GENERAL JAMES MURRAY
LORD JEFFREY AMHERST
The clergy, however, solidly remained at their posts to build up the self-esteem of the people and to rear up a loyal race. Hence the respect and gratitude due to them by the French Canadians of today.
Yet there were many of whom the country was well rid, such as Bigot, Cadet, Péan, Bréard, Varin, Le Mercier, Pénisseault, Maurin, Corpron and others, accused of the frauds and peculations that helped to ruin Canada. A great sigh of relief might well have escaped from the French who had been ruined by them.
Most of the ships provided by the English government weathered the November gales. The vessel L’Auguste containing Saint-Luc de la Corne, his brother, and others, after being storm-tossed and saved from conflagration, finally drove towards the shore, struck and rolled on its side, and became wrecked on the Cap du Nord, Ile Royale. La Corne, with six others, gained the shore, and he reached Quebec before the end of the winter, as his journal tells us. His name was to become familiar at Montreal under the British régime.
The sloop Marie, which had been fitted up to receive the Marquis de Vaudreuil, his family and staff, had an early mishap between Montreal and Three Rivers, having run aground.
M. de Vaudreuil and the staff of officers of the colony arrived at Brest on the English vessel L’Aventure under a flag of truce, with 142 passengers from Canada. Thence, de Vaudreuil wrote to the minister of mariné. On December 5th the latter wrote back acknowledging this letter and that of September from Montreal containing the articles of capitulation, with papers relating thereto. A précis of this letter to Vaudreuil reveals that, although the king was aware of the condition of the colony, in default of the reinforcements it was unable to receive, yet, after the hopes the governor had given, by his letters in the month of June, of holding out some time longer, and his assurances that the last efforts would be put forth to sustain the honour of the king before yielding, His Majesty did not expect to learn so soon of the surrender of Montreal and of the whole colony. Granting the force of all the reasons which led to the capitulation, the king was nevertheless considerably surprised, and less satisfied, at having to submit to conditions so little to his honour, especially in the face of the representations which had been made to him by M. de Lévis on behalf of the military corps of the colony. The king, in reading the memorandum of these representations, which the minister was unable to avoid placing before him, saw in it that, notwithstanding the slight hope of success, Vaudreuil was still in a condition, with the diminished resources remaining to him, to attempt an attack or a defence that might have brought the English to grant a capitulation that would have been more honourable for the troops. The king left him at liberty to remain at Brest for the time, for his health. With regard to the officers who were with him, they could retire to their families or elsewhere. It was sufficient for him to be informed of their place of residence.—(“Canadian Archives,” Vol. III, p. 313.)
Not only was Vaudreuil censured for the capitulation of Montreal, but finally he had the honour of being placed in the Bastille with the peculators whom we have above mentioned.[6] His release, however, was speedy. Whatever his gains might have been from trading in the early part of his career, e. g., as Governor of Louisiana, he reached France from his government of Canada a poor man. The trial of those accused of peculation lasted from December 1, 1761, till the end of March, and on December 10, 1763, the president of the commission rendered his final decision. Vaudreuil with five more were relieved from the accusation, but he died in 1764 less from age than from sorrow.
“In the course of his trial he stood by the Canadian officers, now being slandered by Bigot. ‘Brought up in Canada myself,’ said the late Governor General, ‘I knew them, every one, and I maintain that almost all of them are as upright as they are valorous; in general the Canadians seem to be soldiers born; a masculine and military training early inures them to fatigues and dangers. The annals of their expeditions, their explorations, and their dealings with the aborigines abound in marvelous examples of courage, activity, patience under privation, coolness in peril, and obedience to leaders during services which have cost many of them their lives, but without slackening the ardour of the survivors. Such officers as these, with a handful of armed inhabitants and a few savage warriors, have often disconcerted the projects, paralyzed the preparations, ravaged the provinces, and beaten the troops of Great Britain when eight or ten times more numerous than themselves. In a country with frontiers so vast, such qualities were priceless.’ And he finished by declaring that he would fail in his duty to those generous warriors, and even to the state itself, if he did not proclaim their services, their merits and their innocence.”—(Bell’s translation of Garneau, Vol. II, p. 298.)