With Wolfe in Canada: The Winning of a Continent

by G. A. Henty

A company of rangers, supported by the regulars, was sent into the neighbouring forests; to prevent the parties from cutting bushes for the fascines, to explore the bank of the Montmorenci, and, if possible, to discover a ford across the river.

Levis, with his aide-de-camp, a Jacobite Scotchman named Johnston, was watching the movements of Wolfe from the heights above the gorge. Levis believed that no ford existed, but Johnston found a man who had, only that morning, crossed. A detachment was at once sent to the place, with orders to intrench themselves, and Levis posted eleven hundred Canadians, under Repentigny, close by in support.

Four hundred Indians passed the ford, and discovered the English detachment in the forest, and Langlade, their commander, recrossed the river, and told Repentigny that there was a body of English, in the forest, who might be destroyed if he would cross at once with his Canadians. Repentigny sent to Levis, and Levis to Vaudreuil, then three or four miles distant.

Before Vaudreuil arrived on the spot, the Indians became impatient and attacked the rangers; and drove them back, with loss, upon the regulars, who stood their ground, and repulsed the assailants. The Indians, however, carried thirty-six scalps across the ford.

If Repentigny had advanced when first called upon, and had been followed by Levis with his whole command, the English might have suffered a very severe check, for the Canadians were as much superior to the regulars, in the forest, as the regulars to the Canadians in the open.

Vaudreuil called a council of war, but he and Montcalm agreed not to attack the English, who were, on their part, powerless to injure them. Wolfe's position on the heights was indeed a dangerous one. A third of his force was six miles away, on the other side of the Saint Lawrence, and the detachment on the island was separated from each by a wide arm of the river. Any of the three were liable to be attacked and overpowered, before the others could come to its assistance.

Wolfe, indeed, was soon well intrenched, but, although safe against attack, he was powerless to take the offensive. The fact, however, that he had taken up his position so near their camp, had discomfited the Canadians, and his battery played, with considerable effect, on the left of their camp.

The time passed slowly. The deep and impassable gulf of the Montmorenci separated the two enemies, but the crests of the opposite cliffs were within easy gunshot of each other, and men who showed themselves near the edge ran a strong chance of being hit. Along the river, from the Montmorenci to Point Levi, continued fighting went on between the guns of the frigates, and the gunboats and batteries on shore. The Indians swarmed in the forest, near the English camp, and constant skirmishing went on between them and the rangers.

The steady work of destruction going on in the city of Quebec, by the fire from Point Levi, and the ceaseless cannonade kept up by the ships and Wolfe's batteries; added to the inactivity to which they were condemned, began to dispirit the Canadian militia, and many desertions took place, the men being anxious to return to their villages and look after the crops; and many more would have deserted, had it not been for the persuasion of the priests, and the fear of being maltreated by the Indians, whom the governor threatened to let loose upon any who should waver in their resistance.

On the 18th of July a fresh move was made by the English. The French had believed it impossible for any hostile ships to pass the batteries of Quebec; but, covered by a furious cannonade from Point Levi, the man of war Sutherland, with a frigate and several small vessels, aided by a favouring wind, ran up the river at night and passed above the town. Montcalm at once despatched six hundred men, under Dumas, to defend the accessible points in the line of precipices above Quebec, and on the following day, when it became known that the English had dragged a fleet of boats over Point Levi, and had launched them above the town, a reinforcement of several hundreds more was sent to Dumas.