But supposing that some of your troops had reached the top of the hill, up to our trenches, after surmounting these difficulties, my grenadiers were drawn up in battle behind them, ready to charge upon them, with their bayonets upon their muskets, the instant any of your soldiers should appear at the trenches.
The swampy, sinking ground, from the redoubt to the foot of the hill, was not one of the smallest difficulties you had in your way to come at us.
It is true the Scotch Highlanders, who were your forlorn hope, had got over it and had reached the foot of the hill, though certainly very few returned; but these turfy swamps, when a certain number of men have passed them, become at last impassible, and your soldiers must have sunk down in it above the head, multitudes of them perishing there in the most useless and disagreeable manner. Thus, sir, I hope you see clearly the folly and rashness of that attack, and that your army must have been totally destroyed, without hope, had not heaven wrought a miracle in your favor, after a long cessation of them, which alone could save you.
You were no sooner hotly engaged in the attack, without a possibility of withdrawing yourself out of the scrape, when from a clear sunshine there fell in that most critical juncture, of a sudden, the most violent even, down pour of rain from a cloud, which, as the cloud that saved Eneas from the fury of Diomed, placed you immediately out of our sight, so that in an instant we could not see half way down the hill. You profited, as a wise man, of this event to make good your retreat. When the shower was over and we could see you, we found, to our sorrow, that you had escaped us, and that you were then out of the reach of our fire, marching, in a well-formed column, back to your camp at the Sault, well satisfied to have got out of that adventure with the loss only of between five and six hundred men.
It was a long time before I could be persuaded that you were in earnest. I had always expected your descent and attack would have been betwixt the St. Charles river and the ravine of Beauport. All that tract of ground, about four miles extent, was everywhere favourable to you, if you had made your real descent in the middle of it, opposite to M. Vaudreuil’s lodging, with feint attacks at Johnstone’s redoubt, and at the Canardière near the river St. Charles, forcing our intrenchments there, which could not resist an instant a well-formed column. The head of it, composed of the Scotch Highlanders, might have easily penetrated into the plain, separating our army into two parts by the centre, having lodged yourself in the south side of the ravine of Beauport, and have taken the hornwork upon the St. Charles river, sword in hand, without much difficulty or loss of men. In short, all this might have been effected in an hour’s time, without meeting with any considerable resistance from our army, thus divided and opened by the centre; and a complete victory, which would have crushed us to pieces without hope, would have crowned you with justly merited laurels.
Wolfe:—I own to you, sir, I was greatly deceived with regard to the height and steepness of the hill, which did not appear considerable, even with a telescope, from the river St. Lawrence; it was only when I got to the redoubt that I saw it such as it really is. I began at seven in the morning to fire at your camp from my battery at the Sault (of forty cannons) mostly four-and-twenty pounders. The Centurion, a man-of-war of sixty guns, did the same, as also the Two Cats, which had on board all the tools necessary for the workmen. They gave you continually their broadsides, firing upon your camp, as I did from my battery, like platoons of infantry.
I dare say you never saw artillery better served and kept up until six in the evening when I began my landing at low water. I imagined that this terrible cannonade all that day, without a moment’s intermission, would have intimidated your Canadians and make them quit the trenches; my battery at the Sault being thirty or forty feet higher than your camp, we saw them down at the shore. Certainly you must have lost a great number of men.
Montcalm:—That brave militia deserves justly the greatest praise. Not a man of them stirred from his post, and they showed as much ardour, courage and resolution as my regular troops. I had no more than fifty men killed and wounded by your furious cannonade, which proves how little cannons are hurtful in comparison to the dread and respect they inspire. Permit me, sir, to tell you that your countrymen, the English, appear to me, from their conduct in Canada, to be as rash, inconsiderate and hot-headed as the French, who have ever enjoyed that character, notwithstanding your countrymen’s reputation for coolness and phlegmatic bravery, since I have seen several examples of their attacking us before they had examined the locale, or known our position; and if the two nations are compared impartially, I am persuaded that you will do us the justice to own that in our operations in Canada we have shown much more circumspection and coolness than your English generals. Your attack of the 31st July, without having procured beforehand an exact knowledge of the hill and of the places adjacent, is not the first example of great temerity and impatience on their part.
The proximity of your camp to this hill might have furnished you the means to have a thorough knowledge of our position, by sending proper persons to cross over the ford of the river Montmorency where it falls into the river St. Lawrence, and where it is fordable at low water.
They might, in a dark night and bad weather, have not only examined the steepness of the height, but have even gone over all our camp without being discovered; I always imagined you did so until the day of your attack, which soon convinced me of the contrary. Your brother in arms, Abercrombie, your predecessor in the command of the army, committed the same fault at Ticonderoga as you did the 31st of July; but it cost him much dearer, the clouds which saved you not having come to his assistance.