Wolfe's little army of nine thousand men was really a landing party from Saunders' big fleet, which included nearly fifty men-of-war (almost a quarter of the whole Royal Navy) and well over two hundred transports and supply ships. The bluejackets on board the men-of-war and the merchant seamen on board the other ships each greatly outnumbered the men in Wolfe's army. In fact, the whole expedition was made up of three-quarters sea-power and only one-quarter land.
Admiral Durell, who had been left at Halifax over the winter, was too slow in getting the advance guard under way in time to cut off the twenty-three little vessels sent out from France to Montcalm in the spring. But this reinforcement was too small to make any real difference in the doom of Quebec when once British sea-power had sealed the St. Lawrence. Saunders took Wolfe's army and the main body of his own fleet up the great river in June: a hundred and forty-one vessels, all told, from the flagship Neptune of ninety guns down to the smallest craft that carried supplies. It was a brave sight off the mouth of the Saguenay, where the deep-water estuary ends, to see the whole fleet, together at sunset, with its thousand white sails, in a crescent twenty miles long, a-gleam on the blue St. Lawrence.
The French-Canadian pilots who had been taken prisoners swore that no fleet could ever get through the Traverse, a tricky bit of water thirty miles below Quebec. But, in the course of the summer, the British sailing masters, who had never been there before, themselves took two hundred and seventy-seven vessels right through it with greater ease in squadrons than any French-Canadian could when piloting a single ship. The famous Captain Cook, of whom we shall soon hear more, had gone up a month ahead with Durell, and, in only three days, had sounded, surveyed, and buoyed the Traverse to perfection.
When once the fleet had reached Quebec Montcalm was completely cut off from the outside world, except for the road and river up to Montreal. His French-Canadian militia more than equalled Wolfe's army in mere numbers. But his French regulars from France, the backbone of the whole defence, were not half so many. Vaudreuil, the French-Canadian Governor, was a fool. Bigot, the French Intendant, was a knave. They both hated the great and honest Montcalm and did all they could to spite him. The natural strength of Quebec, "the Gibraltar of America," was, with his own French regulars, the only defence on which he could always rely.
The bombardment of Quebec from across the narrows of the St. Lawrence ("Kebec" is the Indian for "narrows") went on without much result throughout July; and Wolfe's attempt to storm the Heights of Montmorency, five miles below Quebec, ended in defeat. During August a squadron under Holmes, third-in-command of the fleet, kept pushing up the St. Lawrence above Quebec, and thus alarming the French for the safety of their road and river lines of communication with Montreal, the only lines left. They sent troops up to watch the ships, and very wearing work it was; for while the ships carried Wolfe's landing parties up and down with the tide, the unfortunate Frenchmen had to scramble across country in a vain effort to be first at any threatened point.
From the 3rd of September to the famous 13th Wolfe worked out his own splendid plan with the help of the fleet. Three-fourths of the French were entrenched along the six miles of North Shore below Quebec, to please Vaudreuil, who, as Governor, had power to order Montcalm. The rest were in or above Quebec; and mostly between Cap Rouge, which was seven miles, and Pointe-aux-Trembles, which was twenty-two miles, above. Wolfe's plan was to make as big a show of force as possible, up to the very last minute, against the entrenchments below Quebec and also against the fifteen miles of North Shore between Cap Rouge and Pointe-aux-Trembles, while he would really land at what we now call Wolfe's Cove, which is little more than one mile above Quebec. If he could then hold the land line west to Montreal, while Holmes held the river line, Montcalm would be absolutely cut off in every direction and be forced to fight or starve. Montcalm's secret orders from the King being to keep any other foothold he possibly could if Quebec was taken, he had to leave stores of provisions at different points toward the West and South, as he intended to retire from point to point and make his last stand down by New Orleans.
Quebec was, however, to be held if possible; and everything that skill and courage could do was done by Montcalm to hold it. He even foresaw Wolfe's final plan and sent one of his best French battalions to guard the Plains of Abraham. But Vaudreuil withdrew it four days before the battle there. Again, on the very eve of battle, Montcalm ordered the same battalion to ramp for the night in defence of Wolfe's Cove. But Vaudreuil again counter-ordered, this time before the men had marched off, thus leaving that post in charge of one of his own friends, a contemptible officer called Vergor.
Wolfe knew all about Vergor and what went on in the French camp, where Vaudreuil could never keep a secret. So he and Saunders and Holmes set the plan going for the final blow. The unfortunate Frenchmen above Cap Rouge were now so worn out by trying to keep up with the ships that Wolfe knew they would take hours to get down to Quebec if decoyed overnight anywhere up near Pointe-aux-Trembles, more than twenty miles away. He also knew that the show of force to be made by Saunders the day before the battle would keep the French in their trenches along the six miles below Quebec. Besides this he knew that the fire of his batteries opposite Quebec would drown the noise of taking Vergor's post more than a mile above. Finally, the fleet kept him perfectly safe from counter-attack, hid his movements, and took his army to any given spot far better and faster than the French could go there by land.
With all this in his favour he then carried out his plan to perfection, holding the French close below and far above Quebec by threatening attacks from the ships, secretly bringing his best men together in boats off Cap Rouge after dark, dropping them down to Wolfe's Cove just before dawn, rushing Vergor's post with the greatest ease, and forming up across the Plains of Abraham, just west of Quebec, an hour before Montcalm could possibly attack him. Cut off by water and land Montcalm now had to starve or fight Wolfe's well-trained regulars with about equal numbers of men, half of whom were militia quite untrained for flat and open battlefields. Wolfe's perfect volleys then sealed the fate of Quebec; while British sea-power sealed the fate of Canada.
The rest of the war was simply reaping the victories Pitt had sown; though he left the Government in 1761, and Spain joined our enemies the following year. The jealous new king, George III, and his jealous new courtiers, with some of the jealous old politicians, made up a party that forced Pitt out of the Government. They then signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1763 without properly securing the fruit of all his victories.