Wolfe’s Dilemma - Montcalm’s Concerns - The Misery of the Besieged
When we left our last dramatic scenes of the bombardment of Quebec from Point Levis we could well understand the motives of those brave but naive townspeople in attempting to prevent the disaster in the first place. We did wonder though, how the British guns could have arrived so quickly at Point Levis. Surely the French forces under Montcalm would have tried to stop the invasion before it reached the Quebec area.
Nevertheless the fact was that by July 21st the British Navy had managed to dominate the St. Lawrence River from the Atlantic Ocean to Point-aux-Trembles, some 20 miles upriver from Quebec. They were now successfully using the tides and favorable winds to sail past the city but not without numerous energetic and damaging attempts by the French to bombard their ships or otherwise harass them.
Wolfe was particularly interested in the possibility of an eventual landing above Quebec and sought as much intelligence as he could get. He also knew that these maritime forays would keep Montcalm’s forces off balance by forcing him to use some of his more mobile forces to track the movements of the British ships.
Wolfe views Quebec for the first time
We return to our historic adventure by once more using the magic of today’s modern cinema technology. As the screen brightens, we realize we are looking across the Saint Lawrence River to the fortress city of Quebec from Point Levis. The dramatic view clears and a date scrolls across the screen telling us that we have traveled back in time to July 27th, 1759. Our camera slowly pans to our right and in the distance we see a group of British soldiers standing on the extreme western tip of the Island of Orleans.
The camera zooms in and now we see a red-coated senior officer with a group of officers using telescopes and maps, apparently surveying Quebec from their vantage point, just four miles from the town.
Indeed, as we had surmised it was General Wolfe, who we later learned had made his way through the bush with Major Mackellar and a small escort of light infantry from a camp on the island several miles away.
As the camera pans further to our right, a wide channel appears between the south shore of the island and the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. Our camera zooms in once more for a closer look and there at anchor are a large numbers of ships. They are too far away for us to count them. (later we learn that they were some 38 troop, artillery and supply transports of the British Navy plus a much larger warship, the 64-gun Stirling Castle with Admiral Saunders aboard – the same vessel that had brought Wolfe to the Island the day before).
On the Island itself, smoke can be seen rising over the trees from the army’s campfires and on the river, many working parties in small boats are busily ferrying men and supplies to and from the ships. Wolfe was obviously moving fast and we wondered how and when he would make use of his powerful army and gathering fleet.
Wolfe’s Assessment of the Scene
From the tip of the island, Wolfe for the first time could appreciate that Montcalm had anticipated his original plan to land along the north Beauport shore opposite the Island of Orleans (Ile d’Orleans). He now knew that along the six-mile stretch of the shore, between the St. Charles and Montmorency rivers, a shore dominated by very high cliffs, Montcalm had placed a series of gun batteries, built camps and redoubts and Wolfe was certain he would have manned them with the best of his regular French regiments.
It was clear to Wolfe that he must gain control the basin of the St, Lawrence River between Quebec, Point Levis and the Island of Orleans. In particular, he knew he must quickly place his guns on Point Levis before the French seized and fortified the area. If that happened, the guns of Quebec and Point Levis combined would be able to deny access up river to his fleet. He immediately ordered Brigadier General Robert Monckton to see to its seizure. In a matter of days this was accomplished and Wolfe’s heavy artillery began to move in.
The French send in Fire-ships
Suddenly, French struck. They sent seven of their previously prepared fire-ships against the British fleet, seemingly so safely anchored in the channel to the south of the island. (an eighth fire-ship had accidentally burned, nearly causing a disaster in the harbour where they were being prepared). It was July 28th the night following Wolfe’s first viewing of Quebec.
Think of these ships drifting slowly with the current, guided by their courageous French steersmen and skeleton crews; the tension must have been enormous. Imagine the skipped heartbeats when at the very last moment the fuses are lit and the crews are seen taking to their small boats.
Visualize the great sheets of red-yellow flames reaching into the night sky and the loaded cannons thunderously exploding like angry rockets gone astray. The sight was said to have frightened some British sentries on shore and very certainly thrilled the French watching from the heights of the town.
Unfortunately, the fire-ships had been set on fire too soon and the nearest British vessel, the Centurion, hastily cut her anchor cable and ran downstream, firing a warning gun to warn the other ships. The disciplined British sailors took to their small boats and quickly seized the fire-ships with grapples, towing them out of the way to burn harmlessly in the river or where they grounded ashore. It was a pyrotechnic spectacular, said to have cost Louis XV, King of France a million Livres.
Wolfe’s Quandary
Between June 3rd and the 28th of July when the fire-ships were sent against the British fleet, the French made it difficult for the navy to move freely up river. Montcalm had ordered his naval associates to attack the British ships whenever possible.
He also urged the occupation of Point Levis. Governor Vaudreuil agreed as he felt his Indians and local militia could be well used in that area because it was well forested and their bush-fighting Indian tactics could be used very effectively against the British. However, intelligence arrived that the British were about to launch an attack against their positions on the Beauport shore and the operation was cancelled.
The French built and armed small gunboats and floating batteries to attack British shipping. They were “boldly handled” and so successfully that a British naval officer, Captain Bell wrote, “
our fleet is retired within the Pt. of Orleans for fear of bombs, the passage from Montmorency to Levy for Boats very dangerous, the floating batteries still reigning triumphant.” Wolfe may have cancelled the possible attack on St. Michael because the French had made the waters about Quebec so risky.
For Wolfe, it was a time of great testing of opposition strengths and weaknesses; of probing, scouting and dealing with a myriad of logistical details. He was also wrestling with worsening personal health problems and plan after plan agreed to was cancelled for one reason or another. The clock was ticking and all were acutely aware that the end of summer was fast approaching.
Some of his officers felt that Wolfe was vacillating unnecessarily and his relations with these officers began to deteriorate. Other officers understood Wolfe’s options were many and necessarily changed as new information or intelligence arrived. But then, such feints, alarms and new considerations made it just as difficult for Montcalm to ascertain Wolfe’s intentions.
The British fleet assembles and the bombardment of Quebec intensifies
While all this was going on, Admiral Saunders was doggedly ordering his fighting ships to join him before Quebec. On the 27th of June Admiral Durell arrived with orders for Rear-Admiral Charles Holmes, third in command, to join Saunders at the Island of Orleans with his squadron of four fighting ships. The great warship Neptune arrived on August 4th. This arrival of powerful ships continued and soon presented so much strength in the Quebec area that the French were no longer a serious challenge.
At the same time, the brutal bombardment of Quebec continued. On the night of the 22 and 23rd of July “all the center of the upper town was burned out.” The worst fires occurred on the night of the 8 and 9th of August when the lower town was virtually flattened; 152 houses were reduced to ashes and the church of Notre Dame des Victoires was destroyed.*
* These terrible bombardments were designed to prevent the guns of the upper fortifications of Quebec from impeding the fleet’s movements upriver and also prepare for a possible attack on the lower town. The enormous damage was substantially increased by the use of “carcasses,” a special incendiary missal designed specifically to start fires. No mention is made of human casualties but we know that most of the citizens had been evacuated earlier.
The Battle of Montmorency - Wolfe frustrated again
While the bombardment of Quebec proceeded, Wolfe finally decided that an attempt must be made to attack across the Montmorency River using a ford they had found about three quarters of a mile below the 80-foot high Montmorency Falls. They had located the ford during a previous fighting reconnaissance. In the course of that British expedition a skirmish between the French and Howe’s Light infantry took place. The British had one officer wounded and 45 men killed.
As a result of the information obtained by that costly reconnaissance, Wolfe moved Townsend’s brigade over to the Beauport shore from the Island of Orleans and the now the two armies faced each other across the river in the area of the ford. The die was cast. Other targets had been considered and ruled out. Any possible landings upriver from Quebec such as at Sillery, Pont-aux Trembles, St, Michael or other possibilities to the east of town would have to wait.
In fact, a reconnaissance landing of had been made earlier at Point-aux-Trembles near Neuville. During the night of July 18-19, three ships and two boats sailed up the St. Lawrence, went ashore while the French Commander Dumas, who was camped on the promontory with six hundred men and charged with preventing such a landing, watched helplessly from the Sillery side. The British seized some two hundred prisoners and a number of women and children, then left.
The prisoners were well treated on board the ships and they were freed the following day at a spot that Wolfe was also eager to reconnoiter: Anse-des-Mères. Chevalier de Lapause wrote that the British "
were happy to see that the women they set free climbed with unequalled intrepidity and in no time at all.” The ladies were full of praise for the treatment they received and some had actually dined with Wolfe.
The attack in the Montmorency Falls area was chosen because Wolfe was hoping to draw the French troops away from the fortress of Quebec and bring them into battle by attacking several of their more exposed redoubts nearer the shoreline. The thought being that the French troops would come out of their fortifications to rescue their comrades.
Montcalm also preferred the British to attack his fortified positions near Montmorency and away from Quebec because he knew that the town, contrary to the general belief, was not strong enough to withstand a determined siege. Then again, if the British could be tied up in defensive battles, the better chance he would have to hold them until the winter freeze-up forced the British fleet and army to leave or be frozen in for the winter.
The Attack
On July 31st in the early morning the British assault began and right from the start, things began to go wrong. We, time-travelers are once again looking at the scene through our imaginary camera. The screen focuses on the deck of the Russell where we seem to be standing next to Wolfe himself.
Then we see the Centurion come into view; moving into the channel north of the Island of Orleans and taking up its position slightly upriver from the Montmorency. Suddenly, smoke, flame and thunderous blasts shatter the quietness of the morning as the Centurion begins its cannonade of the two most easterly French batteries. To our right two armed troop transports begin their run ashore.
Splinters fly from a rail near where Wolfe stands. He clenches his arm as he is struck. The deck is no safe place to be standing as the French batteries open up. Wolfe later wrote to Admiral Saunders, “I was no less than three times struck with the splinters in that ship and had my stick knocked out of my hand with a cannon ball.” We knew Wolfe always insisted being with his army in a fight and now we understood why the lower ranks had great faith in his leadership.
“Damn!” said Wolfe to his aid-de-camp close by. “The redoubt on the heights is a lot closer to the French trenches than I thought. Even if we take it, it will be impossible to hold!” After a short pause, Wolfe snapped out orders and had them sent to Generals Townsend and Monckton; “Gentlemen, the attack on the redoubt is cancelled. Conditions indicate the plan will be unsuccessful. The French appear to be in some confusion and disorder, therefore the attack will proceed against the enemy’s main defenses.”
Detailed orders followed but the cannonade blotted them from our hearing. We correctly surmised that the modest plan for seizing the redoubts and drawing Montcalm into battle had been scrapped and a full scale assault across the river was being ordered.
The first transports ran ashore and disgorged the leading troops. Orders had been changed and they were now forming up and waiting to be joined by the main body of the assault force to arrive from the Island of Orleans. It was slow and it wasn’t until late afternoon that their boats arrived but then they appeared to stall just off shore.
We heard a shout from a small boat nearby that boats were grounded on a shoal - another worrisome delay - the tension mounted.
Wolfe quickly ordered a boat over the side, and we saw him personally go ashore to look at the situation; giving orders to halt the remaining troops until he found a suitable place to make a landing. We noticed the sky darkening and the thunderclouds seemed very ominous - just as the troops could be seen making for the spot Wolfe had selected.
The British Grenadiers in their red coats (about 1200 men) could be seen making the attack across the ford, led by some 200 of the green-clad men of the Royal Americans (New England colonial troops). Many were already up to their waist in water.
We wondered why they had not waited for General Monckton and General Townsend’s brigades to join in their attack because obviously Montcalm would have taken advantage of the many hours of delay to move his troops from eastern area of the Beauport shore onto the heights opposite the ford.
From the location of the smoke on the heights, glimpses of red jackets and the sounds of battle, we could see that a withering fire was pouring down on the grenadiers from the French entrenchments. It appeared that the Grenadiers were stalled. Then the clouds opened up and “a dreadfullest thunder-storm and fall of rain that can be conceived” fell upon them. The sounds of battle slowly died away - the rain had wetted their powder.
The troops began to retire across the ford and soon they re-embarked on their waiting transports; leaving the scene before the turn of the tides stranded the whole army on the beaches. The attack had been a disaster.
Our screen dims and we are informed in the trailing comments that two of the transports were lost, 210 of the attacking force killed and 230 wounded. Montcalm’s army had won a decisive victory!
Wolfe reverts to Reconnaissance, Raids and confusing the French
During the following month, many small forays and scouting expeditions were made by Brigadier Murray’s troops up-river from Quebec. These movements threatened a variety of different points and Montcalm assigned Colonel de Bougainville, a brilliant young officer, to lead a small force of 1000 men to follow the British ships and prevent any British raiding parties coming ashore. It was an exhausting task.
Murray sent a detachment ashore at Point-aux-Trembles and was beaten off by Bougainville’s force at a cost to Murray of some 30 seamen and 140 regular troops killed. The next day he landed at St, Antoine on the south shore and was fired upon by some Canadiens and Indians. Apparently he was also fired upon by some inhabitants and he threatened to burn every house in the parish if this went on. Apparently his warning was taken seriously and the firing stopped. The raids continued and an arms cash of a regular French regiment was found and destroyed.
Montcalm was very worried, fearful that his communications to the west would be cut off. Then Murray brought back news of the British capture of Fort Niagara. This alarming information had reached Quebec August 9th causing Montcalm to transfer 800 men to guard the rapids sector from any British attack down the St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario, thereby substantially weakening his forces at Quebec.
Montcalm and the French may have been confused as to Wolfe’s intentions but so were Wolfe’s generals. Again there was a lot of bickering and the atmosphere in the British camp, compounded by Wolfe’s increasingly bad health, caused the situation to become very stressful. As ever, time and tide wait for no man - all knew time was running out.
Smoke and Flames along the Banks of the St. Lawrence
A few days after arriving on the Island of Orleans on the 27th of June, Wolfe had issued a proclamation to all the inhabitants of Quebec and all habitants living and farming on both banks of the St. Lawrence River as far as 50 miles downriver. The proclamation encouraged the habitants to stay in their homes and told them they would not be molested if they remained quiet and did not take up arms against the British forces. If they did not do so, they were warned that they would be made to suffer “everything most cruel that war offers.” The notices were posted on the doors of many parish churches but unfortunately did not have much effect.
Late in July, Wolfe gave another warning noting that British troops had been suffering many barbarous attacks on his outposts by Canadiens and Indians and he threatened reprisals if the attacks continued. The notice gave a deadline of August 10th to comply with the terms of his notices offfered June 27th. He did not wait for August 10th because the attacks had not stopped.
A considerable number of incidents of shooting at British boats in the Baie St. Paul area occurred, so Wolfe gave orders to destroy the habitations and settlements in that area. Captain Joseph Goreham of the American Rangers commanding 220 men was given the job and the continuing guerilla war was to keep them busy until the end of the campaign. Hundreds of homes and farms were burned and cattle and crops seized or destroyed - smoke rose daily along the banks of the river.
The attacks on the British by the French colonials and their Indian allies intensified. In retaliation their lands were laid waste. A New England newspaper reported that some 1400 farmhouses had been destroyed by the end of the campaign and commented that it might take the country 50 years to recover. Hundreds more British soldiers were thrown into the operation. Many cruel skirmishes were fought. One of the most intense was near Montmorency.
The chief organizer was a priest by the name of Rene Portneuf, the cure of Ste. Anne de Beaupre. He headed a large armed party of resisters. He tried to negotiate with the British wishing to be forgiven for fighting for his parishioners and his country. He was ignored and on August 23rd a British force under Captain Alexander Montgomery of the 43rd Regiment, with field artillery, attacked Porneuf’s position. The guns drove them out of the houses they were holding and they were all killed and scalped.
The reason for this particular cruelty was because many of the parishioners had disguised themselves as Indians and Wolfe had previously issued an order forbidding “the inhuman practice of scalping except where the enemies are Indians or Canadiens dressed as Indians.” As mentioned, the British American Rangers were practitioners of scalping. Montgomery adopted the method and was known to be a hard and pitiless officer,
As the readers of our series now know this period of history must be assessed against the barbarous massacres of the citizens of numerous British settlements in New England that had gone on for many generations and particularly the most recent massacre at Fort William Henry in August 1757, just two years prior. Many New Englanders and British fighting men had little compunction about returning the favour.
The Canadien habitant understood the nature of this type of warfare but was caught in the middle between his duty to fight for his country or fight the British. This was especially so if he was of age to serve in the colonial militia, as most citizens were required to do. Another factor was that the habitants had been warned by their own government not to cooperate in any way with the British or the Indians would be sent to punish them.
As cruel as this British policy was, no women or children were deliberately killed but were either sent back to Quebec or kept as prisoners. Only those who took up arms were at risk. Such was not the case during the French-Indian led raids against the New England colonialists.
As to Wolfe; although he had little compunction in inflicting his policy on what he considered a cruel and barbarous enemy, he had given the population and Governor Vaudreuil fair warning of his intentions. He also probably hoped that Montcalm would be pressured by the populace to take action and attack his forces, thus bringing the French army out of the fortress of Quebec as he had so long desired.
Note: Statements in quotation marks are those taken from historical sources except for
those inferred by your host’s cinematic efforts to include our readers in the drama.
Your Host’s Comments:
It is no surprise that the Quebecoise extremists in our time, proclaim they will violently disrupt any attempt to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the conquest of Quebec; one of the most significant turning points in the world’s history. Their argument being that the British conducted a bloody campaign against innocent civilians, therefore why should they celebrate when the “English” did such horrible things to their forefathers. The lack of knowledge on their part of the facts of their forefather’s own murderous past is conveniently not taught to them.
Most of Canada’s politicians at the federal, provincial, and civic levels have caved into these extremists and refused to encourage the celebrations to take place, anywhere in Canada. Would they have done so if they knew the real story in its entirety? Their cowardice (or judicious decision making, as they see it) probably results from the same unfortunate ignorance of our common North American heritage.
If this Conquest series does anything, it amply illustrates how immoral it is for factual history to be taken out of context and cut and shaped to fit anyone’s particular political agenda, regardless of the practitioner. We have seen a plentitude of that in our time. It must stop. Our politicians, the media, our museums and educational establishments must uphold the truth at all times, “warts and all.”
Bibliography
Most of this chapter was abstracted from C. P, Stacey’s, Quebec 1759, The Siege and Battle, published by The Macmillan and Company Ltd., in Toronto in 1959. Colonel Stacey was for some years head of the Canadian Army’s Historical Section and later joined the History Department of the University of Toronto,
Other information was verified or found by internet search and other references in my own library. Please ask if you wish to enquire about any particular factual reference.
Join us for Chapter 9 and the culminating exciting events of the Conquest of Quebec and celebrate 250th anniversary of The Battle the Plains of Abraham.
Ken Tellis is an ex sailor who has traveled the world lived in Quebec and raised a family in the French milieu. Ken can be reached at 
We continue the remarkable adventures that led to the eventual formation of the United States of America, Canada and the French speaking province of Quebec.
If you have missed any of the previous chapters of our adventure or wish to have your friends or relatives, schools, libraries, media or governments receive our series, please contact letters@canadafreepress.com and we will sure you are brought up to date. New readers are welcome from anywhere in the world. 
