X

LOUISBURG, FORT DUQUESNE, AND THE FALL OF QUEBEC

At midsummer of 1758 four years had elapsed since Washington’s experiences at Great Meadows, and as yet little or nothing had occurred to encourage the English. It will be remembered that along the border between New France and the English colonies there were strategic points of primary importance. The first of these was Fort Duquesne, commanding one of the great central routes into the western wilderness. The French had anticipated the English in seizing this point, and the ruin of Braddock’s army had been incurred in the attempt to recover it for the English. The second strategic point was Fort Frontenac at the outlet of Lake Ontario into the river St. Lawrence, for this stronghold commanded the eastern approaches to Niagara, and thus controlled the other great route to the west. Thus far its importance had been illustrated, first, by the failure of Shirley to advance beyond Oswego in the direction of Niagara, and secondly, by Montcalm’s capture of

Oswego, a very heavy blow to the English. The third strategic point was the southern extremity of Lake Champlain with its fortresses at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, for in French hands this was an excellent base for an invasion of New York, while in English hands it would serve equally well for an invasion of Canada. This strategic point had been held from the first by the French, and in three campaigns the English had failed to drive them away. In the first of these Johnson had won a tactical victory which he failed to improve. The second had witnessed the shocking tragedy of Fort William Henry. The third had been a climax of imbecility, as shown in the useless butchery at Ticonderoga and the shameful retreat of Abercrombie after that battle. The fourth strategic point was the fortified town of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island, which not only threatened the Newfoundland fisheries and British commerce on the Atlantic in general, but also afforded an excellent base for a French invasion of the New England coast, while at the same time it made the entrance of the St. Lawrence dangerous for a hostile fleet. On the other hand, if held by the English, Louisburg afforded an excellent base for a naval expedition up the St. Lawrence against Quebec. This important place had been captured by New England militia, aided by British ships in the preceding war thirteen years

before, but had been restored to France by the treaty which terminated that war.

Down to the midsummer of 1758 nothing seemed to have prospered with the English, but at all the strategic points where there had been collision, the advantage had remained with the French. The first change of fortune was at Louisburg. That town was situated on a peninsula at the south side of Cape Breton Island. To the east of it was a deep and finely sheltered bay which was defended at its northern end by what was called the Grand Battery, and on an island at the entrance, by what was called the Island Battery; while across the peninsula, in front of the town, the entrance to the harbour was commanded by a series of four bastions named from south to north Princess’s, Queen’s, King’s, and Dauphin’s. The rear of the town was to a considerable extent protected by marshes, and the rocky coast of Gabarus Bay to the rear or west presented but few points where troops could effect a landing. At all times the sea was so boisterous as to make it dangerous for any floating thing to approach the rocks. Since the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle the French government had spent great sums of money in perfecting the fortifications. It was now commanded by General Drucour, who had three thousand regular troops with a few Canadians

and Indians, while in the harbour were five ships-of-the-line and seven frigates mounting five hundred and forty guns and carrying three thousand men.

On the twenty-eighth day of May there sailed out from Halifax an English force which was to undertake the reduction of Louisburg. It was commanded by Admiral Boscawen, who had twenty-three ships-of-the-line and eighteen frigates along with a fleet of transports carrying eleven thousand British regulars and five hundred colonial militia. The land force was commanded by the new general-in-chief for America, Sir Jeffrey Amherst. It was the 2d of June when this powerful force arrived in Gabarus Bay and scrutinized its wild coast for a place to land in the rear of the town. The prospect was not encouraging, and some officers were inclined to pronounce the attempt foolhardy, but Boscawen and Amherst saw a spot which seemed practicable, and they entrusted the task of effecting a landing there to the young brigadier-general, James Wolfe.

There were three or four places along the coast where a landing might be effected if the sea were somewhat to subside, and the plan was to make demonstrations against all these points while the extreme left wing under General Wolfe should advance against the most

remote of them, known as Fresh Water Cove, with the intention of carrying it. Although this plan was matured on the 2d of June, it was not until the 8th that there was enough of a lull in the violence of the surf to admit of any approach to the shore whatever. Then the plan was tried, and Wolfe’s landing was achieved with brilliant success. Although Fresh Water Cove was defended by one thousand Frenchmen behind entrenchments supported by a battery of eight cannon, Wolfe managed his landing so as to pass by their left flank, between it and the town, and there to attack them in such wise as to cut them off. Under these circumstances the Frenchmen abandoned their works and fled to the woods, whence they made a circuitous retreat to their comrades in the town. After this auspicious beginning the remainder of the English army was safely landed, and ready for further operations. Troops were presently moved so as to threaten the communications of the Grand Battery at the north end of the harbour, whereupon the French abandoned it. The eastern side of the harbour ran in the shape of a sickle from the Grand Battery, terminating in a point opposite the point of the peninsula on which the city stood. The space of sea between these two points was the entrance to the harbour, and the small island already

mentioned, with its Island Battery, lay midway between them. Considering the great superiority of the English fleet, the French had felt it rash to keep a detachment upon the opposite point, where it was liable to be cut off, and they had therefore withdrawn it. Now Wolfe, with twelve hundred men, marched past the Grand Battery and around the sickle-shaped shore and tools possession of the works which the French had there abandoned, and from that point he kept up a heavy fire against the Island Battery until by June 25 all its guns were dismounted and silent.

It now became possible for the English fleet to enter the harbour, and in order to ward off such a calamity, Drucour sank six ships at the entrance. Meanwhile, General Amherst was digging his trenches and building his parallels with prodigious labour over the treacherous ground behind the town. Gradually the English drew nearer, until they approached the very walls on both sides of the peninsula, and kept throwing shot and shell into the streets. In one adventure after another the French ships were sunk or burned until only five were left. On the 21st of July a bomb falling upon one of these penetrated her magazine and she blew up, communicating the

flames to two sister ships, which were burned to the water’s edge. A large part of the town had now taken fire, and the time of the besieged was largely consumed in fighting the flames; then a party of six hundred English sailors in boats rowed into the harbour and seized the two remaining French ships; one of them, a seventy-four, they burned; while the other, a sixty-four, they made a prize and towed away. On the 26th of July the last gun in the row of French bastions was dismounted and a white flag was raised. The details of the surrender were completed next day. It was a truly great victory, for the New England coast was at last relieved of a serious danger, and the way was opened for an English fleet to ascend the St. Lawrence. There was a general feeling that the glory of the achievement belonged to the youthful Wolfe more than to any one else. While the management of the whole affair, both by General Amherst and by Admiral Boscawen, had been admirable, yet in all Wolfe’s operations there had been the artistic touch, so seldom witnessed, that marked real military genius, and along with all the intelligence, the quickness and sureness, there was an electric enthusiasm that communicated itself to the whole army, and wherever that tall, emaciated form was present, there was the centre of interest.

It had been Wolfe’s desire to follow up the capture of Louisburg by an immediate advance against Quebec, but the obstinate defence of Drucour had made it so late in the season that it was thought best to postpone such an enterprise for the present, and Wolfe, who was seriously ill, went home to England for the winter, while Amherst took his army to the Hudson River with intent to relieve the situation at Lake George.

Meanwhile in Abercrombie’s camp there had been much despondency and grumbling since the terrible slaughter of the 8th of July. During the summer more or less guerilla fighting went on, in the course of which Israel Putnam was at one time taken prisoner and tied to a stake to be burned alive, but was rescued by a French officer after the tongues of flame had actually begun to curl around him. Presently one of Abercrombie’s officers, Colonel John Bradstreet, accomplished something which went far toward changing the face of things on the New York frontier. Bradstreet was a native of England, forty-six years of age, but most of his life had been spent in America. Among Shirley’s officers he had been recognized as very capable; he had taken part in the first capture of Louisburg, and in the present war he had been connected with the Oswego campaign.

He now had reason to believe that such heavy demands had been made upon the French resources in various directions that an inadequate force had been left to guard Fort Frontenac. He therefore proposed to conduct an expedition for the capture of that important place. Lord Howe had favoured this plan, but Abercrombie had not regarded it with approval. At last, after a council of war had been held to consider the case, Bradstreet was allowed to undertake the task with a force of three thousand men, chiefly militia of New York and New England. On his march through the Oneida country he found occasion to observe that Montcalm’s victory at Ticonderoga had wrought more or less disaffection toward the English even in the Long House. It was high time to do something to counteract this influence. Bradstreet kept on to the site of the ruined Oswego, and thence, crossing the lake in boats, pounced upon Fort Frontenac and captured it, with its garrison of only one hundred and ten men. He also took seventy cannon and mortars, nine sloops of war, and an enormous quantity of warlike material, provisions, and furs. It was impossible to make the best use of these captures without rebuilding Oswego, so as to regain a seaport on the lake;

but there did not seem to be men enough and time enough for this. General Stanwix was then building the fort known by his name, on the divide between Lake Ontario and the Mohawk valley, and that seemed to be all the constructive work that could then be undertaken. The walls of Fort Frontenac were battered down by its own cannon, and as much as possible of the military spoil was taken across the lake, whence some of it was carried away and the remainder destroyed. A thousand men were left to defend Fort Stanwix, and Bradstreet returned to the Hudson River.

In this expedition Bradstreet dealt a blow second only, if second at all, to the capture of Louisburg. It is true the success was but partial; a complete success would have meant the restoration of Oswego as a port on the route to Niagara. The building of Fort Stanwix as a means of maintaining English influence near the centre of the Long House did not quite supply the place of such a port; nevertheless, the route to Niagara was laid open, and what was of far greater importance, the communications with Fort Duquesne were cut off. That all-important fortress was supplied through the long line of communication from the St. Lawrence River to the Niagara, and thence across

Lake Erie to Presqu’Isle and Venango and down the Allegheny River. Among the munitions of war and other provisions captured at Fort Frontenac there was a great supply already on its way for Fort Duquesne. The exploit of Bradstreet left that remote strategic point in the air, and we have now to see how its conquest was completed.

Among the excellent officers sent by Pitt to America was a veteran Scotchman named John Forbes, He was a well-educated man, who had been for some time a physician before taking up the life of a soldier. He was frank, simple, honest, abounding in good sense, and very ready to learn from others. His weight of character, combined with kindliness, made him as much liked by the Americans as Braddock had been detested. It is a commentary upon Forbes’s strong qualities that during his American campaign he was suffering from a severe illness which carried him off in the following spring. Among its symptoms was a severe gastric and intestinal inflammation which kept him a large part of the time in acute torture, and it was commonly necessary for him to be carried in a litter, so that this campaign might well be said to have been conducted by a man upon his death-bed. General Forbes, however, had two very active and capable lieutenants: one was

George Washington; the other was Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Bouquet, a native of Switzerland, who had seen much service on the continent of Europe and had entered the English service in 1756. He was destined a few years later, in Pontiac’s war, to win a great reputation. The army commanded by General Forbes with these able lieutenants consisted of about seven thousand men, partly British regulars, partly the ordinary provincial militia, and partly a force known as the Royal Americans and composed chiefly of Pennsylvania Germans. It was among these Royal Americans that Bouquet held his commission.

The first serious question was the choice of a route. Washington was in favour of the old route which had been taken by Braddock, but Bouquet thought it would be better to push westward through the mountains of Pennsylvania in a course more or less like that now taken by the railroad from Harrisburg to Pittsburg. The opinion of Bouquet found favour with General Forbes and that route was chosen.

Forbes’s method of advance was very different from that of Braddock. Instead of advancing through mile after mile of unknown wilderness, taking with him immensely long baggage trains, Forbes’s method was to clear the way and make something

of a road as he went along, building at intervals sundry blockhouses which might serve as temporary supports and magazines. This required a great amount of digging, hewing, blasting, and building, and was a truly Herculean piece of work. Gradually, but surely, the rude road was carried over the ridges of the Alleghanies and Laurel Hill, and finally at Loyalhannon Creek the last magazine was built as a base for the final advance on Fort Duquesne, which was about fifty miles distant.

One circumstance which reconciled Forbes to this slow method of advance was his knowledge of the difficulty of holding Indian allies together for many weeks at a time without the stimulus of slaughter or plunder frequently renewed. Vaudreuil had sent parties of Hurons, Miamis, Ottawas, and Pottawattamies to the aid of Fort Duquesne, and earnestly hoped that the English would not defer their approach until these warriors should have grown tired and gone home. Forbes appreciated this point and was willing to give them time to get tired. He had much reason to expect that delay would work in his favour, inasmuch as the advance of so large a force as seven thousand men could not fail to produce a notable moral effect upon the Delawares, Shawnees, and Mingos, and he

entertained strong hopes of winning back these tribes to the English alliance.¹

At this juncture it was especially important that no opportunity should be afforded the enemy of inflicting even the slightest reverse upon the English advance, since the moral effect which might thus be produced upon the Indians was likely to be out of all proportion with the importance of the affair itself.

Now there was in the English army a hot-headed and ill-balanced Scotch officer named James Grant. He was a supercilious sort of person, and looked down with ineffable contempt upon the provincial troops. It was very irksome to Major Grant to be within fifty miles of Fort Duquesne and not engage in some kind of work more exciting than that of spade and pickaxe; so he sought and obtained permission from Bouquet to take a thousand men and go forward to reconnoitre the situation. Grant went forward, but did not return until he had provoked a fight with the enemy, in which he was ignominiously defeated with a loss of one quarter of his force. This Grant was afterward a member of Parliament, and served in the British army during a large part of the Revolutionary War. He is

now perhaps best remembered for a remark which he made in the House of Commons in 1774, to the effect that the Americans were an undisciplined rabble who would take to their heels at the first sound of a cannon. But two years after that unlucky speech, when he met Smallwood’s Marylanders at the battle of Long Island and pounded them four hours without making them give up an inch of ground, he found reason to amend his opinion.¹

Grant’s defeat near Fort Duquesne occurred about the middle of September, and three weeks afterwards a convention of Indian chiefs was assembled at Easton in Pennsylvania. This conference was brought about by the earnest persuasion of General Forbes and the wise co-operation of Sir William Johnson. It will be remembered that while the Mohawk end of the Long House, where Johnson had his home, was firmly attached to the English cause, yet through the rest of the confederacy symptoms of vacillation were sometimes seen, and at the Seneca end French interests now and then prevailed. The recent capture of Fort Frontenac by Bradstreet had done much to discredit the French in the minds of the Senecas, and could these Indians, with the tribes southwest of them, be induced once more to make common

cause with the English, it was clear that Fort Duquesne would become untenable. To this end was exerted all the influence of Sir William Johnson over the Senecas, while at the same time a memorable triumph of diplomacy was effected by the noble Moravian missionary, Christian Frederic Post, who at the Easton conference won the alliance of the Delawares, Shawnees, and Mingos.¹ This achievement sealed the doom of Fort Duquesne. It was isolated in a hostile country without means of supply. Its French militia from New Orleans and the Illinois country departed in boats down the Ohio. Its painted and feathered allies from Detroit and Green Bay tramped off through the many-hued autumn forests in the haze of Indian summer, and presently the French commander retired with his garrison up the Allegheny River to Lake Erie and so to Montreal. When Washington and Bouquet arrived at Fort Duquesne they found it dismantled and partially destroyed. There was not time enough, so late in the season, to rebuild it properly, but around the cluster of traders’ cabins that had gathered there a stockade was built, and the embryo village was named Pittsburg, in honour of the great

war minister.¹ In the following year General Stanwix came there and built Fort Pitt. The gallant Forbes, after lingering all winter on the brink of the grave, died in March, and was buried in Christ Church, Philadelphia.²

Great were the rejoicings in Pennsylvania and Virginia, as well as in all the other English colonies, over this auspicious capture of the Gateway of the West. But neither this nor any other conquest could be deemed finally secure so long as the French maintained themselves in Canada. Pitt was one who well understood the sound military maxim that in war, until everything has been done, nothing has been done, and he entered upon the year 1759 with the firm intention of driving the French from America altogether; and what had been done on both sides of the globe was only the prelude to heavier blows. “We are forced to ask every morning,” wrote Horace Walpole, “what new victory there is, for fear of missing one.” Terrible was the catalogue of French defeats in

1759. Their army in Germany was routed at Minden by Ferdinand, Prince of Brunswick; one great fleet was defeated at Lagos Bay by Admiral Boscawen, and another was annihilated at Quiberon by Sir Edward Hawke; Havre was bombarded by Admiral Rodney; Guadeloupe, the most valuable of the French West Indies, was taken; and serious reverses were experienced in India.

In America prodigious exertions were made. Massachusetts raised seven thousand men, and during the year contributed more than a million dollars toward the expenses of the war. Connecticut raised five thousand troops; New Hampshire and Rhode Island furnished one thousand between them; New York raised twenty-six hundred and eighty; New Jersey, one thousand; Pennsylvania, twenty-seven hundred; Virginia, two thousand; and South Carolina, twelve hundred and fifty. These, together with twenty-two thousand British regulars and other special levies of provincial troops, made an aggregate of somewhat more than fifty thousand collected for the overthrow of the French power in America.

With regard to the strategy with which this force was to be used, it bears the marks, of course, of the pre-Napoleonic age. The weak points in eighteenth-century strategy were the

insufficient concentration of resources and the persistence in advancing against objective points by means of converging lines. Such errors were often enough repeated in the nineteenth century with less excuse. Since now, for the first time in the great war, the capture of Quebec entered into the plan of campaign, the more modern method would have been to concentrate everything upon that one point and to avoid expending energy in subordinate matters, however important, such as the capture of Fort Niagara, or the reestablishment of Oswego, inasmuch as success in the greater undertaking would carry with it success along the whole line. Nevertheless, the policy of diffused attack was more in accordance with the mental habits of that time, and Amherst, the commander-in-chief, though a capable general, was not a man of great originality. His plan was to complete the victories at the west and insure the safety of Pittsburg by sending an expedition westward to restore Oswego and take Niagara. At the same time the principal blow should be struck at Quebec by General Wolfe, assisted by the fleet under Admiral Saunders. As for Lake Champlain, Amherst undertook to clear the French from there and proceed against Montreal, in the hope either of taking that city and advancing against

Quebec, or, at least, of creating a diversion that would lighten Wolfe’s task. The subordinate parts of this scheme were carried out with a creditable measure of success, yet not such as to take away from Wolfe the necessity for doing the impossible. As often happens in warfare, the shortcomings of the average intellect were repaired by the presence of some heaven-sent genius.

We may first note the fortunes of the western expedition which started from Albany under General Prideaux, with Sir William Johnson second in command. The work to be accomplished by this force was important, and five thousand men were prudently allotted to it. General Prideaux was to garrison the new Fort Stanwix, and proceeding thence to the shore of Lake Ontario was to leave half of his troops under Colonel Haldimand¹ to restore and defend Oswego, while he himself with the remainder of the army should move against Fort Niagara. The wisdom

of leaving a strong force at Oswego was presently demonstrated when the French came across Lake Ontario to attack it. The pressure upon Quebec had become so heavy that it was not easy to find men enough for this western work, and one thousand men were all that could be gathered. This party, commanded by the partisan chieftain La Corne, made a demonstration upon the camp at Oswego, but was repulsed with considerable loss, and retired from the scene.

Fort Niagara, situated at the mouth of the Niagara River, was bravely defended by its commander, Pouchot. In the course of the engagement Prideaux was killed by a shell, and the command devolved upon Johnson. Cut off, as Pouchot was, from all help from the east, his fate was only a question of time unless something could be done in his behalf by the militia and Indians of the west. A force had been gathered together from Detroit and the Sault Ste. Marie, from Green Bay and the Illinois River, consisting of about eleven hundred Frenchmen with two hundred Indians under command of the able leaders Marin, Aubry, and Ligneris, who had been the last commander at Fort Duquesne. The original object of this western muster had been to retrieve the last autumn’s disaster and take Pittsburg from the English; but the Frenchmen had only

advanced as far as Presqu’Isle and Le Bœuf when a message from Pouchot summoned them to come to the rescue at Fort Niagara. They made all haste in that direction, but on arriving in the neighbourhood were encountered by Sir William Johnson and totally defeated, losing all their principal leaders, who were taken prisoners. Nothing was left for Pouchot but to surrender his fortress and men. This surrender, which was made on the 24th of July, was the final blow to the French in the west.

While these things were going on at Niagara, General Amherst with thirteen thousand men was advancing from the Hudson River upon Ticonderoga. The terrible defences which Montcalm had built, and which had cost Abercrombie two thousand men in his attempt to carry them by storm, were still in position and once more confronted the brave men who returned to the spot. Montcalm was no longer in command, having been called away to Quebec to defend that supreme position against the expedition led by Wolfe. Ticonderoga was now commanded by General Bourlamaque, who made as few signs of life as possible. Amherst was a man not given to erring on the side of rashness. Such an attempt as Abercrombie’s he would never have thought of making; so he drew up his army

before the works and studied the situation. His meditations were interrupted by a stupendous explosion which scattered one of the forts in fragments through the air, like a gigantic Roman candle. This explosion represented the partial success of the Frenchmen’s attempt to destroy the fort. Bourlamaque had been instructed by Vaudreuil not to offer serious resistance at either Ticonderoga or Crown Point, where a defeat would endanger his being cut off; but, on the other hand, he was to withdraw the whole length of Lake Champlain to the river Richelieu, and there make a determined stand, where his line of retreat would be tolerably secure. In these prudent instructions we see how great had been the change of animus in the French commanders during the past twelve months. They had ceased to despise their adversary.

The faults of Amherst as a commander now come into the foreground. He was a safe and prudent commander, not likely to commit any startling blunder, but his movements were marked by excessive deliberation. Instead of pushing and harassing Bourlamaque with might and main, he devoted too much attention to the restoration and repair of the forts at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, a kind of work which might have been left for another season. Amherst

was the commander-in-chief, whose objective point was some position where he might cooperate with his subordinate, Wolfe, in what all agreed to be the crowning operation of the war, if it should prove successful. If he could not directly cooperate with Wolfe, his next best course was to compel Montcalm to weaken his own force for the sake of helping Bourlamaque; and the only practicable way of doing this was to push Bourlamaque with all possible persistence and fury; but this Amherst was far from doing. His conduct of the campaign was busy, but languid, and the month of September arrived before any progress had been made in disturbing the French lines at Isle aux Noix.

Thus the problem of taking Quebec was left for Wolfe to solve alone, and after his own fashion. It seems hardly necessary to cumber the narrative with the numerous details of the summer’s disappointing work. The principal elements in the problem were as follows:—

The city of Quebec stands on the summit of a cliff at least two hundred feet in height at the junction of the St. Charles River with the St. Lawrence. It occupies the apex of the cliff between the two rivers, and looks eastward down the St. Lawrence. Below the St. Charles the distance down the north side

of the St. Lawrence to the Montmorenci is six miles. The bank is rather low, but precipitous, with a low beach at its foot, and for some distance from this beach the river is shallow. Nearly opposite the magnificent cataract of two hundred and fifty feet by which the Montmorenci discharges itself is the island of Orleans in mid-stream. Between this large island and the city of Quebec six miles up-stream the width of the river is not less than two miles, and it is often called the Basin. In passing Quebec, a name which means “The Narrow Place,” the stream narrows to less than twelve hundred yards, so that in Wolfe’s time the city could be reached by batteries planted on the south side of the stream at Point Levi, although the French had been disinclined to believe this.

When Wolfe came up the river in June he encamped his army upon the island of Orleans and upon the mainland at Point Levi and surveyed the situation. The French army, fourteen thousand strong, was encamped behind entrenchments along the six miles of low cliff between the St. Charles River and the falls of Montmorenci. The lofty cliff above the city had small sentry parties posted at intervals along the summit, while eight miles above, a force of twenty-three hundred men under Bougainville was posted at

Cap Rouge. The purpose of this latter detachment was to check and give timely warning of any possible movement from above on the part of Amherst, should he succeed in getting into that part of the world. Now Wolfe was good enough general to know that Montcalm’s army was his chief objective point in a deeper sense than Quebec. Unless he should crush the French army, the position of Quebec would be of small use to him, while with the army once disposed of, Quebec would drop into his hands like a ripe apple. The difficult question was, how to get at the French army. Their position between the St. Charles and the Montmorenci was simply inaccessible. They could not be reached from English batteries south of the river, and it was impossible for any English force to turn their left flank without putting itself into a very dangerous position, where it would be liable to be cut off from the fleet which served as its base. The greater part o£ July was spent by Wolfe in inspecting the eastern bank of the Montmorenci to see if there were any means of attacking there; but no available place was found, and with all his dare-devil courage, Wolfe was not the man to risk useless sacrifice of life. Besides, even if a vigorous attack could have been made at that point, the French could easily withdraw, for their supplies came to them from

the west. A flank attack on the west of their line by the St. Charles River would have compelled them to stand and fight, where defeat meant ruin. But for the English to land in that locality was simply impossible. On the last day of July, apparently for the sake of doing something or other, Wolfe landed a considerable force on the low ground just above the Montmorenci. That he did not intend to storm is obvious, for when some of his brave regiments rushed forward, it was entirely without orders, in pursuit of a sudden impulse, and a deadly fire from the French infantry soon made them recoil. A large part of the month of August was spent by the young general on a sick-bed, attacked by a complication of diseases from which there was small hope of recovery; he begged only to live long enough to solve the problem which Pitt had laid before him. To his physician he exclaimed, “Oh, Doctor, just patch me up enough for this business and I’ll ask no more!” It was probably while tossing on that feverish couch that his mind began playing with the thought which presently developed into a stern resolve. If a landing could not be effected at the St. Charles in face of a greatly superior force, how might it be with the heights above the city, which were watched only by small parties of sentinels? Wolfe went up the river with

boats and inspected the bank for himself, and about two miles above the city, at a place called Anse du Foulon, he detected a zigzag path which he rightly judged led to the summit of the well-nigh perpendicular cliff, though its course was in great part hidden by stout bushes. At the summit of this cliff the point of land upon which the city stood opened out into a wide plateau, known from some old settler as the Plains of Abraham. If a force could be landed here it would compel Montcalm to come and attack, for otherwise his food supply would be cut off. With this end in view Wolfe increased the activity of his men in all directions. The batteries at Point Levi had been throwing shot and shell into the city for several weeks, and had reduced large portions of it to ruins. The bombardment now became more furious than ever. One move which he made quite puzzled Montcalm, but conveyed no hint of what was really contemplated; the greater part of the British force was moved up the river to Cap Rouge, where such demonstrations were made as completely to absorb the attention of Bougainville. Montcalm was inclined to regard the movement as the final embarking of the British army preparatory to sailing down-stream and away, for his mind could conceive no possible alternative for Wolfe except the abandonment of the enterprise. With

regard to Wolfe himself, while his attitude was one of grim determination, it can hardly be said to have been hopeful. The expedient was one from which success might come, and was therefore preferable to a confession of failure. One circumstance upon which he rested some hope was the fact that boats now and then succeeded in stealing down under the black shadow of the lofty bank with provisions for the French army below. On the 12th of September all was in readiness, and Wolfe made such demonstrations below the city that Montcalm began to think that a landing at the mouth of the St. Charles might be intended, and that thus the Lord was delivering his enemy into his hands. At the same time, the demonstrations against Bougainville were redoubled, and English ships kept moving from point to point in such wise as to strain every nerve of the watchful and bewildered French. In the course of the day Wolfe called to him his friend Jervis, afterward celebrated as an admiral, and told him that he had a presentiment of impending death; and taking from about his neck a small chain with the miniature of the lady to whom he was betrothed, he gave it to Jervis to be returned to her in case he should not survive the anticipated battle. As midnight approached, all was silence at Cap Rouge, but such demonstrations were made below the city that Montcalm was

on horseback all night, expecting an attack at the St. Charles. Meanwhile, at the gleaming of a lantern at the masthead of one of the ships, sixteen hundred men dropped into their boats and waited for the ebb of the tide. Then, at the momentary flash of another lantern, all began rowing down-stream in the dark shadow of the cliff. Twice they were challenged by sentinels above, but an officer who spoke French fluently replied that they were boats with provisions for Montcalm.

Wolfe sat buried in thought, occasionally repeating aloud verses from Gray’s “Elegy,” which had been published a few years before, and one line,

“The paths of glory lead but to the grave,”

betrayed what was passing in his mind. “Gentlemen,” he said to the officers with him, “I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec.” When they reached the landing-place, the head of the column went ashore, under the lead of William Howe, youngest brother of the general who had been killed at Ticonderoga. As the sixteen hundred landed, the zigzag path was overcrowded, but there were so many bushes as to afford an abundance of handles and foot holds on that steep precipice. The height of the climb was a little over two hundred feet,

or about the same as that of Bunker Hill Monument. But at length it was safely accomplished, and just as the first streaks of dawn glimmered on the eastern horizon, the gallant Howe with his men leaped upon the summit and scattered the French sentinels, who were seized with panic and stood not upon the order of their going. It was still early dawn when the sixteen hundred were drawn up in order on the Plains of Abraham. Other boats were following close behind, and by six o’clock three thousand more had climbed the rocky wall. The alarm was now spreading in many directions, but it was a long march for any of the French forces to reach the spot where Wolfe stood. When the tidings came to Montcalm his countenance fell. “This is a very serious business,” he said, and instantly put a large portion of his force under marching orders. Not a moment was to be lost, for Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham was in possession of his line of communication. Nothing was to be done but to go and fight the English in a position where defeat meant destruction. By nine o’clock in the morning Montcalm had about five thousand men on the plateau, while Wolfe was waiting for the numbers of the French to reach a point where their defeat might be final; for now Wolfe had good grounds for confidently expecting victory.

Only two thousand of the force opposed to him were French regulars. The rest were Canadian militia, unsurpassed in bush fighting, but hardly fit to withstand a charge of British grenadiers. The attack was made by the French, who rushed forward with great spirit. Wolfe’s orders to his men, like those of Prescott in later days at Bunker Hill, were to withhold their fire until the enemy were within very close range. This order was strictly obeyed. When the volley was delivered, it made sad havoc in the French ranks, and when the British followed it with a solid bayonet charge on the double-quick, the French line was hopelessly broken. The firing in some parts of the field remained very brisk. on both sides. In crossing an exposed place Wolfe received a ball in the wrist which shattered the arm, but he tied it up with his handkerchief and kept on. Presently a second ball struck him in the groin without causing him to stop, and almost immediately afterward a third passed through one of his lungs. As he staggered, he was seized by four men, who carried him to the rear and laid him upon the ground. He was already somewhat comatose, when one of the officers exclaimed, “My God! see how they run!” “Who run?” exclaimed Wolfe, rousing himself. “The enemy,” replied the officer, “is giving way everywhere.” The young general’s

eyes lighted up once more as he eagerly cried out, “Go, one of you, my lads, to Colonel Burton and tell him to march down to the Charles River Bridge and cut off their retreat;” then, turning upon his side, he murmured, “Now, God be praised, I will die in peace.”

For Montcalm, too, the final summons had come, and he was no more to see the beautiful Provençal home for which he had so wearily yearned. As he was approaching one of the gates of the city, mounted on his black horse, a bullet was lodged in his chest, which in the intensity of excitement he seemed hardly to feel. As he passed through the gate a party of women, seeing the blood streaming down his waistcoat, burst into loud lamentations: “He is killed! The Marquis is killed!” “Do not weep for me, my children,” said he; “it’s nothing.” But, as he said the words, he fell from his horse and was caught in the arms of his officers. When the surgeon informed him that the wound was mortal, his reply was, “So much the better. I shall not live to see Quebec surrendered.”

Thus came to a close one of the greatest scenes in the history of mankind, the final act in the drama which gave the North American continent into the keeping of the English race instead of the French; and perhaps there has

never been a historic drama in which the leading parts have been played by men of nobler stuff than Montcalm and Wolfe. After the fall of Quebec there could be no doubt that the fate of Canada was decided. The capture of Montreal by Amherst in the following summer was like an appendix to a tale already told.