Chapter 73

One of the most important unpublished documents on Wolfe's operations against Quebec is the long and elaborate Journal mémoratif de ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable pendant qu'a duré le Siége de la Ville de Québec (Archives de la Marine). The writer, M. de Foligny, was a naval officer who during the siege commanded one of the principal batteries of the town. The official correspondence of Vaudreuil for 1759 (Archives Nationales) gives the events of the time from his point of view; and various manuscript letters of Bigot, Lévis, Montreuil, and others (Archives de la Marine, Archives de la Guerre) give additional particulars. The letters, generally private and confidential, written to Bourlamaque by Montcalm, Lévis, Vaudreuil, Malartic, Berniers, and others during the siege contain much that is curious and interesting.

Siége de Québec en 1759, d'après un Manuscrit déposé à la Bibliothêque de Hartwell en Angleterre. A very valuable diary, by a citizen of Quebec; it was brought from England in 1834 by the Hon. D. B. Viger, and a few copies were printed at Quebec in 1836. Journal tenu à l'Armée que commandoit feu M. le Marquis de Montcalm. A minute diary of an officer under Montcalm (printed by the Quebec Historical Society). Mémoire sur la Campagne de 1759, par M. de Joannès, Major de Québec (Archives de la Guerre). Lettres et Dépêches de Montcalm (Ibid.). These touch chiefly the antecedents of the siege. Mémoires sur le Canada depuis 1749 jusqu'à 1760 (Quebec Historical Society). Journal du Siége de Québec en 1759, par M. Jean Claude Panet, notaire (Ibid.). The writer of this diary was in Quebec at the time. Several other journals and letters of persons present at the siege have been printed by the Quebec Historical Society, under the title Événements de la Guerre en Canada durant les Années 1759 et 1760. Relation de ce qui s'est passé au Siége de Québec, par une Réligieuse de l'Hôpital Général de Québec (Quebec Historical Society). Jugement impartial sur les Opérations militaires de la Campagne, par Mgr. de Pontbriand, Évêque de Québec (Ibid.). Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, from the Journal of a French Officer on board the Chezine Frigate, taken by His Majesty's Ship Rippon, by Richard Gardiner, Esq., Captain of Marines in the Rippon, London, 1761.

General Wolfe's Instructions to Young Officers, Philadelphia, 1778. This title is misleading, the book being a collection of military orders. General Orders in Wolfe's Army (Quebec Historical Society). This collection is much more full than the foregoing, so far as concerns the campaign of 1759. Letters of Wolfe (in Wright's Wolfe), Despatches of Wolfe, Saunders, Monckton, and Townshend (in contemporary magazines). A Short Authentic Account of the Expedition against Quebec, by a Volunteer upon that Expedition, Quebec, 1872. This valuable diary is ascribed to James Thompson, a volunteer under Wolfe, who died at Quebec in 1830 at the age of ninety-eight, after holding for many years the position of overseer of works in the Engineer Department. Another manuscript, for the most part identical with this, was found a few years ago among old papers in the office of the Royal Engineers at Quebec. Journal of the Expedition on the River St. Lawrence. Two entirely distinct diaries bear this name. One is printed in the New York Mercury for December, 1759; the other was found among the papers of George Alsopp, secretary to Sir Guy Carleton, who served under Wolfe (Quebec Historical Society). Johnstone, A Dialogue in Hades (Ibid.). The Scotch Jacobite, Chevalier Johnstone, as aide-de-camp to Lévis, and afterwards to Montcalm, had great opportunities of acquiring information during the campaign; and the results, though produced in the fanciful form of a dialogue between the ghosts of Wolfe and Montcalm, are of substantial historical value. The Dialogue is followed by a plain personal narrative. Fraser, Journal of the Siege of Quebec (Ibid.). Fraser was an officer in the Seventy-eighth Highlanders. Journal of the Siege of Quebec, by a Gentleman in an Eminent Station on the Spot, Dublin, 1759. Journal of the Particular Transactions during the Siege of Quebec (Notes and Queries, XX.). The writer was a soldier or non-commissioned officer serving in the light infantry.

Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec and Total Reduction of Canada, by John Johnson, Clerk and Quarter-master Sergeant to the Fifty-eighth Regiment. A manuscript of 176 pages, written when Johnson was a pensioner at Chelsea (England). The handwriting is exceedingly neat and clear; and the style, though often grandiloquent, is creditable to a writer in his station. This curious production was found among the papers of Thomas McDonough, Esq., formerly British Consul at Boston, and is in possession of his grandson, my relative, George Francis Parkman, Esq., who, by inquiries at the Chelsea Hospital, learned that Johnson was still living in 1802.

I have read and collated with extreme care all the above authorities, with others which need not be mentioned.

Among several manuscript maps and plans showing the operations of the siege may be mentioned one entitled, Plan of the Town and Basin of Quebec and Part of the Adjacent Country, shewing the principal Encampments and Works of the British Army commanded by Major Genl. Wolfe, and those of the French Army by Lieut. Genl. the Marquis of Montcalm. It is the work of three engineers of Wolfe's army, and is on a scale of eight hundred feet to an inch. A fac-simile from the original in possession of the Royal Engineers is before me.

Among the "King's Maps," British Museum (CXIX. 27), is a very large colored plan of operations at Quebec in 1759, 1760, superbly executed in minute detail.

Appendix J.