_ CHAPTER XIII. DURING THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR
Realising that even a nominal peace could no longer be maintained, England threw down the gauntlet in the spring of 1756 by formally declaring war. Three weeks later France responded to the challenge, and presently the four corners of the earth were shaken by the most terrible conflict of the century. England's alliance with Prussia drew Austria and Russia into the war on the other side; and notwithstanding the smallness of his kingdom, the military genius of Frederick the Great was able to hold the three proudest powers of Europe at bay, while Clive and Wolfe smote off the heads of the triple alliance in India and North America. The history of Quebec is concerned with only the latter campaign.
The Marquis de Montcalm, the newly appointed commander of the forces in Canada, arrived about the middle of May, bringing with him the Chevalier de Levis, Bourlamaque, and Bougainville, all of them better generals than those to whom the fatuous Duke of Newcastle entrusted the leadership of the English army. Montcalm himself is indeed one of the most heroic and gallant figures in French Canadian history--the personage, _par excellence_, of the closing chapter of French dominion.
Born at his father's chateau in Candiac in 1712, he inherited all the martial impetuosity of the southern noblesse. At fifteen he was an ensign in the regiment of Hainaut, at seventeen a captain; and, in the campaigns of Bohemia and Italy, his conspicuous valour won him quick promotion. At forty-four he was a General, commanding the troops of Louis XV. in New France. In appearance he was under middle height, slender, and graceful in movement. Keen clear eyes lighted up a handsome face, and wit sparkled upon his lips.
The Governor, Vaudreuil, son of a former ruler, was a Canadian by birth, and accordingly prejudiced against officers who came from France. A veiled antagonism springing up between himself and Montcalm was a source of weakness to the French cause in America, and darkened the closing struggle of the devoted French Canadians to keep the land for their mother-country.
Montcalm on his arrival at once took stock, so to speak, of his command. His two battalions of La Sarre and Royal Roussillon added about twelve hundred men to the troops of the line already in New France. These, it will be remembered, consisted of the battalions of Artois and Bourgogne,--now the garrison at Louisbourg,--and the battalions of La Reine, Languedoc, Guienne, and Bearn, numbering in all about three thousand men. Besides these, about two thousand _troupes de la marine_ constituted the permanent military establishment. Last of all came the militia, nominally made up of all the male inhabitants of Canada between the ages of sixteen and sixty, but rarely mustering more than two thousand men. Such was the soldiery in New France under Montcalm; and to them were added the Indian allies, whose numbers rose or fell with the fortune of war.
Against a Canadian population of less than seventy thousand, the English colonies could count more than a million souls; and although they lacked cohesion, and, indeed, regular military establishment of any kind, their greater wealth and numbers fore-told the inevitable result of the struggle. At first the tide of war set against the English: an event to be expected with Newcastle guiding the ship of state, and believing in his generals, Loudon, Webb, and Abercrombie, vain and obtuse military martinets, who fumbled their opportunities, mismanaged their campaigns, and learned no lessons from their failures.
From Oswego, on the south-east corner of Lake Ontario, the English had planned to attack Fort Frontenac and Fort Niagara, so cutting off New France from her western outposts. But Montcalm, with the speed and energy that marked his character, determined to act upon the offensive. With three thousand men he hurried to Fort Frontenac, and crossed the lake under cover of the night. In the morning the garrison of Oswego found themselves besieged. The cannonade on both sides was brief but vigorous; but the French fought with greater spirit, their dash and resource were disconcerting, and presently this, the most important English stronghold of the west, was compelled to capitulate. Sixteen hundred prisoners, a hundred pieces of artillery, and a vast quantity of stores and ammunition fell into the hands of the triumphant French. Having thus secured the west, Montcalm hurried back to Lake Champlain, and intrenched himself at Carillon, by this means to prevent an invasion of Canada by way of the Richelieu. Owing to the lateness of the season, however, his opponents undertook no new expedition that year, and waited for the spring.
In 1757 Loudon conceived the idea of attacking Louisbourg, and accordingly he withdrew his troops to Halifax in order to co-operate with an English squadron under Admiral Holbourne. Loudon's incompetency alone would have fore-doomed so hazardous an undertaking; but once more the elements fought on the side of France, and Holbourne's fleet was shattered by a storm.
So far Montcalm had maintained a defensive attitude in the Richelieu valley, but taking advantage of Loudon's diversion towards Louisbourg, he now resolved upon attacking Fort William Henry, strongly held by over two thousand English troops. Moving out of his intrenchments at Carillon, therefore, and supported by Levis and Bougainville, he advanced up the valley with six thousand soldiers and over a thousand Indians. Monro, the British commandant, sharply rejected the summons to surrender, and Montcalm began the investment of the fort.
Fourteen miles away, General Webb lay encamped at Fort Edward with twenty-six hundred men, and to him Monro sent for assistance. But the timorous Webb had no stomach for a fight. Huddling behind his breastworks, he listened to the booming of the fierce cannonade across the hills, but made no move to save Fort William Henry. Monro, seeing himself thus abandoned, his powder gone, his ramparts and bastions shattered by Montcalm's heavy artillery, at length asked for terms. Surrendering their arms, the garrison marched out with the honours of war, drums beating; but they also marched into one of the most shameful disasters recorded in American history.
Frenzied by the protracted siege, and burning with vengeance for their slain in the trenches, the savage allies of the French burst all restraint and fell upon the disarmed garrison. In vain Montcalm, Levis, and Bourlamaque begged, threatened, and even interposed their own bodies to prevent a massacre. Defenceless men, women, and children were tomahawked in cold blood, or reserved for more leisurely torment. Some of the poor fugitives, fleeing at the first war-whoop, reached Fort Edward through the woods. Four hundred of the captives were eventually rescued by the French, while the Indians, decamping after their carnival of blood, carried two hundred wretched victims back to their lodges. Then followed the work of demolishing Fort William Henry, and soon its blazing ruins, a funeral pyre for the slaughtered garrison, lit up the summer night, and cast a lurid flame soon to kindle the avenging wrath of England.
To these ill-boding events, moreover, the loss of Minorca was now added, until England at last refused to endure longer the incapacity of Newcastle, and clamoured for the appointment of Pitt. "England has long been in labour," commented Frederick of Prussia, "and at last she has brought forth a man." From that moment the fortune of war was changed. Corruption and divided counsels no longer paralysed the government, and the Great Commoner, healthy minded, rugged, and enthusiastic, now stood to middle-class England as an embodiment of strength and purpose, which sent new blood coursing through her veins and braced her for the gathering storm.
To America, where the clouds were darkest, Pitt first turned his attention. Louisbourg, Carillon, Duquesne, and Quebec must be brought low, if, as was his purpose, French power was not only to be crushed but absolutely destroyed. And towards this goal Pitt moved swiftly at the head of a nation as resolute as himself. Loudon and Webb were instantly recalled, and Amherst, Wolfe, and Howe were appointed in their places, the last being ordered to second Abercrombie, whom Pitt had reluctantly retained in his command.
The years since 1745 had been years of growing strength for Louisbourg, and in 1758 it almost equalled Quebec itself in importance. Its capable commandant, the Chevalier de Drucour, counted four thousand citizens and three thousand men-at-arms for his garrison; while twelve battleships, mounting five hundred and forty-four guns, and manned by three thousand sailors and marines, rode at anchor in the rock-girt harbour, the fortress itself, with its formidable outworks, containing two hundred and nineteen cannon and seventeen mortars. Bold men only could essay the capture of such a fortress, but such were Wolfe, Amherst, and Admiral Boscawen, whose work it was to do.
The fleet and transports sailed from Halifax, bearing eleven thousand six hundred men full of spirit and faith in their commanders. All accessible landing-places at Louisbourg had been fortified by the French; but in spite of this precaution and a heavy surf, Wolfe's division gained the beach and carried the redoubts at Freshwater Cove. A general landing having been thus effected, Wolfe marched round the flank of the fortress to establish a battery at Light-house Point. The story may only be outlined here. First the French were forced to abandon Grand Battery, which frowned over the harbour, then the Island Battery was silenced. On the forty-third day of the siege, a frigate in the harbour was fired by shells, and drifting from her moorings, destroyed two sister ships. Four vessels which had been sunk at the mouth of the harbour warded Boscawen's fleet from the assault, but did not prevent six hundred daring blue-jackets from seizing the _Prudent_ and _Bienfaisant_, the two remaining ships of the French squadron.
Meanwhile, zigzag trenches crept closer and closer to the walls, upon which the heavy artillery now played at short range with deadly effect. Bombs and grenades hissed over the shattering ramparts and burst in the crowded streets; roundshot and grape tore their way through the wooden barracks; while mortars and musketry poured a hail of shell and bullet upon the brave defenders. Nothing could save Louisbourg now that Pitt's policy of Thorough had got headway. On the 26th of July a white flag fluttered over the Dauphin's Bastion; and by midnight of that date Drucour had signed Amherst's terms enjoining unconditional surrender.
Then the work of demolition commenced. The mighty fortress, which had cast a dark shadow over New England for almost half a century, "the Dunkirk of America," must stand no longer as a menace. An army of workmen laboured for months with pick and spade and blasting-powder upon those vast fortifications; yet nothing but an upheaval of nature itself could obliterate all traces of earthwork, ditch, _glacis_, and casemate, which together made up the frowning fortress of Louisbourg. To-day grass grows on the Grand Parade, and daisies blow upon the turf-grown bastions; but who may pick his way over those historic mounds of earth without a sigh for the buried valour of bygone years!
In the Richelieu valley, meanwhile, the armies of England and France had met in even fiercer conflict. Montcalm lay intrenched at Carillon at the head of the battalions of La Sarre, Languedoc, Berry, Royal Roussillon, La Reine, Bearn, and Guienne, three thousand six hundred men in all. To this high rocky battlement overlooking Lake Champlain, the French had hastily added a rugged outwork of felled trees on the crest of a flanking hill. The ridge thus fortified now looked down upon a valley stripped of its timber, but covered with rugged stumps and a maze of stakes and branches, which, while affording no cover for an enemy, presented insuperable obstacles to his advance.
On came Abercrombie at the head of fifteen thousand men, offering the most imposing military spectacle yet seen in the New World. They advanced in three divisions--the regulars in the centre, commanded by the gallant Lord Howe, and a blue column of provincials on either flank. To the martial music of their bands or the shrill notes of the bagpipe they gaily marched through the midsummer woods, the Forty-Second Highlanders in the van.
As the army drew near to the French position, Lord Howe pressed forward to reconnoitre the approaches. This young nobleman, although but thirty-four years of age, had already reached the top of his profession. Keen and daring, with a hand of steel in a glove of velvet, and a magnetism that charmed the regular and the provincial alike, Lord Howe had become the soul of Abercrombie's army; and as he fell in this engagement, shot through the breast by a skirmisher's bullet, that army at once declined to its ruin.
Notwithstanding this loss, Abercrombie swept on along the Indian trail; and when Montcalm looked down from the rough ramparts of Carillon upon that splendid pageant, all hope of saving his stronghold was banished. All hope save one. The indiscretion of the English General might lead him to decide upon assault instead of siege. The inept Abercrombie did not disappoint him--Carillon was to be taken at the point of the bayonet!
All day long the fearless battalions of Old and New England hurled themselves against the fatal breastwork; all day long those steady columns of British infantry, headed by Campbell's Highlanders, brilliantly valiant, pressed up the rough _glacis_ under a cross-fire which swept them front and flank. At night two thousand of Abercrombie's stubborn soldiery lay dead upon the field. Their splendid valour had been all in vain against the invisible musketeers of Montcalm, Levis, and Bourlamaque.
Among the slain was the brave Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, of whom Parkman relates the following legend:--
"The ancient castle of Inverawe stands by the banks of the Awe, in the midst of the wild and picturesque scenery of the Western Highlands. Late one evening, before the middle of the eighteenth century, as the laird, Duncan Campbell, sat alone in the hall, there was a loud knocking at the gate; and opening it, he saw a stranger, with torn clothing and kilt besmeared with blood, who, in a breathless voice, begged for asylum. He went on to say that he had killed a man in a fray, and that the pursuers were at his heels. Campbell promised to shelter him. 'Swear on your dirk!' said the stranger; and Campbell swore. He then led him to a secret recess in the depths of the castle.
"Scarcely was he hidden when again there was a loud knocking at the gate, and two armed men appeared. 'Your cousin Donald has been murdered, and we are looking for the murderer!'
"Campbell, remembering his oath, professed to have no knowledge of the fugitive; and the men went on their way.
"The laird, in great agitation, lay down to rest in a large dark room, when at length he fell asleep. Waking suddenly in bewilderment and terror, he saw the ghost of the murdered Donald standing by his bedside, and heard a hollow voice pronounce the words: '_Inverawe! Inverawe! blood has been shed. Shield not the murderer!_'
"In the morning, Campbell went to the hiding-place of the guilty man, and told him that he could harbour him no longer. 'You have sworn on your dirk!' he replied; and the laird of Inverawe, greatly perplexed and troubled, made a compromise between conflicting duties, promised not to betray his guest, led him to the neighbouring mountain, and hid him in a cave.
"In the next night, as he lay tossing in feverish slumbers, the same stern voice awoke him, the ghost of his cousin Donald stood again at his bedside, and again he heard the same appalling words: '_Inverawe! Inverawe! blood has been shed. Shield not the murderer!_' At the break of day he hastened, in strange agitation, to the cave; but it was empty, the stranger was gone. At night, as he strove in vain to sleep, the vision appeared once more, ghastly pale, but less stern of aspect than before. '_Farewell, Inverawe!_' it said; '_farewell, till we meet at Ticonderoga!_'[28]
"The strange man dwelt in Campbell's memory. He had joined the Black Watch, or Forty-Second Regiment, then employed in keeping order in the turbulent Highlands. In time he became its major; and a year or two after the war broke out he went with it to America. Here, to his horror, he learned that it was ordered to the attack of Ticonderoga. His story was well known among his brother officers. They combined among themselves to disarm his fears; and when they reached the fatal spot they told him on the eve of the battle, 'This is not Ticonderoga; we are not there yet; this is Fort George,' But in the morning he came to them with haggard looks. 'I have seen him! You have deceived me! He came to my tent last night! This is Ticonderoga! I shall die to-day!'
"And his prediction was fulfilled."[29]
[Footnote 28: Ticonderoga, the Indian name for the fort of Carillon.]
[Footnote 29: Parkman, _Montcalm and Wolfe_, vol. ii., Appendix.] However magnificent was the triumph of the French arms at Carillon, it could not balance the loss of Louisbourg; and before the summer of 1758 had ended, the heart of Quebec was wrung with news of further disasters. Crossing Lake Ontario with a force of three thousand colonials, Colonel Bradstreet appeared suddenly before Fort Frontenac. In spite of the abundant store of furs, ammunition, and implements of war which the lake fort contained, its garrison had been hopelessly weakened to supply troops for the Richelieu district, and when surprised by Bradstreet it consisted of but one hundred and ten soldiers. Without firing a shot, the commandant, De Noyan, surrendered the position.
This blow cut New France into halves, severing the western forts from their base of supplies, and effectually destroying what remained of French influence over the wavering Indian tribes. Meanwhile, General Forbes, with six thousand men, was marching from Philadelphia to attack Fort Duquesne. After three months of hardship he arrived at the junction of the Ohio and Monongahela; but the commandant De Ligneris had not awaited his coming, and the fort now lay in ashes, having been destroyed by its own garrison when it became clear that succour could no longer be expected from Quebec.
Quebec itself, though up to this time beyond the range of actual war, was in the usual throes of civil discord. If Vaudreuil, the Governor, had previously been jealous of Montcalm, the recent success achieved by the latter at Carillon now doubled his resentment. Casting about for any conceivable point of criticism, Vaudreuil blamed the General for not turning Abercrombie's retreat into a rout. Regarding this inspiration, Montcalm writes to Bourlamaque: "I ended by saying quietly 'that when I went to war I did the best I could; and that when one is not pleased with one's lieutenants, one had better take the field in person.' He was very much moved, and muttered between his teeth that perhaps he would; at which I said that I should be delighted to serve under him. Madame de Vaudreuil wanted to put in her word. I said: 'Madame, saving due respect, permit me to have the honour to say that ladies ought not to talk war.' She kept on. I said: 'Madame, saving due respect, permit me to have the honour to say that if Madame de Montcalm were here, and heard me talking war with Monsieur le Marquis de Vaudreuil, she would remain silent.'"
Thus the cloaked strife between the General and the so-called Canadian party proceeded. Vaudreuil wrote earnestly to the Court to have Montcalm recalled; while Montcalm, who was not blind to the malversations of Bigot and his clique, made this matter the burden of some of his official letters. The result was a rebuke administered to Vaudreuil and the Intendant, which further heated their feeling against Montcalm. Bougainville was despatched to France to lay an account of the dire distress of Canada before the Court. Montcalm's letters highly commended the envoy, but Vaudreuil as promptly described him as a creature of the General, and their quarrel did not help New France at the Royal Court. Berryer, the Colonial Minister, received Bougainville coldly, and to his appeal for help replied: "Eh, Monsieur, when the house is on fire one cannot concern one's self with the stable." But the Canadian envoy responded, with caustic wit, "At least, Monsieur, nobody will say that you talk like a _horse_."
Berryer's remark, however, exactly described the state of affairs. Worsted by Clive at Plassey, and by Frederick the Great at Leuthen and Rossbach, even the loss of Louisbourg, the Forts Duquesne and Frontenac, could hardly add to France's cup of bitterness, and to save herself in Europe she was prepared for sacrifice in America. Within the single twelvemonth during which Pitt had been at the helm of England, France had altered her pretentious claim upon almost the whole of North America to the extremely reasonable demand for a foothold on the river St. Lawrence. Even this last claim was now assailed; and as she fell back into her last intrenchments, the armies of England advanced to the final encounter.
The general hopelessness of the situation in Canada is reflected in a letter written by the Minister of War, M. de Belleisle, to Montcalm, under the date 19th February, 1759: "Besides increasing the dearth of provisions, it is to be feared that reinforcements, if despatched, would fall into the power of the English. The King is unable to send succours proportional to the force the English can place in the field to oppose you....You must confine yourself to the defensive, and concentrate all your forces within as narrow limits as possible. It is of the last importance to preserve some footing in Canada. However small the territory preserved may be, it is indispensable that _un pied_ should be retained in North America, for if all be once lost it would become impossible to recover it."
And Montcalm wrote in reply: "For my part, and that of the troops under me, we are ready to fall with the colony, and to be buried in its ruins." And later: "If we are left without a fleet at Quebec, the enemy can come there; and Quebec taken, the colony is lost....If the war continues, Canada will belong to the English in course of this campaign or the next. If peace be made, the colony is lost unless there be a total change of management." Levis bore similar testimony to the discouragement caused to the colonials by the indifferent attitude of the Government of France. "I see," he wrote, "that it is necessary to defend ourselves foot by foot, fighting to the death; for it will be better for the King's service that we should die with arms in our hands than for us to accept disgraceful terms of surrender like those permitted at the capitulation of Cape Breton."
The plan of the campaign of 1759 embraced simultaneous attacks upon Quebec and Montreal. The former was entrusted to Wolfe and Admiral Saunders, and the latter to Amherst. The French, on their part, disposed their troops entirely upon the defensive, Montcalm and Vaudreuil, commanders of the regulars and the militia, concentrating their soldiers round Quebec; while Bourlamaque, with less than four thousand men, was despatched to hold the gateway of the Richelieu against Amherst.
Bourlamaque first took up his position at Carillon, but on the approach of the English he blew up the walls of his fortress and retired to Crown Point. Meanwhile the deliberate Amherst marched slowly forward, building forts as he went, in this mistaken zeal for military efficiency defeating the purpose of Pitt, which was, to make a strong diversion for covering Wolfe's movement upon the St. Lawrence. It was August before he arrived at Crown Point. This fortress, however, the wily Bourlamaque had previously abandoned for the stronger position of Isle-aux-Noix, at the outlet of Lake Champlain.
Even then Amherst refrained from hurrying forward to overwhelm the French with his superior numbers; and when at length autumn came, he was still advancing cautiously from Crown Point. But Wolfe no longer needed his help. _