Chapter X: THE CONQUEST OF CANADA (continued) (2)

Another question which is worth considering is: What would have been the result if Wolfe had not succeeded, if Quebec had not been taken, and the English fleet had sailed off down the St. Lawrence, either carrying the army home, or leaving it, as at one time during the siege had been contemplated, to go into winter quarters at the Ile aux Coudres lower down the river? A failure would have been recorded, and Wolfe above all others would have so regarded it; but, notwithstanding, the expedition would not have been in vain. Quebec would have been left in ruins, the banks of the St. Lawrence, with emptied farms and homesteads, would have been a scene of desolation; though Montcalm would have lived to fight again, Canada in all human probability {314} must have fallen. For Canada was being starved out; and, if the French Government a year before could spare but few troops and supplies for New France, much less were the necessary troops and supplies likely to be forthcoming after another year of exhausting war on the Continent. On December 16, Amherst wrote to Pitt from New York: 'From the present posts His Majesty's army is now in possession of, if no stroke was to be made, Canada must fall or the inhabitants starve.' He wrote with information given him by one of his officers, Major Grant, who had been a prisoner in Canada. Grant's words were: ''Tis believed that the colony, though in great distress, may subsist for a year, without receiving supplies from France'; but it could only subsist by using up all the live stock in the land. The English command of the water was killing Canada, the farmers and peasantry were sickening of the war; though Amherst wrote after the fall of Quebec, the saving of Quebec would in no way have fed Canada.

[Sidenote: _Results of his success on the future history of Canada._]

Unless, then, some great reversal of existing conditions had taken place, or unless peace had been declared, Canada would have been conquered, even if Wolfe had not triumphed and Quebec had not fallen in September, 1759. But widely different would have been the result on after history, and herein lies the true lesson to be drawn from the record of the siege and capture of Quebec, and of the death of Wolfe and Montcalm. It is the most conclusive answer, if answer were needed, to those--fifty years ago they were many--who ignore or minimize the effect of sentiment on the making and the preserving of nations. The noble picturesqueness of the story, its accompaniments of heroism and death, were of untold value in the work of reconciliation; and of untold value was the legacy to a yet unformed people of one of the great landmarks in history. In a sense, which it is easier to feel than to express, two rival races, under two rival leaders, unconsciously joined hands on the Plains of Abraham. The {315} noise of war seemed to be stilled, the bitterness of competing races and creeds to be allayed, by sharing in an episode which appealed to all time and to all mankind. The dramatic ending of the old order blessed the birth of the new; the instinct of human pathos brought men together; and out of divergent elements made a nation. Born far away in different lands, in death Wolfe and Montcalm were not divided; and the soil on which they died has become the sacred heritage of a people, whose union is stronger than the divisions of religion, language, and race.

[Sidenote: _Successes of England in 1759._]

In the _Annual Register_ for 1759,[26] summing up the results of the year to Great Britain, Burke wrote: 'In no one year since she was a nation, has she been favoured with so many successes, both by sea and land, and in every quarter of the globe.' It was a bright year for England in every sense of the word. The sun had shone upon her soil and upon her arms. In America, in India, at Minden, at Quiberon, she had triumphed. 'I call it this ever warm and victorious year,' wrote Walpole on October 21, 'we have not had more conquest than fine weather. One would think we had plundered East and West Indies of sunshine.'[27]

[Footnote 26: p. 56.]

[Footnote 27: _Letters of Horace Walpole_, vol. iii, p. 259 (Letter of Oct. 21, 1759).]

[Sidenote: _The winter at Quebec._]

[Sidenote: _Levis' plans for recovering the city._]

The winter which followed was a trying one for the garrison at Quebec. They held the battered town, amid constant rumours of attack, ill provided with warm clothing, with scanty supplies of firewood, suffering much from sickness, and, as Knox tells us, in arrears of pay, 'from which they might derive many comforts and refreshments under their present exigencies.'[28] Outposts were established at Point Levis, Sainte Foy, Lorette, and Cap Rouge; and here and there skirmishes took place with parties of the enemy. Levis was at Montreal, bent upon recovering Quebec. When the English fleet had left, he sent messages to France to ask that {316} provisions might be sent as early as possible in the coming year, with ships of war, timed to arrive in the St. Lawrence before the English should return, and numerous enough to hold the river for France. Meanwhile, he debated whether or not to attack Quebec in mid-winter, and attempt to carry it by a _coup de main_; but eventually determined to await the coming of spring and the opening of the waters. Thus the anxious winter passed, and the middle of April came. Attack became imminent, and Murray knew it. He ordered the French residents to leave Quebec, called in his outposts, and with a force sadly reduced by sickness awaited Levis' army.

[Footnote 28: vol. ii, p. 241.]

[Sidenote: _His advance in the spring of 1760._]

At the end of October the effective strength of the garrison had been 7,313. On March 1 the number of fighting men, owing to scurvy and other diseases, was reduced to 4,800;[29] and, though April, with its milder weather, saw the beginning of recovery, the English force was greatly outmatched by the enemy, for Levis had with him, all told, at least 10,000 men.[30] About April 20, the French advance from Montreal began. The troops were brought down the river in ships and boats, and, landing some thirty miles above Quebec, crossed the Cap Rouge river and marched on to Lorette and Sainte Foy.

[Footnote 29: Knox, vol. ii, p. 267.]

[Footnote 30: Knox gives the French numbers as 15,000, against 3,140 English (p. 295).]

[Sidenote: _The battle of Sainte Foy, and defeat of the English._]

On April 27, Murray offered battle at Sainte Foy; but the French made no move, and he fell back to Quebec, leaving Levis to occupy Sainte Foy that same night. Before seven o'clock on the next morning he marched out again, bent on fighting, if possible, before Levis had secured his position, and anxious not to be cooped up behind the fortifications of Quebec, too weak to withstand a vigorous bombardment. The English force numbered 3,140 men, with eighteen pieces of cannon; and, as the men carried entrenching tools, it {317} would seem that Murray contemplated throwing up lines outside the city. The battle took place on the same plateau where Wolfe and Montcalm had fought; it lasted about the same time, for two hours; but the result was widely different. Seeing the French still on the march, and not yet in battle order, Murray ordered an immediate attack. His artillery did good execution, and, on the right and left wings, the light infantry and the Rangers respectively won an initial success. But the tide soon turned. On the right the advancing English were drawn into swampy ground; on the left they came under fire from French troops covered by the woods. Outnumbered and outflanked, the whole force was compelled to retreat into Quebec, having lost their guns and 1,100 men. The French losses appear to have been heavier, numbering according to some accounts from 1,800 to 2,000 men.

[Sidenote: _Critical position of Murray._]

[Sidenote: _Levis loses his opportunity._]

Murray's position was now exceedingly critical. Two days after the battle no more than 2,100 soldiers were returned as fit for duty; but the General and his men were fully determined not to lose Quebec. On May 1 he sent off a frigate to Louisbourg and Halifax to hasten relief; and, day and night alike, officers and men worked with common spirit, strengthening the defences, and mounting the guns. The French lost their opportunity. Had they attacked the town at once, before the garrison had recovered from the effects of the defeat, 'Quebec would,' in Captain Knox's opinion, 'have reverted to its old masters';[31] and the leisurely nature of Levis' operations seems to bear out the view, to which French prisoners gave currency, that he had only intended to invest the town, and wait the arrival of a French fleet.

[Footnote 31: p. 301.]

[Sidenote: _Relief of Quebec._]

He landed his stores and munitions at the Anse au Foulon, Wolfe's landing-place, and gradually pushed forward his lines, while the English position in front of him steadily {318} grew stronger, and in the besieged garrison confidence took the place of despondency. A storm on the river, it was reported in the city, cost the French guns, provisions, and ammunition. Bourlamaque, who, as an engineer by training, was placed in charge of the siege, was wounded; and when, on the forenoon of May 9, a strange ship sailed up the river into the basin of Quebec, and hoisted the English colours, little doubt could be left that any attempt to regain the city would be in vain. The ship in question was the _Lowestoft_ frigate, and she brought 'the agreeable intelligence of a British fleet being masters of the St. Lawrence, and nigh at hand to sustain us.'[32] The news, in Captain Knox's words, was as grateful as when the garrison of Vienna, hard pressed by the Turks, beheld Sobieski's army marching to their relief.

[Footnote 32: Knox, vol. ii, p. 310.]

[Sidenote: _Retreat of Levis._]

But one swallow does not make a summer, and some days passed before any other British ships appeared. On May 11 the French batteries opened, answered by 150 guns from Quebec: and bombardment went on without much damage, until, on the evening of the fifteenth, the _Vanguard_ ship of war and the _Diana_ frigate anchored before Quebec. The next morning the British ships passed up the river at flood tide, and attacked a small French squadron above the city. The French commander, Vauquelin, made a brave fight, but his few little vessels were nearly all destroyed. On that night and on the seventeenth, the French were in full retreat with the English at their heels. Guns, scaling ladders, baggage, ammunition, sick and wounded, were left behind. The siege of Quebec was raised, the English, after the disastrous battle of April 28, not having lost more than thirty men; and Murray, by his brave and able defence, made more than amends for his previous reverse.

[Sidenote: _Reception in England of the news of Murray's defeat and subsequent relief._]

In England the news of his defeat, followed after a short interval by the news of his relief, resulted in a curious reproduction of the excitement of the previous year. In a letter {319} dated June 19, 1760, Mr. Jenkinson in London wrote to Grenville, 'We all here blame Mr. Murray, and are not at all satisfied with the reasons he assigns for leaving the town to attack the enemy ... As it is, however, I understand that there are no expectations that it (Quebec) 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.'[33] On the following ninth of July, we have in the same _Grenville Papers_ a letter from the Duke of Newcastle to Lord Temple, referring to 'the great and almost unexpected event of recovering Quebec and turning the loss entirely upon the French.'[33] Similarly Horace Walpole, on hearing the bad news, wrote: 'We are on a sudden reading our book backwards.' The good news came, and he chronicled it with 'Quebec is come to life again.'[34] Many cold and hot fits had been the result of news from North America since the year 1755; but, with the failure of Levis to retake Quebec, English anxiety as to the issue of the strife was finally dispelled. What was left was work for which Amherst was eminently suited, steady crushing out of the remains of resistance, slow and certain invasion, where no brilliant effort was needed or required.

[Footnote 33: _Grenville Papers_, vol. i, pp. 343-5.]

[Footnote 34: _Letters of Horace Walpole_, vol. iii, pp. 317, 323 (Letters of June 20 and 28, 1760).]

[Sidenote: _The final advance on Montreal._]

[Sidenote: _Murray ascends the river._]

A threefold English advance on Montreal was planned. Murray was to move up the river from Quebec. Brigadier Haviland was to force the passage of the Ile aux Noix at the end of Lake Champlain, and strike the St. Lawrence opposite Montreal. Amherst himself, with the main army, starting from Oswego on Lake Ontario, was to come down the river from the west. Murray was first in motion. He embarked {320} 2,400 men on ships and boats, and on July 14 took his way up stream, followed and joined on August 17 by two regiments from Louisbourg, which was being dismantled and abandoned. The troops went slowly up the river, passed French outposts at various points, landed here and there, here and there exchanged shots, and were often supplied with provisions by the peasantry, who preferred bargaining to fighting, and many of whom took the oath of allegiance. At Sorel, at the mouth of the Richelieu river, Bourlamaque was stationed with a comparatively strong force to prevent a junction between Murray and Haviland, who was coming down from Lake Champlain; but no battle took place, and, after Murray had reluctantly burnt the deserted houses of the inhabitants of Sorel, who were absent in arms, the English on the river, and the French on either bank, moved onward side by side towards Montreal. By the end of August, Murray was encamped on an island a few miles below Montreal, gradually gathering intelligence of Haviland's and Amherst's advance; and on September 7 he landed on the island of Montreal itself. During the voyage up the river two facts had become manifest. One was that the country higher up the St. Lawrence was less impoverished, and supplies were more plentiful, than in the neighbourhood of Quebec. The other was that the Canadians, who still had something to lose, were anxious for peace. The constant advance of the English, the obvious futility of Vaudreuil's boasts and threats, the good treatment of the inhabitants who offered no resistance, had due effect. The country side surrendered, the militia deserted, the French regulars began to follow suit; and the few remaining troops, driven back on Montreal, recognized the hopelessness of their position.

[Sidenote: _Haviland's advance._]

Haviland started from Crown Point on August 11 with about 3,500 men, including Rogers with some of his Rangers, and a few Indians. He took with him also some {321} light artillery. The boats which carried the force made their way to the northern end of Lake Champlain, entered the Richelieu river, and on the twentieth landed some of the troops on the eastern bank of the river, over against the Ile aux Noix. Here Bougainville was stationed with a considerable force, behind fortifications which had been strengthened in the previous winter. Some miles further on down the Richelieu river, at St. John's, another French force was in position, under an officer named Roquemaure. Bougainville gave Haviland, in Knox's words, 'the trouble to break ground and erect batteries';[35] but the English, having attacked and taken the French vessels which lay below the Ile aux Noix, and cut off the garrison's retreat by the river, Bougainville crossed from the island to the western bank on the twenty-seventh, and made his way with difficulty through the woods to St. John's, where he joined Roquemaure. On the twenty-eighth the few men left on the Ile aux Noix surrendered; on the twenty-ninth the French abandoned St. John's also; the fort at Chambly surrendered on September 1; as Haviland advanced, the Canadians deserted wholesale; and the remains of Bougainville's and Roquemaure's troops, falling back to the St. Lawrence, joined Bourlamaque's force, and were carried over to the island of Montreal. By September 6, Haviland's army was encamped at Longueuil on the southern shore of the river, directly opposite Montreal.

[Footnote 35: Knox, vol. ii, p. 394.]

[Sidenote: _Amherst's advance._]

[Sidenote: _La Presentation._]

By the end of July, Amherst's army was assembling at Albany. The colonial troops came up slowly, and valuable time was lost. The General moved on to Schenectady, left that place on June 21, and reached Oswego on July 9. At Oswego he stayed for a month, waiting for the full complement of the expedition, and collecting the boats on which the force was to descend the St. Lawrence. Sir William Johnson joined him with a number of Indians, {322} while the white troops reached a total of 10,000 men, rather more than half of whom were regulars. On August 10 the army embarked. They sailed and rowed to the end of Lake Ontario, entered the St. Lawrence, made their way through the Thousand Islands, and by the fifteenth reached the French mission station of La Presentation, now Ogdensburg, at the mouth of the Oswegatchie river, where the Abbe Piquet--the apostle of the Iroquois, as he was called--had, since the year 1749, endeavoured to win the Five Nations to the French.[36]

[Footnote 36: See _Documentary History of New York_, vol. i, pp. 433-40 (Papers relating to the early settlement at Ogdensburg). The Abbe Piquet retired in this year (1760) to Louisiana, and thence to France, where he died in 1781. His mission on the Oswegatchie river, or Riviere de la Presentation, was a good sample of the aggressive French missions in Canada. Its object was to bring over the western tribes of the Five Nations to the French religion and French interests.]

[Sidenote: _Fort Levis taken._]

[Sidenote: _Amherst before Montreal._]

A little lower down, on an island in the St. Lawrence, at the head of the rapids, the French had a fortified outpost. They called the island Ile Royale, and the fort upon it Fort Levis. The officer in charge was Pouchot, who had commanded at Niagara in the preceding year, and had been exchanged with other prisoners. From the eighteenth to the twenty-fourth of August, Amherst attacked the fort. From either bank, and from the neighbouring islands, the British guns poured in their fire, supported by the armed vessels of the expedition; and on the twenty-fifth, after a brave defence, Pouchot surrendered. On the thirty-first, Amherst began the descent of the rapids, watched by La Corne and a band of Canadians. A number of boats were lost, and eighty-four men were drowned; but the main body was carried safely onward, and by September 5 reached the Ile Perrot, a few miles above the island of Montreal. On the sixth, Amherst landed at Lachine, and, marching forward, encamped that night directly in front of Montreal.

[Sidenote: _Negotiations for surrender._]

[Sidenote: _Montreal capitulates, and with it the whole of Canada._]

The next day the French commanders negotiated for {323} surrender, Murray having meanwhile landed on the island, and begun his march towards Montreal, on the opposite side to that on which Amherst was encamped. Vaudreuil and Levis tried to extract better terms from Amherst than the latter was inclined to grant; and Levis, in particular, strove hard to modify the provision that all the French troops in Canada should lay down their arms, and not serve again during the war. His protests were in vain. Amherst returned answer in strong words, that he was resolved by the terms of the capitulation to mark his sense of the infamous conduct of which the French troops had been guilty, in exciting the savages to barbarities in the course of the war. With 2,400 men opposed to about 17,000 in the three English forces, the Frenchmen had no option but to surrender. On September 8 the terms of capitulation were signed, and the whole of Canada passed into the keeping of Great Britain.

[Sidenote: _Amherst on the conduct of the French Indians._]

Amherst's reference to French dealings with the Indians, and to the dealings of the Indians in French employ, the authority for which is Captain Knox's book, deserves to be noted. When two white races are pitted against each other in savage lands, the final mastery will rest with the one which, less than the other, comes down to the savage level. The French had sinned more than the English in this respect; and it is significant that, at the surrender of Niagara, they stipulated for protection against the Indian allies of the English, and that at the surrender of Montreal they made a similar request. On the second occasion Amherst answered, and answered truly, that no cruelties had been committed by the Indians on the English side. A few days before, at the taking of Fort Levis, a large proportion of Johnson's Indians had deserted when not allowed to use their scalping knives; and probably the majority of the English shared Captain Knox's opinion of them, that 'this is quite uniform with their conduct on all occasions whenever {324} opportunity seems to offer for their being serviceable to us.'[37] The truth was that the English did not love the Indians or Indian ways; they suffered in consequence while the fate of war was still in the balance; but in the end they gained, as a ruling race, for the humanity of Amherst and the men whom he commanded stood to the credit of Great Britain in the coming time.

[Footnote 37: Knox, vol. ii, p. 413. According to Knox, Johnson collected 1,330 Indians belonging to seventeen tribes. This number was reduced at the time of embarkation to 706, and afterwards by desertion to 182.]

[Sidenote: _End of the war._]

With the capitulation of Montreal, the war in North America ended. Already in the past July some French ships bringing supplies, which had reached the Baie des Chaleurs in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, had been followed up and destroyed in the Restigouche river by Commander Byron; and while Montreal was being given up, a detachment from the English garrison at Quebec reduced the French outpost at Jacques Cartier. The surrender of Montreal included all Canada, and Robert Rogers was sent by Amherst to take over Detroit, Michillimackinac, and other of the western outposts of New France. They were peaceably occupied at the time, but three years later were the scene of hard fighting in consequence of the dangerous Indian rising under Pontiac. Amherst himself left Canada almost immediately, but remained in America as Commander-in-Chief, having his head quarters at New York, until peace was signed, when he returned to England. Vaudreuil and his subordinates went back to France, to be brought heavily to account for their shortcomings; and until the peace, or rather until Pontiac's revolt had been put down a year later, Canada remained under military rule.

[Sidenote: _Canada under military rule._]

There were three Governors, subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief--General Murray at Quebec, Colonel Burton at Three Rivers, and General Gage, who eventually took over {325} Amherst's command, at Montreal. Matters seem to have gone in the main smoothly. The Canadian people, worn with war, desired only rest and fair dealing, and fair dealing they received at the hands of the British commanders, among whom Murray was a conspicuously humane man. Criminal jurisdiction was placed in the hands of British officers, but civil cases were left to be settled by the captains of militia in the various parishes according to the custom of the people, with the right of appeal to the Governor. More publicity was given by proclamation to the orders and regulations of the Governors than had been the case in French times; and though the status was one of military occupation, there was a nearer approach to freedom, or at any rate more even-handed justice, than in the days when Bigot and his confederates robbed the peasantry in the name of the French King.

[Sidenote: _Events in Europe._]

[Sidenote: _Death of King George II._]

[Sidenote: _Rise of Bute and resignation of Pitt._]

Meanwhile events moved fast in Europe. The fall of Montreal was followed in a few weeks' time by the death of King George II. He died on October 25, 1760, and with the accession of George III there came a change in English policy. The 'King's friends,' as they were called, by intrigue and bribery gradually gained power. Bute, the royal favourite, led them, and strongly supported a peace policy. In March, 1761, he became a Secretary of State, and in the following October Pitt resigned. Success had perhaps told against the great English minister. The main work to which he had put his hand had been accomplished; among the colleagues who intrigued against him, or who resented his imperious leadership, there may well have been in some minds an honest wish to give the country rest and to lighten the heavy burdens which war imposed. Already peace negotiations with France had been opened, but the discovery that the French Government had formed a secret compact with Spain stiffened Pitt's policy, and he urged the desirability of striking the first blow and declaring war against {326} Spain. On this issue he parted company with the other ministers, except Lord Temple, and retired from office. A few months later, in May, 1762, Newcastle resigned, and Bute was left supreme.

[Sidenote: _Greatness of Pitt._]

No eulogy on Pitt can exaggerate the services which he rendered to England. 'He revived the military genius of our people, he supported our allies, he extended our trade, he raised our reputation, he augmented our dominions.'[38] He gave to the world a splendid illustration of an English statesman who was as good as his word; who, unlike the ordinary run of Parliamentary leaders, did not shift his course or seek for compromise. He believed in the destiny of his country, and shaped that destiny on world-wide lines. His faults, which were not few, are forgiven by his countrymen, for he loved England much.

[Footnote 38: _Annual Register_ for 1761, p. 47.]

[Sidenote: _War with Spain._]

[Sidenote: _English reverse in Newfoundland._]

The mean men who supplanted him could not undo what he had done. The beginning of the year 1762 saw them at war with Spain, and still Englishmen struck blow after blow. In 1761, while Pitt was still in office, Belle Ile, off the French coast, had been taken, and in the West Indies and in India there had been gains. In 1762 more West Indian islands were captured, and Spain lost for the time Havana in the West, the Philippines in the East. Curiously enough the one reverse experienced by the English was in North America, St. John's in Newfoundland being surprised and taken in June, 1762, though it was recovered in the following September.

[Sidenote: _The Peace of Paris._]

In spite of continued success Bute was resolved on peace, the negotiations being entrusted to the Duke of Bedford, who was one of the extreme peace party. The preliminaries were concluded in November, 1762; they were approved by Parliament, and on February 10, 1763, the Peace of Paris was signed. Under its provisions the French King renounced all pretensions to Nova Scotia or Acadia, and ceded 'in full {327} right Canada with all its dependencies, as well as the island of Cape Breton and all the other islands and coasts in the gulf and river St. Lawrence.' A line drawn down the middle of the river Mississippi defined the inland frontier; all territory on the left side of the river, 'except the town of New Orleans and the island in which it is situated,' being ceded to Great Britain. Two clauses, however, in the treaty marred the completeness of the cession. They renewed the rights of fishing and drying on part of the Newfoundland coast, which had been given to French subjects by the Treaty of Utrecht; and they ceded in full right to the King of France the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, to serve as a shelter to French fishermen, on condition that the islands should not be fortified. Here were the seeds of future trouble, sown by other hands than those of Pitt. Yet, considering the character and inclinations of the men who held power in England at this critical time, the country had reason to congratulate itself on the result of the negotiations.[39] Spain paid for her interference in the quarrel with France by the loss of Florida, which became a British possession; in turn she received from France Louisiana. Thus the Seven Years' War ended, {328} closing the story of New France; and on the line of the St. Lawrence, under British rule, grew up the Canadian nation.

[Footnote 39: Lord Chesterfield's views on the preliminaries of the Peace of Paris, not yet fully known when he wrote, are interesting. In a letter dated Nov. 13, 1762 (1775 ed., vol. iv, pp. 190, 191,