last got a good point well driven home, straight
through the Indian's heart. A whole scalping party now appeared.
Ochterloney was apparently dead, and Peyton was too exhausted to fight any
more. But, at this very moment, another British party came back for the
rest of the wounded and carried Peyton off to the boats.
Then the Indians came back to scalp Ochterloney. By this time, however,
some French regulars had come down, and one of them, finding Ochterloney
still alive, drove off the Indians at the point of the bayonet, secured
help, and carried him up the hill. Montcalm had him carefully taken into
the General Hospital, where he was tenderly nursed by the nuns. Two days
after he had been rescued, a French officer came out for his clothes and
other effects. Wolfe then sent in twenty guineas for his rescuer, with a
promise that, in return for the kindness shown to Ochterloney, the General
Hospital would be specially protected if the British took Quebec. Towards
the end of August Ochterloney died; and both sides ceased firing while a
French captain came out to report his death and return his effects.
This was by no means the only time the two enemies treated each other like
friends. A party of French ladies were among the prisoners brought in to
Wolfe one day; and they certainly had no cause to complain of him. He gave
them a dinner, at which he charmed them all by telling them about his
visit to Paris. The next morning he sent them into Quebec with his
aide-de-camp under a flag of truce. Another time the French officers sent
him a kind of wine which was not to be had in the British camp, and he
sent them some not to be had in their own.
But the stern work of war went on and on, though the weary month of August
did not seem to bring victory any closer than disastrous July. Wolfe knew
that September was to be the end of the campaign, the now-or-never of his
whole career. And, knowing this, he set to work—head and heart and
soul—on making the plan that brought him victory, death, and
everlasting fame.
CHAPTER VII — THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM, September 13, 1759
On August 19 an aide-de-camp came out of the farmhouse at Montmorency
which served as the headquarters of the British army to say that Wolfe was
too ill to rise from his bed. The bad news spread like wildfire through
the camp and fleet, and soon became known among the French. A week passed;
but Wolfe was no better. Tossing about on his bed in a fever, he thought
bitterly of his double defeat, of the critical month of September, of the
grim strength of Quebec, formed by nature for a stronghold, and then—worse
still—of his own weak body, which made him most helpless just when
he should have been most fit for his duty.
Feeling that he could no longer lead in person, he dictated a letter to
the brigadiers, sent them the secret instructions he had received from
Pitt and the king, and asked them to think over his three new plans for
attacking Montcalm at Beauport. They wrote back to say they thought the
defeats at the upper fords of the Montmorency and at the heights facing
the St Lawrence showed that the French could not be beaten by attacking
the Beauport lines again, no matter from what side the attack was made.
They then gave him a plan of their own, which was, to convey the army up
the St Lawrence and fight their way ashore somewhere between Cap Rouge,
nine miles above Quebec, and Pointe-aux-Trembles, twenty-two miles above.
They argued that, by making a landing there, the British could cut off
Montcalm's communications with Three Rivers and Montreal, from which his
army drew its supplies. Wolfe's letter was dictated from his bed of
sickness on the 26th. The brigadiers answered him on the 29th. Saunders
talked it all over with him on the 31st. Before this the fate of Canada
had been an affair of weeks. Now it was a matter of days; for the morrow
would dawn on the very last possible month of the siege—September.
After his talk with Saunders Wolfe wrote his last letter home to his
mother, telling her of his desperate plight:
The enemy puts nothing to risk, and I can't in conscience
put the whole army to risk. My antagonist has wisely
shut himself up in inaccessible entrenchments, so that
I can't get at him without spilling a torrent of blood,
and that perhaps to little purpose. The Marquis de
Montcalm is at the head of a great number of bad
soldiers and I am at the head of a small number of
good ones, that wish for nothing so much as to fight
him; but the wary old fellow avoids an action, doubtful
of the behaviour of his army. People must be of the
profession to understand the disadvantages and
difficulties we labour under, arising from the uncommon
natural strength of the country.
On September 2 he wrote his last letter to Pitt. He had asked the doctors
to 'patch him up,' saying that if they could make him fit for duty for
only the next few days they need not trouble about what might happen to
him afterwards. Their 'patching up' certainly cleared his fevered brain,
for this letter was a masterly account of the whole siege and the plans
just laid to bring it to an end. The style was so good, indeed, that
Charles Townshend said his brother George must have been the real author,
and that Wolfe, whom he dubbed 'a fiery-headed fellow, only fit for
fighting,' could not have done any more than sign his name. But when
George Townshend's own official letter about the battle in which Wolfe
fell was also published, and was found to be much less effective than
Wolfe's, Selwyn went up to Charles Townshend and said: 'Look here,
Charles, if your brother wrote Wolfe's letter, who the devil wrote your
brother's?'
Wolfe did not try to hide anything from Pitt. He told him plainly about
the two defeats and the terrible difficulties in the way of winning any
victory. The whole letter is too long for quotation, and odd scraps from
it give no idea of Wolfe's lucid style. But here are a few which tell the
gist of the story:
I found myself so ill, and am still so weak, that I
begged the generals to consult together. They are all
of opinion, that, as more ships and provisions are
now got above the town, they should try, by conveying
up five thousand men, to draw the enemy from his
present position and bring him to an action. I have
acquiesced in their proposal, and we are preparing to
put it into execution. The admiral will readily join
in any measure for the public service. There is such
a choice of difficulties that I own myself at a loss
how to determine. The affairs of Great Britain I know
require the most vigorous measures. You may be sure
that the small part of the campaign which remains
shall be employed, as far as I am able, for the honour
of His Majesty and the interest of the nation. I am
sure of being well seconded by the admirals and
generals; happy if our efforts here can contribute to
the success of His Majesty's arms in any other part
of America.
On the 31st, the day he wrote to his mother and had his long talk with
Saunders, Wolfe began to send his guns and stores away from the
Montmorency camp. Carleton managed the removal very cleverly; and on
September 3 only the five thousand infantry who were to go up the St
Lawrence were left there. Wolfe tried to tempt Montcalm to attack him. But
Montcalm knew better; and half suspected that Wolfe himself might make
another attack on the Beauport lines. When everything was ready, all the
men at the Point of Levy who could be spared put off in boats and rowed
over towards Beauport, just as Monckton's men had done on the disastrous
last day of July. At the same time the main division of the fleet, under
Saunders, made as if to support these boats, while the Levis batteries
thundered against Quebec. Carleton gave the signal from the beach at
Montmorency when the tide was high; and the whole five thousand infantry
marched down the hill, got into their boats, and rowed over to where the
other boats were waiting. The French now prepared to defend themselves at
once. But as the two divisions of boats came together, they both rowed off
through the gaps between the men-of-war. Wolfe's army had broken camp and
got safely away, right under the noses of the French, without the loss of
a single man.
A whole week, from September 3 to 10, was then taken up with trying to see
how the brigadiers' plan could be carried out.
This plan was good, as far as it went. An army is even harder to supply
than a town would be if the town was taken up bodily and moved about the
country. An army makes no supplies itself, but uses up a great deal. It
must have food, clothing, arms, ammunition, stores of all kinds, and
everything else it needs to keep it fit for action. So it must always keep
what are called 'communications' with the places from which it gets these
supplies. Now, Wolfe's and Montcalm's armies were both supplied along the
St Lawrence, Wolfe's from below Quebec and Montcalm's from above. But
Wolfe had no trouble about the safety of his own 'communications,' since
they were managed and protected by the fleet. Even before he first saw
Quebec, a convoy of supply ships had sailed from the Maritime Provinces
for his army under the charge of a man-of-war. And so it went on all
through the siege. Including forty-nine men-of-war, no less than 277
British vessels sailed up to Quebec during this campaign; and not one of
them was lost on the way, though the St Lawrence had then no lighthouses,
buoys, or other aids to navigation, as it has now, and though the British
officers themselves were compelled to take the ships through the worst
places in these foreign and little-known waters. The result was that there
were abundant supplies for the British army the whole time, thanks to the
fleet.
But Montcalm was in a very different plight. Since the previous autumn,
when Wolfe and Hardy had laid waste the coast of Gaspe, the supply of
sea-fish had almost failed. Now the whole country below Quebec had been
cut off by the fleet, while most of the country round Quebec was being
laid waste by the army. Wolfe's orders were that no man, woman, or child
was to be touched, nor any house or other buildings burnt, if his own men
were not attacked. But if the men of the country fired at his soldiers
they were to be shot down, and everything they had was to be destroyed. Of
course, women and children were strictly protected, under all
circumstances, and no just complaint was ever made against the British for
hurting a single one. But as the men persisted in firing, the British
fired back and destroyed the farms where the firing took place, on the
fair-play principle that it is right to destroy whatever is used to
destroy you.
It thus happened that, except at a few little villages where the men had
not fired on the soldiers, the country all round Quebec was like a desert,
as far as supplies for the French were concerned. The only way to obtain
anything for their camp was by bringing it down the St Lawrence from
Montreal, Sorel, and Three Rivers. French vessels would come down as far
as they dared and then send the supplies on in barges, which kept close in
under the north shore above Quebec, where the French outposts and
batteries protected them from the British men-of-war that were pushing
higher and higher up the river. Some supplies were brought in by land
after they were put ashore above the highest British vessels. But as a
hundred tons came far more easily by water than one ton by land, it is not
hard to see that Montcalm's men could not hold out long if the St Lawrence
near Quebec was closed to supplies.
Wolfe, Montcalm, the brigadiers, and every one else on both sides knew
this perfectly well. But, as it was now September, the fleet could not go
far up the much more difficult channel towards Montreal. If it did, and
took Wolfe's army with it, the few French men-of-war might dispute the
passage, and some sunken ships might block the way, at all events for a
time. Besides, the French were preparing to repulse any landing up the
river, between Cap Rouge, nine miles above Quebec, and Deschambault, forty
miles above; and with good prospect of success, because the country
favoured their irregulars. Moreover, if Wolfe should land many miles up,
Montcalm might still hold out far down in Quebec for the few days
remaining till October. If, on the other hand, the fleet went up and left
Wolfe's men behind, Montcalm would be safer than ever at Beauport and
Quebec; because, how could Wolfe reach him without a fleet when he had
failed to reach him with one?
The life-and-death question for Wolfe was how to land close enough above
Quebec and soon enough in September to make Montcalm fight it out on even
terms and in the open field.
The brigadiers' plan of landing high up seemed all right till they tried
to work it out. Then they found troubles in plenty. There were several
places for them to land between Cap Rouge, nine miles above Quebec, and
Pointe-aux-Trembles, thirteen miles higher still. Ever since July 18
British vessels had been passing to and fro above Quebec; and in August,
Murray, under the guard of Holmes's squadron, had tried his brigade
against Pointe-aux-Trembles, where he was beaten back, and at
Deschambault, twenty miles farther up, where he took some prisoners and
burnt some supplies. To ward off further and perhaps more serious attacks
from this quarter, Montcalm had been keeping Bougainville on the lookout,
especially round Pointe-aux-Trembles, for several weeks before the
brigadiers arranged their plan. Bougainville now had 2,000 infantry, all
the mounted men—nearly 300—and all the best Indian and
Canadian scouts, along the thirteen miles of shore between Cap Rouge and
Pointe-aux-Trembles. His land and water batteries had also been made much
stronger. He and Montcalm were in close touch and could send messages to
each other and get an answer back within four hours.
On the 7th Wolfe and the brigadiers had a good look at every spot round
Pointe-aux-Trembles. On the 8th and 9th the brigadiers were still there;
while five transports sailed past Quebec on the 8th to join Holmes, who
commanded the up-river squadron. Two of Wolfe's brigades were now on board
the transports with Holmes. But the whole three were needed; and this need
at once entailed another difficulty. A successful landing on the north
shore above Quebec could only be made under cover of the dark; and Wolfe
could not bring the third brigade, under cover of night, from the island
of Orleans and the Point of Levy, and land it with the other two twenty
miles up the river before daylight. The tidal stream runs up barely five
hours, while it runs down more than seven; and winds are mostly down.
Next, if, instead of sailing, the third brigade marched twenty miles at
night across very rough country on the south shore, it would arrive later
than ever. Then, only one brigade could be put ashore in boats at one time
in one place, and Bougainville could collect enough men to hold it in
check while he called in reinforcements at least as fast on the French
side as the British could on theirs. Another thing was that the wooded
country favoured the French defence and hindered the British attack.
Lastly, if Wolfe and Saunders collected the whole five thousand soldiers
and a still larger squadron and convoy up the river, Montcalm would see
the men and ships being moved from their positions in front of his
Beauport entrenchments, and would hurry to the threatened shore between
Cap Rouge and Pointe-aux-Trembles almost as soon as the British, and
certainly in time to reinforce Bougainville and repulse Wolfe.
The 9th was Wolfe's last Sunday. It was a cheerless, rainy day; and he
almost confessed himself beaten for good, as he sat writing his last
official letter to one of Pitt's friends, the Earl of Holderness. He dated
it, 'On board the Sutherland at anchor off Cap Rouge, September 9,
1759.' He ended it with gloomy news: 'I am so far recovered as to be able
to do business, but my constitution is entirely ruined, without the
consolation of having done any considerable service to the state, or
without any prospect of it.'
The very next day, however, he saw his chance. He stood at Etchemin, on
the south shore, two miles above Quebec, and looked long and earnestly
through his telescope at the Foulon road, a mile and a half away, running
up to the Plains of Abraham from the Anse au Foulon, which has ever since
been called Wolfe's Cove. Then he looked at the Plains themselves,
especially at a spot only one mile from Quebec, where the flat and open
ground formed a perfect field of battle for his well-drilled regulars. He
knew the Foulon road must be fairly good, because it was the French line
of communication between the Anse au Foulon and the Beauport camp. The
Cove and the nearest point of the camp were only two miles and a quarter
apart, as the crow flies. But between them rose the tableland of the
Plains, 300 feet above the river. Thus they were screened from each other,
and a surprise at the Cove might not be found out too soon at the camp.
Now, Wolfe knew that the French expected to be attacked either above Cap
Rouge (up towards Pointe-aux-Trembles) or below Quebec (down in their
Beauport entrenchments). He also knew that his own army thought the attack
would be made above Cap Rouge. Thus the French were still very anxious
about the six miles at Beauport, while both sides were keenly watching
each other all over the thirteen miles above Cap Rouge. Nobody seemed to
be thinking about the nine miles between Cap Rouge and Quebec, and least
of all about the part nearest Quebec.
Yes, one man was thinking about it, and he never stopped thinking about it
till he died. That man was Montcalm. On the 5th, when Wolfe began moving
up-stream, Montcalm had sent a whole battalion to the Plains. But on the
7th, when the British generals were all at Pointe-aux-Trembles, Vaudreuil,
always ready to spite Montcalm, ordered this battalion back to camp,
saying, 'The British haven't got wings; they can't fly up to the Plains!'
Wolfe, of course, saw that the battalion had been taken away; and he soon
found out why. Vaudreuil was a great talker and could never keep a secret.
Wolfe knew perfectly well that Vaudreuil and Bigot were constantly
spoiling whatever Montcalm was doing, so he counted on this trouble in the
French camp as he did on other facts and chances.
He now gave up all idea of his old plans against Beauport, as well as the
new plan of the brigadiers, and decided on another plan of his own. It was
new in one way, because he had never seen a chance of carrying it out
before. But it was old in another way, because he had written to his uncle
from Louisbourg on May 19, and spoken of getting up the heights four or
five miles above Quebec if he could do so by surprise. Again, even so
early in the siege as July 18 he had been chafing at what he called the
'coldness' of the fleet about pushing up beyond Quebec. The entry in his
private diary for that day is: 'The Sutherland and Squirrell,
two transports, and two armed sloops passed the narrow passage between
Quebec and Levy without losing a man.' Next day, his entry is more
scathing still: 'Reconnoitred the country immediately above Quebec and
found that if we had ventured the stroke that was first intended we
should infallibly have succeeded.' This shows how long he had kept the
plan waiting for the chance. But it does not prove that he had missed any
earlier chances through the 'coldness' of the fleet. For it is significant
that he afterwards struck out 'infallibly' and substituted 'probably';
while it must be remembered that the Sutherland and her consorts
formed only a very small flotilla, that they passed Quebec in the middle
of a very dark night, that the St Lawrence above the town was intricate
and little known, that the loss of several men-of-war might have been
fatal, that the enemy's attention had not become distracted in July to
anything like the same bewildering extent as it had in September, and that
the intervening course of events—however disappointing in itself—certainly
helped to make his plan suit the occasion far better late than soon.
Moreover, in a note to Saunders in August, he had spoken about a
'desperate' plan which he could not trust his brigadiers to carry out, and
which he was then too sick to carry out himself.
Now that he was 'patched up' enough for a few days, and that the chance
seemed to be within his grasp, he made up his mind to strike at once. He
knew that the little French post above the Anse au Foulon was commanded by
one of Bigot's blackguards; Vergor, whose Canadian militiamen were as
slack as their commander. He knew that the Samos battery, a little farther
from Quebec, had too small a garrison, with only five guns and no means of
firing them on the landward side; so that any of his men, once up the
heights, could rush it from the rear. He knew the French had only a few
weak posts the whole way down from Cap Rouge, and that these posts often
let convoys of provision boats pass quietly at night into the Anse au
Foulon. He knew that some of Montcalm's best regulars had gone to Montreal
with Levis, the excellent French second-in-command, to strengthen the
defence against Amherst's slow advance from Lake Champlain. He knew that
Montcalm still had a total of 10,000 men between Montmorency and Quebec,
as against his own attacking force of 5,000; yet he also knew that the
odds of two to one were reversed in his favour so far as European regulars
were concerned; for Montcalm could not now bring 3,000 French regulars
into immediate action at any one spot. Finally, he knew that all the
French were only half-fed, and that those with Bougainville were getting
worn out by having to march across country, in a fruitless effort to keep
pace with the ships of Holmes's squadron and convoy, which floated up and
down with the tide.
Wolfe's plan was to keep the French alarmed more than ever at the two
extreme ends of their line—Beauport below Quebec and
Pointe-aux-Trembles above—and then to strike home at their
undefended centre, by a surprise landing at the Anse au Foulon. Once
landed, well before daylight, he could rush Vergor's post and the Samos
battery, march across the Plains, and form his line of battle a mile from
Quebec before Montcalm could come up in force from Beauport. Probably he
could also defeat him before Bougainville could march down from some point
well above Cap Rouge.
There were chances to reckon with in this plan. But so there are in all
plans; and to say Wolfe took Quebec by mere luck is utter nonsense. He was
one of the deepest thinkers on war who ever lived, especially on the
British kind of war, by land and sea together; and he had had the
preparation of a lifetime to help him in using a fleet and army that
worked together like the two arms of one body. He simply made a plan which
took proper account of all the facts and all the chances. Fools make lucky
hits, now and then, by the merest chance. But no one except a genius can
make and carry out a plan like Wolfe's, which meant at least a hundred
hits running, all in the selfsame spot.
No sooner had Wolfe made his admirable plan that Monday morning, September
10, than he set all the principal officers to work out the different parts
of it. But he kept the whole a secret. Nobody except himself knew more
than one part, and how that one part was to be worked in at the proper
time and place. Even the fact that the Anse au Foulon was to be the
landing-place was kept secret till the last moment from everybody except
Admiral Holmes, who made all the arrangements, and Captain Chads, the
naval officer who was to lead the first boats down. The great plot
thickened fast. The siege that had been an affair of weeks, and the
brigadiers' plan that had been an affair of days, both gave way to a plan
in which every hour was made to tell. Wolfe's seventy hours of consummate
manoeuvres, by land and water, over a front of thirty miles, were followed
by a battle in which the fighting of only a few minutes settled the fate
of Canada for centuries.
During the whole of those momentous three days—Monday, Tuesday, and
Wednesday, September 10, 11, and 12, 1759—Wolfe, Saunders, and
Holmes kept the French in constant alarm about the thirteen miles above
Cap Rouge and the six miles below Quebec; but gave no sign by which
any immediate danger could be suspected along the nine miles between Cap
Rouge and Quebec.
Saunders stayed below Quebec. On the 12th he never gave the French a
minute's rest all day and night. He sent Cook and others close in towards
Beauport to lay buoys, as if to mark out a landing-place for another
attack like the one on July 31. It is a singular coincidence that while
Cook, the great British circumnavigator of the globe, was trying to get
Wolfe into Quebec, Bougainville, the great French circumnavigator, was
trying to keep him out. Towards evening Saunders formed up his boats and
filled them with marines, whose own red coats, seen at a distance, made
them look like soldiers. He moved his fleet in at high tide and fired
furiously at the entrenchments. All night long his boatloads of men rowed
up and down and kept the French on the alert. This feint against Beauport
was much helped by the men of Wolfe's third brigade, who remained at the
island of Orleans and the Point of Levy till after dark, by a whole
battalion of marines guarding the Levis batteries, and by these batteries
themselves, which, meanwhile, were bombarding Quebec—again like the
31st of July. The bombardment was kept up all night and became most
intense just before dawn, when Wolfe was landing two miles above.
At the other end of the French line, above Cap Rouge, Holmes had kept
threatening Bougainville more and more towards Pointe-aux-Trembles, twenty
miles above the Foulon. Wolfe's soldiers had kept landing on the south
shore day after day; then drifting up with the tide on board the
transports past Pointe-aux-Trembles; then drifting down towards Cap Rouge;
and then coming back the next day to do the same thing over again. This
had been going on, more or less, even before Wolfe had made his plan, and
it proved very useful to him. He knew that Bougainville's men were getting
quite worn out by scrambling across country, day after day, to keep up
with Holmes's restless squadron and transports. He also knew that men who
threw themselves down, tired out, late at night could not be collected
from different places, all over their thirteen-mile beat, and brought down
in the morning, fit to fight on a battlefield eight miles from the nearest
of them and twenty-one from the farthest.
Montcalm was greatly troubled. He saw redcoats with Saunders opposite
Beauport, redcoats at the island, redcoats at the Point of Levy, and
redcoats guarding the Levis batteries. He had no means of finding out at
once that the redcoats with Saunders and at the batteries were marines,
and that the redcoats who really did belong to Wolfe were under orders to
march off after dark that very night and join the other two brigades which
were coming down the river from the squadron above Cap Rouge. He had no
boats that could get through the perfect screen of the British fleet. But
all that the skill of mortal man could do against these odds he did on
that fatal eve of battle, as he had done for three years past, with foes
in front and false friends behind. He ordered the battalion which he had
sent to the Plains on the 5th, and which Vaudreuil had brought back on the
7th, 'now to go and camp at the Foulon'; that is, at the top of the road
coming up from Wolfe's landing-place at the Anse au Foulon. But Vaudreuil
immediately gave a counter-order and said: 'We'll see about that
to-morrow.' Vaudreuil's 'to-morrow' never came.
That afternoon of the 12th, while Montcalm and Vaudreuil were at
cross-purposes near the mouth of the St Charles, Wolfe was only four miles
away, on the other side of the Plains, in a boat on the St Lawrence, where
he was taking his last look at what he then called the Foulon and what the
world now calls Wolfe's Cove. His boat was just turning to drift up in
midstream, off Sillery Point, which is only half a mile above the Foulon.
He wanted to examine the Cove well through his telescope at dead low tide,
as he intended to land his army there at the next low tide. Close beside
him sat young Robison, who was not an officer in either the Army or Navy,
but who had come out to Canada as tutor to an admiral's son, and who had
been found so good at maps that he was employed with Wolfe's engineers in
making surveys and sketches of the ground about Quebec. Shutting up his
telescope, Wolfe sat silent a while. Then, as afterwards recorded by
Robison, he turned towards his officers and repeated several stanzas of
Gray's Elegy. 'Gentlemen,' he said as he ended, 'I would sooner
have written that poem than beat the French to-morrow.' He did not know
then that his own fame would far surpass the poet's, and that he should
win it in the very way described in one of the lines he had just been
quoting—
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
At half-past eight in the evening he was sitting in his cabin on board
Holmes's flagship, the Sutherland, above Cap Rouge, with 'Jacky
Jervis'—the future Earl St Vincent, but now the youngest captain in
the fleet, only twenty-four. Wolfe and Jervis had both been at the same
school at Greenwich, Swinden's, though at different times, and they were
great friends. Wolfe had made up a sealed parcel of his notebook, his
will, and the portrait of Katherine Lowther, and he now handed it over to
Jervis for safe keeping.
But he had no chance of talking about old times at home, for just then a
letter from the three brigadiers was handed in. It asked him if he would
not give them 'distinct orders' about 'the place or places we are to
attack.' He wrote back to the senior, Monckton, telling him what he had
arranged for the first and second brigades, and then, separately, to
Townshend about the third, which was not with Holmes but on the south
shore. After dark the men from the island and the Point of Levy had
marched up to join this brigade at Etchemin, the very place where Wolfe
had made his plan on the 10th, as he stood and looked at the Foulon
opposite.
His last general orders to his army had been read out some hours before;
but, of course, the Foulon was not mentioned. These orders show that he
well understood the great issues he was fighting for, and what men he had
to count upon. Here are only three sentences; but how much they mean! 'The
enemy's force is now divided. A vigorous blow struck by the army at this
juncture may determine the fate of Canada. The officers and men will
remember what their country expects of them.' The watchword was
'Coventry,' which, being probably suggested by the saying, 'Sent to
Coventry,' that is, condemned to silence, was as apt a word for this
expectant night as 'Gibraltar,' the symbol of strength, was for the one on
which Quebec surrendered.
Just before dark Holmes sent every vessel he could spare to make a show of
force opposite Pointe-aux-Trembles, in order to hold Bougainville there
overnight. But after dark the main body of Holmes's squadron and all the
boats and small transports came together opposite Cap Rouge. Just before
ten a single lantern appeared in the Sutherland's main topmast
shrouds. On seeing this, Chads formed up the boats between the ships and
the south shore, the side away from the French. In three hours every man
was in his place. Not a sound was to be heard except the murmur of the
strong ebb-tide setting down towards Quebec and a gentle south-west breeze
blowing in the same direction. 'All ready, sir!' and Wolfe took his own
place in the first boat with his friend Captain Delaune, the leader of the
twenty-four men of the 'Forlorn Hope,' who were to be the first to scale
the cliff. Then a second lantern appeared above the first; and the whole
brigade of boats began to move off in succession. They had about eight
miles to go. But the current ran the distance in two hours. As they
advanced they could see the flashes from the Levis batteries growing
brighter and more frequent; for both the land gunners there and the seamen
gunners with Saunders farther down were increasing their fire as the hour
for Wolfe's landing drew near.
A couple of miles above the Foulon the Hunter was anchored in
midstream. As arranged, Chads left the south shore and steered straight
for her. To his surprise he saw her crew training their guns on him. But
they held their fire. Then Wolfe came alongside and found that she had two
French deserters on board who had mistaken his boats for the French
provision convoy that was expected to creep down the north shore that very
night and land at the Foulon. He had already planned to pass his boats off
as this convoy; for he knew that the farthest up of Holmes's men-of-war
had stopped it above Pointe-aux-Trembles. But he was glad to know that the
French posts below Cap Rouge had not yet heard of the stoppage.
From the Hunter his boat led the way to Sillery Point, half a mile
above the Foulon. 'Halt! Who comes there!'—a French sentry's voice
rang out in the silence of the night. 'France!' answered young Fraser, who
had been taken into Wolfe's boat because he spoke French like a native.
'What's your regiment?' asked the sentry. 'The Queen's,' answered Fraser,
who knew that this was the one supplying the escort for the provision
boats the British had held up. 'But why don't you speak out?' asked the
sentry again. 'Hush!' said Fraser, 'the British will hear us if you make a
noise.' And there, sure enough, was the Hunter, drifting down, as
arranged, not far outside the column of boats. Then the sentry let them
all pass; and, in ten minutes more, exactly at four o'clock, the leading
boat grounded in the Anse au Foulon and Wolfe jumped ashore.
He at once took the 'Forlorn Hope' and 200 light infantry to the side of
the Cove towards Quebec, saying as he went, 'I don't know if we shall all
get up, but we must make the attempt.' Then, while these men were
scrambling up, he went back to the middle of the Cove, where Howe had
already formed the remaining 500 light infantry. Captain Macdonald, a very
active climber, passed the 'Forlorn Hope' and was the first man to reach
the top and feel his way through the trees to the left, towards Vergor's
tents. Presently he almost ran into the sleepy French-Canadian sentry, who
heard only a voice speaking perfect French and telling him it was all
right—nothing but the reinforcements from the Beauport camp; for
Wolfe knew that Montcalm had been trying to get a French regular officer
to replace Vergor, who was as good a thief as Bigot and as bad a soldier
as Vaudreuil. While this little parley was going on the 'Forlorn Hope'
came up; when Macdonald promptly hit the sentry between the eyes with the
hilt of his claymore and knocked him flat. The light infantry pressed on
close behind. The dumbfounded French colonial troops coming out of their
tents found themselves face to face with a whole woodful of fixed
bayonets. They fired a few shots. The British charged with a loud cheer.
The Canadians scurried away through the trees. And Vergor ran for dear
life in his nightshirt.
The ringing cheer with which Delaune charged home told Wolfe at the foot
of the road that the actual top was clear. Then Howe went up; and in
fifteen minutes all the light infantry had joined their comrades above.
Another battalion followed quickly, and Wolfe himself followed them. By
this time it was five o'clock and quite light. The boats that had landed
the first brigade had already rowed through the gaps between the small
transports which were landing the second brigade, and had reached the
south shore, a mile and a half away, where the third brigade was waiting
for them.
Meanwhile the suddenly roused gunners of the Samos battery were firing
wildly at the British vessels. But the men-of-war fired back with better
aim, and Howe's light infantry, coming up at a run from behind, dashed in
among the astonished gunners with the bayonet, cleared them all out, and
spiked every gun. Howe left three companies there to hold the battery
against Bougainville later in the day, and returned with the other seven
to Wolfe. It was now six o'clock. The third brigade had landed, the whole
of the ground at the top was clear; and Wolfe set off with 1,000 men to
see what Montcalm was doing.
Quebec stands on the eastern end of a sort of promontory, or narrow
tableland, between the St Lawrence and the valley of the St Charles. This
tableland is less than a mile wide and narrows still more as it approaches
Quebec. Its top is tilted over towards the St Charles and Beauport, the
cliffs being only 100 feet high there, instead of 300, as they are beside
the St Lawrence; so Wolfe, as he turned in towards Quebec, after marching
straight across the tableland, could look out over the French camp.
Everything seemed quiet; so he made his left secure and sent for his main
body to follow him at once. It was now seven. In another hour his line of
battle was formed, his reserves had taken post in his rear, and a brigade
of seamen from Saunders's fleet were landing guns, stores, blankets,
tents, entrenching tools, and whatever else he would need for besieging
the city after defeating Montcalm. The 3,000 sailors on the beach were
anything but pleased with the tame work of waiting there while the
soldiers were fighting up above. One of their officers, in a letter home,
said they could hardly stand still, and were perpetually swearing because
they were not allowed to get into the heat of action.
The whole of the complicated manoeuvres, in face of an active enemy, for
three days and three nights, by land and water, over a front of thirty
miles, had now been crowned by complete success. The army of 5,000 men had
been put ashore at the right time and in the right way; and it was now
ready to fight one of the great immortal battles of the world.
'The thin red line.' The phrase was invented long after Wolfe's day. But
Wolfe invented the fact. The six battalions which formed his front, that
thirteenth morning of September 1759, were drawn up in the first two-deep
line that ever stood on any field of battle in the world since war began.
And it was Wolfe alone who made this 'thin red line,' as surely as it was
Wolfe alone who made the plan that conquered Canada.
Meanwhile Montcalm had not been idle; though he was perplexed to the last,
because one of the stupid rules in the French camp was that all news was
to be told first to Vaudreuil, who, as governor-general, could pass it on
or not, and interfere with the army as much as he liked. When it was light
enough to see Saunders's fleet, the island of Orleans, and the Point of
Levy, Montcalm at once noticed that Wolfe's men had gone. He galloped down
to the bridge of boats, where he found that Vaudreuil had already heard of
Wolfe's landing. At first the French thought the firing round the Foulon
was caused by an exchange of shots between the Samos battery and some
British men-of-war that were trying to stop the French provision boats
from getting in there. But Vergor's fugitives and the French patrols near
Quebec soon told the real story. And then, just before seven, Montcalm
himself caught sight of Wolfe's first redcoats marching in along the Ste
Foy road. Well might he exclaim, after all he had done and Vaudreuil had
undone: 'There they are, where they have no right to be!'
He at once sent orders, all along his six miles of entrenchments, to bring
up every French regular and all the rest except 2,000 militia. But
Vaudreuil again interfered; and Montcalm got only the French and Canadian
regulars, 2,500, and the same number of Canadian militia with a few
Indians. The French and British totals, actually present on the field of
battle, were, therefore, almost exactly equal, 5,000 each. Vaudreuil also
forgot to order out the field guns, the horses for which the vile and
corrupt Bigot had been using for himself. At nine Montcalm had formed up
his French and colonial regulars between Quebec and the crest of rising
ground across the Plains beyond which lay Wolfe. Riding forward till he
could see the redcoats, he noticed how thin their line was on its left and
in its centre, and that its right, near the St Lawrence, had apparently
not formed at all. But his eye deceived him about the British right, as
the men were lying down there, out of sight, behind a swell of ground. He
galloped back and asked if any one had further news. Several officers
declared they had heard that Wolfe was entrenching, but that his right
brigade had not yet had time to march on to the field. There was no
possible way of finding out anything else at once. The chance seemed
favourable. Montcalm knew he had to fight or starve, as he was completely
cut off by land and water, except for one bad, swampy road in the valley
of the St Charles; and he ordered his line to advance.
At half-past nine the French reached the crest and halted. The two armies
were now in full view of each other on the Plains and only a quarter of a
mile apart. The French line of battle had eight small battalions, about
2,500 men, formed six deep. The colonial regulars, in three battalions,
were on the flanks. The five battalions of French regulars were in the
centre. Montcalm, wearing a green and gold uniform, with the brilliant
cross of St Louis over his cuirass, and mounted on a splendid black
charger, rode the whole length of his line, to see if all were ready to
attack. The French regulars—half-fed, sorely harassed, interfered
with by Vaudreuil—were still the victors of Ticonderoga, against the
British odds of four to one. Perhaps they might snatch one last desperate
victory from the fortunes of war? Certainly all would follow wherever they
were led by their beloved Montcalm, the greatest Frenchman of the whole
New World. He said a few stirring words to each of his well-known
regiments as he rode by; and when he laughingly asked the best of all, the
Royal Roussillon, if they were not tired enough to take a little rest
before the battle, they shouted back that they were never too tired to
fight—'Forward, forward!' And their steady blue ranks, and those of
the four white regiments beside them, with bayonets fixed and colours
flying, did indeed look fit and ready for the fray.
Wolfe also had gone along his line of battle, the first of all two-deep
thin red lines, to make sure that every officer understood the order that
there was to be no firing until the French came close up, to within only
forty paces. As soon as he saw Montcalm's line on the crest he had moved
his own a hundred paces forward, according to previous arrangement; so
that the two enemies were now only a long musket-shot apart. The Canadians
and Indians were pressing round the British flanks, under cover of the
bushes, and firing hard. But they were easily held in check by the light
infantry on the left rear of the line and by the 35th on the right rear.
The few French and British skirmishers in the centre now ran back to their
own lines; and before ten the field was quite clear between the two
opposing fronts.
Wolfe had been wounded twice when going along his line; first in the wrist
and then in the groin. Yet he stood up so straight and looked so cool that
when he came back to take post on the right the men there did not know he
had been hit at all. His spirit already soared in triumph over the
weakness of the flesh. Here he was, a sick and doubly wounded man; but a
soldier, a hero, and a conqueror, with the key to half a continent almost
within his eager grasp.
At a signal from Montcalm in the centre the French line advanced about a
hundred yards in perfect formation. Then the Canadian regulars suddenly
began firing without orders, and threw themselves flat on the ground to
reload. By the time they had got up the French regulars had halted some
distance in front of them, fired a volley, and begun advancing again. This
was too much for the Canadians. Though they were regulars they were not
used to fighting in the open, not trained for it, and not armed for it
with bayonets. In a couple of minutes they had all slunk off to the flanks
and joined the Indians and militia, who were attacking the British from
under cover.
This left the French regulars face to face with Wolfe's front: five French
battalions against the British six. These two fronts were now to decide
the fate of Canada between them. The French still came bravely on; but
their six-deep line was much shorter than the British two-deep line, and
they saw that both their flanks were about to be over-lapped by fire and
steel. They inclined outwards to save themselves from this fatal overlap
on both right and left. But that made just as fatal a gap in their centre.
Their whole line wavered, halted oftener to fire, and fired more wildly at
each halt.
In the meantime Wolfe's front stood firm as a rock and silent as the
grave, one long, straight, living wall of red, with the double line of
deadly keen bayonets glittering above it. Nothing stirred along its whole
length, except the Union Jacks, waving defiance at the fleurs-de-lis, and
those patient men who fell before a fire to which they could not yet
reply. Bayonet after bayonet would suddenly flash out of line and fall
forward, as the stricken redcoat, standing there with shouldered arms,
quivered and sank to the ground.
Captain York had brought up a single gun in time for the battle, the
sailors having dragged it up the cliff and run it the whole way across the
Plains. He had been handling it most gallantly during the French advance,
firing showers of grape-shot into their ranks from a position right out in
the open in front of Wolfe's line. But now that the French were closing he
had to retire. The sailors then picked up the drag-ropes and romped in
with this most effective six-pounder at full speed, as if they were having
the greatest fun of their lives.
Wolfe was standing next to the Louisbourg Grenadiers, who, this time, were
determined not to begin before they were told. He was to give their
colonel the signal to fire the first volley; which then was itself to be
the signal for a volley from each of the other five battalions, one after
another, all down the line. Every musket was loaded with two bullets, and
the moment a battalion had fired it was to advance twenty paces, loading
as it went, and then fire a 'general,' that is, each man for himself, as
hard as he could, till the bugles sounded the charge.
Wolfe now watched every step the French line made. Nearer and nearer it
came. A hundred paces!—seventy-five!—fifty!—forty!!—Fire!!!
Crash! came the volley from the grenadiers. Five volleys more rang out in
quick succession, all so perfectly delivered that they sounded more like
six great guns than six battalions with hundreds of muskets in each. Under
cover of the smoke Wolfe's men advanced their twenty paces and halted to
fire the 'general.' The dense, six-deep lines of Frenchmen reeled,
staggered, and seemed to melt away under this awful deluge of lead. In
five minutes their right was shaken out of all formation. All that
remained of it turned and fled, a wild, mad mob of panic-stricken
fugitives. The centre followed at once. But the Royal Roussillon stood
fast a little longer; and when it also turned it had only three unwounded
officers left, and they were trying to rally it.
Montcalm, who had led the centre and had been wounded in the advance,
galloped over to the Royal Roussillon as it was making this last stand.
But even he could not stem the rush that followed and that carried him
along with it. Over the crest and down to the valley of the St Charles his
army fled, the Canadians and Indians scurrying away through the bushes as
hard as they could run. While making one more effort to rally enough men
to cover the retreat he was struck again, this time by a dozen grape-shot
from York's gun. He reeled in the saddle. But two of his grenadiers caught
him and held him up while he rode into Quebec. As he passed through St
Louis Gate a terrified woman called out, 'Oh! look at the marquis, he's
killed, he's killed!' But Montcalm, by a supreme effort, sat up straight
for a moment and said: 'It is nothing at all, my kind friend; you must not
be so much alarmed!' and, saying this, passed on to die, a hero to the
very last.
In the thick of the short, fierce fire-fight the bagpipes began to skirl,
the Highlanders dashed down their muskets, drew their claymores, and gave
a yell that might have been heard across the river. In a moment every
British bugle was sounding the 'Charge' and the whole red, living wall was
rushing forward with a roaring cheer.
But it charged without Wolfe. He had been mortally wounded just after
giving the signal for those famous volleys. Two officers sprang to his
side. 'Hold me up!' he implored them, 'don't let my gallant fellows see me
fall!' With the help of a couple of men he was carried back to the far
side of a little knoll and seated on a grenadier's folded coat, while the
grenadier who had taken it off ran over to a spring to get some water.
Wolfe knew at once that he was dying. But he did not yet know how the
battle had gone. His head had sunk on his breast, and his eyes were
already glazing, when an officer on the knoll called out, 'They run! They
run! 'Egad, they give way everywhere!' Rousing himself, as if from sleep,
Wolfe asked, 'Who run?'—'The French, sir!'—'Then I die
content!'—and, almost as he said it, he breathed his last.
He was not buried on the field he won, nor even in the country that he
conquered. All that was mortal of him—his poor, sick, wounded body—was
borne back across the sea, and carried in mourning triumph through his
native land. And there, in the family vault at Greenwich, near the school
he had left for his first war, half his short life ago, he was laid to
rest on November 20—at the very time when his own great victory
before Quebec was being confirmed by Hawke's magnificently daring attack
on the French fleet amid all the dangers of that wild night in Quiberon
Bay.
Canada has none of his mortality. But could she have anything more sacred
than the spot from which his soaring spirit took its flight into immortal
fame? And could this sacred spot be marked by any words more winged than
these:
HERE DIED
WOLFE
VICTORIOUS
CHAPTER VIII — EPILOGUE—THE LAST STAND
Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham proved decisive in the end; but
it was not the last of the great struggle for the Key of Canada.
After Wolfe had died on the field of battle, and Monckton had been
disabled by his wounds, Townshend took command, received the surrender of
Quebec on the 18th, and waited till the French field army had retired
towards Montreal. Then he sailed home with Saunders, leaving Murray to
hold what Wolfe had won. Saunders left Lord Colville in charge of a strong
squadron, with orders to wait at Halifax till the spring.
Both French and British spent a terrible winter. The French had better
shelter in Montreal than the British had among the ruins of Quebec; and,
being more accustomed to the rigours of the climate, they would have
suffered less from cold in any case. But their lot was, on the whole, the
harder of the two; for food was particularly bad and scarce in Montreal,
where even horseflesh was thought a luxury. Both armies were ravaged by
disease to a most alarming extent. Of the eight thousand men with whom
Murray began that deadly winter not one-half were able to bear arms in the
spring; and not one-half of those who did bear arms then were really fit
for duty.
Montcalm's successor, Levis, now made a skilful, bold, and gallant attempt
to retake Quebec before navigation opened. Calling the whole remaining
strength of New France to his aid, he took his army down in April, mostly
by way of the St Lawrence. The weather was stormy. The banks of the river
were lined with rotting ice. The roads were almost impassable. Yet, after
a journey of less than ten days, the whole French army appeared before
Quebec. Murray was at once confronted by a dire dilemma. The landward
defences had never been strong; and he had not been able to do more than
patch them up. If he remained behind them Levis would close in, batter
them down, and probably carry them by assault against a sickly garrison
depressed by being kept within the walls. If, on the other hand, he
marched out, he would have to meet more than double numbers at the least;
for some men would have to be left to cover a retreat; and he knew the
French grand total was nearly thrice his own. But he chose this bolder
course; and at the chill dawn of April 28, he paraded his little attacking
force of a bare three thousand men on the freezing snow and mud of the
Esplanade and then marched out.
The two armies met at Ste Foy, a mile and a half beyond the walls; and a
desperate battle ensued. The French had twice as many men in action, but
only half of these were regulars; the others had no bayonets; and there
was no effective artillery to keep down the fire of Murray's commanding
guns. The terrific fight went on for hours, while victory inclined neither
to one side nor the other. It was a far more stubborn and much bloodier
contest than Wolfe's of the year before. At last a British battalion was
fairly caught in flank by overwhelming numbers and driven across the front
of Murray's guns, whose protecting fire it thus completely masked at a
most critical time. Murray thereupon ordered up his last reserve. But even
so he could no longer stand his ground. Slowly and sullenly his exhausted
men fell back before the French, who put the very last ounce of their own
failing strength into a charge that took the guns. Then the beaten British
staggered in behind their walls, while the victorious French stood fast,
worn out by the hardships of their march and fought to a standstill in the
battle.
Levis rallied his army for one more effort and pressed the siege to the
uttermost of his power. Murray had lost a thousand men and could now
muster less than three thousand. Each side prepared to fight the other to
the death. But both knew that the result would depend on the fleets. There
had been no news from Europe since navigation closed; and hopes ran high
among the besiegers that perhaps some friendly men-of-war might still be
first; when of course Quebec would have to surrender at discretion, and
Canada would certainly be saved for France if the half-expected peace
would only follow soon.
Day after day all eyes, both French and British, looked seaward from the
heights and walls; though fleets had never yet been known to come up the
St Lawrence so early in the season. At last, on May 9, the tops of a
man-of-war were sighted just beyond the Point of Levy. Either she or
Quebec, or both, might have false colours flying. So neither besiegers nor
besieged knew to which side she belonged. Nor did she know herself whether
Quebec was French or British. Slowly she rounded into the harbour, her
crew at quarters, her decks all cleared for action. She saluted with
twenty-one guns and swung out her captain's barge. Then, for the first
time, every one watching knew what she was; for the barge was heading
straight in towards the town, and redcoats and bluejackets could see each
other plainly. In a moment every British soldier who could stand had
climbed the nearest wall and was cheering her to the echo; while the
gunners showed their delight by loading and firing as fast as possible and
making all the noise they could.
But one ship was not enough to turn the scale; and Levis redoubled his
efforts. On the night of the 15th French hopes suddenly flared up all
through the camp when the word flew round that three strange men-of-war
just reported down off Beauport were the vanguard of a great French fleet.
But daylight showed them to be British, and British bent on immediate and
vigorous attack. Two of these frigates made straight for the French
flotilla, which fled in wild confusion, covered by the undaunted Vauquelin
in the Atalante, which fought a gallant rearguard action all the
twenty miles to Pointe-aux-Trembles, where she was driven ashore and
forced to strike her colours, after another, and still more desperate,
resistance of over two hours. That night Levis raised the siege in despair
and retired on Montreal. Next morning Lord Colville arrived with the main
body of the fleet, having made the earliest ascent of the St Lawrence ever
known to naval history, before that time or since.
Then came the final scene of all this moving drama. Step by step
overpowering British forces closed in on the doomed and dwindling army of
New France. They closed in from east and west and south, each one of their
converging columns more than a match for all that was left of the French.
Whichever way he looked, Levis could see no loophole of escape. There was
nothing but certain defeat in front and on both flanks, and starvation in
the rear. So when the advancing British met, all together, at the island
of Montreal, he and his faithful regulars laid down their arms without
dishonour, in the fully justifiable belief that no further use of them
could possibly retrieve the great lost cause of France in Canada.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Wolfe is one of the great heroes in countless books of modern British
history, by far the greatest hero in the many books about the fight for
Canada, and the single hero of four biographies. It was more than a
century after his triumphant death before the first of these appeared: The
Life of Major-General James Wolfe by Robert Wright. A second Life of
Wolfe appeared a generation later, this time in the form of a small volume
by A. G. Bradley in the 'English Men of Action' series. The third and
fourth biographies were both published in 1909, the year which marked the
third jubilee of the Battle of the Plains. One of them, Edward Salmon's General
Wolfe, devotes more than the usual perfunctory attention to the
important influence of sea-power; but it is a sketch rather than a
complete biography, and it is by no means free from error. The other is The
Life and Letters of James Wolfe by Beckles Willson.
The histories written with the best knowledge of Wolfe's career in Canada
are: the contemporary Journal of the Campaigns In North America by
Captain John Knox, Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, and The Siege
of Quebec and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham by A. G. Doughty and
G. W. Parmelee. Knox's two very scarce quarto volumes have been edited by
A. G. Doughty for the Champlain Society for republication in 1914.
Parkman's work is always excellent. But he wrote before seeing some of the
evidence so admirably revealed in Dr Doughty's six volumes, and, like the
rest, he failed to understand the real value of the fleet.
END
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