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A PARALLEL OF MILITARY ERRORS, OF WHICH THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH ARMIES WERE GUILTY, DURING THE CAMPAIGN OF 1769, IN CANADA. - ' ' The Marquis de Montcalm : — Having ardently desired a conversation with you, sir, upon the operations of a campaign which proved to both of us so fatal, I have sought you continually amongst the shades ever since I descended here, where I soon followed you. General Wolfe : — I can assure you, sir, I was equally impatient to meet with you. Some of my countrymen, arrived here since the battle of the 13th September, informed me that there was only an interval of a few hours in our sharing the same hard fate. They gave me some accounts of that event which joined Canada to the British dominions ; but as they had a very imperfect knowledge of the circumstances, and entirely ignorant of your plan of operations, I have little information from them, and I am heartily glad that chance at last has procured me the pleasure of seeing you. Montcalm : — Will you permit me, sir, before our conversa- tion becomes serious, to offer some reflections upon ihe difference in our destiny. Your nation rendered you the greatest honours : your body was conveyed to London, and buried there magnificently in Westminster Abbey, amongst your kings. Generous Britons erected to your memory a (2) 4 superb monument over your grave, at public expense ; and your name, most dear to your countrymen, is ever in their mouths, accompanied with praise and regret. But in my country what a strange indifference ? What sensation did my death make upon my compatriots ? My conduct denounced and censured without measure, is the continual subject of conversation for gossiping fools and knaves, who form the majority in all communities, and prevail against the infinitely small number to be found of honest, judicious, impartial men, capable of reflection. The Canadians and savages who knew the uprightness of my soul, ever devoted 1o the interests of my beloved king and country, they alone rendered me justice, with a few sincere friends, who, not daring to oppose themselves openly to the torrent of my enemies, bewailed in secret my uniiappy fate, and shed on my tomb their friendly tears. Wolfe : — Inthis blessed abode, inaccessible to prejudice, I vow to you, sir, I envy your condition, notwithstanding the horrible injustice and ingratitude of your countrymen. What can give more pleasure and self-satisfaction than the esteem and approbation of honest men ? You were severely regretted and lamented by all those who were capable of discerning and appreciating your superior merit, talents, and eminent qualities. Disinterested persons of probity must respect your virtue. All officers versed in the art of war will justify your military tactics, and your operations can be blamed only by the ignorant. Were my army consulted, they would be as many witnesses in your favour. Your humanity towards prisoners won you the heart of all my soldiers. They saw with gratitude and veneration your con- tinual care and vigilance to snatch them from out of the hands of the Indians, when those barbarians were ready to cut their throats, and prepared to make of human flesh their horrible banquets ; refusing me even tears at my death, they weeped and bewailed your hard fate ; I see in my mausoleum the proof only of human weakness ! What does that block of marble avail to me in my present state? The monument 9 l^i«f „ ' , % remains, but the conqueror has perished. The afTection, approbation and regret of the worthiest part of mankind is greatly preferable and much above the vain honours conferred by a blind people, who judge according to the event, and are incapable to analyse the operations. 1 was unknown to them before the expedition which I commanded in Canada ; and if fortune, to whom I entirely owe my success, had less favoured me, perhaps, like Byng, I would have been the victim of a furious and unruly populace. The multitude has and can have success only for the rule of their judgment. Montcalm : — I am much obliged to you, sir, for your favourable opinion of me. Let us leave weak mortals to crawl from error to error, and deify to-day what they will condemn to-morrow. It is at present, when the darkness is dispelled from before our eyes, that we can contemplate at leisure the passions of men, who move as the waves of the sea, push on each other and often break upon the rocks ; and in our present state, when ail prejudices are at an end, let us examine impartially the operations of 1759, which was the epocha of the loss to France of her northern colonies in America. Wolfe : — Most willingly sir, and to show my frankness, I own to you I was greatly surprised on arriving with the English fleet at Quebec without meeting with any opposition by the French in the river St. Lawrence. Montcalm: — You had reason to be so. It was not my fault that you did not meet with many obstacles in your way. I proposed to have a redoubt and battery erected upon Cape Tourmente, which is a rock above fifty feet high, facing the Traverse at the east* end of the Island of Orleans, where all the vessels cross from the north to the south side of the St. Lawrence river. They are obliged to approach very near the Cape before they enter into the Traverse, and its height above the men-of-war would have secured it against the * Formerly, inward boand Bbips, instead of taking the sontb channel lower down tlian GrooBe Island, struck over from Cape Tourmente, and took tbe aoath channel between Madame Island and Pointe Argentenay. ctVect of the artillery. Besides, this rock, almost perpendicular, commanding all round it, the fort would have been impregnable, and not susceptible of being besieged. Thus the first of your ships which approached to pass the Traverse would have been raked by the plunging fire of the battery from stern to bowsprit, and must have been sunk. I had likewise the project of placing a battery and a redoubt upon the upper point of the bay which is opposite to the west end of Isle aux Coudres. The current between this island and the main land being incredibly rapid at low water, all the vessels coming up the river must have cast anchor there to wait until the next tide ; and my artillery upon the point of that bay would have battered your ships at anchor from fore to aft ; have put in a most terrible confusion your ships, who could not have taken up their anchors without being instantly dashed to pieces against the rocks by the violence of the current, forced, as they would have been by it, to have their bowsprits always pointed to the battery, without being .able to fire at it. Your fleet would have had no knowledge of the battery until they were at anchor, so you may easily judge how it would have distressed them. I proposed this, but I did not command in chief: it was the Marquis de Vaudreuil, Governor General of Canada, who should have ordered it to be put into execution. Wolfe : — If they had executed your project, it would have puzzled us, and retarded for some time our operations. Montcalm: — That was all I could wish for, as I was always sensible of the great advantage, in certain situations, of gaining time from the enemy, especially in such a climate as Canada, where the summer is so short that it is impossible to keep the field longer than from the month of May till the beginning of October, and your fleet arrived at Isle aux Coudres at the end of June. Wolfe : — There is no doubt that you are in the right. Our fleet arrived in the river St. Lawrence six weeks too late, which is commonly the fate of all great naval expeditions. Fleets are seldom ready to sail at the time appointed ; and lliis often renders fniiticss the best concocted enterprise by sea, from the uncertainty of the arrival of the army at its destination. The smallest delay is often dangerous, as it gives the enemy the time to prepare themselves for defence, without hurry or confusion. MoNTCAT.M : — I will not conceal from you, sir, that I always looked upon the distribution you made of your army upon your landing near Quebec, as diametrically opposed to the established principles in castrametation. It is a known axiom in the art of war, that an army ought to be encamped in such a manner as to have a free and easy communication with all its parts; that they may unite quickly without any obstruction, and be able to defend and sustain each other reciprocally over the whole extent of the camp, in case any part of it is attacked. You divided your army in three different camps; one of them upon the Pointe Levis, another upon the Island of Orleans, and the third at the SauJt de Montmorency The two branches of the St. Lawrence river, which forms the Island of Orleans, each of them about half-a-mile broad, separated your three camps, without a possibility of establishing a communication between them ; and your camp upon the Pointe Levis was at a distance of six miles from your camp at the Sault de Montmorency. Your position was such that had we fallen with our army on any of your three camps, we would have cut them to pieces, before those of your other two camps could have come to their assistance. The knowledge for choosing an advantageous ground for encamping an army, always appears to me to be one of the most essential talents requisite in a general. How could you remain quietly in such a dangerous position during two months, without trembling. Wolfe : — What hindered you then, sir, from executing that which appeared to you so easy ? Montcalm : — We attempted it, but with very bad success. Seven days after your landing at the Pointe Levis, Mr. Dumas, Major of the ('olony troops, was sent to attack your camp at the Pointe Levis, with a body of fifteen hundred men, who in the I night crossed the river St. Lawrence at Quebec, without being discovered by your advanced guards. But they were no sooner landed and marching, than, struck with a panic, the utmost disorder suddenly ensued ; their heads turned, and, losing their senses entirely, they fired at each other, believing themselves attacked by your army. In short, they immediately fled back to their boats with the greatest precipitation and contusion. Discouraged by this bad beginning, M. de Vaudreuil would never listen to any proposals of further attempts upon your camps ; and it was decided to keep ourselves for the future upon the defensive. WoLFB : — It appears to me, however, that you were not encamped in a proper manner to be upon the defensive. Your army did not amount to ten thousand men, and your camp extended seven or eight miles. Montcalm : — I agree with you, and am sensible that the longer the line, the weaker it is in its several parts. I am convinced that it is impossible to prevent a line from being forced ; and 1 believe likewise that, landing on a coast where there are several leagues of it to be defended, equally susceptible of descent, is the same case as lines. He who attacks has all his force concentrated at a single point, which he may choose as he pleases, any where in the extent of his lines ; on the contrary, he who is attacked in his entrench- ments has his force divided over the whole extent of his lines, and does not know on what part of them the enemy has the intention to make his real attack, so that he must be everywhere equally strong and guarded over all the 'ground occupied by his army. Thu the head of a column of a great depth of ranks must infallibly pierce through lines who have only at most two or three men deep ; and by feint attacks all over the front of a line, you cannot weaken one part of it by drawing troops from it to fortify another part of it, unless the point of the enemy's principal attack is manifestly known. It is certainly the same with regard to landings, where all the extent of the sea coast may be threatened at the same time, although it is a common opinion that a coast may be ..,'^/ fi , ( 9 defended, and that an enemy may be repulsed in his attempt to make a descent by open force. I know not a better method to oppose a descent than to have bodies of troops in batlle, ready to rush upon the enemy, with their bayonets upon their musk&:<), attacking the moment the enemy land, whilst they are yet few and in confusion from the disorder which must necessarily happen at their coming out of their boats, and before they can present a considerable front in battle. My project of defence was to encamp on rising ground at Quebec, called by the French, Les HoMteurs (PMraham, and make Quebec serve as the centre and pivot to all my operations, since it was evident that the fate of Canada depended entirely on its being preserved to us or taken by you, which decided whether that colony should remain to its ancient possessors or become your prize. With this in view, I intrenched the borders of the St. Charles river, and remained encamped at Quebec until, receivingtidings of your fleet having arrived in the St. Lawrence river, M. do Levis, an officer of great merit and distinction, proposed to change the position of our camp, by carrying our left wing to the Sanlt de Montmorency, and our right to the St. Charles river : this, as you say, made it six miles long on the north side of Quebec, and gave us greater appearance of being on the offensive liian on the defensive. He pretended that the presenting a great front to the enemy would give us a bold look, and inspire respect. As there can be no positive certainty in any military operation, from unforeseen accidents which often overturn the best combined project, I readily sacrificed to him my opinion, without insisting upon it. In this new position M. de Vaudreuil commanded the right of our camp, near Quebec ; M. de Levis the left, at the Sault de Montmorency ; and I commanded the centre, at Beauport. WoLrB : — Had you continued on the heights of Abraham you would have saved Quebec, but you would have abandoned to me all the country, where I might have b2 r 10 destroyed, burnt and ruined all the setflements at some leagues round it. Montcalm : — That may be, but Canada would not have been taken, and certainly you durst not penetrate far into the country, leaving Quebec behind you. Had you attacked me, I would have had the advantage of the rising ground, which I would have foitified with intrenchments, and .with a chain of redoubts from Quebec to Cap Rouge, where these heights terminate in a deep ravine, with a small river at the bottom of it, overhung with rocks, at three leagues from Quebec. This advantageous position, not to be successfully attacked by any number of men, would have been my advanced post. My right would have been applied to Quebec, and sustained by it. I never could guess, sir, your idea in reducing that town to ashes as you did, by throwing upon it continually, from your batteries on the opposite side of the river, that immense number of carcases and shells. It seems to me that when an army besieges a town, it is with the intention, on its surrendering, to keep possession of it, and have houses in it to lodge the troops, instead of heaps of ruins. This conduct was still more essentially necessary from the season being advanced, and from the impossibility of carrying-on any kind of house building during the winter. More-over, the utter destruction of that town reduced to ashes could not hasten its being taken a moment sooner. You could do no harm to our batteries, which were much higher than yours ; it is not by destroying houses that towns are taken. You always battered houses, without reflecting that it is only by ruining the fortifications — the defences — and by a breach in the walls, that success may be hoped for in sieges ; and it is certain that you lavished a prodigious quantity of warlike stores very uselessly. What advantages could you expect by ruining and dis- tressing the inhabitantsof Quebec, whose houses you burnt? It was destroying alone for the pleasure of doing injury, without any advantage accruing to you from it. 11 "Wolfe : — My inaction during the whole summer should have made you perceive what little hopes I had of succeeding in my expedition ; should it turn out fruitless after the sum it had cost England, the news of Quebec being reduced to ashes might blind the extravagant English populace, and blunt their fanatical fury. Montcalm: — The day that you landed at the Sault de Montmorency, where you encamped immediately with a body of four thousand men, in all appearance you did not know that the river Montmorency was fordable in the wood about a mile to the north of your camp, where fifty men in front might pass the ford with water only up to their knees. Had you passed it immediately, you might have fallen upon the left of our army, cut them to pieces, and pursued them two mHes, as far as the rivine of Beauport, before they could assemble a sufficient /^umber of men to be able to resist you. You might have even encamped upon the north side of that ravine, which, having it before you, would have been a very advantageous post, and brought you several miles nearer to Quebec. In this case it is highly probable «hat we would have been obliged to abandon to you all the ground between the St. Charles river and the ravine. To return to my first project of encamping upon the heights of Abraham, our left was in the greatest security, not knowing that there was a ford in that river until some hours after your landing at the Sault. Wolfe : — Is it then surprising that I should be ignorant of that ford, since you did not know it yourself? besides, it is only the inhabitants in the neighbourhood of rivers, swamps and lakes, who can give positive and sure information about them. And supposing I had found some of your Canadians at their houses there, they are so inviolably attached to their religion, king and country, that they would sooner have led me into a snare than instruct me in anything that could be prejudicial to their army. Those whom a general sends to examine the locale of a country must do it very superficially upon their own obser- I ^iii i' 12 vations, without consulting or interrogating the peasantff in the neighbourhood. Montcalm : — Whilst your soldiers were employed in making their camp, and pitching their tents, M. de Levis and his aide-de-camp Johnstone, were looking at yon from tho opposite side of the Sault. His aide-de-camp having asked him if he was positively certain that there was no ford in the Montmorency river, M. de Levis answering that there was not, and that he had been himsell to examine it to its source. At a lake in the woods, about ten or twelve miles from the Sault, an inhabitant who overheard this conversation, told the aide-de-camp: **The General is mistaken; there is a ford which the inhabitants thereabouts po.HS every day in carrying their com to a mill ;" and he added that he had crossed it lately, with water not above his knees. The aide-de-camp related to M. de Levis immediately hit conversation with the Canadian, who would not believe there was a ford, and, examining him roughly, the Canadian was seized with awe, and respect for the General ; his tongue faltered in his mouth, and he durst not boldly assert the truth. The aide-de-camp, in a whisper to the Canadian, ordered him to find out a person who had crossed the ford lately, and bring him immediately to M. de Levis' lodgings. The Canadian came to him in a moment, with a man who had crossed it the night before, with a sack of wheat upon his back, where he had found only eight inches deep of water. The aide-de-camp being thus assured of the fact, ordered, in M. de Levis' name, a detachment to be sent instantly, with the necessary tools to intrench itself. Wolfe : — Had I been so lucky as you, sir, to discover that ford, there is no doubt I would not have let slip so favourable an opportunity of distinguishing myself, and would have fallen like lightning upon that part of your camp. There can be nothing more dangerous than the neighbourhood of rivers and swamps, that have not been sounded and examined with the greatest care and attention. 1 1 : 13 Negligence, ignorance and headstrong obstinacy are equally fatal in military affairs ; and the misfortune of a Lieutenant- General, in Scotland, against the Highlanders at the battle of Prestonpans, made so deep an impression upon me that lam always on my guard when near such places. . Montcalm: — How can you, sir, justify your imprudence in running headlong into the woods opposite to our intrench- ments, with two thousand men, who naturally ought to have been cut to pieces, and neither you nor any man of your detachment escape ? Nine hundred Indians had invested you all round at a pistol shot from you, and had already cut off your retreat, without your perceiving it. So soon as the Indians had surrounded you in the wood, they sent their officer Langlade to acquaint M. de Levis that they had got you in their net, but that your detachment, appearing to be about two thousand men, greatly superior to them in number, they begged earnestly of M. de Levis to order M. de Repentigny to pass the ford with eleven hundred men, which he commanded in these inlrenchments, and join them ; that they would be answerable upon their heads if a single man of your detachment should get back to your camp ; and they did not think themselves strong enough to strike upon you without this reinforcement of Canadians. There were a great many officers at M. de Levis' lodgings when Langlade came to him on behalf of the Indians, and this Gkneral having consulted them, after giving his own opinion on the aflair : **• that it was dangerous to attack an army in the wood, as "they could not know the number of men there; that it '* might be all the English army, which consequently might ** bring on a general engagement without being prepared for ** it ; and that if he happened to be repulsed, he would be ** blamed for engaging in an affair, without holding previously ** an order from his superiors, M. de Vaudreuil and M. d6 ** Montcalm." The officers respected too much the General not to be of his way of thinking, and it must ever be so from flattery. His aide-de-camp alone maintained a diflerent opinion, out of a real friendship forM. de Levis. He told N 14 'I if j I!* li! ' I' i i i 1:1 j; them that there was not the smallest probability it could be all the English army, since the Indians, who never fail to magnify the number, computed them at only two thousand men. That even supposing it to be the whole Rngiish army, it would be the most lucky thing that could happen to us to have a general engagement in the woods, where a Canadian is worth three disciplined soldiers, as a soldier in a plain is worth three Canadians ; and that nothing was more essential than to select the propitious moment and the way of fighting, for those who composed the two thirds of the army, which was the case with the Canadians. On the contrary, the English army was almost entirely composed of regulars, with very few militia. *^*'^ ' " That M. de Levis could not do better than in ordering M. de Repentigny to cross the river immediately with his detachment en ^cheloHf and join the Indians, without losing moments very precious ; that at the same time he should send instantly to inform me of his adventure, in order to make all the army advance towards the ford, each regiment taking the place of the other marched off; so that the Regiment Royal Roussillon, the nearest to the ford, should go off directly to take the post that Repentigny would quit in crossing the river, and observing the same for the rest of the army ; that by this means the engaging a general affair was much to be wished for, supposing all the English army to be in the woods opposite the ford ; in short, that it there was a possibility of our being defeated and repulsed in the woods, which could scarce happen, according to all human probability, we had our retreat assured in the depth of these woods, well known to the Canadians, where the English troops could not pursue them, so that in no shape could M. de Levis run the least risk. ., His aidei6nard De Beanjeu commanded the Canadians, and achieved a most brilliant victory over General Braddoclc and George Washington ; tbe English losing their proviBlonx, bagg-jge, fifteen cannon, many small arms, tbe military chest, Braddock's paperi*. Washiogton, after tbe battle, wrote : *' Wc have been beaten, sbamefully beaten, by a handful of French. "—(J. M. L.) 27 1*1 8o that every musket-shot brought down a soldier, and at every discharge they flew from tree to tree. What can regu- lar troops do in such a case ? Close their ranks and filed each moment, as did Braddock, direct a continual fire at the woods, without perceiving a man, and be cut to pieces without see- ing an enemy. There is no other method for troops to defend themselves against the Indians than what I practised, with success, when I was surprised by them at the ford of the River Montmorency : the soldiers, with fixed bayonets, dis- persed themselves, rushed on in disorder towards the places where they perceived the smoke of the Indians' discharge ; and by these means my detachment in the woods chased away your nine hundred Indians, whoiq»a moment disappeared entirely, and suffered me to retire at my leisure to my camp. Montcalm : — I verily believe, sir, that your idea is just. The Indians told me, on their return, that it was now no more possible to fight you as formerly, since the English had learned their (the Indians') way of fighting. There can- not be a greater advantage for a Greneral than the entire knowledge of the country — the seat of war: without this, he must always grope in the dark — be foiled in his operations — rest often inactive, uncertain in his projects ; and be only inactive and on the defensive, as you v/ere all the summer as much as me. You were abs'olutely master of the River St. Lawrence by your men-of-war, who had ascended it, passing by Quebec with incredible boldness, and scorning the most murderous fire from the batteries of the town so near them. You had an infinite number of boats at your disposal, with all the sailors of your fleet for rowers. "What, then, could hinder you from sending a body of twelve or fifteen hundred men in different detachments, with engineers and able officers, in order to be continually landing, to get a thorough knowledge of the country, draw plans of all the advantageous positions which abound there ; and this detachment, if well led, might have gone even to. Montreal without finding any oppo- sition in their course. Their descriptions and plans of the country would have enlightened you, and furnished the means I of destroying and crushing our army without fighting: this is the touchstone to prove superior talents and capacity in a General. The gaining of a battle is very often the effect of mere chance. But reducing an enemy without fighting must be the result of well-combined operations, — is the essence of military science, and was always the most radiant and distinctive trait in the conduct and character of the great men whom history has handed down to us. Grounded upon the instructions received from the engineers and officers of their detachments, you might have verified their observations by your prisoners, who say always more than they intend, when examined with kindness, coolness, and with a seeming indif- ference. The only achievemeni which you performed during two months that you lay constantly loitering in your camps, looking at us, was your attack of the 3 1st of July ; and your expedition to Deschambault, where you sent a body of two thousand men, fourteen leagues up the river from Quebec, to burn and pillage a poor, miserable peasant's house, in which was the baggage of some French regiments ! But the detach- ment had no intention of examining the locale of the country. Had they gone to Jacques Cartier, only three leagues from Deschambault, they would have discovered there a pest strong by nature, which certainly cannot be inferior to the Thermopylae so celebrated by the Greeks, and capable of being defended — you being the masters of the River St. Law- rence — by as few men as Leonidas had with him against the most numerous array. But your detachment at Descham- bault, upon the appearance of my cavalry, composed merely of two hundred undisciplined Canadians on horseback, com- manded by the Chevalier de La Rochebeaucourt, ran to their boats and embarked with great disorder and confusion, as if our army had been at their heels, without having remained there above two hours. Jacques Cartier — which takes its name from he who first discovered the River Pt, Lawrence, and who, having lost his ship, passed there the w iuter amongst the Indians — is an immense ravine, with a rapid, shaggy river full of large rocks, that runs between the two heights'^ 29 whose tops are about two hundred fathoms distant from each other; their sides are as glacis, with a view from their tops to the bottom — four or five hundred feet deep — which stril«es the eyes with horror on looiiing down that vast precipice. Its side, facing the River St. Lawrence, is a steep perpendicular rock ; and the ground to the north is impracticable from the lakes, swamps, and sinking turf, where at each step a person must plunge over the head and perish. It must be impossible to turn round it and leave it behind, since the Canadians and the Indians never discovered a passage through the woods. Thus the only means of approaching this fort must have been by landing at Deschambault. From thence to Jacques Cartier, it is an easy and gradually rising ascent. Had you seized this extradrdinary fort, you would have cut otf my communication with Montreal, from whence I drew daily my supplies for the array : in this event, I had no other alternative than allowing my army to perish of famine, or surrender the colony. But as we had been sent from Europe, not to destroy the inhabitants, but, on the contrary, to save and defend them, I must have immediately concluded by capitulating for Canada upon the best terms I could obtain from you. I hope I have demonstrated clearly to you that, had you been acquainted with the locale, you could have made the glorious conquest of Canada without shedding a drop of blood. Wolfe : — You argue, sir, at your ease ! How was it pos- sible to examine and know the locale of that country, your bloodhounds — the Indians and Canadians — being constantly at our heels : one cann6t send out scouts in Canada, as is done in Europe. ^ ^ ■ • ,; -b^; n Montcalm : — Why not? Men caanot be in two places at the same time ; and you managed to find everywhere Indians .and Canadians in your way ! There are many kinds of irregular troops in Europe as bad to deal with as the Indians in woods and in wooded countries. But .your army was al- ways so struck with terror and dread, that, constantly blinded with fear, the shadow of an Indian set them a trembling. Nevertheless, the New England independent companies, M formed by Ro^erf who afterwards beat the Indians with equal numbers in their own way of fighting behind trees, should have removed the formidable impression they have always- made upon the English. Selt'preservation is natural to all mankind, and the hour of death must strike with horror the bravest man. But fear is pardonable amongst soldiers only when there exists a real cause for fear ; and is not to be tolerated when groundless: this is so much the case of your soldiers with regard to the Indians, that, demoralized by fear, they suffer themselves to be butchered by a vastly inferior number of Indians, without ever thinking of defending them- selves, even when they know they will have no quarter. In any danger, soldiers ought to be accustomed to look coolly death in the face, — they, whose duty is' to die when the Sovereign demands it : such is the contract they sign with the latter on their entering into his service. These sentiments may be often the means of one's preserving life instead of losing it. Nothing is more incomprehensible to me, in all your conduct in Canada, than your landing at Ance des Mires on the 13th September (the fatal day which de- prived us both of our existence, but freed us from mortal folly), at the foot of a steep hill, where a few men at the top of it, with sticks and stones only, must have easily beaten you back on your attempt to climb it, and where we had three posts of one hundred men each : one of them commanded by Douglas, captain in the regiment of Languedoc ; another by Rimini, captain in the Regiment La Sarre ; and the third by De Vergor, captain in the Colony troops, at whose post* you made your descent. These three hundred men, had they done their duty, should have been more than sufficient to have repulsed you ignominiously at this steep hill ; and you never would have got to the top had you met with the smallest resistance. I own that your daring surpasses my conception. Wolfe : — I do not pretend to justify my project by its suc- cess, but by my combinations, which answered exactly as I * De Vergor's post apparently stood about a 100 yardn to the east of the spot on which Wolf0's*Field cottage has siace been built. The ruins still exist.— (J. M. L.) 31 had foreseen^ and which demonstrate my scheme to hare been well concerted. In giving you this account of it, I am persuaded that you will not blame me for undertaking an at- tempt so absurd in appearance, and yet most reasonable when examined impartially. In all expeditions composed of sea and land forces, it seldom fails that disputes, animosities, jealousies and quarrels arise between the different com- manders equal in authority ; and it is a miracle if you see the Admiral and the General unanimously of the same opinion with regard to operations. The sea and the land serrice are sciences whose principles are entirely different ; as certainly there can be no analogy between the working of a ship and the drill of a regiment. Nevertheless, the Admiral meddles continually with the land operations, and the General will have the fleets do things that are impossible — both of them equally ignorant o'i each other's service ; from whence results a clashing discord in their operations, when sent out with equal power. If each of them would confine himself to that part of the art of war which he has studied, and have only in his soul the good and welfare of his King and Country, these mixed expeditions of land and sea would succeed much better than they generally do. The naval officers tor- mented me a great deal, and were still more troublesome as the season advanced. They held a council of war on board the flagship on the 10th September, when it was determined to set sail immediately for Europe, seeing the imminent dangers to which His Majesty's fleet would be exposed in those tem- pestuous seas by remaining any longer before Quebec ; and, in consequence of this decision, orders were given to some men-of-war to take up their anchors and foil down the river, while orders were issued at the same time to begin the general preparations for the immediate deparlnre of all the fleet. The 12th, there came two deserters to me from one of your three posts you just now mentioned, who belonged to the French regiments, and were well informed. Upon ex- amining them, I discovered that your posts were guarded very negligently ; that de Bougainville, who was at Cap Rouge, I I m 32 proposed to send down, the night following, some boats load- ed with provisions, and that your three posts had their orders to let these boats pass unmolested. The idea inManlly oc- curred lo me to profit by this discovery ; and I ran to the Ad- miral, communicated to him what I had learned from the French deserters, begged him most earnestly to suffer me to make a last attempt before the embarkation of my army. I promised him that if there were twenty muskets fired from your posts, I would then desist immediately without further thought than to embark speedily in order to return to Eng- land. The council consented to my demand, and I began my landing at eleven at night. When ray boats approached the two posts of Douglas and Rimini, upon their sentinels calling " Qui vive /" my soldiers answered them in French, '^Bateaw, des vivres;'*'* upon which they suffered them to go on without stopping them, as they might have done, in order to receive the password. Not finding a sentry at your third post, com- manded by De Yergor, I landed there with diligence, and all my army was ashore before this post perceived our men, without firing but one musket, which wounded De Vergor in the heel, who was immediately taken prisoner without find- ing any man of his detach ment with 'tim.* I began my opera- tion by landing there a Sergeant with ten Grenadiers, order- ing him to advance always straight before him briskly, with long steps, and not to halt unless he was discovered by the enemy. A Lieutenant, with a detachment of G-renadiers, followed him, having the same orders, to halt instantly if they fired at him. The silence continuing, 1 then landed all my Grenadiers, who followed the Sergeant and the Lieutenant ; and by degrees all my army landed without the least noise, disorder or confusion. The silence soon convinced me that they were not discovered ; dissipated my fears, and assured me of the success of my enterprise The head of the column, * De Vergor's gnard was composed chiefly of Militiamea from Lorette, who on that day bad obtained leave to go and work on their farms, provided they also worked on a farm Captain De Vergor owned — " Memoir e% 8ur le$ Affaires de la Colonie de 1749-60." Some historians have intimated that De Vergor— a protige of Bigol'e— was a traitor to his King.— (J. M. L.) i'l load- rders y oc- Ad- n the ne to ly. I from « iiTther Eng- an my ed the sailing bateaux without receive t, com- and all r men, srgor in ut find- y opera- }, order- ly, with I by the nadiers, y if they I all my itenant ; 3t noise, me that assured column, orette, who iTided they ■ea stir let bed tbat De ) \ 33 which was the guide to the rest of the army, got up the hill with difficulty, the others following them at their heels. If your guards had been vigilant and done their duty, all I risked was the Sergeant and Lieutenant, with a few Grenadiers. I would have stopped at the first discharge, as it would have been madness and unpardonable to attack by main force a hill so inaccessible that, even without an enemy at the top to repel them, my men had much difficulty to climb it. More- over, I was assured by your deserters you had no troops on the heights of Abraham. You see low, sir, that it was not a heedless, ill-concerted project, — but a sure operation, without risking much. An Invariable principle with me has ever been to make an attack where it appears the most difficult ; and it generally meets with success, as the point is commonly ill- guarded, frequently entirely neglected, and scarcely compre- hended in the plan of defence. I am not alone of this opinion. Cardinal Ximenes says, that " Ferdinand, King of Arragon, ** fitted out two armies against the Moors, under th^ conduct ** of Count D'Agnilar, and ordered them to enter into the " mountains of Grenada at the same time, by the places the *' most difficult," and consequently the least guarded. He gained a most complete victory over the Moors. The most difficult gorges of mountains, when not guarded where only a single man can pass, a hundred thousand may do the same. It is then an easy operation, by forming your men in battle as soon as they get through the passage, and provided that they are not immediately discovered by the enemy. When once you have a front capable to oppose and stand firm, it increases every instant, as you may be convinced that the soldiers go through the dangerous passage with great quickness. Be- sides, the enemy is always disconcerted by a surprise : de- moralized by an unforeseen incident, he becomes timid and alarmed, and may be looked upon as already vanquished be- fore the action begins. The landing at Cape Breton was executed according to my system. The enemy does not ex- pect you at a place of difficult access ; it is where he does not expect me that I would make my principal attack. £ ■ I 34 Commonly, men siiflbr most where they are most seen.* But if they are entirely neglected — as it happened at Louifibonrg— it is a fault of the General, who should be answerable for it. But the General having placed upon them a sufficient number of troops in proportion to their difficulties, can he be blamed if the officers of these posts do not do their duty ? , Montcalm : — Can there be any divine or human law to punish a man for the faults of others ? Should they not answer personally? It has often ha))pened that the safety of a whole army has depended upon a subaltern's guard ! You see that the deserters caused you to make a last attempt — prevented your embarking your army for England — your giving up your enterprise — and, in short, ended in adding Canada to the British dominions; and perhaps a vigilant officer at that post (Wolfe's (Jove) might have hindered the soldiers from deserting, which would at once hate removed a first cause which produced so many extraordinary eiFects. Your system may be good, if executed with great prudence and precaution. But should the enemy be informed of your design, which he may be by a deserter acquainted with your great pre- parations, as you were with the negligence of our posts, it is an excellent opportunity to have your army cut to pieces and catch a tartar; as it must have been your case at the Sault de Montmorency (on the 31st July), had it not been for that sud- den shower of rain, which came to your rescue in the critical moment, when your destruction was otherwise inevitable. At least, sir, confess the injustice of mankind. They reproach me with being the cause of your success I They accuse me of having sacrificed the welfare of my army through jealousy and ill-feeling ! My king and country — for whom I would have shed, with pleasure, every drop of my blood — and those who view my case the most favourably, look on me as a giddy, ignorant officer! All these scandalous, atrocious lies and * I incline more to General Wolfe's opinion than what Voltaire reports, in the war of 1781, to have been the King of PrusBia's maxim :— " 1'hat we ought always to do what ibe enemy ia afraid of." Where the enemy is afraid of anything in particular, be has there his largest force, and is there more oa bis guard than any where else.— [Mandscbipt Note.] r m' Btit calumnies were spread eveiywhere by a setf of men who, from their immoderate thirst of riches, would, to serve their interest^ have betrayed their king and country. Those vile, mercenary souls knew that I detested them as much as I con- stantly cherished honest men, whose noble sentiments endear- ed them to me. My death was happy for them. Had I lived to return to Europe, I would have had no difficulty to justify all my conduct, and crush these wretches like vermin. Covet- ousness and avarice carried them to Canada : they left their honour and honesty in France on embarking, easily forgetting what it is to be just and patriotic. I would have soon con- founded them. Truth supports oppressed innocence, and, sooner or later, dispels the clouds which loo often overshadow it. I shall give you a faithful and exact account of my con- duct with regard to the operations of the 13ih September, fol- lowing scrupulously truth, which has always been the rule of my actions and is held in great veneration by me ; and I hope to demonstmte to you that if the end of that campaign covered you with glory. Fortune was the chief agent, who reunited in your power a great number of circumstances, the absence of any one of which sufficed to render your expedition fruitless. Some days after the action (>{ the 31st of July, M. de Levis was sent by M. Vaudreuil to command at Montreal, upon a false report that a body of Finglish was coming to attack Canada by Lake Champlain — ,; >tory trumped up by my enemies to deprive me of M. de Levis, in whom I had the greatest confidence, on uicount i' his talents : I cannot say he made me a just ackno\vledgment of n:y sentiments towards him. I went to his lodgings a few hours before his departure, which was kept a secret from the army; and as I was little acquainted wiili his plan of defence for the left < If camp, at the Sault de Montmorency, I begged of him, as a favour, to leave me his aide-de-camp, M. Johnstone, who had a peifect knowledge of the locale of that part of the country. Your boats having caused us an alarm in the night between the 10th and 11th of September, by their appearance J Bigot's coterie.— [J. M. L] ,x .'I /I l( 30 I: I opposite to the ravine of Beauport, I remained at M. Vbxl* dreuil's until one in the morning, when I left him in ordef that I might return to my lodging — having with me M. Montreuil, Major-General of the army, and M. Johnstone. On my sending away M. de Vaudreuil, after giving him my orders, I related immediately to M. Johnstone all the mea- sures I had concerted with M. de Vaudreuil, incase you (Gen. Wolfe) made a descent at daybreak. He answered me, that your army being now assembled at Point Levi, and part of it gone above Quebec, on the south side of the River St. Lawrence, it appeared very doubtful where you might attem{^ a descent — whether above the town, or below it towards the Canardiere ; he added, that he believed a body of troop» might be advantageously placed upon the heights of Abraham, where they could with certainty confront you whenever you landed. 1 approved greatly of his idea. I ctilled back Montreuil — who was as yet not far from us — and I ordered him to send the Regiment of Guienne — which was encamped near the hornwork at the River St. Charles — to pass the night upon the heights of Abraham. Next morning — the 11th — I wrote to Montreuil, ordering him to make this regiment encamp upon the heights of Abraham, and remain there until further orders. Thus, in consequence of my repeated ordersy 1 had all the reason possible to believe that this regiment con- stituted a permanent post there ; so that the declaration of thei deserters from the three posts, who could not know this, might, have led you into a dangerous snare, worse than that of the^ 31st July. Why this regiment continued the 12th in thiS' camp at the hornwork, in spite of my express orders to en- camp upon the heights, I know not ; and can only attribute? Montreuil's disobedience of my orders to the weakness of hia; judgment and understanding. It is nevertheless evident that^ if you had found the Regiment of G-uienne upon the top of the hill — where it ought to have been, had my orders beeit ubeyed — you would have been repulsed shamefully with a. much greater loss than you met with on the 31st of July at the Sault ; the height where you made your descent, the 13th of 37 \H September, being infinitely steeper than that there wbieb obliged yon to make a speedy retreat, favoured by the provi' dential shower. Or, perhaps you would have embarked im- mediately your army, without any further attempt, to return tax England, after a most ruinous and fruitless expedition— tbei campaign ending with an incredible expense to your natioBM- fruitless ; and, by this means, the colony of Canada woukl have been for ever delivered from such formidable armies. As soon as your army was reunited in a single cansp at Pointe Levi, after having been so long separated, upon yon) sending a body of troops up the River St. Lawrence, I de^ tacbed M. de Bougainville, with fifteen hundred of |my besH troops — composed of all my Grenadiers, of the Volunleefi) from the French Regiments, of my best Canadians and faii' dians ; and I likewise gave him some small guns. I- ordered him strictly to follow all your movements, by ascending the river when you went up, and descending as you did the same : in short, to be an army of observation, with only the river between you^-never to lose sight of you^— ever leady^ to oppose your passage up the river, and to fall on you with* the swiftness of the eagle the moment you attempted to 1«mI on our side of it. He sent to inform me, the 13th of Septem* ber, that all your army had descended to your camp at Pointe Levi. But he remained loitering with his detachment at Cap Rouge — three leagues from Quebec ! Why did he not follow you to the heights of Abraham, according to hie orders ? Why did he not send me back my Grenadiers and Volunteers — the very flower of their Regiments ? informing me, as also the posts of Douglas and Rimini, that he wouldi send down that night. I cannot conceive the reasons for such' conduct : it is beyond all conception ! He was informed, be- tween seven and eight in the morning, by the fugitives fVomi the thre-i posts, that our army was landed and drawn up in' battle upon the heights of Abraham ; upon which he left Cap' Rouge with his detachment, no doubt with the intention to join me. But, instead of taking the road to Lorette, or to the General Hospital along the borders of the Rivex St. Chaxles, 38 i I ri I which led both of Ihem to our camp, he followed the heights of Abraham, where he was evidently certain by his informa- tion to find there your army to intercept him ; and it could never be his design to fight you with filteen hundred men ! He found a house on his way, with three or four hundred of your troops barricading it, and was very desirous to take (hem prisoners. M. le Noir, Captain in the Regiment La Sarre — having more bravery than prudence and knowledge of the art of war — attacked the house with the most astonishing boldness, and had more than half of his company of Volun- teers killed : he received himself two wounds — one of them by a ball through the body, and the other in his hand, de Bougainville, intent on taking the house, waited there the arrival of the cannon, to force it ; but when the cannon arrived, it unluckily happened that the balls had been forgotten at Cap Rouge, which obliged him to return there, abandoning the house without a moment's reflection. How much more important it would have been to direct his march towards the General Hospi- tal, in order to join my army ! Thus were precious mo- ments wasted ridiculously in the most trifling manner. De Bougainville — who has a great deal of wit, good sense, many good qualities — was protected by a very great person at Court ; he is personally brave, has but little knowledge in the military science, having never studied it. The night between the 12th and 13th of September, when you made your descent, M. Poularies, Commander of the Regiment Royal Roussillon, who encamped behind my lodg- ings at Beauport, came to me, at midnight, to inform me that they saw boats opposite to his regiment. Upon which I im- mediately ordered all the army to line the trenches ; and I sent Marcel — who served me as Secretary and aid-de-camp — to pass the night at M. de Vaudreuil's, giving him one ol my Cavaliers of Ordnance, ordering Marcel, if there was any- thing extraordinary in that quarter, to inform me of it speedily by the Cavalier. I was out and walked with Poularies and Johnstone, between my house and the ravine of Beauport, until one in the morning, when I sent Poularies to his regi- iMII 89 inent, and I continued there with Johnstone* All night my mind was in the most vioiont agitation, which I believe pro- ceeded from my uneasiness for the boats and provisions that de Bougainville had acquainted me, would be sent down the river that night ; and I repeated often to Johnstone, that I trembled lest they should be taken, as " that loss would ruin " us without resource, having provisions only for two days' " subsistence to our army." It appears to me that my extra- ordinary sufferings that night were a presage of my cruel fate some hours afterwards. At daybreak they fired some cannon from our battery at Samos, near Sillery. I then had no more doubts of our boats being taken by you. Alas ! I would never have imagined that my provisions were in safety at Cap Rouge with de Bougainville, and that you were upon the heights of Abraham since midnight, without my being in- formed of an event of so great importance, and which was known through all the right of our camp. Tne day clearing up, having news from Marcel at M. de Vau- dreuil's, who had always my Cavalier of Ordnance with him, and perceiving no changes in your camp at Point Levis, my mind was more composed on reflecting that, if anything extraordinary had happened, I would certainly have been informed of it. I then sent Johnstone to order all the army to their tents, having passed the night in the trenches, and retired to my lodgings after drinking some dishes of tea with Johnstone. I desired him to order the servants to saddle the horses, in order to go to M. de Vaudreuil's and be informed of the cause of the firing from our battery at Samos. Not a soul having come to me from the right of our camp since mid- night when 1 sent there Marcel, I set out with Johnstone be- tween six and seven in the morning. Heavens, what was my surprise ! when opposite to M. de Vaudreuil's lodgings, the first news of what had passed during the night was the sight of your army upon the heights of Abraham, firing at the Ca- nadians scattered annongst the bushes. I met at the same time M. de Vaudreuil coming out of his lodgings, and haying spoke to him an instant, I turned away to Johnstone, and told I i ! ! ■M U 40 him : " the affair is serious ! run with the greatest speed to ** Beauport ; order Poularies to remain there at the Ravine ** with two hundred men, and to send me all the rest of the *• left to the heights of Abraham with the utmost diligence." Johnstone having delivered my orders to Poularies, he quitted him an instant to give some instructions to my ser- vants at my lodgings ; returning to rejoin me, he found Poularies in the Ravine with M. de Sennezergue, Brigadier- General and Lieutenant-Colonel oi the Regiment of La Sarre, and de Lotbiniere, Captain of the Colony troops and aid-de- camp to M. de Vaudreuil. Poularies stopped Johnstone to make him repeat to them my orders, which he did ; and at the same time advised Poularies, as a friend, to disobey them, by com- ing himself to the heights of Abraham with every man of the left, since it was evident that the English army — already landed near Quebec — could never think of making a second descent at Beauport ; and that it was manifest there would be in a few hours an engagement upon the heights which would immediately decide the fate of the Colony. Poularies then showed Johnstone a written order — signed "Montreuil" — which Lotbini^re had brought to him from M. de Vaudreuil, ** That not a man of the left should stir from the camp !" Johnstone declared to them, upon his honour, that it was word for word my orders and my intentions ; and he entreat- ed Poularies, in the most pressing manner, to have no regard for that order signed " Montreuil," as the want of two thou- sand men, which formed the left of our camp, must be of the greatest consequence in the battle. M. de Sennezergue — an officer of the greatest worth and honour, who fell a few hours afterwards — told Johnstone : " That he (Johnstone) should take " it upon him to make all the left march off immediately." Johnstone answered : " That, being only the bearer of my orders, ♦* he could take nothing upon him. But if he was in M. de '* Sennezergue's place, Brigadier-General, and, by M. de Levis' ** absence, the next in command of the army, he would not ** hesitate a moment to make the left march, withqjit any re- ^* gaxd whatsoever to any order that might be hurtful to the 4t l\'i i>» ** King's serYice, in that critical juncture.'' Johnstone left them irresolute and doubtful how to act, clapped spurs to his horse, and rejoined me immediately upon the heights. I don't know, any more than a thousand others, the particu- lars relative to the action of the ISlh of September. 1 am ignorant of who it was that made our army take their abo- minable and senseless position, by thrusting it betwixt your army and Quebec, where there were no provisions, and the best of our troops absent with de Bougainville ; it certainly must have been dictated by an ignorant and stupid blockhead ! I certainly had no hand in it : the piquets and part of the troops were already marched up the heights before I came to the Canardi^re, or ever kne\ * that you were landed ; and all the right of our army was marching after them when I arrived at their encampment. The only proper course to be taken in our position, and which would have been apparent to any man of common sense who had the least knowledge of the art of war, was to quit our camp coolly— calmly — without disorder or confusion, and march to Lorette ; from thence cross over to St. Foix — which is two leagues from Quebec and a league from Cap Rouge — and w*hen joined there by M. de Bougainville's detachment, to advance then and attack you as soon as possible. By these means you would have found yourself between two fires, by a sally from the town the mo- ment that I attacked you on the other side. I was no sooner upon the heights than I perceived our horrible position, — pressed against the town-walls, without provisions for four- and-twenty hours, and a moral impossibility for us to retire, being drawn up in battle at the distance of a musket-shot from your army. Had I made an attempt to go down the heights, in order to repass the River St. Charles and return to my camp, I would have exposed my left jflank to you, and my rear would have been cut to pieces without being able to protect and support it. Had I entered into the town, in an instant you would have invested us in it, without provisions, by carrying down your left wing to the River St. Charles — an easy movement of a few minutes. I saw no remedy other for us than to ■11 ;i 'ii 1 ' : ■It;: 42 worry your army by a cannonade, having the advantage over you of a rising ground suitable for batteries of cannon, hoping, by thus harassing you, that you might retiie in the night, as certainly you could never be so rash as to think of attacking us under the gnna of the town ; at least I would have made my retreat, taking advantage of the darkness of the night, to get myself out of the scrape where the ignorance of others had thrown me. I sent several persons with orders to M. de Ramsay, King's Lieutenant (Deputy Governor), who was in command at Quebec, to send me, with all possible haste, the fivre-and-twehty brass field pieces that were in posi' tion on the palace battery, near our army ; and precisely at the same instant when Johnstone came to me on the heights, with the news of the order which prevented the left of our army to join me, a sergeant arrived from M. de Ramsay — the fourth person I had sent to him with my orders — with a cate- gorical answer from him : ^* That he had already sent me ** three pieces of artillery ; and that he could not send me any ** more, having his town to defend !" What could be de Ram- say's reasons for such a monstrous conduct, or who it was who inspired him with such a daring disobedience, I know not? 1. "His town" — as he called it — was defended by our army which covered it, being drawn up in battle about two hundred fathoms from it ; and its safety depended entirely upon the event of a battle. 2. There were in Quebec about two hundred pieces of cannon, most of them twenty-four and thirty-six pounders. 3. Small field-pieces, two or three pounders — such as the palace battery — could they be of the least service for the de- fence of a town ? 4. A Commander of Quebec, as King's Lieutenant or sub- Lieutenant, such as de Ramsay was — not Governor,— or even M. de Vaudreuil himself, Governor General of Canada, at that moment in the town,— could they have any authority to refuse me all the assistance I could desire from Quebec, by my par- ticular commission of Commander-in-Chief of the troops in 4d Vl Canada, when my army was at the gates of the town, and your army deployed ready to fight ? A thousand other queries suggest themselves ; but of what avail ? I assembled immediately a council of war, composed of all the commanding officers of the several regiments, to hear their opinion as to what was to be done in our critical situa- tion. Some of them maintained you were busy throwing up breastworks. Others, that you appeared bent on descending in the valley, in order to seize the bridge of boats on the St. Charles river with the hornwork, with the object of cutting off our communication with the left wing of our army, which remained at Beauport pursuant to the order signed by Mon- tteuil. In effect, a movement your army made in that moment towards the windmill and Borgia^s house, upon the edge of the height, seemed to favour this conjecture. But an instant afterwards, the Canadians having set fire to that house and chased you from it, you retook your former position. Others alleged, that the more we delayed attacking you, the more your army would be strong — imagining that your troops had not yet all landed. In short, there was not a single member of the war council who was not of opinion to charge upon you immediately. Can it be credited that these officers — to the dishonour of mankind — who were the most violent to attack you, denied it afterwards, and became the most ardent censors of my conduct in not deferring the battle ! What could I do in my desperate situation ? Even a Marshal Turenne would have been much puzzled to get out of such a dilemma, in which they had entangled me either through design or ignorance. I listened with attention to their opinion, without opening my lips, and at last answered them : — " It appears to " me, gentlemen, that you are unanimous for giving battle ; " and that the only question now is, how to charge the "enemy?" Monlreuil said it would be belter lo attack in columns. I answered him : — " That we would be beat before " our columns could be formed so near to the enemy ; and, " besides, that our columns must be very weak, not having " G-renadiers to place at their heads." I added, that " since 1 1 44 ** it is decided to attack, it must be in Front Baudiire {})** I sent all the officers to their posts, and ordered the drummert to beat the charge. Oar onset was neither brisk, nor long. Wo went on in confasion— ^were repulsed in an instant ; and it conld not naturally be otherwise from the absence of our Volunteers and Grenadiers, and de Bougainville at Cap Ronge with the best of our Canadians; the Montreal regiments with Ponlaries at Beauport, a league and a half from the battle-field. The ex- ample of the bravest soldiers in a regiment — the Grenadiers and Volunteers — suffices to infuse courage in the most timid, who can follow the road shown to them, but cannot lead the way. The brave Canadian Militia saw us with heavy hearts, grief and despair, from the other side of the St. Charles river, cut to pieces upon the heights, stopped, as they were, in the horn work, and prevented by superior orders from rushing to our assistance. About two hundred brave and resolute Canadians rallied in the hollow at the bakehouse, and returned upon the heights. They fell instantly upon your left wing with incredible rage ; stopped your army for some minutes from pursuing our soldiers in their flight, by attracting your attention to them ; resisted, undaunted, the shock of your left ; and, when repulsed, they disputed the ground inch by inch from the top to the bottom of the height, pursued by your troops down to the valley at the bakehouse, opposite to the hornwork. These unfortunate heroes — who were most of them cut to pieces — saved your army the loss of a great many men, by not being hotly pursued ; and if your left, who followed these two hundred Canadians down to the plain, had crossed it from the bakehouse to the River St. Charles, only three or four hundred paces, they would have cut off the retreat of our army, invested the three-fourths of them in Quebec, without provisions, and M. de Vaudreuil, next day, must have surrendered the town and asked to capitulate for the colony. But your conduct cannot be blamed, as it is always wise and prudent in giving — as Pyrrhus advises— a golden bridge to one^s enemy in flight. i ! 45 ill You see, sir, by this trae and faithful account of thn battle of the 13th September, and of what preceded it, how many different and unforeseen events, fortune was obliged to unite in your favour to render you successful in your expedition against Canada ; the failure of any one of which would have sufficed to frustrate your enter;:, ise. It would appear that heaven had decreed that France should lose this colony. Let us now conclude, sir, that I have as little deserved the blame, scorn, contempt and injustice which my country heaped on my memory, as you do the excessive honours they lavished on yours in England ; and that the ablest General in Europe, placed in my circumstances, could not have acted otherwise than I did. Moreover, I was under M. de Vaudrcuil — the weakest man alive, although a most obstin: ) automaton — and could not freely follow my ideas as if I had been Commander-in-Chief. In my country the law 'is equal : we neither punish, nor recompense. The Marquis of Montcalm, endeavouring to rally the troops in their disorderly flight, was wounded in the lower part of the belly.* He was conveyed immediately to Quebec, and lodged in the house of M. Amonx, the King's surgeon, who was absent with M. de Bourlamarque : his brother— the younger Amoux — having viewed the wound, declared it mortal. This truly great and worthy man heard Amouxf pronounce his sentence of death with a firm and undaunted soul : his mind calm and serene ; his countenance soft and pleasing ; and with a look of indiflerence whether he lived or died. He begged of Amoux to be so kind and outspoken as to tell him how many hours he thought he might yet live? Amoux answered him, that he might hold out until three in the morning. He spent that short period of life in conversing with a few officers upon indifferent subjects with great cool- ness and presence of mind, and ended his days about the hour Amoux had foretold him. His last words were : — * It WM reported in Canada, that the ball whlob killed tbat great, good and bball. " He was at that moment between Les Buttfs-ti-Neveu and St. Ixiuis Gate." From the rity, on the one side, and Trom the battle-iifid, ou the other, the ground rises until the two slopes meet and form a rir'ge ; the «:unimit of which was formerly occupifd by a windmill belonging to a man named Nfveu, or Nepveu. About midway between 1hi8 ridge and St. Louis Gate, nnd to the southward of the St. Louis Road, are sonie Hlipht eminences, still known by the older French residents as Les Buttes-a-Ifepveu. or Neveu's hillocks, and about three-quarters of a mile distant from the spot where the British line charged.— R. 8. Bbatson. (2) For these particulars I am indebted to my friend Mr. G B. Faribault— a gertleroan well known iu Canada for his researches Into the historj' of the Colony : whose information on this su^ect was derived from his much respected fellow-cit>zen the Hon. John Malcolm Frazer— grandson of one of WoLTE'soflicprs, and now (18S4) one of the oldest inhabitants of Ouebec ; where, in his childhood and youth, he had the facts, as above narrated, often described to him by an elderly woman who, when about eighteen yean of age, was an eye-witneas of the icene.— a. 8. Bbatson. • king and country, possessing many rare and good qualities. Had he by chance been born in England, his memory would have been celebrated, and transmitted with honour to pos- terity. Illustrious by his virtue and genius, he deserves to live in history ; he was an unfortunate victim to the insatiable avarice of some men, and a prey toMhe immoderate ambition of others. His ashes, mingled with those oi Indians, repose neglected far from his native country, without a magnificent tomb or altars ; General Wolfe has statues in England in commemoration of the many faults he committed during his expedition in Canada. " How many obscure dead," says a modern author, ** have received the greatest honours by titles yet more vain? O injustice of mankind! The mausolea adorn the temples to repeat continually false praise ; and history, which ought to be the sacred asylum of truth, shows that statues and panegyrics are almost always the monuments of prejudice, and that flattery seeks to immortalise unjust reputations." When I was informed of M. de Montcalm's misfortune, I sent him immediately his servant Joseph, begging him to acquaint me if I could be of any service to him, and in that case I would be with him at Quebec immediately. Joseph came back in a moment to the hornwork, and grieved me to the inmost of my soul by M. de Montcalm's answer : "that it was needless to come to him, as he had only a few hours to live, and he advised me to keep with Poularies until the arrival of M. de Levis at the army." Thus perished a great man, generally unknown and unregretted by his countrymen — a man who would have become the idol and ornament of any other country in Europe. The French army in flight, scattered and entirely dispersed, rushed towards the town. Few of them entered Quebec ; they went down the heights of Abraham, opposite to the In- tendant's Palace (past St. John's gate) directing their course to the hornwork, and following the borders of the River St. Charles. Seeing the impossibility of rallying our troops, I determined myself to go down the hill at the windmill, near I the bakehouse,* and from thence across over the meadows to the horn work, resolved not to approach Quebec, from my ap* prehension of being shut up there with a part of onr army, which might have been the case if the victors had drawn all the advantage they could have reaped from our defeat. It it true the death of the general-in-chief — an event which never fails to create the greatest disorder and confusion in an iarmy-*may plead as an excuse for the English neglecting so easy an operation as to take all our army prisoners. But instead of following immediately my ideas, I was carried off by the flow of the fugitives, without being able to stop them or myseli until I got to a hollow swampy ground, where some gunners were endeavouring to save a field-piece which stuck there, and I stayed an instant with them to encourage them to draw it to the town. Returning back vpon the rising ground, I was astonished to find myself in the teentre of the English army, who had advanced whilst I was in the hollow with the gunners, and taking roe for a general, on account of my fne black horse, they treated me as such by saluting me with a thousand musket shots fiom half of the front of their army, which had formed a crescent. I w^, nevertheless, bent on reaching the windmill, and I escaped their terrible fire \7ith0ut any other harm than four balls through my clothes, which shattered them ; a ball lodged in the pommel of my saddle, and four balls in my horse's body, who lived, notwithstanding his wounds, until he had carried me to the bornworic. It is impossible to imagine the disorder and confusion that I found in the homwork.f The dread and constematicNi was geneml. M. de Vandrenil listened to everybody, and was always of the adviee of he who vpake last. No order * Thto bakdioaie •ppetn to lmv« been eome whM« tt tbe fo«t of Aimbmm^ hlU. t The exoATaUona of tbeee Freoeh works tre very vidble to tbii day behind Mr Q. H. Fwke'i reaideaee, Bingfleld, OhMrtoebonrff roed. Tbe homworit sppesfsio haiH eovBted aboat twelve aera 'ignMiid, aartoaaded bf a dUoh. lows to my ap* r array, iwn all . It it ti never I in an sting 80 ^ I was able to ground, Id-piece them to sg back sifinthe t I was general, as such ilf of the I w^s, escaped »ur balls »dged in 3'sbody, i canried ision that ition was and was fo Older AbnbMi% r behind Xr ksppciri^ vras given with reflection and with coi^lness, none knowing what to order or what to do. When the English had repulsed the two hundred Canadians that had gone up the height at the same time that I came down from it, pursuing them down to the bakehouse, our men lost their heads entirely ; they became demoralized, imagining that the English troops, then at the bakehouse, would in an instant cross the plain and fly over the St. Charles river into the hornwork as with wings. It is certain that when fear once seizT3 hold of men it not only deprives them totally of their judgment and reflection, but also of the use of their eyes and their ears, and they become a thousand times worse than the brute creation, guided by instinct only, or by that small' portion of reason which the author of nature has assigned it, since it preserves the use of it on all occasions. How much inferior to them do the greater portion of mankind appear, with their boasted reason, when reduced to madness and automata, on occasions when they require the more the use of their reason. . The hornwork had the River St. Charles before it, about seventy paces broad, which served it better than an artificial ditch ; its front facing the river and the heights, was com* posed of strong, thick, and high palisades, planted perpendi- cularly, with gunholes pierced for several pieces of large cannon in it; the river is deep and only fordable at low water, at a musket shot before the fort. This made it more difficult to be forced on that side than on its other side of earthworks facing Beauport, which had a more formidable ap- pearance ; and the hornwork certainly on that side was not in the least danger of being taken by the English, by an assault from the other side of the river. On the appearance of the English troops on the plain of the bakehouse, Montguet and La Motte, two old captains in the Regiment of Beam, cried out with vehemence to M. de Vaudreuil, '' that the hornwork would be taken in an instant, by an assault, sword in hand ; that we would be all cut to pieces without quarter, and that nothing else would save us but an immediate and general capitulation of Canada, giving it up to the English.*' G I >i^ 60 II Montreuil told them that '' a fortification such as the hom^ work was not to be taken so easily." In short, there arose a general cry in the hern work to cut the bridge of boats.* It is worthy of remark, that not a fourth of our army had yet arrived at it, and the remainder, by cutting the bridge, would have been left on the other side of the river as victims to the victors. The regiment * Royal Roussillon,' was at that mo- ment at the distance of a musket shot from the hornwork, approaching to pass the bridge. As I had already been in such adventures, I did not lose my presence of mind, and having still a shadow remaining of that regard, which the array accorded me on account of the esteem and confidence which M. de L6vis and M. de Montcalm had always shewn xne publicly, I called to M. Hugon, who commanded, for a pass in the hornwork, and begged of him to accompany me to the bridge. We ran there, and without asking who had given the order to cut it, we chased away the soldiers with their uplifted axes ready to execute that extravagant and wicked operation. M. de Vaudreuil was closeted in a house in the inside of the hornwork with the Intendant and with some other per-* sons. I suspected they were busy drafting the articles lor a general capitulation, and I entered the house, where I had only time to see the Intendant with a pen in his hand writing upon a sheet of paper, when M. de Vaudreuil told me I had no business there. Hpving answered him that what he said was true, I retired immediately, in wrath, to see them intent on giving up so scandalously a dependency for the preserva- tion of which so much blood and treasure had been expended. On leaving the house, I met M. Dalquier, an old, brave, downright honest man, commander of the regiment of Beam, with the true character of a good officer — the marks of Mars all over his body. I told him it was being debated within the house, to give up Canada to the English by a capitulation, and I hurried him in to stand up for the King^s cause, and * It otoned the St. Charles a little higher up than tho Marine HospUal, at the fiMt of Grown street.— (J. M. L.) ■' \ 61 hom- advocate the welfare of his country. I then quitted the horn- work to join Poularies at the Ravine* of Beauport ; but haying met hira about three or four hundred paces from the hornwork, on his way to it, I told him what was being discussed there. He answered me, that sooner than consent to a capitulation, he would shed the last drop of his blood. He told me to look on his table and house as ray own, advised me to go there directly to repose myself, and clapping spurs to his horse, he flew like lightning to the hornwork. As Poularies was an officer of great bravery, full of honour and of rare merit, I was then certain that he and Dalquier would break up the measures of designing men. Many mo- tives induced me to act strenuously for the good of the service : amongst others, my gratitude for uie Sovereign who had given me bread ; also, my affection and inviolable friendship for M. de Levis in his absence, who was now Commander-in- Chief of the French armies in Canada by the death of M. de Montcalm. I continued sorrowfully jogging on to l>auport, with a very heavy heart for the loss of my dear friend, M. de Montcalm, sinking with weariness and lost in reflection upon the changes which Providence had brought about in the space of three or four hours. Poularies came back to his lodgings at Beauport about two in the afternoon, and he brought me the agreable news of hav- ing converted the project of a capitulation into a retreat to Jacques Cartier, there to wait the arrival of M. de Levis ; and they despatched immediately a courier to Montreal to inform him of our misfortune at Quebec, which, to all appearance, would not have happened to us if M. de Vaudreuil had not sent hira away, through some political reason, to command there, without troops except those who were with M. de Bour- lamarque at L'Isle aux Xoix — an officer of great knowledge. The departure of the army was agreed upon to be at night, and all the regiments were ordered to their respective en- campments until further orders. The decision for a retreat * A small bridge eiipported oa masonry has (>inoe been built ^t this spot, exactly across the inuin road at Browa'tf oiilli!.— (J. M. L.) . .,