Montcalm:—How can you, sir, justify your imprudence in running headlong into the woods opposite to our intrenchments, with two thousand men, who naturally ought to have been cut to pieces, and neither you nor any man of your detachment escape? Nine hundred Indians had invested you all round at a pistol shot from you, and had already cut off your retreat, without your perceiving it. So soon as the Indians had surrounded you in the wood, they sent their officer Langlade to acquaint M. de Levis that they had got you in their net, but that your detachment, appearing to be about two thousand men, greatly superior to them in number, they begged earnestly of M. de Levis to order M. de Repentigny to pass the ford with eleven hundred men, which he commanded in these intrenchments, and join them; that they would be answerable upon their heads if a single man of your detachment should get back to your camp; and they did not think themselves strong enough to strike upon you without this reinforcement of Canadians. There were a great many officers at M. de Levis’ lodgings when Langlade came to him on behalf of the Indians, and this General having consulted them, after giving his own opinion on the affair: “that it was dangerous to attack an army in the wood, as they could not know the number of men there; that it might be all the English army, which consequently might bring on a general engagement without being prepared for it; and that if he happened to be repulsed, he would be blamed for engaging in an affair, without holding previously an order from his superiors, M. de Vaudreuil and M. de Montcalm.” The officers respected too much the General not to be of his way of thinking, and it must ever be so from flattery. His aide-de-camp alone maintained a different opinion, out of a real friendship for M. de Levis. He told them that there was not the smallest probability it could be all the English army, since the Indians, who never fail to magnify the number, computed them at only two thousand men. That even supposing it to be the whole English army, it would be the most lucky thing that could happen to us to have a general engagement in the woods, where a Canadian is worth three disciplined soldiers, as a soldier in a plain is worth three Canadians; and that nothing was more essential than to select the propitious moment and the way of fighting for those who composed the two-thirds of the army, which was the case with the Canadians. On the contrary, the English army was almost entirely composed of regulars with very few militia.
That M. de Levis could not do better than in ordering M. de Repentigny to cross the river immediately with his detachment en échelon, and join the Indians, without losing moments very precious; that at the same time he should send instantly to inform me of his adventure, in order to make all the army advance towards the ford, each regiment taking the place of the other marched off; so that the Regiment Royal Roussillon, the nearest to the ford, should go off directly to take the post that Repentigny would quit in crossing the river, and observing the same for the rest of the army; that by this means the engaging a general affair was much to be wished for, supposing all the English army to be in the woods opposite the ford; in short, that if there was a possibility of our being defeated and repulsed in the woods, which could scarce happen, according to all human probability, we had our retreat assured in the depth of these woods, well known to the Canadians, where the English troops could not pursue them, so that in no shape could M. de Levis run the least risk.
His aide-de-camp added, that when fortune offers her favours, “they ought to be snatched with avidity.” These reasons made no impressions on M. de Levis, and Langlade was sent back to the Indians with a negative reply.
There was two miles from M. de Levis’ quarters to the place where the Indians were in ambush. Langlade came back with new entreaties and earnest solicitations to induce M. de Levis to make Repentigny cross the ford with his detachment, but the General could not be prevailed upon to give a positive order to Repentigny to join the Indians.
He wrote a letter to Repentigny by Langlade, wherein he told him “having the greatest confidence in his prudence and good conduct, he might pass the river with his detachment, if he saw a certainty of success.” His aide-de-camp told him, whilst he was sealing the letter, that Repentigny had too much judgment and good sense to take upon himself an affair of that importance; and his opinion of Repentigny was immediately justified by his answer; he asked M. de Levis to give him a clear and positive order. After thus loitering about an hour and a half, M. de Levis resolved at last to go himself to the ford, and give there his orders verbally; but he had scarce got half way to it when he heard a brisk fire. The Indians, losing all patience, after having remained so long hid at a pistol shot from you, like setter dogs upon wild fowl, at last gave you a volley, killed about a hundred and fifty of your soldiers, and then retired without losing a man. It is evident that had Repentigny passed the river with his detachment of eleven hundred Canadians, you must have been cut to pieces, and that affair would have terminated your expedition. Your army could have no more hopes of succeeding after such a loss; their spirits would have been damped, and Canada would have been secure from any further invasion from Great Britain.
Fortune was always as favourable to you, as she constantly frowned upon us. M. de Levis is not to be blamed; an officer who serves under the orders of others can only be reproached when he does not execute punctually the orders he receives from his superiors; and he has always reason to be cautious and diffident in such cases where his honour and reputation may be engaged, as none can be positively certain of the issue of any military enterprise, and if success does not crown the venture, of which you have voluntarily burthened yourself, though undertaken from the best of motives and apparently for the good of the service, thousands of mouths will open to spit venom against you.
But of all others, the ignorant amongst the military, and the knaves, to screen themselves, will surely be violent: this is so much the more astonishing, in the profession of arms, where sentiments of honour and honesty ought to be the foundation.
Wolfe:—My intention in approaching so near your post at the ford was to examine it carefully, as I then had formed the design to attack it, little imagining that such a considerable detachment as I had with me would have been exposed to be set on by your Indians. Accustomed to European warfare, I could never have thought that a body of men should have been so long, so close to me without discovering them. Your intrenchments there appeared to be very trifling, but the sight of earth thrown up is respectable, and not to be despised.
Montcalm:—Your attack of the 31st of July, at the only place of our camp which was inaccessible, appeared to me unaccountable. From Quebec to Beauport, which was about four miles, it is a marshy ground, very little higher than the surface of the St. Lawrence at full tide. The heights begin at the ravine at Beauport, and rise gradually all along the border of the river, until at Johnstone’s redoubt and battery—where you made your descent and attack—they become a steep high hill, which ends in a deep precipice at the Sault de Montmorency. Opposite to Johnstone’s redoubt it is so steep that your soldiers could scarce be able to climb it, even without the encumbrance of their arms.
Besides this natural fortification, we had a continued intrenchment all along the edge of the hill, from Beauport to the Sault, so traced and conducted by M. Johnstone that it was everywhere flanked, and the sloping of it served as a glacis; thus the fire from the front and flanks would have destroyed the three-fourths of your army before they could reach the top of the hill.