On referring to the Parish Register of Quebec, from 1621 to 1700, one individual seems to have borne the name of Abraham, and that person is Abraham Martin, to whom under the appellation of Maître Abraham, repeated reference is made both in the Register and the Jesuits' Journal.
Abraham Martin, according to the documents quoted by Col. Beatson, owned in two separate lots—one of twenty and the other of twelve arpents—thirty-two arpents of land, covering, as appears by the subjoined Plan or Diagram copied from his work, a great portion of the site on which St. John and St. Louis Suburbs have since been erected. Abraham's property occupied, it would seem, a portion of the area—the northern section—which, for a long period, also went under the name of Abraham's Plains. It adjoined other land of the Ursuline Ladies then owned on Côteau St. Louis, closer to the city, when 1667, [202] it was purchased by them; at that time, the whole tract, according to Col. Beatson, went under the general name of Plains of Abraham. Such appear to be the results of recent researches on this once very obscure question.
THE BATTLE FIELD.
Two highways, lined with country seats, forest trees or cornfields run parallel, at a distance varying from one to half a mile, leading into Quebec: the Grande Allée, or St. Louis and the Ste. Foye road. They intersect from east to west the expanse, nine miles in length, from Cap Rouge to the city. These well known chief arteries of travel were solidly macadamized in 1841. At the western point, looms out the oak and pine clad cliffs of a lofty cape—Cap Rouge or Redclyffe. Here wintered, in 1541-2, the discoverer of Canada, Cartier and his followers, here, in 1543-4, his celebrated follower, Roberval, seems also to have sojourned during the dreary months of winter.
A small stream, at the foot of the cape, meanders in a north westerly direction through St. Augustin and neighbouring parishes, forming a deep valley all around the cape. The conformation of the land has led geologists to infer that, at some remote period, the plateau, extending to Quebec, must have been surrounded on all sides by water, the Cap Rouge stream and St. Charles being the outlets on the west, north and east. This area increases in altitude until it reaches the lofty summit of Cape Diamond, its eastern boundary. Nature itself seems to have placed these rugged heights as an insurmountable barrier to invasion from the St. Lawrence. With the walls, bastion and heavy city guns; with artillery in position on the Cap Rouge promontory; cavalry patrolling the Sillery heights; a numerous army on the only accessible portion of the coast— Beauport, Quebec, if succoured in time, was tolerably safe; so thought some of the French engineers, though not Montcalm.
"The two engagements," says Chauveau, "that of the 15th September, 1759, and that of the 28th of April, 1760, occupied nearly all the plateau hereinbefore described. The first, however, it would seem, was fought chiefly on the St. Louis road, whilst the second took place on the Ste. Foye road. Each locality has its monument, one erected in the honour of Wolfe, on the identical spot where he fell; the other in 1855, to commemorate the glorious fate of the combatants of 1760, where the carnage was the thickest, viz: on the site where stood Dumont's mill (a few yards to the east of the dwelling of J. W. Dunscomb, Esq.)
"The victory of 1759 was a fitting reward of Wolfe's valour, punished the infamies of the Bigot régime and withdrew Canada from the focus of the terrible chastisement which awaited France soon after—in the Reign of Terror—for her impiety and immorality. The victory of April, 1760, was a comforting incident—a species of compensation to a handful of brave and faithful colonists, for the crushing disaster which had befallen their cause, the preceding September. It was the crowning—though bootless victory—to the recent brilliant, but useless success of the French arms at Carillon, Monongahela, Fort George, Ticonderoga, Beauport Flats. It was, moreover, the last title, added to numerous others, to the esteem and respect of their conquerors."
Of the second battle of the Plains, that of 28th April 1760, called by some writers "The battle of Ste. Foye," by others "The battle of Sillery Wood," so bloody in its results, so protracted in its duration, we have in Garneau's History the first complete account, the historian Smith having glossed over with striking levity this "French victory." The loss of the rival Generals, at the battle of the Plains, of September, 1759, though an unusual incident in warfare, was not without precedent Generals Braddock and DeBeaujeu in 1755, had both sealed on the battlefield their devotion to their country with their blood on the shores of the Monongahela, in Ohio; in this case as in that of Wolfe and Montcalm, he whose arms were to prevail, falling first.
In 1759, everything conspired to transform this conflict into an important historical event. Even after the lapse of a century, one sometimes is fain to believe, it sums up all which Europe recollects of primitive Canada. The fall of Quebec did not merely bring to a close the fierce rivalry of France and England in America. It lent an immense prestige to Great Britain, by consolidating her maritime supremacy over France—a supremacy she then so highly prized. The event, after the discouraging news which had prevailed, was heralded all over England by the ringing of the bells, and public thanksgiving. Bonfires blazed through the length and breadth of the land, it was a national victory which King, Peers and Commons could not sufficiently extol, and still what has been the ultimate result? By removing the French power from Canada—the only counterpoise to keep down the restless and thriving New England colonies, New England, from being strong got to be defiant. The surrender of Canada hastened the American Revolution. The rule of Britain soon ceased to exist in the New England Provinces; and later on, in 1810, by the abrogation of the right of search on the high seas, her maritime supremacy became a dead letter. As Mr. Chauveau has remarked, "if the independence of America meant the lessening of the British prestige, it remains yet to be proved that France has benefitted thereby."
How much of these momentous changes can be traced to the incidents (perhaps the treason of Bigot), [203] which made the scale of victory incline to British valour on the 13th of September, 1759!