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Death or Victory Page 62

by Dan Snow


  6. Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, the Capital of all Canada, and of the Retreat of Monsieur de Bourlemaque (Quebec, 1901), 31.

  7. Major Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759(Quebec, 1901), 44.

  8. ‘A Journal of the Siege of Quebec by Brigadier Townshend’, in A. Doughty and G. Parmelee, eds., The Siege of Quebec and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (6 vols., Quebec, 1901), IV: 270.

  9. R. Holmes, Redcoat: The British Solider in the Age of Horse and Musket (London, 2001), 95-6, 260.

  10. Logs: Hunter, 13 September 1759, in W. Wood, ed., The Logs of the Conquest of Canada (Toronto, 1909), 232.

  11. ‘From an Officer at Quebec’, Scots Magazine, 21 (October 1759) 552, LAC, MG 18 N 18, vol. V.

  12. ‘Extracts from Journal of the Particular Transactions during the Siege of Quebec’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 189.

  13. Murray to Amherst, Quebec, 19 May 1760, 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: 439.

  14. Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 45.

  15. Extract from a Manuscript Journal Relating to the Operations before Quebec in 1759, Kept by Colonel Malcolm Fraser, the Lt of the 78th (Fraser’s Highlanders) and Serving in that Campaign (Literary and Historical Society of Quebec: Historical Documents, Second Series, 1868), 25.

  16. Charles-Joseph Fürst von Ligne, quoted in C. Duffy, The Military Experience in the Age of Reason (London, 1987), 260.

  17. ‘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: 1040.

  18. Printed in Knox, Journal, II: 109.

  19. Knox reports one exchange that has become widely repeated. This is slightly curious given that the excellent Knox is at his weakest when describing relations within the French high command. Here his source for the last moments of Montcalm is very obscure. Nevertheless he reports that Montcalm told the officers who pressed him for orders, ‘I’ll neither give orders nor interfere any farther; I have much business that must be attended to, of greater moment than your ruined garrison and this wretched country: my time is very short,—therefore pray leave me—I wish you all comfort, and to be happily extricated from your present perplexities.’ Knox, Journal, II: 112.

  20. Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, the Capital of all Canada, and of the Retreat of Monsieur de Bourlemaque (Quebec, 1901), 31.

  21. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1040.

  22. Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, the Capital of all Canada, and of the Retreat of Monsieur de Bourlemaque, 32.

  23. R. Léger, ed., Le Journal de Montcalm (Montreal, 2007), 502.

  24. Quoted in C. Lloyd, The Capture of Quebec (London, 1959), 143.

  25. Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 46.

  26. ‘M de Vaudreuil’s Instructions to M de Ramezay, 13 September, at Nine o’Clock at Night’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1004.

  27. Monckton’s Order Book, in The Northcliffe Collection (Ottawa, 1926), XXIII: 167.

  28. Knox, Journal, II: 102-4.

  29. ‘Genuine Letters from a Volunteer in the British Service at Quebec’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 23.

  30. Extract from a Manuscript Journal Relating to the Operations before Quebec in 1759, Kept by Colonel Malcolm Fraser, the Lt of the 78th, 24.

  31. Iain Campbell’s Gaelic song is transcribed in McCulloch, Sons of the Mountain, I: 189.

  32. New York Gazette, 3 December 1759, under ‘Philadelphia, November 29’, citing letter from Quebec, 14 September 1759, quoted in S. Brumwell, Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe (London, 2006), 287.

  33. Browne to his father, Louisbourg, 17 November 1759, in Brumwell, Paths of Glory, 287.

  34. Saunders to Townshend, Stirling Castle, 13 September 1759, in C. V. F. Townshend, The Military Life of George First Marquess Townshend (Toronto, 1907), 242.

  35. ‘Neptune at Sea’, 4 June 1759, in B. Willson, ed., The Life and Letters of James Wolfe (New York, 1909), 483-4.

  36. 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), 54.

  37. A Journal of the Expedition up the River St Lawrence (Literary and Historical Society of Quebec: Historical Documents, Second Series, Quebec, 1868), 12-13. Holmes reports that there were ‘17 pieces of battering cannon from below, besides other of a smaller calibre, mortars, shells, shots, powder, plank etc’ brought up by the 17th. See ‘Letter of Admiral Holmes, Lowestoft, River above Quebec, 18 September 1759’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 298.

  38. ‘Letter of Admiral Holmes, Lowestoft, River above Quebec, 18 September 1759’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 298.

  39. Townshend to Monckton, 14 September 1759, LAC, MG 18 M 1, vol. XXXI.

  40. 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).

  41. ‘Brigadier Townshend’s Journal of the Voyage to America and Campaign against Quebec, 1759’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 270.

  42. ‘Minutes of the Council of War Previous to the Surrender of Quebec’, Quebec, 15 September 1759, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1007-9.

  43. Ramezay to Vaudreuil, 17 September 1759, in The Northcliffe Collection, 441.

  44. Saunders to Clevland, 21 September 1759, in J. B. Hattendorf, R. J. B. Knight, A. W. H. Pearsall, N. A. M. Rodger, and G. Till, eds., British Naval Documents 1204-1960(Naval Records Society CXXI, 1993), No. 225, p. 393; ‘Letter of Admiral Holmes, Lowestoft, River above Quebec, 18 September 1759’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 299.

  45. Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, the Capital of all Canada, and of the Retreat of Monsieur de Bourlemaque, 33.

  46. Daine to Belle Isle, Quebec, 8 October 1759, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1015.

  47. ‘Monckton’s Order Book’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXIII: 171. The tone of Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’ was not ameliorated by the death of its hero. Spiteful criticism of Townshend and Murray reached new heights now that they were actually the two most senior officers in the army. The author claimed that ‘opposition to Mr Wolfe had linked Townshend and Murray…[but with] Mr Wolfe dead, opposition to each other went so far, that they parted with irreconcilable hatred’. It states that ‘Murray had persuaded Mr Townshend that the remains of the enemy’s army were still dangerous and that great precautions were necessary towards fortifying the rear of the camp which was an occupation that became the commander in chief, and in the meantime that he would carry on the works against the place: Townshend consented, and Murray having gained his ends, made the other the subject of ridicule at his table and insinuated things to dishonour on that very account’. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 19.

  48. Montresor to Colonel Montresor, Quebec, 18 October 1759, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 333.

  49. Knox, Journal, II: 121.

  50. ‘A Journal of the Siege of Quebec by Brigadier Townshend’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 273.

  51. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 55-6.

  52. Knox, Journal, II: 125.

  53. Articles printed in full in ‘A Journal of the Siege of Quebec by Brigadier Townshend’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 273ff.

  54. Townshend to Lady Ferre
rs, ‘Camp before Quebec’, 20 September 1759, in ‘Letters and Papers Relating to the Siege of Quebec in the Possession of the Marquess of Townshend’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 202.

  55. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 20. It is worth noting that the draft surrender terms drawn up by Wolfe earlier in the summer and copied in The Northcliffe Collection, XXVI: 203-4 make no mention of prisoners taken and are very similar indeed to Townshend’s eventual terms.

  56. Townshend to Pitt, 20 September 1759, PRO, CO 5/51, fol. 92.

  57. ‘Letter of Admiral Holmes, Lowestoft, River above Quebec, 18 September 1759’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 299.

  58. Townshend to his mother, Lady Townshend, ‘Camp before Quebec’, 20 September 1759, in LAC, MG 18 L 7, fols. 20-1.

  59. Townshend to Monckton, Quebec, 19 September 1759, LAC, MG 18 M 1, vol. XXXI.

  60. Monckton to Townshend, 18 September 1759, Medway, in C. V. F. Townshend, The Military Life of George First Marquess Townshend (Toronto, 1907), 248-9.

  61. ‘Vaudreuil to Berryer, St Augustin, 4 Leagues from Quebec, 21 September, 1759’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1011.

  62. Hamilton, Bougainville, 321.

  63. Ibid., 325.

  64. Ibid., 321.

  65. Governor Murray’s Journal of Quebec, from 18th September 1759to 25th May 1760(Literary and Historical Society of Quebec: Historical Documents, Second Series, 1868), 2.

  66. Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 50.

  67. Colonel Williamson to the Principal Officers of His Majesty’s Ordnance, 20 September 1759, Quebec, LAC, MG 18 L 5, IV and rl: A-573.

  68. Knox, Journal, II: 135.

  69. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1042.

  70. Knox, Journal, II: 134.

  71. Extract from a Manuscript Journal Relating to the Operations before Quebec in 1759, Kept by Colonel Malcolm Fraser, the Lt of the 78th, 25.

  72. ‘Jeremiah Pearson His Book 1759’, LAC, MG 18 N 43.

  73. Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 51, 53-4.

  74. Townshend to Lady Ferrers, ‘Camp before Quebec’, 20 September 1759, in ‘Letters and Papers Relating to the Siege of Quebec in the Possession of the Marquess of Townshend’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 202.

  75. Townshend to his mother, Lady Townshend, ‘Camp before Quebec’, 20 September 1759, in LAC, MG 18 L 7, fols. 20-1.

  76. Townshend to Murray, 5 October 1759, LAC, James Murray Collection, MG 23 GII 1, also microfilm A-1992. Bundle 1 letter 5.

  77. Murray to Townshend, 5 October 1759, in ‘Letters and Papers Relating to the Siege of Quebec in the Possession of the Marquess of Townshend’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 205-6.

  78. Townshend to Pitt, 20 September 1759, PRO, CO 5/51, fol. 92.

  79. Hattendorf, Knight, Pearsall, Rodger, and Till, British Naval Documents 1204-1960, 393; on the dispatch John Clevland, Secretary to the Admiralty, wrote that the Lords ‘have the highest satisfaction in the account he gives them…and the more so that it appears to Brig Townshend’s letters that the officers and men belonging to his Majesty’s ships contributed so much to the reduction of the place’.

  80. Saunders to Admiralty, Cork, 11 December 1759, in C. H. Little, ed., Despatches of Vice Admiral Saunders (Halifax, NS, 1958), 27.

  81. Townshend, The Military Life of George First Marquess Townshend, 251.

  82. Pitt to Newcastle, ‘Tuesday night past eleven’, 16 October 1759, reprinted in Jackdaw No. 23, collection of contemporary documents compiled by Richard Howard.

  83. Quoted in A. McNairn, Behold the Hero: General Wolfe and the Arts in the Eighteenth Century (Montreal, 1997), 10.

  84. R. Leeke to Lady Townshend, LAC, MG 18 L 7, fols. 23-4.

  85. John Jones to Lady Townshend, Fakenham, 22 October 1759, LAC, MG 18 L 7, fol. 44; John Jones to Lady Townshend, Fakenham, 26 October 1759, LAC, MG 18 L 7, fol. 52.

  86. George Burkston to Lady Townshend, Bradbourne, 22 October 1759, LAC, MG 18 L 7, fol. 45.

  87. Evening Post, 4 February 1882, LAC, MG 18 N 51, I.

  88. McNairn, Behold the Hero, 18.

  89. Ibid.

  90. Burke, Annual Register, 1759, 43, in B. Willson, ed., The Life and Letters of James Wolfe (New York, 1909), 499-500.

  91. Walpole, Memoirs of George II, II: 385, quoted in Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, 500.

  92. McNairn, Behold the Hero, 8. A monument was raised. It took a decade to complete and consists of a large bronze relief showing the landings at Anse au Foulon, on top of which sit two lions and a neoclassical sarcophagus. The top of the pyramid is Wolfe’s death scene. The hero is naked and muscle bound, while angels wait to escort him to heaven and under his feet is the flag of France.

  93. McNairn, Behold the Hero, 138-9.

  94. Ibid., 182.

  95. R. Middleton, The Bells of Victory: The Pitt-Newcastle Ministry and the Conduct of the Seven Years’ War 1757-1762(Cambridge, 1985), 146.

  96. J. R. Dull, The French Navy and the Seven Years War (Lincoln, NB, 2005), 155.

  97. 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, 3-8.

  98. T. Clayton, Tars (London, 2007), 150.

  99. ‘Order Book of the Royal American Regiment at Quebec from 24th September 1759 to 27th February 1760’, in Royal Green Jackets Museum.

  100. ‘Return of Killed, Wounded, Missing, during the Campaign’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXI: 144; Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 52.

  101. Montresor to Colonel Montresor, Quebec, 18 October 1759, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec,IV: 331-2.

  102. I. McCulloch, Highlander in the French-Indian War 1756-67(Oxford, 2008), 35.

  103. ‘Order Book of the Royal American Regiment at Quebec from 24th September 1759 to 27th February 1760’, 6 October 1759.

  104. John Johnson, ‘Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 117.

  105. C. Lloyd, The Capture of Quebec (London, 1959), 149.

  106. Canadian Dictionary of Biography online http://www. biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=35446andquery=pontbriand.

  107. Governor Murray’s Journal of Quebec, from 18th September 1759to 25th May 1760(Literary and Historical Society of Quebec: Historical Documents, Second Series, 1868), 8-9.

  108. J.-F. Récher, Journal du siège de Québec en 1759(Quebec, 1959), entry for 7 November 1759. Perhaps it was John Lord who was executed on 16 November 1759 for ‘robbing a French inhabitant’. ‘Order Book of the Royal American Regiment at Quebec from 24th September 1759 to 27th February 1760’.

  109. Extract from a Manuscript Journal Relating to the Operations before Quebec in 1759, Kept by Colonel Malcolm Fraser, the Lt of the 78th, 26-7. Murray issued orders on how to deal with cases of frostbite: ‘Doctor Russell recommends that every person to whom this accident should happen should be particularly careful to avoid going near fire and to have ye parts so frost bit immediately rubbed with snow by one who has a warm hand, and as soon as can be afterwards put into a blanket or something of that kind that will restore heat to the part.’ ‘Order Book of the Royal American Regiment at Quebec from 24th September 1759 to 27th February 1760’.

  110. McCulloch, Sons of the Mountain, I: 192.

  111. Extract from a Manuscript Journal Relating to the Operations before Quebec in 1759, Kept by Colonel Malcolm Fraser, the Lt of the 78th, 29.

  112. ‘Murray’s Account of Ste Foy’, in Townshend, The Military Life of George First Marquess Townshend, 277.

  113. John Johnson, ‘Memoi
rs of the Siege of Quebec’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 120.

  114. Extract from a Manuscript Journal Relating to the Operations before Quebec in 1759, Kept by Colonel Malcolm Fraser, the Lt of the 78th, 34.

  115. Ibid., 32.

  116. Knox, Journal, II: 415.

  117. Quoted in M. Ward, The Battle for Quebec, 1759(Stroud, 2005), 235.

  Epilogue

  1. S. Brumwell, Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas: 1755-63(Cambridge, 2002), 157.

  2. Reasons for Keeping Guadeloupe at a Peace, Preferable to Canada, Explained in Five Letters, from a Gentleman in Guadeloupe to his Friend in London (London, 1761), quoted in G. Frégault, Canada: The War of Conquest (Oxford, 1969), 309.

  3. Ibid., 309-10.

  4. Quoted in A. McNairn, Behold the Hero: General Wolfe and the Arts in the Eighteenth Century (Montreal, 1997), 27.

  5. A letter to a Great M——r, on the Prospect of Peace…By an Unprejudiced Observer (London, 1761), in Frégault, Canada: The War of Conquest, 313-14.

  6. The Interests of Great Britain Considered with Regard to her Colonies, and the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadeloupe. To which are Added, Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, and (London, 1760), quoted in Frégault, Canada: The War of Conquest, 304-5.

  7. Voltaire, Candide (London, 1950), 110.

  8. McNairn, Behold the Hero, 18.

  9. Voltaire to Chauvelin, 3 November 1760, Les Delices, in The Voltaire Foundation, The Complete Works of Voltaire, vol. CVI, Correspondence XXII, 1968, letter D9378.

  10. Quoted in Frégault, Canada: The War of Conquest, 321.

  11. 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), 85, 104.

  12. Either way Francophone Quebecers have remained as a homogeneous linguistic group which flourished in the twentieth century and recently has come very close to secession from Canada. A referendum in 1995 saw the independence vote at 49.4 per cent.

  13. France’s lust for revenge forced her tottering state into bankruptcy and despite victories over her nemesis, it was the beginning of the end for the absolutist monarchical state. Under a decade later it collapsed completely into near anarchy. Place Louis XV, the incompetent monarch who had been the author of her defeats, was renamed Place de la Révolution and on 21 January 1793 his grandson and successor, Citoyen Louis Capet, formerly Louis XVI, went to the guillotine as a mob howled their approval.

 

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