24 Annual Register for 1759, p. 43.
| Was Wolfe's attack a great military feat? |
The question naturally suggests itself, whether Wolfe's landing and attack was a desperate venture, justified only by success, the last throw of the dice by a man who had described himself as one who must necessarily be ruined; or whether it was the supreme effort of a military genius? It is impossible to study the story without coming to the conclusion that the second is the true view. No doubt fortune favoured him; no doubt the enterprise was full of risk; but from first to last as little as possible was left to chance, and from first to last a master mind made itself felt. The main point to remember is that he had secured absolute command of the river; wherever therefore he landed, on high ground not commanded by the enemy's guns, if for a few hours only he could make good his landing, his way of retreat was absolutely safe. Montcalm knew this, and hence his immediate attack. Then we have the movements which baffled Montcalm and Bougainville alike; we have time and place calculated to a nicety, every commander and every man told what to do and doing it, the landing effected by break of day, the battlefield carefully selected, the men duly rested, the battle line cautiously and safely formed, the respective merits of the two forces accurately gauged—the one, in Wolfe's own words, a small number of good soldiers, the other 'a numerous body of armed men (I cannot call it an army).'25 There was no rush or hurry about the landing, the advance, or the fight. The soldiers kept their fire till told to use it: they charged when and not until their leader bade them. The whole was a thought-out feat of steady daring.
25 Wolfe to his mother, Aug. 31, and to Lord Holderness, Sept. 9 (Wright's Life of Wolfe, pp. 553, 563).
| If Wolfe had not succeeded. |
Another question which is worth considering is: What would have been the result if Wolfe had not succeeded, if Quebec had not been taken, and the English fleet had sailed off down the St. Lawrence, either carrying the army home, or leaving it, as at one time during the siege had been contemplated, to go into winter quarters at the Île aux Coudres lower down the river? A failure would have been recorded, and Wolfe above all others would have so regarded it; but, notwithstanding, the expedition would not have been in vain. Quebec would have been left in ruins, the banks of the St. Lawrence, with emptied farms and homesteads, would have been a scene of desolation; though Montcalm would have lived to fight again, Canada in all human probability must have fallen. For Canada was being starved out; and, if the French Government a year before could spare but few troops and supplies for New France, much less were the necessary troops and supplies likely to be forthcoming after another year of exhausting war on the Continent. On December 16, Amherst wrote to Pitt from New York: 'From the present posts His Majesty's army is now in possession of, if no stroke was to be made, Canada must fall or the inhabitants starve.' He wrote with information given him by one of his officers, Major Grant, who had been a prisoner in Canada. Grant's words were: ''Tis believed that the colony, though in great distress, may subsist for a year, without receiving supplies from France'; but it could only subsist by using up all the live stock in the land. The English command of the water was killing Canada, the farmers and peasantry were sickening of the war; though Amherst wrote after the fall of Quebec, the saving of Quebec would in no way have fed Canada.
| Results of his success on the future history of Canada. |
Unless, then, some great reversal of existing conditions had taken place, or unless peace had been declared, Canada would have been conquered, even if Wolfe had not triumphed and Quebec had not fallen in September, 1759. But widely different would have been the result on after history, and herein lies the true lesson to be drawn from the record of the siege and capture of Quebec, and of the death of Wolfe and Montcalm. It is the most conclusive answer, if answer were needed, to those—fifty years ago they were many—who ignore or minimize the effect of sentiment on the making and the preserving of nations. The noble picturesqueness of the story, its accompaniments of heroism and death, were of untold value in the work of reconciliation; and of untold value was the legacy to a yet unformed people of one of the great landmarks in history. In a sense, which it is easier to feel than to express, two rival races, under two rival leaders, unconsciously joined hands on the Plains of Abraham. The noise of war seemed to be stilled, the bitterness of competing races and creeds to be allayed, by sharing in an episode which appealed to all time and to all mankind. The dramatic ending of the old order blessed the birth of the new; the instinct of human pathos brought men together; and out of divergent elements made a nation. Born far away in different lands, in death Wolfe and Montcalm were not divided; and the soil on which they died has become the sacred heritage of a people, whose union is stronger than the divisions of religion, language, and race.
| Successes of England in 1759. |
In the Annual Register for 1759,26 summing up the results of the year to Great Britain, Burke wrote: 'In no one year since she was a nation, has she been favoured with so many successes, both by sea and land, and in every quarter of the globe.' It was a bright year for England in every sense of the word. The sun had shone upon her soil and upon her arms. In America, in India, at Minden, at Quiberon, she had triumphed. 'I call it this ever warm and victorious year,' wrote Walpole on October 21, 'we have not had more conquest than fine weather. One would think we had plundered East and West Indies of sunshine.'27