43 Wright, p. 464.
NOTE.—For the above see, among modern books,
KINGSFORD'S History of Canada, vols. iii and iv;
PARKMAN'S Montcalm and Wolfe; and
WRIGHT'S Life of Wolfe.
CHAPTER X
THE CONQUEST OF CANADA (continued)
When Wolfe reached England from Louisbourg in November, 1758, he wrote to Pitt offering himself for further service in America, 'and particularly in the river St. Lawrence, if any operations are to be carried on there.'1 Before Christmas, Pitt had appointed him to command an expedition in the coming year against Quebec.
1 Wolfe to Pitt, Nov. 22, 1758 (Wright's Life of Wolfe, p. 464). There was some misunderstanding as to his return to England. See the correspondence quoted by Mr. Kingsford in the note to vol. iv, p. 155, of his History.
| Wolfe's early life and character. |
Wolfe was born at Westerham, in Kent, on January 2, 1727, and was therefore not thirty-three years old when he was killed at Quebec in September, 1759. He was the son of a soldier, and received his first commission before he was fifteen. He was present at Dettingen, and at Culloden; and, subsequently to the latter battle, after an interval of fighting in the Netherlands, where he distinguished himself at the battle of Laffeldt, he was stationed for a considerable time in Scotland. Service in the Highlands, it may be noted, in Jacobite times, was not bad training for service in North America. In September, 1757, after the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, he took part in the expedition against Rochefort, to the south of La Rochelle, on the west coast of France—an enterprise as utterly barren of results as was the Duke of Buckingham's venture against the same area of coast when Charles I was King. Lord Howe and Wolfe were among the few who gained any credit from the expedition. In the following year, Wolfe served at Louisbourg.