At the first sign of spring, General Montcalm prepared to take the field and oppose a steady resistance to an attack which it was generally believed would be made upon Quebec by way of Lakes Champlain and Ontario.
He was sitting in his tent one afternoon, in company with General Bougainville and Chevalier Levis. On a table before them maps were spread out, and Montcalm was explaining his plan of defence, supposing the English should attempt a regular siege of Quebec.
“I do not believe it possible for the English to approach the town,” he said. “All round, on the high ground overlooking it, I shall station the principal part of the army; the right wing will extend along the river St. Charles and the left on to Montmorenci; by this means our troops will cover an area of from seven to eight miles. The steep ground rises almost from the water’s edge, and the guns from the citadel itself will do the rest. Are you not both of my opinion?”
“We are,” said Levis. “If we can hold out till the winter, I believe we shall see the last of the English.”
Even while he was speaking, voices were heard outside the tent, and the sentinel, looking in, said,—
“A soldier with a despatch for the General.”
“Let him come in,” said Montcalm, looking up.
A Canadian, recognisable as such by his dress, entered. He was covered with dust, and had evidently ridden hard. He laid a letter on the table before the General.
“Who has sent you?” asked Montcalm, as he opened the despatch.
“Captain Langlade,” was the ready answer.
The General’s face grew visibly sterner as he read, and when he had finished, he laid the letter on the table, kept his hand upon it, and said emphatically,—
“The decisive moment is approaching, gentlemen. This letter is to inform me that the English with a great fleet are within three leagues of Quebec; they have on board a large army, commanded by the young General Wolfe. We know full well what sort of man he is! The fate of Canada is now in the balance.”
“And you will come forth victorious, General, as you did at Fort William Henry and Ticonderoga,” said Levis.
“God grant it!” answered the General. “I think our measures are well taken,” he said, turning to the two officers. “In my opinion, unless there be treason in the camp, the English will never make themselves masters of the town. I believe it to be impregnable.”
“I am certain that, with intrenchments, I could hold the city with three or four thousand men,” said Bougainville; adding, “In a few days we shall muster sixteen thousand men in and round its walls. There is nothing to fear; let the English come!”
“I am satisfied you are right,” answered the General.
Then, turning to the man who had brought the message, he said, “You will return at once to Captain Langlade, and tell him we shall join the army at Quebec as quickly as possible. And now, gentlemen, we will call a general council of officers, and then to-morrow at dawn en route; we are approaching the end.”
“And a good thing too,” said Bougainville. “We have shilly-shallied long enough. It is time the English understood once for all that we intend to remain masters of Canada, and to hold the fortress upon which old Samuel Champlain first planted the French flag.”
The following day the whole forces of the French and Colonial army were on their way to Quebec. Only three battalions were left at Ticonderoga, and a strong detachment placed so as to resist any possible attack by Lake Ontario. The French took up positions at the mouth of the St. Charles on the east, and the river Montmorenci on the north-east, which Montcalm had fortified with the greatest possible skill. Across the mouth of the St. Charles a boom of logs chained together was placed, protected by mounted cannon. A bridge of boats crossing the river connected the city with the camp. All the gates of Quebec except that of St. Charles were closed and barricaded. A hundred and six cannon were mounted on the walls, whilst on the river there was a floating battery of twelve heavy pieces, a number of gunboats, and eight fireships.
The army for the defence mustered, they posted sixteen thousand men, for the most part advantageously, behind defensive works. A large portion of these were Canadians, who were of little use in the open field, but fought well behind intrenchments; there were also upwards of a thousand Indians from the brave tribes of the Iroquois, or five nations. It was at the end of June, and the country round Quebec, naturally fertile, was in the height of its summer glory. On the curving shore from the St. Charles to the rocky gorge of Montmorenci, for a distance of seven to eight miles, were to be seen the whitewashed dwellings of the parish of Beauport, and the fields on both sides studded with tents, huts, and Indian wigwams. Midway between the little river of Beauport, on a rising ground, stood a large stone house, round which tents were thickly clustered. Here Montcalm had his headquarters.
Looking down upon her defenders, Quebec sat perched upon her rock, a congregation of stone houses, palaces, convents, and hospitals; the uniformity being broken by the green trees of the seminary gardens, the spires of the cathedral, the Convent of the Ursulines, and the monastic buildings of the Recollets and the Jesuits. A firm, solid mass she looked in the summer sunshine, unconquered, and it seemed unconquerable. A lovable town, quaint even then, with its one-storied houses, built heavily of stone and stuccoed brick, with two dormer windows full of house plants in each roof. Here and there, higher still, a weather-worn wood-coloured gallery was seen, pent-roofed and balustered, geraniums showing through the balusters, and white doves circling around and cooing upon the windowsills. Such as she was in her homely fashion, French and English alike looked up to her—the one with loving pride, the other with covetous desire.
On the 26th of June the English fleet anchored off the Island of Orleans, a few miles below Quebec. A small party attempting to land was opposed by the Canadians, but they were beaten off, and the whole army then landed.
When William Pitt gave the command of the English army in Canada to General Wolfe, it was but natural that such an act should arouse feelings of jealousy in men older than himself, and under whose orders he had served in the earlier part of the campaign. Wolfe himself was more alive to the responsibility than to the honour which was almost thrust upon him. The state of his health was most precarious; in fact, he was rarely free from acute pain, and it required an immense power of self-command and energy to enable him to bear up against fatigue and mental anxiety. Nevertheless, he had accepted the command unhesitatingly, and with the determination of conquering Quebec and adding this new jewel to the English crown.
To accomplish this he knew that half measures were no longer feasible. From the end of the Island of Orleans he could see and judge the full strength of the enemy; three great batteries frowned down upon him from above Quebec, behind which rose the redoubts and parapets of Cape Diamond, whilst three other batteries down to the river’s edge guarded the lower part of the town. The whole country round was covered with earthworks, redoubts, and intrenchments; the river with floating batteries, fireships, and other engines of war. His first act was to issue a proclamation in the king’s name:—
“His Excellency Major-General James Wolfe, Commander-in-Chief of his Britannic Majesty’s troops now stationed in the river St. Lawrence, to the people of Canada.
“My king and master George III., justly irritated against France, has resolved to humble her pride and to revenge the insults she has inflicted on the English colonies. With this purpose in view he has sent me, at the head of a formidable army, with a fleet which has already advanced almost into the centre of their chief city, to deprive France of all her establishments in North America, and to proclaim British rule. This is my mission, and by the grace of God I hope to carry it into effect.
“James Wolfe.”
This done, he took possession of Point Levis, a promontory on the south bank of the St. Lawrence, where the current narrows into a deep stream of only a mile in breadth. General Monckton occupied this point with four battalions, and shelled the lower town across the river, but the citadel was beyond his reach. Wolfe’s army consisted of nine thousand troops: it should have amounted to fourteen thousand, but at the last moment the orders for some of the West Indian troops to join were countermanded; this was probably partly due to jealousy at Wolfe’s having been nominated to the chief command.
The two armies were stationed opposite each other on either side of the river. Vaudreuil, as Governor of Canada, still held command, and by his mistakes frequently hampered Montcalm’s action. Had he planted guns in such a manner as to fire down on the English fleet, it could never have taken up a position so near the city; he failed to do this, however, and the result was that the English fleet passed up the river in safety, to the astonishment of the Canadians, who, until then, had believed it impossible for large ships to be brought up the St. Lawrence.
Again, very shortly after the landing of the English army on the Island of Orleans, Vaudreuil made a desperate attempt to destroy the English fleet by launching fireships against it. The English sentries at the farther end of the island saw in the middle of the night vessels coming down the river. These ships were really filled with pitch, tar, and all sorts of combustibles mixed with shells and grenades, and the decks crowded with a number of cannon crammed with grape shot and musket balls. Suddenly they became like pillars of flame, and advanced with tremendous explosion and noise. But the French officers had lost their nerve, and set fire to the ships too soon. The English, after their first surprise, recovered their coolness, lowered their boats, and the sailors rowed out to meet the fireships, and by means of grapnels they towed them towards land, where they were stranded and left to burn themselves out.
Thus the fight might truly be said to have begun. To lookers on, and at this distance of time, it almost bears the aspect of a duel, the two principal actors standing out boldly in relief, fighting not for themselves, but for their countries, and, to a certain extent, for their religion. Catholic France, Protestant England! Noble men in every sense of the word, worthy of each other, their names have come down to posterity linked together—“Wolfe and Montcalm.”