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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf
+by William Wood
+#4 in our series by William Wood
+#11 in our series Chronicles of Canada, Edited by George M. Wrong 
+and H. H. Langton
+
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+Title: The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf
+
+Author: William Wood
+
+Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8728]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 4, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WINNING OF CANADA ***
+
+
+
+
+This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHRONICLES OF CANADA
+Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
+In thirty-two volumes
+
+Volume 11
+
+
+THE WINNING OF CANADA
+A Chronicle of Wolfe
+
+By WILLIAM WOOD
+TORONTO, 1915
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+Any life of Wolfe can be artificially simplified by
+treating his purely military work as something complete
+in itself and not as a part of a greater whole. But,
+since such treatment gives a totally false idea of his
+achievement, this little sketch, drawn straight from
+original sources, tries to show him as he really was, a
+co-worker with the British fleet in a war based entirely
+on naval strategy and inseparably connected with
+international affairs of world-wide significance. The
+only simplification attempted here is that of arrangement
+and expression.
+
+W.W.
+
+Quebec, April 1914.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+I.    THE BOY
+II.   THE YOUNG SOLDIER
+III.  THE SEVEN YEARS' PEACE
+IV.   THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR
+V.    LOUISBOURG
+VI.   QUEBEC
+VII.  THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM
+VIII. EPILOGUE--THE LAST STAND
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE BOY
+1727-1741
+
+Wolfe was a soldier born. Many of his ancestors had stood
+ready to fight for king and country at a moment's notice.
+His father fought under the great Duke of Marlborough in
+the war against France at the beginning of the eighteenth
+century. His grandfather, his great-grandfather, his only
+uncle, and his only brother were soldiers too. Nor has
+the martial spirit deserted the descendants of the Wolfes
+in the generation now alive. They are soldiers still.
+The present head of the family, who represented it at
+the celebration of the tercentenary of the founding of
+Quebec, fought in Egypt for Queen Victoria; and the member
+of it who represented Wolfe on that occasion, in the
+pageant of the Quebec campaign, is an officer in the
+Canadian army under George V.
+
+The Wolfes are of an old and honourable line. Many hundreds
+of years ago their forefathers lived in England and later
+on in Wales. Later still, in the fifteenth century, before
+America was discovered, they were living in Ireland.
+Wolfe's father, however, was born in England; and, as
+there is no evidence that any of his ancestors in Ireland
+had married other than English Protestants, and as Wolfe's
+mother was also English, we may say that the victor of
+Quebec was a pure-bred Englishman. Among his Anglo-Irish
+kinsmen were the Goldsmiths and the Seymours. Oliver
+Goldsmith himself was always very proud of being a cousin
+of the man who took Quebec.
+
+Wolfe's mother, to whom he owed a great deal of his
+genius; was a descendant of two good families in Yorkshire.
+She was eighteen years younger than his father, and was
+very tall and handsome. Wolfe thought there was no one
+like her. When he was a colonel, and had been through
+the wars and at court, he still believed she was 'a match
+for all the beauties.' He was not lucky enough to take
+after her in looks, except in her one weak feature, a
+cutaway chin. His body, indeed, seems to have been made
+up of the bad points of both parents: he had his rheumatism
+from his father. But his spirit was made up of all their
+good points; and no braver ever lived in any healthy body
+than in his own sickly, lanky six foot three.
+
+Wolfe's parents went to live at Westerham in Kent shortly
+after they were married; and there, on January 2, 1727,
+in the vicarage--where Mrs Wolfe was staying while her
+husband was away on duty with his regiment--the victor
+of Quebec was born. Two other houses in the little country
+town of Westerham are full of memories of Wolfe. One of
+these was his father's, a house more than two hundred
+years old when he was born. It was built in the reign of
+Henry VII, and the loyal subject who built it had the
+king's coat of arms carved over the big stone fireplace.
+Here Wolfe and his younger brother Edward used to sit in
+the winter evenings with their mother, while their veteran
+father told them the story of his long campaigns. So,
+curiously enough, it appears that Wolfe, the soldier who
+won Canada for England in 1759, sat under the arms of
+the king in whose service the sailor Cabot hoisted the
+flag of England over Canadian soil in 1497. This house
+has been called Quebec House ever since the victory in
+1759. The other house is Squerryes Court, belonging then
+and now to the Warde family, the Wolfes' closest friends.
+Wolfe and George Warde were chums from the first day they
+met. Both wished to go into the Army; and both, of course,
+'played soldiers,' like other virile boys. Warde lived
+to be an old man and actually did become a famous cavalry
+leader. Perhaps when he charged a real enemy, sword in hand,
+at the head of thundering squadrons, it may have flashed
+through his mind how he and Wolfe had waved their whips
+and cheered like mad when they galloped their ponies down
+the common with nothing but their barking dogs behind them.
+
+Wolfe's parents presently moved to Greenwich, where he
+was sent to school at Swinden's. Here he worked quietly
+enough till just before he entered on his 'teens. Then
+the long-pent rage of England suddenly burst in war with
+Spain. The people went wild when the British fleet took
+Porto Bello, a Spanish port in Central America. The news
+was cried through the streets all night. The noise of
+battle seemed to be sounding all round Swinden's school,
+where most of the boys belonged to naval and military
+families. Ships were fitting out in English harbours.
+Soldiers were marching into every English camp. Crowds
+were singing and cheering. First one boy's father and
+then another's was under orders for the front. Among them
+was Wolfe's father, who was made adjutant-general to the
+forces assembling in the Isle of Wight. What were history
+and geography and mathematics now, when a whole nation
+was afoot to fight! And who would not fight the Spaniards
+when they cut off British sailors' ears? That was an old
+tale by this time; but the flames of anger threw it into
+lurid relief once more.
+
+Wolfe was determined to go and fight. Nothing could stop
+him. There was no commission for him as an officer. Never
+mind! He would go as a volunteer and win his commission
+in the field. So, one hot day in July 1740, the lanky,
+red-haired boy of thirteen-and-a-half took his seat on
+the Portsmouth coach beside his father, the veteran
+soldier of fifty-five. His mother was a woman of much
+too fine a spirit to grudge anything for the service of
+her country; but she could not help being exceptionally
+anxious about the dangers of disease for a sickly boy in
+a far-off land of pestilence and fever. She had written
+to him the very day he left. But he, full of the stir
+and excitement of a big camp, had carried the letter in
+his pocket for two or three days before answering it.
+Then he wrote her the first of many letters from different
+seats of war, the last one of all being written just before
+he won the victory that made him famous round the world.
+
+   Newport, Isle of Wight, August 6th, 1740.
+
+   I received my dearest Mamma's letter on Monday last,
+   but could not answer it then, by reason I was at camp
+   to see the regiments off to go on board, and was too
+   late for the post; but am very sorry, dear Mamma, that
+   you doubt my love, which I'm sure is as sincere as
+   ever any son's was to his mother.
+
+   Papa and I are just going on board, but I believe
+   shall not sail this fortnight; in which time, if I
+   can get ashore at Portsmouth or any other town, I will
+   certainly write to you, and, when we are gone, by
+   every ship we meet, because I know it is my duty.
+   Besides, if it is not, I would do it out of love, with
+   pleasure.
+
+   I am sorry to hear that your head is so bad, which I
+   fear is caused by your being so melancholy; but pray,
+   dear Mamma, if you love me, don't give yourself up to
+   fears for us. I hope, if it please God, we shall soon
+   see one another, which will be the happiest day that
+   ever I shall see. I will, as sure as I live, if it is
+   possible for me, let you know everything that has
+   happened, by every ship; therefore pray, dearest Mamma,
+   don't doubt about it. I am in a very good state of
+   health, and am likely to continue so. Pray my love to
+   my brother. Pray my service to Mr Streton and his
+   family, to Mr and Mrs Weston, and to George Warde when
+   you see him; and pray believe me to be, my dearest
+   Mamma, your most dutiful, loving and affectionate son,
+
+   J. Wolfe.
+
+   To Mrs. Wolfe, at her house in Greenwich, Kent.
+
+Wolfe's 'very good state of health' was not 'likely to
+continue so,' either in camp or on board ship. A long
+peace had made the country indifferent to the welfare of
+the Army and Navy. Now men were suddenly being massed
+together in camps and fleets as if on Purpose to breed
+disease. Sanitation on a large scale, never having been
+practised in peace, could not be improvised in this
+hurried, though disastrously slow, preparation for a war.
+The ship in which Wolfe was to sail had been lying idle
+for years; and her pestilential bilge-water soon began
+to make the sailors and soldiers sicken and die. Most
+fortunately, Wolfe was among the first to take ill; and
+so he was sent home in time to save him from the fevers
+of Spanish America.
+
+Wolfe was happy to see his mother again, to have his pony
+to ride and his dogs to play with. But, though he tried
+his best to stick to his lessons, his heart was wild for
+the war. He and George Warde used to go every day during
+the Christmas holidays behind the pigeon-house at Squerryes
+Court and practise with their swords and pistols. One
+day they stopped when they heard the post-horn blowing
+at the gate; and both of them became very much excited
+when George's father came out himself with a big official
+envelope marked 'On His Majesty's Service' and addressed
+to 'James Wolfe, Esquire.' Inside was a commission as
+second lieutenant in the Marines, signed by George II
+and dated at St James's Palace, November 3, 1741. Eighteen
+years later, when the fame of the conquest of Canada was
+the talk of the kingdom, the Wardes had a stone monument
+built to mark the spot where Wolfe was standing when the
+squire handed him his first commission. And there it is
+to-day; and on it are the verses ending,
+
+   This spot so sacred will forever claim
+   A proud alliance with its hero's name.
+
+Wolfe was at last an officer. But the Marines were not
+the corps for him. Their service companies were five
+thousand miles away, while war with France was breaking
+out much nearer home. So what was his delight at receiving
+another commission, on March 25, 1742, as an ensign in
+the 12th Regiment of Foot! He was now fifteen, an officer,
+a soldier born and bred, eager to serve his country, and
+just appointed to a regiment ordered to the front! Within
+a month an army such as no one had seen since the days
+of Marlborough had been assembled at Blackheath. Infantry,
+cavalry, artillery, and engineers, they were all there
+when King George II, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke
+of Cumberland came down to review them. Little did anybody
+think that the tall, eager ensign carrying the colours
+of the 12th past His Majesty was the man who was to play
+the foremost part in winning Canada for the British crown.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE YOUNG SOLDIER
+1741-1748
+
+Wolfe's short life may be divided into four periods, all
+easy to remember, because all are connected with the same
+number-seven. He was fourteen years a boy at home, with
+one attempt to be a soldier. This period lasted from 1727
+to 1741. Then he was seven years a young officer in time
+of war, from 1741 to 1748. Then he served seven years
+more in time of peace, from 1748 to 1755. Lastly, he died
+in the middle, at the very climax, of the world-famous
+Seven Years' War, in 1759.
+
+After the royal review at Blackheath in the spring of
+1742 the army marched down to Deptford and embarked for
+Flanders. Wolfe was now off to the very places he had
+heard his father tell about again and again. The surly
+Flemings were still the same as when his father knew
+them. They hated their British allies almost as much as
+they hated their enemies. The long column of redcoats
+marched through a scowling mob of citizens, who meanly
+grudged a night's lodging to the very men coming there
+to fight for them. We may be sure that Wolfe thought
+little enough of such mean people as he stepped out with
+the colours flying above his head. The army halted at
+Ghent, an ancient city, famous for its trade and wealth,
+and defended by walls which had once resisted Marlborough.
+
+At first there was a good deal to do and see; and George
+Warde was there too, as an officer in a cavalry regiment.
+But Warde had to march away; and Wolfe was left without
+any companion of his own age, to pass his spare time the
+best way he could. Like another famous soldier, Frederick
+the Great, who first won his fame in this very war, he
+was fond of music and took lessons on the flute. He also
+did his best to improve his French; and when Warde came
+back the two friends used to go to the French theatre.
+Wolfe put his French to other use as well, and read all
+the military books he could find time for. He always kept
+his kit ready to pack; so that he could have marched
+anywhere within two hours of receiving the order. And,
+though only a mere boy-officer, he began to learn the
+duties of an adjutant, so that he might be fit for
+promotion whenever the chance should come.
+
+Months wore on and Wolfe was still at Ghent. He had made
+friends during his stay, and he tells his mother in
+September: 'This place is full of officers, and we never
+want company. I go to the play once or twice a week, and
+talk a little with the ladies, who are very civil and
+speak French.' Before Christmas it had been decided at
+home--where the war-worn father now was, after a horrible
+campaign at Cartagena--that Edward, the younger son, was
+also to be allowed to join the Army. Wolfe was delighted.
+'My brother is much to be commended for the pains he takes
+to improve himself. I hope to see him soon in Flanders,
+when, in all probability, before next year is over, we
+may know something of our trade.' And so they did!
+
+The two brothers marched for the Rhine early in 1743,
+both in the same regiment. James was now sixteen, Edward
+fifteen. The march was a terrible one for such delicate
+boys. The roads were ankle-deep in mud; the weather was
+vile; both food and water were very bad. Even the dauntless
+Wolfe had to confess to his mother that he was 'very much
+fatigued and out of order. I never come into quarters
+without aching hips and knees.' Edward, still more
+delicate, was sent off on a foraging party to find
+something for the regiment to eat. He wrote home to his
+father from Bonn on April 7: 'We can get nothing upon
+our march but eggs and bacon and sour bread. I have no
+bedding, nor can get it anywhere. We had a sad march last
+Monday in the morning. I was obliged to walk up to my
+knees in snow, though my brother and I have a horse
+between us. I have often lain upon straw, and should
+oftener, had I not known some French, which I find very
+useful; though I was obliged the other day to speak
+_Latin_ for a good dinner. We send for everything we want
+to the priest.'
+
+That summer, when the king arrived with his son the Duke
+of Cumberland, the British and Hanoverian army was reduced
+to 37,000 half-fed men. Worse still, the old general,
+Lord Stair, had led it into a very bad place. These 37,000
+men were cooped up on the narrow side of the valley of
+the river Main, while a much larger French army was on
+the better side, holding bridges by which to cut them
+off and attack them while they were all clumped together.
+Stair tried to slip away in the night. But the French,
+hearing of this attempt, sent 12,000 men across the river
+to hold the place the British general was leaving, and
+30,000 more, under the Duc de Gramont, to block the road
+at the place towards which he was evidently marching. At
+daylight the British and Hanoverians found themselves
+cut off, both front and rear, while a third French force
+was waiting to pounce on whichever end showed weakness
+first. The King of England, who was also Elector of
+Hanover, would be a great prize, and the French were
+eager to capture him. This was how the armies faced each
+other on the morning of June 27, 1743, at Dettingen, the
+last battlefield on which any king of England has fought
+in person, and the first for Wolfe.
+
+The two young brothers were now about to see a big battle,
+like those of which their father used to tell them.
+Strangely enough, Amherst, the future commander-in-chief
+in America, under whom Wolfe served at Louisbourg, and
+the two men who succeeded Wolfe in command at Quebec
+--Monckton and Townshend--were also there. It is an awful
+moment for a young soldier, the one before his first
+great fight. And here were nearly a hundred thousand men,
+all in full view of each other, and all waiting for the
+word to begin. It was a beautiful day, and the sun shone
+down on a splendidly martial sight. There stood the
+British and Hanoverians, with wooded hills on their right,
+the river and the French on their left, the French in
+their rear, and the French very strongly posted on the
+rising ground straight in their front. The redcoats were
+in dense columns, their bayonets flashing and their
+colours waving defiance. Side by side with their own red
+cavalry were the black German cuirassiers, the blue German
+lancers, and the gaily dressed green and scarlet Hungarian
+hussars. The long white lines of the three French armies,
+varied with royal blue, encircled them on three sides.
+On the fourth were the leafy green hills.
+
+Wolfe was acting as adjutant and helping the major. His
+regiment had neither colonel nor lieutenant-colonel with
+it that day; so he had plenty to do, riding up and down
+to see that all ranks understood the order that they were
+not to fire till they were close to the French and were
+given the word for a volley. He cast a glance at his
+brother, standing straight and proudly with the regimental
+colours that he himself had carried past the king at
+Blackheath the year before. He was not anxious about
+'Ned'; he knew how all the Wolfes could fight. He was
+not anxious about himself; he was only too eager for the
+fray. A first battle tries every man, and few have not
+dry lips, tense nerves, and beating hearts at its approach.
+But the great anxiety of an officer going into action
+for the first time with untried men is for them and not
+for himself. The agony of wondering whether they will do
+well or not is worse, a thousand times, than what he
+fears for his own safety.
+
+Presently the French gunners, in the centre of their
+position across the Main, lit their matches and, at a
+given signal, fired a salvo into the British rear. Most
+of the baggage wagons were there; and, as the shot and
+shell began to knock them over, the drivers were seized
+with a panic. Cutting the traces, these men galloped off
+up the hills and into the woods as hard as they could
+go. Now battery after battery began to thunder, and the
+fire grew hot all round. The king had been in the rear,
+as he did not wish to change the command on the eve of
+the battle. But, seeing the panic, he galloped through
+the whole of his army to show that he was going to fight
+beside his men. As he passed, and the men saw what he
+intended to do, they cheered and cheered, and took heart
+so boldly that it was hard work to keep them from rushing
+up the heights of Dettingen, where Gramont's 30,000
+Frenchmen were waiting to shoot them down.
+
+Across the river Marshal Noailles, the French
+commander-in-chief, saw the sudden stir in the British
+ranks, heard the roaring hurrahs, and supposed that his
+enemies were going to be fairly caught against Gramont
+in front. In this event he could finish their defeat
+himself by an overwhelming attack in flank. Both his own
+and Gramont's artillery now redoubled their fire, till
+the British could hardly stand it. But then, to the rage
+and despair of Noailles, Gramont's men, thinking the day
+was theirs, suddenly left their strong position and
+charged down on to the same level as the British, who
+were only too pleased to meet them there. The king, seeing
+what a happy turn things were taking, galloped along the
+front of his army, waving his sword and calling out,
+'Now, boys! Now for the honour of England!' His horse,
+maddened by the din, plunged and reared, and would have
+run away with him, straight in among the French, if a
+young officer called Trapaud had not seized the reins.
+The king then dismounted and put himself at the head of
+his troops, where he remained fighting, sword in hand,
+till the battle was over.
+
+Wolfe and his major rode along the line of their regiment
+for the last time. There was not a minute to lose. Down
+came the Royal Musketeers of France, full gallop, smash.
+through the Scots Fusiliers and into the line in rear,
+where most of them were unhorsed and killed. Next, both
+sides advanced their cavalry, but without advantage to
+either. Then, with a clear front once more, the main
+bodies of the French and British infantry rushed together
+for a fight to a finish. Nearly all of Wolfe's regiment
+were new to war and too excited to hold their fire. When
+they were within range, and had halted for a moment to
+steady the ranks, they brought their muskets down to the
+'present.' The French fell flat on their faces and the
+bullets whistled harmlessly over them. Then they sprang
+to their feet and poured in a steady volley while the
+British were reloading. But the second British volley
+went home. When the two enemies closed on each other with
+the bayonet, like the meeting of two stormy seas, the
+British fought with such fury that the French ranks were
+broken. Soon the long white waves rolled back and the
+long red waves rolled forward. Dettingen was reached and
+the desperate fight was won.
+
+Both the boy-officers wrote home, Edward to his mother;
+James to his father. Here is a part of Edward's letter:
+
+   My brother and self escaped in the engagement and,
+   thank God, are as well as ever we were in our lives,
+   after not only being cannonaded two hours and
+   three-quarters, and fighting with small arms [muskets
+   and bayonets] two hours and one-quarter, but lay the
+   two following nights upon our arms; whilst it rained
+   for about twenty hours in the same time, yet are ready
+   and as capable to do the same again. The Duke of
+   Cumberland behaved charmingly. Our regiment has got
+   a great deal of honour, for we were in the middle of
+   the first line, and in the greatest danger. My brother
+   has wrote to my father and I believe has given him a
+   small account of the battle, so I hope you will excuse
+   it me.
+
+A manly and soldier-like letter for a boy of fifteen!
+Wolfe's own is much longer and full of touches that show
+how cool and observant he was, even in his first battle
+and at the age of only sixteen. Here is some of it:
+
+   The Gens d'Armes, or Mousquetaires Gris, attacked the
+   first line, composed of nine regiments of English
+   foot, and four or five of Austrians, and some
+   Hanoverians. But before they got to the second line,
+   out of two hundred there were not forty living. These
+   unhappy men were of the first families in France.
+   Nothing, I believe, could be more rash than their
+   undertaking. The third and last attack was made by
+   the foot on both sides. We advanced towards one another;
+   our men in high spirits, and very impatient for
+   fighting, being elated with beating the French Horse,
+   part of which advanced towards us; while the rest
+   attacked our Horse, but were soon driven back by the
+   great fire we gave them. The major and I (for we had
+   neither colonel nor lieutenant-colonel), before they
+   came near, were employed in begging and ordering the
+   men not to fire at too great a distance, but to keep
+   it till the enemy should come near us; but to little
+   purpose. The whole fired when they thought they could
+   reach them, which had like to have ruined us. However,
+   we soon rallied again, and attacked them with great
+   fury, which gained us a complete victory, and forced
+   the enemy to retire in great haste. We got the sad
+   news of the death of as good and brave a man as any
+   amongst us, General Clayton. His death gave us all
+   sorrow, so great was the opinion we had of him. He
+   had, 'tis said, orders for pursuing the enemy, and if
+   we had followed them, they would not have repassed
+   the Main with half their number. Their loss is computed
+   to be between six and seven thousand men, and ours
+   three thousand. His Majesty was in the midst of the
+   fight; and the duke behaved as bravely as a man could
+   do. I had several times the honour of speaking with
+   him just as the battle began and was often afraid of
+   his being dashed to pieces by the cannon-balls. He
+   gave his orders with a great deal of calmness and
+   seemed quite unconcerned. The soldiers were in high
+   delight to have him so near them. I sometimes thought
+   I had lost poor Ned when I saw arms, legs, and heads
+   beat off close by him. A horse I rid of the colonel's,
+   at the first attack, was shot in one of his hinder
+   legs and threw me; so I was obliged to do the duty of
+   an adjutant all that and the next day on foot, in a
+   pair of heavy boots. Three days after the battle I
+   got the horse again, and he is almost well.
+
+Shortly after Dettingen Wolfe was appointed adjutant and
+promoted to a lieutenancy. In the next year he was made
+a captain in the 4th Foot while his brother became a
+lieutenant in the 12th. After this they had very few
+chances of meeting; and Edward, who had caught a deadly
+chill, died alone in Flanders, not yet seventeen years
+old. Wolfe wrote home to his mother:
+
+   Poor Ned wanted nothing but the satisfaction of seeing
+   his dearest friends to leave the world with the greatest
+   tranquillity. It gives me many uneasy hours when I
+   reflect on the possibility there was of my being with
+   him before he died. God knows it was not apprehending
+   the danger the poor fellow was in; and even that would
+   not have hindered it had I received the physician's
+   first letter. I know you won't be able to read this
+   without shedding tears, as I do writing it. Though it
+   is the custom of the army to sell the deceased's
+   effects, I could not suffer it. We none of us want,
+   and I thought the best way would be to bestow them on
+   the deserving whom he had an esteem for in his lifetime.
+   To his servant--the most honest and faithful man I
+   ever knew--I gave all his clothes. I gave his horse
+   to his friend Parry. I know he loved Parry; and for
+   that reason the horse will be taken care of. His other
+   horse I keep myself. I have his watch, sash, gorget,
+   books, and maps, which I shall preserve to his memory.
+   He was an honest and good lad, had lived very well,
+   and always discharged his duty with the cheerfulness
+   becoming a good officer. He lived and died as a son
+   of you two should. There was no part of his life that
+   makes him dearer to me than what you so often
+   mentioned--_he pined after me_.
+
+It was this pining to follow Wolfe to the wars that cost
+poor Ned his life. But did not Wolfe himself pine to
+follow his father?
+
+The next year, 1745, the Young Pretender, 'Bonnie Prince
+Charlie,' raised the Highland clans on behalf of his
+father, won several battles, and invaded England, in the
+hope of putting the Hanoverian Georges off the throne of
+Great Britain and regaining it for the exiled Stuarts.
+The Duke of Cumberland was sent to crush him; and with
+the duke went Wolfe. Prince Charlie's army retreated and
+was at last brought to bay on Culloden Moor, six miles
+from Inverness. The Highlanders were not in good spirits
+after their long retreat before the duke's army, which
+enjoyed an immense advantage in having a fleet following
+it along the coast with plenty of provisions, while the
+prince's wretched army was half starved. We may be sure
+the lesson was not lost on Wolfe. Nobody understood better
+than he that the fleet is the first thing to consider in
+every British war. And nobody saw a better example of
+this than he did afterwards in Canada.
+
+At daybreak on April 16, 1746, the Highlanders found the
+duke's army marching towards Inverness, and drew up in
+order to prevent it. Both armies halted, each hoping the
+other would make the mistake of charging. At last, about
+one o'clock, the Highlanders in the centre and right
+could be held back no longer. So eager were they to get
+at the redcoats that most of them threw down their muskets
+without even firing them, and then rushed on furiously,
+sword in hand. ''Twas for a time,' said Wolfe, 'a dispute
+between the swords and bayonets, but the latter was found
+by far the most destructable [sic] weapon.' No quarter
+was given or taken on either side during an hour of
+desperate fighting hand to hand. By that time the steady
+ranks of the redcoats, aided by the cavalry, had killed
+five times as many as they had lost by the wild slashing
+of the claymores. The Highlanders turned and fled. The
+Stuart cause was lost for ever.
+
+Again another year of fighting: this time in Holland,
+where the British, Dutch, and Austrians under the Duke
+of Cumberland met the French at the village of Laffeldt,
+on June 21, 1747. Wolfe was now a brigade-major, which
+gave him the same sort of position in a brigade of three
+battalions as an adjutant has in a single one; that is,
+he was a smart junior officer picked out to help the
+brigadier in command by seeing that orders were obeyed.
+The fight was furious. As fast as the British infantry
+drove back one French brigade another came forward and
+drove the British back. The village was taken and lost,
+lost and taken, over and over again. Wolfe, though wounded,
+kept up the fight. At last a new French brigade charged
+in and swept the British out altogether. Then the duke
+ordered the Dutch and Austrians to advance: But the Dutch
+cavalry, right in the centre, were seized with a sudden
+panic and galloped back, knocking over their own men on
+the way, and making a gap that certainly looked fatal.
+But the right man was ready to fill it. This was Sir John
+Ligonier, afterwards commander-in-chief of the British
+Army at the time of Wolfe's campaigns in Canada. He led
+the few British and Austrian cavalry, among them the
+famous Scots Greys, straight into the gap and on against
+the dense masses of the French beyond. These gallant
+horsemen were doomed; and of course they knew it when
+they dashed themselves to death against such overwhelming
+odds. But they gained the few precious moments that were
+needed. The gap closed up behind them; and the army was
+saved, though they were lost.
+
+During the day Wolfe was several times in great danger.
+He was thanked by the duke in person for the splendid
+way in which he had done his duty. The royal favour,
+however, did not make him forget the gallant conduct of
+his faithful servant, Roland: 'He came to me at the hazard
+of his life with offers of his service, took off my cloak
+and brought a fresh horse; and would have continued close
+by me had I not ordered him to retire. I believe he was
+slightly wounded just at that time. Many a time has he
+pitched my tent and made the bed ready to receive me,
+half-dead with fatigue.' Nor did Wolfe forget his dumb
+friends: 'I have sold my poor little gray mare. I lamed
+her by accident, and thought it better to dismiss her
+the service immediately. I grieved at parting with so
+faithful a servant, and have the comfort to know she is
+in good hands, will be very well fed, and taken care of
+in her latter days.'
+
+After recovering from a slight wound received at Laffeldt
+Wolfe was allowed to return to England, where he remained
+for the winter. On the morrow of New Year's Day, 1748,
+he celebrated his coming of age at his father's town
+house in Old Burlington Street, London. In the spring,
+however, he was ordered to rejoin the army, and was
+stationed with the troops who were guarding the Dutch
+frontier. The war came to an end in the same year, and
+Wolfe went home. Though then only twenty-one, he was
+already an experienced soldier, a rising officer, and a
+marked man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE SEVEN YEARS' PEACE
+1748-1755
+
+Wolfe was made welcome in England wherever he went. In
+spite of his youth his name was well known to the chief
+men in the Army, and he was already a hero among the
+friends of his family. By nature he was fond of the
+society of ladies, and of course he fell in love. He had
+had a few flirtations before, like most other soldiers;
+but this time the case was serious. The difference was
+the same as between a sham fight and a battle. His choice
+fell on Elizabeth Lawson, a maid of honour to the Princess
+of Wales. The oftener he saw her the more he fell in love
+with her. But the course of true love did not, as we
+shall presently see, run any more smoothly for him than
+it has for many another famous man.
+
+In 1749, when Wolfe was only twenty-two, he was promoted
+major of the 20th Regiment of Foot. He joined it in
+Scotland, where he was to serve for the next few years.
+At first he was not very happy in Glasgow. He did not
+like the people, as they were very different from the
+friends with whom he had grown up. Yet his loneliness
+only added to his zeal for study. He had left school when
+still very young, and he now found himself ignorant of
+much that he wished to know. As a man of the world he
+had found plenty of gaps in his general knowledge. Writing
+to his friend Captain Rickson, he says: 'When a man leaves
+his studies at fifteen, he will never be justly called
+a man of letters. I am endeavouring to repair the damages
+of my education, and have a person to teach me Latin and
+mathematics.' From his experience in his own profession,
+also, he had learned a good deal. In a letter to his
+father he points out what excellent chances soldiers have
+to see the vivid side of many things: 'That variety
+incident to a military life gives our profession some
+advantages over those of a more even nature. We have all
+our passions and affections aroused and exercised, many
+of which must have wanted their proper employment had
+not suitable occasions obliged us to exert them. Few men
+know their own courage till danger proves them, or how
+far the love of honour or dread of shame are superior to
+the love of life. This is a knowledge to be best acquired
+in an army; our actions are there in presence of the
+world, to be fully censured or approved.'
+
+Great commanders are always keen to learn everything
+really worth while. It is only the little men who find
+it a bore. Of course, there are plenty of little men in
+a regiment, as there are everywhere else in the world;
+and some of the officers were afraid Wolfe would insist
+on their doing as he did. But he never preached. He only
+set the example, and those who had the sense could follow
+it. One of his captains wrote home: 'Our acting colonel
+here is a paragon. He neither drinks, curses, nor gambles.
+So we make him our pattern.' After a year with him the
+officers found him a 'jolly good fellow' as well as a
+pattern; and when he became their lieutenant-colonel at
+twenty-three they gave him a dinner that showed he was
+a prime favourite among them. He was certainly quite as
+popular with the men. Indeed, he soon became known by a
+name which speaks for itself--'the soldier's' friend.'
+
+By and by Wolfe's regiment marched into the Highlands,
+where he had fought against Prince Charlie in the '45.
+But he kept in touch with what was going on in the world
+outside. He wrote to Rickson at Halifax, to find out for
+him all he could about the French and British colonies
+in America. In the same letter, written in 1751, he said
+he should like to see some Highland soldiers raised for
+the king's army and sent out there to fight. Eight years
+later he was to have a Highland regiment among his own
+army at Quebec. Other themes filled the letters to his
+mother. Perhaps he was thinking of Miss Lawson when he
+wrote: 'I have a certain turn of mind that favours
+matrimony prodigiously. I love children. Two or three
+manly sons are a present to the world, and the father
+that offers them sees with satisfaction that he is to
+live in his successors.' He was thinking more gravely of
+a still higher thing when he wrote on his twenty-fifth
+birthday, January 2, 1752, to reassure his mother about
+the strength of his religion.
+
+Later on in the year, having secured leave of absence,
+he wrote to his mother in the best of spirits. He asked
+her to look after all the little things he wished to have
+done. 'Mr Pattison sends a pointer to Blackheath; if you
+will order him to be tied up in your stable, it will
+oblige me much. If you hear of a servant who can dress
+a wig it will be a favour done me to engage him. I have
+another favour to beg of you and you'll think it an odd
+one: 'tis to order some currant jelly to be made in a
+crock for my use. It is the custom in Scotland to eat it
+in the morning with bread.' Then he proposed to have a
+shooting-lodge in the Highlands, long before any other
+Englishman seems to have thought of what is now so common.
+'You know what a whimsical sort of person I am. Nothing
+pleases me now but hunting, shooting, and fishing. I have
+distant notions of taking a very little house, remote
+upon the edge of the forest, merely for sport.'
+
+In July he left the Highlands, which were then, in some
+ways, as wild as Labrador is now. About this time there
+was a map made by a Frenchman in Paris which gave all
+the chief places in the Lowlands quite rightly, but left
+the north of Scotland blank, with the words 'Unknown land
+here, inhabited by the "Iglandaires"!' When his leave
+began Wolfe went first to Dublin--'dear, dirty Dublin,'
+as it used to be called--where his uncle, Major Walter
+Wolfe, was living. He wrote to his father: 'The streets
+are crowded with people of a large size and well limbed,
+and the women very handsome. They have clearer skins,
+and fairer complexions than the women in England or
+Scotland, and are exceeding straight and well made';
+which shows that he had the proper soldier's eye for
+every pretty girl. Then he went to London and visited
+his parents in their new house at the corner of Greenwich
+Park, which stands to-day very much the same as it was
+then. But, wishing to travel, he succeeded, after a great
+deal of trouble, in getting leave to go to Paris. Lord
+Bury was a friend of his, and Lord Bury's father, the
+Earl of Albemarle, was the British ambassador there. So
+he had a good chance of seeing the best of everything.
+Perhaps it would be almost as true to say that he had as
+good a chance of seeing the worst of everything. For
+there were a great many corrupt and corrupting men and
+women at the French court. There was also much misery in
+France, and both the corruption and the misery were soon
+to trouble New France, as Canada was then called, even
+more than they troubled Old France at home.
+
+Wolfe wished to travel about freely, to see the French
+armies at work, and then to go on to Prussia to see how
+Frederick the Great managed his perfectly disciplined
+army. This would have been an excellent thing to do. But
+it was then a very new thing for an officer to ask leave
+to study foreign armies. Moreover, the chief men in the
+British Army did not like the idea of letting such a good
+colonel go away from his regiment for a year, even though
+he was going with the object of making himself a still
+better officer. Perhaps, too, his friends were just a
+little afraid that he might join the Prussians or the
+Austrians; for it was not, in those days, a very strange
+thing to join the army of a friendly foreign country.
+Whatever the reason, the long leave was refused and he
+went no farther than Paris.
+
+Louis XV was then at the height of his apparent greatness;
+and France was a great country, as it is still. But king
+and government were both corrupt. Wolfe saw this well
+enough and remembered it when the next war broke out.
+There was a brilliant society in 'the capital of
+civilization,' as the people of Paris proudly called
+their city; and there was a great deal to see. Nor was
+all of it bad. He wrote home two days after his arrival.
+
+   The packet [ferry] did not sail that night, but we
+   embarked at half-an-hour after six in the morning and
+   got into Calais at ten. I never suffered so much in
+   so short a time at sea. The people [in Paris] seem to
+   be very sprightly. The buildings are very magnificent,
+   far surpassing any we have in London. Mr Selwin has
+   recommended a French master to me, and in a few days
+   I begin to ride in the Academy, but must dance and
+   fence in my own lodgings. Lord Albemarle [the British
+   ambassador] is come from Fontainebleau. I have very
+   good reason to be pleased with the reception I met
+   with. The best amusement for strangers in Paris is
+   the Opera, and the next is the playhouse. The theatre
+   is a school to acquire the French language, for which
+   reason I frequent it more than the other.
+
+In Paris he met young Philip Stanhope, the boy to whom
+the Earl of Chesterfield wrote his celebrated letters;
+'but,' says Wolfe, 'I fancy he is infinitely inferior to
+his father.' Keeping fit, as we call it nowadays, seems
+to have been Wolfe's first object. He took the same care
+of himself as the Japanese officers did in the
+Russo-Japanese War; and for the same reason, that he
+might be the better able to serve his country well the
+next time she needed him. Writing to his mother he says:
+
+   I am up every morning at or before seven and fully
+   employed till twelve. Then I dress and visit, and dine
+   at two. At five most people go to the public
+   entertainments, which keep you till nine; and at eleven
+   I am always in bed. This way of living is directly
+   opposite to the practice of the place. But no
+   constitution could go through all. Four or five days
+   in the week I am up six hours before any other fine
+   gentleman in Paris. I ride, fence, dance, and have a
+   master to teach me French. I succeed much better in
+   fencing and riding than in the art of dancing, for
+   they suit my genius better; and I improve a little in
+   French. I have no great acquaintance with the French
+   women, nor am likely to have. It is almost impossible
+   to introduce one's self among them without losing a
+   great deal of money, which you know I can't afford;
+   besides, these entertainments begin at the time I go
+   to bed, and I have not health enough to sit up all
+   night and work all day. The people here use umbrellas
+   to defend them from the sun, and something of the same
+   kind to secure them from the rain and snow. I wonder
+   a practice so useful is not introduced into England.
+
+While in Paris Wolfe was asked if he would care to be
+military tutor to the Duke of Richmond, or, if not,
+whether he knew of any good officer whom he could recommend.
+On this he named Guy Carleton, who became the young duke's
+tutor. Three men afterwards well known in Canada were
+thus brought together long before any of them became
+celebrated. The Duke of Richmond went into Wolfe's
+regiment. The next duke became a governor-general of
+Canada, as Guy Carleton had been before him. And
+Wolfe--well, he was Wolfe!
+
+One day he was presented to King Louis, from whom, seven
+years later; he was to wrest Quebec. 'They were all very
+gracious as far as courtesies, bows, and smiles go, for
+the Bourbons seldom speak to anybody.' Then he was
+presented to the clever Marquise de Pompadour, whom he
+found having her hair done up in the way which is still
+known by her name to every woman in the world. It was
+the regular custom of that time for great ladies to
+receive their friends while the barbers were at work on
+their hair. 'She is extremely handsome and, by her
+conversation with the ambassador, I judge she must have
+a great deal of wit and understanding.' But it was her
+court intrigues and her shameless waste of money that
+helped to ruin France and Canada.
+
+In the midst of all these gaieties Wolfe never forgot
+the mother whom he thought 'a match for all the beauties.'
+He sent her 'two black laced hoods and a _vestale_ for
+the neck, such as the Queen of France wears.' Nor did he
+forget the much humbler people who looked upon him as
+'the soldier's friend.' He tells his mother that his
+letters from Scotland have just arrived, and that 'the.
+women of the regiment take it into their heads to write
+to me sometimes.' Here is one of their letters, marked
+on the outside, 'The Petition of Anne White':
+
+   Collonnell,--Being a True Noble-hearted Pittyful
+   gentleman and Officer your Worship will excuse these
+   few Lines concerning ye husband of ye undersigned,
+   Sergt. White, who not from his own fault is not behaving
+   as Hee should towards me and his family, although good
+   and faithfull till the middle of November last.
+
+We may be sure 'Sergt. White' had to behave 'as Hee
+should' when Wolfe returned!
+
+In April, to his intense disgust, Wolfe was again in
+Glasgow.
+
+   We are all sick, officers and soldiers. In two days
+   we lost the skin off our faces with the sun, and the
+   third were shivering in great coats. My cousin Goldsmith
+   has sent me the finest young pointer that ever was
+   seen; he eclipses Workie, and outdoes all. He sent me
+   a fishing-rod and wheel at the same time, of his own
+   workmanship. This, with a salmon-rod from my uncle
+   Wat, your flies, and my own guns, put me in a condition
+   to undertake the Highland sport. We have plays, we
+   have concerts, we have balls, with dinners and suppers
+   of the most execrable food upon earth, and wine that
+   approaches to poison. The men of Glasgow drink till
+   they are excessively drunk. The ladies are cold to
+   everything but a bagpipe--I wrong them--there is not
+   one that does not melt away at the sound of money.'
+
+By the end of this year, however, he had left Scotland
+for good. He did not like the country as he saw it. But
+the times were greatly against his doing so. Glasgow was
+not at all a pleasant place in those narrowly provincial
+days for any one who had seen much of the world. The
+Highlands were as bad. They were full of angry Jacobites,
+who could never forgive the redcoats for defeating Prince
+Charlie. Yet Wolfe was not against the Scots as a whole;
+and we must never forget that he was the first to recommend
+the raising of those Highland regiments which have fought
+so nobly in every British war since the mighty one in
+which he fell.
+
+During the next year and part of the year following,
+1754-55, Wolfe was at Exeter, where the entertainments
+seem to have been more to his taste than those at Glasgow.
+A lady who knew him well at this time wrote: 'He was
+generally ambitious to gain a tall, graceful woman to be
+his partner, as well as a good dancer. He seemed emulous
+to display every kind of virtue and gallantry that would
+render him amiable.'
+
+In 1755 the Seven Years' Peace was coming to an end in
+Europe. The shadow of the Seven Years' War was already
+falling darkly across the prospect in America. Though
+Wolfe did not leave for the front till 1757, he was
+constantly receiving orders to be ready, first for one
+place and then for another. So early as February 18,
+1755, he wrote to his mother what he then thought might
+be a farewell letter. It is full of the great war; but
+personal affairs of the deeper kind were by no means
+forgotten. 'The success of our fleet in the beginning of
+the war is of the utmost importance.' 'It will be sufficient
+comfort to you both to reflect that the Power which has
+hitherto preserved me may, if it be His pleasure, continue
+to do so. If not, it is but a few days more or less, and
+those who perish in their duty and the service of their
+country die honourably.'
+
+The end of this letter is in a lighter vein. But it is
+no less characteristic: it is all about his dogs. 'You
+are to have Flurry instead of Romp. The two puppies I
+must desire you to keep a little longer. I can't part
+with either of them, but must find good and secure quarters
+for them as well as for my friend Caesar, who has great
+merit and much good humour. I have given Sancho to Lord
+Howe, so that I am reduced to two spaniels and one
+pointer.' It is strange that in the many books about dogs
+which mention the great men who have been fond of them
+--and most great men are fond of dogs--not one says a
+word about Wolfe. Yet 'my friend Caesar, who has great
+merit and much good humour,' deserves to be remembered
+with his kind master just as much, in his way, as that
+other Caesar, the friend of Edward VII, who followed his
+master to the grave among the kings and princes of a
+mourning world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR
+1756-1763
+
+Wolfe's Quebec campaign marked the supreme crisis of the
+greatest war the British Empire ever waged: the war,
+indeed, that made the Empire. To get a good, clear view
+of anything so vast, so complex, and so glorious, we must
+first look at the whole course of British history to see
+how it was that France and England ever became such deadly
+rivals. It is quite wrong to suppose that the French and
+British were always enemies, though they have often been
+called 'historic' and 'hereditary' foes, as if they never
+could make friends at all. As a matter of fact, they have
+had many more centuries of peace than of war; and ever
+since the battle of Waterloo, in 1815, they have been
+growing friendlier year by year. But this happy state of
+affairs is chiefly because, as we now say, their 'vital
+interests no longer clash'; that is, they do not both
+desire the same thing so keenly that they have to fight
+for it.
+
+Their vital interests do not clash now. But they did
+clash twice in the course of their history. The first
+time was when both governments wished to rule the same
+parts of the land of France. The second time was when
+they both wished to rule the same parts of the oversea
+world. Each time there was a long series of wars, which
+went on inevitably until one side had completely driven
+its rival from the field.
+
+The first long series of wars took place chiefly in the
+fourteenth century and is known to history as the Hundred
+Years' War. England held, and was determined to hold,
+certain parts of France. France was determined never to
+rest till she had won them for herself. Whatever other
+things the two nations were supposed to be fighting about,
+this was always the one cause of strife that never changed
+and never could change till one side or other had definitely
+triumphed. France won. There were glorious English
+victories at Cressy and Agincourt. Edward III and Henry V
+were two of the greatest soldiers of any age. But, though
+the English often won the battles, the French won the
+war. The French had many more men, they fought near
+their own homes, and, most important of all, the war was
+waged chiefly on land. The English had fewer men, they
+fought far away from their homes, and their ships could
+not help them much in the middle of the land, except by
+bringing over soldiers and food to the nearest coast.
+The end of it all was that the English armies were worn
+out; and the French armies, always able to raise more
+and more fresh men, drove them, step by step, out of the
+land completely.
+
+The second long series of wars took place chiefly in the
+eighteenth century. These wars have never been given one
+general name; but they should be called the Second Hundred
+Years' War, because that is what they really were. They
+were very different from the wars that made up the first
+Hundred Years' War, because this time the fight was for
+oversea dominions, not for land in Europe. Of course
+navies had a good deal to do with the first Hundred Years'
+War and armies with the second. But the navies were even
+more important in the second than the armies in the first.
+The Second Hundred Years' War, the one in which Wolfe
+did such a mighty deed, began with the fall of the Stuart
+kings of England in 1688 and went on till the battle of
+Waterloo in 1815. But the beginning and end that meant
+most to the Empire were the naval battles of La Hogue in
+1692 and Trafalgar in 1805. Since Trafalgar the Empire
+has been able to keep what it had won before, and to go
+on growing as well, because all its different parts are
+joined together by the sea, and because the British Navy
+has been, from that day to this, stronger than any other
+navy in the world.
+
+How the French and British armies and navies fought on
+opposite sides, either alone or with allies, all over
+the world, from time to time, for these hundred and
+twenty-seven years; how all the eight wars with different
+names formed one long Second Hundred Years' War; and how
+the British Navy was the principal force that won the
+whole of this war, made the Empire, and gave Canada safety
+then, as it gives her safety now--all this is much too
+long a story to tell here. But the gist of it may be told
+in a very few words, at least in so far as it concerns
+the winning of Canada and the deeds of Wolfe.
+
+The name 'Greater Britain' is often used to describe all
+the parts of the British Empire which lie outside of the
+old mother country. This 'Greater Britain' is now so
+vast and well established that we are apt to forget those
+other empires beyond the seas which, each in its own day,
+surpassed the British Empire of the same period. There
+was a Greater Portugal, a Greater Spain, a Greater Holland,
+and a Greater France. France and Holland still have
+large oversea possessions; and a whole new-world continent
+still speaks the languages of Spain and Portugal. But
+none of them has kept a growing empire oversea as their
+British rival has. What made the difference? The two
+things that made all the difference in the world were
+freedom and sea-power. We cannot stop to discuss freedom,
+because that is more the affair of statesmen; but, at
+the same time, we must not forget that the side on which
+Wolfe fought was the side of freedom. The point for us
+to notice here is that all the freedom and all the
+statesmen and all the soldiers put together could never
+have made a Greater Britain, especially against all those
+other rivals, unless Wolfe's side had also been the side
+of sea-power.
+
+Now, sea-power means more than fighting power at sea; it
+means trading power as well. But a nation cannot trade
+across the sea against its rivals if its own ships are
+captured and theirs are not. And long before the Second
+Hundred Years' War with France the other sea-trading
+empires had been gradually giving way, because in time
+of war their ships were always in greater danger than
+those of the British were. After the English Navy had
+defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588 the Spaniards began,
+slowly but surely, to lose their chance of making a
+permanent Greater Spain. After the great Dutch War, when
+Blake defeated Van Tromp in 1653, there was no further
+chance of a permanent Greater Holland. And, even before
+the Dutch War and the Armada, the Portuguese, who had
+once ruled the Indian Ocean and who had conquered Brazil,
+were themselves conquered by Spain and shut out from all
+chance of establishing a Greater Portugal.
+
+So the one supreme point to be decided by the Second
+Hundred Years' War lay between only two rivals, France
+and Britain. Was there to be a Greater France or a Greater
+Britain across the seas? The answer depended on the rival
+navies. Of course, it involved many other elements of
+national and Imperial power on both sides. But no other
+elements of power could have possibly prevailed against
+a hostile and triumphant navy.
+
+Everything that went to make a Greater France or a Greater
+Britain had to cross the sea--men, women, and children,
+horses and cattle, all the various appliances a civilized
+people must take with them when they settle in a new
+country. Every time there was war there were battles at
+sea, and these battles were nearly always won by the
+British. Every British victory at sea made it harder for
+French trade, because every ship between France and
+Greater France ran more risk o being taken, while every
+ship between Britain and Greater Britain stood a better
+chance of getting safely through. This affected everything
+on both competing sides in America. British business went
+on. French business almost stopped dead. Even the trade
+with the Indians living a thousand miles inland was
+changed in favour of the British and against the French,
+as all the guns and knives and beads and everything else
+that the white man offered to the Indian in exchange for
+his furs had to come across the sea, which was just like
+an enemy's country to every French ship, but just like
+her own to every British one. Thus the victors at sea
+grew continually stronger in America, while the losers
+grew correspondingly weaker. When peace came, the French
+only had time enough to build new ships and start their
+trade again before the next war set them back once more;
+while the British had nearly all their old ships, all
+those they had taken from the French, and many new ones.
+
+But where did Wolfe come in? He came in at the most
+important time and place of all, and he did the most
+important single deed of all. This brings us to the
+consideration of how the whole of the Second Hundred
+Years' War was won, not by the British Navy alone, much
+less by the Army alone, but by the united service of
+both, fighting like the two arms of one body, the Navy
+being the right arm and the Army the left. The heart of
+this whole Second Hundred Years' War was the Seven Years'
+War; the British part of the Seven Years' War was then
+called the 'Maritime War'; and the heart of the 'Maritime
+War' was the winning of Canada, in which the decisive
+blow was dealt by Wolfe.
+
+We shall see presently how Navy and Army worked together
+as a united service in 'joint expeditions' by sea and
+land, how Wolfe took part in two other joint expeditions
+before he commanded the land force of the one at Quebec,
+and how the mighty empire-making statesman, William Pitt,
+won the day for Britain and for Greater Britain, with
+Lord Anson at the head of the Navy to help him, and
+Saunders in command at the front. It was thus that the
+age-long vexed question of a Greater France or a Greater
+Britain in America was finally decided by the sword. The
+conquering sword was that of the British Empire as a
+whole. But the hand that wielded it was Pitt; the hilt was
+Anson, the blade was Saunders, and the point was Wolfe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LOUISBOURG
+1758
+
+In 1755 Wolfe was already writing what he thought were
+farewell letters before going off to the war. And that
+very year the war, though not formally declared till the
+next, actually did break out in America, where a British
+army under Braddock, with Washington as his aide-de-camp,
+was beaten in Ohio by the French and Indians. Next year
+the French, owing to the failure of Admiral Byng and the
+British fleet to assist the garrison, were able to capture
+Minorca in the Mediterranean; while their new general in
+Canada, Montcalm, Wolfe's great opponent, took Oswego.
+The triumph of the French fleet at Minorca made the
+British people furious. Byng was court-martialled, found
+guilty of failure to do his utmost to save Minorca, and
+condemned to death. In spite of Pitt's efforts to save
+him, the sentence was carried out and he was shot on the
+quarter-deck of his own flagship. Two other admirals,
+Hawke and Saunders, both of whom were soon to see service
+with Wolfe, were then sent out as a 'cargo of courage'
+to retrieve the British position at sea. By this time
+preparations were being hurried forward on every hand.
+Fleets were fitting out. Armies were mustering. And, best
+of all, Pitt was just beginning to make his influence felt.
+
+In 1757, the third year of war, things still went badly
+for the British at the front. In America Montcalm took
+Fort William Henry, and a British fleet and army failed
+to accomplish anything against Louisbourg. In Europe
+another British fleet and army were fitted out to go on
+another joint expedition, this time against Rochefort,
+a great seaport in the west of France. The senior staff
+officer, next to the three generals in command, was Wolfe,
+now thirty years of age. The admiral in charge of the
+fleet was Hawke, as famous a fighter as Wolfe himself.
+A little later, when both these great men were known
+throughout the whole United Service, as well as among
+the millions in Britain and in Greater Britain, their
+names were coupled in countless punning toasts, and
+patriots from Canada to Calcutta would stand up to drink
+a health to 'the eye of a Hawke and the heart of a Wolfe.'
+But Wolfe was not a general yet; and the three pottering
+old men who were generals at Rochefort could not make up
+their minds to do anything but talk. These generals had
+been ordered to take Rochefort by complete surprise. But
+after spending five days in front of it, so that every
+Frenchman could see what they had come for, they decided
+to countermand the attack and sail home.
+
+Wolfe was a very angry and disgusted man. Yet, though
+this joint expedition was a disgraceful failure, he had
+learned some useful lessons, which he was presently to
+turn to good account. He saw, at least, what such
+expeditions should not attempt; and that a general should
+act boldly, though wisely, with the fleet. More than
+this, he had himself made a plan which his generals were
+too timid to carry out; and this plan was so good that
+Pitt, now in supreme control for the next four years,
+made a note of it and marked him down for promotion and
+command.
+
+Both came sooner than any one could have expected. Pitt
+was sick of fleets and armies that did nothing but hold
+councils of war and then come back to say that the enemy
+could not be safely attacked. He made up his mind to send
+out real fighters with the next joint expedition. So in
+1758 he appointed Wolfe as the junior of the three
+brigadier-generals under Amherst, who was to join Admiral
+Boscawen--nicknamed 'Old Dreadnought'--in a great expedition
+meant to take Louisbourg for good and all.
+
+Louisbourg was the greatest fortress in America. It was
+in the extreme east of Canada, on the island of Cape
+Breton, near the best fishing-grounds, and on the flank
+of the ship channel into the St Lawrence. A fortress
+there, in which French fleets could shelter safely, was
+like a shield for New France and a sword against New
+England. In 1745, just before the outbreak of the Jacobite
+rebellion in Scotland, an army of New Englanders under
+Sir William Pepperrell, with the assistance of Commodore
+Warren's fleet, had taken this fortress. But at the peace
+of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, when Wolfe had just come of
+age, it was given back to France.
+
+Ten years later, when Wolfe went out to join the second
+army that was sent against it, the situation was extremely
+critical. Both French and British strained every nerve,
+the one to hold, the other to take, the greatest fortress
+in America. A French fleet sailed from Brest in the spring
+and arrived safely. But it was not nearly strong enough
+to attempt a sea-fight off Louisbourg, and three smaller
+fleets that were meant to join it were all smashed up
+off the coast of France by the British, who thus knew,
+before beginning the siege, that Louisbourg could hardly
+expect any help from outside. Hawke was one of the British
+smashers this year. The next year he smashed up a much
+greater force in Quiberon Bay, and so made 'the eye of
+a Hawke and the heart of a Wolfe' work together again,
+though they were thousands of miles apart and one directed
+a fleet while the other inspired an army.
+
+The fortress of Louisbourg was built beside a fine harbour
+with an entrance still further defended by a fortified
+island. It was garrisoned by about four thousand four
+hundred soldiers. Some of these were hired Germans, who
+cared nothing for the French; and the French-Canadian
+and Indian irregulars were not of much use at a regular
+siege. The British admiral Boscawen had a large fleet,
+and General Amherst an army twelve thousand strong. Taking
+everything into account, by land and sea, the British
+united service at the siege was quite three times as
+strong as the French united service. But the French ships,
+manned by three thousand sailors, were in a good harbour,
+and they and the soldiers were defended by thick walls
+with many guns. Besides, the whole defence was conducted
+by Drucour, as gallant a leader as ever drew sword.
+
+Boscawen was chosen by Pitt for the same reason as Wolfe
+had been, because he was a fighter. He earned his nickname
+of 'Old Dreadnought' from the answer he made one night
+in the English Channel when the officer of the watch
+called him to say that two big French ships were bearing
+down on his single British one. 'What are we to do, sir?'
+asked the officer. 'Do?' shouted Boscawen, springing out
+of his berth, 'Do?--Why, damn 'em, fight 'em, of course!'
+And they did. Amherst was the slow-and-sure kind of
+general; but he had the sense to know a good man when he
+saw one, and to give Wolfe the chance of trying his own
+quick-and-sure way instead.
+
+A portion of the British fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir
+Charles Hardy had been cruising off Louisbourg for some
+time before Boscawen's squadron hove in sight on June 2.
+This squadron was followed by more than twice its own
+number of ships carrying the army. All together, there
+were a hundred and fifty-seven British vessels, besides
+Hardy's covering squadron. Of course, the men could not
+be landed under the fire of the fortress. But two miles
+south of it, and running westward from it for many miles
+more, was Gabarus Bay with an open beach. For several
+days the Atlantic waves dashed against the shore so
+furiously that no boat could live through their breakers.
+But on the eighth the three brigades of infantry made
+for three different points, [Footnote: White Point, Flat
+Point, and Kennington Cove. See the accompanying Map of
+the siege.] respectively two, three, and four miles from
+the fortress. The French sent out half the garrison to
+shoot down the first boatloads that came in on the rollers.
+To cover the landing, some of Boscawen's ships moved in
+as close as they could and threw shells inshore: but
+without dislodging the enemy.
+
+Each of the three brigades had its own flag--one red,
+another blue, and the third white. Wolfe's brigade was
+the red, the one farthest west from Louisbourg, and
+Wolfe's did the fighting. While the boats rose and fell
+on the gigantic rollers and the enemy's cannon roared
+and the waves broke in thunder on the beach, Wolfe was
+standing up in the stern-sheets, scanning every inch of
+the ground to see if there was no place where a few men
+could get a footing and keep it till the rest had landed.
+He had first-rate soldiers with him: grenadiers,
+Highlanders, and light infantry.
+
+The boats were now close in, and the French were firing
+cannon and muskets into them right and left. One cannon-ball
+whizzed across Wolfe's own boat and smashed his flagstaff
+to splinters. Just then three young light infantry officers
+saw a high ledge of rocks, under shelter of which a few
+men could form up. Wolfe, directing every movement with
+his cane, like Gordon in China a century later, shouted
+to the others to follow them; and then, amid the crash
+of artillery and the wild welter of the surf, though many
+boats were smashed and others upset, though some men were
+shot and others drowned, the landing was securely made.
+'Who were the first ashore?' asked Wolfe, as the men were
+forming up under the ledge. Two Highlanders were pointed
+out. 'Good fellows!' he said, as he went up to them and
+handed each a guinea.
+
+While the ranks were forming on the beach, the French
+were firing into them and men were dropping fast. But
+every gap was closed as soon as it was made. Directly
+Wolfe saw he had enough men he sprang to the front;
+whereupon they all charged after him, straight at the
+batteries on the crest of the rising shore. Here there
+was some wild work for a minute or two, with swords,
+bayonets, and muskets all hard at it. But the French now
+saw, to their dismay, that thousands of other redcoats
+were clambering ashore, nearer in to Louisbourg, and that
+these men would cut them off if they waited a moment
+longer. So they turned and ran, hotly pursued, till they
+were safe in under the guns of the fortress. A deluge of
+shot and shell immediately belched forth against the
+pursuing British, who wisely halted just out of range.
+
+After this exciting commencement Amherst's guns, shot,
+shell, powder, stores, food, tents, and a thousand other
+things had all to be landed on the surf-lashed, open
+beach. It was the sailors' stupendous task to haul the
+whole of this cumbrous material up to the camp. The
+bluejackets, however, were not the only ones to take part
+in the work, for the ships' women also turned to, with
+the best of a gallant goodwill. In a few days all the
+material was landed; and Amherst, having formed his camp,
+sat down to conduct the siege.
+
+Louisbourg harbour faces east, runs in westward nearly
+a mile, and is over two miles from north to south. The
+north and south points, however, on either side of its
+entrance, are only a mile apart. On the south point stood
+the fortress; on the north the lighthouse; and between
+were several islands, rocks, and bars that narrowed the
+entrance for ships to only three cables, or a little more
+than six hundred yards. Wolfe saw that the north point,
+where the lighthouse stood, was undefended, and might be
+seized and used as a British battery to smash up the
+French batteries on Goat Island at the harbour mouth.
+Acting on this idea, he marched with twelve hundred men
+across the stretch of country between the British camp
+and the lighthouse. The fleet brought round his guns and
+stores and all other necessaries by sea. A tremendous
+bombardment then silenced every French gun on Goat Island.
+This left the French nothing for their defence but the
+walls of Louisbourg itself.
+
+Both French and British soon realized that the fall of
+Louisbourg was only a question of time. But time was
+everything to both. The British were anxious to take
+Louisbourg and then sail up to Quebec and take it by
+a sudden attack while Montcalm was engaged in fighting
+Abercromby's army on Lake Champlain. The French, of
+course, were anxious to hold out long enough to prevent
+this; and Drucour, their commandant at Louisbourg, was
+just the man for their purpose. His wife, too, was as
+brave as he. She used to go round the batteries cheering
+up the gunners, and paying no more attention to the
+British shot and shell than if they had been only fireworks.
+On June 18, just before Wolfe's lighthouse batteries were
+ready to open fire, Madame Drucour set sail in the
+venturesome _Echo_, a little French man-of-war that was
+making a dash for it, in the hope of carrying the news
+to Quebec. But after a gallant fight the _Echo_ had to
+haul down her colours to the _Juno_ and the _Sutherland_.
+We shall hear more of the _Sutherland_ at the supreme
+moment of Wolfe's career.
+
+Nothing French, not even a single man, could now get into
+or out of Louisbourg. But Drucour still kept the flag
+up, and sent out parties at night to harass his assailants.
+One of these surprised a British post, killed Lord
+Dundonald who commanded it, and retired safely after
+being almost cut off by British reinforcements. Though
+Wolfe had silenced the island batteries and left the
+entrance open enough for Boscawen to sail in, the admiral
+hesitated because he thought he might lose too many ships
+by risking it. Then the French promptly sank some of
+their own ships at the entrance to keep him out. But six
+hundred British sailors rowed in at night and boarded
+and took the only two ships remaining afloat. The others
+had been blown up a month before by British shells fired
+by naval gunners from Amherst's batteries. Drucour was
+now in a terrible, plight. Not a ship was left. He was
+completely cut off by land and sea. Many of his garrison
+were dead, many more were lying sick or wounded. His
+foreigners were ready for desertion. His French Canadians
+had grown down-hearted. All the non-combatants wished
+him to surrender at once. What else could he do but give
+in? On July 27 he hauled down the fleurs-de-lis from the
+great fortress. But he had gained his secondary object;
+for it was now much too late in the year for the same
+British force to begin a new campaign against Quebec.
+
+Wolfe, like Nelson and Napoleon, was never content to
+'let well enough alone,' if anything better could possibly
+be done. When the news came of Montcalm's great victory
+over Abercromby at Ticonderoga, he told Amherst he was
+ready to march inland at once with reinforcements. And
+after Louisbourg had surrendered and Boscawen had said
+it was too late to start for Quebec, he again volunteered
+to do any further service that Amherst required. The
+service he was sent on was the soldier's most disgusting
+duty; but he did it thoroughly, though he would have
+preferred anything else. He went with Hardy's squadron
+to destroy the French settlements along the Gulf of St
+Lawrence, so as to cut off their supplies from the French
+in Quebec before the next campaign.
+
+After Rochefort Wolfe had become a marked man. After
+Louisbourg he became an Imperial hero. The only other
+the Army had yet produced in this war was Lord Howe, who
+had been killed in a skirmish just before Ticonderoga.
+Wolfe knew Howe well, admired him exceedingly, and called
+him 'the noblest Englishman that has appeared in my time,
+and the best soldier in the army.' He would have served
+under him gladly. But Howe--young, ardent, gallant, yet
+profound--was dead; and the hopes of discerning judges
+were centred on Wolfe. The war had not been going well,
+and this victory at Louisbourg was the first that the
+British people could really rejoice over with all their
+heart.
+
+The British colonies went wild with delight. Halifax had
+a state ball, at which Wolfe danced to his heart's content;
+while his unofficial partners thought themselves the
+luckiest girls in all America to be asked by the hero of
+Louisbourg. Boston and Philadelphia had large bonfires
+and many fireworks. The chief people of New York attended
+a gala dinner. Every church had special thanksgivings.
+
+In England the excitement was just as great, and Wolfe's
+name and fame flew from lip to lip all over the country.
+Parliament passed special votes of thanks. Medals were
+struck to celebrate the event. The king stood on his
+palace steps to receive the captured colours, which were
+carried through London in triumph by the Guards and the
+Household Brigade. And Pitt, the greatest--and, in a
+certain sense, the only--British statesman who has ever
+managed people, parliament, government, navy, and army,
+all together, in a world-wide Imperial war--Pitt, the
+eagle-eyed and lion-hearted, at once marked Wolfe down
+again for higher promotion and, this time, for the command
+of an army of his own. And ever since the Empire Year of
+1759 the world has known that Pitt was right.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+QUEBEC
+1759
+
+In October 1758 Wolfe sailed from Halifax for England
+with Boscawen and very nearly saw a naval battle off
+Land's End with the French fleet returning to France from
+Quebec. The enemy, however, slipped away in the dark. On
+November 1 he landed at Portsmouth. He had been made full
+colonel of a new regiment, the 67th Foot (Hampshires),
+and before going home to London he set off to see it at
+Salisbury. [Footnote: Ten years later a Russian general
+saw this regiment at Minorca and was loud in his praise
+of its all-round excellence, when Wolfe's successor in
+the colonelcy, Sir James Campbell, at once said: 'The
+only merit due to me is the strictness with which I have
+followed the system introduced by the hero of Quebec.']
+Wolfe's old regiment, the 20th (Lancashire Fusiliers),
+was now in Germany, fighting under the command of Prince
+Ferdinand of Brunswick, and was soon to win more laurels
+at Minden, the first of the three great British victories
+of 1759--Minden, Quebec, and Quiberon.
+
+Though far from well, Wolfe was as keen as ever about
+anything that could possibly make him fit for command.
+He picked out the best officers with a sure eye: generals
+and colonels, like Carleton; captains; like Delaune, a
+man made for the campaigns in Canada, who, as we shall
+see later, led the 'Forlorn Hope' up the Heights of
+Abraham. Wolfe had also noted in a third member of the
+great Howe family a born leader of light infantry for
+Quebec. Wolfe was very strong on light infantry, and
+trained them to make sudden dashes with a very short but
+sharp surprise attack followed by a quick retreat under
+cover. One day at Louisbourg an officer said this reminded
+him of what Xenophon wrote about the Carduchians who
+harassed the rear of the world-famous 'Ten Thousand.' 'I
+had it from Xenophon' was Wolfe's reply. Like all great
+commanders, Wolfe knew what other great commanders had
+done and thought, no matter to what age or nation they
+belonged: Greek, Roman, German, French, British, or any
+other. Years before this he had recommended a young
+officer to study the Prussian Army Regulations and Vauban's
+book on Sieges. Nor did he forget to read the lives of
+men like Scanderbeg and Ziska, who could teach him many
+unusual lessons. He kept his eyes open everywhere, all
+his life long, on men and things and books. He recommended
+his friend. Captain Rickson, who was then in Halifax, to
+read Montesquieu's not yet famous book _The Spirit of
+Laws_, because it would be useful for a government official
+in a new country. Writing home to his mother from Louisbourg
+about this new country, that is, before Canada had become
+British, before there was much more than a single million
+of English-speaking people in the whole New World, and
+before most people on either side of the Atlantic understood
+what a great oversea empire meant at all, he said: 'This
+will sometime hence, be a vast empire, the seat of power
+and learning. Nature has refused them nothing, and there
+will grow a people out of our little spot, England, that
+will fill this vast space, and divide this great portion
+of the globe with the Spaniards, who are possessed of
+the other half of it.'
+
+On arriving in England Wolfe had reported his presence
+to the commander-in-chief, Lord Ligonier, requesting
+leave of absence in order that he might visit his relatives.
+This was granted, and the Wolfe family met together once
+more and for the last time.
+
+Though he said little about it, Wolfe must have snatched
+some time for Katherine Lowther, his second love, to whom
+he was now engaged. What had happened between him and
+his first love, Miss Lawson, will probably never be known.
+We know that his parents were opposed to his marrying
+her. Perhaps, too, she may not have been as much in love
+as he was. But, for whatever reason, they parted. Then
+he fell in love with beautiful Katherine Lowther, a sister
+to the Earl of Lonsdale and afterwards Duchess of Bolton.
+
+Meanwhile Pitt was planning for his Empire Year of 1759,
+the year of Ferdinand at Minden, Wolfe at Quebec, and
+Hawke in Quiberon Bay. Before Pitt had taken the war in
+hand nearly everything had gone against the British.
+Though Clive had become the British hero of India in
+1757, and Wolfe of Louisbourg in 1758, there had hitherto
+been more defeats than victories. Minorca had been lost
+in 1756; in America Braddock's army had been destroyed
+in 1755; and Montcalm had won victories at Oswego in
+1756, at Fort William Henry in 1757, and at Ticonderoga
+in 1758. More than this, in 1759 the French were preparing
+fleets and armies to invade England, Ireland, and Scotland;
+and the British people were thinking rather of their own
+defence at home than of attacking the French abroad.
+
+Pitt, however, rightly thought that vigorous attacks from
+the sea were the best means of defence at home. From
+London he looked out over the whole world: at France and
+her allies in the centre, at French India on his far
+left, and at French Canada on his far right; with the
+sea dividing his enemies and uniting his friends, if only
+he could hold its highways with the British Navy.
+
+To carry out his plans Pitt sent a small army and a great
+deal of money to Frederick the Great, to help him in the
+middle of Europe against the Russians, Austrians, and
+French. At the same time he let Anson station fleets
+round the coast of France, so that no strong French force
+could get at Britain or Greater Britain, or go to help
+Greater France, without a fight at sea. Then, having cut
+off Canada from France and taken her outpost at Louisbourg,
+he aimed a death-blow at her very heart by sending
+Saunders, with a quarter of the whole British Navy,
+against Quebec, the stronghold of New France, where the
+land attack was to be made by a little army of 9,000 men
+under Wolfe. Even this was not the whole of Pitt's plan
+for the conquest of Canada. A smaller army was to be sent
+against the French on the Great Lakes, and a larger one,
+under Amherst, along the line of Lake Champlain, towards
+Montreal.
+
+Pitt did a very bold thing when he took a young colonel
+and asked the king to make him a general and allow him
+to choose his own brigadiers and staff officers. It was
+a bold thing, because, whenever there is a position of
+honour to be given, the older men do not like being passed
+over and all the politicians who think of themselves
+first and their country afterwards wish to put in their
+own favourites. Wolfe, of course, had enemies. Dullards
+often think that men of genius are crazy, and some one
+had told the king that Wolfe was mad. 'Mad, is he?' said
+the king, remembering all the recent British defeats on
+land 'then I hope he'll bite some of my other generals!'
+Wolfe was not able to give any of his seniors his own
+and Lord Howe's kind of divine 'madness' during that war.
+But he did give a touch of it to many of his juniors;
+with the result that his Quebec army was better officered
+than any other British land force of the time.
+
+The three brigadiers next in command to Wolfe--Monckton,
+Townshend, and Murray--were not chosen simply because
+they were all sons of peers, but because, like Howe and
+Boscawen, they were first-rate officers as well. Barre
+and Carleton were the two chief men on the staff. Each
+became celebrated in later days, Barre in parliament,
+and Carleton as both the saviour of Canada from the
+American attack in 1775 and the first British
+governor-general. Williamson, the best gunnery expert in
+the whole Army, commanded the artillery. The only
+troublesome officer was Townshend, who thought himself,
+and whose family and political friends thought him, at
+least as good a general as Wolfe, if not a better one.
+But even Townshend did his duty well. The army at Halifax
+was supposed to be twelve thousand, but its real strength
+was only nine thousand. The difference was mostly due to
+the ravages of scurvy and camp fever, both of which, in
+their turn, were due to the bad food supplied by rascally
+contractors. The action of the officers alone saved the
+situation from becoming desperate. Indeed, if it had not
+been for what the officers did for their men in the way
+of buying better food, at great cost, out of their own
+not well-filled pockets, there might have been no army
+at all to greet Wolfe on his arrival in America.
+
+The fleet was the greatest that had ever sailed across
+the seas. It included one-quarter of the whole Royal
+Navy. There were 49 men-of-war manned by 14,000 sailors
+and marines. There were also more than 200 vessels--
+transports, store ships, provision ships, etc.--manned
+by about 7,000 merchant seamen. Thus there were at least
+twice as many sailors as soldiers at the taking of Quebec.
+Saunders was a most capable admiral. He had been
+flag-lieutenant during Anson's famous voyage round the
+world; then Hawke's best fighting captain during the war
+in which Wolfe was learning his work at Dettingen and
+Laffeldt; and then Hawke's second-in-command of the 'cargo
+of courage' sent out after Byng's disgrace at Minorca.
+After Quebec he crowned his fine career by being one of
+the best first lords of the Admiralty that ever ruled
+the Navy. Durell, his next in command, was slower than
+Amherst; and Amherst never made a short cut in his life,
+even to certain success. Holmes, the third admiral, was
+thoroughly efficient. Hood, a still better admiral than
+any of those at Quebec, afterwards served under Holmes,
+and Nelson under Hood; which links Trafalgar with Quebec.
+But a still closer link with 'mighty Nelson' was Jervis,
+who took charge of Wolfe's personal belongings at Quebec
+the night before the battle and many years later became
+Nelson's commander-in-chief. Another Quebec captain who
+afterwards became a great admiral was Hughes, famous for
+his fights in India. But the man whose subsequent fame
+in the world at large eclipsed that of any other in this
+fleet was Captain Cook, who made the first good charts
+of Canadian waters some years before he became a great
+explorer in the far Pacific.
+
+There was a busy scene at Portsmouth on February 17, when
+Saunders and Wolfe sailed in the flagship H.M.S. Neptune,
+of 90 guns and a crew of 750 men. She was one of the
+well-known old 'three-deckers,' those 'wooden walls of
+England' that kept the Empire safe while it was growing
+up. The guard of red-coated marines presented arms, and
+the hundreds of bluejackets were all in their places as
+the two commanders stepped on board. The naval officers
+on the quarter-deck were very spick and span in their
+black three-cornered hats, white wigs, long, bright blue,
+gold-laced coats, white waistcoats and breeches and
+stockings, and gold-buckled shoes. The idea of having
+naval uniforms of blue and white and gold--the same
+colours that are worn to-day--came from the king's seeing
+the pretty Duchess of Bedford in a blue-and-white
+riding-habit, which so charmed him that he swore he would
+make the officers wear the same colours for the uniforms
+just then being newly tried. This was when the Duke of
+Bedford was first lord of the Admiralty, some years before
+Pitt's great expedition against Quebec.
+
+The sailors were also in blue and white; but they were
+not so spick and span as the officers. They were a very
+rough-and-ready-looking lot. They wore small, soft,
+three-cornered black hats, bright blue jackets, open
+enough to show their coarse white shirts, and coarse
+white duck trousers. They had shoes without stockings on
+shore, and only bare feet on board. They carried cutlasses
+and pistols, and wore their hair in pigtails. They would
+be a surprising sight to modern eyes. But not so much so
+as the women! Ships and regiments in those days always
+had a certain number of women for washing and mending
+the clothes. There was one woman to about every twenty
+men. They drew pay and were under regular orders just
+like the soldiers and sailors. Sometimes they gave a
+willing hand in action, helping the 'powder-monkeys'
+--boys who had to pass the powder from the barrels to
+the gunners--or even taking part in a siege, as at
+Louisbourg.
+
+The voyage to Halifax was long, rough, and cold, and
+Wolfe was sea-sick as ever. Strangely enough, these ships
+coming out to the conquest of Canada under St George's
+cross made land on St George's Day near the place where
+Cabot had raised St George's cross over Canadian soil
+before Columbus had set foot on the mainland of America.
+But though April 23 might be a day of good omen, it was
+a very bleak one that year off Cape Breton, where ice
+was packed for miles and miles along the coast. On the
+30th the fleet entered Halifax. Slow old Durell was
+hurried off on May 5 with eight men-of-war and seven
+hundred soldiers under Carleton to try to stop any French
+ships from getting up to Quebec. Carleton was to go ashore
+at Isle-aux-Coudres, an island commanding the channel
+sixty miles below Quebec, and mark out a passage for the
+fleet through the 'Traverse' at the lower end of the
+island of Orleans, thirty miles higher up.
+
+On the 13th Saunders sailed for Louisbourg, where the
+whole expedition was to meet and get ready. Here Wolfe
+spent the rest of Map, working every day and all day.
+His army, with the exception of nine hundred American
+rangers, consisted of seasoned British regulars, with
+all the weaklings left behind; and it did his heart good
+to see them on parade. There was the 15th, whose officers
+still wear a line of black braid on their uniforms in
+mourning for his death. The 15th and five other regiments
+--the 28th, 43rd, 47th, 48th, and 58th--were English.
+But the 35th had been forty years in Ireland, and was
+Irish to a man. The whole seven regiments were dressed
+very much alike: three-cornered, stiff black hats with
+black cockades, white wigs, long-tailed red coats turned
+back with blue or white in front, where they were fastened
+only at the neck, white breeches, and long white gaiters
+coming over the knee. A very different corps was the
+78th, or 'Fraser's,' Highlanders, one of the regiments
+Wolfe first recommended and Pitt first raised. Only
+fourteen years before the Quebec campaign these same
+Highlanders had joined Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender,
+in the famous ''45.' They were mostly Roman Catholics,
+which accounts for the way they intermarried with the
+French Canadians after the conquest. They had been fighting
+for the Stuarts against King George, and Wolfe, as we
+have seen, had himself fought against them at Culloden.
+Yet here they were now, under Wolfe, serving King George.
+They knew that the Stuart cause was lost for ever; and
+all of them, chiefs and followers alike, loved the noble
+profession of arms. The Highlanders then wore 'bonnets'
+like a high tam-o'-shanter, with one white curly feather
+on the left side. Their red coats were faced with yellow,
+and they wore the Fraser plaid hung from the shoulders
+and caught up, loopwise, on both hips. Their kilts were
+very short and not pleated. Badger sporrans, showing the
+head in the middle, red-and-white-diced hose, and buckled
+brogues completed their wild but martial dress, which
+was well set off by the dirks and claymores that swung
+to the stride of the mountaineer.
+
+Each regiment had one company of grenadiers, picked out
+for their size, strength, and steadiness, and one company
+of light infantry, picked out for their quickness and
+good marksmanship. Sometimes all the grenadier companies
+would be put together in a separate battalion. The same
+thing was often done with the light infantry companies,
+which were then led by Colonel Howe. Wolfe had also made
+up a small three-company battalion of picked grenadiers
+from the five regiments that were being left behind at
+Louisbourg to guard the Maritime Provinces. This little
+battalion became famous at Quebec as the 'Louisbourg
+Grenadiers.' The grenadiers all wore red and white, like
+the rest, except that their coats were buttoned up the
+whole way, and instead of the three-cornered hats they
+wore high ones like a bishop's mitre. The artillery wore
+blue-grey coats turned back with red, yellow braid, and
+half-moon-shaped black hats, with the points down towards
+their shoulders.
+
+The only remaining regiment is of much greater interest
+in connection with a Canadian campaign. It was the 60th
+Foot, then called the Royal Americans, afterwards the
+Sixtieth Rifles or 'Old Sixtieth,' and now the King's
+Royal Rifle Corps. It was the first regiment of regulars
+ever raised in Greater Britain, and the first to introduce
+the rifle-green uniform now known all over the Empire,
+especially in Canada, where all rifle regiments still
+follow 'the 60th's' lead so far as that is possible. Many
+of its officers and men who returned from the conquest
+of Canada to their homes in the British colonies were
+destined to move on to Canada with their families as
+United Empire Loyalists. This was their first war; and
+they did so well in it that Wolfe gave them the rifleman's
+motto they still bear in token of their smartness and
+dash--_Celer et Audax_. Unfortunately they did not then
+wear the famous 'rifle green' but the ordinary red.
+Unfortunately, too, the rifleman's green has no connection
+with the 'green jackets of American backwoodsmen in the
+middle of the eighteenth century.' The backwoodsmen were
+not dressed in green as a rule, and they never formed
+any considerable part of the regiment at any time. The
+first green uniform came in with the new 5th battalion
+in 1797; and the old 2nd and 3rd battalions, which fought
+under Wolfe, did not adopt it till 1815. It was not even
+of British origin, but an imitation of a German hussar
+uniform which was itself an imitation of one worn by the
+Hungarians, who have the senior hussars of the world.
+But though Wolfe's Royal Americans did not wear the rifle
+green, and though their coats and waistcoats were of
+common red, their uniforms differed from those of all
+other regiments at Quebec in several particulars. The
+most remarkable difference was the absence of lace, an
+absence specially authorized only for this corps, and
+then only in view of special service and many bush fights
+in America. The double-breasted coats were made to button
+across, except at the top, where the lapels turned back,
+like the cuffs and coat-tails. All these 'turnbacks' and
+the breeches were blue. The very long gaiters, the waist
+and cross belts, the neckerchief and hat piping were
+white. Wearing this distinctively plain uniform, and led
+by their buglers and drummers in scarlet and gold, like
+state trumpeters, the Royal Americans could not, even at
+a distance, be mistaken for any other regiment.
+
+On June 6 Saunders and Wolfe sailed for Quebec with a
+hundred and forty-one ships. Wolfe's work in getting his
+army safely off being over, he sat down alone in his
+cabin to make his will. His first thought was for Katherine
+Lowther, his _fiancee_, who was to have her own miniature
+portrait, which he carried with him, set in jewels and
+given back to her. Warde, Howe, and Carleton were each
+remembered. He left all the residue of his estate to 'my
+good mother,' his father having just died. More than a
+third of the whole will was taken up with providing for
+his servants. No wonder he was called 'the soldier's
+friend.'
+
+There was a thrilling scene at Louisbourg as regiment
+after regiment marched down to the shore, with drums
+beating, bugles sounding, and colours flying. Each night,
+after drinking the king's health, they had drunk another
+toast--'British colours on every French fort, port, and
+garrison in North America.' Now here they were, the pick
+of the Army and Navy, off with Wolfe to raise those
+colours over Quebec, the most important military point
+on the whole continent. On they sailed, all together,
+till they reached the Saguenay, a hundred and twenty
+miles below Quebec. Here, on the afternoon of June 20,
+the sun shone down on a sight such as the New World had
+never seen before, and has never seen again. The river
+narrows opposite the Saguenay and is full of shoals and
+islands; so this was the last day the whole one hundred
+and forty-one vessels sailed together, in their three
+divisions, under those three ensigns--'The Red, White,
+and Blue'--which have made the British Navy loved, feared,
+and famous round the seven seas. What a sight it was!
+Thousands and thousands of soldiers and sailors crowded
+those scores and scores of high-decked ships; while
+hundreds and hundreds of swelling sails gleamed white
+against the sun, across the twenty miles of blue St
+Lawrence.
+
+Wolfe, however, was not there to see it. He had gone
+forward the day before. A dispatch-boat had come down
+from Durell to say that, in spite of his advanced squadron,
+Bougainville, Montcalm's ablest brigadier, had slipped
+through with twenty-three ships from France, bringing
+out a few men and a good deal of ammunition, stores, and
+food. This gave Quebec some sorely needed help. Besides,
+Montcalm had found out Pitt's plan; and nobody knew where
+the only free French fleet was now. It had wintered in
+the West Indies. But had it sailed for France or the St
+Lawrence? At the first streak of dawn on the 23rd Durell's
+look-out off Isle-aux-Coudres reported many ships coming
+up the river under a press of sail. Could the French West
+Indian fleet have slipped in ahead of Saunders, as
+Bougainville had slipped in ahead of Durell himself? There
+was a tense moment on board of Durell's squadron and in
+Carleton's camp, in the pale, grey light of early morning,
+as the bugles sounded, the boatswains blew their whistles
+and roared their orders, and all hands came tumbling up
+from below and ran to battle quarters with a rush of
+swift bare feet. But the incoming vanship made the private
+British signal, and both sides knew that all was well.
+
+For a whole week the great fleet of one hundred and
+forty-one ships worked their way through the narrow
+channel between Isle-aux-Coudres and the north shore,
+and then dared the dangers of the Traverse, below the
+island of Orleans, where the French had never passed more
+than one ship at a time, and that only with the greatest
+caution. The British went through quite easily, without
+a single accident. In two days the great Captain Cook
+had sounded and marked out the channel better than the
+French had in a hundred and fifty years; and so thoroughly
+was his work done that the British officers could handle
+their vessels in these French waters better without than
+with the French pilots. Old Captain Killick took the
+_Goodwill_ through himself, just next ahead of the
+_Richmond_, on board of which was Wolfe. The captured
+French pilot in the _Goodwill_ was sure she would be lost
+if she did not go slow and take more care. But Killick
+laughed at him and said: 'Damn me, but I'll convince you
+an Englishman can go where a Frenchman daren't show his
+nose!' And he did.
+
+On June 26 Wolfe arrived at the west end of the island
+of Orleans, in full view of Quebec. The twenty days'
+voyage from Louisbourg had ended and the twelve weeks'
+siege had begun. At this point we must take the map and
+never put it aside till the final battle is over. A whole
+book could not possibly make Wolfe's work plain to any
+one without the map. But with the map we can easily follow
+every move in this, the greatest crisis in both Wolfe's
+career and Canada's history.
+
+What Wolfe saw and found out was enough to daunt any
+general. He had a very good army, but it was small. He
+could count upon the help of a mighty fleet, but even
+British fleets cannot climb hills or make an enemy come
+down and fight. Montcalm, however, was weakened by many
+things. The governor, Vaudreuil, was a vain, fussy, and
+spiteful fool, with power enough to thwart Montcalm at
+every turn. The intendant, Bigot, was the greatest knave
+ever seen in Canada, and the head of a gang of official
+thieves who robbed the country and the wretched French
+Canadians right and left. The French army, all together,
+numbered nearly seventeen thousand, almost twice Wolfe's
+own; but the bulk of it was militia, half starved and
+badly armed. Both Vaudreuil and Bigot could and did
+interfere disastrously with the five different forces
+that should have been made into one army under Montcalm
+alone--the French regulars, the Canadian regulars, the
+Canadian militia, the French sailors ashore, and the
+Indians. Montcalm had one great advantage over Wolfe. He
+was not expected to fight or manoeuvre in the open field.
+His duty was not to drive Wolfe away, or even to keep
+Amherst out of Canada. All he had to do was to hold Quebec
+throughout the summer. The autumn would force the British
+fleet to leave for ice-free waters. Then, if Quebec could
+only be held, a change in the fortunes of war, or a treaty
+of peace, might still keep Canada in French hands. Wolfe
+had either to tempt Montcalm out of Quebec or get into
+it himself; and he soon realized that he would have to
+do this with the help of Saunders alone; for Amherst in
+the south was crawling forward towards Montreal so slowly
+that no aid from him could be expected.
+
+Montcalm's position certainly looked secure for the
+summer. His left flank was guarded by the Montmorency,
+a swift river that could be forded only by a few men at
+a time in a narrow place, some miles up, where the dense
+bush would give every chance to his Indians and Canadians.
+His centre was guarded by entrenchments running from the
+Montmorency to the St Charles, six miles of ground, rising
+higher and higher towards Montmorency, all of it defended
+by the best troops and the bulk of the army, and none of
+it having an inch of cover for an enemy in front. The
+mouth of the St Charles was blocked by booms and batteries.
+Quebec is a natural fortress; and above Quebec the high,
+steep cliffs stretched for miles and miles. These cliffs
+could be climbed by a few men in several places; but
+nowhere by a whole army, if any defenders were there in
+force; and the British fleet could not land an army
+without being seen soon enough to draw plenty of defenders
+to the same spot. Forty miles above Quebec the St Lawrence
+channel narrows to only a quarter of a mile, and the down
+current becomes very swift indeed. Above this channel
+was the small French fleet, which could stop a much larger
+one trying to get up, or could even block most of the
+fairway by sinking some of its own ships. Besides all
+these defences of man and nature the French had floating
+batteries along the north shore. They also held the Levis
+Heights on the south shore, opposite Quebec, so that
+ships crowded with helpless infantry could not, without
+terrible risk, run through the intervening narrows, barely
+a thousand yards wide.
+
+A gale blowing down-stream was the first trouble for the
+British fleet. Many of the transports broke loose and a
+good deal of damage was done to small vessels and boats.
+Next night a greater danger threatened, when the ebb-tide,
+running five miles an hour, brought down seven French
+fireships, which suddenly burst into flame as they rounded
+the Point of Levy. There was a display of devil's fireworks
+such as few men have ever seen or could imagine. Sizzling,
+crackling, and roaring, the blinding flames leaped into
+the jet-black sky, lighting up the camps of both armies,
+where thousands of soldiers watched these engines of
+death sweep down on the fleet. Each of the seven ships
+was full of mines, blowing up and hurling shot and shell
+in all directions. The crowded mass of British vessels
+seemed doomed to destruction. But the first spurt of fire
+had hardly been noticed before the men in the guard boats
+began to row to the rescue. Swinging the grappling-hooks
+round at arm's length, as if they were heaving the lead,
+the bluejackets made the fireships fast, the officers
+shouted, 'Give way!' and presently the whole infernal
+flotilla was safely stranded. But it was a close thing
+and very hot work, as one of the happy-go-lucky Jack tars
+said with more force than grace, when he called out to
+the boat beside him: 'Hullo, mate! Did you ever take hell
+in tow before?'
+
+Vaudreuil now made Montcalm, who was under his orders,
+withdraw the men from the Levis Heights, and thus abandon
+the whole of the south shore in front of Quebec. Wolfe,
+delighted, at once occupied the same place, with half
+his army and most of his guns. Then he seized the far
+side of the Montmorency and made his main camp there,
+without, however, removing his hospitals and stores from
+his camp on the island of Orleans. So he now had three
+camps, not divided, but joined together, by the St Lawrence,
+where the fleet could move about between them in spite
+of anything the French could do. He then marched up the
+Montmorency to the fords, to try the French strength
+there, and to find out if he could cross the river, march
+down the open ground behind Montcalm, and attack him from
+the rear. But he was repulsed at the first attempt, and
+saw that he could do no better at a second. Meanwhile
+his Levis batteries began a bombardment which lasted two
+months and reduced Quebec to ruins.
+
+Yet he seemed as far off as ever from capturing the city.
+Battering down the houses of Quebec brought him no nearer
+to his object, while Montcalm's main body still stood
+securely in its entrenchments down at Beauport. Wolfe
+now felt he must try something decisive, even if desperate;
+and he planned an attack by land and water on the French
+left. Both French and British were hard at work on July
+31. In the morning Wolfe sent one regiment marching up
+the Montmorency, as if to try the fords again, and another,
+also in full view of the French, up along the St Lawrence
+from the Levis batteries, as if it was to be taken over
+by the ships to the north shore above Quebec. Meanwhile
+Monckton's brigade was starting from the Point of Levy
+in row-boats, the _Centurion_ was sailing down to the
+mouth of the Montmorency, two armed transports were being
+purposely run ashore on the beach at the top of the tide,
+and the _Pembroke_, _Trent_, _Lowestoff_, and _Racehorse_
+were taking up positions to cover the boats. The men-of-war
+and Wolfe's batteries at Montmorency then opened fire on
+the point he wished to attack; and both of them kept it
+up for eight hours, from ten till six. All this time the
+Levis batteries were doing their utmost against Quebec.
+But Montcalm was not to be deceived. He saw that Wolfe
+intended to storm the entrenchments at the point at which
+the cannon were firing, and he kept the best of his army
+ready to defend it.
+
+Wolfe and the Louisbourg Grenadiers were in the two armed
+transports when they grounded at ten o'clock. To his
+disgust and to Captain Cook's surprise both vessels stuck
+fast in the mud nearly half a mile from shore. This made
+the grenadiers' muskets useless against the advanced
+French redoubt, which stood at high-water mark, and which
+overmatched the transports, because both of these had
+grounded in such a way that they could not bring their
+guns to bear in reply. The stranded vessels soon became
+a death-trap. Wolfe's cane was knocked out of his hand
+by a cannon ball. Shells were bursting over the deck,
+smashing the masts to pieces and sending splinters of
+wood and iron flying about among the helpless grenadiers
+and gunners. There was nothing to do but order the men
+back to the boats and wait. The tide was not low till
+four. The weather was scorchingly hot. A thunderstorm
+was brewing. The redoubt could not be taken. The
+transports were a failure. And every move had to be made
+in full view of the watchful Montcalm, whose entrenchments
+at this point were on the top of a grassy hill nearly
+two hundred feet above the muddy beach. But Wolfe still
+thought he might succeed with the main attack at low
+tide, although he had not been able to prepare it at high
+tide. His Montmorency batteries seemed to be pitching
+their shells very thickly into the French, and his three
+brigades of infantry were all ready to act together at
+the right time. Accordingly, for the hottest hours of
+that scorching day, Monckton's men grilled in the boats
+while Townshend's and Murray's waited in camp. At four
+the tide was low and Wolfe ordered the landing to begin.
+
+The tidal flats ran out much farther than any one had
+supposed. The heavily laden boats stuck on an outer ledge
+and had to be cleared, shoved off, refilled with soldiers,
+and brought round to another place. It was now nearly
+six o'clock; and both sides were eager for the fray.
+Townshend's and Murray's brigades had forded the mouth
+of the Montmorency and were marching along to support
+the attack, when, suddenly and unexpectedly, the grenadiers
+spoiled it all! Wolfe had ordered the Louisbourg Grenadiers
+and the ten other grenadier companies of the army to form
+up and rush the redoubt. But, what with the cheering of
+the sailors as they landed the rest of Monckton's men,
+and their own eagerness to come to close quarters at
+once, the Louisbourg men suddenly lost their heads and
+charged before everything was ready. The rest followed
+them pell-mell; and in less than five minutes the redoubt
+was swarming with excited grenadiers, while the French
+who had held it were clambering up the grassy hill into
+the safer entrenchments.
+
+The redoubt was certainly no place to stay in. It had no
+shelter towards its rear; and dozens of French cannon
+and thousands of French muskets were firing into it from
+the heights. An immediate retirement was the only proper
+course. But there was no holding the men now. They broke
+into another mad charge, straight at the hill. As they
+reached it, amid a storm of musket balls and grape-shot,
+the heavens joined in with a terrific storm of their own.
+The rain burst in a perfect deluge; and the hill became
+almost impossible to climb, even if there had been no
+enemy pouring death-showers of fire from the top. When
+Wolfe saw what was happening he immediately sent officers
+running after the grenadiers to make them come back from
+the redoubt, and these officers now passed the word to
+retire at once. This time the grenadiers, all that were
+left of them, obeyed. Their two mad rushes had not lasted
+a quarter of an hour. Yet nearly half of the thousand
+men they started with were lying dead or wounded on that
+fatal ground.
+
+Wolfe now saw that he was hopelessly beaten and that
+there was not a minute to lose in getting away. The boats
+could take only Monckton's men; and the rising tide would
+soon cut off Townshend's and Murray's from their camp
+beyond the mouth of the Montmorency. The two stranded
+transports, from which he had hoped so much that morning,
+were set on fire; and, under cover of their smoke and of
+the curtain of torrential rain, Monckton's crestfallen
+men got into their boats once more. Townshend's and
+Murray's brigades, enraged at not being brought into
+action, turned to march back by the way they had come so
+eagerly only an hour before. They moved off in perfect
+order; but, as they left the battlefield, they waved their
+hats in defiance at the jeering Frenchmen, challenging them
+to come down and fight it out with bayonets hand to hand.
+
+Many gallant deeds were done that afternoon; but none
+more gallant than those of Captain Ochterloney and
+Lieutenant Peyton, both grenadier officers in the Royal
+Americans. Ochterloney had just been wounded in a duel;
+but he said his country's honour came before his own,
+and, sick and wounded as he was, he spent those panting
+hours in the boats without a murmur and did all he could
+to form his men up under fire. In the second charge he
+fell, shot through the lungs, with Peyton beside him,
+shot through the leg. When Wolfe called the grenadiers
+back a rescue party wanted to carry off both officers,
+to save them from the scalping-knife. But Ochterloney
+said he would never leave the field after such a defeat;
+and Peyton said he would never leave his captain. Presently
+a Canadian regular came up with two Indians, grabbed
+Ochterloney's watch, sword and money, and left the Indians
+to finish him. One of these savages clubbed him with a
+musket, while the other shot him in the chest and dashed
+in with a scalping-knife. In the meantime, Peyton crawled
+on his hands and knees to a double-barrelled musket and
+shot one Indian dead, but missed the other. This savage
+now left Ochterloney, picked up a bayonet and rushed at
+Peyton, who drew his dagger. A terrible life-and-death
+fight followed; but Peyton at last got a good point well
+driven home, straight through the Indian's heart. A whole
+scalping party now appeared. Ochterloney was apparently
+dead, and Peyton was too exhausted to fight any more.
+But, at this very moment, another British party came back
+for the rest of the wounded and carried Peyton off to
+the boats.
+
+Then the Indians came back to scalp Ochterloney. By this
+time, however, some French regulars had come down, and
+one of them, finding Ochterloney still alive, drove off
+the Indians at the point of the bayonet, secured help,
+and carried him up the hill. Montcalm had him carefully
+taken into the General Hospital, where he was tenderly
+nursed by the nuns. Two days after he had been rescued,
+a French officer came out for his clothes and other
+effects. Wolfe then sent in twenty guineas for his rescuer,
+with a promise that, in return for the kindness shown to
+Ochterloney, the General Hospital would be specially
+protected if the British took Quebec. Towards the end of
+August Ochterloney died; and both sides ceased firing
+while a French captain came out to report his death and
+return his effects.
+
+This was by no means the only time the two enemies treated
+each other like friends. A party of French ladies were
+among the prisoners brought in to Wolfe one day; and they
+certainly had no cause to complain of him. He gave them
+a dinner, at which he charmed them all by telling them
+about his visit to Paris. The next morning he sent them
+into Quebec with his aide-de-camp under a flag of truce.
+Another time the French officers sent him a kind of wine
+which was not to be had in the British camp, and he sent
+them some not to be had in their own.
+
+But the stern work of war went on and on, though the
+weary month of August did not seem to bring victory any
+closer than disastrous July. Wolfe knew that September
+was to be the end of the campaign, the now-or-never of
+his whole career. And, knowing this, he set to work--head
+and heart and soul--on making the plan that brought him
+victory, death, and everlasting fame.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM
+September 13, 1759
+
+On August 19 an aide-de-camp came out of the farmhouse
+at Montmorency which served as the headquarters of the
+British army to say that Wolfe was too ill to rise from
+his bed. The bad news spread like wildfire through the
+camp and fleet, and soon became known among the French.
+A week passed; but Wolfe was no better. Tossing about on
+his bed in a fever, he thought bitterly of his double
+defeat, of the critical month of September, of the grim
+strength of Quebec, formed by nature for a stronghold,
+and then--worse still--of his own weak body, which made
+him most helpless just when he should have been most fit
+for his duty.
+
+Feeling that he could no longer lead in person, he dictated
+a letter to the brigadiers, sent them the secret instructions
+he had received from Pitt and the king, and asked them
+to think over his three new plans for attacking Montcalm
+at Beauport. They wrote back to say they thought the
+defeats at the upper fords of the Montmorency and at the
+heights facing the St Lawrence showed that the French
+could not be beaten by attacking the Beauport lines again,
+no matter from what side the attack was made. They then
+gave him a plan of their own, which was, to convey the
+army up the St Lawrence and fight their way ashore
+somewhere between Cap Rouge, nine miles above Quebec,
+and Pointe-aux-Trembles, twenty-two miles above. They
+argued that, by making a landing there, the British could
+cut off Montcalm's communications with Three Rivers and
+Montreal, from which his army drew its supplies. Wolfe's
+letter was dictated from his bed of sickness on the 26th.
+The brigadiers answered him on the 29th. Saunders talked
+it all over with him on the 31st. Before this the fate
+of Canada had been an affair of weeks. Now it was a matter
+of days; for the morrow would dawn on the very last
+possible month of the siege--September.
+
+After his talk with Saunders Wolfe wrote his last letter
+home to his mother, telling her of his desperate plight:
+
+   The enemy puts nothing to risk, and I can't in conscience
+   put the whole army to risk. My antagonist has wisely
+   shut himself up in inaccessible entrenchments, so that
+   I can't get at him without spilling a torrent of blood,
+   and that perhaps to little purpose. The Marquis de
+   Montcalm is at the head of a great number of bad
+   soldiers and I am at the head of a small number of
+   good ones, that wish for nothing so much as to fight
+   him; but the wary old fellow avoids an action, doubtful
+   of the behaviour of his army. People must be of the
+   profession to understand the disadvantages and
+   difficulties we labour under, arising from the uncommon
+   natural strength of the country.
+
+On September 2 he wrote his last letter to Pitt. He had
+asked the doctors to 'patch him up,' saying that if they
+could make him fit for duty for only the next few days
+they need not trouble about what might happen to him
+afterwards. Their 'patching up' certainly cleared his
+fevered brain, for this letter was a masterly account of
+the whole siege and the plans just laid to bring it to
+an end. The style was so good, indeed, that Charles
+Townshend said his brother George must have been the real
+author, and that Wolfe, whom he dubbed 'a fiery-headed
+fellow, only fit for fighting,' could not have done any
+more than sign his name. But when George Townshend's own
+official letter about the battle in which Wolfe fell was
+also published, and was found to be much less effective
+than Wolfe's, Selwyn went up to Charles Townshend and
+said: 'Look here, Charles, if your brother wrote Wolfe's
+letter, who the devil wrote your brother's?'
+
+Wolfe did not try to hide anything from Pitt. He told
+him plainly about the two defeats and the terrible
+difficulties in the way of winning any victory. The whole
+letter is too long for quotation, and odd scraps from it
+give no idea of Wolfe's lucid style. But here are a few
+which tell the gist of the story:
+
+   I found myself so ill, and am still so weak, that I
+   begged the generals to consult together. They are all
+   of opinion, that, as more ships and provisions are
+   now got above the town, they should try, by conveying
+   up five thousand men, to draw the enemy from his
+   present position and bring him to an action. I have
+   acquiesced in their proposal, and we are preparing to
+   put it into execution. The admiral will readily join
+   in any measure for the public service. There is such
+   a choice of difficulties that I own myself at a loss
+   how to determine. The affairs of Great Britain I know
+   require the most vigorous measures. You may be sure
+   that the small part of the campaign which remains
+   shall be employed, as far as I am able, for the honour
+   of His Majesty and the interest of the nation. I am
+   sure of being well seconded by the admirals and
+   generals; happy if our efforts here can contribute to
+   the success of His Majesty's arms in any other part
+   of America.
+
+On the 31st, the day he wrote to his mother and had his
+long talk with Saunders, Wolfe began to send his guns
+and stores away from the Montmorency camp. Carleton
+managed the removal very cleverly; and on September 3
+only the five thousand infantry who were to go up the St
+Lawrence were left there. Wolfe tried to tempt Montcalm
+to attack him. But Montcalm knew better; and half suspected
+that Wolfe himself might make another attack on the
+Beauport lines. When everything was ready, all the men
+at the Point of Levy who could be spared put off in boats
+and rowed over towards Beauport, just as Monckton's men
+had done on the disastrous last day of July. At the same
+time the main division of the fleet, under Saunders, made
+as if to support these boats, while the Levis batteries
+thundered against Quebec. Carleton gave the signal from
+the beach at Montmorency when the tide was high; and the
+whole five thousand infantry marched down the hill, got
+into their boats, and rowed over to where the other boats
+were waiting. The French now prepared to defend themselves
+at once. But as the two divisions of boats came together,
+they both rowed off through the gaps between the men-of-war.
+Wolfe's army had broken camp and got safely away, right
+under the noses of the French, without the loss of a
+single man.
+
+A whole week, from September 3 to 10, was then taken up
+with trying to see how the brigadiers' plan could be
+carried out.
+
+This plan was good, as far as it went. An army is even
+harder to supply than a town would be if the town was
+taken up bodily and moved about the country. An army
+makes no supplies itself, but uses up a great deal. It
+must have food, clothing, arms, ammunition, stores of
+all kinds, and everything else it needs to keep it fit
+for action. So it must always keep what are called
+'communications' with the places from which it gets these
+supplies. Now, Wolfe's and Montcalm's armies were both
+supplied along the St Lawrence, Wolfe's from below Quebec
+and Montcalm's from above. But Wolfe had no trouble about
+the safety of his own 'communications,' since they were
+managed and protected by the fleet. Even before he first
+saw Quebec, a convoy of supply ships had sailed from the
+Maritime Provinces for his army under the charge of a
+man-of-war. And so it went on all through the siege.
+Including forty-nine men-of-war, no less than 277 British
+vessels sailed up to Quebec during this campaign; and
+not one of them was lost on the way, though the St Lawrence
+had then no lighthouses, buoys, or other aids to navigation,
+as it has now, and though the British officers themselves
+were compelled to take the ships through the worst places
+in these foreign and little-known waters. The result was
+that there were abundant supplies for the British army
+the whole time, thanks to the fleet.
+
+But Montcalm was in a very different plight. Since the
+previous autumn, when Wolfe and Hardy had laid waste the
+coast of Gaspe, the supply of sea-fish had almost failed.
+Now the whole country below Quebec had been cut off by
+the fleet, while most of the country round Quebec was
+being laid waste by the army. Wolfe's orders were that
+no man, woman, or child was to be touched, nor any house
+or other buildings burnt, if his own men were not attacked.
+But if the men of the country fired at his soldiers they
+were to be shot down, and everything they had was to be
+destroyed. Of course, women and children were strictly
+protected, under all circumstances, and no just complaint
+was ever made against the British for hurting a single
+one. But as the men persisted in firing, the British
+fired back and destroyed the farms where the firing took
+place, on the fair-play principle that it is right to
+destroy whatever is used to destroy you.
+
+It thus happened that, except at a few little villages
+where the men had not fired on the soldiers, the country
+all round Quebec was like a desert, as far as supplies
+for the French were concerned. The only way to obtain
+anything for their camp was by bringing it down the St
+Lawrence from Montreal, Sorel, and Three Rivers. French
+vessels would come down as far as they dared and then
+send the supplies on in barges, which kept close in under
+the north shore above Quebec, where the French outposts
+and batteries protected them from the British men-of-war
+that were pushing higher and higher up the river. Some
+supplies were brought in by land after they were put
+ashore above the highest British vessels. But as a hundred
+tons came far more easily by water than one ton by land,
+it is not hard to see that Montcalm's men could not hold
+out long if the St Lawrence near Quebec was closed to
+supplies.
+
+Wolfe, Montcalm, the brigadiers, and every one else on
+both sides knew this perfectly well. But, as it was now
+September, the fleet could not go far up the much more
+difficult channel towards Montreal. If it did, and took
+Wolfe's army with it, the few French men-of-war might
+dispute the passage, and some sunken ships might block
+the way, at all events for a time. Besides, the French
+were preparing to repulse any landing up the river,
+between Cap Rouge, nine miles above Quebec, and
+Deschambault, forty miles above; and with good prospect
+of success, because the country favoured their irregulars.
+Moreover, if Wolfe should land many miles up, Montcalm
+might still hold out far down in Quebec for the few days
+remaining till October. If, on the other hand, the fleet
+went up and left Wolfe's men behind, Montcalm would be
+safer than ever at Beauport and Quebec; because, how
+could Wolfe reach him without a fleet when he had failed
+to reach him with one?
+
+The life-and-death question for Wolfe was how to land
+close enough above Quebec and soon enough in September
+to make Montcalm fight it out on even terms and in the
+open field.
+
+The brigadiers' plan of landing high up seemed all right
+till they tried to work it out. Then they found troubles
+in plenty. There were several places for them to land
+between Cap Rouge, nine miles above Quebec, and
+Pointe-aux-Trembles, thirteen miles higher still. Ever
+since July 18 British vessels had been passing to and
+fro above Quebec; and in August, Murray, under the guard
+of Holmes's squadron, had tried his brigade against
+Pointe-aux-Trembles, where he was beaten back, and at
+Deschambault, twenty miles farther up, where he took some
+prisoners and burnt some supplies. To ward off further
+and perhaps more serious attacks from this quarter,
+Montcalm had been keeping Bougainville on the lookout,
+especially round Pointe-aux-Trembles, for several weeks
+before the brigadiers arranged their plan. Bougainville
+now had 2,000 infantry, all the mounted men--nearly
+300--and all the best Indian and Canadian scouts, along
+the thirteen miles of shore between Cap Rouge and
+Pointe-aux-Trembles. His land and water batteries had
+also been made much stronger. He and Montcalm were in
+close touch and could send messages to each other and
+get an answer back within four hours.
+
+On the 7th Wolfe and the brigadiers had a good look at
+every spot round Pointe-aux-Trembles. On the 8th and 9th
+the brigadiers were still there; while five transports
+sailed past Quebec on the 8th to join Holmes, who commanded
+the up-river squadron. Two of Wolfe's brigades were now
+on board the transports with Holmes. But the whole three
+were needed; and this need at once entailed another
+difficulty. A successful landing on the north shore above
+Quebec could only be made under cover of the dark; and
+Wolfe could not bring the third brigade, under cover of
+night, from the island of Orleans and the Point of Levy,
+and land it with the other two twenty miles up the river
+before daylight. The tidal stream runs up barely five
+hours, while it runs down more than seven; and winds are
+mostly down. Next, if, instead of sailing, the third
+brigade marched twenty miles at night across very rough
+country on the south shore, it would arrive later than
+ever. Then, only one brigade could be put ashore in boats
+at one time in one place, and Bougainville could collect
+enough men to hold it in check while he called in
+reinforcements at least as fast on the French side as
+the British could on theirs. Another thing was that the
+wooded country favoured the French defence and hindered
+the British attack. Lastly, if Wolfe and Saunders collected
+the whole five thousand soldiers and a still larger
+squadron and convoy up the river, Montcalm would see the
+men and ships being moved from their positions in front
+of his Beauport entrenchments, and would hurry to the
+threatened shore between Cap Rouge and Pointe-aux-Trembles
+almost as soon as the British, and certainly in time to
+reinforce Bougainville and repulse Wolfe.
+
+The 9th was Wolfe's last Sunday. It was a cheerless,
+rainy day; and he almost confessed himself beaten for
+good, as he sat writing his last official letter to one
+of Pitt's friends, the Earl of Holderness. He dated it,
+'On board the _Sutherland_ at anchor off Cap Rouge,
+September 9, 1759.' He ended it with gloomy news: 'I am
+so far recovered as to be able to do business, but my
+constitution is entirely ruined, without the consolation
+of having done any considerable service to the state, or
+without any prospect of it.'
+
+The very next day, however, he saw his chance. He stood
+at Etchemin, on the south shore, two miles above Quebec,
+and looked long and earnestly through his telescope at
+the Foulon road, a mile and a half away, running up to
+the Plains of Abraham from the Anse au Foulon, which has
+ever since been called Wolfe's Cove. Then he looked at
+the Plains themselves, especially at a spot only one mile
+from Quebec, where the flat and open ground formed a
+perfect field of battle for his well-drilled regulars.
+He knew the Foulon road must be fairly good, because it
+was the French line of communication between the Anse au
+Foulon and the Beauport camp. The Cove and the nearest
+point of the camp were only two miles and a quarter apart,
+as the crow flies. But between them rose the tableland
+of the Plains, 300 feet above the river. Thus they were
+screened from each other, and a surprise at the Cove
+might not be found out too soon at the camp.
+
+Now, Wolfe knew that the French expected to be attacked
+either above Cap Rouge (up towards Pointe-aux-Trembles)
+or below Quebec (down in their Beauport entrenchments).
+He also knew that his own army thought the attack would
+be made above Cap Rouge. Thus the French were still very
+anxious about the six miles at Beauport, while both sides
+were keenly watching each other all over the thirteen
+miles above Cap Rouge. Nobody seemed to be thinking about
+the nine miles between Cap Rouge and Quebec, and least
+of all about the part nearest Quebec.
+
+Yes, one man was thinking about it, and he never stopped
+thinking about it till he died. That man was Montcalm.
+On the 5th, when Wolfe began moving up-stream, Montcalm
+had sent a whole battalion to the Plains. But on the 7th,
+when the British generals were all at Pointe-aux-Trembles,
+Vaudreuil, always ready to spite Montcalm, ordered this
+battalion back to camp, saying, 'The British haven't got
+wings; they can't fly up to the Plains!' Wolfe, of course,
+saw that the battalion had been taken away; and he soon
+found out why. Vaudreuil was a great talker and could
+never keep a secret. Wolfe knew perfectly well that
+Vaudreuil and Bigot were constantly spoiling whatever
+Montcalm was doing, so he counted on this trouble in the
+French camp as he did on other facts and chances.
+
+He now gave up all idea of his old plans against Beauport,
+as well as the new plan of the brigadiers, and decided
+on another plan of his own. It was new in one way, because
+he had never seen a chance of carrying it out before.
+But it was old in another way, because he had written to
+his uncle from Louisbourg on May 19, and spoken of getting
+up the heights four or five miles above Quebec if he
+could do so by surprise. Again, even so early in the
+siege as July 18 he had been chafing at what he called
+the 'coldness' of the fleet about pushing up beyond
+Quebec. The entry in his private diary for that day is:
+'The _Sutherland_ and _Squirrell_, two transports, and
+two armed sloops passed the narrow passage between Quebec
+and Levy _without losing a man_.' Next day, his entry is
+more scathing still: 'Reconnoitred the country immediately
+above Quebec and found that _if we had ventured the stroke
+that was first intended we should infallibly have
+succeeded_.' This shows how long he had kept the plan
+waiting for the chance. But it does not prove that he
+had missed any earlier chances through the 'coldness' of
+the fleet. For it is significant that he afterwards struck
+out '_infallibly_' and substituted '_probably_'; while
+it must be remembered that the _Sutherland_ and her
+consorts formed only a very small flotilla, that they
+passed Quebec in the middle of a very dark night, that
+the St Lawrence above the town was intricate and little
+known, that the loss of several men-of-war might have
+been fatal, that the enemy's attention had not become
+distracted in July to anything like the same bewildering
+extent as it had in September, and that the intervening
+course of events--however disappointing in itself--certainly
+helped to make his plan suit the occasion far better late
+than soon. Moreover, in a note to Saunders in August, he
+had spoken about a 'desperate' plan which he could not
+trust his brigadiers to carry out, and which he was then
+too sick to carry out himself.
+
+Now that he was 'patched up' enough for a few days, and
+that the chance seemed to be within his grasp, he made
+up his mind to strike at once. He knew that the little
+French post above the Anse au Foulon was commanded by
+one of Bigot's blackguards; Vergor, whose Canadian
+militiamen were as slack as their commander. He knew that
+the Samos battery, a little farther from Quebec, had too
+small a garrison, with only five guns and no means of
+firing them on the landward side; so that any of his men,
+once up the heights, could rush it from the rear. He knew
+the French had only a few weak posts the whole way down
+from Cap Rouge, and that these posts often let convoys
+of provision boats pass quietly at night into the Anse
+au Foulon. He knew that some of Montcalm's best regulars
+had gone to Montreal with Levis, the excellent French
+second-in-command, to strengthen the defence against
+Amherst's slow advance from Lake Champlain. He knew that
+Montcalm still had a total of 10,000 men between Montmorency
+and Quebec, as against his own attacking force of 5,000;
+yet he also knew that the odds of two to one were reversed
+in his favour so far as European regulars were concerned;
+for Montcalm could not now bring 3,000 French regulars
+into immediate action at any one spot. Finally, he knew
+that all the French were only half-fed, and that those
+with Bougainville were getting worn out by having to
+march across country, in a fruitless effort to keep pace
+with the ships of Holmes's squadron and convoy, which
+floated up and down with the tide.
+
+Wolfe's plan was to keep the French alarmed more than
+ever at the two extreme ends of their line--Beauport
+below Quebec and Pointe-aux-Trembles above--and then to
+strike home at their undefended centre, by a surprise
+landing at the Anse au Foulon. Once landed, well before
+daylight, he could rush Vergor's post and the Samos
+battery, march across the Plains, and form his line of
+battle a mile from Quebec before Montcalm could come up
+in force from Beauport. Probably he could also defeat
+him before Bougainville could march down from some point
+well above Cap Rouge.
+
+There were chances to reckon with in this plan. But so
+there are in all plans; and to say Wolfe took Quebec by
+mere luck is utter nonsense. He was one of the deepest
+thinkers on war who ever lived, especially on the British
+kind of war, by land and sea together; and he had had
+the preparation of a lifetime to help him in using a
+fleet and army that worked together like the two arms of
+one body. He simply made a plan which took proper account
+of all the facts and all the chances. Fools make lucky
+hits, now and then, by the merest chance. But no one
+except a genius can make and carry out a plan like Wolfe's,
+which meant at least a hundred hits running, all in the
+selfsame spot.
+
+No sooner had Wolfe made his admirable plan that Monday
+morning, September 10, than he set all the principal
+officers to work out the different parts of it. But he
+kept the whole a secret. Nobody except himself knew more
+than one part, and how that one part was to be worked in
+at the proper time and place. Even the fact that the Anse
+au Foulon was to be the landing-place was kept secret
+till the last moment from everybody except Admiral Holmes,
+who made all the arrangements, and Captain Chads, the
+naval officer who was to lead the first boats down. The
+great plot thickened fast. The siege that had been an
+affair of weeks, and the brigadiers' plan that had been
+an affair of days, both gave way to a plan in which every
+hour was made to tell. Wolfe's seventy hours of consummate
+manoeuvres, by land and water, over a front of thirty
+miles, were followed by a battle in which the fighting
+of only a few minutes settled the fate of Canada for
+centuries.
+
+During the whole of those momentous three days--Monday,
+Tuesday, and Wednesday, September 10, 11, and 12, 1759
+--Wolfe, Saunders, and Holmes kept the French in constant
+alarm about the thirteen miles _above_ Cap Rouge and the
+six miles _below_ Quebec; but gave no sign by which any
+immediate danger could be suspected along the nine miles
+between Cap Rouge and Quebec.
+
+Saunders stayed below Quebec. On the 12th he never gave
+the French a minute's rest all day and night. He sent
+Cook and others close in towards Beauport to lay buoys,
+as if to mark out a landing-place for another attack like
+the one on July 31. It is a singular coincidence that
+while Cook, the great British circumnavigator of the
+globe, was trying to get Wolfe into Quebec, Bougainville,
+the great French circumnavigator, was trying to keep him
+out. Towards evening Saunders formed up his boats and
+filled them with marines, whose own red coats, seen at
+a distance, made them look like soldiers. He moved his
+fleet in at high tide and fired furiously at the
+entrenchments. All night long his boatloads of men rowed
+up and down and kept the French on the alert. This feint
+against Beauport was much helped by the men of Wolfe's
+third brigade, who remained at the island of Orleans and
+the Point of Levy till after dark, by a whole battalion
+of marines guarding the Levis batteries, and by these
+batteries themselves, which, meanwhile, were bombarding
+Quebec--again like the 31st of July. The bombardment was
+kept up all night and became most intense just before
+dawn, when Wolfe was landing two miles above.
+
+At the other end of the French line, above Cap Rouge,
+Holmes had kept threatening Bougainville more and more
+towards Pointe-aux-Trembles, twenty miles above the
+Foulon. Wolfe's soldiers had kept landing on the south
+shore day after day; then drifting up with the tide on
+board the transports past Pointe-aux-Trembles; then
+drifting down towards Cap Rouge; and then coming back
+the next day to do the same thing over again. This had
+been going on, more or less, even before Wolfe had made
+his plan, and it proved very useful to him. He knew that
+Bougainville's men were getting quite worn out by scrambling
+across country, day after day, to keep up with Holmes's
+restless squadron and transports. He also knew that men
+who threw themselves down, tired out, late at night could
+not be collected from different places, all over their
+thirteen-mile beat, and brought down in the morning, fit
+to fight on a battlefield eight miles from the nearest
+of them and twenty-one from the farthest.
+
+Montcalm was greatly troubled. He saw redcoats with
+Saunders opposite Beauport, redcoats at the island,
+redcoats at the Point of Levy, and redcoats guarding the
+Levis batteries. He had no means of finding out at once
+that the redcoats with Saunders and at the batteries were
+marines, and that the redcoats who really did belong to
+Wolfe were under orders to march off after dark that very
+night and join the other two brigades which were coming
+down the river from the squadron above Cap Rouge. He had
+no boats that could get through the perfect screen of
+the British fleet. But all that the skill of mortal man
+could do against these odds he did on that fatal eve of
+battle, as he had done for three years past, with foes
+in front and false friends behind. He ordered the battalion
+which he had sent to the Plains on the 5th, and which
+Vaudreuil had brought back on the 7th, 'now to go and
+camp at the Foulon'; that is, at the top of the road
+coming up from Wolfe's landing-place at the Anse au
+Foulon. But Vaudreuil immediately gave a counter-order
+and said: 'We'll see about that to-morrow.' Vaudreuil's
+'to-morrow' never came.
+
+That afternoon of the 12th, while Montcalm and Vaudreuil
+were at cross-purposes near the mouth of the St Charles,
+Wolfe was only four miles away, on the other side of the
+Plains, in a boat on the St Lawrence, where he was taking
+his last look at what he then called the Foulon and what
+the world now calls Wolfe's Cove. His boat was just
+turning to drift up in midstream, off Sillery Point,
+which is only half a mile above the Foulon. He wanted to
+examine the Cove well through his telescope at dead low
+tide, as he intended to land his army there at the next
+low tide. Close beside him sat young Robison, who was
+not an officer in either the Army or Navy, but who had
+come out to Canada as tutor to an admiral's son, and who
+had been found so good at maps that he was employed with
+Wolfe's engineers in making surveys and sketches of the
+ground about Quebec. Shutting up his telescope, Wolfe
+sat silent a while. Then, as afterwards recorded by
+Robison, he turned towards his officers and repeated
+several stanzas of Gray's _Elegy_. 'Gentlemen,' he said
+as he ended, 'I would sooner have written that poem than
+beat the French to-morrow.' He did not know then that
+his own fame would far surpass the poet's, and that he
+should win it in the very way described in one of the
+lines he had just been quoting--
+
+   The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
+
+At half-past eight in the evening he was sitting in his
+cabin on board Holmes's flagship, the _Sutherland_, above
+Cap Rouge, with 'Jacky Jervis'--the future Earl St Vincent,
+but now the youngest captain in the fleet, only twenty-four.
+Wolfe and Jervis had both been at the same school at
+Greenwich, Swinden's, though at different times, and they
+were great friends. Wolfe had made up a sealed parcel of
+his notebook, his will, and the portrait of Katherine
+Lowther, and he now handed it over to Jervis for safe
+keeping.
+
+But he had no chance of talking about old times at home,
+for just then a letter from the three brigadiers was
+handed in. It asked him if he would not give them 'distinct
+orders' about 'the place or places we are to attack.' He
+wrote back to the senior, Monckton, telling him what he
+had arranged for the first and second brigades, and then,
+separately, to Townshend about the third, which was not
+with Holmes but on the south shore. After dark the men
+from the island and the Point of Levy had marched up to
+join this brigade at Etchemin, the very place where Wolfe
+had made his plan on the 10th, as he stood and looked at
+the Foulon opposite.
+
+His last general orders to his army had been read out
+some hours before; but, of course, the Foulon was not
+mentioned. These orders show that he well understood the
+great issues he was fighting for, and what men he had to
+count upon. Here are only three sentences; but how much
+they mean! 'The enemy's force is now divided. A vigorous
+blow struck by the army at this juncture may determine
+the fate of Canada. The officers and men will remember
+what their country expects of them.' The watchword was
+'Coventry,' which, being probably suggested by the saying,
+'Sent to Coventry,' that is, condemned to silence, was
+as apt a word for this expectant night as 'Gibraltar,'
+the symbol of strength, was for the one on which Quebec
+surrendered.
+
+Just before dark Holmes sent every vessel he could spare
+to make a show of force opposite Pointe-aux-Trembles, in
+order to hold Bougainville there overnight. But after
+dark the main body of Holmes's squadron and all the boats
+and small transports came together opposite Cap Rouge.
+Just before ten a single lantern appeared in the
+_Sutherland's_ main topmast shrouds. On seeing this,
+Chads formed up the boats between the ships and the south
+shore, the side away from the French. In three hours
+every man was in his place. Not a sound was to be heard
+except the murmur of the strong ebb-tide setting down
+towards Quebec and a gentle south-west breeze blowing in
+the same direction. 'All ready, sir!' and Wolfe took his
+own place in the first boat with his friend Captain
+Delaune, the leader of the twenty-four men of the 'Forlorn
+Hope,' who were to be the first to scale the cliff. Then
+a second lantern appeared above the first; and the whole
+brigade of boats began to move off in succession. They
+had about eight miles to go. But the current ran the
+distance in two hours. As they advanced they could see
+the flashes from the Levis batteries growing brighter
+and more frequent; for both the land gunners there and
+the seamen gunners with Saunders farther down were
+increasing their fire as the hour for Wolfe's landing
+drew near.
+
+A couple of miles above the Foulon the _Hunter_ was
+anchored in midstream. As arranged, Chads left the south
+shore and steered straight for her. To his surprise he
+saw her crew training their guns on him. But they held
+their fire. Then Wolfe came alongside and found that she
+had two French deserters on board who had mistaken his
+boats for the French provision convoy that was expected
+to creep down the north shore that very night and land
+at the Foulon. He had already planned to pass his boats
+off as this convoy; for he knew that the farthest up of
+Holmes's men-of-war had stopped it above Pointe-aux-
+Trembles. But he was glad to know that the French posts
+below Cap Rouge had not yet heard of the stoppage.
+
+From the _Hunter_ his boat led the way to Sillery Point,
+half a mile above the Foulon. 'Halt! Who comes there!'
+--a French sentry's voice rang out in the silence of the
+night. 'France!' answered young Fraser, who had been
+taken into Wolfe's boat because he spoke French like a
+native. 'What's your regiment?' asked the sentry. 'The
+Queen's,' answered Fraser, who knew that this was the
+one supplying the escort for the provision boats the
+British had held up. 'But why don't you speak out?' asked
+the sentry again. 'Hush!' said Fraser, 'the British will
+hear us if you make a noise.' And there, sure enough,
+was the _Hunter_, drifting down, as arranged, not far
+outside the column of boats. Then the sentry let them
+all pass; and, in ten minutes more, exactly at four
+o'clock, the leading boat grounded in the Anse au Foulon
+and Wolfe jumped ashore.
+
+He at once took the 'Forlorn Hope' and 200 light infantry
+to the side of the Cove towards Quebec, saying as he
+went, 'I don't know if we shall all get up, but we must
+make the attempt.' Then, while these men were scrambling
+up, he went back to the middle of the Cove, where Howe
+had already formed the remaining 500 light infantry.
+Captain Macdonald, a very active climber, passed the
+'Forlorn Hope' and was the first man to reach the top
+and feel his way through the trees to the left, towards
+Vergor's tents. Presently he almost ran into the sleepy
+French-Canadian sentry, who heard only a voice speaking
+perfect French and telling him it was all right--nothing
+but the reinforcements from the Beauport camp; for Wolfe
+knew that Montcalm had been trying to get a French regular
+officer to replace Vergor, who was as good a thief as
+Bigot and as bad a soldier as Vaudreuil. While this little
+parley was going on the 'Forlorn Hope' came up; when
+Macdonald promptly hit the sentry between the eyes with
+the hilt of his claymore and knocked him flat. The light
+infantry pressed on close behind. The dumbfounded French
+colonial troops coming out of their tents found themselves
+face to face with a whole woodful of fixed bayonets. They
+fired a few shots. The British charged with a loud cheer.
+The Canadians scurried away through the trees. And Vergor
+ran for dear life in his nightshirt.
+
+The ringing cheer with which Delaune charged home told
+Wolfe at the foot of the road that the actual top was
+clear. Then Howe went up; and in fifteen minutes all the
+light infantry had joined their comrades above. Another
+battalion followed quickly, and Wolfe himself followed
+them. By this time it was five o'clock and quite light.
+The boats that had landed the first brigade had already
+rowed through the gaps between the small transports which
+were landing the second brigade, and had reached the
+south shore, a mile and a half away, where the third
+brigade was waiting for them.
+
+Meanwhile the suddenly roused gunners of the Samos battery
+were firing wildly at the British vessels. But the
+men-of-war fired back with better aim, and Howe's light
+infantry, coming up at a run from behind, dashed in among
+the astonished gunners with the bayonet, cleared them
+all out, and spiked every gun. Howe left three companies
+there to hold the battery against Bougainville later in
+the day, and returned with the other seven to Wolfe. It
+was now six o'clock. The third brigade had landed, the
+whole of the ground at the top was clear; and Wolfe set
+off with 1,000 men to see what Montcalm was doing.
+
+Quebec stands on the eastern end of a sort of promontory,
+or narrow tableland, between the St Lawrence and the
+valley of the St Charles. This tableland is less than a
+mile wide and narrows still more as it approaches Quebec.
+Its top is tilted over towards the St Charles and Beauport,
+the cliffs being only 100 feet high there, instead of
+300, as they are beside the St Lawrence; so Wolfe, as he
+turned in towards Quebec, after marching straight across
+the tableland, could look out over the French camp.
+Everything seemed quiet; so he made his left secure and
+sent for his main body to follow him at once. It was now
+seven. In another hour his line of battle was formed,
+his reserves had taken post in his rear, and a brigade
+of seamen from Saunders's fleet were landing guns, stores,
+blankets, tents, entrenching tools, and whatever else he
+would need for besieging the city after defeating Montcalm.
+The 3,000 sailors on the beach were anything but pleased
+with the tame work of waiting there while the soldiers
+were fighting up above. One of their officers, in a letter
+home, said they could hardly stand still, and were
+perpetually swearing because they were not allowed to
+get into the heat of action.
+
+The whole of the complicated manoeuvres, in face of an
+active enemy, for three days and three nights, by land
+and water, over a front of thirty miles, had now been
+crowned by complete success. The army of 5,000 men had
+been put ashore at the right time and in the right way;
+and it was now ready to fight one of the great immortal
+battles of the world.
+
+'The thin red line.' The phrase was invented long after
+Wolfe's day. But Wolfe invented the fact. The six battalions
+which formed his front, that thirteenth morning of
+September 1759, were drawn up in the first two-deep line
+that ever stood on any field of battle in the world since
+war began. And it was Wolfe alone who made this 'thin
+red line,' as surely as it was Wolfe alone who made the
+plan that conquered Canada.
+
+Meanwhile Montcalm had not been idle; though he was
+perplexed to the last, because one of the stupid rules
+in the French camp was that all news was to be told first
+to Vaudreuil, who, as governor-general, could pass it on
+or not, and interfere with the army as much as he liked.
+When it was light enough to see Saunders's fleet, the
+island of Orleans, and the Point of Levy, Montcalm at
+once noticed that Wolfe's men had gone. He galloped down
+to the bridge of boats, where he found that Vaudreuil
+had already heard of Wolfe's landing. At first the French
+thought the firing round the Foulon was caused by an
+exchange of shots between the Samos battery and some
+British men-of-war that were trying to stop the French
+provision boats from getting in there. But Vergor's
+fugitives and the French patrols near Quebec soon told
+the real story. And then, just before seven, Montcalm
+himself caught sight of Wolfe's first redcoats marching
+in along the Ste Foy road. Well might he exclaim, after
+all he had done and Vaudreuil had undone: 'There they
+are, where they have no right to be!'
+
+He at once sent orders, all along his six miles of
+entrenchments, to bring up every French regular and all
+the rest except 2,000 militia. But Vaudreuil again
+interfered; and Montcalm got only the French and Canadian
+regulars, 2,500, and the same number of Canadian militia
+with a few Indians. The French and British totals, actually
+present on the field of battle, were, therefore, almost
+exactly equal, 5,000 each. Vaudreuil also forgot to order
+out the field guns, the horses for which the vile and
+corrupt Bigot had been using for himself. At nine Montcalm
+had formed up his French and colonial regulars between
+Quebec and the crest of rising ground across the Plains
+beyond which lay Wolfe. Riding forward till he could see
+the redcoats, he noticed how thin their line was on its
+left and in its centre, and that its right, near the St
+Lawrence, had apparently not formed at all. But his eye
+deceived him about the British right, as the men were
+lying down there, out of sight, behind a swell of ground.
+He galloped back and asked if any one had further news.
+Several officers declared they had heard that Wolfe was
+entrenching, but that his right brigade had not yet had
+time to march on to the field. There was no possible way
+of finding out anything else at once. The chance seemed
+favourable. Montcalm knew he had to fight or starve, as
+he was completely cut off by land and water, except for
+one bad, swampy road in the valley of the St Charles;
+and he ordered his line to advance.
+
+At half-past nine the French reached the crest and halted.
+The two armies were now in full view of each other on
+the Plains and only a quarter of a mile apart. The French
+line of battle had eight small battalions, about 2,500
+men, formed six deep. The colonial regulars, in three
+battalions, were on the flanks. The five battalions of
+French regulars were in the centre. Montcalm, wearing a
+green and gold uniform, with the brilliant cross of St
+Louis over his cuirass, and mounted on a splendid black
+charger, rode the whole length of his line, to see if
+all were ready to attack. The French regulars--half-fed,
+sorely harassed, interfered with by Vaudreuil--were still
+the victors of Ticonderoga, against the British odds of
+four to one. Perhaps they might snatch one last desperate
+victory from the fortunes of war? Certainly all would
+follow wherever they were led by their beloved Montcalm,
+the greatest Frenchman of the whole New World. He said
+a few stirring words to each of his well-known regiments
+as he rode by; and when he laughingly asked the best of
+all, the Royal Roussillon, if they were not tired enough
+to take a little rest before the battle, they shouted
+back that they were never too tired to fight--'Forward,
+forward!' And their steady blue ranks, and those of the
+four white regiments beside them, with bayonets fixed
+and colours flying, did indeed look fit and ready for
+the fray.
+
+Wolfe also had gone along his line of battle, the first
+of all two-deep thin red lines, to make sure that every
+officer understood the order that there was to be no
+firing until the French came close up, to within only
+forty paces. As soon as he saw Montcalm's line on the
+crest he had moved his own a hundred paces forward,
+according to previous arrangement; so that the two enemies
+were now only a long musket-shot apart. The Canadians
+and Indians were pressing round the British flanks, under
+cover of the bushes, and firing hard. But they were easily
+held in check by the light infantry on the left rear of
+the line and by the 35th on the right rear. The few French
+and British skirmishers in the centre now ran back to
+their own lines; and before ten the field was quite clear
+between the two opposing fronts.
+
+Wolfe had been wounded twice when going along his line;
+first in the wrist and then in the groin. Yet he stood
+up so straight and looked so cool that when he came back
+to take post on the right the men there did not know he
+had been hit at all. His spirit already soared in triumph
+over the weakness of the flesh. Here he was, a sick and
+doubly wounded man; but a soldier, a hero, and a conqueror,
+with the key to half a continent almost within his eager
+grasp.
+
+At a signal from Montcalm in the centre the French line
+advanced about a hundred yards in perfect formation. Then
+the Canadian regulars suddenly began firing without
+orders, and threw themselves flat on the ground to reload.
+By the time they had got up the French regulars had halted
+some distance in front of them, fired a volley, and begun
+advancing again. This was too much for the Canadians.
+Though they were regulars they were not used to fighting
+in the open, not trained for it, and not armed for it
+with bayonets. In a couple of minutes they had all slunk
+off to the flanks and joined the Indians and militia,
+who were attacking the British from under cover.
+
+This left the French regulars face to face with Wolfe's
+front: five French battalions against the British six.
+These two fronts were now to decide the fate of Canada
+between them. The French still came bravely on; but their
+six-deep line was much shorter than the British two-deep
+line, and they saw that both their flanks were about to
+be over-lapped by fire and steel. They inclined outwards
+to save themselves from this fatal overlap on both right
+and left. But that made just as fatal a gap in their
+centre. Their whole line wavered, halted oftener to fire,
+and fired more wildly at each halt.
+
+In the meantime Wolfe's front stood firm as a rock and
+silent as the grave, one long, straight, living wall of
+red, with the double line of deadly keen bayonets glittering
+above it. Nothing stirred along its whole length, except
+the Union Jacks, waving defiance at the fleurs-de-lis,
+and those patient men who fell before a fire to which
+they could not yet reply. Bayonet after bayonet would
+suddenly flash out of line and fall forward, as the
+stricken redcoat, standing there with shouldered arms,
+quivered and sank to the ground.
+
+Captain York had brought up a single gun in time for the
+battle, the sailors having dragged it up the cliff and
+run it the whole way across the Plains. He had been
+handling it most gallantly during the French advance,
+firing showers of grape-shot into their ranks from a
+position right out in the open in front of Wolfe's line.
+But now that the French were closing he had to retire.
+The sailors then picked up the drag-ropes and romped in
+with this most effective six-pounder at full speed, as
+if they were having the greatest fun of their lives.
+
+Wolfe was standing next to the Louisbourg Grenadiers,
+who, this time, were determined not to begin before they
+were told. He was to give their colonel the signal to
+fire the first volley; which then was itself to be the
+signal for a volley from each of the other five battalions,
+one after another, all down the line. Every musket was
+loaded with two bullets, and the moment a battalion had
+fired it was to advance twenty paces, loading as it went,
+and then fire a 'general,' that is, each man for himself,
+as hard as he could, till the bugles sounded the charge.
+
+Wolfe now watched every step the French line made. Nearer
+and nearer it came. A hundred paces!--seventy-five!--fifty!
+--forty!!--_Fire!!!_ Crash! came the volley from the
+grenadiers. Five volleys more rang out in quick succession,
+all so perfectly delivered that they sounded more like
+six great guns than six battalions with hundreds of
+muskets in each. Under cover of the smoke Wolfe's men
+advanced their twenty paces and halted to fire the
+'general.' The dense, six-deep lines of Frenchmen reeled,
+staggered, and seemed to melt away under this awful deluge
+of lead. In five minutes their right was shaken out of
+all formation. All that remained of it turned and fled,
+a wild, mad mob of panic-stricken fugitives. The centre
+followed at once. But the Royal Roussillon stood fast a
+little longer; and when it also turned it had only three
+unwounded officers left, and they were trying to rally it.
+
+Montcalm, who had led the centre and had been wounded in
+the advance, galloped over to the Royal Roussillon as it
+was making this last stand. But even he could not stem
+the rush that followed and that carried him along with
+it. Over the crest and down to the valley of the St
+Charles his army fled, the Canadians and Indians scurrying
+away through the bushes as hard as they could run. While
+making one more effort to rally enough men to cover the
+retreat he was struck again, this time by a dozen grape-shot
+from York's gun. He reeled in the saddle. But two of his
+grenadiers caught him and held him up while he rode into
+Quebec. As he passed through St Louis Gate a terrified
+woman called out, 'Oh! look at the marquis, he's killed,
+he's killed!' But Montcalm, by a supreme effort, sat up
+straight for a moment and said: 'It is nothing at all,
+my kind friend; you must not be so much alarmed!' and,
+saying this, passed on to die, a hero to the very last.
+
+In the thick of the short, fierce fire-fight the bagpipes
+began to skirl, the Highlanders dashed down their muskets,
+drew their claymores, and gave a yell that might have
+been heard across the river. In a moment every British
+bugle was sounding the 'Charge' and the whole red, living
+wall was rushing forward with a roaring cheer.
+
+But it charged without Wolfe. He had been mortally wounded
+just after giving the signal for those famous volleys.
+Two officers sprang to his side. 'Hold me up!' he implored
+them, 'don't let my gallant fellows see me fall!' With
+the help of a couple of men he was carried back to the
+far side of a little knoll and seated on a grenadier's
+folded coat, while the grenadier who had taken it off
+ran over to a spring to get some water. Wolfe knew at
+once that he was dying. But he did not yet know how the
+battle had gone. His head had sunk on his breast, and
+his eyes were already glazing, when an officer on the
+knoll called out, 'They run! They run! 'Egad, they give
+way everywhere!' Rousing himself, as if from sleep, Wolfe
+asked, 'Who run?'--'The French, sir!'--'Then I die content!'
+--and, almost as he said it, he breathed his last.
+
+He was not buried on the field he won, nor even in the
+country that he conquered. All that was mortal of him--his
+poor, sick, wounded body--was borne back across the sea,
+and carried in mourning triumph through his native land.
+And there, in the family vault at Greenwich, near the
+school he had left for his first war, half his short life
+ago, he was laid to rest on November 20--at the very time
+when his own great victory before Quebec was being
+confirmed by Hawke's magnificently daring attack on the
+French fleet amid all the dangers of that wild night in
+Quiberon Bay.
+
+Canada has none of his mortality. But could she have
+anything more sacred than the spot from which his soaring
+spirit took its flight into immortal fame? And could this
+sacred spot be marked by any words more winged than these:
+
+   HERE DIED
+     WOLFE
+   VICTORIOUS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EPILOGUE--THE LAST STAND
+
+Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham proved decisive
+in the end; but it was not the last of the great struggle
+for the Key of Canada.
+
+After Wolfe had died on the field of battle, and Monckton
+had been disabled by his wounds, Townshend took command,
+received the surrender of Quebec on the 18th, and waited
+till the French field army had retired towards Montreal.
+Then he sailed home with Saunders, leaving Murray to hold
+what Wolfe had won. Saunders left Lord Colville in charge
+of a strong squadron, with orders to wait at Halifax till
+the spring.
+
+Both French and British spent a terrible winter. The
+French had better shelter in Montreal than the British
+had among the ruins of Quebec; and, being more accustomed
+to the rigours of the climate, they would have suffered
+less from cold in any case. But their lot was, on the
+whole, the harder of the two; for food was particularly
+bad and scarce in Montreal, where even horseflesh was
+thought a luxury. Both armies were ravaged by disease to
+a most alarming extent. Of the eight thousand men with
+whom Murray began that deadly winter not one-half were
+able to bear arms in the spring; and not one-half of
+those who did bear arms then were really fit for duty.
+
+Montcalm's successor, Levis, now made a skilful, bold,
+and gallant attempt to retake Quebec before navigation
+opened. Calling the whole remaining strength of New France
+to his aid, he took his army down in April, mostly by
+way of the St Lawrence. The weather was stormy. The banks
+of the river were lined with rotting ice. The roads were
+almost impassable. Yet, after a journey of less than ten
+days, the whole French army appeared before Quebec. Murray
+was at once confronted by a dire dilemma. The landward
+defences had never been strong; and he had not been able
+to do more than patch them up. If he remained behind them
+Levis would close in, batter them down, and probably
+carry them by assault against a sickly garrison depressed
+by being kept within the walls. If, on the other hand,
+he marched out, he would have to meet more than double
+numbers at the least; for some men would have to be left
+to cover a retreat; and he knew the French grand total
+was nearly thrice his own. But he chose this bolder
+course; and at the chill dawn of April 28, he paraded
+his little attacking force of a bare three thousand men
+on the freezing snow and mud of the Esplanade and then
+marched out.
+
+The two armies met at Ste Foy, a mile and a half beyond
+the walls; and a desperate battle ensued. The French had
+twice as many men in action, but only half of these were
+regulars; the others had no bayonets; and there was no
+effective artillery to keep down the fire of Murray's
+commanding guns. The terrific fight went on for hours,
+while victory inclined neither to one side nor the other.
+It was a far more stubborn and much bloodier contest than
+Wolfe's of the year before. At last a British battalion
+was fairly caught in flank by overwhelming numbers and
+driven across the front of Murray's guns, whose protecting
+fire it thus completely masked at a most critical time.
+Murray thereupon ordered up his last reserve. But even
+so he could no longer stand his ground. Slowly and sullenly
+his exhausted men fell back before the French, who put
+the very last ounce of their own failing strength into
+a charge that took the guns. Then the beaten British
+staggered in behind their walls, while the victorious
+French stood fast, worn out by the hardships of their
+march and fought to a standstill in the battle.
+
+Levis rallied his army for one more effort and pressed
+the siege to the uttermost of his power. Murray had lost
+a thousand men and could now muster less than three
+thousand. Each side prepared to fight the other to the
+death. But both knew that the result would depend on the
+fleets. There had been no news from Europe since navigation
+closed; and hopes ran high among the besiegers that
+perhaps some friendly men-of-war might still be first;
+when of course Quebec would have to surrender at discretion,
+and Canada would certainly be saved for France if the
+half-expected peace would only follow soon.
+
+Day after day all eyes, both French and British, looked
+seaward from the heights and walls; though fleets had
+never yet been known to come up the St Lawrence so early
+in the season. At last, on May 9, the tops of a man-of-war
+were sighted just beyond the Point of Levy. Either she
+or Quebec, or both, might have false colours flying. So
+neither besiegers nor besieged knew to which side she
+belonged. Nor did she know herself whether Quebec was
+French or British. Slowly she rounded into the harbour,
+her crew at quarters, her decks all cleared for action.
+She saluted with twenty-one guns and swung out her
+captain's barge. Then, for the first time, every one
+watching knew what she was; for the barge was heading
+straight in towards the town, and redcoats and bluejackets
+could see each other plainly. In a moment every British
+soldier who could stand had climbed the nearest wall and
+was cheering her to the echo; while the gunners showed
+their delight by loading and firing as fast as possible
+and making all the noise they could.
+
+But one ship was not enough to turn the scale; and Levis
+redoubled his efforts. On the night of the 15th French
+hopes suddenly flared up all through the camp when the
+word flew round that three strange men-of-war just reported
+down off Beauport were the vanguard of a great French
+fleet. But daylight showed them to be British, and British
+bent on immediate and vigorous attack. Two of these
+frigates made straight for the French flotilla, which
+fled in wild confusion, covered by the undaunted Vauquelin
+in the _Atalante_, which fought a gallant rearguard action
+all the twenty miles to Pointe-aux-Trembles, where she
+was driven ashore and forced to strike her colours, after
+another, and still more desperate, resistance of over
+two hours. That night Levis raised the siege in despair
+and retired on Montreal. Next morning Lord Colville
+arrived with the main body of the fleet, having made the
+earliest ascent of the St Lawrence ever known to naval
+history, before that time or since.
+
+Then came the final scene of all this moving drama. Step
+by step overpowering British forces closed in on the
+doomed and dwindling army of New France. They closed in
+from east and west and south, each one of their converging
+columns more than a match for all that was left of the
+French. Whichever way he looked, Levis could see no
+loophole of escape. There was nothing but certain defeat
+in front and on both flanks, and starvation in the rear.
+So when the advancing British met, all together, at the
+island of Montreal, he and his faithful regulars laid
+down their arms without dishonour, in the fully justifiable
+belief that no further use of them could possibly retrieve
+the great lost cause of France in Canada.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Wolfe is one of the great heroes in countless books of
+modern British history, by far the greatest hero in the
+many books about the fight for Canada, and the single
+hero of four biographies. It was more than a century
+after his triumphant death before the first of these
+appeared: _The Life of Major-General James Wolfe_ by
+Robert Wright. A second Life of Wolfe appeared a generation
+later, this time in the form of a small volume by A. G.
+Bradley in the 'English Men of Action' series. The third
+and fourth biographies were both published in 1909, the
+year which marked the third jubilee of the Battle of the
+Plains. One of them, Edward Salmon's _General Wolfe_,
+devotes more than the usual perfunctory attention to the
+important influence of sea-power; but it is a sketch
+rather than a complete biography, and it is by no means
+free from error. The other is _The Life and Letters of
+James Wolfe_ by Beckles Willson.
+
+The histories written with the best knowledge of Wolfe's
+career in Canada are: the contemporary _Journal of the
+Campaigns In North America_ by Captain John Knox, Parkman's
+_Montcalm and Wolfe_, and _The Siege of Quebec and the
+Battle of the Plains of Abraham_ by A. G. Doughty and G.
+W. Parmelee. Knox's two very scarce quarto volumes have
+been edited by A. G. Doughty for the Champlain Society
+for republication in 1914. Parkman's work is always
+excellent. But he wrote before seeing some of the evidence
+so admirably revealed in Dr Doughty's six volumes, and,
+like the rest, he failed to understand the real value of
+the fleet.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of
+Wolf, by William Wood
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WINNING OF CANADA ***
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