Rounding Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, the fleet, on August 18, put into Gaspé Bay. By the evening of the twenty-second it was at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and in foggy weather the unskilful admiral, many miles out of his course, headed straight for the northern shore of the river, under the impression that he was too close to land on the southern side. At dead of night he was roused from his berth with the unwelcome news that the ship was among breakers; and turned her head just in time to avoid running upon rocks. The ships which followed his disastrous lead were not so fortunate, and eight of the transports were dashed to pieces on the reefs with a loss of about 1,000 lives.6 The place where the catastrophe occurred was one of the rocky islets, known as the Egg Islands, about twenty miles to the north of the Point de Monts.
6 According to one English account 884 soldiers were lost, according to another 740 soldiers and women. The number of sailors lost is not given.
| The expedition abandoned. |
For two days the ships were busied in picking up survivors from the wrecks. On the twenty-fifth a council of war was held, and it was resolved to abandon the expedition. A message was sent to recall Nicholson and his troops from their advance on Montreal; the fleet sailed back to Sydney harbour in Cape Breton Island. A suggestion to attack Placentia in Newfoundland was rejected. The New England transports returned to Boston, and the English fleet went home to Portsmouth,7 where—to complete the fiasco—the admiral's ship blew up, costing the lives of some 400 seamen.
7 Swift, in the Journal to Stella, says that the ship blew up in the Thames, but the accident seems to have taken place at Spithead; see Kingsford's History of Canada, vol. ii, pp. 468-9. There are various references to this expedition and to Hill in the Journal to Stella. Hill was subsequently placed in command at Dunkirk, while that port was being held as security for the execution of the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht.
Of the two commanders, Hill escaped formal censure. Luckily for him, Swift's bitter pen was at the service of the political clique with which he was connected. Walker, more culpable, was also less fortunate: deprived of his command he emigrated first to South Carolina and afterwards to Barbados, where he died, having written his own version of the expedition,8 which in no way tended to redeem his reputation.
8 A full account of the late Expedition to Canada, by Sir Hovenden Walker (London, 1720).
| Ignominious end of the expedition. |
Such was the end of the enterprise, intended to eclipse the great deeds of Marlborough. There have been many shortcomings and many disasters in the military annals of England, but few instances are on record of so much incompetence, verging almost on cowardice. Phipps' expedition against Quebec was a complete failure, but at least he led his band of untrained farmers and fishermen safely up and down the St. Lawrence, and gave Count Frontenac a taste of powder and shot. Walker and Hill, with the best of ships and the best of men, blundered and turned back at the mouth of the river; at the first mishap they abandoned everything. No wonder the Frenchmen deemed that the saints watched over Canada.
| The Treaty of Utrecht. |