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70 - Montcalm and Wolfe by Francis Parkman, Jr. · Montcalm and Wolfe

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Speaker 1: Section sixty nine of mont Carmen Wolf by Francis Parkman.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, Chapter thirty,
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Speaker 1: Part two. Montreal of that time was a long, narrow
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Speaker 1: assemblage of wooden or stone houses, one or two stories high,
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Speaker 1: above which rose the peaked towers of the seminary, the
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Speaker 1: spires of three churches, the walls of four convents, with
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Speaker 1: the trees of their adjacent gardens, and conspicuous at the
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Speaker 1: lower end, a high mound of earth crowned by a
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Speaker 1: redoubt where a few cannon were mounted. The hall was
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Speaker 1: surrounded by a shallow moat and a bastioned stone wall,
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Speaker 1: made for defense against Indians and incapable of resisting cannon.
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Speaker 1: On the morning after Amherst encamped above the place, Murray
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Speaker 1: landed to encamp below it, and Voudroy. Looking across the
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Speaker 1: Saint Lawrence could see the tents of Haveln's little army
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Speaker 1: on the southern shore. Bourlamac, Bougainville, and Roquemor, abandoned by
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Speaker 1: all their militia, had crossed to Montreal with the few
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Speaker 1: regulars that remained with them. The town was crowded with
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Speaker 1: non combatant refugees. Here too, was nearly all the remaining
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Speaker 1: force of Canada, consisting of twenty two hundred troops of
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Speaker 1: the line and some two hundred Colony troops. For all
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Speaker 1: the Canadians had by this time gone home. Many of
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Speaker 1: the regulars, especially of the Colony troops, had also deserted,
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Speaker 1: and the rest were so broken in discipline that their
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Speaker 1: officers were forced to use entreaties instead of commands. The
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Speaker 1: three armies encamped around the city amounted to seventeen thousand men.
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Speaker 1: Amherst was bringing up his cannon from Lachen, and the
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Speaker 1: town wall would have crumbled before them in an hour.
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Speaker 1: On the night when Amherst arrived, the governor called a
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Speaker 1: council of war. It was resolved that since all a
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Speaker 1: militia and many of the regulars had abandoned the army,
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Speaker 1: and the Indian allies of France had gone over to
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Speaker 1: the enemy, further resistance was impossible. Voudroy laid before the
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Speaker 1: assembled officers a long paper that he had drawn up,
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Speaker 1: containing fifty five articles of capitulation to be proposed to
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Speaker 1: the English, and these were unanimously approved. In the morning,
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Speaker 1: Bougainville carried them to the tent of Amherst. He granted
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Speaker 1: the greater part, modified some and flatly refused others. That
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Speaker 1: which the French officers thought more important than all the
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Speaker 1: rest was the provision that the troops should march out
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Speaker 1: with arms, cannon and the honors of war, to which
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Speaker 1: it was replied, the whole garrison of Montreal and all
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Speaker 1: other French troops in Canada must lay down their arms
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Speaker 1: and shall not serve during the present war. This demand
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Speaker 1: was felt to be intolerable. The governor sent Bougainville back
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Speaker 1: to remonstrate, but Amherst was inflexible. Then Levis tried to
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Speaker 1: shake his resolution and sent him an officer with the
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Speaker 1: following note, I send your excellency, Monsieur de la Por'se,
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Speaker 1: Assistant Quartermaster General of the Army, on the subject of
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Speaker 1: the too rigorous article which you dictate to the troops,
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Speaker 1: by the capitulation to which it would not be possible
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Speaker 1: for us to subscribe. Amherst answered the envoy, I am
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Speaker 1: fully resolved. For the infamous part, the troops of France
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Speaker 1: have acted in exciting the savages to perpetrate the most
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Speaker 1: horrid and unheard of barbarities in the whole progress of
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Speaker 1: the war, and for other open treacheries and flagrant breaches
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Speaker 1: of faith to manifest to all the world by this
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Speaker 1: capitulation my detestation of such practices, and he dismissed lap
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Speaker 1: pause with a short note, refusing to change the conditions.
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Speaker 1: On the next morning, September the eighth, VOUDROI yielded and
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Speaker 1: signed the capitulation. By it, Canada and all its dependencies
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Speaker 1: passed to the British Crown. French officers civil and military,
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Speaker 1: with French troops and sailors were to be sent to
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Speaker 1: France in British ships. Free exercise of religion was assured
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Speaker 1: to the people of the colony, and the religious communities
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Speaker 1: were to retain their possessions, rights and privileges. All persons
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Speaker 1: who might wish to retire to France were allowed to
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Speaker 1: do so, and the Canadians were to remain in full
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Speaker 1: enjoyment of feudal and other property, including Negro and Indian slaves.
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Speaker 1: The greatest alarm had prevailed among the inhabitants lest they
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Speaker 1: should suffer violence from the English Indians, and vou Droy
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Speaker 1: had endeavored to provide that these dangerous enemies should be
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Speaker 1: sent back at once. To their villages. This was refused
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Speaker 1: with the remark there never have been any cruelties committed
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Speaker 1: by the Indians of our army. Strict precautions were taken
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Speaker 1: at the same time, not only against the few savages
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Speaker 1: whom the firm conduct of Johnson at Fort Levis had
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Speaker 1: not driven away, but also against the late allies of
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Speaker 1: the French now become a peril to them. In consequence,
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Speaker 1: not a man, woman or child was hurt. Amherst in
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Speaker 1: General Orders expressed his confidence that the troops will not
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Speaker 1: disgrace themselves by the least appearance of inhumanity, or by
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Speaker 1: any unsoldier like behavior in seeking for plunder, and that
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Speaker 1: as the Canadians are now become British subjects, they will
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Speaker 1: feel the good effects of His Majesty's protection. They were,
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Speaker 1: in fact treated with a kindness that seemed to surprise them.
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Speaker 1: Levis was so incensed at the demand that the troops
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Speaker 1: should lay down their arms and serve no longer during
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Speaker 1: the war, that before the capitulation was signed, he made
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Speaker 1: a formal protest in his own name and that of
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Speaker 1: the officers from France, and insisted that the negotiation should
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Speaker 1: be broken off if he added, the Marquis de Audroy,
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Speaker 1: through political motives, thinks himself obliged to surrender the colony
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Speaker 1: at once. We ask his admission to withdraw with the
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Speaker 1: troops of the line to the island of Saint Helen,
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Speaker 1: in order to uphold there on our own behalf the
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Speaker 1: honor of the King's arms. The proposal was of course rejected,
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Speaker 1: as Levis knew that it would be, and he and
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Speaker 1: his officers were ordered to conform to the capitulation. When
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Speaker 1: Voudroy reached France three months after he had the mortification
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Speaker 1: to receive from the Colonial Minister a letter containing these words.
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Speaker 1: Though his Majesty was perfectly aware of the state of Canada, nevertheless,
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Speaker 1: after the assurances you had given to make the utmost
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Speaker 1: effects to sustain the honor of his arms, he did
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Speaker 1: not expect to hear so soon of the surrender of
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Speaker 1: Montreal and the whole colony. But granting that capitulation was
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Speaker 1: a necessity, his Majesty was not the less surprised and
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Speaker 1: ill pleased at the conditions so little honorable to which
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Speaker 1: you submitted, especially after the representations made you by the
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Speaker 1: Chevalier de le Vis, the brother of vor Droy, complained
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Speaker 1: to the Minister of the terms of this letter, and
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Speaker 1: the minister replied, I see with regret, monsieur, that you
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Speaker 1: are pained by the letter I wrote your brother. But
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Speaker 1: I could not help telling him what the King did
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Speaker 1: me the honor to say to me, and it would
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Speaker 1: have been unpleasant for him to hear it from anybody else.
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Speaker 1: It is true that voor Droy had in some measure
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Speaker 1: drawn this reproach upon himself by his boastings about the
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Speaker 1: battles he would fight. Yet the royal displeasure was undeserved.
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Speaker 1: The governor had no choice but to give up the colony,
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Speaker 1: for Amherst had him in his power and knew that
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Speaker 1: he could exact what terms he pleased. Further resistance could
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Speaker 1: only have ended in surrender at the discretion of the victor,
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Speaker 1: and the protest of Levis was nothing but a device
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Speaker 1: to save his own reputation and that of his brother
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Speaker 1: officers from France. Voor Droy had served the King and
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Speaker 1: the colony in some respects with ability, always with an
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Speaker 1: unflagging zeal, and he loved the land of his birth
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Speaker 1: with the jealous devotion that goes far beyond redeeming his
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Speaker 1: miserable defects. The king himself and not the servants whom
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Speaker 1: he abandoned to their fate, was answerable for the loss
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Speaker 1: of New France. Half the continent had changed hands at
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Speaker 1: the scratch of a pen. Governor Bernard of Massachusetts proclaimed
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Speaker 1: a day of thanksgiving for the great event, and the
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Speaker 1: Boston newspapers recount how the occasion was celebrated with the
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Speaker 1: parade of the Cadets and other volunteer corps, a grand
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Speaker 1: dinner in Fannoy Hall, music, bonfires, illuminations, firing of cannon,
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Speaker 1: and above all, by sermons in every church of the province.
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Speaker 1: For the heart of early New England always found voice
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Speaker 1: through her Pulpits before me lies A bundle of these sermons,
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Speaker 1: rescued from six score years of dust, scrawled on their
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Speaker 1: title pages, with names of owners dead long ago, worm eaten, dingy,
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Speaker 1: stained with the damps of time, and uttering in quaint
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Speaker 1: old lets suppress the emotions of a buried and forgotten past. Triumph, gratulation,
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Speaker 1: hope breathe in every line, but no ill will against
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Speaker 1: a fallen enemy. Thomas Foxcroft, pastor of the Old Church
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Speaker 1: in Boston, preaches from the text The Lord hath done
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Speaker 1: great things for us, whereof we are glad long, he says,
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Speaker 1: had it been the common opinion delenda est Carthago, Canada
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Speaker 1: must be conquered, or we could hope for no lasting
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Speaker 1: quiet in these parts. And now, through the good hand
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Speaker 1: of our God upon us we see the happy day
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Speaker 1: of its accomplishment. We behold His Majesty's victorious troops treading
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Speaker 1: upon the high places of the enemy, their last fortress
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Speaker 1: delivered up, and their whole country surrendered to the King
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Speaker 1: of Britain, in the person of his General, the intrepid,
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Speaker 1: the serene, the successful, Amherst the loyal John Melon, pastor
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Speaker 1: of the Second Church in Lancaster, exclaims, boding nothing of
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Speaker 1: the tempest to come, let us fear God and honor
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Speaker 1: the King, and be peaceable subjects of an easy and
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Speaker 1: happy government. And may the blessing of Heaven be ever
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Speaker 1: upon those enemies of our country that have now submitted
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Speaker 1: to the English Crown, and according to the oath they
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Speaker 1: have taken lead quiet lives in all godliness and honesty.
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Speaker 1: Then he ventures to predict that America, now thrown open
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Speaker 1: to British colonists, will be peopled in a century and
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Speaker 1: a half with sixty million souls, a prophecy likely to
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Speaker 1: be more than fulfilled. God has given us to sing
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Speaker 1: this day the downfall of New France, the North American Babylon,
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Speaker 1: New England's rival, cries Eli Forbes to his congregation of
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Speaker 1: sober farmers and stayed matrons at the rustic village of Brookfield.
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Speaker 1: Like many of his flock, he had been to the war,
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Speaker 1: having served two years as chaplain of ruggles Massachusetts Regiment,
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Speaker 1: and something of a martial spirit breathes through his discourse.
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Speaker 1: He passes in review the events of each campaign, down
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Speaker 1: to their triumphant clothes. Thus God was our salvation and
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Speaker 1: our strength. Yet he who directs the great events of war,
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Speaker 1: suffered not our joy to be uninterrupted. For we had
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Speaker 1: to lament the fall of the valiant and good General Wolfe,
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Speaker 1: whose death demands a tear from every British eye, a
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Speaker 1: sigh from every Protestant heart. Is he dead? I recall myself,
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Speaker 1: such heroes are immortal. He lives on every loyal tongue,
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Speaker 1: he lives in every grateful breast, and charity bids me
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Speaker 1: give him a place among the princes of heaven. Nor
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Speaker 1: does he forget the praises of Amherst, the renowned general,
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Speaker 1: worthy of that most honorable of all titles, the Christian hero.
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Speaker 1: For he loves his enemies, and while he subdues them,
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Speaker 1: he makes them happy. He transplants British liberty to where
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Speaker 1: till now it was unknown. He acts the General, the Briton,
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Speaker 1: the conqueror, and the Christian. What fair hopes arise from
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Speaker 1: the peaceful and undisturbed enjoyment of this good land and
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Speaker 1: the blessings of our gracious God with it? Methinks I
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Speaker 1: see towns enlarged, settlements increased, and this howling wilderness become
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Speaker 1: a fruitful field which the Lord hath blessed. And to
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Speaker 1: complete the scene, I see churches rise and flourish in
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Speaker 1: every Christian grace where has been the seat of Satan
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Speaker 1: and Indian idolatry. Nathaniel Appleton of Cambridge hails the dawning
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Speaker 1: of a new era. Who can tell what great and
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Speaker 1: glorious things God is about to bring forward in the world,
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Speaker 1: and in this world of America in particular. Oh, may
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Speaker 1: the time come when these deserts, which for ages unknown
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Speaker 1: have been regions of darkness and habitations of cruelty shall
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Speaker 1: be illuminated with the light of the glorious Gospel. And
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Speaker 1: when this part of the world, which till the latter
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Speaker 1: ages was utterly unknown, shall be the glory and joy
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Speaker 1: of the whole earth on the American continent. The war
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Speaker 1: was ended, and the British colonists breathed for space as
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Speaker 1: they drifted unwittingly towards a deadlier strife. They had learned
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Speaker 1: hard and useful lessons. Their mutual jealousies and disputes, the
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Speaker 1: quarrels of their governors and assemblies, the want of any
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Speaker 1: general military organization, and the absence in most of them
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Speaker 1: of military habits joined to narrow views of their own
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Speaker 1: interest had unfitted them to the last agree for carrying
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Speaker 1: on offensive war. Nor were the British troops sent for
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Speaker 1: their support remarkable in the beginning for good discipline or
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Speaker 1: efficient command. When hostilities broke out, the army of Great
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Speaker 1: Britain was so small as to be hardly worth the name.
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Speaker 1: A new one had to be created, and thus the
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Speaker 1: inexperienced surely and the incompetent Louden, with the futile Newcastle
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Speaker 1: behind them, had, besides their own incapacity the disadvantage of
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Speaker 1: raw troops and half formed officers, while against them stood
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Speaker 1: an enemy who, though weak in numbers, was strong in
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Speaker 1: a centralized military organization. Skillful leaders, armed with untrammeled and
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Speaker 1: absolute authority, practiced soldiers, and upon population not only brave,
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Speaker 1: but in good part inured to war. The nature of
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Speaker 1: the country was another cause that helped to protract the contest. Geography,
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Speaker 1: says von Moltke, is three fourths of military science, and
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Speaker 1: never was the truth of his words more fully exemplified.
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Speaker 1: Canada was fortified with vast outworks of defense in the
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Speaker 1: savage forests, marshes and mountains that encompassed her, where the
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Speaker 1: thoroughfares were streams choked with fallen trees and obstructed by cataracts.
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Speaker 1: Never was the problem of moving troops encumbered with baggage
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Speaker 1: and artillery a more difficult one. The question was less
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Speaker 1: how to fight the enemy than how to get at him.
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Speaker 1: If a few practicable roads had crossed this broad tract
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Speaker 1: of wilderness, the war would have been shortened and its
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Speaker 1: character changed. From these and other reasons, the numerical superiority
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Speaker 1: the English was, to some extent made unavailing. This superiority,
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Speaker 1: though exaggerated by French writers, was nevertheless immense if estimated
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Speaker 1: by the number of men called to arms, but only
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Speaker 1: a part of these could be employed in offensive operations.
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Speaker 1: The rest garrisoned forts and blockhouses and guarded the far
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Speaker 1: reach of frontier from Nova Scotia to South Carolina, where
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Speaker 1: a wily enemy, silent and secret as fate, choosing their
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Speaker 1: own time and place of attack, and striking unawares at
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Speaker 1: every unguarded spot, compelled thousands of men scattered at countless
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Speaker 1: points of defense to keep unceasing watch against a few
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Speaker 1: hundred savage marauders. Full half the levees of the colonies,
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Speaker 1: and many of the regulars were used in service of
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Speaker 1: this kind in actual encounters. This advantage of numbers was
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Speaker 1: often with the French through the comparative ease with which
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Speaker 1: they could concentrate their forces at a given point. Of
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Speaker 1: the ten considerable sieges or battles of the war, five
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Speaker 1: besides the Great Bush Fight in which the Indians defeated Braddock,
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Speaker 1: were victories for France, and in four of these Oswego,
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Speaker 1: Fort William, Henry, Montmorency and Saint Foix, the odds were
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Speaker 1: greatly on her side. Yet in this the most picturesque
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Speaker 1: and dramatic of American wars, there is nothing more no
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Speaker 1: worthy than the skill with which the French and Canadian
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Speaker 1: leaders used their advantages, the indomitable spirit with which slighted
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Speaker 1: and abandoned as they were, they grappled with prodigious difficulties,
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Speaker 1: and the courage with which they were seconded by regulars
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Speaker 1: and militia alike. In spite of occasional lapses, the defense
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Speaker 1: of Canada deserves a tribute of admiration and of Section
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Speaker 1: sixty nine,