Death or Victory

by Dan Snow

72. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1017.

  73. Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, the Capital of all Canada, and of the Retreat of Monsieur de Bourlemaque, 17.

  74. Chevalier de Johnstone, ‘The Campaign of 1760 in Canada’, 3-4.

  75. Panet’s Journal, ‘end of May’.

  76. ‘Relation du siège de Québec, posé par les Anglois en l’anée 1759’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXVIII: 215; Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, the Capital of all Canada, and of the Retreat of Monsieur de Bourlemaque, 17.

  77. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 228.

  78. Montcalm to Mercier, Quebec, 28 June 1759, quoted in Montcalm’s Journal, 455.

  79. The Plan of Operations for the campaign of 1759 is in the handwriting of de Lévis and is reprinted in ‘French Documents Relating to Quebec’, The Northcliffe Collection, XXVII: 209-14. On the far left of Montcalm’s position ‘following the crest of the escarpment’ and running all the way to the Montmorency River, he placed a regular unit, the 2nd battalion of the Royal Roussillon Regiment, with the militia drawn from the Montreal area and the Native Americans in support, all under the command of de Lévis. On the other flank by the St Charles River next to the city he placed the militia of Quebec and Trois Rivières and some of his troupes de la marine under the command of Vaudreuil, where Montcalm thought he could do the least harm. In the centre, where he expected the British landings to take place, he stationed the four remaining battalions of French regulars, Languedoc, La Sarre, Guyenne, Béarn, under his own command; ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 240.

  80. Ibid., 210-12.

  81. De Lévis’ orders in The Northcliffe Collection, XXVII: 209; Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, the Capital of all Canada, and of the Retreat of Monsieur de Bourlemaque, 19.

  82. De Lévis’ orders in The Northcliffe Collection, XXVII: 210-11.

  83. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 226, 228.

  84. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1018; ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 227; ‘Relation du siège de Québec, posé par les Anglois en l’anée 1759’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXVIII: 215; Panet’s Journal, 10 June 1759. Two British sources also mention the incident, but without comment on the relation between the Midshipman and the Admiral: Knox, Journal, I: 368; ‘Letter of James Gibson to Governor Lawrence’, of Quebec, 1 August 1759, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 63.

  85. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 224.

  86. Ibid., XXX: 230.

  87. Ibid., XXX: 225.

  Chapter Three: Mastering the St Lawrence

  1. Quoted in J. C. Beaglehole, The Life of Captain James Cook (London, 1974), 36.

  2. Quoted in The Northcliffe Collection (Ottawa, 1926), XXII: 145.

  3. Pembroke’s Log, 4 June 1759, ADM 52/978 book 4.

  4. Ibid., 263.

  5. Cook’s ‘Directions for Sailing from the Harbour of Louisbourg to Quebec…’, in C. P. Stacey, Quebec 1759: The Siege and the Battle (Toronto, 2002), 65.

  6. Ibid., 229.

  7. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in E. O’Callaghan and B. Fernow, eds., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York; Procured in Holland, England and France (15 vols., Albany, NY, 1853-87), X: 1019; Pembroke’s Log, 17 June 1759, ADM 52/978 book 4; Centurion’s Log, 17 June 1759, in W. Wood, ed., The Logs of the Conquest of Canada (Toronto, 1909), 209; ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 230.

  8. ‘The Journal of Captain John Montresor’, in A. Doughty and G. Parmelee, eds., The Siege of Quebec and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (6 vols., Quebec, 1901), IV: 307; A. Doughty, ed., An Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America: For the Years 1757, 1758, 1759and 1760by Captain John Knox (3 vols., Toronto, 1914-16), I: 369; ‘Letter of James Gibson to Governor Lawrence’, Basin of Quebec, 1 August 1759, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 62.

  9. Wolfe’s Journal, 19, 22 June 1759.

  10. Stacey, Quebec 1759, 66.

  11. Wolfe’s Journal, 25 June 1759.

  12. Hind’s Log, 24 June 1759, in Wood, The Logs of the Conquest of Canada, 227; Stirling Castle’s Log, 27 June 1759, in ibid., 304.

  13. Knox, Journal, I: 371.

  14. It is difficult to know for sure how many pilots there were in all. One hint comes the following winter when the senior naval officer commanding the fleet at Halifax writes to London saying that he has eleven French pilots, with five more in Boston and three at Louisbourg. By December 1759 their main preoccupation was certainly not patriotic, as he writes that they ‘are clamorous’ for more money than the subsistence he has given them. He points out that ‘their merits are very unequal as pilots, because some have much more skill than others’. Colville to Admiralty, 22 December 1759, Northumberland, Halifax, in C. H. Little, ed., Despatches of Rear Admiral Philip Durell (Halifax, NS, 1958), 13.

  15. Knox, Journal, I: 371-2.

  16. Ibid., I: 373-4.

  17. Lowestoft’s Log, 26 June 1759, in Wood, The Logs of the Conquest of Canada, 233; Knox, Journal, I: 374.

  18. ‘Journal of Captain Montresor’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 309.

  19. Major Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759(Quebec, 1901), 8.

  20. Captain Richard Gardiner to the Honourable George Hobart Esq., 18 February 1761, in Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, the Capital of all Canada, and of the Retreat of Monsieur de Bourlemaque (Quebec, 1901), 7.

  21. Extract of a letter from an officer in Major General Wolfe’s army, Island of Orleans, 10th August 1759, in S. Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in North America, 1748-65: Selected Documents from the Cumberland Papers in Windsor Castle (New York, 1936), 433.

  22. ‘Letter of James Gibson to Governor Lawrence’, of Quebec, 1 August 1759, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 62.

  23. Knox, Journal, I: 368.

  24. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 30.

  25. Bougainville’s Journal for 1756 in E. P. Hamilton, ed., Adventure in the Wilderness: The American Journals of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, 1756-1760(Norman, OK, 1990), 184.

  26. Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, the Capital of all Canada, and of the Retreat of Monsieur de Bourlemaque, 18.

  27. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 231.

  28. Quoted in B. Willson, ed., The Life and Letters of James Wolfe (London, 2006), 436.

  29. Monsieur de Foligné, Journal de faits arrivés a l’armé [sic] de Québec, capital [sic] dans l’Amérique septentrional [sic], pendant la campagne de l’année 1759(Quebec, 1901), 10.

  30. R. Léger, ed., Le Journal de Montcalm (Montreal, 2007), 457-8.

  31. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 225.

  32. Ibid., XXX: 232.

  33. Ibid., XXX: 228.

  34. ‘Journal of Captain Montresor’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec,IV: 309; ‘Genuine Letters from a Volunteer in the British Service at Quebec’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 14.

  35. J. B. N. R. de Ramezay, Mémoire du sieur de Ramezay, commandant à Québec, au sujet de la reddition de cette ville, le 18 septembre 1759(Quebec, 1861), June 1759.

  Chapter Four: Beachhead

  1. Logs: Richmond, 27 June 1759, Pembroke, 27 June 1759, in W. Wood, ed., The Logs of the Conquest of Canada (Toronto, 1909), 282, 265; A. Doughty, ed., An Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America: For the Years 1757, 1758, 1759and 1760by Captain John Knox (3 vols., Toronto, 1914-16), I: 376; General Orders in Wolfe’
s Army during the Expedition up the River St Lawrence, 1759(Literary and Historical Society of Quebec: Historical Documents, Fourth Series, Quebec, 1875), 11; ‘The Journal of Captain John Montresor’, in A. Doughty and G. Parmelee, eds., The Siege of Quebec and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (6 vols., Quebec, 1901), IV: 309.

  2. I. McCulloch, Sons of the Mountain: The Highland Regiments in the French and Indian War, 1756-1767(2 vols., Toronto, 2006), 35.

  3. London Evening Post, 27-29 April 1758, in T. Clayton, Tars (London, 2007), 190; R. Middleton, The Bells of Victory: The Pitt-Newcastle Ministry and the Conduct of the Seven Years’ War 1757-1762(Cambridge, 1985), 66.

  4. General Monckton’s Order Book, in The Northcliffe Collection (Ottawa, 1926), XXIII: 153.

  5. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 11, 12.

  6. Knox, Journal, I: 377-8, 374-5.

  7. Johnson’s account of the campaign in reprinted in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec,V: 71-166, this occurs on p. 80.

  8. Iain Campbell’s lyrical account of the campaign is published in I. McCulloch, Sons of the Mountain: The Highland Regiments in the French and Indian War, 1756-1767(2 vols., Toronto, 2006), I: 176.

  9. Knox, Journal, I: 375.

  10. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 234.

  11. Ibid., XXX: 377; Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 1-2.

  12. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 1.

  13. Knox, Journal, I: 377-8.

  14. ‘Report on Quebec by Major Patrick Mackellar’, 12 July 1757 is reprinted in full in Knox, Journal, III: 151-60, the quotes in this paragraph are from pp. 157, 160.

  15. Wolfe to Major Walter Wolfe, 19 May 1759, Louisbourg, in B. Willson, ed., The Life and Letters of James Wolfe (London, 2006), 427-9.

  16. Major Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759(Quebec, 1901), 9.

  17. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 3.

  18. Wolfe to Pitt, 2 September 1759, Montmorency, PRO, CO 5/51, reprinted in C. P. Stacey, Quebec 1759: The Siege and the Battle (Toronto, 2002), Appendix B.

  19. Wolfe to Holderness, 9 September 1759, ‘Sutherland off Cap Rouge’, in Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, 362.

  20. Wolfe to Major Walter Wolfe, 19 May 1759, Louisbourg, in Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, 429.

  21. Wolfe to Pitt, 2 September 1759, Montmorency, PRO, CO 5/51, reprinted in Stacey, Quebec 1759, Appendix B.

  22. Knox, Journal, I: 378-9.

  23. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in E. O’Callaghan and B. Fernow, eds., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York; Procured in Holland, England and France (15 vols., Albany, NY, 1853-87), X: 1019.

  24. R. Léger, ed., Le Journal de Montcalm (Montreal, 2007), 460.

  25. Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 10.

  26. Knox, Journal, I: 379.

  27. Ibid., I: 385.

  28. Knox, I: 377.

  29. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 14.

  30. Ibid., 11.

  31. General Wolfe’s Instructions to Young Officers (London, 1778), ix.

  32. The battered copy in the British Library has a scribbled note inside the front cover, ‘Henry Murray, Lt Colonel, 18th Hussars, Luz, Portugal, 26th February 1813.’

  33. Wolfe to Major Walter Wolfe, 19 May 1759, Louisbourg, in Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, 429.

  34. General Monckton’s Order Book in The Northcliffe Collection, XXIII: 154.

  35. Wolfe to Lord George Sackville, 30 July 1758, Louisbourg, in Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, 392.

  36. Wolfe to Major Walter Wolfe, 19 May 1759, Louisbourg, in Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, 427; Wolfe to Pitt, 1 May 1759, Halifax, in ibid., 424.

  37. Wolfe to Major Walter Wolfe, 19 May 1759, Louisbourg, in Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, 427.

  38. Wolfe to Lord George Sackville, 30 July 1758, Louisbourg, in Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, 389.

  39. Wolfe to Amherst, 29 December 1758, PRO, WO34/46b.

  40. Wolfe to Monckton, 16 January 1759, London, in LAC, MG 18-M, Monckton Papers, XXII/rl C-366.

  41. I. McCulloch and T. Todish, eds., Through So Many Dangers: The Memoirs and Adventures of Robert Kirk, Late of the Royal Highland Regiment (Toronto, 2004), 147.

  42. Wolfe to Lord George Sackville, 30 July 1758, Louisbourg, in Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, 388.

  43. Loudoun to Cumberland, 2 October 1756, Albany, NY, in S. Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in North America, 1748-65: Selected Documents from the Cumberland Papers in Windsor Castle (New York, 1936), 235.

  44. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 22.

  45. M. J. Powell, ‘Townshend, George, First Marquess Townshend (1724-1807)’, in H. G. C. Matthew and B. Harrison, eds., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004); online edn ed. by Lawrence Goldman, January 2008.

  46. Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, 9 February 1759, Arlington Street, in The Letters of Horace Walpole http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Letters-of-Horace-Walpole-Volumex795615.html

  47. Wolfe to Townshend, 6 January 1759, London, in C. V. F. Townshend, The Life of Marquess Townshend (Toronto, 1907), 143-4.

  48. ‘Journal of Captain Montresor’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 309.

  49. Montresor to Colonel James Montresor, 10 August 1759, Montmorency, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 320.

  50. Logs: Lowestoft, 28 June 1759, in Wood, The Logs of the Conquest of Canada, 235.

  51. Lieutenant’s Logs, ADM/L D/106B.

  52. Wolfe’s Journal, 27 June 1759.

  53. ‘A Journal of the Expedition up the River St Lawrence’, in A Journal of the Expedition up the River St Lawrence (by a Sgt Major in Hopson’s Grenadiers) (Boston, 1759).

  54. Logs: Pembroke, 28 June 1759, ADM 52/978 book 4.

  55. Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 10.

  56. Wolfe’s Journal, 27 June 1759.

  57. Saunders to Admiralty, 5 September 1759, in C. H. Little, ed., Despatches of Vice Admiral Saunders (Halifax, NS, 1958), 14.

  58. Léger, Le Journal de Montcalm, 459.

  59. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 234-5.

  60. ‘A Journal of the Expedition up the River St Lawrence’, in Journal of the Expedition up the River St Lawrence (by a Sgt Major in Hopson’s Grenadiers).

  Chapter Five: First Skirmishes

  1. Report on Quebec by Major Patrick Mackellar’ 12 July 1757, in A. Doughty, ed., An Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America: For the Years 1757, 1758, 1759and 1760by Captain John Knox (3 vols., Toronto, 1914-16), III: 159.

  2. A notably successful attack occurred eleven years after Quebec when a Russian fleet carried out the most comprehensive destruction of any fleet in the eighteenth century. They incinerated eleven Turkish battleships after a fireship attack at Chesme.

  3. R. Gardiner, ed., Conway’s History of the Ship: The Line of Battle (London, 1992), 88.

  4. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in E. O’Callaghan and B. Fernow, eds., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York; Procured in Holland, England and France (15 vols., Albany, NY, 1853-87), X: 1019.

  5. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection (Ottawa, 1926), XXX: 228.

  6. Knox, Journal, I: 381.

  7. Ibid., XXX: 235.

  8. Ibid., XXX: 236.

  9. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 2.

  10. Logs: Centurion, 29 June 1759, in W. Wood, ed., The Logs of the Conquest of Canada (Toronto, 1909), 210.

  11. L
ogs: Stirling Castle, 29 June 1759, in Wood, The Logs of the Conquest of Canada, 304-5.

  12. Knox, Journal, I: 381.

  13. ‘Genuine Letters from a Volunteer in the British Service at Quebec’, in

  A. Doughty and G. Parmelee, eds., The Siege of Quebec and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (6 vols., Quebec, 1901), V: 16.

  14. Knox, Journal, I: 381.

  15. Logs: Stirling Castle, 29 June 1759, in Wood, The Logs of the Conquest of Canada, 305.

  16. Wolfe’s Journal, 28 June 1759.

  17. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 2.

  18. Knox, Journal, I: 381-2.

  19. Major Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759(Quebec, 1901), 11.

  20. A Journal of the Expedition up the River St Lawrence (by a Sgt Major in Hopson’s Grenadiers) (Boston, 1759), 1.

  21. Knox, Journal, I: 383.

  22. R. Léger, ed., Le Journal de Montcalm (Montreal, 2007), entry for 29 June 1759, 460.

  23. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 236.

  24. Panet’s Journal, 29 June 1759.

  25. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1019.

  26. ‘Relation du siège de Québec, posé par les Anglois en l’anée 1759’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXVII: 216.

  27. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 236.

  28. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army during the Expedition up the River St Lawrence, 1759(Literary and Historical Society of Quebec: Historical Documents, Fourth Series, Quebec, 1875), 15.

  29. Ibid., 13.

  30. Ibid., 14.

  31. Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 11; Wolfe to Pitt, 2 September 1759, Montmorency, PRO, CO 5/51.

  32. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 2.

  33. Wolfe to Pitt, 2 September 1759, Montmorency, PRO, CO 5/51.

  34. P. L. Carver, ed., Wolfe to the Duke of Richmond: Unpublished Letters (Toronto, 1938), 26.

  35. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 22.

  36. Wolfe to his mother, 25 January 1758, in B. Willson, ed., The Life and Letters of James Wolfe (London, 2006), 353; Wolfe to his mother, 1 February 1758, Portsmouth, in ibid., 354.