CHAPTER XV

LÉVIS AND THE NOBLES RETIRE TO OLD FRANCE

It was while Montcalm, high-spirited and valorous, yet lay dying, that Vaudreuil, now quartered on the Beauport Road, called a council of war. Tumult, fear, and confusion reigned. Montcalm, seeing the sands of his life fast running out, despatched a brief reply. "You have a threefold choice," he said: "to fight the English again, to retreat to Jacques Cartier, or to surrender the colony."

Over which choice to make, Vaudreuil hesitated. With Bougainville's troops he could muster 3000 men. These added to the Quebec garrison, the Canadian militia and artillery at Beauport, would give him a force far larger than that which had been mustered by the heroic Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham. When he asked the advice of the council of war he found, to his chagrin, that all his officers voted for retreat. "In vain," he reported to the King, "I told these gentlemen that we were superior to the enemy, and should beat them if we mustered. Still I could not at all change their opinion, and my love for the service and for the colony made me subscribe to the voice of the council. In fact, if I had attacked the English against the advice of the principal officers, {222} their ill-will would have exposed me to the risk of losing the battle and the colony also." But the real reason why the officers were against fighting afterwards appeared. It was that they thought their commander, Vaudreuil, unfit to lead them to the fray. So Quebec, which might even now have been prevented from falling into the hands of the English, was left to its fate. Weary and footsore, almost dead for want of sleep, leaving their cannon, tents, and provisions behind them, Vaudreuil and the Beauport army set out for the distant hill of Jacques Cartier, where they were certain of a refuge that very night. Never was such disorder seen before. "It was not a retreat," wrote one of the officers afterwards, "but an abominable flight, with such disorder and confusion that, had the English but known it, 300 men sent after us would have been sufficient to cut all our army to pieces. The soldiers were all mixed, scattered, dispersed, and running as hard as they could, as if the English army were at their heels."

But the English, under General Townsend, were not so foolish as to risk the fruits of their victory by making an attempt to pursue the French across the St. Charles River. The people of Quebec, realising that they were deserted by the army, without provisions or munitions of war, and that the defences were insufficient to repulse a bombardment and assault, wished to surrender at once. Seeing that they refused to fight the enemy, the commandant, Ramésay, could only send out a flag of truce to the hostile camp and begin negotiations for capitulation.

{223}

But within the walls of Quebec dwelt a doughty patriot, the town-major, named Joannès. He called upon the soldiers and citizens to fight with their last breath, to die as Montcalm had done rather than let Quebec pass into the hands of the enemy. In his rage at the cowardice about him he beat two of the garrison with the flat of his sword. When the white flag was raised Joannès, the bravest man in the city, instantly hauled it down with his own hands. But alas! it was but fighting a battle against fate. His superior officer, Ramésay, commanded him sternly to repair to the English camp and get the best terms of peace he could. Through the pelting rain the town-major of Quebec, his head thrown back defiantly, his hand on his empty scabbard, sought the quarters of General Townsend. There he spun out the hours in a parley, hoping against hope that the recreant Vaudreuil would return and try to succour the city. Joannès kept up the negotiations as long as he could. Losing patience at last, Townsend sent him back to the French general with the message that if Quebec were not surrendered before eleven o'clock, he would capture it by assault. Ramésay, seeing all was lost, put his name to the articles of capitulation, and Joannès, with a heavy heart, carried the document back to the English commander. Scarcely had he put the walls of the city he loved behind him, when a troop of sixty Canadian horsemen appeared with the news that the Chevalier de Lévis was on the way with troops and provisions to rescue Quebec. The tidings came too late! The French general had surrendered; he would not now break his word. {224} Ramésay dreaded too much the vengeance of the English in case the news borne by the sixty horsemen was not true, but false. How shall we picture the feelings of the town-major Joannès? When he returned he hid himself in a cellar and wept, while the blood-red cross of St. George was flaunted from the summit of the citadel. Thus at length, on the 18th September 1759, the capital town and rock-bound fortress of New France fell into the hands of the English.

General Townsend recognised too well the danger of his position not to grant favourable terms to the enemy, whose troops and sailors were allowed to march out of the garrison with the honours of war and granted passage in English ships to France. The persons and property of the inhabitants were promised protection, and their religion was not to be interfered with.

But now the question was with the English, should they keep Quebec or destroy it, as they had destroyed Louisburg? For a moment the city's fate trembled in the balance, and then it was resolved to keep it. Ten battalions of the artillery and a company of Rangers were ordered to remain behind and through the long Canadian winter hold the ruins of Quebec against the efforts of Lévis and the French, for little more than ruins much of Quebec now was. It needed enormous labour to make the town secure against the enemy, or even habitable.

While Townsend sailed away to England, leaving General Murray in charge, many working parties of soldiers were distributed through the town to clear {225} the streets of rubbish and to repair the buildings for occupation. The palace of the Intendant was turned into winter quarters for an English regiment, which found there quantities of unused firearms, iron-mongery, blankets, cloths and linen, trinkets and lace, furs, wine, sugar, moccasins, and other stores. These were seized upon with alacrity. Nearly 7000 English, with insufficient food and clothing, made ready to face the approaching winter. Outposts in the neighbourhood of Sillery, St. Foye, and Lorette were established in order to guard against a surprise and to cover the safety of the detachments sent out to gather fuel in the surrounding woods. Canadian winters are cold, and the English soldiers were not yet hardened to their severities, and this gathering of firewood became a very serious business. Each detachment could make only one trip a day to the forest, returning with a fair-sized load on a sled drawn by hand. The soldiers were obliged to go armed as they worked, and keep a sharp lookout for fear of attacks by the Indians, who were always skulking in the neighbourhood. Winter this year set in even earlier than usual, and the brave soldiers who had served in India and Europe were now face to face with an enemy more terrible than the French. Their faces, hands, and feet were often frost-bitten, and on some occasions half the force of a detachment would be borne back entirely disabled. As if this were not enough, fever and scurvy prevailed in the garrison the whole winter long, and the brave fellows perished by scores and hundreds. Those who died were buried in the deep snow to await interment {226} in the spring, for the ground was fast locked by frost.

Meanwhile the inhabitants of the province were disarmed and required to take the oath of allegiance to King George. But they could not all be trusted. The English lived in constant insecurity, and during the winter many rumours came of a projected attack by the French, and several skirmishes took place. Once in November it was reported that Lévis was about to march upon Quebec with 15,000 men the next month, for had he not sworn an oath to eat his Christmas dinner under the French flag within the walls? So the half-frozen English, each man hugging his musket in his frost-bitten fingers, waited for the enemy. The enemy had a fine sense of humour. In February a party of French and Indians sent a message to the English officers that a large company of expert hairdressers were prepared to wait upon them whenever their services were required! Needless to say, the English took no notice of this handsome offer to deprive them of their scalps.

Not until April did the long-expected battle occur. For months Lévis had been gathering his forces, and now, with an army of 8000 men and many redskins, he set out to recover the lost city of Quebec. At the village of St. Foye, five or six miles away, he halted. So wary had been his approach, that Murray and his garrison were ignorant of danger. They might have learnt it too late but for a strange and fortunate accident. It so happened that a frigate called the _Racehorse_ had wintered in the {227} dock at Quebec Lower town. On board this frigate soon after midnight the watch heard a faint cry of distress proceeding from the river. He ran at once to the captain, who, believing that some one was drowning, ordered a boat to be put out to save him. Guided by the cries, the sailors found a man lying on a large cake of ice, wet through and half dead with cold. Carrying him to the ship and pouring hot cordials down his throat, the man at last found strength to mutter that he was a soldier in Lévis's army; he and his companions had been trying to land just about Cap Rouge, but the boat had overturned, and he was the sole survivor. His life had been saved by his clambering upon a cake of floating ice. "The army of Lévis?" echoed the puzzled ship captain. "Just so," answered the soldier; "there are 12,000 of us. We are coming to retake Quebec."

Although it was between two and three o'clock in the morning, the rescued soldier was wrapped up warmly, slung in a hammock, and carried straightway up the heights to the commander's quarters. General Murray was fast asleep, but, having risen and heard the man's story, he ordered the troops under arms on the instant. By daybreak half the English garrison, with ten pieces of cannon, were hurled on the French columns at St. Foye. But in his rashness and thirst for renown, Murray had not counted well the cost. The French had thrice as many soldiers, and although the English fought gallantly and doggedly, they were compelled at last to fall back. When the English columns withdrew again to the city, they had left 1000 dead and dying men on the field of St. Foye.

{228}

Then began what Murray dreaded most--a new siege of Quebec. Weak his men were with sickness, and feeble with toil, fighting, and hunger, but their spirit was as unquenchable as ever. While Lévis set up his siege guns in position and began a steady bombardment of the city, the English garrison worked unceasingly, officers and privates handling spade and pickaxe in the same trenches together. Not a man of them all was idle. Even the sick in hospital filled sandbags or made wadding for the cannons. The English fire grew hotter every day from the 150 cannon which had been planted upon the walls.

All depended now on the reinforcements of troops expected by both sides from England and from France. Whichever arrived first would settle the question of victory. It was on a bright May morning, as Murray sat pondering over his despatches at headquarters, that an officer burst in to tell him that a ship of war had been sighted far down the river. The news spread through the town; all were divided between hope and fear. Was this warship French or was she English? Every eye was strained on the approaching ship, which displayed no colours at her mast-head. Slowly, slowly she drew near, and then hurrah! there unfurled to the wind the crimson flag of England, and the first boom of a salute of twenty-one guns reverberated across the mighty river. She turned out to be the _Lowestoft_ bringing news that a British squadron was at the mouth of the St. Lawrence and would reach Quebec in a few days. "The gladness of the troops," wrote home one of the {229} garrison, "is not to be expressed. Both officers and soldiers mounted the parapet in the face of the enemy and huzzaed, with their hats in the air, for almost an hour. The garrison, the enemy's camp, the bay resounded with our shouts and the thunder of our artillery, and the gunners were so elated that they did nothing but load and fire for a considerable time."

But if a French squadron had been first, what a shock to their spirits, what a test of their endurance, which they might not have overborne!

On the heart of the gallant Chevalier de Lévis this news fell, and brought a deadly chill. He withdrew his troops hastily, and it was soon seen that the French ships, which had wintered high up the river, were fated to destruction. Of these there were six altogether, two frigates, two small armed ships, and two schooners. Commanding them was a daring officer named Vauquelin. Although Vauquelin fought with dogged determination till all his powder and lead was spent, although he refused to lower his colours, the English mariners overpowered him and made him their prisoner. But the English knew a brave man when they saw one, and Vauquelin they treated with distinguished honour, inviting him to a banquet and toasting him loudly as a hero.

This was the deathblow to the hopes of Lévis. True, he had Montreal still in his hands, but what was Montreal without ammunition and provisions, with the enemy clamouring at the very gates? The Canadian Militia had deserted to their homes, and Vaudreuil and De Lévis had to defend the city with only 2000 disheartened troops; while against them {230} was ranged a force of 17,000 English. Further resistance was useless, and so on the 8th of September Vaudreuil surrendered to General Murray, and Canada and all its dependencies passed to the British Crown.

Hopeless as the situation had been for a full year past, ever since Wolfe had laid down his life at the moment of victory on the Plains of Abraham, there were some amongst the French to whom the thought of defeat was unbearable pain. Invincible in spirit, we see emerging through the mist of a century and a half, the courtly, stalwart, chivalrous figure of the Chevalier de Lévis. To be conquered while his right arm could grip the handle of a sword was to him unutterable disgrace. When he heard that his superior, Vaudreuil, had agreed that the French troops should lay down their arms and serve no longer during the war, his manly cheek flushed and he insisted that the negotiations should be broken off. "If," he said, "the Marquis de Vaudreuil must surrender, let us at least withdraw with the troops to the Island of St. Helen in order to uphold there, on our own behalf, the honour of the King's army." But this step Vaudreuil could not, of course, permit, and the Chevalier could only grind his teeth in mortification and prepare to bid the Canada he loved an eternal farewell.

Canada was now a British colony, and those members of the old French Canadian families who were unwilling to become British subjects followed Vaudreuil and Lévis back to France. With them also went the rascally Bigot and the traitors and pilferers who had fattened on the distresses of their country. Nemesis awaited them! No sooner had {231} they touched French soil than they were seized and flung into the Bastille. At first the brazen Cadet swore, when he faced his judges, he was innocent, but afterwards he confessed all. Bigot too denied his knavery, until the papers signed by himself put him to silence. His punishment was great, but far less than he deserved; he was banished from France for life, his property confiscated to the King, and he was made to pay a fine of 1,500,000 francs. Cadet was banished for nine years and fined 6,000,000 francs, while the rest were ordered to be imprisoned until their fines were paid, so that many who had betrayed New France languished in the gaols of Old France and died within those bare stone walls.

Canada, as you have seen, had now changed masters. But the red-man, so long the friend and ally of the French, standing at the door of his wigwam or stealing noiselessly in his war-paint through the forest, was puzzled and angered. He could not understand how it had happened; he could not understand why the flag of the lilies should be hauled down from every fort and trading-station, and the flag of the English or the "Boston men," as he called them, unfurled. His mind could not grasp the meek submission of the Canadian pale-faces--the farmers and traders--to the chiefs sent out by King George. "Why do you not," said one of their braves, "leave your towns and villages and set up your lodges in the forest? Then, when the English are lulled into security, return and fall upon and slay them? You can win battles by craft and cunning as well as by numbers and cannon." But although the French Canadians smiled and shook {232} their heads at this plan, yet at the western settlements, such as Michilimackinac, Detroit, and Presqu'Isle, they did not scruple to tell the Indians that the English would soon drive them from their forest homes and hunting-grounds, and thereby to kindle hate in their hearts for the new conquerors. The French certainly understood the Indian character far better than the English, who treated them with contemptuous neglect. The vanity of the redskin chiefs was no longer fostered, and the tribes were told plainly that they were regarded as vassals and savages. For the English--the Boston men--could not forget the bloodthirsty cruelty which had been practised upon them and their wives and children for so long, and now that they felt that all power on the continent was in the hollow of their hands, they would not stoop to truckle to its aboriginal masters.

At first the haughty redskin chiefs were taken wholly by surprise at the contempt meted out to them; then all their hot savage blood mounted in their veins. All that they needed was a leader, and they had not long to wait. A leader of their own race, intelligent, daring, treacherous, and vain, suddenly appeared on the scene. Pontiac was a chieftain of the Ottawas, but so greatly had his fame spread that all the braves of the Hurons, the Ojibways, the Sacs, the Wyandots, the Delawares, and the Senecas looked to him as their guide and captain. In the strange drama which was now to thrill the Western world, Pontiac takes the stage as the central figure. In history this drama is called "The Conspiracy of Pontiac."

{233}

It was not many months after General Murray was ruling Canada in the name of his young master, King George III., that Pontiac, the chieftain of the Ottawas, saw with a keen eye the danger that threatened his people. Either the red-man and all the tribes would be crushed under the heel of the pale-faces, or else they must take up their dwellings and retreat farther into the western forests. "With the French," said Pontiac, "we can live in friendship, but with the restless English either we must flee afar or we or they must die!"

A plot grew and took shape in Pontiac's mind of uniting all the power of the red-men and driving the English for ever out of the whole country. He told his audacious plot to some of the Western French fur-traders, who expressed their joy, saying that the King of France would surely help him, and was even then sending out fresh hosts to slay the enemy. With the utmost care did Pontiac lay his plans. A day was chosen, a day in May 1763, when all the Indians who looked to Pontiac as their leader would rise in their might and fall with musket and tomahawk upon their unsuspecting victims. At this time the strongest of the western forts was Detroit, and this fort Pontiac had arranged to surprise and seize by strategy. A council of Indians arranged to meet Major Gladwin, the commander, and the other English officers within the fort on that day. They were supposed to be entirely unarmed, but beneath his blanket each conspirator concealed a musket, shortened by its barrel being filed in half. While they conversed pleasantly Pontiac was to give the signal which would {234} sound the doom of the garrison. But the plot failed. To the love of an Indian maiden for Gladwin the English owed their lives. This young girl overheard the plot. She could not sleep the whole of one night, and in the morning stole hurriedly to Gladwin and told him of Pontiac's intended treachery. Altogether ignorant of how he had been betrayed, Pontiac and his fellow-conspirators, with faces calm and smiling, for the Indians can wear the most impenetrable mask, arrived at the fort to attend the proposed conference. To Pontiac's astonishment, he saw the English soldiers drawn up with loaded muskets as if for battle. Did he start back cringing and discomfited? Nay, not a change of expression passed his impassive features; he went on with the conference as if nothing had happened, and afterwards, without giving any signal, withdrew. Next morning Pontiac again came; this time he was ordered away from the gates of the fort. Fierce rage filled his heart; he knew then that his plot had been revealed to the English. Strategy had failed at Detroit, he must now fire the torch of Indian hatred and openly assault the stronghold. He attacked, and for months the red-men were kept at bay until succour could come to the heroic Gladwin and his men.

But if the devotion of one Indian maiden had spared Detroit, the treachery of another sacrificed Fort Miami and the garrison of the Maumee River. Captain Holmes, the commandant, had inspired the jealousy of a young squaw. She believed he loved another, and lent herself to Pontiac's schemes to encompass the English chiefs destruction. On the {235} fatal morning she came to tell Holmes that her sister was seriously ill in one of the wigwams and desired to see him. All unsuspecting, he set out on his mission of charity, and was shot dead on the very threshold of the wigwam. As for his fort and company of soldiers, they fell into the hands of the watchful Indians. The same fate was reserved for the forts of De Boeuf, Presqu'Isle, and Sandusky. The blood of the colonists on the frontier of Pennsylvania flowed freely; the scalps of Pontiac's victims adorned many lodges.

It soon began to appear as if Pontiac's threat against the English had not been in vain. At Michilimackinac strategy carried the day for the red conspirators. On King George's birthday, the 4th June, Captain Etherington received an invitation from the Sacs and Ojibways to witness their favourite game of lacrosse by way of celebrating the day. Suspecting no danger, the gate of the fort was allowed to be left open, while the officers and soldiers, clustered in groups outside, became deeply interested in the progress of this most exciting game. The ball was passed and repassed skilfully between the goals, as, seizing their opportunity, a number of squaws, with muskets and tomahawks hidden under their blankets, stole unseen through the gates. Soon the ball bounced against the pallisade, and instantly a swarm of players dashed after it. In the twinkling of an eye they had darted through the open gates and snatched their weapons from the waiting squaws. Before the garrison could realise what had happened, fifteen of them lay weltering in their blood, and the rest were {236} taken prisoners. Thus in only six weeks from the day of the first attack of Pontiac on Detroit, all the forts in the western country, except three, were seized and destroyed and the garrisons massacred or made prisoners.

To Pontiac and his men Fort Pitt bade defiance. After some weeks' delay Colonel Bouquet was sent out to reinforce it. Bouquet met and defeated the Delaware and Shawanoe tribes, and gave them so sound a beating that the tide against the English began to turn. The misguided chiefs slowly came to see that the power of England was greater than they had supposed, and that of France extinguished for ever. In the following year several Indian tribes were defeated, and Pontiac, now deserted by many of his allies, was obliged to fall back farther into the west. Two years later the mighty chief's power was broken, and he was forced to submit. So ended the great conspiracy. The hundreds of prisoners whom Pontiac and his Indians had captured in their raids were at last restored to families which had, not without reason, supposed them to be dead. Parties of rescuers found that some of the young English girls had actually fallen in love with their savage captors and had wedded them in Indian fashion. Children had forgotten their parents. One girl only remembered her childhood when the strains of a lullaby fell from the lips of her rejoicing mother, whose face was strange to her.

Pontiac himself vanished with ignominy from history. Fallen from his high estate, defeated in his ambitious hopes, he engaged in a drunken bout with {237} a warrior of the Illinois nation. From words the pair proceeded to blows, tomahawks flashed in the air, and the once powerful chieftain was laid low. Such was the ending to the career of a savage enemy whose name had caused the people in the English colonies to tremble for so long. But Pontiac and his conspiracy had taught the new conquerors a lesson. Justice and forbearance not only towards the French Canadians but towards the red-men was thenceforward the policy of English Canada.

All seemed now fair sailing for all the colonies under the rule of King George. But war-clouds were already mounting above the horizon which would gather in size and intensity as the years ran on. More blood would be spilt in Canada and on the great continent of which Canada forms so important a part.

{238}