Chapter II: Part 2

The reason of it is clear. Abercrombie lived to return to England: the living always find means to justify themselves. But Braddock was killed: the dead are always in the wrong, and never find disinterested advocates to plead their cause. Braddock's order of march--criticised by your French Generals--may, at first sight, appear singular; and may pretend that he must of necessity have been beat, in consequence of the bad disposition of it. But analize it, and you will find nothing else than the common rule practised through all Europe in passing through a wood: an army formed in three columns--the artillery, baggage, waggons and cavalry being the column of the centre, between the other two columns of infantry; half of the Grenadiers at their head to support the Pioneers employed in opening a road through the wood for the passage of the carts and artillery, and the rest in the rear, to close of march. Braddock was invested on all sides by the Canadians, and dispersed in the wood, each of them behind a tree, marking out his victim; so that every musket-shot brought down a soldier, and at every discharge they flew from tree to tree. What can regular troops do in such a case? Close their ranks and files each moment, as did Braddock, direct a continual fire at the woods, without perceiving a man, and be cut to pieces without seeing 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, dispersed 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, who in 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 cannot be a greater advantage for a General 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 were all the summer as much as me. You were absolutely 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 opposition in their course. Their descriptions and plans of the country would have enlightened you, and furnished the means 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 radient 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 indifference. The only achievement which you performed during two months that you lay constantly loitering in your camps, looking at us, was your attack of the 31st 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 detachment 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 post strong by nature, which certainly cannot be inferior to the Thermopylæ so celebrated by the Greeks, and capable of being defended--you being the masters of the River St. Lawrence--by as few men as Leonidas had with him against the most numerous army. But your detachment at Deschambault, upon the appearance of my cavalry, composed merely of two hundred undisciplined Canadians on horseback, commanded by the Chevalier de LaRochebeaucourt, 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 St. Lawrence, and who, having lost his ship, passed there the winter amongst the Indians--in an immense ravine, with a rapid, shaggy river full of large rocks, that runs between the two heights, 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 strikes the eyes with horror on looking 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 extraordinary fort, you would have cut off my communication with Montreal, from whence I drew daily my supplies for the army: 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 possible to examine and know the _locale_ of that country, your bloodhounds--the Indians and Canadians--being constantly at our heels: one cannot send out scouts in Canada, as is done in Europe.

MONTCALM:--Why not? Men cannot 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 always 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, formed by Roger, 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. Self-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 themselves, 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 _Anse des Mères_ on the 13th September (the fatal day which deprived 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[G] 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 success, but by my combinations, which answered exactly as I had foreseen, and which demonstrate my scheme to have been well concerted. In giving you this account of it, I am persuaded that you will not blame me for undertaking an attempt 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 commanders 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 service 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 of 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 tormented 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 tempestuous 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 fall down the river, while orders were issued at the same time to begin the general preparations for the immediate departure 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 examining them, I discovered that your posts were guarded very negligently; that de Bougainville, who was at Cap Rouge, proposed to send down, the night following, some boats loaded with provisions, and that your three posts had their orders to let these boats pass unmolested. The idea instantly occurred to me to profit by this discovery; and I ran to the Admiral, 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 England. The council consented to my demand, and I began my landing at eleven at night. When my boats approached the two posts of Douglas and Rimini, upon their sentinels calling "_Qui vive!_" my soldiers answered them in French, "_Bateaux 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, commanded by De Vergor, 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 finding any man of his detachment with him.[H] I began my operation by landing there a Sergeant with ten Grenadiers, ordering 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 Grenadiers, followed him, having the same orders, to halt instantly if they fired at him. The silence continuing, I 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, 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. Moreover, I was assured by your deserters you had no troops on the heights of Abraham. You see now, 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 comprehended 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 the conduct of Count D'Aguilar, 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. Besides, the enemy is always disconcerted by a surprise; demoralized by an unforeseen incident, he becomes timid and alarmed, and may be looked upon as already vanquished before the action begins. The landing at Cap Breton was executed according to my system. The enemy does not expect you at a place of difficult access; it is where he does not expect me that I would make my principal attack. Commonly, men suffer most where they are most seen.[I] But if they are entirely neglected--as it happened at Louisbourg--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 happened 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 Cove) might have hindered the soldiers from deserting, which would at once have removed a first cause which produced so many extraordinary effects. 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 preparations, 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 sudden 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! 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 calumnies were spread everywhere by a set[J] 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 constantly cherished honest men, whose noble sentiments endeared 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. Covetousness 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 confounded them. Truth supports oppressed innocence, and, sooner or later, dispels the clouds which too often overshadow it. I shall give you a faithful and exact account of my conduct with regard to the operations of the 13th September, following scrupulously truth, which has always been the rule of my actions and is held in great veneration by me; and I hope to demonstrate 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 of the 31st of July, M. de Levis was sent by M. Vaudreuil to command at Montreal, upon a false report that a body of English was coming to attack Canada by Lake Champlain--a story trumped up by my enemies to deprive me of M. de Levis, in whom I had the greatest confidence, on account of his talents: I cannot say he made me a just acknowledgment of my 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 with his plan of defence for the left of our 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 perfect 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 opposite to the ravine of Beauport, I remained at M. Vaudreuil's until one in the morning, when I left him in order 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 measures I had concerted with M. de Vaudreuil, in case 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 attempt a descent--whether above the town, or below it towards the _Canardière_; he added, that he believed a body of troops might be advantageously placed upon the heights of Abraham, where they could with certainty confront you whenever you landed. I approved greatly of his idea. I called 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 orders, I had all the reason possible to believe that this regiment constitued a permanent post there; so that the declaration of the 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 encamp upon the heights, I know not; and can only attribute Montreuil's disobedience of my orders to the weakness of his judgment and understanding. It is nevertheless evident that, if you had found the Regiment of Guienne upon the top of the hill--where it ought to have been, had my orders been obeyed--you would have been repulsed shamefully with a much greater loss than you met with on the 31st July at the Sault; the height where you made your descent, the 13th of September, being infinitely steeper than that there which obliged you to make a speedy retreat, favoured by the _providential shower_. Or, perhaps you would have embarked immediately your army, without any further attempt, to return to England, after a most ruinous and fruitless expedition--the campaign ending with an incredible expense to your nation--fruitless; and, by this means, the colony of Canada would have been for ever delivered from such formidable armies.

As soon as your army was reunited in a single camp at Pointe Levi, after having been so long separated, upon you sending a body of troops up the River St. Lawrence, I detached M. de Bougainville, with fifteen hundred of my best troops--composed of all my Grenadiers, of the Volunteers from the French Regiments, of my best Canadians and Indians; 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 ready to oppose your passage up the river, and to fall on you with the swiftness of the eagle the moment you attempted to land on our side of it. He sent to inform me, the 13th of September, 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 his 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 would send down that night. I cannot conceive the reasons for such conduct: it is beyond all conception! He was informed, between seven and eight in the morning, by the fugitives from the three posts, that your 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 River St. Charles, which led both of them to our camp, he followed the heights of Abraham, where he was evidently certain by his information to find there your army to intercept him; and it could never be his design to fight you with fifteen 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 them 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 Volunteers 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 Hospital, in order to join my army! Thus were precious moments 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 lodgings at Beauport, came to me, at midnight, to inform me that they saw boats opposite to his regiment. Upon which I immediately 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 of my Cavaliers of Ordnance, ordering Marcel, if there was anything 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 regiment, and I continued there with Johnstone. All night my mind was in the most violent agitation, which I believe proceeded 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, "that loss would ruin us without resource, having provisions only for two days' subsistence to our army." It appears to me that my extraordinary 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 informed of an event of so great importance, and which was known through all the right of our camp.

The day clearing up, having news from Marcel at M. de Vaudreuil'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 midnight when I sent there Marcel, I set out with Johnstone between 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 Canadians scattered amongst the bushes. I met at the same time M. de Vaudreuil coming out of his lodgings, and having spoke to him an instant, I turned away to Johnstone, and told 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 servants at my lodgings; returning to rejoin me, he found Poularies in the Ravine with M. de Sennezergue, Brigadier-General and Lieutenant-Colonel of the Regiment of La Sarre, and de Lotbinière, Captain of the Colony troops and aide-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 coming 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 Lotbinière 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 entreated Poularies, in the most pressing manner, to have no regard for that order signed "Montreuil," as the want of two thousand 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 of 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, without any regard whatsoever to any order that might be hurtful to the King's service, 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 particulars relative to the action of the 13th of September. I am ignorant of who it was that made our army take their abominable 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 Canardière, or ever knew 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 when 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 moment 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 flank 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 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 retire in the night, as certainly you could never be so rash as to think of attacking us under the guns 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 five-and-twenty brass field pieces that were in position 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 categorical 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 Ramsay'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 defence 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 particular commission of Commander-in-Chief of the troops in 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 situation. 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 Montreuil. 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?" Montreuil said it would be better to 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 Grenadiers to place at their heads." I added, that "since it is decided to attack, it must be in Front Baudière(?)" I sent all the officers to their posts, and ordered the drummers to beat the charge.

Our onset was neither brisk nor long. We went on in confusion--were repulsed in an instant; and it could not naturally be otherwise from the absence of our Volunteers and Grenadiers, and de Bougainville at Cap Rouge with the best of our Canadians; the Montreal regiments with Poularies at Beauport, a league and a half from the battle-field. The example 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 hornwork, 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.

You see, sir, by this true and faithful account of the 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 enterprise. 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 your's 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 Vaudreuil--the weakest man alive, although a most obstinate 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.[K] He was conveyed immediately to Quebec, and lodged in the house of M. Arnoux, the King's surgeon, who was absent with M. de Bourlamarque: his brother--the younger Arnoux--having viewed the wound, declared it mortal. This truly great and worthy man heard Arnoux[L] 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 indifference whether he lived or died. He begged of Arnoux to be so kind and outspoken as to tell him how many hours he thought he might yet live? Arnoux 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 coolness and presence of mind, and ended his days about the hour Arnoux had foretold him. His last words were:--"I die[M] content, since I leave the affairs of the King, my dear master, in good hands: I always had a high opinion of the talents of M. de Levis." I will not undertake the panegyric of this great man: a true patriot and lover of his 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 posterity. 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 to the immoderate ambition of others. His ashes, mingled with those of 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 Intendant'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 the bakehouse,[P] and from thence across over the meadows to the hornwork, resolved not to approach Quebec, from my apprehension of being shut up there with a part of our army, which might have been the case if the victors had drawn all the advantage they could have reaped from our defeat. It is true the death of the general-in-chief--an event which never fails to create the greatest disorder and confusion in an army--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 myself 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 upon the rising ground, I was astonished to find myself in the centre of the English army, who had advanced whilst I was in the hollow with the gunners, and taking me for a general, on account of my fine black horse, they treated me as such by saluting me with a thousand musket shots from half of the front of their army, which had formed a crescent. I was, nevertheless, bent on reaching the windmill, and I escaped their terrible fire without 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 hornwork.

It is impossible to imagine the disorder and confusion that I found in the hornwork.[Q] The dread and consternation was general. M. de Vaudreuil listened to everybody, and was always of the advice of he who spoke last. No order was given with reflection and with coolness, 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 seizes 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 composed of strong, thick, and high palisades, planted perpendicularly, 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 appearance; 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 Bearn, 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."

Montreuil told them that "a fortification such as the hornwork was not to be taken so easily." In short, there arose a general cry in the hornwork to cut the bridge of boats.[R] 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 moment 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 army accorded me on account of the esteem and confidence which M. de Levis and M. de Montcalm had always shown me 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 persons. I suspected they were busy drafting the articles for 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. Having 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 preservation 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 Bearn, 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 advocate the welfare of his country. I then quitted the hornwork to join Poularies at the Ravine[S] of Beauport; but having met him 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 my 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 motives induced me to act strenuously for the good of the service; amongst others, my gratitude for the 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 Beauport, 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.