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Rumours of the plans cherished
at Montreal reached Quebec, and Murray was nervously
awaiting events. Throughout the winter occasional
courtesies passed between the leaders. In November,
when there was an exchange of prisoners with Amherst
at New York, and the French who had been released
brought European newspapers to Montreal, Levis sent
some of them to Murray with a courteous note. But
each side watched the other closely. The St.
Lawrence was later than usual in forming its
covering of ice, and until the ice formed it was not
easy to cross the wintry flood from Quebec to the
south shore. The French took advantage of this to
send a captain named St. Martin to occupy the Point
of Levy, opposite Quebec. He harassed Murray when he
could and drew from the surrounding country
provisions for the use of the needy garrisons in the
interior. He established his force in the church and
in the priest's house at the Point of Levy.
Fancying himself secure, St.
Martin indulged in bravado by sending defiant
messages across the river to Murray. One day a
peasant made his way across the icy current to bring
the written message that if the British wished to
have their hair dressed and would honour the French
at the Point of Levy with their company a corps of
experts would be at their service. This was the
threat of scalping which the Indians, if not the
French, in St. Martin's force were quite ready to
carry out. Murray answered it in a way that St.
Martin little expected. It was now the early days of
February, and one morning the British found to their
joy that the surface of the river was frozen. This
soon made passage to the south shore easy and gave
an opening to punish the gasconade of St. Martin. On
February 13, in the darkness of the early morning,
Major Dalling led some light infantry across the
river on the ice. His cannon cleared the way and
then, with his men on snow-shoes, he advanced to
storm the church. St. Martin kept up a vigorous
fire. The British were aided by the deep snow which
enabled them to fire down on their foes through the
windows of the church. They drove the French out and
came away, after leaving a small garrison at the
Point of Levy. The French, still aggressive, thought
they could dislodge this weak force from the church.
On February 24 St. Martin returned to the attack.
Then, to rescue the garrison, Murray led four
regiments across the river on the ice. The French
again retired, and considerable stores of bread,
meat, flour, and cheese which they had collected at
the Point of Levy remained in Murray's hands.
Some Canadians who had taken
the oath of allegiance had joined St. Martin, and
this led Murray to chastise the inhabitants living
on the south side of the river. On February 26 Major
Eliot of the 43rd Regiment, with 300 soldiers and a
body of sailors, began at the west side of the River
Etchemin and burnt every house between that point
and the River Chaudiere, a distance of four or five
miles. The helpless Canadians were driven from their
homes in the severe winter. Murray issued a
proclamation, expressing regret at the necessity of
the step, and again warning the Canadians of what
they must expect if they violated their oath to do
nothing against King George. He now constructed two
block-houses near the Point of Levy, one to command
a landing-place opposite Cape Diamond, the other a
little inland. In the end the homeless people were
allowed to take possession of the quarters the
British had occupied in the church.
To the British soldier this
was, indeed, strange warfare in which artillery was
used on the ice and soldiers marched on snow-shoes.
In such conditions the French were quite at home and
the British were not. This did not keep the British
from making enterprising attacks. Having driven the
French from the Point of Levy, they decided to
attack the most advanced French outpost west of
Quebec. At break of day on March 20 Captain McDonald
of Fraser's Highlanders, guided by a French
deserter, led five hundred men from Old Lorette in a
rapid foray on the entrenched French camp at the
Calvaire, near St. Augustin, a few miles beyond Cap
Rouge. It was protected by an abattis of felled
trees about three hundred yards wide. Through this
the British pushed, firing briskly, only to find, on
reaching the works, that the defenders had fled in
panic. The officer in command, M. Herbin, must have
gone off very hurriedly, for he left behind his
watch, his hat and feather, and also the mistress
whom he had with him. The British captured some
eighty prisoners. That the French were well off for
luxuries was proved by a cask of wine and a small
trunk of liqueurs which formed part of M. Herbin's
equipment, and proved welcome to the victors in the
bitter weather. So severe was the cold on this
expedition that nearly a hundred of the Highlanders
were badly frost-bitten and their companions had to
drag them back to Quebec on sleighs ; it was these
sons of the north who suffered specially from the
cold. At the Calvaire the British had burned mills,
granaries, and houses, property belonging to the
nuns of the Hotel Dieu at Quebec, and Murray sent an
officer to these ladies to say that they were justly
punished, since they had been sending intelligence
of British movements to the French. A few days after
this fight at the Calvaire, Captain Hazen, the
leader of the Rangers recruited in the American
colonies, was attacked near Lorette by a large body
of French sent out probably to avenge the defeat at
the Calvaire. The Colonials generally show
themselves as effective as the regulars from Europe
who had won the success at the Calvaire, and fought
with such spirit that they drove off their
assailants with considerable loss.
These skirmishes were only
preliminary to the renewed struggle for Canada of
which Quebec was destined again to be the centre.
The opposing forces really knew very little of each
other's doings. Levis, however, owing to the
friendly offices of the Canadian peasantry, was kept
better informed than Murray about his enemy. When
April came the British knew that the long expected
attack on Quebec was near. Murray was in a position
of dangerous isolation with no news from the outside
world and no prospect of help until May. At
Christmas-time, Lieutenant Butler, of the Rangers,
had tried to get through from Quebec to New York. He
was, however, closely followed by a body of Indians.
Only a friendly fall of snow, which covered his
tracks, enabled him to elude his pursuers and to
return to Quebec. A little later Captain Montresor
was more successful. He left Quebec on the 26th of
January with an escort of twelve Rangers. He went by
the wilderness route along the Chaudiere, a route
made famous sixteen years later by Benedict Arnold's
terrible march through its remote regions to attack
Quebec. One of Montresor's men perished from the
cold. Twelve days before he reached the first New
England settlement his supply of provisions gave
out, and his men survived only by eating the spare
leather of their shoes and equipment. The hardships
of this terrible journey show that it was a far cry
indeed from Quebec to the nearest English colony.
The leaders could not communicate with each other so
as to make concerted action effective, and Murray
had to depend on himself alone. As the spring
approached, a persistent rumour that Amherst had
taken and burnt Chambly, near Montreal, and was
likely to capture Montreal, led Murray to hope that
he himself might soon advance up the river from
Quebec to aid in the final conquest. In reality this
rumour was false, like many others ; Murray's real
task was to cling to what he already held. His enemy
was only waiting for the time when the breaking-up
of the ice should make possible a descent upon
Quebec with a force superior to any which the
defenders could rally.
It thus happened that in April
every one, both at Quebec and at Montreal, was
watching the river. Much depended, of course, upon
the weather. Early in April there were violent winds
which promised the speedy breaking-up of the ice.
The winter had been unusually severe and the frozen
surface which linked Quebec with the Point of Levy
still seemed very solid. For a long time it
withstood wind and storm. By April 10, however, a
change came. From a few miles above Quebec, at the
mouth of the Chaudiere River, all the way to
Montreal the ice was now breaking ; the swollen
river was dotted with scattered floes. It seemed
that the ice opposite Quebec must soon give way.
Not, however, for nearly two weeks did it yield. At
length, on April 23, it broke up. The river was now
open and great sheets of ice floated down past
Quebec and up again with the tide. It was a wild
scene, and the navigation of the angry waters was a
task not lightly to be undertaken. But, though the
danger to small boats was extreme, this stormy
highway was the readiest means of approach to
Quebec, and Murray knew that now at any moment he
might* be assailed by way of the river.
He was ignorant of the plans of
his foes, and could only keep watch with all
possible alertness. He armed even the English
traders at Quebec and their servants, placing
Lieutenant Grant, of the 58th, in command of the
hundred men thus secured. In order to avoid the
necessity of watching a foe within as well as
without the walls, he thought it wise to expel the
French inhabitants, and on April 21, while assuring
them that their exile would not be long, he ordered
them to leave the town within three days. Only the
nuns were allowed to remain for the task of nursing
the sick. To turn out helpless civilians in the raw
April weather was a stern measure of war that
caused, of course, great confusion and discontent.
Perhaps, however, it was not as cruel as it seemed,
for famine and death might await civilians in a
beleaguered town. The men bore their fate in
becoming silence. The women, however, protested
loudly that the terms of the capitulation, which
guaranteed to them the use of their property, had
been violated ; they had often heard, they said,
that the English were a faithless nation, and now
they saw for themselves how true this was. Some
added, what they probably knew to be false, that
there was not the smallest danger of an attack by
Levis. Murray made the expulsion as lenient as
possible. He allowed the people to carry away what
property they could and to store their remaining
movables at the monastery of the Recollets, in the
custody of the friars and of two of the inhabitants.
Since other calls on the energies of the army made
it difficult still to bring wood from Ste Foy, he
used as fuel the timber of some of the abandoned
houses.
Murray, without a fleet, was
helpless on the water, and he heard, therefore, with
concern that the French frigates in the upper river
would attack him as soon as the ice was gone. He
prepared some floating batteries to protect the town
on the side of the river. The
Racehorse and the
Porcupine had been drawn
in to shore for the winter. When, on April 9, Murray
gave orders to cut them out he found the ice round
their hulks no less than fourteen feet thick. By the
17th the two ships were ready for service, and, as
soon as the ice in the river gave way, they were
anchored before Quebec. At the same time Murray made
ready a schooner to send down the river to meet the
expected fleet under Lord Colville, who had wintered
at Halifax. She carried pilots for his ships and was
instructed to urge prompt help for Quebec. By April
20 she was ready, and soon, among floes of ice and
between banks still white with snow, she was
speeding on her errand.
With the spring thaw the roads
about Quebec became quagmires. To move artillery
over them was a nearly impossible task. The
difficulty, which Murray himself experienced, would
be worse for an army marching on Quebec, and this
made him the more certain that his real danger lay
in an advance of Levis by the river. There was a
persistent report that Levis would try to land his
artillery at Cap Rouge, the bold cape at the west
end of the great plateau on which Quebec stands. If
Murray could protect the cape and the shore between
Cap Rouge and Quebec, a distance of eight or nine
miles, Levis would be forced to disembark above Cap
Rouge. He would have to march inland, cross the
River of Cap Rouge some miles from the cape itself,
and approach Quebec from the north by way of Lorette
and Ste Foy. It was important, therefore, to make
sure of Cap Rouge, and Murray decided to entrench a
force there. On April 18 he sent a detachment of
light infantry to Cap Rouge and quartered them in
the houses of the inhabitants. The ground was so
hard frozen that the men could do almost nothing in
the way of throwing up defences, and the post proved
strong only in its natural position. Its occupation
by Murray exercised, however, a decisive influence,
as we shall see.
Lorette also Murray made
strong, as it was a menaced position. On April 19
and 20 his men were busy dragging thither, over
roads clogged with mud and half-melted snow, two
heavy fieldpieces. Without horses it would have been
killing work at any time, but it was specially so
when almost every one of the men was weakened by
scurvy. ' I was obliged says Murray,' to use them
with the greatest tenderness.' After all, he found
that Lorette was too remote to be safe, and he
decided to abandon it. Accordingly, on the night of
April 25 he issued an order that the Lorette
garrison should retire and that all the bridges over
the Cap Rouge River should be destroyed to impede
the enemy's march. The feeble troops had then the
weary task of hauling the guns back across a marsh
and up a steep hill to Ste Foy. Murray still hoped
to retain his outpost at Ste Foy. He had no thought
of remaining behind the walls of Quebec. Should it
be attacked, he was assured by the engineers that a
force could fight with more effect entrenched in
front of the fortress than behind its crazy walls.
On April 26 the engineers marked the lines on the
Plains of Abraham where the British intended to face
their foe.
The French descent upon Quebec
so long talked of was now really imminent. Levis
could carry down his ammunition and supplies only by
means of the river, and he was therefore obliged to
wait until the ice should break up. To delay longer
than this, would, he thought, be dangerous, for he
ought to arrive at Quebec before a thaw should
enable Murray to throw up entrenchments outside the
walls. Levis expected to surprise the English by
rapid action, as Wolfe had surprised the French
themselves. Though Amherst was in New York for the
winter, Levis knew that he would move at as early a
date as possible. Quebec must, therefore, fall
quickly, so that the French, with their expected
reinforcements, could turn back to meet Amherst's
advance.
Early in March preparations
were going on busily at Montreal. Criers went
through the streets summoning the merchants to turn
in their supplies to the royal magazines. The
Canadians were asked to send muskets, camp kettles,
and clothing, in order to replenish the military
stores. So scarce was ammunition that the people
were ordered to bring what powder they had to the
magazines, where they should be paid for it at the
rate of three livres a pound.
Under threat of the lash, Levis
ordered his meidnot to dispose of any of the
supplies furnished by the King or of any part of
their equipment, no matter how worn it might seem.
Vaudreuil instructed the householders to keep
constantly on hand provisions for six weeks-for
themselves and for / the soldiers quartered in their
houses. He declares that the inhabitants showed
great willingness to aid his plans.
With bad ammunition, but little
artillery, and a distressing scarcity of provisions,
the French general had no easy task in equipping his
army. To remedy the lack of bayonets he collected
all the butcher's knives to be found and fitted them
with handles that could be fastened to the muskets.
Some of the officers were without swords. Coats,
trousers, and warm underclothing were lacking in the
stores. Levis withdrew what artillery he dared to
take from the posts at Isle aux Noix and St. Johns,
but even then he had a pitiable equipment for
battering down the walls of a fortress. He took for
his cavalry all the horses in Montreal capable of
service. The work went on cheerily. In spite of bad
equipment his forces were eager for the fight. 'Ah,
how I long to be on the way to Quebec,' wrote
Colonel Dumas at Jacques Cartier to Vaudreuil; 'I am
anxious about the passage of the army at this point
; the least thing may delay it here, and the worry
this causes me is inexpressible; but still I flatter
myself that, in such a case, you and the Chevalier
de Levis will do me the justice to believe that I
have done my very best.'
The army of Levis was composed
of varied elements. Conditions had not favoured good
organization. Many of the men, scattered for the
winter in the villages and living in the houses of
the French-Canadian farmers, had grown slack in the
sense of discipline. Levis had tried to place an
officer at each centre to look after the men, but
the control by such an officer must have been
slight. The backbone of the army of Levis consisted
of the regulars from France. These
troupes de terre were
now tried veterans in Canadian warfare, for most of
them had come out with Montcalm in 1756. There were
eight battalions : La Reine, Languedoc, La Sarre,
Beam, Royal Roussillon Guienne, and two battalions
of Berry. Though numbers were now depleted, Levis
still had about five thousand of these regular
troops in Canada, and of these three thousand were
available for the attack on Quebec. There was
another small force of regulars in Canada known as
the
troupes de la marine.
The marine department performed the duties which,
under the British system, would now pertain to the
Colonial Office, and it recruited a small force for
service in the colonies. It was expected that the
men would become settlers when their term of service
had expired. These colonial regulars, having served
long in Canada, knew the country better than the
French regulars. They were an efficient force, but
they numbered rather less than a thousand. Levis
took them all with him on the expedition to Quebec.
On the French ships which had wintered at the mouth
of the Richelieu River were a few hundred sailors
under the lead of a competent commander, Vauquelain.
The ships were to accompany the expedition, and
proved of great service ; but they added nothing to
the fighting forces on land.
The Canadian militia played a
considerable part throughout the war, and still had
some fighting zeal, in spite of the hard treatment
of the Canadians by the French, which has been
already described. Montcalm had said that, at most,
7,000 Canadians could be mustered. Their situation
as a people was isolated. Unused to comparing
themselves with others, they were apt to swagger and
to boast that one Canadian was equal to three
Englishmen. This gasconade had no justification in
fact. The Canadians were, in some respects, bad
soldiers. They were badly armed, because the
discarded arms in the King's arsenals had been sent
to Canada. They were badly drilled; even some of
their best officers, among them Ramezay, the
defender of Quebec, could not give the orders usual
in the French army. Their discipline was so bad that
they freely went off to their homes without leave.
This practice exasperated Levis, and he threatened
to hang deserters of this kind. Vaudreuil, however,
himself born in Canada, was always the protector and
champion of the Canadians. He restrained Levis and
said that the effect of severity would be to lose
what help the Canadians might give, for they could
easily manage not to be found in their villages when
wanted. In their own way the Canadians were not
ineffective soldiers, if tactfully led and treated
with firmness and justice. Bourlamaque, himself an
admirable soldier, said that Canada possessed a
greater number of naturally brave men than any other
country. He added, however, that the Canadian was
the enemy of constraint, and that he was better in
guerrilla warfare than in regular operations and
pitched battles.
Levis mustered in his force a
few hundred Indians. During the war both sides
employed these allies, but it is doubtful whether
they were of much use. They may have rendered some
service as scouts, but the reports they brought in
were often vague and exaggerated. Scouting work
requires a hard critical faculty, the power not
merely to observe trifles, but to judge accurately
their meaning. The Indian, the prey of childish
superstition and alarms, gave heed to every wild
rumour. What he loved best was the ignoble warfare
now known as sniping. He prowled about the outskirts
of Quebec, for instance, and killed and scalped many
an incautious wayfarer. He was always an uncertain
ally. Lurking in his mind was the sense that North
America belonged to him and not to either of the
intruding European races, and he was suspicious of
both of them. The only motive certain to hold him in
obedience was fear. As the French cause declined,
this motive was wanting in relation to them, but it
operated with increasing force in relation to the
British as their superiority over their enemy became
more manifest. From Amherst the Indians received
curt, sharp words of command when they seemed
restless, and stern punishment when they failed to
obey. Though they grumbled and threatened, they were
awed and they submitted.
Vaudreuil, on the other hand,
had always seemed more afraid of the Indians than
they were of him. He inherited from his father, who
had been Governor of Canada in the early days when
the Indians were many and the white men few, the
belief that these allies were indispensable and must
be allowed to follow their own customs. ' Your taste
is French, mine is Indian ; this is good food for
me,' said an Indian to a French priest, who rebuked
a party of savages sitting about a fire roasting on
sticks the flesh of an Englishman. This was
Vaudreuil's point of view; such practices were
regrettable, but it was the way of the savages, and
what could one do? 'He let them [the Indians] do
what they liked,' says an eyewitness; 'one saw them
running about in Montreal, knife in hand,
threatening and often insulting those they met. When
complaints were made the Governor said nothing.
Indeed, after the incident, instead of reproaching
and punishing the Indians, he loaded them with
presents, believing that in this way their cruelty
would be softened.' Unhappily their licence tended
rather to grow with indulgence. Though they were now
but a weak factor in the French army they caused
incessant anxiety, for they were ready to commit
barbarous outrages on friend and foe alike.
Levis drew up on April 17 the
lists of troops for his expedition. In round numbers
he had 3,600 regulars, including those of the
colonial service, 2,800 Canadians, and 300 Indians.
His fighting force thus numbered rather less than
7,000. 350 non-combatants were to accompany the
expedition. Of these most were personal servants,
and among them were 33 negroes. Only 16 surgeons
were available. The numbers stated by Levis include
apparently the troops that he expected to take from
the garrisons between Montreal and Quebec. It was
likely that more Indians would join him, especially
if he had an early success. He also counted upon
help from the Canadians who lived in the district of
Quebec. This was under Murray's control and the
inhabitants had declared on oath that they would
take no part in hostile operations against the
British. It is true that Vaudreuil issued a
pontifical pronouncement releasing them from their
oath, but this Murray declared was in violation of
the law of nations. The unhappy people were
certainly on the horns of a dilemma. On April 20,
1760, Levis ordered a certain Captain Nadeau in the
Quebec district to join him with his militia on pain
of death. At a later time Murray hanged this captain
because he obeyed the order. As a rule Levis
required from those who had taken the oath only the
service of helping to bring up supplies.
Vaudreuil sent his secretary to
make a tour of the parishes and to warn the militia
to be ready. He issued special letters to the
captains of militia in the Quebec district,
reminding them of the cruel and unjust treatment
which they had received from Murray. ' You know too
well by experience the aversion of the English for
everything Canadian. You have had the saddest proof
of the rigour of their government. Now', he added,'
you are approaching the moment of triumph over this
enemy. He must succumb to the efforts of our army.'
A condition of success in war is to hate the enemy,
and the Canadian pulpits were to be tuned so as to
arouse this hate; Vaudreuil ordered the
cures to tell the
Canadians that they were fighting for their religion
and the salvation of their country ; upon the issue
depended the question whether Hey should ^ free men
or slaves in bondage to the hard and exacting
English. He added that powerful aid was certain to
come from France to make deliverance sure. In the
certainty of this aid Vaudreuil himself believed. He
sent pilots to points on the river below Quebec that
they might aid the ascent of the expected fleet, and
he issued elaborate instructions for the prompt
forwarding overland of dispatches which it might
bring. He still showed a naive belief in the zeal of
the French Court and was apparently as eagerly
expectant as a child.
On the 10th of March all the
officers were ordered to join their regiments, and
Levis gave warning that the army might move at any
time. The rendezvous was to be Pointe aux Trembles,
a little farther down the river than the French
fortified position at Jacques Cartier, and the
various regiments were to make their way to this
place. To do so by land in the spring-time over the
roads sodden with melted snow would be a slow task ;
by water the advance would be rapid when the ice had
once broken up. Bourlamaque, with La Pause, a
capable and painstaking officer, was to go down the
river in advance of the main army to make needed
preparations. Bougainville was sent to command at
Isle aux Noix, a danger-point which required a
strong man. He disliked the service, for he would
have preferred to be in the thick of the fight
before Quebec. 'Ah, mon general,' he wrote to Levis,
'you have not willed that I should be with you. It
is to me a mortal grief.' He had with him the
competent engineer Lotbiniere.
One great question remained :
Who should lead the expedition? For a time Vaudreuil,
though he was without real military experience,
seems to have had the thought of commanding in
person, and in April, when a start was almost
momentarily expected, it was still uncertain whether
he would go. Levis, of course, wished himself to
command.
Gossip was bad and the ladies
were on the side of the gallant Chevalier. He, they
said, was sure to succeed. In the end, certainly to
the relief of every one, Vaudreuil named Levis to
the supreme command. ' I have assembled an army for
the siege of Quebec,' he announced, 'and I have put
the Chevalier de Levis, major-general, in command of
the expedition with authority the same as if I
myself were in person at the head of the army.'
'Nothing can equal the ardour of the troops, of the
Canadians, and of the different Indian tribes, whom
I have assigned to this expedition,' he wrote
further. Levis was instructed to grant easy terms to
Quebec. The English were to be well treated if they
would only yield.
When all were eager to start,
the ice, as Malartic says, 'did not respond to their
desires' ; the river was still held in its frozen
fetters. By April 4, however, there were signs that
the ice was breaking, and then the excitement and
expectancy were great. The army was to be carried in
some four hundred open boats. The two French
frigates, the
Atalante and the
Pomone, which had
remained at the mouth of the Richelieu River during
the winter, were to accompany the expedition. There
were ten or twelve transports laden with artillery,
with supplies of ammunition and provisions, and with
quantities of fascines to assist in the task of
throwing up entrenchments before Quebec. To get
ready the ships it was necessary to hew them out of
the ice, still very thick. On the 10th of April the
ice began to break up and soon there was an open
channel in the middle of the river at Montreal. To
this the small boats were dragged over the ice. The
embarking of stores, horses, and men, in these
conditions, was dangerous work, for the ice was
rotting and furnished at best an insecure footing.
There were accidents, and Montegrou, a guerrilla
leader, was drowned. But the affair was on the whole
ably managed and speaks well for the competence of
the French officers.
By the 20th of April the last
man was embarked. Then the numerous flotilla, with
the frigates and the transports under sail, and the
hundreds of small boats propelled, for the most
part, by oars, was on its way to attack Murray.
Heavy banks of ice still lined the shores and made
navigation and landing difficult and dangerous. The
cold spring winds must have chilled the men to the
bone, for they were not only ill-fed but also in
many cases ill-clad. At night the boats were
dragged, with great labour, over the ice to the
shore, and the men rested as best they could in the
cottages of the inhabitants. Some part of the army,
probably the companies quartered in places not far
distant from the rendezvous, marched to this point
by land over terrible roads. Each soldier carried
with him provisions for eight days, and elaborate
instructions had been given to those in the boats
that this precious supply should be stored in a dry
place. Cleanliness, too, was not forgotten. Each man
might have half a pound of soap if he could pay for
it. Levis had warned the officers that when a force
thus equipped set out officers and men should have
the same rations. All must share alike on what was
recognized as a desperate venture.
The shivering men in the boats,
the weary men marching heavily by land, were blind
and dumb creatures of a relentless fate. The French
soldier cared nothing for Canada and the Canadian
soldier by this time cared little for France. Yet,
we are told, not a word of complaint was heard ; the
victims of war usually make their deep sacrifices
willingly. Vaudreuil, Bigot, Bishop Pontbriand, and
others remained at Montreal, to watch and wait and
some of them to pray. 'Madame de Vaudreuil', wrote
the Governor to Levis, 'is continually in prayer and
nothing can equal her solicitude until we have news.
I cannot tell you how much you are in my mind. . . .
Madame neither thinks nor speaks of any one but you
; accept from her a thousand and again a thousand
tender things; ... in her ceaseless prayers she is
thinking only of you.' At another time she is with
the Bishop joining her prayers to his. In the
churches too, by order of the Bishop, prayers were
offered for the success of the expedition.
For some time all
communications with Quebec had been cut off, since a
cardinal part of the plan was that the place should
be surprised. To prevent a threatening movement of
the English by way of Lake Champlain it was
necessary that the secret should also be kept on the
frontier guarded by Bougainville, and elaborate
precautions to effect this were taken. The efforts
at secrecy had a measure of success. Direct
information of what the French were doing did not
reach Murray until the foe was almost upon him. The
army arrived at Pointe aux Trembles on April 25.
Landing from the boats proved difficult. Only a
channel in the centre of the river was open, and the
ice, now rotted by the spring sun, was in places
piled high, one floe upon another. The great highway
by land from Montreal led straight through Pointe
aux Trembles to the gates of Quebec over the high
promontory at Cap Rouge. If this point was
undefended, Levis might reach the Plains of Abraham
by a rapid night march. At the same time a part of
his force could drop down the river in boats, land
near Sillery, as Wolfe had done, and climb to the
Heights. Levis expected to cut off the outposts of
Murray at Ste Foy and Lorette, and to surprise and
take Quebec by a sudden attack. Murray knew that a
force was gathering at Pointe aux Trembles, but he
could learn few details. He was, however, so on his
guard that the scouts of Levis reported discouraging
news. There was a strong guard at Cap Rouge so that
advance by the direct road was impossible. Moreover,
the heights between Cap Rouge and Quebec seemed well
defended. The news made inevitable a change in the
plans of Levis, and he paused for a day at Pointe
aux Trembles to mature another design. This was to
land at St. Augustin, a little above Cap Rouge, and
march rapidly inland. He could then cross the Cap
Rouge River a few miles above its mouth and reach
the road which led from Lorette up to Ste Foy, five
miles from the city on the north side of the great
plateau of Quebec. From Ste Foy to Quebec was an
easy march and he might still be able to surprise
Murray and cut off the outpost at Cap Rouge.
The 26th of April was a raw day
with a north-east wind. At eight o'clock in the
morning the army embarked at Pointe aux Trembles,
and at ten it was at St. Augustin. Once more the men
dragged the boats over the ice to the shore and also
disembarked three cannon to be hauled, with
incredible labour, for many miles, up steep hills
and over roads deep with melting snow and mire.
Levis sent Bourlamaque in advance of the main army
with some Indians and grenadiers to clear the way,
to reconstruct the bridges across the Cap Rouge
River which Murray had destroyed, and to advance by
Old Lorette to a point as near Quebec as was
consistent with safety. When Bourlamaque reached Old
Lorette he found that the English had abandoned that
place. Between it and Ste Foy stretched a marshy
plain called La Suette, across which was a road of
wooden logs, the ' corduroy ' road so familiar in
pioneer days in Canada. Had the British torn up this
road it would at least have retarded the advance of
the French ; but the road had been left intact. The
British, still ignorant apparently of the approach
of the enemy, did nothing to harass Bourlamaque as
he approached Ste Foy. He promptly sent his Indians
to occupy the end of the road near that place, and
on the night of the 26th the advance guard of the
French army lay in some houses so near Ste Foy that
there was only a curtain of forest between them and
that outpost. It looked as if their army could
easily get in between Quebec and Cap Rouge.
But Nature did not favour
France. The worn army, toiling slowly after
Bourlamaque's scouting party, was overtaken by a
terrific tempest with thunder, lightning, wind, and
rain, more violent than anything seen in the country
for years. The storm helped, in a singular way, to
warn the British at Quebec. With the wind fierce and
with the river full of great floes of ice, the small
boats carrying the French troops were in imminent
danger. At St. Augustin great floes of ice crushed
and sank one of the boats laden with artillery. Some
of the artillerymen were drowned, but one, after
struggling for some time in the icy water, managed
with great difficulty to climb out half dead upon a
piece of ice large enough to support him. It drifted
rapidly down with the tide past Quebec towards the
Island of Orleans, bearing its human burden, and, on
the turn of the tide, floated back again up the
river. Though frozen almost into unconsciousness,
the man still groaned loudly. Knox tells us that
shortly after midnight on the morning of the 27th
the watch on board the
Racehorse, one of the
two British ships anchored before Quebec, with his
senses alert for the slightest sound, heard the
groans of the artilleryman. He raised an alarm, a
boat was lowered, and the man was found and taken to
shore. The British made every effort to revive him
and so far succeeded that he recovered
consciousness. Though in a half-dazed condition and
astonished to find himself among the British, he was
able to tell them who he was—one of a force of, as
he thought, 12,000 or 15,000 men, only a few leagues
from Quebec and now advancing by land to attack it.
At first the British would not believe that Levis
was so near. The man was carried in a hammock up the
steep ascent from the Lower to the Upper Town and
about three o'clock in the morning was brought to
Murray. The alarmed general credited the tale. He
now realized that a powerful French army was almost
at his door. In addition, as the man said, Levis was
confident that a Beet and m. army from France were
near and would soon join in the attack on Quebec.
The news aroused Murray to a
new alertness. The great danger was to his outposts.
The guard at Lorette had already been withdrawn, and
he ordered the one at Cap Rouge to retire. He
himself prepared to march out to Ste Foy with a
considerable force. It was not safe even to hold the
post on the south side of the river at the Point of
Levy, and he sent orders to burn the block-houses
there. This work was done so promptly that, with the
provisions destroyed, the guns spiked, and the
block-houses on fire, the garrison crossed to Quebec
a few hours after the news of the advance of Levis
reached Murray. Quietly and almost without loss he
had now concentrated in or near Quebec all his
forces. 'What a remarkable and visible instance of
fortune fighting for the English,' says the
Chevalier Johnstone; 'had it not been for this
unaccountable accident to the artilleryman, to all
appearance M. de Levis would have captured all the
English advanced posts which were said to amount to
fifteen hundred men.' [The
truth of the story of the dying artilleryman has
been doubted (Kingsford,
History of Canada, iv.
365), but Knox and Fraser, officers in Quebec, tell
the story, and Murray mentions that he was aroused
at three o'clock in the morning. On the French side
the story is also told by the Chevalier Johnstone,
by Levis, by Malartic, by Bigot, by a nun of the
General Hospital, and in the anonymous
Relation de Expedition de Quebec
(Levis MSS., xi. 225). It is
hardly to be doubted that the first alarm reached
Quebec in the general sense indicated.]
Meanwhile Levis was marching on
Ste Foy with his main army. As we have seen, he had
landed at St. Augustin a little before noon on the
morning of the 26th. There he had rested and fed his
men and at three in the afternoon he had set out on
his march. Bourlamaque sent back word that he had
made ready two bridges across the Cap Rouge River.
At five the advancing column was overtaken by the
frightful storm of wind and rain, thunder and
lightning, which helped to give Murray warning. Some
of the French reached Lorette before March and
quartered themselves in the houses of the
inhabitants. But the greater part were overtaken by
night and marched in the darkness, knee-deep in snow
and mud, with a tempest raging about them, and
soaked to the skin by a cold rain. ' It was a most
frightful night,' says Levis, ' the storm and the
cold were alike terrible, and the army suffered
greatly. . . . Since the bridges were broken down
the men had to wade in the water. It was so dark
that the workmen could do but little in the way of
repairs. Had it not been for the flashes of
lightning we should have been forced by the darkness
to halt.' The men marched in single file and not
until far into the night did they reach Lorette.
Before the day broke the force of Levis was
scattered in the adjoining houses of the inhabitants
to get dry and warm and to prepare their arms for
the coming struggle. Levis himself had gone across
the marshy La Suette to join Bourlamaque and to
gauge the prospects of seizing Ste Foy and of
cutting off the British outpost at Cap Rouge.
On the morning of April 27 cold
rain was still falling. The terrible weather and the
broken bridges had delayed the bringing up of the
three cannon. Levis waited, since he wished to use
them for the attack on the fortified church at Ste
Foy. It was now clear that Murray had been aroused
and that the delay caused by the tempest had ruined
any chance of taking Quebec by surprise. Not until
ten o'clock in the morning was the main body of the
French army ready to leave Lorette. In heavy rain
and under a dark and threatening sky the army
advanced in single column along the narrow road
across the marsh. The officers marched on foot with
their men, and in places the water was up to their
knees. Progress was slow, but by noon they had
passed the trees which lined their route and were in
sight of the church at Ste Foy. The day was Sunday,
but there was no mass at Ste Foy; not devout
Catholics engaged in their worship, but British
soldiers busy with grim war filled the church. It
crowned the height known as the Cote d'Abraham,
which extends to Quebec from the Cap Rouge River.
The British had built a block-house at the point
where the road reaches the top of the hill and had
turned the church itself into a fortress. It was
admirably situated for this purpose, for it
commanded the single road by which Quebec could be
reached along the edge of the height. As the column
of wet and weary men appeared in the open near the
top of the hill, the British opened fire upon them
with their cannon and did some execution. Once at
the top, the French force deployed among the trees
at their right, where they could watch in safety the
operations of the foe. To bring up the three French
cannon along the road, in face of the British fire,
was impossible, and Levis hastily decided to wait,
if necessary, for the cover of night. Then he would
turn the English left, get in between Ste Foy and
Quebec, and cut off the garrison in this outpost if
it had not already retired.
He was not obliged to wait so
long. From the first, Murray understood the danger
at Ste Foy, and he decided to withdraw this outpost
too. Early in the morning of the 27th, in pelting
rain, he drew up his force in Quebec and, taking
those most fit for service, passed out through the
St. John Gate for the march of five miles to Ste
Foy. The regiments which remained in Quebec stood
ready to advance in his support should this prove
necessary. Murray was prepared to fight his foe
wherever he should meet him. He found that
Bourlamaque held already the head of the road
leading across the marsh and, with something like
dismay, he watched the French working round to his
left through the trees. On this morning of surprises
he had a further cause of disquiet. There had been a
persistent rumour, and the dying artilleryman had
confirmed it, that French ships had been seen coming
up the river. It was even said that they were
already at the Traverse, the lower end of the Island
of Orleans, and Murray feared that at any moment he
might be attacked by water as well as by land. He
was thus anxious to bring on an action at once.
Levis was, however, too wary to attack at a
disadvantage. He sent to Murray a message that he
would not fight that day, but that, on the next day,
he should be ready for the English as early as they
liked.
In view of the possible arrival
of the French ships and of the danger lest he should
be outflanked on his left, Murray decided to retire.
At two o'clock in the afternoon the British at Ste
Foy startled the French assailants watching them
from the cover of the forest. There was a flash and
a roar and then the French saw that the roof of the
church had been blown off. Since the roads were very
heavy and Murray besides had no wagons, he was
unable to take away the provisions and ammunition
stored in the church. He disabled two
eighteen-pounders, which he left behind, but
withdrew the rest of his artillery and, having set
fire to the building, marched out. The rain which
soaked his men to the skin helped to put out the
fire. The French, agreeably surprised at Murray's
retreat, attempted to harass his march. Levis pushed
forward his mounted men and grenadiers. They shouted
at and fired upon the retiring British, but with
little effect, for, in the march to Quebec, Murray's
only casualties were the slight wounding of two men.
That night the French army,
thoroughly worn out by the wet and toilsome marches
of the previous two days, slept in comparative
comfort in the houses which stretched from Ste Foy
towards Quebec. The British still held Dumont's
mill, about a mile and a half from the walls of
Quebec, but this was now their farthest outpost.
After the fatigues of a long and miserable day,
Murray gave his men a little added comfort by
serving out an extra gill of rum. In order to dry
their clothing, they tore down and burnt some old
houses
at St. Roch. Each
army was doing what it could to fit itself for the
morrow.
In spite of the challenge to
Murray, Levis did not expect that there would be a
pitched battle on the next day. He had forced the
British to withdraw into Quebec and he thought that
they would stay there until attacked. He was now
situated almost exactly as Wolfe himself had been
situated a few months before. There was no barrier
between him and the walls of Quebec. His boats, with
the artillery and provisions brought from Montreal,
were now free to use the landing which Wolfe had
used at the Anse au Foulon. He was fortunate in
having horses as well as men to do the work of
dragging supplies to the heights which Wolfe had
climbed. There he could entrench himself and either
await the arrival of a French fleet or assault the
feeble walls of Quebec at his discretion. He
expected to spend the 28th in bringing up his forces
and in giving his men the food and the rest which
they sorely needed. He had promptly ordered the
Canadian militia in the district of Quebec to join
him and it would take a day at least for them to
come in. On the 29th he would attack Quebec.
His enemy, however, did not
wait upon his plans. Early on the morning of the
28th Levis was abroad with Bourlamaque, riding over
the ground which he intended to occupy. He found
that the British had thought better of trying to
hold even Dumont's mill, and that they had withdrawn
from that outpost during the night. At break of day
the mill was occupied by five companies of French
grenadiers, and it gave Levis an excellent rallying
point on his extreme left. Far away to his right,
near the edge of the ascent up which Wolfe's force
had climbed so laboriously on the memorable
September night of the previous autumn, were two
redoubts. These also the British had abandoned, and
in the grey of the early morning Levis sent a few
dismounted men to occupy them. The forest of Sillery
stretched almost from the Anse an Foulon across to
the Ste Foy Road, so that the French could bring up
their forces from Ste Foy and form them under the
cover of the trees ; these trees would also prove an
excellent protection should the French be obliged to
retreat. The undulating plain stretching across to
the walls of Quebec was dotted with a few bushes
left uncut by the British army which had lain there
for two weeks in the previous September.
While the trained eye of Levis
was surveying the chief features of the position, he
saw, to his amazement, as he looked across to
Quebec, less than two miles distant, that Murray's
columns, instead of doing what the French had
expected, and waiting behind the walls, were
marching out with the obvious intention of meeting
him in the open. He t/was all unprepared for such an
attack. His next in command, Bourlamaque, was, it is
true, well placed, with his grenadiers holding
Dumont's mill on the extreme left. But the great
mass of the French troops were coming up only
leisurely and the English might be upon them before
they had formed their line. Levis rode back quickly
to hasten the preparations and to give directions
for meeting the new situation.
In Quebec the night had been
full of activity and excitement. Should Murray await
atta'ck from Levis ? Seven months earlier, when
Montcalm had realized that the British were about to
attack Quebec from the Plains of Abraham, he had
hurried up from Beauport to meet them outside the
gates and had not relied upon the weak defences.
Murray had always intended, as we have seen, to
adopt a similar course, but he had hoped that the
arrival of Levis might be delayed until, with the
snow gone and the frost out of the ground, he could
entrench himself outside the walls. The line he had
chosen was on the Heights of Abraham, at a point
known as the Buttes a Neveu, about eight hundred
yards from the
THE HONOURABLE GENERAL JAMES
MlJRRAY
walls. Tlrese
Heights conmanded the
walls. An enemy who occupied them might quickly
batter down the defences of Quebec. On the other
hand, a defender holding the Buttes a Neveu could
prevent a nearer approach to Quebec. But now Levis
had arrived before Murray could fortify the Heights,
and the problem for the British was whether to go
out and still try to entrench themselves or to stay
in Quebec behind their walls. Disease had sorely
crippled Murray's force. It is not easy to make out
the exact numbers, but nearly one thousand men had
died of scurvy and two thousand three hundred were
unfit for duty. Murray, with hardly more than three
thousand men ready for action, believed himself
greatly outnumbered by the French.
Quartermaster-Sergeant Johnson declares that Levis
had not less than twenty-five thousand men—an absurd
exaggeration—but even Murray himself thought that
the disproportion was as four to one. No wonder
therefore that some thought he should not take the
risk of meeting the enemy in the open. Murray,
however, feared what Montcalm had feared, that he
might be caught between an army on the one side and
a fleet on the other, and he did not now change the
opinion, formed months earlier, that it would be
better to fight behind entrenchments on the Heights
of Abraham than behind the walls of Quebec. He had
unbounded confidence in his men ; they had beaten
the French often, he said. Above all, he wished to
emulate Wolfe, and, like that hero, to win undying
glory. Even the French understood that he had a
passionate desire to become the final conqueror of
Canada without help from other generals.
Accordingly Murray now resolved
to march out in the early morning, to take with him
a large supply of entrenching tools, to fight the
French if they would fight, but, in any case, to
throw up entrenchments and make impossible the
enemy's nearer approach to Quebec. With the ground
still frozen and with, in some places, but a scanty
soil covering the surface of the hard rock,
entrenchments would be nearly impossible, and it was
assuredly a difficult task that Murray set for his
men. Johnson says that his general was too full of '
mad enthusiastic zeal '. None the less, the men were
as eager as their leader to go out to meet the
enemy.
In the dark of the early
morning of April 28 the force began to muster in
Quebec, and shortly after daybreak the army was
ready to march. Each man carried, in addition to his
weapons, a pick-axe or a spade. The array was sorry
enough. Soldiers who had long been crippled in the
hospital now threw aside their crutches and begged
for a place in the ranks. One-third of Murray's army
was composed of men really unfit for duty. 'Any
man', says Johnson, 'who was the least acquainted
with the duty we were going on would have shuddered
at the sight . . . such a poor pitiful handful of
half-starved scorbutic skeletons; but', he adds,
'they went out . . . determined to a Man to Conquer
or Die.' Some of those who were not allowed to fall
in dragged themselves after the advancing regiments
and took their places when the army halted and the
line of battle was formed. There were 3,866 men in
Murray's whole force.
Murray's army marched out at
half-past six in two columns; one by the St. John
gate along the Ste Foy road, the other by the St.
Louis gate along the road to Sillery. The rain of
the previous day had ceased and the spring air was
mild and pleasant. On the slopes exposed to the sun
the brown earth was bare of snow, but there were
still heavy drifts and these made passage difficult.
The water lay deep in the hollows, for the frozen
ground prevented proper drainage. Knowing that the
French could as yet bring up few, if any, cannon,
Murray trusted much to his artillery and took with
him twenty field-pieces and two howitzers. Only a
few horses were to be found in Quebec. In
consequence, the cannon were hauled by men,
themselves weak and sickly. When most needed, their
strength was to prove unequal to the task of
bringing up ammunition and of dragging heavy cannon
through marshy ground cumbered with drifts of snow.
At seven o'clock Bourlamaque,
looking out from the extreme left of the French
position, saw that Murray's force had already
covered the short distance to the Buttes a Neveu and
was drawing up in line at that point in an
advantageous position. To him, as to Levis, Murray's
advance was a complete surprise. 'No one believed
that the enemy would dare to advance,' Bourlamaque
wrote, 'and the army was resting. . . . We were all
worn out and wet. We had no thought of moving
forward until daybreak on the next morning when we
should have boats at the Anse au Foulon to support
our advance guard on the right.'
It thus happened that Murray's
march out of Quebec, rash as to some it appeared,
might easily have proved disastrous to the French.
To make his scanty force seem the more formidable he
drew it up, as Wolfe had done, in a line only two
deep. His artillery was soon sending bombs against
the French, and, for a time at least, this caused
dismay and something like confusion. Bourlamaque
sent forward support for the advance guard in
Dumont's mill and he hastily drew up three brigades
in line. Meanwhile Levis was trying to hurry forward
the other brigades. This seemed to Murray to be his
opportunity. A critical officer declares that his
leader's passion for glory now got the better of his
reason. He had intended to entrench his force on the
Buttes a Neveu and await attack; now, however, he
saw a chance to take the French unprepared, and he
jumped at it with his usual impulsiveness, asking no
advice from any one. It is not clear that, by his
advance, he could have struck a vital blow, for, at
best, he could only have driven the French back to
the edge of the wood. ' Upon coming to our ground,'
says Knox, ' we descried the enemy's van on the
eminences of the Sillery, and the bulk of their army
to the right marching along the road of Ste Foy,
inclining, as they advanced, in order to conceal
themselves. Upon this discovery, and our line being
already formed, the troops were ordered to throw
down their intrenching tools and march forward, this
being deemed the decisive moment to attack them, in
hopes of reaping every advantage that could be
expected over an army not yet thoroughly arranged. .
. . Our forces advanced with great alacrity. . . .
Our field-pieces were exceedingly well served, and
did amazing execution.' Murray would have been well
advised had he stayed where he was. There he could
make his position secure, and batter the advancing
foe with his artillery, while keeping open a safe
retreat to the town if necessary. But he pushed
forward, and for the moment with apparent success.
If we may credit Bourlamaque,
Levis was stricken with something like panic at this
movement. Believing that his troops would not have
time to form to meet Murray's attack, he gave orders
to retire from Dumont's mill to a point less
advanced, the house known as La Fontaine. As
Bourlamaque himself rode forward to carry out this
order, the British light infantry advanced upon the
mill and poured in a fire so deadly that in drawing
off the grenadiers Bourlamaque had his horse, or
rather Bougainville's, for he had borrowed it from
that friend, killed under him and was wounded by a
bullet in the calf of the leg. The British occupied
the mill and drove back the grenadiers with great
loss. Meanwhile, on the right, Levis saw that until
more troops arrived his men could not support their
advanced position. He therefore ordered them back to
the edge of the wood. The British took this for a
general retreat. They pressed in, recaptured the
redoubts occupied by Levis in the early morning, and
poured a heavy fire of cannon and musketry upon the
retreating French. It looked as if the British had
won the day.
They were, however, too
confident. The main French force was now coming up
rapidly, and, in spite of the severe British fire,
the columns deployed into line at the edge of the
wood. Levis rode along in front of his army, a
position greatly exposed, and ordered his men to
prepare to charge. By word and gesture he cheered
them on. He trusted much to his superiority of
numbers, and hoped by using this superiority to
outflank the British and to get between them and
Quebec. Meanwhile the British were in trouble. When
they pressed forward from the height on which their
line had been drawn up, they soon found themselves
in low and marshy ground where they had to fight
standing knee-deep in snow and water. Their cannon
stuck in the snowdrifts and there was no strength in
the enfeebled men to draw them out. It was
impossible even to bring up supplies of ammunition,
for as soon as the ammunition wagons had passed
through the gates of Quebec they had stuck in deep
pits of snow. The inevitable result followed. The
artillery fire of the British gradually slackened.
In time it ceased entirely and they could not answer
the effective fire of the three guns which Levis had
brought up with such great labour.
It was for this reason that the
tide of battle now turned. The attention of Levis
was chiefly concentrated on his right. On the left
Bourlamaque was wounded,—a serious loss to the
French side, for so much was he the life and spirit
of his troops that his loss earlier in the day, it
was said, would have brought a complete victory to
the British. In the confusion after his loss, the
brigades on the left were without orders. They
became impatient of standing in the wood in marshy
land with snow and water rising sometimes to their
waists, and they advanced on their own account. When
they met the British light infantry pursuing the
grenadiers driven from Dumont's mill, they pressed
them back with great loss and reoccupied the mill.
At about the same time the French right charged on
the two redoubts from which the British had driven
them earlier in the day. The redoubts were no longer
defended by artillery fire and the French quickly
recaptured them. After this the battle went against
the British. They fought with determined courage.
They even recaptured the two redoubts. Once more,
too, on their right they drove the French out of
Dumont's mill. Here, indeed, took place the most
murderous conflict of the day. It was a hand-to-hand
struggle between the Highlanders and the French
grenadiers. The Highlanders fought with their dirks.
'These two antagonists,' says the Chevalier
Johnstone, 'worthy the one of the other,' were no
sooner out by the windows, than they returned to the
charge, and broke open the doors. . . . The
grenadiers were reduced to forty men per company,
and there would not have remained either Highlander
or grenadier of the two armies, if they had not, as
by tacit and reciprocal agreement, abandoned the
desire of occupying the fort.'
Outflanked on both the right
and the left, the British were now in imminent
danger of being cut off from the town. If Murray did
not retire quickly the French would get in behind
his force and surround it. He had time to spike his
guns before the order was at length given to the
troops to fall back, 'a command', says Captain Knox,
'they were hitherto unacquainted with.' 'Damn it,
what is falling back but retreating?' some of the
men cried out in protest. Retreat indeed was the
word, and it was necessary to act quickly. The
French advanced . . . like a hasty torrent from a
lofty precipice', says Quartermaster-Sergeant
Johnson. The British left cannon, entrenching tools,
and apparently everything that could be dropped. The
wounded and dead remained lying on the field. 'Our
army pursued them hotly,' says the Chevalier
Johnstone on the French side, 'and if the cry had
not been raised among our forces to stop, it would
have possibly happened that we should have entered
the city of Quebec pell-mell with them, not being at
any distance from the gates.' In fact it was only
the blockhouses and a strong redoubt outside the
walls that kept the French from cutting off the rear
of the retreating British. It was fortunate for the
defeated side that the French force was worn out by
its previous fatigues. The weary men who had been
exposed to rain and snow for days were in some cases
so weak that they had little strength to use their
bayonets when they overtook the British. The losses
on both sides were heavy. Murray's casualties were
about 1,200—one-third of his force, but the number
killed was only about 300. The French had about 200
killed and more than 600 wounded. Levis says that he
had 5,000 men on the field, but that only 3,600 came
into action. It was the most severely contested
struggle of the whole war, and the last battle
fought between French and British for Canada.
When Levis saw that he had won
the day, his first care was to occupy the General
Hospital, lying on the banks of the St. Charles
outside the walls of Quebec. His haste was due to
his need of the ministrations of the nuns for the
wounded, but also in part to the fear that his
Indian allies, whom he had not kept well in hand,
might make a dash upon the place and butcher the
helpless occupants. To avoid the rough and almost
impassable roads, some of the wounded were sent in
boats past Quebec and round to the St. Charles River
where the hospital stands. Much to the indignation
of Levis, a boat carrying the wounded was fired on
from Quebec by mistake and one man was killed. At
the hospital itself there were ghastly scenes.
'Another pen than mine would be necessary', writes a
nun, 'to paint the horrors of sight and sound during
the twenty-four hours in which the wounded were
being brought in.' The nuns prepared five hundred
beds, but these were not enough. Then they filled
their stable and barns with the wounded. Of
seventy-two officers brought in thirty-three died.
'We saw nothing but torn arms and legs, and to add
to the woe of the occasion the supply of linen gave
out, so that we were obliged to use our sheets and
our chemises/ No aid from the sister nuns of Quebec
was to be expected, for they were pressed into the
service of the needy British.
Horrors more grim than those of
civilized war found place after the battle. The
Indians serving with the French had behaved badly
throughout the day. They had taken no part in the
fighting but had skulked in the woods at the rear.
They had even pillaged the haversacks and other
equipment which the French had left behind. When
their friends were masters of the field these
dangerous allies came forth for their own savage
work, and they were not checked. The battlefield was
strewn with the dead and wounded. For the Indians to
have scalped the dead would have been bad enough.
They did this, but they did more. Officers and men,
sometimes only slightly wounded but unable to join
the British retreat, fell victims to the ruthless
savages. 'Of the immense number of wounded men,'
says Knox, with pardonable warmth, 'who were
unavoidably left on the field of battle,
twenty-eight only were sent to the hospital, the
rest being given up as victims to glut the rage of
the savage allies [of the French] and to prevent
their forsaking them.' 'All the wounded men,' we are
told in another account, ' and several of the
wounded officers who could not get off the field was
[sic] as usual every one Scalped for the
entertainment of the Conqueror.' Malartic says that
the Indians scalped even some of the French. It is
incredible that, as the British charge, the French
officers encouraged such barbarities, but there is
no doubt that they showed too little vigour in
checking the savages.
The bad news caused dismay in
England. Pitt saw in it the danger of final failure
to the work of years. He wrote on June 20 to Amherst
trusting that, 'in the Providence of God' no fatal
catastrophe might happen. 'I wish you
sorrow of the battle of
Quebec,' wrote Horace Walpole to his friend Conway
on June 21; 'I thought as much of losing the duchies
of Aquitaine and Normandy as Canada.' Negotiations
for peace were going on and the British reverse
stiffened the terms of the French. A letter of an
English statesman of the time sums up the prospect
as the British saw it :
'We all here blame Mr. Murray,
and are not at all satisfied with the reason he
assigns for leaving the town to attack the enemy. He
says, as I hear, that if the enemy got possession of
the Heights of Abraham, the town was not defensible
; but we wonder then, why he did not entrench
himself there, and defend it by the force of his
artillery, with which he was very well supplied and
the French very ill ; so that we cannot conceive, as
long as our force was complete, how they could have
any hopes of taking the town. As it is, however, I
understand that there are no expectations that it
can be saved, and, indeed, I am told that Murray
himself gives little reason to hope it. The relief
from Amherst is certainly impossible, and I do not
think that he has ever shown activity enough to make
one hope that he would make an attempt vigorous
enough, even if there was a mere chance of success.
How unexpected and unfortunate all this is! and how
it has marred all our schemes of peace.' |
