Old Quebec: The Fortress of New France Part 12

"Scarcely was he hidden when again there was a loud knocking at the gate, and two armed men appeared. 'Your cousin Donald has been murdered, and we are looking for the murderer!'

"Campbell, remembering his oath, professed to have no knowledge of the fugitive; and the men went on their way.

"The laird, in great agitation, lay down to rest in a large dark room, when at length he fell asleep. Waking suddenly in bewilderment and terror, he saw the ghost of the murdered Donald standing by his bedside, and heard a hollow voice p.r.o.nounce the words: '_Inverawe! Inverawe!

blood has been shed. s.h.i.+eld not the murderer!_'

"In the morning, Campbell went to the hiding-place of the guilty man, and told him that he could harbour him no longer. 'You have sworn on your dirk!' he replied; and the laird of Inverawe, greatly perplexed and troubled, made a compromise between conflicting duties, promised not to betray his guest, led him to the neighbouring mountain, and hid him in a cave.

"In the next night, as he lay tossing in feverish slumbers, the same stern voice awoke him, the ghost of his cousin Donald stood again at his bedside, and again he heard the same appalling words: '_Inverawe! Inverawe!

blood has been shed. s.h.i.+eld not the murderer!_' At the break of day he hastened, in strange agitation, to the cave; but it was empty, the stranger was gone. At night, as he strove in vain to sleep, the vision appeared once more, ghastly pale, but less stern of aspect than before.

'_Farewell, Inverawe!_' it said; '_farewell, till we meet at Ticonderoga!_'[28]

"The strange man dwelt in Campbell's memory. He had joined the Black Watch, or Forty-Second Regiment, then employed in keeping order in the turbulent Highlands. In time he became its major; and a year or two after the war broke out he went with it to America. Here, to his horror, he learned that it was ordered to the attack of Ticonderoga. His story was well known among his brother officers. They combined among themselves to disarm his fears; and when they reached the fatal spot they told him on the eve of the battle, 'This is not Ticonderoga; we are not there yet; this is Fort George,' But in the morning he came to them with haggard looks. 'I have seen him! You have deceived me! He came to my tent last night!

This is Ticonderoga! I shall die to-day!'

"And his prediction was fulfilled."[29]

[Footnote 28: Ticonderoga, the Indian name for the fort of Carillon.]

[Footnote 29: Parkman, _Montcalm and Wolfe_, vol. ii., Appendix.]

However magnificent was the triumph of the French arms at Carillon, it could not balance the loss of Louisbourg; and before the summer of 1758 had ended, the heart of Quebec was wrung with news of further disasters. Crossing Lake Ontario with a force of three thousand colonials, Colonel Bradstreet appeared suddenly before Fort Frontenac.

In spite of the abundant store of furs, ammunition, and implements of war which the lake fort contained, its garrison had been hopelessly weakened to supply troops for the Richelieu district, and when surprised by Bradstreet it consisted of but one hundred and ten soldiers. Without firing a shot, the commandant, De Noyan, surrendered the position.

This blow cut New France into halves, severing the western forts from their base of supplies, and effectually destroying what remained of French influence over the wavering Indian tribes. Meanwhile, General Forbes, with six thousand men, was marching from Philadelphia to attack Fort Duquesne. After three months of hards.h.i.+p he arrived at the junction of the Ohio and Monongahela; but the commandant De Ligneris had not awaited his coming, and the fort now lay in ashes, having been destroyed by its own garrison when it became clear that succour could no longer be expected from Quebec.

Quebec itself, though up to this time beyond the range of actual war, was in the usual throes of civil discord. If Vaudreuil, the Governor, had previously been jealous of Montcalm, the recent success achieved by the latter at Carillon now doubled his resentment. Casting about for any conceivable point of criticism, Vaudreuil blamed the General for not turning Abercrombie's retreat into a rout. Regarding this inspiration, Montcalm writes to Bourlamaque: "I ended by saying quietly 'that when I went to war I did the best I could; and that when one is not pleased with one's lieutenants, one had better take the field in person.' He was very much moved, and muttered between his teeth that perhaps he would; at which I said that I should be delighted to serve under him. Madame de Vaudreuil wanted to put in her word. I said: 'Madame, saving due respect, permit me to have the honour to say that ladies ought not to talk war.' She kept on. I said: 'Madame, saving due respect, permit me to have the honour to say that if Madame de Montcalm were here, and heard me talking war with Monsieur le Marquis de Vaudreuil, she would remain silent.'"

Thus the cloaked strife between the General and the so-called Canadian party proceeded. Vaudreuil wrote earnestly to the Court to have Montcalm recalled; while Montcalm, who was not blind to the malversations of Bigot and his clique, made this matter the burden of some of his official letters. The result was a rebuke administered to Vaudreuil and the Intendant, which further heated their feeling against Montcalm. Bougainville was despatched to France to lay an account of the dire distress of Canada before the Court. Montcalm's letters highly commended the envoy, but Vaudreuil as promptly described him as a creature of the General, and their quarrel did not help New France at the Royal Court. Berryer, the Colonial Minister, received Bougainville coldly, and to his appeal for help replied: "Eh, Monsieur, when the house is on fire one cannot concern one's self with the stable." But the Canadian envoy responded, with caustic wit, "At least, Monsieur, n.o.body will say that you talk like a _horse_."

Berryer's remark, however, exactly described the state of affairs.

Worsted by Clive at Pla.s.sey, and by Frederick the Great at Leuthen and Rossbach, even the loss of Louisbourg, the Forts Duquesne and Frontenac, could hardly add to France's cup of bitterness, and to save herself in Europe she was prepared for sacrifice in America. Within the single twelvemonth during which Pitt had been at the helm of England, France had altered her pretentious claim upon almost the whole of North America to the extremely reasonable demand for a foothold on the river St. Lawrence. Even this last claim was now a.s.sailed; and as she fell back into her last intrenchments, the armies of England advanced to the final encounter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOVERNOR OF NEWFOUNDLAND, 1759]

The general hopelessness of the situation in Canada is reflected in a letter written by the Minister of War, M. de Belleisle, to Montcalm, under the date 19th February, 1759: "Besides increasing the dearth of provisions, it is to be feared that reinforcements, if despatched, would fall into the power of the English. The King is unable to send succours proportional to the force the English can place in the field to oppose you....You must confine yourself to the defensive, and concentrate all your forces within as narrow limits as possible. It is of the last importance to preserve some footing in Canada. However small the territory preserved may be, it is indispensable that _un pied_ should be retained in North America, for if all be once lost it would become impossible to recover it."

And Montcalm wrote in reply: "For my part, and that of the troops under me, we are ready to fall with the colony, and to be buried in its ruins." And later: "If we are left without a fleet at Quebec, the enemy can come there; and Quebec taken, the colony is lost....If the war continues, Canada will belong to the English in course of this campaign or the next. If peace be made, the colony is lost unless there be a total change of management." Levis bore similar testimony to the discouragement caused to the colonials by the indifferent att.i.tude of the Government of France. "I see," he wrote, "that it is necessary to defend ourselves foot by foot, fighting to the death; for it will be better for the King's service that we should die with arms in our hands than for us to accept disgraceful terms of surrender like those permitted at the capitulation of Cape Breton."

The plan of the campaign of 1759 embraced simultaneous attacks upon Quebec and Montreal. The former was entrusted to Wolfe and Admiral Saunders, and the latter to Amherst. The French, on their part, disposed their troops entirely upon the defensive, Montcalm and Vaudreuil, commanders of the regulars and the militia, concentrating their soldiers round Quebec; while Bourlamaque, with less than four thousand men, was despatched to hold the gateway of the Richelieu against Amherst.

Bourlamaque first took up his position at Carillon, but on the approach of the English he blew up the walls of his fortress and retired to Crown Point. Meanwhile the deliberate Amherst marched slowly forward, building forts as he went, in this mistaken zeal for military efficiency defeating the purpose of Pitt, which was, to make a strong diversion for covering Wolfe's movement upon the St.

Lawrence. It was August before he arrived at Crown Point. This fortress, however, the wily Bourlamaque had previously abandoned for the stronger position of Isle-aux-Noix, at the outlet of Lake Champlain.

Even then Amherst refrained from hurrying forward to overwhelm the French with his superior numbers; and when at length autumn came, he was still advancing cautiously from Crown Point. But Wolfe no longer needed his help.

CHAPTER XIV

"HERE DIED WOLFE VICTORIOUS"

In spite of her strong position, Quebec did not await the arrival of the enemy with folded hands. Since 1720 walls and bastions of grey stone had completely girded the city, but within that time no invasion had tested its strength. Even now, in the midst of the most desperate war the New World had ever known, Vaudreuil loudly proclaimed that the fortress was impregnable; and his letters, promising annihilation to his foolhardy foes, are painful gasconade. Yet with all this show of a.s.surance, he was careful to send through the parishes, calling out to service every available man, and in some cases boys of thirteen and fourteen years of age; while the women and children, hiding the household valuables, withdrew from the river to places of safety.

A council of war had in the meantime decided to place the city under cover of an intrenched camp, which Montcalm was at first in favour of locating on the Plains of Abraham; but in view of the fact that the bastions of the citadel and the batteries erected on the quays of Lower Town were already in full command of the river, another site was finally selected. a.s.suming that the enemy could never force his way up the river past the city batteries, he concluded that the enemy must land by way of the lowlands below the town; and Wolfe himself had a like opinion until long after the investment had begun.

Since spring, when the proclamation of Vaudreuil had been read at the doors of the country churches, a constant stream of men and boys had been flowing towards Quebec; and by the middle of June Montcalm found himself in command of more than sixteen thousand men, including regulars, militia, and Indians. The mouth of the St. Charles had been closed with a heavy boom of logs, in front of which was moored a floating battery mounting five cannon; and behind it two stranded hulks, armed with heavy ordnance, were able to sweep the Bay. From this point to the height where, seven miles away, the Montmorency leaped foaming over its dizzy precipice, the lowlands of Beauport had been strongly fortified and intrenched. Redoubts had been erected at all possible landing-places; and behind these vast earthworks which followed the curving sh.o.r.e, the Canadian forces lay securely encamped.

The right wing, composed of the militia regiments of Quebec and Three Rivers, under M. de Saint-Ours and M. de Bonne, took up its position facing the city on the flats known as La Canardiere; the centre, stretching from the St. Charles to the Beauport river, consisted of two thousand regulars under Brigadier Senezergues; and the left, including the Montreal militia, held the road from the Beauport to the Montmorency. Montcalm established his headquarters in the centre, wisely entrusting the left wing to the capable De Levis, the right being a.s.signed to Bougainville.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENTRANCE TO THE CITADEL TO-DAY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _General the Marquis de Montcalm_]

Within the walls, the Chevalier de Ramezay commanded a garrison of above a thousand men. Every gate but one had been closed and barricaded, the Porte du Palais being left open to afford communication between the city and the camp by way of a bridge of boats across the St. Charles. Vaudreuil transferred the seat of government to Beauport, taking up his quarters at the centre with Montcalm; and those of the citizens who were not required to man the ramparts removed themselves and their valuables for safety to the country. Quebec was armed to the teeth. Three hundred feet above the river rose the battery of the citadel; on a lower level the Castle Battery frowned over towards Point Levi, the Grand Battery commanding the harbour; while, on the wharves of Lower Town, the Queen's, Dauphin's, and Royal batteries were able to sweep the narrows. Even though the English fleet might run this gauntlet of heavy ordnance, the high cliffs for miles above the city remained practically inaccessible, and at almost any point a hundred resolute men would suffice to beat back an army. In the face of these preparations, it seemed an act of madness to attempt the reduction of Quebec. But within defences so secure the ardent spirits of the Canadian troops were chafing at enforced inaction; for although diligently exercised by their commanders, they still had leisure to think of the homes they loved, where the corn would never be garnered.

On the English side Captain Cook, as his biographer relates, "was employed to procure accurate soundings of the channel between the Island of Orleans and the sh.o.r.e of Beauport--a service of great danger, which could only be performed in the night-time. He had scarcely finished when he was discovered, and a number of Indians in canoes started to cut him off. The pursuit was so close that they jumped in at the boat's stern as Cook leaped out to gain the protection of the English sentinel. The boat was carried off by the Indians. Cook, however, furnished the admiral with as correct a draft of the channel and soundings as could afterwards have been made when the English were in peaceable possession of Quebec."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOPE GATE]

At length, towards the end of June, the invading s.h.i.+ps sailed up the channel south of the Isle of Orleans; twenty s.h.i.+ps of the line, twenty frigates, and a swarm of transports, bearing in all about nine thousand men. But Quebec, so often threatened in the past, and ever fortunate in resistance, gazed complacently down upon this imposing fleet. Montcalm feared but one contingency, the co-operation of Amherst with Wolfe from the west; and this, as we have seen, was a needless anxiety. Disembarking, Wolfe pitched his camp at the western end of the Isle of Orleans, four miles from Quebec. Before him rose the portentous batteries of the city, and, on his right, the long battle-line of Montcalm flaunted a desperate challenge. Remembering, however, that defences stronger still had been carried at Louisbourg, the English General confidently drew up his plans.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ADMIRAL SIR CHARLES SAUNDERS (Under Wolfe before Quebec)]

The only vantage-ground left unoccupied by the French was the Heights of Levi, opposite the city, Montcalm having thought it unwise to isolate there any portion of his force. Thither, accordingly, Monckton's brigade was now despatched; and English batteries, rising darkly on the high cliffs, were soon directing across the narrow channel of the river that hail of shot which, within a month, had left the Lower Town a heap of ashes, and dropped destruction upon the crowded summit of the citadel. So galling grew this fire, that at last a force was sent to destroy the English camp; and on the night of July the 12th, fifteen hundred soldiers and Indians stole silently from Sillery across the river. But as they picked their way through the dark woods, trembling with the excitement of a dangerous adventure, a sudden panic seized them, and in the confusion, the students of the Seminary, who formed part of the column, opened fire upon their own men. Discipline and order were at once discarded, and the whole party rushed back in terror to the boats. At dawn they returned from this unhappy and futile expedition, bringing new terrors to their fellow-citizens, who nicknamed this bloodless effort the "Scholars'

Battle"; and Quebec again endured the misery of ceaseless bombardment.

With strange fatuity the French employed another device to destroy the fleet of the invaders and carry terror into their ranks. A flotilla of fire-s.h.i.+ps was loaded to the gunwale with pitch, tar, powder bombs, grenades, and sc.r.a.p-iron; and towards midnight these floating h.e.l.l-boats slipped their moorings and drifted with the tide towards the English fleet riding at the Point of Orleans. Tide and stream bore them swiftly through the gloom; and at a given signal, fuses were ignited and the crews escaped in boats. Sharp tongues of flame ran along the bulwarks, and the loose powder sputtered and hissed. Then, suddenly, the night was rent by explosion after explosion, reverberating through the canons of the distant Laurentides, and echoing along the river walls beyond Cap Tourmente. A lurid glare lit up the broad harbour, the towers and minarets of the beleaguered city, revealing in red light the full tents of the French army along the Beauport lowlands.

To the English it was "the grandest fireworks that can possibly be conceived"; but the French were in no mood to enjoy its harmless effulgence. The fuses had been lighted half an hour too soon, and before the tide of the north channel carried them to the English fleet, the magnificent flotilla, upon which Quebec had squandered a million _livres_, had become a squadron of blazing hulks which the British sailors grappled and towed to sh.o.r.e. All night long their impotent fires lit up the Bay, and by sunrise another hope of New France had turned to ashes.

Although the unquenchable batteries of Point Levi continued to pour destruction upon Quebec, Wolfe saw that the defeat of Montcalm must precede the capture of the city; and to this end he now directed his attention. Beyond the rocky gorge of the Montmorency, a high open land seemed to offer a possible avenue of attack upon the French camp across the river, and thither the English General resolved to transfer his main camp. On the night of the 8th of July he embarked with three thousand men--the brigades of Townshend and Murray, a body of grenadiers, light infantry, and the Sixtieth Regiment, or Royal Americans. Before dawn they made a landing at the village of L'Ange Gardien, and gained the heights after a slight skirmish with an irregular body of native militia. Earthworks were hastily thrown up, fascine batteries were erected, and Montcalm's reveille next morning was a heavy cannonade from this new quarter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MANOR-HOUSE AT BEAUPORT, MONTCALM'S HEADQUARTERS]

Wolfe had now divided his army into three camps, each so far removed from the other that little or no help could be expected in case of separate attack. Yet it was in vain that he tempted Montcalm to battle. For weeks his guns roared challenge across the Montmorency; but the cautious French General only shrugged his shoulders and remarked: "Let him amuse himself where he is. If we drive him off he may go to some place where he can do us harm." To discover this vulnerable spot Wolfe would have risked much, as appears from his daring instructions of the 18th of July. On this day the _Sutherland_ and several small frigates ran the gauntlet of the city batteries, and racing through the hail of lead and iron falling from a hundred guns upon the ramparts, they reached Cap Rouge above Quebec.

To the French the impossible had happened. Montcalm, therefore, hastily detailed a small force to defend the cliffs; and the right wing of the army under Bougainville was charged with the protection of the city upon its flank, or landward side. To Wolfe, however, who himself made the hazardous voyage in the _Sutherland_, the result of the reconnaissance was not cheering. No point upon those rugged cliffs seemed to offer a favourable landing; and he came back to his camp on the Montmorency more than ever convinced that Montcalm's army could be defeated only by a direct a.s.sault upon its strong intrenchments. This desperate enterprise he essayed on the last day of July.

When the tide runs out past the Isle of Orleans, it leaves a wide sandy beach at the foot of the cliffs between Beauport and Montmorency, the mouth of the latter river also being hardly more than knee-deep at ebb-tide. Aware of these conditions, the French had erected a strong redoubt at the edge of the strand, and posted a large force of musketeers in the intrenchments capping the heights above it.

This was the point which Wolfe selected for attack.

In the morning at high tide the _Centurion_, of sixty-four guns, took up a position near the Montmorency ford and opened fire upon the French redoubt. During this movement two armed transports detailed to second her cannonade, running too close upon the sh.o.r.e, were stranded with the receding tide. At the same time, the batteries of Wolfe's camp across the river were pounding the enemy's flank. Towards noon five thousand British soldiers pressed towards the point of attack; some in boats from Point Levi and Orleans, some crossing the ford from Townshend's camp. The first to reach the spot were thirteen companies of grenadiers and a detachment of Royal Americans, who having landed from the boats, instead of waiting for Monckton's brigade which was close behind, dashed boldly forward across the strand. The French gave way before their impetuous rush, and abandoned the redoubt at the foot of the hill. Then, suddenly, the crest of the ridge above them blazed with musketry, and the cross-fire from the trenches poured a hail of death upon their panting ranks. Up the terrible _glacis_ they still strove to climb in the face of a splas.h.i.+ng downpour of bullets. At that moment the sky became overcast, and from the pall of cloud hanging over Beauport a wild storm of rain broke over the battlefield.

It was impossible to scale the slippery rocks, the powder was drenched and useless. Seeing the madness of further attack, Wolfe now sounded a retreat. A force of less than a thousand men had attempted to storm a bristling cliff whose double line of defence consisted of the muskets of Canadian sharpshooters and the bayonets of Bearn, Guienne, and Royal Roussillon; and before the order to retire was given, nearly half their number had fallen in this bootless conflict on the Beauport Flats.

It was now August, and the hopes of Quebec rose higher with the advancing season. So far the English had scored no perceptible success; and although the batteries of Point Levi had laid the Lower Town in ruins, and were still pounding at the high ramparts, the defences of the city remained practically as strong as ever. The steady bombardment, however, was causing much suffering and anxiety to those inhabitants who had been unable to flee from the city; and for two full days the Lower Town was in flames, the large company of sappers and miners, detailed as a fire brigade, being powerless against the conflagration. The walls of Notre Dame des Victoires kept guard upon the poor wreck of its venerated altars, while in the Upper Town the Cathedral tower had been shot away, and the Basilica itself was half a ruin. Some of the rampart batteries were buried beneath the _debris_ of demolished houses, and bursting sh.e.l.ls ploughed up the streets; moreover, the wooden palisade, hastily erected in the Quartier du Palais to provide against a possible a.s.sault by way of the St. Charles, had been destroyed by fire. At last forsaking the dangerous walls of their exposed convents, the Ursulines and the nuns of Hotel-Dieu sought shelter further afield. The Hospital General, established by Bishop St. Vallier, Laval's successor, on a bend of the St. Charles, being beyond the range of the English artillery, the homeless poor flocked thither for refuge, until the convent and all its _dependances_ were filled to overflowing with miserable refugees.

The chapel was pressed into service as a ward for the wounded; and holy Ma.s.ses were said by special permission in the _choeur_. During this time of trial Bishop Pontbriand remained in the city, exhorting its defenders to be of good courage and cheering the wounded by his ministrations; while, as if to counteract his influence for good, the more heartless spirits were tempted to robbery and pillage--a shameless addition to the general suffering promptly checked by a gallows in the Place d'Armes.