In the following spring, the French prepared to resist the serious attack which they expected would be made by way of Lake Champlain and Ontario. But a greater danger was threatening them, for, in the midst of their preparations, the news arrived from France that a great fleet was on its way, from England, to attack Quebec. The town was filled with consternation and surprise, for the Canadians had believed that the navigation of the Saint Lawrence was too difficult and dangerous for any hostile fleet to attempt. Their spirits rose however when, a few days later, a fleet of twenty-three ships, ladened with supplies from France, sailed up the river.
A day or two later, the British fleet was at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence, and the whole forces of the colony, except three battalions posted at Ticonderoga, and a strong detachment placed so as to resist any hostile movement from Lake Ontario, were mustered at Quebec. Here were gathered five French battalions, the whole of the Canadian troops and militia, and upwards of a thousand Indians, in all amounting to more than sixteen thousand.
The position was an extremely strong one. The main force was encamped on the high ground below Quebec, with their right resting on the Saint Charles River, and the left on the Montmorenci, a distance of between seven and eight miles. The front was covered by steep ground, which rose nearly from the edge of the Saint Lawrence, and the right was covered by the guns of the citadel of Quebec. A boom of logs, chained together, was laid across the mouth of the Saint Charles, which was further guarded by two hulks mounted with cannon. A bridge of boats, crossing the river a mile higher up, connected the city with the camp.
All the gates of Quebec, except that of Saint Charles, which faced the bridge, were closed and barricaded. A hundred and six cannon were mounted on the walls, while a floating battery of twelve heavy pieces, a number of gunboats, and eight fire ships formed the river defences.
The frigates, which had convoyed the merchant fleet, were taken higher up the river, and a thousand of their seamen came down, from Quebec, to man the batteries and gunboats.
Against this force of sixteen thousand men, posted behind defensive works, on a position almost impregnable by nature, General Wolfe was bringing less than nine thousand troops. The steep and lofty heights, that lined the river, rendered the cannon of the ships useless to him, and the exigencies of the fleet, in such narrow and difficult navigation, prevented the sailors being landed to assist the troops.
A large portion of Montcalm's army, indeed, consisted of Canadians, who were of little use in the open field, but could be trusted to fight well behind intrenchments.
Wolfe was, unfortunately, in extremely bad health when he was selected, by Pitt, to command the expedition against Quebec; but under him were Brigadier Generals Monckton, Townshend, and Murray, all good officers.
The fleet consisted of twenty-two ships of war, with frigates and sloops, and a great number of transports. It was, at first, divided into three squadrons. That under Admiral Durell sailed direct for the Saint Lawrence, to intercept the ships from France, but arrived at its destination a few days too late. That of Admiral Holmes sailed for New York, to take on board a portion of the army of Amherst and Abercromby. That of Admiral Saunders sailed to Louisbourg, but, finding the entrance blocked with ice, went on to Halifax, where it was joined by the squadron with the troops from New York. They then sailed again to Louisbourg, where they remained until the 6th of June, 1759, and then joined Durell at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence.
Wolfe's force had been intended to be larger, and should have amounted to fourteen thousand men; but some regiments which were to have joined him from the West Indies were, at the last moment, countermanded, and Amherst, who no doubt felt some jealousy, at the command of this important expedition being given to an officer who had served under his orders at the taking of Louisbourg, sent a smaller contingent of troops than had been expected.
Among the regiments which sailed was that of James Walsham. After the fight at Ticonderoga, in which upwards of half of his force had fallen, the little corps had been broken up, and the men had returned to duty with their regiments. Owing to the number of officers who had fallen, James now stood high on the list of lieutenants. He had had enough of scouting, and was glad to return to the regiment, his principal regret being that he had to part from his two trusty scouts.
There was great joy, in the regiment, when the news was received that they were to go with the expedition against Quebec. They had formed part of Wolf''s division at Louisbourg, and, like all who had served with him, regarded with enthusiasm and confidence the leader whose frail body seemed wholly incapable of sustaining fatigue or hardship, but whose indomitable spirit and courage placed him ever in the front, and set an example which the bravest of his followers were proud to imitate.
From time to time, James had received letters from home. Communication was irregular; but his mother and Mr. Wilks wrote frequently, and sometimes he received half a dozen letters at once. He had now been absent from home for four years, and his mother told him that he would scarcely recognize Aggie, who was now as tall as herself. Mrs. Walsham said that the girl was almost as interested as she was in his letters, and in the despatches from the war, in which his name had several times been mentioned, in connection with the services rendered by his scouts.
Richard Horton had twice, during James's absence, returned home. The squire, Mrs. Walsham said, had received him very coolly, in consequence of the letter he had written when James was pressed as a seaman, and she said that Aggie seemed to have taken a great objection to him. She wondered, indeed, that he could stay an hour in the house after his reception there; but he seemed as if he didn't notice it, and took especial pains to try and overcome Aggie's feeling against him.
While waiting at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence, Admiral Durell had succeeded in obtaining pilots to take the fleet up the river. He had sailed up the river to the point where the difficult navigation began, and where vessels generally took on board river pilots. Here he hoisted the French flag at the masthead, and the pilots, believing the ships to be a French squadron, which had eluded the watch of the English, came off in their boats, and were all taken prisoners, and forced, under pain of death, to take the English vessels safely up.
The first difficulty of the passage was at Cape Tourmente, where the channel describes a complete zigzag. Had the French planted some guns on a plateau, high up on the side of the mountains, they could have done great damage by a plunging fire; but Vaudreuil had neglected to take this measure, and the fleet passed up in safety, the manner in which they were handled and navigated astonishing the Canadians, who had believed it to be impossible that large ships could be taken up.
On the 26th, the whole fleet were anchored off the Island of Orleans, a few miles below Quebec. The same night, a small party landed on the island. They were opposed by the armed inhabitants, but beat them off, and, during the night, the Canadians crossed to the north shore. The whole army then landed.
From the end of the island, Wolfe could see the full strength of the position which he had come to attack. Three or four miles in front of him, the town of Quebec stood upon its elevated rock. Beyond rose the loftier height of Cape Diamond, with its redoubts and parapets. Three great batteries looked threateningly from the upper rock of Quebec, while three others were placed, near the edge of the water, in the lower town. On the right was the great camp of Montcalm, stretching from the Saint Charles, at the foot of the city walls, to the gorge of the Montmorenci. From the latter point to the village of Beauport, in the centre of the camp, the front was covered with earthworks, along the brink of a lofty height; and from Beauport to the Saint Charles were broad flats of mud, swept by the fire of redoubts and intrenchments, by the guns of a floating battery, and by those of the city itself.
Wolfe could not see beyond Quebec, but, above the city, the position was even stronger than below. The river was walled by a range of steeps, often inaccessible, and always so difficult that a few men could hold an army in check.
Montcalm was perfectly confident of his ability to resist any attack which the British might make. Bougainville had long before examined the position, in view of the possibility of an English expedition against it, and reported that, with a few intrenchments, the city would be safe if defended by three or four thousand men. Sixteen thousand were now gathered there, and Montcalm might well believe the position to be impregnable.
He was determined to run no risk, by advancing to give battle, but to remain upon the defensive till the resources of the English were exhausted, or till the approach of winter forced them to retire. His only source of uneasiness lay in the south, for he feared that Amherst, with his army, might capture Ticonderoga and advance into the colony, in which case he must weaken his army, by sending a force to oppose him.
On the day after the army landed on the island, a sudden and very violent squall drove several of the ships ashore, and destroyed many of the flatboats. On the following night, the sentries at the end of the island saw some vessels coming down the river. Suddenly these burst into flames. They were the fire ships, which Vaudreuil had sent down to destroy the fleet. They were filled with pitch, tar, and all sorts of combustibles, with shell and grenades mixed up with them, while on their decks were a number of cannon, crammed to the mouth with grapeshot and musketballs.
Fortunately for the English, the French naval officer in command lost his nerve, and set fire to his ship half an hour too soon; the other captains following his example. This gave the English time to recover from the first feeling of consternation at seeing the fire ships, each a pillar of flame, advancing with tremendous explosion and noise against them. The troops at once got under arms, lest the French should attack them, while the vessels lowered their boats, and the sailors rowed up to meet the fire ships. When they neared them, they threw grapnels on board, and towed them towards land until they were stranded, and then left them to burn out undisturbed.
Finding that it would be impossible to effect a landing, under the fire of the French guns, Wolfe determined, as a first step, to seize the height of Point Levi opposite Quebec. From this point he could fire on the town across the Saint Lawrence, which is, here, less than a mile wide.
On the afternoon of the 29th, Monckton's brigade crossed, in the boats, to Beaumont on the south shore. His advanced guard had a skirmish with a party of Canadians, but these soon fell back, and no further opposition was offered to the landing.
In the morning a proclamation, issued by Wolfe, was posted on the doors of the parish churches. It called upon the Canadians to stand neutral in the contest, promising them, if they did so, full protection to their property and religion; but threatening that, if they resisted, their houses, goods, and harvest should be destroyed, and their churches sacked.
The brigade marched along the river to Point Levi, and drove off a body of French and Indians posted there, and, the next morning, began to throw up intrenchments and to form batteries. Wolfe did not expect that his guns here could do any serious damage to the fortifications of Quebec. His object was partly to discourage the inhabitants of the city exposed to his fire, partly to keep up the spirits of his own troops by setting them to work.
The guns of Quebec kept up a continual fire against the working parties, but the batteries continued to rise, and the citizens, alarmed at the destruction which threatened their houses, asked the governor to allow them to cross the river, and dislodge the English. Although he had no belief that they would succeed, he thought it better to allow them to try. Accordingly, some fifteen hundred armed citizens, and Canadians from the camp, with a few Indians, and a hundred volunteers from the regulars, marched up the river, and crossed on the night of the 12th of July.
The courage of the citizens evaporated very quickly, now they were on the same side of the river as the English, although still three miles from them. In a short time a wild panic seized them. They rushed back in extreme disorder to their boats, crossed the river, and returned to Quebec.
The English guns soon opened, and carried destruction into the city. In one day eighteen houses, and the cathedral, were burned by exploding shells; and the citizens soon abandoned their homes, and fled into the country.
The destruction of the city, however, even if complete, would have advanced Wolfe's plans but little. It was a moral blow at the enemy, but nothing more.
On the 8th of July, several frigates took their station before the camp of General Levis, who, with his division of Canadian militia, occupied the heights along the Saint Lawrence next to the gorge of Montmorenci. Here they opened fire with shell, and continued it till nightfall. Owing to the height of the plateau on which the camp was situated, they did but little damage, but the intention of Wolfe was simply to keep the enemy occupied and under arms.
Towards evening, the troops on the island broke up their camp, and, leaving a detachment of marines to hold the post, the brigades of Townshend and Murray, three thousand strong, embarked after nightfall in the boats of the fleet, and landed a little below the Montmorenci, At daybreak, they climbed the heights, and, routing a body of Canadians and Indians who opposed them, gained the plateau and began to intrench themselves there.
A company of rangers, supported by the regulars, was sent into the neighbouring forests; to prevent the parties from cutting bushes for the fascines, to explore the bank of the Montmorenci, and, if possible, to discover a ford across the river.
Levis, with his aide-de-camp, a Jacobite Scotchman named Johnston, was watching the movements of Wolfe from the heights above the gorge. Levis believed that no ford existed, but Johnston found a man who had, only that morning, crossed. A detachment was at once sent to the place, with orders to intrench themselves, and Levis posted eleven hundred Canadians, under Repentigny, close by in support.
Four hundred Indians passed the ford, and discovered the English detachment in the forest, and Langlade, their commander, recrossed the river, and told Repentigny that there was a body of English, in the forest, who might be destroyed if he would cross at once with his Canadians. Repentigny sent to Levis, and Levis to Vaudreuil, then three or four miles distant.
Before Vaudreuil arrived on the spot, the Indians became impatient and attacked the rangers; and drove them back, with loss, upon the regulars, who stood their ground, and repulsed the assailants. The Indians, however, carried thirty-six scalps across the ford.
If Repentigny had advanced when first called upon, and had been followed by Levis with his whole command, the English might have suffered a very severe check, for the Canadians were as much superior to the regulars, in the forest, as the regulars to the Canadians in the open.
Vaudreuil called a council of war, but he and Montcalm agreed not to attack the English, who were, on their part, powerless to injure them. Wolfe's position on the heights was indeed a dangerous one. A third of his force was six miles away, on the other side of the Saint Lawrence, and the detachment on the island was separated from each by a wide arm of the river. Any of the three were liable to be attacked and overpowered, before the others could come to its assistance.
Wolfe, indeed, was soon well intrenched, but, although safe against attack, he was powerless to take the offensive. The fact, however, that he had taken up his position so near their camp, had discomfited the Canadians, and his battery played, with considerable effect, on the left of their camp.
The time passed slowly. The deep and impassable gulf of the Montmorenci separated the two enemies, but the crests of the opposite cliffs were within easy gunshot of each other, and men who showed themselves near the edge ran a strong chance of being hit. Along the river, from the Montmorenci to Point Levi, continued fighting went on between the guns of the frigates, and the gunboats and batteries on shore. The Indians swarmed in the forest, near the English camp, and constant skirmishing went on between them and the rangers.
The steady work of destruction going on in the city of Quebec, by the fire from Point Levi, and the ceaseless cannonade kept up by the ships and Wolfe's batteries; added to the inactivity to which they were condemned, began to dispirit the Canadian militia, and many desertions took place, the men being anxious to return to their villages and look after the crops; and many more would have deserted, had it not been for the persuasion of the priests, and the fear of being maltreated by the Indians, whom the governor threatened to let loose upon any who should waver in their resistance.
On the 18th of July a fresh move was made by the English. The French had believed it impossible for any hostile ships to pass the batteries of Quebec; but, covered by a furious cannonade from Point Levi, the man of war Sutherland, with a frigate and several small vessels, aided by a favouring wind, ran up the river at night and passed above the town. Montcalm at once despatched six hundred men, under Dumas, to defend the accessible points in the line of precipices above Quebec, and on the following day, when it became known that the English had dragged a fleet of boats over Point Levi, and had launched them above the town, a reinforcement of several hundreds more was sent to Dumas.
On the night of the 20th Colonel Carleton, with six hundred men, rowed eighteen miles up the river, and landed at Pointe aux Trembles on the north shore. Here, many of the fugitives from Quebec had taken refuge, and a hundred women, children and old men were taken prisoners by Carleton, and brought down the next day with the retiring force. Wolfe entertained the prisoners kindly, and sent them, on the following day, with a flag of truce into Quebec.
On the night of the 28th, the French made another attempt to burn the English fleet, sending down a large number of schooners, shallops, and rafts, chained together, and filled, as before, with combustibles.
This time, the fire was not applied too soon, and the English fleet was for some time in great danger, but was again saved by the sailors, who, in spite of the storm of missiles, vomited out by cannon, swivels, grenades, shell, and gun and pistol barrels loaded up to the muzzle, grappled with the burning mass, and towed it on shore.
It was now the end of July, and Wolfe was no nearer taking Quebec than upon the day when he first landed there. In vain he had tempted Montcalm to attack him. The French general, confident in the strength of his position, refused to leave it.
Wolfe therefore determined to attack the camp in front. The plan was a desperate one, for, after leaving troops enough to hold his two camps, he had less than five thousand men to attack a position of commanding strength, where Montcalm could, at an hour's notice, collect twice as many to oppose him.
At a spot about a mile above the gorge of the Montmorenci a flat strip of ground, some two hundred yards wide, lay between the river and the foot of the precipices, and, at low tide, the river left a flat of mud, nearly half a mile wide, beyond the dry ground.
Along the edge of the high-water mark, the French had built several redoubts. From the river, Wolfe could not see that these redoubts were commanded by the musketry of the intrenchments along the edge of the heights above, which also swept with their fire the whole face of the declivity, which was covered with grass, and was extremely steep. Wolfe hoped that, if he attacked one of the redoubts, the French would come down to defend it, and that a battle might be so brought on; or that, if they did not do so, he might find a spot where the heights could be stormed with some chance of success. At low tide, it was possible to ford the mouth of the Montmorenci, and Wolfe intended that the troops from his camp, on the heights above that river, should cross here, and advance along the strand to cooperate with Monckton's brigade, who were to cross from Point Levi.
On the morning of the 31st of July, the Centurion, of 64 guns; and two armed transports, each with 14 guns, stood close in to one of the redoubts, and opened fire upon it; while the English batteries, from the heights of the Montmorenci, opened fire across the chasm upon the French lines.
At eleven o'clock, the troops from Point Levi put off in their boats, and moved across the river, as if they intended to make a landing between Beauport and the city. For some hours, Montcalm remained ignorant as to the point on which the English attack was to be made, but became presently convinced that it would be delivered near the Montmorenci, and he massed the whole of his army on that flank of his position.
At half-past five o'clock the tide was low, and the English boats dashed forward, and the troops sprang ashore on to the broad tract of mud, left bare by the tide; while, at the same moment, a column 2000 strong moved down from the height towards the ford at the mouth of the Montmorenci. The first to land were thirteen companies of Grenadiers, and a detachment of Royal Americans, who, without waiting for the two regiments of Monckton's brigade, dashed forward against the redoubt at the foot of the hill. The French at once abandoned it, but the Grenadiers had no sooner poured into it, than a storm of bullets rained down upon them, from the troops who lined the heights above.
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