Part of the fugitives got into Quebec with their wounded general; part fled down the declivity towards the St. Charles, and, under cover of a stand which some Canadian bushrangers made in a thicket, succeeded in getting across the river to the camp, where everything was in the confusion which so easily befalls an army without a head. It was necessary for the English to cease from the pursuit, for Townshend,[1178] who had come to the command (Monckton being wounded), feared Bougainville was upon his rear, as indeed he was. When that general, however, found that the English commander had recalled his troops, and was forming to receive him, he withdrew, for he had only 2,000 men,—probably all he could collect from their scattered posts,—and seeing the English were twice as many, he did not dare attack. So Townshend turned to entrenching, and working briskly he soon formed a line of protection, and had a battery in position confronting the horn-work beyond the St. Charles, which commanded the bridge.
Vaudreuil was trying to get some decision, meanwhile, out of a council of war at Beaufort. They sent to Quebec for Montcalm’s advice, and the dying man told them to fight, retreat, or surrender. The counsel was broad enough, and the choice was promptly made. It was retreat. That night it began. Guns, ammunition, provisions,—everything was left. The troops by a circuitous route flocked along like a rabble, and on the 15th they went into camp on the hill of Jacques Cartier, thirty miles up the St. Lawrence.
The morning after the fight, the tents still standing along the Beaufort lines were a mockery; for Ramezay knew that Vaudreuil had gone, since he had received word from him to surrender the town when his provisions failed.
Bougainville was still at Cap Rouge, and undertook to send provisions into Quebec. Lévis had joined Vaudreuil at Jacques Cartier,[1179] and inspired the governor with hope enough to order a return to his old camp. On the evening of the 18th the returning army had reached St. Augustine, when they learned that Ramezay had surrendered and the British flag waved over Quebec.
Preparations for the departure of the fleet were soon made, and munitions and provisions for the winter were landed for the garrison, which under Murray was to hold the town during the winter. The middle of October had passed, when Admiral Saunders, one of his ships bearing the embalmed body of Wolfe, sailed down the river. Montcalm lay in a grave, which, before the altar of the Ursulines, had been completed out of a cavity made by an English shell.[1180]
The winter passed with as much comfort as the severe climate and a shattered town would permit. There were sick and wounded to comfort, and the sisters of the hospitals devoted themselves to French and English alike. A certain rugged honesty in Murray won the citizens who remained, and the hours were beguiled in part by the spirits of the French ladies. There was an excitement in November, when a fleet of French ships from up the river tried to run the batteries, and seven or eight of them which did so carried the first despatches to France which Vaudreuil had succeeded in transmitting. There was rough work in December, in getting their winter’s wood from the forest of Sainte-Foy, for they had no horses, and the merriment of companionship, checkered with the danger of the skulking enemy, was the only lightening of the severities of the task. Deserters occasionally brought in word that Lévis was gathering and exercising his forces for an attack, so vigilance was incessant. Both sides preserved the wariness of war in onsets and repulses at the outposts, and the English usually got the better of their enemies. Captain Hazen and some New England rangers merited the applause which the regular officers gave them when they buffeted and outwitted the enemy in a series of skirmishes.
By April it became apparent that Lévis was only waiting for the ice in the river to break up, when he could get water carriage for his advance. Murray knew that the enemy could bring much greater numbers against him, for his 7,000 men of the autumn, by sickness and death, had been reduced to about 3,000 effectives, and the spies of Lévis kept the French general well informed of the constant weakening of the English forces.
CAMPAIGN OF LÉVIS AND MURRAY.