It was destroying alone for the pleasure of doing injury, without any advantage accruing to you from it.
Wolfe:—My inaction during the whole summer should have made you perceive what little hopes I had of succeeding in my expedition; should it turn out fruitless after the sum it had cost England, the news of Quebec being reduced to ashes might blind the extravagant English populace, and blunt their fanatical fury.
Montcalm:—The day that you landed at the Sault de Montmorency, where you encamped immediately with a body of four thousand men, in all appearance you did not know that the river Montmorency was fordable in the wood about a mile to the north of your camp, where fifty men in front might pass the ford with water only up to their knees. Had you passed it immediately, you might have fallen upon the left of our army, cut them to pieces, and pursued them two miles, as far as the ravine of Beauport, before they could assemble a sufficient number of men to be able to resist you. You might have even encamped upon the north side of that ravine, which, having it before you, would have been a very advantageous post, and brought you several miles nearer to Quebec. In this case it is highly probable that we would have been obliged to abandon to you all the ground between the St. Charles river and the ravine.
To return to my first project of encamping upon the heights of Abraham, our left was in the greatest security, not knowing that there was a ford in that river until some hours after your landing at the Sault.
Wolfe:—Is it then surprising that I should be ignorant of that ford, since you did not know it yourself? besides, it is only the inhabitants in the neighbourhood of rivers, swamps and lakes, who can give positive and sure information about them. And supposing I had found some of your Canadians at their houses there, they are so inviolably attached to their religion, king and country, that they would sooner have led me into a snare than instruct me in anything that could be prejudicial to their army.
Those whom a general sends to examine the locale of a country must do it very superficially upon their own observations, without consulting or interrogating the peasants in the neighbourhood.
Montcalm:—Whilst your soldiers were employed in making their camp, and pitching their tents, M. de Levis and his aide-de-camp Johnstone, were looking at you from the opposite side of the Sault. His aide-de-camp having asked him if he was positively certain that there was no ford in the Montmorency river, M. de Levis answering that there was not, and that he had been himself to examine it to its source, at a lake in the woods, about ten or twelve miles from the Sault. An inhabitant who overheard this conversation, told the aide-de-camp: “The General is mistaken; there is a ford which the inhabitants thereabouts pass every day in carrying their corn to a mill;” and he added that he had crossed it lately, with water not above his knees.
The aide-de-camp related to M. de Levis immediately his conversation with the Canadian, who would not believe there was a ford, and, examining him roughly, the Canadian was seized with awe, and respect for the General; his tongue faltered in his mouth, and he durst not boldly assert the truth. The aide-de-camp, in a whisper to the Canadian, ordered him to find out a person who had crossed the ford lately, and bring him immediately to M. de Levis’ lodgings. The Canadian came to him in a moment, with a man who had crossed it the night before, with a sack of wheat upon his back, where he had found only eight inches deep of water.
The aide-de-camp being thus assured of the fact, ordered, in M. de Levis’ name, a detachment to be sent instantly, with the necessary tools to intrench itself.
Wolfe:—Had I been so lucky as you, sir, to discover that ford, there is no doubt I would not have let slip so favourable an opportunity of distinguishing myself, and would have fallen like lightning upon that part of your camp. There can be nothing more dangerous than the neighbourhood of rivers and swamps, that have not been sounded and examined with the greatest care and attention. Negligence, ignorance and headstrong obstinacy are equally fatal in military affairs; and the misfortune of a Lieutenant-General, in Scotland, against the Highlanders at the battle of Prestonpans, made so deep an impression upon me that I am always on my guard when near such places.