Part 2

"The Governor of Quebec (General Murray) sent the Town Major to the Mother Abbess of the Convent of Hotel Dieu, to acquaint her with the reasons that induced him to destroy their mills and tenements at Calvaire: namely, on account of her having transmitted intelligence to the French, of the last detachment's being ordered to be in readiness to march out; for having actually carried on a correspondence with the French army in the whole course of the winter, whereby they were informed of all movements, proceedings, and every other occurrence that happened within the walls: the Governor also signified to her, that if either she or her sisters should presume to correspond in future with the French, either directly or indirectly, or in any respect act contrary to good faith and the duty they owed to the King of Great Britain, they should, without further ceremony, be banished from Quebec, and their convent be converted into a barrack for the troops. As Madame de St. Claude, who was sister to M. de Ramsay, and Superior of the General Hospital, had always been inimical to the English in propagating falsehoods, and in encouraging the Canadians to resist, General Murray sent the Brigade-Major to signify to this lady that she should desist from such conduct; and that as she appeared to take a great interest in the affairs of this world, and seemed tired of her seclusion, he would enlist her as a Grenadier, which from her stature (full six feet) she was qualified to be, and that he would promote her the first opportunity that presented itself."--(SMITH.)]

The French had about two thousand killed and wounded in this battle of the 27th (? 28th) of April, of which number there was an hundred and ten officers of the regular troops, besides a great many officers of the Canadian militia: so they might say with Pyrrhus, the day of his victory over the Romans--"Again such another victory, and I would be undone!"

M. de Levis opened the trenches the same night before Quebec, and they were carried on with such activity that his batteries were soon ready to receive the guns necessary to make a breach.

But the most considerable of his bad pieces was a twelve pounder, which he mounted upon batteries, firing at times with the greatest economy, as he had but a small store of gunpowder. There needed only the arrival of a ship from France with artillery and ammunition to crown M. de Levis with glory. The English in Quebec confessed that the first flag that would appear in the St. Lawrence would decide the question, if Canada should remain in possession of the English or return to the French.

No ships arrived from France with artillery. The fate of Canada was at last settled by the appearance of three English men-of-war, on the 7th of May. They ascended immediately the St. Lawrence without stopping at Quebec. They attacked the small French frigates--at the Ance du Foulon, about a mile above the town--which had passed the winter in Canada; took some of them, burned others, and, in short, destroyed in an instant all the French marine. This unlooked-for arrival, instead of the vessel which M. de Levis expected from France, so astonished and terrified the French army, that they immediately raised the siege--and that without any necessity for it. They again left as a present for the English their tents and their baggage, as they had done previously on retiring from Beauport, after the battle of the 13th September. Such was their consternation that, as if struck by a thunderbolt, they fled with the utmost precipitation, as if the English were pursuing them after the loss of a battle. De Vauquelin alone distinguished himself by a truly heroic bravery. He commanded one of the small French frigates of about sixteen guns, and fought like a lion against an English man-of-war of forty guns, until he had no powder nor shot. He then sent all his crew ashore to M. de Levis, judging that they might be of use to him, and remained on board with the wounded, his colors always flying.

The English, after firing some time at his vessel, and receiving no answer, approached in their boats and asked him why he did not fire, or lower his flag? De Vauquelin answered them fiercely that, had he had any more powder he would not have been silent so long; that if they had a mind to take him, they might cut down his flag themselves, as hitherto his custom was not to strike his colors, but to make others--his country's enemies--do so. The English then went on board of his ship, and took him prisoner, with his wounded men, and in consideration of his determination--they having cut down his flag--treated him with the regard which bravery can claim at the hands of a generous enemy. De Vauquelin had already made himself known to the English by his undaunted courage at the siege of Louisburg. His intrepidity so delighted the English Admiral, that he begged him to tell him freely how he could serve him. He answered the Admiral, "that what he wished for of all things was to have his liberty and permission to return to France." The Admiral had so great a consideration for him, that he caused a vessel to be immediately fitted out to carry him to Europe, ordering the English captain to obey De Vauquelin and land him in any French port he might ask for, leaving him at the same time to choose what French passengers would accompany him. This noble and generous behaviour of the English did honor to their nation, by rendering justice to, and discerning the merit of, an enemy, far beyond what De Vauquelin met with from Berryer, the Secretary of the Navy, on his arrival in France.

The unhappy situation of the colony was now past remedy, and may be compared to a man in the agonies of death, to whom the physician continues to administer cordials, not from hopes of his recovery, but to allay and soften the violence of his sufferings. All that could now be expected was to obtain an honorable capitulation, favorable to its inhabitants, the colony being at its last gasp.

M. de Levis left two thousand men at Jacques Cartier, with orders to retire slowly according as the English advanced from Quebec, and to avoid an engagement with them, without losing sight of them. This retarded their march, and put off the evil hour as long as possible. He went with the rest of his army to Montreal. As there was no provision in that town to be able to keep his army assembled, he was obliged to disperse them, sending them back to their winter quarters, where each inhabitant was obliged to board a soldier at a very low rate, which was paid by the munitionary general.

M. de Bougainville was sent in the spring to command at Isle aux Noix, with eleven hundred men, of which number were the Regiment of Guienne and Berry. This island is situated in the River Chambly (Richelieu), about eight leagues in a straight line from Montreal, and two miles distant from Lake Champlain.

M. Bourlamarque, an officer of great knowledge in all the branches of his profession, decided upon that position for his retreat the year before, when he evacuated Ticonderoga, having been forced to abandon to the English that lake. He fortified this island as well as was possible in a sandy ground, in order to serve as a frontier on that side of Canada, and hinder the English from coming down by the River Richelieu into the River St. Lawrence, by which means in a very short time they might have been in possession of Montreal and Three Rivers,--a much easier way than by Lake Ontario, which is much longer and full of chicares (?) by the rapids in the St. Lawrence, and prolong their operations;--a very great advantage in a country where there are violent frosts during seven months of the year. This island is about twelve hundred fathoms long, and from a hundred to two hundred broad. The entrenchments traced and conducted by M. Bourlamarque are regular, and a proof of his superior knowledge in fortifications. He barred the two branches of the river which formed the island with staccados, or chains of big trees, linked to one another at their ends by strong rings and circles of iron. This prevented the English boats from Lake Champlain to pass the island in the night, to reach Montreal. But for the staccados the island must have been taken by them before they could proceed any further.

Some Iroquois, of the Five Nations, informed M. de Vaudreuil at Montreal, that General Amherst was marching to invade Canada with a very considerable army by the rapids and Lake Ontario, whilst General Murray had orders to come up the river with his army from Quebec, and join Gen. Amherst at Montreal. But they had no knowledge of a third body of troops, about four thousand men, that came by Lake Champlain, in the month of July, five weeks before the arrival of the other two armies at Montreal, and besieged Isle aux Noix with a very considerable train of artillery, cannon, mortars, &c., in profusion.

They erected five batteries of guns on the south side of the river, with a bomb battery, which rendered our trenches useless, as they had a sight of us everywhere, back, face and sideways, and so near us that at the south staccado they killed several of our soldiers by their musket shots.

The sandy ground protected us from the effect of their shells, which they threw upon us in great numbers, with a continual fire from their gun batteries.

After sixteen days' siege with a most violent cannonade, without a moment's interruption, M. Nogaire, an officer in the Regiment of Royal Roussillon, came to us from Montreal, having crossed directly through the woods, with some Indians for his guides, with two letters from De Bougainville, one of which was from him to Vaudreuil, and the other from M. de Levis. It was a very critical conjuncture, having only two days' provision for the garrison, which had subsisted until the arrival of the English troops by means of fishing-nets, that river abounding with the most delicious fish, with seven or eight oxen, which had been kept as a reserve and killed by the enemy's cannon. M. de Vaudreuil's letter contained a permission to M. de Bougainville to capitulate or retire from the island if it was possible. M. de Levis' letter was a positive order to defend that post to the last extremity. De Bougainville, notwithstanding his genius, good sense and learning, with personal courage, and who lacked only taste for the study of the art of war to distinguish himself, was nevertheless put to a nonplus how to act from the contradictory orders he received. In this dilemma he shewed me the letters, asking at the same time my advice; and my answer was:--"That in two days famine must oblige us to surrender to the enemy at discretion. That the reinforcements of a thousand men at Montreal might be of the greatest importance, and help to make a good countenance when the English army had advanced in the neighborhood of it. That it was M. de Vaudreuil who commanded-in-chief in Canada, and not M. de Levis; and that there was yet a possibility of retiring with the garrison towards the north side of the island, where the swampy ground upon the border of the river had hindered the English from establishing a post." De Bougainville immediately decided for a retreat, which was executed and combined with equal justness; and the success answered exactly to the prudence, wisdom and good conduct that De Bougainville exhibited in preparing for it. It was then about ten in the morning when Nogaire arrived with the Indians, who--not accustomed to such a terrible fire as was at that moment poured forth by the English batteries, very different from their way of fighting behind trees--were not at all at ease, and furiously impatient to get out of the island. The hour of retreat was settled for ten that night.

The north shore of Isle aux Noix, on the opposite side of the river, was marshy to the distance of three hundred paces from the river, covered with small trees where there was a rising ground, and there was no English post nearer to it than at the Prairie de Boileau, distant half a mile down the river, so that the locality where the river was fordable was a little below the north staccados. De Bougainville adopted every prudent measure imaginable to achieve success. He ordered all the boats to be mended and put in condition to be used at a moment's warning. He also ordained that the boats, bark canoes, and punts hewn out of a large tree, be removed a certain distance from the river side, lest some soldier should desert and apprise the English of his design, such as had happened from the posts near Quebec. He commanded that all the garrison should be in order of battle at ten at night, all observing a profound silence, without the least clashing of arms or other noise, and be in readiness to march. He ordered M. le Borgne, an officer in the colonial troops, to remain on the island with a detachment of forty men, to keep up a smart fire from our battery, which consisted of seven or eight pieces of cannon, during the time we were employed in passing the river, in order to hinder the English from hearing us in our operations, and to continue firing whilst ammunition lasted, and to conceal our retreat as long as it was possible to do so.

We began to cross the river in two lighters, with some small boats, about ten at night. They plied continually to and fro until midnight, when all had crossed the river without the enemy perceiving or even suspecting our operation, although so near to us were their posts on their left that we heard distinctly their voices. All was executed without the least noise, disorder, or confusion--a rare occurrence on such an occasion. Le Borgne acted well, and at the same time economized his ammunition so well that he had wherewith to fire upon the English at intervals until one in the morning. Imagining us then to be near Montreal, he hoisted the white flag to capitulate, and the English, not having the smallest notion of our retreat, granted him immediately very honorable terms. We had eighty men killed or wounded during the siege--a very inconsiderable loss for a cannonade of sixteen days' duration, from five batteries, besides a bomb battery, without an instant's intermission. Had it been a stony instead of a sandy ground, we must have lost above one-half of the garrison, and could not have resisted so long.

So soon as everyone had passed the river, we set out for Montreal, crossing through the woods, which, in a straight line, is only eight leagues from Isle aux Noix, always half running one after the other, after having marched in this manner, from midnight until twelve at noon, over fens, swamps, mosses, and sinking often up to the waist in marshy ground, without reposing or halting one minute. Instead of being near Montreal, as we imagined, we were thunderstruck on finding ourselves, by the fault of our guides, to be only at the distance of half a league from Isle aux Noix: our guide, not knowing the road through the woods, had caused us to turn round continually for twelve hours without advancing!

We were so near an English post at the Prairie de Boileau, that a grenadier of the Regiment de Berry, seeing his commander, Cormier, sink down with fatigue, and not in a condition to go any further, carried off a horse from them which was upon the borders of the wood, and mounted his commander on it; otherwise he would have been left aside and taken prisoner by the English, or scalped by the Indians.

Having lost all hopes of going to Montreal through the woods, we took the road to Fort St. Jean, on the River Chambly, four leagues lower than Isle aux Noix, and five leagues by land to Montreal. My strength was so entirely spent, that it was with great difficulty I could draw one leg after the other. Nevertheless the fear of falling into the hands of the Indians, the idea of the horrible cruelties which they practice on their prisoners, which shock human nature, prevented me from sinking down with pain, and gave me strength to push on.

Arrived at a settlement at four in the afternoon, about a league and a half from St. John's Fort, where De Bougainville caused his detachment to halt and repose themselves for the first time since midnight, that they left Isle aux Noix. I perceived there a boat going off to St. Jean, and I had only strength enough remaining to throw myself into it. We lost in this march about eighty men: those who could not hold out were left behind, victims to the Indians. Arriving at St. John's Fort, the first person I saw there was Poularies, on the river side, who told me they had news of our retreat, and that he was sent with his regiment to sustain us in case we had been pursued by the English.

We were now shut up in the island of Montreal on all sides. The English were masters of the River Chambly by the possession of Isle aux Noix. General Amherst approached with his army from Lake Ontario; and General Murray was in march, coming up from Quebec, with six thousand men that had passed through the winter there, and with some men-of-war, one of which of about forty guns, on its arrival in sight of the town of Montreal, greatly astonished, and excited the admiration of, the inhabitants, who, from the ignorance and negligence of those persons charged with the sounding of the St. Lawrence, had never seen vessels arrive there of above sixty or seventy tons.

General Murray conducted himself as an officer of great understanding, knowledge and capacity, and left nothing to do for General Amherst; he employed five weeks in coming from Quebec to Montreal, which is only sixty leagues, and did us during his march more harm by his policy than by his army. He stopped often in the villages; spoke kindly to the inhabitants he found at home in their houses--whom hunger and famine had obliged to fly from our army at Montreal; gave provisions to those unhappy creatures perishing for want of subsistence. He burned, in some cases, the houses of those who were absent from home and in the French army at Montreal, publishing everywhere an amnesty and good treatment to all Canadians who would return to their habitations and live there peaceably. In short--flattering some and frightening others--he succeeded so well, that at last there was no more possibility of keeping them at Montreal. It is true we had now only need of them to make a good countenance. The three English armies amounting to above twenty thousand men, it was impossible to make any further resistance.

Amherst's army appeared in sight from the town of Montreal, towards the gate of Lachine, on the 7th of September, about three in the afternoon. General Murray with his army, from Quebec, appeared two hours after at the opposite side of the town: thus a dark crisis was at hand for the fate of Canada. Montreal was nowise susceptible of defence. It was surrounded with stone walls, built in the beginning of that colony, merely to preserve the inhabitants from the incursions of the Indians, few imagining at that time it would become the theatre of a regular war, and that one day they would see formidable armies of regular, well-disciplined troops before its walls.

We were, however, all pent up in that miserable, bad place--without provisions, a thousand times worse off than an advantageous position in open fields--whose pitiful walls could not resist two hours' cannonade without being level with the ground, and where we would have been forced to surrender at discretion, if the English had insisted upon it.

The night between the 7th and 8th September was passed in negotiating for the articles of capitulation. But in the morning all the difficulties were removed, and General Amherst granted conditions infinitely more favourable than could be expected in our circumstances.

Thus the Canadians, as brave as they are docile, and easy to be governed, became subjects of Great Britain; and if they can think themselves happy under that Government, by remembering their past vexations, they will do so.

M. (Col.) Poularies and M. (Col.) Dalquier, who were generally distinguished in the French army by their high sense of honor, probity, and their bravery, experience and knowledge in the art of war, were both of them, on their arrival in France, broken as commanders of a battalion--a grade which was abolished in the French service, in order to make the Major, as in the British service, command the regiment in absence of the Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel. Belcomb, Poularies' Adjt. of Royal Roussillon, and Montgnary, Captain in the Regiment of Bearn which Dalquier commanded--(two very handsome men, capable to attract the attention of the ladies of any court in Europe)--were made Colonels of Foot, without possessing any remarkable military talent or capacity.

Fortune manifested most cruelly her almighty power in the military state, where justice, punishments and rewards alone ought to be the base of it. Men conduct themselves from the view either of honor or interest; and there can be no emulation in a service where mediocrity of talents, intrigues, favor, and credit, override merit.

Greatness of soul, joined to superiority of talent, ignores the art of cringing; it is even impossible that merit can lead to fortune in a corrupted and venal country: on the contrary, it becomes a cause of exclusion. Virtue elevates the soul, and can neither fawn nor buy credit, nor flatter vice and incapacity. "If such is the military constitution of a State," says M. Gaubert, in his Treatise of Tactics, "of which the Sovereign (the King of Prussia) is one of the greatest men of the age, who instructs and commands his armies, and whose armies form all the pomp of the court, what ought it to be in those States where the Sovereign is not at all a military man; where he does not see his troops; where he seems to disdain or be ignorant of all that regards them; where the Court, who always obey the impression of the Sovereign, is consequently not military; where almost all the great rewards are obtained by surprise, by intrigue; where the greater portion of favors are hereditary; where merit languishes for want of support; where favor can advance without talent; where to make a fortune no more implies acquiring a reputation, but merely to heap up riches; where men may be, at one and the same time, covered with orders and infamy--with grades and ignorance, serve ill the State, and occupy the best places; be smeared with the censure of the public, and enjoy the Sovereign's good graces? If, whilst all other sciences are becoming perfected, that of war remains in its infancy, it is the fault of the Governments, who do not attach to it sufficient importance; who do not make it an object of public education; who fail to direct men of genius to that profession; who suffer them to find more glory and advantages in sciences trifling or less useful; who render the profession of arms an ungrateful employment, where talents are outstripped by intrigue, and the prizes distributed by Fortune."

General Amherst, according to his statement in his letter to Mr. Pitt, then Secretary of State, lost in coming down the rapids--without meeting there any opposition from the French or Indians--by drowning, eighty-four men. Twenty more of the regiments' boats were dashed to pieces. Seven boats of the artillery, loaded with arms and ammunition, and one of his galleys, were also lost.