GENERAL WOLFE.
I copy the following interesting Note from the London Chronicle, August 19, 1788:
It is a circumstance not generally known, but believed by the army which served under General Wolfe, that his death-wound was not received by the common chance of war, but given by a deserter from his own regiment. The circumstances are thus related:—The General perceived one of the sergeants of his regiment strike a man under arms (an act against which he had given particular orders), and knowing the man to be a good soldier, reprehended the aggressor with much warmth, and threatened to reduce him to the ranks. This so far incensed the sergeant, that he took the first opportunity of deserting to the enemy, where he meditated the means of destroying the General, which he effected by being placed in the enemy's left wing, which was directly opposite the right of the British line, where Wolfe commanded in person, and where he was marked out by the miscreant, who was provided with a rifle piece, and, unfortunately for this country, effected his purpose. After the defeat of the French army, the deserters were all removed to Crown Point, which being afterwards suddenly invested and taken by the British army, the whole of the garrison fell into the hands of the captors; when the sergeant of whom we have been speaking was hanged for desertion, but before the execution of his sentence confessed the facts above recited."[[3]]
In Smith's Marylebone, p. 272., is a notice of Lieutenant M‘Culloch, according to whose plan Wolfe attacked Quebec. M‘Culloch became destitute, and died in Marylebone workhouse in 1793. A letter from Wolfe to Admiral Saunders is in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1801; and one addressed by him to Barré was sold by Puttick and Simpson about three years since.
A portrait of Wolfe by Sir Joshua Reynolds is in possession of Mr. Cole of Worcester.
Since my last notice, I have heard that Mr. Henry George, proprietor of the Westerham Journal, made some collections towards a life of Wolfe: if so, it is not improbable that Mr. Streatfield obtained them at his sale in 1844. In conclusion, I beg to inquire, whence come the lines quoted by the Marquis of Lansdowne?—
"Enough for him
That Chatham's language was his mother-tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own."
H. G. D.
Knightsbridge.
Footnote 3:[(return)]
[The incident related above has been preserved by Sir William Musgrave, in his Biographical Adversaria (Additional MSS., No. 5723., British Museum), who has added the following note:—"This account was had from a gentleman who heard the confession." For some further notices of Mrs. Henrietta Wolfe, the mother of the General, relative to her death and the disposal of her property, see the Addit. MSS., No. 5832., p. 78.—Ed.]