Chapter 25
1759

Wolfe at Quebec

In early spring the chiefs of Canada met at Montreal to settle a plan of defence.   What at first they most dreaded was an advance of the enemy by way of Lake Champlain.   Bourlamaque, with three battalions, was ordered to take post at Ticonderoga, hold it if he could, or, if overborne by numbers, fall back to Isle-aux-Noix, at the outlet of the lake.   La Corne was sent with a strong detachment to intrench himself at the head of the rapids of the St.   Lawrence, and oppose any hostile movement from Lake Ontario.   Every able-bodied man in the colony, and every boy who could fire a gun, was to be called to the field.   Vaudreuil sent a circular letter to the militia captains of all the parishes, with orders to read it to the parishioners.   It exhorted them to defend their religion, their wives, their children, and their goods from the fury of the heretics; declared that he, the Governor, would never yield up Canada on any terms whatever; and ordered them to join the army at once, leaving none behind but the old, the sick, the women, and the children.   The Bishop issued a pastoral mandate: "On every side, dearest brethren, the enemy is making immense preparations.   His forces, at least six times more numerous than ours, are already in motion.   Never was Canada in a state so critical and full of peril.   Never were we so destitute, or threatened with an attack so fierce, so general, and so obstinate.   Now, in truth, we may say, more than ever before, that our only resource is in the powerful succor of our Lord.   Then, dearest brethren, make every effort to deserve it.   'Seek first the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.  '" And he reproves their sins, exhorts them to repentance, and ordains processions, masses, and prayers.  

Vaudreuil bustled and boasted.   In May he wrote to the Minister: "The zeal with which I am animated for the service of the King will always make me surmount the greatest obstacles.   I am taking the most proper measures to give the enemy a good reception whenever he may attack us.   I keep in view the defence of Quebec.   I have given orders in the parishes below to muster the inhabitants who are able to bear arms, and place women, children, cattle, and even hay and grain, in places of safety.   Permit me, Monseigneur, to beg you to have the goodness to assure His Majesty that, to whatever hard extremity I may be reduced, my zeal will be equally ardent and indefatigable, and that I shall do the impossible to prevent our enemies from making progress in any direction, or, at least, to make them pay extremely dear for it.  ” Then he writes again to say that Amherst with a great army will, as he learns, attack Ticonderoga; that Bradstreet, with six thousand men, will advance to Lake Ontario; and that six thousand more will march to the Ohio.   "Whatever progress they may make," he adds, "I am resolved to yield them nothing, but hold my ground even to annihilation.  " He promises to do his best to keep on good terms with Montcalm, and ends with a warm eulogy of Bigot.  

It was in the midst of all these preparations that Bougainville arrived from France with news that a great fleet was on its way to attack Quebec.   The town was filled with consternation mixed with surprise, for the Canadians had believed that the dangerous navigation of the St.   Lawrence would deter their enemies from the attempt.   "Everybody," writes one of them, "was stupefied at an enterprise that seemed so bold.  " In a few days a crowd of sails was seen approaching.   They were not enemies, but friends.   It was the fleet of the contractor Cadet, commanded by officer named Kanon, and loaded with supplies for the colony.   They anchored in the harbor, eighteen sail in all, and their arrival spread universal joy.   Admiral Durell had come too late to intercept them, catching but three stragglers that had lagged behind the rest.   Still others succeeded in eluding him, and before the first of June five more ships had come safely into port.  

When the news brought by Bougainville reached Montreal, nearly the whole force of the colony, except the detachments of Bourlamaque and La Corne, was ordered to Quebec.   Montcalm hastened thither, and Vaudreuil followed.   The Governor-General wrote to the Minister in his usual strain, as if all the hope of Canada rested in him.   Such, he says, was his activity, that, though very busy, he reached Quebec only a day and a half after Montcalm; and, on arriving, learned from his scouts that English ships-of-war had already appeared at Isle-aux-Coudres.   These were the squadron of Durell.   "I expect," Vaudreuil goes on, "to be sharply attacked, and that our enemies will make their most powerful efforts to conquer this colony; but there is no ruse, no resource, no means which my zeal does not suggest to lay snares for them, and finally, when the exigency demands it, to fight them with an ardor, and even a fury, which exceeds the range of their ambitious designs.   The troops, the Canadians, and the Indians are not ignorant of the resolution I have taken, and from which I shall not recoil under any circumstance whatever.   The burghers of this city have already put their goods and furniture in places of safety.   The old men, women, and children hold themselves ready to leave town.   My firmness is generally applauded.   It has penetrated every heart; and each man says aloud: 'Canada, our native land, shall bury us under its ruins before we surrender to the English!' This is decidedly my own determination, and I shall hold to it inviolably.  " He launches into high praise of the contractor Cadet, whose zeal for the service of the King and the defence of the colony he declares to be triumphant over every difficulty.   It is necessary, he adds, that ample supplies of all kinds should be sent out in the autumn, with the distribution of which Cadet offers to charge himself, and to account for them at their first cost; but he does not say what prices his disinterested friend will compel the destitute Canadians to pay for them.  

Five battalions from France, nearly all the colony troops, and the militia from every part of Canada poured into Quebec, along with a thousand or more Indians, who, at the call of Vaudreuil, came to lend their scalping-knives to the defence.   Such was the ardor of the people that boys of fifteen and men of eighty were to be seen in the camp.   Isle-aux-Coudres and Isle d'Orléans were ordered to be evacuated, and an excited crowd on the rock of Quebec watched hourly for the approaching fleet.   Days passed and weeks passed, yet it did not appear.   Meanwhile Vaudreuil held council after council to settle a plan of defence, They were strange scenes: a crowd of officers of every rank, mixed pell-mell in a small room, pushing, shouting, elbowing each other, interrupting each other; till Montcalm in despair, took each aside after the meeting was over, and made him give his opinion in writing.  

He himself had at first proposed to encamp the army on the plains of Abraham and the meadows of the St.   Charles, making that river his line of defence; but he changed his plan, and, with the concurrence of Vaudreuil, resolved to post his whole force on the St.   Lawrence below the city, with his right resting on the St.   Charles, and his left on the Montmorenci.   Here, accordingly, the troops and militia were stationed as they arrived.   Early in June, standing at the northeastern brink of the rock of Quebec, one could have seen the whole position at a glance.   On the curving shore from the St.   Charles to the rocky gorge of the Montmorenci, a distance of seven or eight miles, the whitewashed dwellings of the parish of Beauport stretched down the road in a double chain, and the fields on both sides were studded with tents, huts, and Indian wigwams.   Along the borders of the St.   Lawrence, as far as the eye could distinguish them, gangs of men were throwing up redoubts, batteries, and lines of intrenchment.   About midway between the two extremities of the encampment ran the little river of Beauport; and on the rising ground just beyond it stood a large stone house, round which the tents were thickly clustered; for here Montcalm had made his headquarters.  

A boom of logs chained together was drawn across the mouth of the St.   Charles, which was further guarded by two hulks mounted with cannon.   The bridge of boats that crossed the stream nearly a mile above, formed the chief communication between the city and the camp.   Its head towards Beauport was protected by a strong and extensive earthwork; and the banks of the stream on the Quebec side were also intrenched, to form a second line of defence in case the position at Beauport should be forced.  

In the city itself every gate, except the Palace Gate, which gave access to the bridge, was closed and barricaded.   A hundred and six cannon were mounted on the walls.   A floating battery of twelve heavy pieces, a number of gunboats, eight fireships, and several firerafts formed the river defences.   The largest merchantmen of Kanon's fleet were sacrificed to make the fireships; and the rest, along with the frigates that came with them, were sent for safety up the St.   Lawrence beyond the River Richelieu, whence about a thousand of their sailors returned to man the batteries and gunboats.  

In the camps along the Beauport shore were about fourteen thousand men, besides Indians.   The regulars held the centre; the militia of Quebec and Three Rivers were on the right, and those of Montreal on the left.   In Quebec itself there was a garrison of between one and two thousand men under the Chevalier de Ramesay.   Thus the whole number, including Indians, amounted to more than sixteen thousand; and though the Canadians who formed the greater part of it were of little use in the open field, they could be trusted to fight well behind intrenchments.   Against this force, posted behind defensive works, on positions almost impregnable by nature, Wolfe brought less than nine thousand men available for operations on land.   The steep and lofty heights that lined the river made the cannon of the ships for the most part useless, while the exigencies of the naval service forbade employing the sailors on shore.   In two or three instances only, throughout the siege, small squads of them landed to aid in moving and working cannon; and the actual fighting fell to the troops alone.  

Vaudreuil and Bigot took up their quarters with the army.   The Governor-General had delegated the command of the land-forces to Montcalm, whom, in his own words, he authorized "to give orders everywhere, provisionally.  " His relations with him were more than ever anomalous and critical; for while Vaudreuil, in virtue of his office, had a right to supreme command, Montcalm, now a lieutenant-general, held a military grade far above him; and the Governor, while always writing himself down in his despatches as the head and front of every movement, had too little self-confidence not to leave the actual command in the hands of his rival.  

Days and weeks wore on, and the first excitement gave way to restless impatience.   Why did not the English come? Many of the Canadians thought that Heaven would interpose and wreck the English fleet, as it had wrecked that of Admiral Walker half a century before.   There were processions, prayers, and vows towards this happy consummation.   Food was scarce.   Bigot and Cadet lived in luxury; fowls by thousands were fattened with wheat for their tables, while the people were put on rations of two ounces of bread a day.   Durell and his ships were reported to be still at Isle-aux-Coudres.   Vaudreuil sent thither a party of Canadians, and they captured three midshipmen, who, says Montcalm, had gone ashore pour polissonner, that is, on a lark.   These youths were brought to Quebec, where they increased the general anxiety by grossly exaggerating the English force.  

At length it became known that eight English vessels were anchored in the north channel of Orleans, and on the twenty-first of June the masts of three of them could plainly be seen.   One of the fireships was consumed in a vain attempt to burn them, and several firerafts and a sort of infernal machine were tried with no better success; the unwelcome visitors still held their posts.  

Meanwhile the whole English fleet had slowly advanced, piloted by Denis de Vitré, a Canadian of good birth, captured at sea some time before, and now compelled to serve, under a threat of being hanged if he refused.   Nor was he alone; for when Durell reached the place where the river pilots were usually taken on board, he raised a French flag to his mast-head, causing great rejoicings among the Canadians on shore, who thought that a fleet was come to their rescue, and that their country was saved.   The pilots launched their canoes and came out to the ships, where they were all made prisoners; then the French flag was lowered, and the red cross displayed in its stead.   The spectators on shore turned from joy to despair; and a priest who stood watching the squadron with a telescope is said to have dropped dead with the revulsion of feeling.  

Towards the end of June the main fleet was near the mountain of Cape Tourmente.   The passage called the Traverse, between the Cape and the lower end of the Island of Orleans, was reputed one of the most dangerous parts of the St.   Lawrence; and as the ships successively came up, the captive pilots were put on board to carry them safely through, on pain of death.   One of these men was assigned to the transport "Goodwill," in which was Captain Knox, who spoke French, and who reports thus in his Diary: "He gasconaded at a most extravagant rate, and gave us to understand that it was much against his will that he was become an English pilot.   The poor fellow assumed great latitude in his conversation, and said 'he made no doubt that some of the fleet would return to England, but they should have a dismal tale to carry with them; for Canada should be the grave of the whole army, and he expected in a short time to see the walls of Quebec ornamented with English scalps.  ' Had it not been in obedience to the Admiral, who gave orders that he should not be ill-used, he would certainly have been thrown overboard.  " The master of the transport was an old sailor named Killick, who despised the whole Gallic race, and had no mind to see his ship in charge of a Frenchman.   "He would not let the pilot speak," continues Knox, "but fixed his mate at the helm, charged him not to take orders from any person but himself, and going forwards with his trumpet to the forecastle, gave the necessary instructions.   All that could be said by the commanding officer and the other gentlemen on board was to no purpose; the pilot declared we should be lost, for that no French ship ever presumed to pass there without a pilot.   'Ay, ay, my dear,' replied our son of Neptune, 'but, damn me, I'll convince you that an Englishman shall go where a Frenchman dare not show his nose.  ' The "Richmond" frigate being close astern of us, the commanding officer called out to the captain and told him our case; he inquired who the master was, and was answered from the forecastle by the man himself, who told him 'he was old Killick, and that was enough.  ' I went forward with this experienced mariner, who pointed out the channel to me as we passed; showing me by the ripple and color of the water where there was any danger, and distinguishing the places where there were ledges of rocks (to me invisible) from banks of sand, mud, or gravel.   He gave his orders with great unconcern, joked with the sounding-boats which lay off on each side with different colored flags for our guidance; and when any of them called to him and pointed to the deepest water, he answered: 'Ay, ay, my dear, chalk it down, a damned dangerous navigation, eh! If you don't make a sputter about it you'll get no credit in England.  ' After we had cleared this remarkable place, where the channel forms a complete zigzag, the master called to his mate to give the helm to somebody else, saying, 'Damn me if there are not a thousand places in the Thames fifty times more hazardous than this; I am ashamed that Englishmen should make such a rout about it.  ' The Frenchman asked me if the captain had not been there before.   I assured him in the negative; upon which he viewed him with great attention, lifting at the same time his hands and eyes to heaven with astonishment and fervency.  ”

Vaudreuil was blamed for not planting cannon at a certain plateau on the side of the mountain of Cape Tourmente, where the gunners would have been inaccessible, and whence they could have battered every passing ship with a plunging fire.   As it was, the whole fleet sailed safely through.   On the twenty-sixth they were all anchored off the south shore of the Island of Orleans, a few miles from Quebec; and, writes Knox, "here we are entertained with a most agreeable prospect of a delightful country on every side; windmills, watermills, churches, chapels, and compact farmhouses, all built with stone, and covered, some with wood, and others with straw.   The lands appear to be everywhere well cultivated; and with the help of my glass I can discern that they are sowed with flax, wheat, barley, peas, etc.  , and the grounds are enclosed with wooden pales.   The weather to-day is agreeably warm.   A light fog sometimes hangs over the highlands, but in the river we have a fine clear air.   In the curve of the river, while we were under sail, we had a transient view of a stupendous natural curiosity called the waterfall of Montmorenci.  "

That night Lieutenant Meech, with forty New England rangers, landed on the Island of Orleans, and found a body of armed inhabitants, who tried to surround him.   He beat them off, and took possession of a neighboring farmhouse, where he remained till daylight; then pursued the enemy, and found that they had crossed to the north shore.   The whole army now landed, and were drawn up on the beach.   As they were kept there for some time, Knox and several brother officers went to visit the neighboring church of Saint-Laurent, where they found a letter from the parish priest, directed to "The Worthy Officers of the British Army," praying that they would protect the sacred edifice, and also his own adjoining house, and adding, with somewhat needless civility, that he wished they had come sooner, that they might have enjoyed the asparagus and radishes of his garden, now unhappily going to seed.   The letter concluded with many compliments and good wishes, in which the Britons to whom they were addressed saw only "the frothy politeness so peculiar to the French.  " The army marched westward and encamped.   Wolfe, with his chief engineer, Major Mackellar, and an escort of light infantry, advanced to the extreme point of the island.  

Here he could see, in part, the desperate nature of the task he had undertaken.   Before him, three or four miles away, Quebec sat perched upon her rock, a congregation of stone houses, churches, palaces, convents, and hospitals; the green trees of the Seminary garden and the spires of the Cathedral, the Ursulines, the Recollets, and the Jesuits.   Beyond rose the loftier height of Cape Diamond, edged with palisades and capped with redoubt and parapet.   Batteries frowned everywhere; the Chateau battery, the Clergy battery, the Hospital battery, on the rock above, and the Royal, Dauphin's, and Queen's batteries on the strand, where the dwellings and warehouses of the lower town clustered beneath the cliff.  

Full in sight lay the far-extended camp of Montcalm, stretching from the St.   Charles, beneath the city walls, to the chasm and cataract of the Montmorenci.   From the cataract to the river of Beauport, its front was covered by earthworks along the brink of abrupt and lofty heights; and from the river of Beauport to the St.   Charles, by broad flats of mud swept by the fire of redoubts, intrenchments, a floating battery, and the city itself.   Above the city, Cape Diamond hid the view; but could Wolfe have looked beyond it, he would have beheld a prospect still more disheartening.   Here, mile after mile, the St.   Lawrence was walled by a range of steeps, often inaccessible, and always so difficult that a few men at the top could hold an army in check; while at Cap-Rouge, about eight miles distant, the high plateau was cleft by the channel of a stream which formed a line of defence as strong as that of the Montmorenci.   Quebec was a natural fortress.   Bougainville had long before examined the position, and reported that "by the help of intrenchments, easily and quickly made, and defended by three or four thousand men, I think the city would be safe.   I do not believe that the English will make any attempt against it; but they may have the madness to do so, and it is well to be prepared against surprise.  "

Not four thousand men, but four times four thousand, now stood in its defence; and their chiefs wisely resolved not to throw away the advantages of their position.   Nothing more was heard of Vaudreuil's bold plan of attacking the invaders at their landing; and Montcalm had declared that he would play the part, not of Hannibal, but of Fabius.   His plan was to avoid a general battle, run no risks, and protract the defence till the resources of the enemy were exhausted, or till approaching winter forced them to withdraw.   Success was almost certain but for one contingency.   Amherst, with a force larger than that of Wolfe, was moving against Ticonderoga.   If he should capture it, and advance into the colony, Montcalm would be forced to weaken his army by sending strong detachments to oppose him.   Here was Wolfe's best hope.   This failing, his only chance was in audacity.   The game was desperate; but, intrepid gamester as he was in war, he was a man, in the last resort, to stake everything on the cast of the dice.  

The elements declared for France.   On the afternoon of the day when Wolfe's army landed, a violent squall swept over the St.   Lawrence, dashed the ships together, drove several ashore, and destroyed many of the flatboats from which the troops had just disembarked.   "I never saw so much distress among shipping in my whole life," writes an officer to a friend in Boston.   Fortunately the storm subsided as quickly as it rose.   Vaudreuil saw that the hoped-for deliverance had failed; and as the tempest had not destroyed the British fleet, he resolved to try the virtue of his fireships.   "I am afraid," says Montcalm, "that they have cost us a million, and will be good for nothing after all.  " This remained to be seen.   Vaudreuil gave the chief command of them to a naval officer named Delouche; and on the evening of the twenty-eighth, after long consultation and much debate among their respective captains, they set sail together at ten o'clock.   The night was moonless and dark.   In less than an hour they were at the entrance of the north channel.   Delouche had been all enthusiasm; but as he neared the danger his nerves failed, and he set fire to his ship half an hour too soon, the rest following his example.  

There was an English outpost at the Point of Orleans; and, about eleven o'clock, the sentries descried through the gloom the ghostly outlines of the approaching ships.   As they gazed, these mysterious strangers began to dart tongues of flame; fire ran like lightning up their masts and sails, and then they burst out like volcanoes.   Filled as they were with pitch, tar, and every manner of combustible, mixed with fireworks, bombs, grenades, and old cannon, swivels, and muskets loaded to the throat, the effect was terrific.   The troops at the Point, amazed at the sudden eruption, the din of the explosions, and the showers of grapeshot that rattled among the trees, lost their wits and fled.   The blazing dragons hissed and roared, spouted sheets of fire, vomited smoke in black, pitchy volumes and vast illumined clouds, and shed their infernal glare on the distant city, the tents of Montcalm, and the long red lines of the British army, drawn up in array of battle, lest the French should cross from their encampments to attack them in the confusion.   Knox calls the display "the grandest fireworks that can possibly be conceived.  " Yet the fireships did no other harm than burning alive one of their own captains and six or seven of his sailors who failed to escape in their boats.   Some of them ran ashore before reaching the fleet; the others were seized by the intrepid English sailors, who, approaching in their boats, threw grappling-irons upon them and towed them towards land, till they swung round and stranded.   Here, after venting their fury for a while, they subsided into quiet conflagration, which lasted till morning.   Vaudreuil watched the result of his experiment from the steeple of the church at Beauport; then returned, dejected, to Quebec.  

Wolfe longed to fight his enemy; but his sagacious enemy would not gratify him.   From the heights of Beauport, the rock of Quebec, or the summit of Cape Diamond, Montcalm could look down on the river and its shores as on a map, and watch each movement of the invaders.   He was hopeful, perhaps confident; and for a month or more he wrote almost daily to Bourlamaque at Ticonderoga, in a cheerful, and often a jocose vein, mingling orders and instructions with pleasantries and bits of news.   Yet his vigilance was unceasing.   "We pass every night in bivouac, or else sleep in our clothes.   Perhaps you are doing as much, my dear Bourlamaque.  ”

Of the two commanders, Vaudreuil was the more sanguine, and professed full faith that all would go well.   He too corresponded with Bourlamaque, to whom he gave his opinion, founded on the reports of deserters, that Wolfe had no chance of success unless Amherst should come to his aid.   This he pronounced impossible; and he expressed a strong desire that the English would attack him, "so that we may rid ourselves of them at once.  ” He was courageous, except in the immediate presence of danger, and failed only when the crisis came.  

Wolfe, held in check at every other point, had one movement in his power.   He could seize the heights of Point Levi, opposite the city; and this, along with his occupation of the Island of Orleans, would give him command of the Basin of Quebec.   Thence also he could fire on the place across the St.   Lawrence, which is here less than a mile wide.   The movement was begun on the afternoon of the twenty-ninth, when, shivering in a north wind and a sharp frost, a part of Monckton's brigade was ferried over to Beaumont, on the south shore, and the rest followed in the morning.   The rangers had a brush with a party of Canadians, whom they drove off, and the regulars then landed unopposed.   Monckton ordered a proclamation, signed by Wolfe, to be posted on the door of the parish church.   It called on the Canadians, in peremptory terms, to stand neutral in the contest, promised them, if they did so, full protection in property and religion, and threatened that, if they presumed to resist the invaders, their houses, goods, and harvests should be destroyed, and their churches despoiled.   As soon as the troops were out of sight the inhabitants took down the placard and carried it to Vaudreuil.  

The brigade marched along the river road to Point Levi, drove off a body of French and Indians posted in the church, and took possession of the houses and the surrounding heights.   In the morning they were intrenching themselves, when they were greeted by a brisk fire from the edge of the woods.   It came from a party of Indians, whom the rangers presently put to flight, and, imitating their own ferocity, scalped nine of them.   Wolfe came over to the camp on the next day, went with an escort to the heights opposite Quebec, examined it with a spy-glass, and chose a position from which to bombard it.   Cannon and mortars were brought ashore, fascines and gabions made, intrenchments thrown up, and batteries planted.   Knox came over from the main camp, and says that he had "a most agreeable view of the city of Quebec.   It is a very fair object for our artillery, particularly the lower town.  " But why did Wolfe wish to bombard it? Its fortifications were but little exposed to his fire, and to knock its houses, convents, and churches to pieces would bring him no nearer to his object.   His guns at Point Levi could destroy the city, but could not capture it; yet doubtless they would have good moral effect, discourage the French, and cheer his own soldiers with the flattering belief that they were achieving something.  

The guns of Quebec showered balls and bombs upon his workmen; but they still toiled on, and the French saw the fatal batteries fast growing to completion.   The citizens, alarmed at the threatened destruction, begged the Governor for leave to cross the river and dislodge their assailants.   At length he consented.   A party of twelve or fifteen hundred was made up of armed burghers, Canadians from the camp, a few Indians, some pupils of the Seminary, and about a hundred volunteers from the regulars.   Dumas, an experienced officer, took command of them; and, going up to Sillery, they crossed the river on the night of the twelfth of July.   They had hardly climbed the heights of the south shore when they grew exceedingly nervous, though the enemy was still three miles off.   The Seminary scholars fired on some of their own party, whom they mistook for English; and the same mishap was repeated a second and a third time.   A panic seized the whole body, and Dumas could not control them.   They turned and made for their canoes, rolling over each other as they rushed down the heights, and reappeared at Quebec at six in the morning, overwhelmed with despair and shame.  

The presentiment of the unhappy burghers proved too true.   The English batteries fell to their work, and the families of the town fled to the country for safety.   In a single day eighteen houses and the cathedral were burned by exploding shells; and fiercer and fiercer the storm of fire and iron hailed upon Quebec.  

Wolfe did not rest content with distressing his enemy.   With an ardor and a daring that no difficulties could cool, he sought means to strike an effective blow.   It was nothing to lay Quebec in ruins if he could not defeat the army that protected it.   To land from boats and attack Montcalm in front, through the mud of the Beauport flats or up the heights along the neighboring shore, was an enterprise too rash even for his temerity.   It might, however, be possible to land below the cataract of Montmorenci, cross that stream higher up, and strike the French army in flank or rear; and he had no sooner secured his positions at the points of Levi and Orleans, than he addressed himself to this attempt.  

On the eighth several frigates and a bomb-ketch took their stations before the camp of the Chevalier de Lévis, who, with his division of Canadian militia, occupied the heights along the St.   Lawrence just above the cataract.   Here they shelled and cannonaded him all day; though, from his elevated position, with very little effect.   Towards evening the troops on the Point of Orleans broke up their camp.   Major Hardy, with a detachment of marines, was left to hold that post, while the rest embarked at night in the boats of the fleet.   They were the brigades of Townshend and Murray, consisting of five battalions, with a body of grenadiers, light infantry, and rangers, in all three thousand men.   They landed before daybreak in front of the parish of L'Ange Gardien, a little below the cataract.   The only opposition was from a troop of Canadians and Indians, whom they routed, after some loss, climbed the heights, gained the plateau above, and began to intrench themselves.   A company of rangers, supported by detachments of regulars, was sent into the neighboring forest to protect the parties who were cutting fascines, and apparently, also, to look for a fording-place.  

Lévis, with his Scotch-Jacobite aide-de-camp, Johnstone, had watched the movements of Wolfe from the heights across the cataract.   Johnstone says that he asked his commander if he was sure there was no ford higher up on the Montmorenci, by which the English could cross.   Lévis averred that there was none, and that he himself had examined the stream to its source; on which a Canadian who stood by whispered to the aide-de-camp: "The General is mistaken; there is a ford.  " Johnstone told this to Lévis, who would not believe it, and so browbeat the Canadian that he dared not repeat what he had said.   Johnstone, taking him aside, told him to go and find somebody who had lately crossed the ford, and bring him at once to the General's quarters; whereupon he soon reappeared with a man who affirmed that he had crossed it the night before with a sack of wheat on his back.   A detachment was immediately sent to the place, with orders to intrench itself, and Repentigny, lieutenant of Lévis, was posted not far off with eleven hundred Canadians.  

Four hundred Indians passed the ford under the partisan Langlade, discovered Wolfe's detachment, hid themselves, and sent their commander to tell Repentigny that there was a body of English in the forest, who might all be destroyed if he would come over at once with his Canadians.   Repentigny sent for orders to Lévis, and Lévis sent for orders to Vaudreuil, whose quarters were three or four miles distant.   Vaudreuil answered that no risk should be run, and that he would come and see to the matter himself.   It was about two hours before he arrived; and meanwhile the Indians grew impatient, rose from their hiding-place, fired on the rangers, and drove them back with heavy loss upon the regulars, who stood their ground, and at last repulsed the assailants.   The Indians recrossed the ford with thirty-six scalps.   If Repentigny had advanced, and Lévis had followed with his main body, the consequences to the English might have been serious; for, as Johnstone remarks, "a Canadian in the woods is worth three disciplined soldiers, as a soldier in a plain is worth three Canadians.  " Vaudreuil called a council of war.   The question was whether an effort should be made to dislodge Wolfe's main force.   Montcalm and the Governor were this time of one mind, and both thought it inexpedient to attack, with militia, a body of regular troops whose numbers and position were imperfectly known.   Bigot gave his voice for the attack.   He was overruled, and Wolfe was left to fortify himself in peace.  

His occupation of the heights of Montmorenci exposed him to great risks.   The left wing of his army at Point Levi was six miles from its right wing at the cataract, and Major Hardy's detachment on the Point of Orleans was between them, separated from each by a wide arm of the St.   Lawrence.   Any one of the three camps might be overpowered before the others could support it; and Hardy with his small force was above all in danger of being cut to pieces.   But the French kept persistently on the defensive; and after the failure of Dumas to dislodge the English from Point Levi, Vaudreuil would not hear of another such attempt.   Wolfe was soon well intrenched; but it was easier to defend himself than to strike at his enemy.   Montcalm, when urged to attack him, is said to have answered: "Let him amuse himself where he is.   If we drive him off he may go to some place where he can do us harm.  " His late movement, however, had a discouraging effect on the Canadians, who now for the first time began to desert.   His batteries, too, played across the chasm of Montmorenci upon the left wing of the French army with an effect extremely annoying.  

The position of the hostile forces was a remarkable one.   They were separated by the vast gorge that opens upon the St.   Lawrence; an amphitheatre of lofty precipices, their brows crested with forests, and their steep brown sides scantily feathered with stunted birch and fir.   Into this abyss leaps the Montmorenci with one headlong plunge of nearly two hundred and fifty feet, a living column of snowy white, with its spray, its foam, its mists, and its rainbows; then spreads itself in broad thin sheets over a floor of rock and gravel, and creeps tamely to the St.   Lawrence.   It was but a gunshot across the gulf, and the sentinels on each side watched each other over the roar and turmoil of the cataract.   Captain Knox, coming one day from Point Levi to receive orders from Wolfe, improved a spare hour to visit this marvel of nature.   "I had very nigh paid dear for my inquisitiveness; for while I stood on the eminence I was hastily called to by one of our sentinels, when, throwing my eyes about, I saw a Frenchman creeping under the eastern extremity of their breastwork to fire at me.   This obliged me to retire as fast as I could out of his reach, and, making up to the sentry to thank him for his attention, he told me the fellow had snapped his piece twice, and the second time it flashed in the pan at the instant I turned away from the Fall.  " Another officer, less fortunate, had a leg broken by a shot from the opposite cliffs.  

Day after day went by, and the invaders made no progress.   Flags of truce passed often between the hostile camps.   "You will demolish the town, no doubt," said the bearer of one of them, "but you shall never get inside of it.  " To which Wolfe replied: "I will have Quebec if I stay here till the end of November.  " Sometimes the heat was intense, and sometimes there were floods of summer rain that inundated the tents.   Along the river, from the Montmorenci to Point Levi, there were ceaseless artillery fights between gunboats, frigates, and batteries on shore.   Bands of Indians infested the outskirts of the camps, killing sentries and patrols.   The rangers chased them through the woods; there were brisk skirmishes, and scalps lost and won.   Sometimes the regulars took part in these forest battles; and once it was announced, in orders of the day, that "the General has ordered two sheep and some rum to Captain Cosnan's company of grenadiers for the spirit they showed this morning in pushing those scoundrels of Indians.  " The Indians complained that the British soldiers were learning how to fight, and no longer stood still in a mass to be shot at, as in Braddock's time.   The Canadian coureurs-de-bois mixed with their red allies and wore their livery.   One of them was caught on the eighteenth.   He was naked, daubed red and blue, and adorned with a bunch of painted feathers dangling from the top of his head.   He and his companions used the scalping-knife as freely as the Indians themselves; nor were the New England rangers much behind them in this respect, till an order came from Wolfe forbidding "the inhuman practice of scalping, except when the enemy are Indians, or Canadians dressed like Indians.  "

A part of the fleet worked up into the Basin, beyond the Point of Orleans; and here, on the warm summer nights, officers and men watched the cannon flashing and thundering from the heights of Montmorenci on one side, and those of Pont Levi on the other, and the bombs sailing through the air in fiery semicircles.   Often the gloom was lighted up by the blaze of the burning houses of Quebec, kindled by incendiary shells.   Both the lower and the upper town were nearly deserted by the inhabitants, some retreating into the country, and some into the suburb of St.   Roch; while the Ursulines and Hospital nuns abandoned their convents to seek harborage beyond the range of shot.   The city was a prey to robbers, who pillaged the empty houses, till an order came from headquarters promising the gallows to all who should be caught.   News reached the French that Niagara was attacked, and that the army of Amherst was moving against Ticonderoga.   The Canadians deserted more and more.   They were disheartened by the defensive attitude in which both Vaudreuil and Montcalm steadily persisted; and accustomed as they were to rapid raids, sudden strokes, and a quick return to their homes, they tired of long weeks of inaction.   The English patrols caught one of them as he was passing the time in fishing.   "He seemed to be a subtle old rogue," says Knox, "of seventy years of age, as he told us.   We plied him well with port wine, and then his heart was more open; and seeing that we laughed at the exaggerated accounts he had given us, he said he 'wished the affair was well over, one way or the other; that his countrymen were all discontented, and would either surrender, or disperse and act a neutral part, if it were not for the persuasions of their priests and the fear of being maltreated by the savages, with whom they are threatened on all occasions.  '" A deserter reported on the nineteenth of July that nothing but dread of the Indians kept the Canadians in the camp.  

Wolfe's proclamation, at first unavailing, was now taking effect.   A large number of Canadian prisoners, brought in on the twenty-fifth, declared that their countrymen would gladly accept his offers but for the threats of their commanders that if they did so the Indians should be set upon them.   The prisoners said further that "they had been under apprehension for several days past of having a body of four hundred barbarians sent to rifle their parish and habitations.  ” Such threats were not wholly effectual.   A French chronicler of the time says: "The Canadians showed their disgust every day, and deserted at every opportunity, in spite of the means taken to prevent them.  " "The people were intimidated, seeing all our army kept in one body and solely on the defensive; while the English, though far less numerous, divided their forces, and undertook various bold enterprises without meeting resistance.  ”

On the eighteenth the English accomplished a feat which promised important results.   The French commanders had thought it impossible for any hostile ship to pass the batteries of Quebec; but about eleven o'clock at night, favored by the wind, and covered by a furious cannonade from Point Levi, the ship "Sutherland," with a frigate and several small vessels, sailed safely by and reached the river above the town.   Here they at once attacked and destroyed a fireship and some small craft that they found there, Now, for the first time, it became necessary for Montcalm to weaken his army at Beauport by sending six hundred men, under Dumas, to defend the accessible points in the line of precipices between Quebec and Cap-Rouge.   Several hundred more were sent on the next day, when it became known that the English had dragged a fleet of boats over Point Levi, launched them above the town, and despatched troops to embark in them.   Thus a new feature was introduced into the siege operations, and danger had risen on a side where the French thought themselves safe.   On the other hand, Wolfe had become more vulnerable than ever.   His army was now divided, not into three parts, but into four, each so far from the rest that, in case of sudden attack, it must defend itself alone.   That Montcalm did not improve his opportunity was apparently due to want of confidence in his militia.  

The force above the town did not lie idle.   On the night of the twentieth, Colonel Carleton, with six hundred men, rowed eighteen miles up the river, and landed at Pointe-aux-Trembles, on the north shore.   Here some of the families of Quebec had sought asylum; and Wolfe had been told by prisoners that not only were stores in great quantity to be found here, but also letters and papers throwing light on the French plans.   Carleton and his men drove off a band of Indians who fired on them, and spent a quiet day around the parish church; but found few papers, and still fewer stores.   They withdrew towards evening, carrying with them nearly a hundred women, children, and old men; any they were no sooner gone than the Indians returned to plunder the empty houses of their unfortunate allies.   The prisoners were treated with great kindness.   The ladies among them were entertained at supper by Wolfe, who jested with them on the caution of the French generals, saying: "I have given good chances to attack me, and am surprised that they have not profited by them.  ” On the next day the prisoners were all sent to Quebec under a flag of truce.  

Thus far Wolfe had refrained from executing the threats he had affixed the month before to the church of Beaumont.   But now he issued another proclamation.   It declared that the Canadians had shown themselves unworthy of the offers he had made them, and that he had therefore ordered his light troops to ravage their country and bring them prisoners to his camp.   Such of the Canadian militia as belonged to the parishes near Quebec were now in a sad dilemma; for Montcalm threatened them on one side, and Wolfe on the other.   They might desert to their homes, or they might stand by their colors; in the one case their houses were to be burned by French savages, and in the other by British light infantry.  

Wolfe at once gave orders in accord with his late proclamation; but he commanded that no church should be profaned, and no woman or child injured.   The first effects of his stern policy are thus recorded by Knox: "Major Dalling's light infantry brought in this afternoon to our camp two hundred and fifty male and female prisoners.   Among this number was a very respectable looking priest, and about forty men fit to bear arms.   There was almost an equal number of black cattle, with about seventy sheep and lambs, and a few horses.   Brigadier Monckton entertained the reverend father and some other fashionable personages in his tent, and most humanely ordered refreshments to all the rest of the captives; which noble example was followed by the soldiery, who generously crowded about those unhappy people, sharing the provisions, rum, and tobacco with them.   They were sent in the evening on board of transports in the river.  " Again, two days later: "Colonel Fraser's detachment returned this morning, and presented us with more scenes of distress and the dismal consequences of war, by a great number of wretched families, whom they brought in prisoners, with some of their effects, and near three hundred black cattle, sheep, hogs, and horses.  "

On the next night the attention of the excellent journalist was otherwise engaged.   Vaudreuil tried again to burn the English fleet.   "Late last night," writes Knox, under date of the twenty-eighth, "the enemy sent down a most formidable fireraft, which consisted of a parcel of schooners, shallops, and stages chained together.   It could not be less than a hundred fathoms in length, and was covered with grenades, old swivels, gun and pistol barrels loaded up to their muzzles, and various other inventions and combustible matters.   This seemed to be their last attempt against our fleet, which happily miscarried, as before; for our gallant seamen, with their usual expertness, grappled them before they got down above a third part of the Basin, towed them safe to shore, and left them at anchor, continually repeating, All's well.   A remarkable expression from some of these intrepid souls to their comrades on this occasion I must not omit, on account of its singular uncouthness; namely: 'Damme, Jack, didst thee ever take hell in tow before?'"

According to a French account, this aquatic infernal machine consisted of seventy rafts, boats, and schooners.   Its failure was due to no shortcoming on the part of its conductors; who, under a brave Canadian named Courval, acted with coolness and resolution.   Nothing saved the fleet but the courage of the sailors, swarming out in their boats to fight the approaching conflagration.  

It was now the end of July.   More than half the summer was gone, and Quebec seemed as far as ever beyond the grasp of Wolfe.   Its buildings were in ruins, and the neighboring parishes were burned and ravaged; but its living rampart, the army of Montcalm, still lay in patient defiance along the shores of Beauport, while above the city every point where a wildcat could climb the precipices was watched and guarded, and Dumas with a thousand men held the impregnable heights of Cap-Rouge.   Montcalm persisted in doing nothing that his enemy wished him to do.   He would not fight on Wolfe's terms, and Wolfe resolved at last to fight him on his own; that is, to attack his camp in front.  

The plan was desperate; for, after leaving troops enough to hold Point Levi and the heights of Montmorenci, less than five thousand men would be left to attack a position of commanding strength, where Montcalm at an hour's notice could collect twice as many to oppose them.   But Wolfe had a boundless trust in the disciplined valor of his soldiers, and an utter scorn of the militia who made the greater part of his enemy's force.  

Towards the Montmorenci the borders of the St.   Lawrence are, as we have seen, extremely high and steep.   At a mile from the gorge of the cataract there is, at high tide, a strand, about the eighth of a mile wide, between the foot of these heights and the river; and beyond this strand the receding tide lays bare a tract of mud nearly half a mile wide.   At the edge of the dry ground the French had built a redoubt mounted with cannon, and there were other similar works on the strand a quarter of a mile nearer the cataract.   Wolfe could not see from the river that these redoubts were commanded by the musketry of the intrenchments along the brink of the heights above.   These intrenchments were so constructed that they swept with cross-fires the whole face of the declivity, which was covered with grass, and was very steep.   Wolfe hoped that, if he attacked one of the redoubts, the French would come down to defend it, and so bring on a general engagement; or, if they did not, that he should gain an opportunity of reconnoitring the heights to find some point where they could be stormed with a chance of success.  

In front of the gorge of the Montmorenci there was a ford during several hours of low tide, so that troops from the adjoining English camp might cross to co-operate with their comrades landing in boats from Point Levi and the Island of Orleans.   On the morning of the thirty-first of July, the tide then being at the flood, the French saw the ship "Centurion," of sixty-four guns, anchor near the Montmorenci and open fire on the redoubts.   Then two armed transports, each of fourteen guns, stood in as close as possible to the first redoubt and fired upon it, stranding as the tide went out, till in the afternoon they lay bare upon the mud.   At the same time a battery of more than forty heavy pieces, planted on the lofty promontory beyond the Montmorenci, began a furious cannonade upon the flank of the French intrenchments.   It did no great harm, however, for the works were protected by a great number of traverses, which stopped the shot; and the Canadians, who manned this part of the lines, held their ground with excellent steadiness.  

About eleven o'clock a fleet of boats filled with troops, chiefly from Point Levi, appeared in the river and hovered off the shore west of the parish church of Beauport, as if meaning to land there.   Montcalm was perplexed, doubting whether the real attack was to be made here, or toward the Montmorenci.   Hour after hour the boats moved to and fro, to increase his doubts and hide the real design; but he soon became convinced that the camp of Lévis at the Montmorenci was the true object of his enemy; and about two o'clock he went thither, greeted as he rode along the lines by shouts of Vive notre Général! Lévis had already made preparations for defence with his usual skill.   His Canadians were reinforced by the battalions of Béarn, Guienne, and Royal Roussillon; and, as the intentions of Wolfe became certain, the right of the camp was nearly abandoned, the main strength of the army being gathered between the river of Beauport and the Montmorenci, where, according to a French writer, there were, towards the end of the afternoon, about twelve thousand men.  

At half-past five o'clock the tide was out, and the crisis came.   The batteries across the Montmorenci, the distant batteries of Point Levi, the cannon of the "Centurion," and those of the two stranded ships, all opened together with redoubled fury.   The French batteries replied; and, amid this deafening roar of artillery, the English boats set their troops ashore at the edge of the broad tract of sedgy mud that the receding river had left bare.   At the same time a column of two thousand men was seen, a mile away, moving in perfect order across the Montmorenci ford.   The first troops that landed from the boats were thirteen companies of grenadiers and a detachment of Royal Americans.   They dashed swiftly forward; while at some distance behind came Monckton's brigade, composed of the fifteenth, or Amherst's regiment, and the seventy-eighth, or Fraser's Highlanders.   The day had been fair and warm; but the sky was now thick with clouds, and large rain-drops began to fall, the precursors of a summer storm.  

With the utmost precipitation, without orders, and without waiting for Monckton's brigade to come up, the grenadiers in front made a rush for the redoubt near the foot of the hill.   The French abandoned it; but the assailants had no sooner gained their prize than the thronged heights above blazed with musketry, and a tempest of bullets fell among them.   Nothing daunted, they dashed forward again, reserving their fire, and struggling to climb the steep ascent; while, with yells and shouts of Vive le Roi! the troops and Canadians at the top poured upon them a hailstorm of musket-balls and buckshot, and dead and wounded in numbers rolled together down the slope.   At that instant the clouds burst, and the rain fell in torrents.   "We could not see half way down the hill," says the Chevalier Johnstone, who was at this part of the line.   Ammunition was wet on both sides, and the grassy steeps became so slippery that was impossible to climb them.   The English say that the storm saved the French; the French, with as much reason, that it saved the English.  

The baffled grenadiers drew back into the redoubt.   Wolfe saw the madness of persisting, and ordered a retreat.   The rain ceased, and troops of Indians came down the heights to scalp the fallen.   Some of them ran towards Lieutenant Peyton, of the Royal Americans, as he lay disabled by a musket-shot.   With his double-barrelled gun he brought down two of his assailants, when a Highland sergeant snatched him in his arms, dragged him half a mile over the mud-flats, and placed him in one of the boats.   A friend of Peyton, Captain Ochterlony, had received a mortal wound, and an Indian would have scalped him but for the generous intrepidity of a soldier of the battalion of Guienne; who, seizing the enraged savage, held him back till several French officers interposed, and had the dying man carried to a place of safety.  

The English retreated in good order, after setting fire to the two stranded vessels.   Those of the grenadiers and Royal Americans who were left alive rowed for the Point of Orleans; the fifteenth regiment rowed for Point Levi; and the Highlanders, led by Wolfe himself, joined the column from beyond the Montmorenci, placing themselves in its rear as it slowly retired along the flats and across the ford, the Indians yelling and the French shouting from the heights, while the British waved their hats, daring them to come down and fight.  

The grenadiers and the Royal Americans, who had borne the brunt of the fray, bore also nearly all the loss; which, in proportion to their numbers, was enormous.   Knox reports it at four hundred and forty-three, killed, wounded, and missing, including one colonel, eight captains, twenty-one lieutenants, and three ensigns.  

Vaudreuil, delighted, wrote to Bourlamaque an account of the affair.   "I have no more anxiety about Quebec.   M.   Wolfe, I can assure you, will make no progress.   Luckily for him, his prudence saved him from the consequences of his mad enterprise, and he contented himself with losing about five hundred of his best soldiers.   Deserters say that he will try us again in a few days.   That is what we want; he'll find somebody to talk to (il trouvera à qui parler).  "

NOTE: Among the killed in this affair was Edward Botwood, sergeant in the grenadiers of the forty-seventh, or Lascelles' regiment.   "Ned Botwood" was well known among his comrades as a poet; and the following lines of his, written on the eve of the expedition to Quebec, continued to be favorites with the British troops during the War of the Revolution (see Historical Magazine, II.  , First Series, 164).   It may be observed here that the war produced a considerable quantity of indifferent verse on both sides.   On that of the English it took the shape of occasional ballads, such as "Bold General Wolfe," printed on broadsides, or of patriotic effusions scattered through magazines and newspapers, while the French celebrated all their victories with songs.  

HOT STUFF.  
Air, Lilies of France.  

    Come, each death-doing dog who dares venture his neck,
    Come, follow the hero that goes to Quebec;
    Jump aboard of the transports, and loose every sail,
    Pay your debts at the tavern by giving leg-bail;
    And ye that love fighting shall soon have enough:
    Wolfe commands us, my boys; we shall give them Hot Stuff.  

    Up the River St.   Lawrence our troops shall advance,
    To the Grenadiers' March we will teach them to dance.  
    Cape Breton we have taken, and next we will try
    At their capital to give them another black eye.  
    Vaudreuil 't is in vain you pretend to look gruff, 
    Those are coming who know how to give you Hot Stuff.  

    With powder in his periwig, and snuff in his nose,
    Monsieur will run down our descent to oppose;
    And the Indians will come: but the light infantry
    Will soon oblige them to betake to a tree.  
    From such rascals as these may we fear a rebuff?
    Advance, grenadiers, and let fly your Hot Stuff!

    When the forty-seventh regiment is dashing ashore,
    While bullets are whistling and cannons do roar,
    Says Montcalm: "Those are Shirley's I know the lappels.  "
    "You lie," says Ned Botwood, "we belong to Lascelles'!
    Tho' our cloathing is changed, yet we scorn a powder-puff;
    So at you, ye b  s, here's give you Hot Stuff.  "
P/

On the repulse at Montmorenci, Wolfe to Pitt, 2 Sept.   1759.   Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct.   1759.   Panet, Journal du Siége.   Johnstone, Dialogue in Hades.   Journal tenu à l'Armée, etc.   Journal of the Siege of Quebec, by a Gentleman in an eminent Station on the Spot.   Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.   Fraser, Journal of the Siege.   Journal du Siége d'après un MS.   déposé à la Bibliothêque Hartwell.   Foligny, Journal mémoratif.   Journal of Transactions at the Siege of Quebec, in Notes and Queries, XX.   164.   John Johnson, Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec.   Journal of an Expedition on the River St.   Lawrence.   An Authentic Account of the Expedition against Quebec, by a Volunteer on that Expedition.   J.   Gibson to Governor Lawrence, 1 Aug.   1759.   Knox, I.   354.   Mante, 244.