The Fall Of Canada
Though Quebec was in their hands, the position of the British during the winter of 1759-60 was dangerous.In October General Murray, who was left in command, saw with misgiving the great fleet sail away which had brought to Canada the conquering force of Wolfe and Saunders.Murray was left with some seven thousand men in the heart of a hostile country, and with a resourceful enemy, still unconquered, preparing to attack him.He was separated from other British forces by vast wastes of forest and river, and until spring should come no fleet could aid him.Three enemies of the English, the French said exultingly, would aid to retake Quebec: the ruthless savages who haunted the outskirts of the fortress and massacred many an incautious straggler; the French army which could be recruited from the Canadian population; and, above all, the bitter cold of the Canadian winter.To Murray, as to Napoleon long afterward in his rash invasion of Russia, General February was indeed the enemy.About the two or three British ships left at Quebec the ice froze in places a dozen feet thick, and snowdrifts were piled so high against the walls of Quebec that it looked sometimes as if the enemy might walk over them into the fortress.So solidly frozen was the surface of the river that Murray sent cannon to the south shore across the ice to repel a menace from that quarter.There was scarcity of firewood and of provisions.Scurvy broke out in the garrison.Many hundreds died so that by the spring Murray had barely three thousand men fit for active duty.
Throughout the winter Levis, now in command of the French forces, made increasing preparations to destroy Murray in the spring.The headquarters of Uvis were at Montreal.Here Vaudreuil, the Governor, kept his little court.He and Levis worked harmoniously, for Uvis was conciliatory and tactful.For a time Vaudreuil treasured the thought of taking command in person to attack Quebec.In the end, however, he showed that he had learned something from the disasters of the previous year and did not interfere with the plans made by Levis.So throughout the winter Montreal had its gayeties and vanities as of old.There were feasts and dances--but over all brooded the reality of famine in the present and--the foreboding of disaster to come.
By April 20, 1760, the St.Lawrence was open and, though the shores were cumbered with masses of broken ice, the central channel was free for the boats which Levis filled with his soldiers.It was a bleak experience to descend the turbulent river between banks clogged with ice.When Levis was not far from Quebec, he learned that it was impossible to surprise Murray who was well on guard between Cap Rouge on the west and Beauport on the east.The one thing to do was to reach the Plains of Abraham in order to attack the feeble walls of Quebec from the landward side.Since Murray's alertness made impossible attack by way of the high cliffs which Wolfe had climbed in the night, Levis had to reach Quebec by a circuitous route.He landed his army a little above Cap Rouge, marched inland over terrible roads in heavy rain, and climbed to the plateau of Quebec from the rear at Sainte Foy.On April 27, 1760, he drew up his army on the heights almost exactly as Wolfe had done in the previous September.
Murray followed the example of Montcalm.He had no trust in the feeble defenses of Quebec and on the 28th marched out to fight on the open plain.The battle of Sainte Foy followed exactly the precedents of the previous year.The defenders of Quebec were driven off the field in overwhelming defeat.The difference was that Murray took his army back to Quebec and from behind its walls still defied his French assailant.Levis had poor artillery, but he did what he could.He entrenched and poured his fire into Quebec.In the end it was sea power which balked him.
On the 15th of May, when a British fleet appeared round the head of the Island of Orleans, Levis withdrew in something like panic and Quebec was safe.
Levis returned to Montreal; and to this point all the forces of France slowly retreated as they were pressed in by the overwhelming numbers of the British.At Oswego, the scene of Montcalm's first brilliant success four years earlier, Amherst had gathered during the summer of 1760 an army of about ten thousand men.From here he descended the St.Lawrence in boats to attack Montreal from the west.From the south, down Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River to the St.Lawrence, came another British force under Haviland also to attack Montreal.At Quebec Murray put his army on transports, left the city almost destitute of defense, and thus brought a third considerable force against Montreal.There was little fighting.The French withdrew to the common objective as their enemy advanced.Early in September Levis had gathered at Montreal all his available force, amounting now to scarcely more than two thousand men, for Canadians and Indians alike had deserted him.The British pressed in with the slow and inevitable rigor of a force of nature.On the 7th of September their united army was before the town and Amherst demanded instant surrender.The only thing for Vaudreuil to do was to make the best terms possible.On the next day he signed a capitulation which protected the liberties in property and religion of the Canadians but which yielded the whole of Canada to Great Britain.The struggle for North America had ended.
In the moment of triumph Amherst inflicted on the French army a deep humiliation to punish the outrages committed by their Indian allies.In the early days of the war Loudoun, the Commander-in-Chief in America, had vowed that the British would make the French "sick of such inhuman villainy" and teach them to respect "the laws of nature and humanity." Washington speaks of his "deadly sorrow" at the dreadful outrages which he saw, the ravishing of women, the scalping alive even of children.
