The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

There was naturally much to be done with an army brought together from so many various quarters. The force, too, proved, as I have said, far short of the estimate, being considerably under nine thousand men; but, on the other hand, these were all good troops and mostly veterans. Though the benefits of Bath waters had been more than neutralized by nearly three months of buffeting on the element he so loathed, Wolfe spared himself no effort. He was not only a fighting, but to the highest degree an organizing, general. Every sickly and unlikely man, small as was his force, was weeded out. Every commissariat detail down to the last gaiter-button was carefully scrutinized. Seldom had England sent out a body of men so perfect in discipline, spirit, and material of war, and assuredly none so well commanded since the days of Marlborough. It was well it was so, seeing that they were destined to attack one of the strongest posts in the world, defended by an army nearly twice as numerous as themselves, and fighting, moreover, in defence of its home and country and, as it fully believed, of its religion. The young general was thoroughly alive to the numerical weakness of his force, but that he rejoiced in its efficiency is evident from his letters, and he was hard to please. "If valor can make amends for want of numbers," he wrote to Pitt, "we shall succeed."

Admiral Durell, with ten ships, had been sent forward early in May to stop French supply- or war-ships from ascending the St. Lawrence when navigation opened. It was June 1st when Wolfe and Saunders with the main army followed him, owing to fog and ice and contrary winds, in somewhat straggling fashion. The bands played the time-honored air of The Girl I Left Behind Me, and the men cheered lustily as the ships cleared the bar, while at the mess-tables, says Knox, there was only one toast among the officers—"British colors on every French fort, post, and garrison in America." With Saunders went twenty-two ships of the line—five frigates and seventeen sloops-of-war, besides the transports. All went smoothly till the 20th, when, the wind dropping, they were caught in the cross-currents caused by the outpouring waters of the Saguenay, which, draining a vast mountain wilderness to the northward, would be accounted a mighty river if it were not for the still mightier one that absorbs it. Here the ships ran some risk of fouling, but escaped any serious damage, and in three days were at the Île aux Coudres, where the real dangers of the navigation began. It must be remembered that such a venture was unprecedented, and regarded hitherto as an impossibility for large ships without local pilots. The very presence of the first made the second possible, for some of the vessels approaching the shore ran up French flags, whereupon numbers of the country people, in response to an invitation, came on board, little guessing the visitors could be their enemies.

Pilots were by this ruse secured, and their services impressed under pain of death. Knox, who understood French, tells us that the poor unwilling pilot who took his ship up the tortuous channel made use of the most frightful imprecations, swearing that most of the fleet and the whole army would find their graves in Canada. An old British tar, on the other hand, master of a transport and possessed of an immense scorn for foreigners, would not allow a French pilot to interfere, and insisted, in the teeth of all remonstrance, on navigating his own ship. "D—n me," he roared, "I'll convince you that an Englishman shall go where a Frenchman daren't show his nose," and he took it through in safety. "The enemy," wrote Vaudreuil soon after this to his Government, "have passed sixty ships-of-war where we dare not risk a vessel of a hundred tons by night or day." The British navy has not been sufficiently remembered in the story of Quebec.

Let us now turn for a moment to Montcalm and see what he has been doing all this time to prepare for the attack. It was an accepted axiom in Canada that no armament strong enough to seriously threaten Quebec could navigate the St. Lawrence. In the face of expected invasion it was the Lake George and Champlain route that mostly filled the public mind. Bougainville, however, had returned from France early in May with the startling news that a large expedition destined for Quebec was already on the sea. A former opinion of this able officer's declared that three or four thousand men could hold the city against all comers. There was now four times that strength waiting for Wolfe, while his own, so far as numbers went, we know already. Eighteen transport ships, carrying supplies and some slight reënforcements, had slipped past the English cruisers in the fogs, and brought some comfort to Montcalm. The question now was how best to defend Quebec, as well as make good the two land approaches at Ticonderoga and Lake Ontario respectively.

For the defence of the city, when every able-bodied militia-man had been called out, nearly sixteen thousand troops of all arms would be available. About the disposition of these and the plan of defence there was much discussion. Montcalm himself was for a long time undecided. The alternative plans do not concern us here; the one finally adopted is alone to the point. Everyone knows that the ancient capital of Canada is one of the most proudly placed among the cities of the earth. But it may be well to remind those who have not seen it, that it occupies the point of a lofty ridge, forming the apex of the angle made by the confluence of the St. Charles River and the St. Lawrence. Westward from the city this ridge falls so nearly sheer into the St. Lawrence for several miles that, watched by a mere handful of men, it was impregnable. Moreover, the river suddenly narrows to a breadth of three-quarters of a mile opposite the town, whose batteries were regarded as being fatal to any attempt of an enemy to run past them. On the other side of the town the St. Charles River, coming in from the northwest immediately below its walls, formed a secure protection.