Bourlamaque, in a Mémoire sur Canada, which he wrote in 1762, presents Quebec as the key to the military strength of the province.[1524]
The interest of the winter and spring lies in the vigorous efforts of Lévis to recover Quebec. The English commander, Murray, kept a journal from the 18th of September till the 25th of May. The original was in the London War Office, and Miles used a copy from that source. Parkman records it as now being in the Public Record Office,[1525] and says it ends May 17; and the reprint of the Lit. and Hist. Soc. of Quebec credits it to the same source, in their third series (1871).
Parkman[1526] refers to a plan among the King’s Maps (Brit. Mus.) of the battle and situation of the British and French on the Heights of Abraham, 28 April, 1760.
This engagement is sometimes called the battle of Sillery, though the more common designation is the battle of Ste. Foy.
Murray’s despatch to Amherst, April 30, is among the Parkman Papers, and that to Pitt, dated May 25, 1760, is in Hawkins’ Picture of Quebec, and in W. J. Anderson’s Military Operations at Quebec from Sept. 18, 1759, to May 18, 1760, published by the Lit. and Hist. Soc. of Quebec (1869-70), and also separately. It is a critical examination of the sources of information respecting the battle, particularly as to the forces engaged. Parkman (ii., app., p. 442) examines this aspect also.
We have on the English side the recitals of several eye-witnesses. Knox[1527] was such. So were Mante, Fraser, and Johnson; the journals of the last two are those mentioned on a preceding page. Parkman, who gives a list of authorities,[1528] refers to a letter of an officer of the Royal Americans at Quebec, May 24, 1760, printed in the London Magazine, and other contemporary accounts are in the Gentleman’s and English Magazine (1760). There is also a letter in the N. Y. Geneal. and Biog. Record, April, 1872, p. 94.
The principal French contemporary account is that of Lévis, Guerre du Canada, Relation de la seconde Bataille de Québec et du Siége de cette ville,—a manuscript which, according to Parkman, has different titles in different copies, and some variations in text. Vaudreuil’s instructions to Lévis are in the N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 1069. There is a journal of the battle annexed to Vaudreuil’s letter to Berryer, May 3, 1760, in N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 1075, 1077. The Parkman MSS. have also letters of Bourlamaque and Lévis, and there is something to be gleaned from Chevalier Johnston and the Relation of the hospital nun, already referred to.
Of the modern accounts by the Canadian historians, Lemoine[1529] calls that of Garneau[1530] the best, and speaks of it as collated from documents, many of which had never then (1876) seen the light. Smith takes a view quite opposite to Garneau’s, and Lemoine[1531] charges him with glossing over the subject “with striking levity.”[1532]
Col. John Montresor was in the force which Murray led up the river to Montreal, and we have his journal, July 14-Sept. 8, 1760, in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1881, p. 236.
For the progress of the converging armies of Amherst and Haviland, there are the histories of Mante and Knox and the journals of Rogers. Parkman adds a tract printed in Boston (1760), All Canada in the hands of the English. Beside the official documents of the Parkman MSS., he also cites a Diary of a sergeant in the army of Haviland, and a Journal of Colonel Nathaniel Woodhull.[1533] There is a glimpse of the condition of the country to be got from the Travels and Adventures of Alexander Henry in Canada and the Indian territory, 1760-1776 (New York, 1809).