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

The ships followed at some distance with the remainder of the force under Townshend, the Forty-eighth, it will be remembered, awaiting them below. The distance to be traversed was six miles, and there were two posts on the cliffs to be passed. French provision-boats had been in the habit of stealing down in the night, and to this fact, coupled with the darkness, it seems Wolfe trusted much. He was himself in one of the leading boats, and the story of his reciting Gray's Elegy, in solemn tones while he drifted down, as he hoped, to victory and, as he believed, to death, rests on good authority.[43]

The tide was running fast, so that the rowers could ply their oars with a minimum of disturbance. From both posts upon the cliff their presence was noticed, and the challenge of a sentry rang out clear upon the silent night. On each occasion a Highland officer, who spoke French perfectly, replied that they were a provision convoy, to the satisfaction of the challengers. But the risk was undeniable, and illustrates the hazardous nature of the enterprise. Wolfe's friend, Captain Howe, brother of the popular young nobleman who fell at Ticonderoga, with a small body of picked soldiers, was to lead the ascent, and as the boats touched the narrow beach of the Anse du Foulon he and his volunteers leaped rapidly on shore. Some of the boats accidentally overran the spot, but it made little difference, as the narrow path was, in any case, found to be blocked, and the eager soldiers were forced to throw themselves upon the rough face of the cliff, which was here over two hundred feet high, but fortunately sprinkled thick with stunted bushes. Swiftly and silently Howe and his men scrambled up its steep face. No less eagerly the men behind, as boat after boat discharged its load of red-coats under Wolfe's eye on the narrow shore, followed in their precarious steps.

Day was just beginning to glimmer as the leading files leaped out onto the summit and rushed upon the handful of astonished Frenchmen before them, who fired a futile volley and fled. The shots and cries alarmed other posts at some distance off, yet near enough to fire in the direction of the landing-boats. It was too late, however; the path had now been cleared of obstacles, and the British were swarming onto the plateau. The first sixteen hundred men had been rapidly disembarked, and the boats were already dashing back for Townshend's brigade, who were approaching in the ships, and for the Forty-eighth, awaiting them on the opposite shore.

The scattered French posts along the summit were easily dispersed, while the main army at Beauport, some miles away, on the far side of the city, were as yet unconscious of danger. Bougainville and his force back at Cap Rouge were as far off and as yet no wiser. Quebec had just caught the alarm, but its weak and heterogeneous garrison had no power for combined mobility. By six o'clock Wolfe had his whole force of forty-three hundred men drawn up on the plateau, with their backs to the river and their faces to the north. Leaving the Royal Americans, five hundred forty strong, to guard the landing-place, and with a force thus reduced to under four thousand he now marched toward the city, bringing his left round at the same time in such fashion as to face the western walls, scarcely a mile distant.

As Wolfe drew up his line of battle on that historic ridge of table-land known as the Plains of Abraham, his right rested on the cliff above the river, while his left approached the then brushy slope which led down toward the St. Charles Valley. He had outmanœuvred Montcalm; it now remained only to crush him. Of this Wolfe had not much doubt, though such confidence may seem sufficiently audacious for the leader of four thousand men, with twice that number in front of him and half as many in his rear, both forces commanded by brave and skilful generals. But Wolfe counted on quality, not on numbers, which Montcalm himself realized were of doubtful efficacy at this crucial moment.

The French general, in the mean time, had been expecting an attack all night at Beauport, and his troops had been lying on their arms. It was about six o'clock when the astounding news was brought him that the British were on the plateau behind the city. The Scotch Jacobite, the Chevalier Johnstone, who has left us an account of the affair, was with him at the time, and they leaped on their horses—he to give the alarm toward Montmorency, the general to hasten westward by Vaudreuil's quarters to the city. "This is a serious business," said Montcalm to Johnstone as he dug his spurs into his horse's flanks. Vaudreuil, who in his braggart, amateur fashion had been "crushing the English" with pen and ink and verbal eloquence this last six weeks, now collapsed, and Montcalm, who knew what a fight in the open with Wolfe meant, hastened himself to hurry forward every man that could be spared.

Fifteen hundred militia were left to guard the Beauport lines, while the bulk of the army poured in a steady stream along the road to Quebec, over the bridge of the St. Charles, some up the slopes beyond, others through the tortuous streets of the city, on to the Plains of Abraham. Montcalm, by some at the time, and by many since, has been blamed for precipitating the conflict, but surely not with justice! He had every reason to count on Bougainville and his twenty-three hundred men, who were no farther from Wolfe's rear than he himself was from the English front. The British held the entire water. Wolfe once intrenched on the plateau, the rest of his army, guns, and stores could be brought up at will, and the city defences on that side were almost worthless. Lastly, provisions with the French were woefully scarce; the lower country had been swept absolutely bare. Montcalm depended on Montreal for every mouthful of food, and Wolfe was now between him and his source of supply.