ADMIRAL SIR CHARLES SAUNDERS
(Under Wolfe before Quebec)
The only vantage-ground left unoccupied by the French was the Heights of Lévi, opposite the city, Montcalm having thought it unwise to isolate there any portion of his force. Thither, accordingly, Monckton's brigade was now despatched; and English batteries, rising darkly on the high cliffs, were soon directing across the narrow channel of the river that hail of shot which, within a month, had left the Lower Town a heap of ashes, and dropped destruction upon the crowded summit of the citadel. So galling grew this fire, that at last a force was sent to destroy the English camp; and on the night of July the 12th, fifteen hundred soldiers and Indians stole silently from Sillery across the river. But as they picked their way through the dark woods, trembling with the excitement of a dangerous adventure, a sudden panic seized them, and in the confusion, the students of the Seminary, who formed part of the column, opened fire upon their own men. Discipline and order were at once discarded, and the whole party rushed back in terror to the boats. At dawn they returned from this unhappy and futile expedition, bringing new terrors to their fellow-citizens, who nicknamed this bloodless effort the "Scholars' Battle"; and Quebec again endured the misery of ceaseless bombardment.
With strange fatuity the French employed another device to destroy the fleet of the invaders and carry terror into their ranks. A flotilla of fireships was loaded to the gunwale with pitch, tar, powder bombs, grenades, and scrap-iron; and towards midnight these floating hell-boats slipped their moorings and drifted with the tide towards the English fleet riding at the Point of Orleans. Tide and stream bore them swiftly through the gloom; and at a given signal, fuses were ignited and the crews escaped in boats. Sharp tongues of flame ran along the bulwarks, and the loose powder sputtered and hissed. Then, suddenly, the night was rent by explosion after explosion, reverberating through the canons of the distant Laurentides, and echoing along the river walls beyond Cap Tourmente. A lurid glare lit up the broad harbour, the towers and minarets of the beleaguered city, revealing in red light the full tents of the French army along the Beauport lowlands.
To the English it was "the grandest fireworks that can possibly be conceived"; but the French were in no mood to enjoy its harmless effulgence. The fuses had been lighted half an hour too soon, and before the tide of the north channel carried them to the English fleet, the magnificent flotilla, upon which Quebec had squandered a million livres, had become a squadron of blazing hulks which the British sailors grappled and towed to shore. All night long their impotent fires lit up the Bay, and by sunrise another hope of New France had turned to ashes.
Although the unquenchable batteries of Point Lévi continued to pour destruction upon Quebec, Wolfe saw that the defeat of Montcalm must precede the capture of the city; and to this end he now directed his attention. Beyond the rocky gorge of the Montmorency, a high open land seemed to offer a possible avenue of attack upon the French camp across the river, and thither the English General resolved to transfer his main camp. On the night of the 8th of July he embarked with three thousand men—the brigades of Townshend and Murray, a body of grenadiers, light infantry, and the Sixtieth Regiment, or Royal Americans. Before dawn they made a landing at the village of L'Ange Gardien, and gained the heights after a slight skirmish with an irregular body of native militia. Earthworks were hastily thrown up, fascine batteries were erected, and Montcalm's reveille next morning was a heavy cannonade from this new quarter.
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT BEAUPORT, MONTCALM'S HEADQUARTERS
Wolfe had now divided his army into three camps, each so far removed from the other that little or no help could be expected in case of separate attack. Yet it was in vain that he tempted Montcalm to battle. For weeks his guns roared challenge across the Montmorency; but the cautious French General only shrugged his shoulders and remarked: "Let him amuse himself where he is. If we drive him off he may go to some place where he can do us harm." To discover this vulnerable spot Wolfe would have risked much, as appears from his daring instructions of the 18th of July. On this day the Sutherland and several small frigates ran the gauntlet of the city batteries, and racing through the hail of lead and iron falling from a hundred guns upon the ramparts, they reached Cap Rouge above Quebec.
To the French the impossible had happened. Montcalm, therefore, hastily detailed a small force to defend the cliffs; and the right wing of the army under Bougainville was charged with the protection of the city upon its flank, or landward side. To Wolfe, however, who himself made the hazardous voyage in the Sutherland, the result of the reconnaissance was not cheering. No point upon those rugged cliffs seemed to offer a favourable landing; and he came back to his camp on the Montmorency more than ever convinced that Montcalm's army could be defeated only by a direct assault upon its strong intrenchments. This desperate enterprise he essayed on the last day of July.
When the tide runs out past the Isle of Orleans, it leaves a wide sandy beach at the foot of the cliffs between Beauport and Montmorency, the mouth of the latter river also being hardly more than knee-deep at ebb-tide. Aware of these conditions, the French had erected a strong redoubt at the edge of the strand, and posted a large force of musketeers in the intrenchments capping the heights above it. This was the point which Wolfe selected for attack.