[814] Letters of Horace Walpole, III. 254, 257 (ed. Cunningham, 1857).
When, in soberer mood, he wrote the annals of his time, and turned, not for the better, from the epistolary style to the historical, he thus described the impression made on the English public by the touching and inspiring story of Wolfe's heroism and death: "The incidents of dramatic fiction could not be conducted with more address to lead an audience from despondency to sudden exaltation than accident prepared to excite the passions of a whole people. They despaired, they triumphed, and they wept; for Wolfe had fallen in the hour of victory. Joy, curiosity, astonishment, was painted on every countenance. The more they inquired, the more their admiration rose. Not an incident but was heroic and affecting." [815] England blazed with bonfires. In one spot alone all was dark and silent; for here a widowed mother mourned for a loving and devoted son, and the people forbore to profane her grief with the clamor of their rejoicings.
[815] Walpole, Memoirs of George II., II. 384.
New England had still more cause of joy than Old, and she filled the land with jubilation. The pulpits resounded with sermons of thanksgiving, some of which were worthy of the occasion that called them forth. Among the rest, Jonathan Mayhew, a young but justly celebrated minister of Boston, pictured with enthusiasm the future greatness of the British-American colonies, with the continent thrown open before them, and foretold that, "with the continued blessing of Heaven, they will become, in another century or two, a mighty empire;" adding in cautious parenthesis, "I do not mean an independent one." He read Wolfe's victory aright, and divined its far-reaching consequence.
Note.—The authorities of this chapter are, in the main, the same as those of the preceding, with some additions, the principal of which is the Mémoire du Sieur de Ramezay, Chevalier de l'Ordre royal et militaire de St.-Louis, cy-devant Lieutenant pour le Roy commandant à Québec, au sujet de la Reddition de cette Ville, qui a été suivie de la Capitulation du 18 7bre, 1759 (Archives de la Marine). To this document are appended a number of important "pièces justificatives." These, with the Mémoire, have been printed by the Quebec Historical Society. The letters of Vaudreuil cited in this chapter are chiefly from the Archives Nationales.
If Montcalm, as Vaudreuil says, really intrusted papers to the care of the Jesuit missionary Roubaud, he was not fortunate in his choice of a depositary. After the war Roubaud renounced his Order, adjured his faith, and went over to the English. He gave various and contradictory accounts of the documents said to be in his hands. On one occasion he declared that Montcalm's effects left with him at his mission of St. Francis had been burned to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy (see Verreau, Report on Canadian Archives, 1874, p. 183). Again, he says that he had placed in the hands of the King of England certain letters of Montcalm (see Mr. Roubaud's Deplorable Case, humbly submitted to Lord North's Consideration, in Historical Magazine, Second Series, VIII. 283). Yet again, he speaks of these same letters as "pretended" (Verreau, as above). He complains that some of them had been published, without his consent, "by a Lord belonging to His Majesty's household" (Mr. Roubaud's Deplorable Case).
The allusion here is evidently to a pamphlet printed in London, in 1777, in French and English, and entitled, Lettres de Monsieur le Marquis de Montcalm, Gouverneur-Général en Canada, à Messieurs de Berryer et de la Molé, écrites dans les Années 1757, 1758, et 1759, avec une Version Angloise. They profess to be observations by Montcalm on the English colonies, their political character, their trade, and their tendency to independence. They bear the strongest marks of being fabricated to suit the times, the colonies being then in revolt. The principal letter is one addressed to Molé, and bearing date Quebec, Aug. 24, 1759. It foretells the loss of her colonies as a consequence to England of her probable conquest of Canada. I laid before the Massachusetts Historical Society my reasons for believing this letter, like the rest, an imposture (see the Proceedings of that Society for 1869-1870, pp. 112-128). To these reasons it may be added that at the date assigned to the letter all correspondence was stopped between Canada and France. From the arrival of the English fleet, at the end of spring, till its departure, late in autumn, communication was completely cut off. It was not till towards the end of November, when the river was clear of English ships, that the naval commander Kanon ran by the batteries of Quebec and carried to France the first news from Canada. Some of the letters thus sent were dated a month before, and had waited in Canada till Kanon's departure.
Abbé Verreau—a high authority on questions of Canadian history—tells me a comparison of the handwriting has convinced him that these pretended letters of Montcalm are the work of Roubaud.
On the burial of Montcalm, see [Appendix J].