France and England in North America, Part VI : Montcalm and Wolfe

Lévis au Ministre, 17 Juin, 1758. Doreil au Ministre, 16 Juin, 1758. Montcalm à sa Femme, 18 Avril, 1758.

604

Correspondance de Vaudreuil, 1758. Livre d'Ordres, Juin, 1758.

605

Bigot au Ministre, 21 Juillet, 1758.

606

N.Y. Col. Docs., X. 893. Lotbinière's relative, Vaudreuil, confirms the statement. Montcalm had not, as has been said, begun already to fall back.

607

Abercromby to Pitt, 12 July, 1758.

608

Great-uncle of the writer, and son of the Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, a graduate of Harvard, and minister of Westborough, Mass.

609

Chesterfield, Letters, IV. 260 (ed. Mahon).

610

Wolfe to his Father, 7 Aug. 1758, in Wright, 450.

611

Pitt to Grenville, 22 Aug. 1758, in Grenville Papers, I. 262.

612

Pouchot, Dernière Guerre de l'Amérique, I. 140.

613

Letter from Camp, 12 June, 1758, in Boston Evening Post. Another, in Boston News Letter, contains similar statements.

614

Mrs. Grant, Memoirs of an American Lady, 226 (ed. 1876).

615

Letter from Lake George, in Boston News Letter.

616

SeeAppendix G.

617

Letter from Lake George, in Boston News Letter. Even Rogers, the ranger, speaks of the beauty of the scene.

618

Between the old and new steamboat-landings, and parts adjacent.

619

Abercromby to Pitt, 12 July, 1758.

620

Pouchot, I. 145.

621

N. Y. Col. Docs., X. 708.

622

Abercromby to Barrington, 12 July, 1758. "At least eight feet high." Rogers, Journals, 116.

623

A Swiss officer of the Royal Americans, writing on the 14th, says that there were two, and in some parts three, rows of loopholes. See the letter in Pennsylvania Archives, III. 472.

624

Colonel Oliver Partridge to his Wife, 12 July, 1758.

625

A new line of works was begun four days after the battle, to replace the log breastwork. Malartic, Journal. Travaux faits à Carillon, 1758.

626

Doreil au Ministre, 28 Juillet, 1758. The Chevalier Johnstone thought that Montcalm was saved by Abercromby's ignorance of the ground. A Dialogue in Hades (Quebec Historical Society).

627

See the letter in Knox, I. 148.

628

Pouchot, I. 137.

629

Livre d'Ordres, Disposition de Défense des Retranchements, 8 Juillet, 1758.

630

Montcalm, Relation de la Victoire remportée à Carillon, 8 Juillet, 1758. Vaudreuil puts the number at 4,760, besides officers, which includes the garrison and laborers at the fort. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 28 Juillet, 1758.

631

Pouchot, I. 153. Both Niles and Entick mention the incident.

632

Letter from Saratoga, 12 July, 1758, in New Hampshire Gazette. Compare Pennsylvania Archives, III. 474.

633

Letter from Lake George, 26 July, 1758, in Boston Gazette. The story is given, without much variation, in several other letters.

634

Letter of Lieutenant William Grant, in Maclachlan's Highlands, II. 340 (ed. 1875).

635

Ibid., II. 339.

636

SeeAppendix G.

637

Lévis au Ministre, 13 Juillet, 1758

638

Along with the above paraphrase I may give that of Montcalm himself, which was also inscribed on the cross:—

"Chrétien! ce ne fut point Montcalm et la prudence,Ces arbres renversés, ces héros, leurs exploits,Qui des Anglais confus ont brisé l'espérance;C'est le bras de ton Dieu, vainqueur sur cette croix."

In the same letter in which Montcalm sent these lines to his mother he says: "Je vous envoie, pour vous amuser, deux chansons sur le combat du 8 Juillet, dont l'une est en style des poissardes de Paris." One of these songs, which were written by soldiers after the battle, begins,—

"Je chante des FrançoisLa valeur et la gloire,Qui toujours sur l'AngloisRemportent la victoire.Ce sont des héros,Tous nos généraux,Et Montcalm et Lévis,Et Bourlamaque aussi."Mars, qui les engendraPour l'honneur de la France,D'abord les animaDe sa haute vaillance,Et les transportaDans le Canada,Où l'on voit les FrançoisCulbuter les Anglois."

The other effusion of the military muse is in a different strain, "en style des poissardes de Paris." The following is a specimen, given literatim:—

"L'aumônier fit l'exhortation,Puis il donnit l'absolution;Aisément cela se peut croire.Enfants, dit-il, animez-vous!L'bon Dieu, sa mère, tout est pour vous.

S—é! j'sommes catholiques. Les Anglois sont des hérétiques.

"Ce sont des chiens; à coups d'pieds, a coups d'poings faut leur casser la gueule et la mâchoire."

"Soldats, officiers, généraux,Chacun en ce jour fut héros.Aisément cela se peut croire.Montcalm, comme défunt Annibal,S'montroit soldat et général.

S—é! sil y avoit quelqu'un qui ne l'aimit point!"

"Je veux être un chien; à coups d'pieds, a coups d'poings, j'lui cass'rai la gueule et la mâchoire."

This is an allusion to Vaudreuil. On the battle of Ticonderoga, seeAppendix G.

639

Cunningham, aide-de-camp of Abercromby, to Cummings, 8 July, 1758.

640

Trumbull, Hist. Connecticut, II. 392. "Nabby" (Abigail) was then a common female name in New England.

641

For the use of the Diary of Chaplain Cleaveland, as well as of his letters to his wife, I am indebted to the kindness of Miss Abby E. Cleaveland, his descendant.

642

Colonel William Williams to Colonel Israel Williams, 4 Sept. 1758.

643

Letter from the Camp at Lake George, 5 Sept. 1758, signed by Captains Maynard and Giddings, and printed in the Boston Weekly Advertiser. "Rogers deserves much to be commended." Abercromby to Pitt, 19 Aug. 1758.

644

Thomas Barnsley to Bouquet, 7 Sept. 1758.

645

Doreil au Ministre, 31 Août, 1757.

646

On Putnam's adventures, Humphreys, 57 (1818). He had the story from Putnam himself, and seems to give it with substantial correctness, though his account of the battle is at several points erroneous. The "Molang" of his account is Marin. On the battle, besides authorities already cited, Recollections of Thomson Maxwell, a soldier present (Essex Institute, VII. 97). Rogers, Journals, 117. Letter from camp in Boston Gazette, no. 117. Another in New Hampshire Gazette, no. 104. Gentleman's Magazine, 1758, p. 498. Malartic, Journal du Régiment de Béarn. Lévis, Journal de la Guerre en Canada. The French notices of the affair are few and brief. They admit a defeat, but exaggerate the force and the losses of the English, and underrate their own. Malartic, however, says that Marin set out with four hundred men, and was soon after joined by an additional number of Indians; which nearly answers to the best English accounts.

647

On the capture of Fort Frontenac, Bradstreet to Abercromby, 31 Aug. 1758. Impartial Account of Lieutenant-Colonel Bradstreet's Expedition, by a Volunteer in the Expedition (London, 1759). Letter from a New York officer to his colonel, in Boston Gazette, no. 182. Several letters from persons in the expedition, in Boston Evening Post, no. 1,203, New Hampshire Gazette, no. 104, and Boston News Letter, no. 2,932. Abercromby to Pitt, 25 Nov. 1758. Lieutenant Macauley to Horatio Gates, 30 Aug. 1758. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 30 Oct. 1758. Pouchot, I. 162. Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.

648

Correspondence of Forbes and Bouquet, July, August, 1758.

649

Forbes to Pitt, 6 Sept. 1758.

650

Besides the printed letters, there is an autograph collection of his correspondence with Bouquet in 1758 (forming vol. 21,641, Additional Manuscripts, British Museum). Copies of the whole are before me.

651

The above extracts are from the Bouquet and Haldimand Papers, British Museum.

652

Bouquet to Forbes, 3 June, 1758.

653

Journal of a Reconnoitring Party, Aug. 1758. The writer seems to have been Ensign Chew, of Washington's regiment.

654

Vaudreuil au Ministre, Juillet, Août, Octobre 1758.

655

Forbes to Bouquet, 18 Aug. 1758.

656

Of the Hurons of the mission of Lorette, Bougainville says: "Ils sont toujours sauvages autant que ceux qui sont les moins apprivoisés." And yet they had been converts under Jesuit control for more than four generations. The case was no better at the other missions; and at St. Francis it seems to have been worse.

657

Journal of Christian Frederic Post, July, August, September, 1758.

658

Minutes of Conferences at Easton, October, 1758.

659

Journal of Christian Frederic Post, October, November, 1758.

660

Grant to Forbes, no date. "Les rapports sur le nombre des Français varient de 3,000 à 1,200." Bouquet à Forbes, 17 Sept. 1758. Bigot says that 3,500 daily rations were delivered at Fort Duquesne throughout the summer. Bigot au Ministre, 22 Nov. 1758. In October the number had fallen to 1,180, which included Indians. Ligneris à Vaudreuil, 18 Oct. 1758.

661

On Grant's defeat, Grant to Forbes, no date, a long and minute report, written while a prisoner. Bouquet à Forbes, 17 Sept. 1758. Forbes to Pitt, 20 Oct. 1758. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 1 Nov. 1758. Letters from camp in Boston Evening Post, Boston Weekly Advertiser, Boston News Letter, and other provincial newspapers of the time. List of Killed, Wounded, and Missing in the Action of Sept. 14. Gentleman's Magazine, XXIX. 173. Hazard's Pennsylvania Register, VIII. 141. Olden Time, I. 179. Vaudreuil, with characteristic exaggeration, represents all Grant's party as killed or taken, except a few who died of starvation. The returns show that 540 came back safe, out of 813.

662

Forbes to Bouquet, 23 Sept. 1758.

663

Burd to Bouquet, 12 Oct. 1758. Bouquet à Forbes, 13 Oct. 1758. Forbes to Pitt, 20 Oct. 1758. Letter from Loyalhannon, 14 Oct., in Olden Time, I. 180. Letters from camp, in Boston News Letter. Ligneris à Vaudreuil, 18 Oct. 1758. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 20 Nov. 1758.

664

Forbes to Bouquet, 15 Oct. 1758. Ibid., 25 Oct. 1758. Forbes to Pitt, 20 Oct. 1758.

665

Letter from a British Officer in the Expedition, 25 Feb. 1759, Gentleman's Magazine, XXIX. 171.

666

Stanwix to Pitt, 20 Nov. 1759.

667

Galt, Life of Benjamin West, I. 64 (ed. 1820).

668

Bouquet to Chief Justice Allen, 25 Nov. 1758.

669

Forbes to Amherst, 26 Nov. 1758.

670

Halket to Bouquet, 28 Dec. 1758.

671

Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Août, 1758.

672

Much of the voluminous correspondence on these matters will be found in N. Y. Col. Docs., X.

673

Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Avril, 1759.

674

Ibid.

675

Vaudreuil à Montcalm, 1 Août, 1758.

676

Montcalm à Vaudreuil, 6 Août, 1758.

677

Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres, 1758, 1759.

678

The above extracts are from letters of 5 and 27 Nov. and 9 Dec. 1758, and 18 and 23 March, 1759.

679

Mémoire sur le moyen d'entretenir 10,000 Hommes de Troupes dans les Colonies, 1759.

680

Procès de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Mémoire pour le Sieur de Boishébert.

681

Vaudreuil au Ministre, 10 Avril, 1759.

682

Doreil au Ministre, 31 Juillet, 1758. Ibid. 12 Août, 1758. Ibid. 31 Août, 1758. Ibid. 1 Sept. 1758.

683

Vaudreuil au Ministre de la Marine, 4 Nov. 1758.

684

Vaudreuil au Ministre de la Guerre, 11 Oct. 1758.

685

Vaudreuil au Ministre de la Marine, 3 Nov. 1758.

686

Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres, Janvier, Février, 1759.

687

Mémoire remis au Ministre par M. de Bougainville, Décembre, 1758.

688

Le Ministre à Montcalm, 3 Fév. 1759.

689

Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres, Février, 1759.

690

Montcalm à Madame de Saint-Véran, 24 Sept. 1758.

691

Lettres de Bougainville à Madame de Saint-Véran, 1758, 1759.

692

Belleisle à Montcalm, 19 Fév. 1759.

693

Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Avril, 1759. The Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760, says 15,229 effective men.

694

Mémoire sur le Canada remis au Ministre, 27 Déc. 1758.

695

Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres, Lettre à Vaudreuil, 3 Fév. 1759.

696

Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Avril, 1759.

697

Knox, Historical Journal, I. 228.

698

See Grenville Correspondence, I. 305.

699

Horace Walpole, Letters III. 207 (ed. Cunningham, 1857).

700

Ibid. George II., II. 345.

701

Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.

702

I am indebted for a copy of this mandate to the kindness of Abbé Bois. As printed by Knox, it is somewhat different, though the spirit is the same.

703

Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Mai, 1759.

704

Vaudreuil au Ministre, 20 [?] Mai, 1759.

705

Vaudreuil au Ministre, 28 Mai, 1759.

706

Journal du Siége de Québec déposé à la Bibliothêque de Hartwell, en Angleterre. (Printed at Quebec, 1836.)

707

Livre d'Ordres, Disposition pour s'opposer à la Descente.

708

This number was found after the siege. Knox, II. 151. Some French writers make it much greater.

709

SeeAppendix H.

710

Ibid.

711

Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.

712

Mémorial de Jean-Denis de Vitré au Très-honorable William Pitt.

713

Others, as well as the pilot, were astonished. "The enemy passed sixty ships of war where we hardly dared risk a vessel of a hundred tons." "Notwithstanding all our precautions, the English, without any accident, by night, as well as by day, passed through it [the Traverse] their ships of seventy and eighty guns, and even many of them together." Vaudreuil au Ministre, 22 Oct. 1759.

714

Foligny, Journal mémoratif. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct. 1759. Journal du Siége (Bibliothêque de Hartwell).

715

Montcalm à Bourlamaque, 27 Juin, 1759. All these letters are before me.

716

Vaudreuil à Bourlamaque, 8 Juillet, 1759.

717

Événements de la Guerre en Canada (Hist. Soc. Quebec, 1861). Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct. 1759. L'Abeille, II. No. 14 (a publication of the Quebec Seminary). Journal du Siége de Québec (Bibliothêque de Hartwell). Panet, Journal du Siége. Foligny, Journal mémoratif. Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, by John Johnson, Clerk and Quartermaster-Sergeant to the Fifty-eighth Regiment.

718

The above is from a comparison of the rather discordant accounts of Johnstone, the Journal tenu à l'Armée, the Journal of Panet, and that of the Hartwell Library. The last says that Lévis crossed the Montmorenci. If so, he accomplished nothing. This affair should not be confounded with a somewhat similar one which took place on the 26th.

719

Knox, I. 347; compare pp. 339, 341, 346.

720

Journal du Siége (Bibliothêque de Hartwell).

721

Journal tenu à l'Armée que commandoit feu M. le Marquis de Montcalm.

722

Panet, Journal.

723

Pitt to Amherst, 23 Jan., 10 March, 1759.

724

Amherst to Pitt, 19 June, 1759. Amherst to Stanwix, 6 May, 1759.

725

Mante, 210.

726

Orderly Book of Commissary Wilson in the Expedition against Ticonderoga, 1759. Journal of Samuel Warner, a Massachusetts Soldier, 1759. General and Regimental Orders, Army of Major-General Amherst, 1759. Diary of Sergeant Merriman, of Ruggles's Regiment, 1759. I owe to William L. Stone, Esq., the use of the last two curious documents.

727

Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Nov. 1759. Instructions pour M. de Bourlamaque, 20 Mai, 1759, signé Vaudreuil. Montcalm à Bourlamaque, 4 Juin, 1759.

728

Journal of Colonel Amherst (brother of General Amherst). Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Nov. 1759. Amherst to Prideaux, 28 July, 1759. Amherst to Pitt, 27 July, 1759. Mante, 213. Knox, I., 397-403. Vaudreuil à Bourlamaque, 19 Juin, 1759.

729

Amherst to Pitt, 5 Aug. 1759.

730

Ibid., 19 June, 1759.

731

Amherst to Gage, 1 Aug. 1759.

732

General Orders, 13 Aug. 1759.

733

Amherst to Pitt, 22 Oct. 1759. This letter, which is in the form of a journal, covers twenty-one folio pages.

734

Instructions of Amherst to Prideaux, 17 May, 1759. Prideaux to Haldimand, 30 June, 1759.

735

Journal of Colonel Amherst.

736

Pouchot, II. 130. Compare Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760; N. Y. Col. Docs., VII. 395; and Letter from Oswego, in Boston Evening Post, No. 1,248.

737

Pouchot says 515, besides 60 men from Little Niagara; Vaudreuil gives a total of 589.

738

Pouchot, II. 52, 59. Procès de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Mémoire pour Daniel de Joncaire-Chabert.

739

Letters of Colonel Hugh Mercer, commanding at Pittsburg, January-June, 1759. Letters of Stanwix, May-July, 1759. Letter from Pittsburg, in Boston News Letter, No. 3,023. Narrative of John Ormsby.

740

Pouchot, II. 46.

741

Rutherford to Haldimand, 14 July, 1759. Prideaux was extremely disgusted. Prideaux to Haldimand, 13 July, 1759. Allan Macleane, of the Highlanders, calls the engineers "fools and blockheads, G—d d—n them." Macleane to Haldimand, 21 July, 1759.

742

"Il n'y avoit que 1,100 François et 200 sauvages." Vaudreuil au Ministre, 30 Oct. 1759. Johnson says "1,200 men, with a number of Indians." Johnson to Amherst, 25 July, 1759. Portneuf, commanding at Presquisle, wrote to Pouchot that there were 1,600 French and 1,200 Indians. Pouchot, II. 94. A letter from Aubry to Pouchot put the whole at 2,500, half of them Indians. Historical Magazine, V., Second Series, 199.

743

Johnson to Amherst, 25 July, 1759. Knox, II. 135. Captain Delancey to–, 25 July, 1759. This writer commanded the light infantry in the fight.

744

Johnson gives the names in his private Diary, printed in Stone, Life of Johnson, II. 394. Compare Pouchot, II. 105, 106. Letter from Niagara, in Boston Evening Post, No. 1,250. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 30 Oct. 1759.

745

Amherst to Gage, 28 July, 1 Aug., 14 Aug., 11 Sept. 1759. Diary of Sir William Johnson, in Stone, Life of Johnson, II. 394-429.

746

Bourlamaque à (Bernetz?), 22 Sept. 1759.

747

Montcalm à Bourlamaque, 9 Août, 1759. Rigaud à Bourlamaque, 14 Août, 1759. Lévis à Bourlamaque, 25 Août, 1759.

748

Amherst to Wolfe, 7 Aug. 1759.

749

Amherst to Pitt, 22 Oct. 1759. Rogers, Journals, 144.

750

Orderly Book of Commissary Wilson.

751

Lévis à Bourlamaque, 1 Nov. 1759.

752

Rogers says "about six hundred." Other accounts say six or seven hundred. The late Abbé Maurault, missionary of the St. Francis Indians, and their historian, adopts the latter statement, though it is probably exaggerated.