A Historical Geography of the British Colonies Part 31

KINGSFORD'S _History of Canada_, vols. iii and iv; PARKMAN'S _Montcalm and Wolfe_; and WRIGHT'S _Life of Wolfe_.

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CHAPTER X

THE CONQUEST OF CANADA (_continued_)

When Wolfe reached England from Louisbourg in November, 1758, he wrote to Pitt offering himself for further service in America, 'and particularly in the river St. Lawrence, if any operations are to be carried on there.'[1] Before Christmas, Pitt had appointed him to command an expedition in the coming year against Quebec.

[Footnote 1: Wolfe to Pitt, Nov. 22, 1758 (Wright's _Life of Wolfe_, p. 464). There was some misunderstanding as to his return to England.

See the correspondence quoted by Mr. Kingsford in the note to vol.

iv, p. 155, of his _History_.]

[Sidenote: _Wolfe's early life and character._]

Wolfe was born at Westerham, in Kent, on January 2, 1727, and was therefore not thirty-three years old when he was killed at Quebec in September, 1759. He was the son of a soldier, and received his first commission before he was fifteen. He was present at Dettingen, and at Culloden; and, subsequently to the latter battle, after an interval of fighting in the Netherlands, where he distinguished himself at the battle of Laffeldt, he was stationed for a considerable time in Scotland. Service in the Highlands, it may be noted, in Jacobite times, was not bad training for service in North America. In September, 1757, after the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, he took part in the expedition against Rochefort, to the south of La Roch.e.l.le, on the west coast of France--an enterprise as utterly barren of results as was the Duke of Buckingham's venture against the same area of coast when Charles I was King. Lord Howe and Wolfe {290} were among the few who gained any credit from the expedition. In the following year, Wolfe served at Louisbourg.

Horace Walpole writes of him: 'Ambition, activity, industry, pa.s.sion for the service, were conspicuous in Wolfe. He seemed to breathe for nothing but fame, and lost no moments in qualifying himself to compa.s.s his object.'[2] These words are partly true, but do not tell the whole truth. Wolfe was ambitious, active, and industrious, but he cared for more than fame alone. His dramatic death in the hour of victory, while he was still very young, makes it impossible to form an adequate estimate of his real worth as a soldier; but all that is known of him points to his having been, in spite of persistent ill health, a great military genius, and a rare leader of men. He seems to have resembled Nelson in his fighting qualities, and to have had the same lovable nature, coupled with a higher standard of life. Like Nelson, in warfare he always took the offensive if possible--took it, as at Quebec, in spite of smaller numbers and a less favourable position. 'An offensive, daring kind of war will awe the Indians and ruin the French,' were his words to Amherst in a letter written after the taking of Louisbourg.[3]

[Footnote 2: Walpole's _Memoirs of the Reign of King George II_ (1847 ed.), vol. iii, p. 171.]

[Footnote 3: Louisbourg, Sept. 30, 1758 (Wright, p. 457).]

Like Nelson, he loved his men, and his men loved him. According to the old story, when the Duke of Newcastle told the King that Wolfe was mad, the King expressed a wish that he would bite his other generals. This was precisely what Wolfe did. He infected to some extent those above him, to a great extent those under his command. He was a man after Pitt's own heart; wherever he was, he made himself felt, giving a living fire and force to the army. Coupled with this vitality was a thorough knowledge of his profession, gained not only on actual battlefields and {291} training-grounds, but also from voluminous reading.[4] Nature gave him a hot temper and fearless independence of spirit; he was in consequence impatient, and perhaps unduly critical, of the mistakes of those above him; but he was the soul of honour and chivalry, and his private life was marked by tender love for his mother, stanch attachment to his friends, and kindness to all dependent upon him, including dumb animals. In his lifetime he enjoyed 'a large share of the friends.h.i.+p and almost the universal goodwill of mankind.'[5] In a word, English history has produced no truer type of hero than James Wolfe.

[Footnote 4: In Wright's _Life of Wolfe_, pp. 342-5, is given a letter of Wolfe's, dated July, 1756, recommending a long list of books for a young soldier to read. Reference is made at the beginning of the letter to a French book recently published (Turpin's _Essai sur l'art de la guerre_), and it is interesting to find that Forbes, in a letter to Pitt from Raestown, dated Oct. 20, 1758, stated that in his march on Fort Duquesne he was acting on the principles laid down in that book.]

[Footnote 5: From the 'Character of General Wolfe' in the _Annual Register_ for 1759, p. 282.]

[Sidenote: _Wolfe's brigadiers. Monckton. Murray. George Townshend.

Carleton. Howe. Admiral Saunders._]

At the siege of Louisbourg, Wolfe was one of three brigadiers under General Amherst. When he was given the command of the expedition against Quebec, three brigadiers were placed under him--Monckton, Townshend, and Murray. They were all of n.o.ble birth, and two of them at any rate were good soldiers. Monckton, the senior of the three, had shown his efficiency in Acadia, and at the siege of Louisbourg.

Murray proved his worth both before and after the capture of Quebec, in a civil as well as in a military capacity. The least satisfactory of the three was George Townshend, elder brother of the better known Charles Townshend, not wanting in capacity, but deficient in loyalty to his commander; a somewhat jealous and bitter-natured man, who had the backing of political and aristocratic connexion. Horace Walpole writes of him as a man 'whose proud and sullen and contemptuous temper never suffered him to wait for thwarting his superiors till risen to a level {292} with them. He saw everything in an ill-natured and ridiculous light--a sure prevention of ever being seen himself in a great or favourable one.'[6] The Quartermaster-General of the force was Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, well known in Canadian history, a great personal friend of Wolfe's, though out of favour with the King. Howe, younger brother of the man whose untimely death Wolfe so deeply lamented, commanded the light infantry, and led them in the van of the force up the cliffs of Quebec. Lastly, an admirable officer was in charge of the fleet, Saunders, who nineteen years before had sailed round the world with Lord Anson in the _Centurion_.

[Footnote 6: _Memoirs of the Reign of King George II_ (1847 ed.), vol. iii, pp. 171, 172.]

[Sidenote: _Small number of troops commanded by Wolfe._]

[Sidenote: _Start of the expedition._]

The troops, whom Wolfe and his officers commanded, were too few for the difficult task with which they were entrusted. They were to have numbered 12,000; as a matter of fact their total did not reach 9,000.

Some were in America already, but the large majority sailed from England with Wolfe and Saunders, leaving England in the middle of February, anchoring at Halifax at the end of April, moving on to Louisbourg in May, when the ice was disappearing, and arriving in front of Quebec towards the end of June--a small squadron, under Admiral Durell, having already ascended the St. Lawrence in advance of the main fleet. As they went up the river, 'the prevailing sentimental toast amongst the officers' was 'British colours on every French fort, port, and garrison in America.'[7]

[Footnote 7: From Knox's _Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America_ (London, 1769), vol. i, p. 279.]

[Sidenote: _General plan of campaign in North America._]

The expedition against Quebec was only part of a general plan of campaign. While Wolfe was operating in the St. Lawrence, it was intended that Amherst, the Commander-in-Chief, with a larger army, should move northward by way of Lake Champlain; and, reducing the French forts at {293} Ticonderoga and Crown Point, make his way to the St. Lawrence, in time to co-operate with Wolfe's force, or to draw off a number of the defenders of Quebec for the protection of Montreal. As events turned out, Amherst gave little support to Wolfe.

On the contrary, the main French army under Montcalm went to and remained at Quebec; and Wolfe, with the smaller force and far the more difficult enterprise to undertake, had to rely on his own resources alone. Montcalm had probably gauged the respective merits of Amherst and Wolfe. Had Amherst been in command of the Quebec expedition, and Wolfe leading the central advance, it is reasonable to suppose that the French general would have entrusted the defence of Quebec to a smaller force, and with the bulk of his army would have confronted the more dangerous English leader on the line of Lake Champlain.

[Sidenote: _Amherst's difficulties._]

Amherst, however, it is fair to note, had, as Commander-in-Chief, to direct his attention to other points as well as the direct northern line of advance. When the spring opened, the forts on the Mohawk river had been re-established, and Fort Duquesne was held by the small garrison which Forbes had placed there. But Oswego was still desolate, and the English had no post on Lake Ontario. The French held a strong position at Niagara; they commanded the routes from the lakes to Fort Duquesne; they could bring reinforcements of Canadians and Indians from the west as well as up the St. Lawrence--if any could be spared from this quarter. Forbes, the leader in the west, was dead. Under these circ.u.mstances a cautious commander, though not perhaps a brilliant one, might hesitate to invade central Canada until some further security was attained on the western side.

[Sidenote: _Prideaux sent against Niagara._]

[Sidenote: _Haldimand attacked at Oswego: he beats off the French._]

General Stanwix was accordingly sent to reinforce Fort Duquesne, and, having made that position secure, to press forward, if possible, up the Alleghany and French Creek rivers, in order to co-operate with another force which, under General Prideaux, was ordered to ascend the Mohawk river, {294} reoccupy Oswego, and from Oswego as the base to attack Niagara. Prideaux concentrated his troops at Schenectady towards the end of May, about 5,000 in number, including two regiments of regulars. Sir William Johnson joined him with Indian warriors from the Five Nations; and with him too, as second in command, was Colonel Haldimand, like Bouquet a Swiss by birth, and twenty years later Governor-General of Canada. Strengthening the outposts on the line of communication as he advanced, Prideaux made his way to Oswego, and, leaving Haldimand there to rebuild the fort, started westwards on July 1 for Niagara, carrying his men in boats along the southern sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario. Soon after he left, Haldimand's force at Oswego was attacked by 1,000 Canadians and Indians, who came up the St. Lawrence under the command of St. Luc de la Corne; but, though taken by surprise, the garrison beat off their a.s.sailants with little loss.

[Sidenote: _Fort Niagara._]

The French fort at Niagara was in good condition for defence. It stood in the angle between the Niagara river and the lake, on what is now the American side of the river; a road had been made past the falls, and there were two outposts, one above and the other below the falls. A competent French officer, Pouchot, was in command; his garrison, when the English appeared, numbered 500 men more or less, and he sent messages to bring up reinforcements from the forts on the Ohio route--Presque ile, Fort Leboeuf, and Machault or Venango--in addition to Indians and Rangers from Detroit and the west, who were already coming down to the aid of Canada.

[Sidenote: _Death of Prideaux._]

[Sidenote: _Johnson takes command and defeats the French relief force._]

[Sidenote: _Surrender of Niagara._]

On July 8 Prideaux summoned the fort to surrender, and, his summons being rejected, began to invest the place. No great skill was shown in the investment, and on July 20 the English general was accidentally killed by the bursting of a sh.e.l.l from one of his own guns. The command devolved on Johnson, who heard that a relief {295} force was coming down Lake Erie--a force which numbered at least 1,200 men all told, and was led by some of the best border fighters in Canada, including Ligneris, who had in the preceding year been in charge of Fort Duquesne. Johnson marched out to intercept them on the road between the fort and the falls, attacked them at once in front and on the flank, and gained a complete victory. The French officers were taken prisoners, their troops were utterly routed and broken up, and the survivors retreated westward to Detroit, abandoning Lake Erie and the whole of the Ohio country. It was on July 24 that the fight took place, and on the following day Pouchot, having verified the news of the French defeat, surrendered Niagara. One of the terms of the surrender was that the prisoners should be protected from the Indians by an English escort, the ma.s.sacre at Fort William Henry being evidently borne in mind; and on this condition six hundred Frenchmen were sent to New York.

[Sidenote: _Result of its fall._]

Thus, for the second time, Sir William Johnson had rendered signal service to the English cause; and with the fall of Niagara the French lost all command of the lower lakes. Their only communication now with Detroit and the far West was by the old route of the Ottawa river, and their scheme of conquest in the lands of the Ohio was wholly and for ever undone. 'The taking of Niagara broke off effectually that communication, so much talked of and so much dreaded, between Canada and Louisiana; and by this stroke one of the capital political designs of the French, which gave occasion to the present war, was defeated in its direct and immediate object.'[8] On hearing of the success, Amherst sent up General Gage to replace Prideaux, with orders to come down the St. Lawrence and join in the combination against central Canada; but the force was small, Gage, like Amherst, was cautious, and the summer pa.s.sed {296} away without any further success by the troops on Lake Ontario.

[Footnote 8: _Annual Register_ for 1759, p. 34.]

[Sidenote: _Amherst's advance._]

[Sidenote: _The French abandon Ticonderoga and Crown Point._]

While Prideaux and Johnson were operating against Niagara, Amherst had begun his northward movement. He had carefully secured his communications by fortified posts, and, before June ended, had gathered a force of 11,000 men at the southern end of Lake George, the scene of so many encampments and so much fighting. On July 21 he embarked his troops, followed the line of Abercromby's advance in the previous year, found the famous entrenchment, which had foiled Abercromby's troops, deserted, but the fort itself still held. On the evening of the twenty-sixth, however, deserters brought news that the garrison was in retreat, and shortly afterwards a loud explosion told its own tale. Ticonderoga had been abandoned and blown up. The French commander opposed to Amherst was Bourlamaque, and his orders were to fall back before the English to the outlet of Lake Champlain, where a small island in the Richelieu river, the ile aux Noix, could easily be defended, blocking the enemy's advance on Montreal. He had a force of over 3,000 men, the rearguard of which, consisting of 400 men, had held Ticonderoga for two or three days, to cover the retreat of the main force. On August 1, Crown Point was found to be abandoned also, and the way north, down Lake Champlain, lay open to the invaders of Canada. Amherst entered Crown Point on August 4, and on the following day wrote to Pitt: 'I shall take fast hold of it, and not neglect at the same time to forward every measure I can to enable me to pa.s.s Lake Champlain.'

[Sidenote: _Amherst's inaction._]

Now was the time for the quick aggressive movement which Wolfe practised and preached, but the Commander-in-Chief fell miserably short of the occasion. August went by, and September, but Robert Rogers and his Rangers, who harried the French Indians on the river St. Francis {297} north-east of Lake Champlain, were the only fighting members of Amherst's army. Time was spent in constructing a new fort at Crown Point; in making a road eastward from Lake Champlain, opposite Crown Point, to the Connecticut river; in building vessels to overpower four little armed sloops, which represented French naval enterprise on the lake. In the middle of October Amherst embarked his troops to go north, met with wind and storm, returned to Crown Point, and made all snug for the winter.

This was not the way to conquer Canada: the real work was done by another man at another place. While the main English army loitered on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Champlain, Wolfe had laid down his life in victory on the Plains of Abraham.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map of Quebec]

[Sidenote: _The harbour of Quebec._]

[Sidenote: _The northern bank of the St. Lawrence._]