SIR JOHN COPE SHERBROOKE
Governor General of Canada 1816-1818.
With the other wing of the invading army, the issue was even less doubtful and far more tragic. Montgomery had pushed through the storm, along the base of the cliffs from Wolfe's Cove to the base of Cape Diamond. Deep snow covered the rocky pathway, and spray from the fretting river had rendered it slippery with ice. Every man in the chosen company knew the peril of the enterprise, and moved forward stealthily. Soon the advance guard led by Montgomery in person could discern through the driving snow the first straggling houses of the Lower Town. A barrier crossed the roadway, but no sight or sound gave evidence that the guard was on the alert. Forward they crept, silent and full of desperate purpose. Suddenly, when they were within thirty yards of the barrier and counting fully upon the surprise of the outpost, four cannon and a score of muskets pounded forth a deadly fire. Itself taken by surprise, the Continental army broke and fled. No sound reached the wakeful guard save the groans of the wounded who had gone down before that fatal barrier; but, distrustful even of the silence, their battery continued to sweep the pass.
At dawn a reconnoitring party ventured forth from the guard-house. Thirteen bodies lay half buried in the snow, and the only remains of the invading army were General Montgomery, his two aides-de-camp, Cheeseman and M'Pherson, a sergeant, and eight men. All but the sergeant were dead, and he too died within an hour. As for the General, only an arm appeared above the snow, and a drummer-boy picked up his sword close by. The English soldiers, uncertain whose body it was, fetched a prisoner, one of Arnold's forlorn hope, who could not restrain his grief for the brave General who had been the idol of his troops. Widow Prentice, of Freemasons' Hall, also recognised Montgomery by the sabre-cut upon his cheek; and Sir Guy Carleton having no further doubt as to his identity, gave orders that the slain General should have honourable burial. Up Mountain Hill they bore him to the small house in St. Louis Street, still known as Montgomery House, and later in the same day he was laid in a coffin draped with black, and borne by soldiers to a new-made grave in the gorge of the St. Louis bastion. A brass tablet now marks the spot near the present St. Louis Gate.
CAPE DIAMOND
(Près-de-Ville, where Montgomery fell)
Although both divisions of their army were defeated, over four hundred prisoners taken, and their General slain, the invaders were yet unwilling to give up the struggle against the grim walls of Quebec. They were sore beset by cold, hunger, and the hardships of active warfare; and small-pox carried off nearly five hundred of their number. On the death of Montgomery, Arnold had succeeded to the chief command, but it was April before his wound was healed. Meanwhile, they had quickly erected a new battery at Point Lévi, and once again the guns of the citadel entered upon an artillery duel with that historic ravelin. From time to time rockets sent up from the enemy's camp threw the defenders of the city into unusual alarm, and once or twice, when the signals seemed more pregnant, the whole force turned out and swiftly took up their assigned positions. General Carleton on the other side, not having enough soldiers to dislodge the besiegers, had been content to hold fast and wait until spring should bring him reinforcements from England. No vigilance on the part of the garrison was relaxed, and throughout the cold and dreary winter the sentries marched night and day upon the ramparts.
Towards late spring the increased activity of the besiegers caused a corresponding restiveness among the many prisoners within the city. Sir Guy Carleton had treated them with as much liberality as was possible under the circumstances; but on an attempt on the part of some of the officers to bribe the guard, he speedily placed the offenders in irons. On the last day of March a large number of prisoners made an attempt to escape from the Dauphin barracks, just inside St. John's Gate. Their plan was to overpower the guard, whose strength was necessarily small, capture the adjacent city gate, and hold it open for their comrades on the Plains. The plot was discovered, however, and the prisoners were transferred to the British gun-boats in the harbour.
As the weeks went by, the anxiety of an ever threatened attack told heavily on the garrison, and even the convalescent were called upon for guard-house duty. A blockade extending over four or five months was exhausting their provisions; and for fuel they were at length reduced to tearing down wooden houses in the suburb of St. Roch. For half a year the Richelieu, Montreal, and Three Rivers, in fact the whole of Canada, had been virtually in the enemy's hands; Quebec alone remained, but, commanded by Carleton, Quebec was a fortress in the most real sense.
It was the evening of the 3rd of May, and in the gathering darkness a ship rounded Point Lévi and drew near to the ships in the basin. Cheers rose from the garrison and a saluting gun boomed from the citadel. Still the strange craft made no salute, and a heavy crash of artillery burst from the Grand Battery. For answer, flames leaped up the rigging and along the bulwarks of the approaching schooner. It was the Gaspé, which the enemy had fitted up as a fire-ship and sent into the harbour. The crew, being disconcerted by the alert challenge of the garrison, hastily lighted the fuses and escaped in small boats, but only to see the impotent fire-ship carried down the river by the ebbing tide.