With the arrival of the vessels came the news that interested the military circles of Montreal; the replacement of M. de Paulmy, the minister of war, by the Maréchal de Belle-Isle.
There came, too, information of the energetic efforts being made by William Pitt in England to complete the conquest of India and America, the humiliation of France, and the British supremacy of the seas.
This was no idle scheme. Already a formidable fleet and a powerful army were preparing to besiege Louisbourg under Admiral Boscawen and Major General Jeffrey Amherst, with Brigadiers Whitmore, Lawrence and James Wolfe as their able lieutenants.
On June 13th twenty-three vessels of the line, eighteen frigates and fireships, and 157 transports, bearing about 12,000 troops, left Halifax and ran before the wind towards the maritime boulevard of France in America, surnamed the Dunkerque of the new world. On the frontier of Lake St. Sacrement, Lord Loudon had been replaced by Major General Abercromby, who with more than six thousand regulars and nine thousand provincials was to take Carillon and invade Canada by Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River. Finally Brigadier John Forbes was organizing an army of six to seven thousand men destined to wrest from France the Fort Duquesne and the Ohio region.
The last terrible struggle was soon to commence. Montreal was the scene of much activity. The troops had been moved to Carillon, the district around Ticonderoga and the frontier of Lake St. Sacrement, but it was not until June 24th that Montcalm, after a serious conflict with Vaudreuil, left Montreal to direct the campaign and on June 30th at 3 o'clock in the afternoon arrived at the dilapidated fort of Carillon with a force of about 3,400 men. On July 1st he had chosen his camp at Lachute, at the sawmill. [208]
MAP OF MONTREAL, 1758, BEFORE THE CAPITULATION
The City was then bounded: On the north by a stream and marsh, now marked by Craig Street: on the west by Fortification Lane and upper part of McGill Street of today; on the east by the Place Viger Station of today; on the south by the little River St. Pierre and the St. Lawrence. This plan of the fortifications was published in London by Thomas Jefferys, geographer to his Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, January, 1758.]
Under him were the staff officers whom he brought from France and with whom Montrealers had become well acquainted. We would desire to follow this campaign out for this reason, but we must content ourselves with chronicling how, on July 5th, Abercromby embarked his army of 15,000 men in 900 small boats and 130 whale boats on Lake George (St. Sacrement), and moved down to Ticonderoga; how on July 6th the English army disembarked at the head of the rapids; how on the same day Lord Howe, "the soul of the army," was killed in a skirmish, and how the great victory of July 8th was due to Montcalm, when the English retreated, leaving behind them, according to General Abercromby's account, in killed, wounded and missing, 1,944 officers and men. The loss of the French, not counting that of Langy's detachment, was but 377.