On April 27, Murray offered battle at Sainte Foy; but the French made no move, and he fell back to Quebec, leaving Levis to occupy Sainte Foy that same night. Before seven o'clock on the next morning he marched out again, bent on fighting, if possible, before Levis had secured his position, and anxious not to be cooped up behind the fortifications of Quebec, too weak to withstand a vigorous bombardment. The English force numbered 3,140 men, with eighteen pieces of cannon; and, as the men carried entrenching tools, it would seem that Murray contemplated throwing up lines outside the city. The battle took place on the same plateau where Wolfe and Montcalm had fought; it lasted about the same time, for two hours; but the result was widely different. Seeing the French still on the march, and not yet in battle order, Murray ordered an immediate attack. His artillery did good execution, and, on the right and left wings, the light infantry and the Rangers respectively won an initial success. But the tide soon turned. On the right the advancing English were drawn into swampy ground; on the left they came under fire from French troops covered by the woods. Outnumbered and outflanked, the whole force was compelled to retreat into Quebec, having lost their guns and 1,100 men. The French losses appear to have been heavier, numbering according to some accounts from 1,800 to 2,000 men.
| Critical position of Murray. Levis loses his opportunity. |
Murray's position was now exceedingly critical. Two days after the battle no more than 2,100 soldiers were returned as fit for duty; but the General and his men were fully determined not to lose Quebec. On May 1 he sent off a frigate to Louisbourg and Halifax to hasten relief; and, day and night alike, officers and men worked with common spirit, strengthening the defences, and mounting the guns. The French lost their opportunity. Had they attacked the town at once, before the garrison had recovered from the effects of the defeat, 'Quebec would,' in Captain Knox's opinion, 'have reverted to its old masters';31 and the leisurely nature of Levis' operations seems to bear out the view, to which French prisoners gave currency, that he had only intended to invest the town, and wait the arrival of a French fleet.
31 p. 301.
| Relief of Quebec. |
He landed his stores and munitions at the Anse au Foulon, Wolfe's landing-place, and gradually pushed forward his lines, while the English position in front of him steadily grew stronger, and in the besieged garrison confidence took the place of despondency. A storm on the river, it was reported in the city, cost the French guns, provisions, and ammunition. Bourlamaque, who, as an engineer by training, was placed in charge of the siege, was wounded; and when, on the forenoon of May 9, a strange ship sailed up the river into the basin of Quebec, and hoisted the English colours, little doubt could be left that any attempt to regain the city would be in vain. The ship in question was the Lowestoft frigate, and she brought 'the agreeable intelligence of a British fleet being masters of the St. Lawrence, and nigh at hand to sustain us.'32 The news, in Captain Knox's words, was as grateful as when the garrison of Vienna, hard pressed by the Turks, beheld Sobieski's army marching to their relief.
32 Knox, vol. ii, p. 310.
| Retreat of Levis. |
But one swallow does not make a summer, and some days passed before any other British ships appeared. On May 11 the French batteries opened, answered by 150 guns from Quebec: and bombardment went on without much damage, until, on the evening of the fifteenth, the Vanguard ship of war and the Diana frigate anchored before Quebec. The next morning the British ships passed up the river at flood tide, and attacked a small French squadron above the city. The French commander, Vauquelin, made a brave fight, but his few little vessels were nearly all destroyed. On that night and on the seventeenth, the French were in full retreat with the English at their heels. Guns, scaling ladders, baggage, ammunition, sick and wounded, were left behind. The siege of Quebec was raised, the English, after the disastrous battle of April 28, not having lost more than thirty men; and Murray, by his brave and able defence, made more than amends for his previous reverse.
| Reception in England of the news of Murray's defeat and subsequent relief. |