by Dan Snow
The Plan of Operations for the army stated that the ‘general disposition’ of the troops was to ‘oppose a landing between St Charles River and Montmorency falls, as well as for retirement behind this river in case the landings were effected’. Troops were spread out along the north shore of the St Lawrence. They were supported by the Native Americans although one diarist points out that ‘the savages were dispersed according to their own inclinations, it being found impossible to reduce them to any state of subordination or discipline’. Montcalm ordered his force to ‘entrench itself along its whole front for protection against cannon fire, and work will be set about to fortify the places which appear to offer the readiest facilities for landing’. In the city itself he left 800 militiamen, just over a hundred colonial regulars, and all the seamen who had come over with the fleet, perhaps seven hundred men. They manned the all-important artillery batteries which would shut off the upper river.79
If the British did try to bludgeon their way ashore, ‘no precise directions can be given for such a time. Everything will depend on the circumstances and the manner in which the enemy attacks. The army leaders must apply themselves to use every means to repel the enemy, and not to expose themselves to a total defeat by failing to secure a path for retreat.’ If withdrawal became necessary, cannon which were too heavy to drag away in a hurry should be ‘spiked’, rendered useless by driving a nail through the touch-hole on top of the barrel, so that the British could not use French cannon against them. If the French retreated across the St Charles then that line must be held at all costs; once it was crossed then the weaknesses of Quebec’s western fortifications would be exposed. In fact, if the British crossed the St Charles, Montcalm signalled his intention to abandon Quebec, rather than endure a siege. If Quebec was abandoned, the orders warned, ‘the colony is in extremis’. However, the tone of the orders was upbeat, and the commanders assured the troops that ‘in the situation in which we are, it is the only position we can take. It is both audacious and military.’80
As for the town, the command of the garrison in the Upper Town was given to de Ramezay, the King’s Lieutenant, and the Lower Town had a subordinate commander because Ramezay ‘could not be everywhere at once’. One French officer said there were ‘in all about 2000’ men in the garrison of the town, ‘composed of the Burghers and seamen’. But he claimed that they were ‘relieved every four days from the camp’. It is possible that Montcalm tried to keep his troops alert by rotating them through various positions.81
For those who were worried about the British braving the cannon fire and pushing through the narrows to probe above the town, the Plan gave contained reassurance. The combination of the town’s batteries and the French frigates above the town was being counted on to hold back the British: ‘there is no reason to believe that the enemy is thinking of attempting to pass in front of the town and landing at L’Anse des Mères, and so long as the frigates are active, we have at least nothing to fear on that side’.82
In this febrile fortnight Montcalm made several decisions that would have a momentous impact on the defence of Quebec and Canada. While he strengthened the fortifications he also planned for defeat. Canada clung to the banks of the St Lawrence. At many places the colony merely stretched inland the length of one farm. Nearly every settlement had river frontage and all the major towns were sited along the river. A gap of 110 miles separated Quebec from the next principal town, Trois Rivières, and Montreal was almost exactly the same distance further upriver. As a result the contingency for defeat was obvious: to withdraw along the St Lawrence. A journal recorded that ‘it was doubtful what might be the issue of a battle; after the English had made good a landing, it was determined to construct ovens, all the way up from Quebec to Trois Rivières; and to establish storehouses, and small magazines in different places, for securing a retreat’. Troops were also ‘ordered to retain the smallest quantity of baggage possible and to send the rest away into the interior’. Despite Montcalm’s insistence that Canada was lost if Quebec fell, he was clearly preparing for continued resistance should Wolfe capture the town, in accordance with the instructions from the French court to keep hold of a scrap of territory no matter how small. One decision in particular was to have a major impact on the campaign. He decided that ships carrying much of the essential supplies for the colony would be moved just over fifty miles upriver from Quebec to Batiscan. This was above the Richelieu rapids, which only very shallow-draught ships could negotiate and only at certain times. Here the ships and stores would be safe from Saunders. It also meant that if Quebec fell, the colony’s entire supply of food and powder would not fall with it and there was hope for further resistance. Montcalm’s army would be supplied by a regular flow of food and stores that would come in small boats down the St Lawrence from Batiscan to Quebec. It was a long supply line and therefore vulnerable. The danger was that in planning for the aftermath of the fall of Quebec he risked weakening his position and thus hastening that eventuality. His plan for the defence of Quebec now relied on the assumption that he could stop the British from passing the narrows and operating above the town, where they would be able to intercept his supplies.83
Having waited in vain for the mighty river to swallow up the British fleet, the French resorted to that other traditional instrument of salvation, the raid and ambush. On 30 May, as so often before in the bloody history of Canada, a party of between two hundred and fifty and three hundred Canadians and Native Americans ‘was sent…to the coast of the Ile aux Coudres to skirmish with the English who had landed there, and to lay in ambush for them under cover of the woods, with which the island was almost wholly overgrown’. A French army officer, with a scorn of their Native allies typical of his class, said that on seeing the British the Native Americans refused to continue ‘and the expedition had to be abandoned’. But it seems that a small group of Canadians insisted on pressing on and lay in wait on the island. Three young British naval officers blundered into the trap and triggered the first contact of the 1759 campaign. It was a quick and easy Canadian success. The war party ‘killed the horses which they rode, without hurting the riders who they brought away’. The three men were midshipmen, the most junior naval officers, and they had been ‘placed as sentinels to make signals when they described any vessels to the southward’. They were brought back to Quebec. Another journal recorded that they were as young as 14. No less than three sources agree that, remarkably, one of the teenagers was a relative of Rear Admiral Durell, probably a grandson. According to Panet they ‘were treated honourably’ during their time in Quebec where they spoke freely about the British fleet, somewhat exaggerating its size, and of the British expectation that Quebec would fall without too much resistance. Indeed, Panet thought they sounded like ‘they considered this operation already accomplished’. After just over a week they were sent further inland to Trois Rivières, to keep them out of mischief but not before they had ‘praised the skill of the Canadians for having killed their horses without having harmed them’.
Despite the unorthodox methods of the Canadians and Native Americans they proved on this first foray that they had huge potential as irregular troops, in this instance gaining the first real intelligence about the British fleet. Our scornful French officer refused to be impressed. In his journal he pointed out that the midshipmen told their captors that another 600 men were unarmed and milling about on the beach. He regretted this missed opportunity, writing that they could all have been ‘destroyed’ by the ‘smallest detachment’.84
Even so, it was no doubt a morale-boosting success. By the beginning of June a cautious optimism had replaced the panic occasioned by the fiery beacons. A journal recounted that ‘by the end of the month [May] the palisades were fixed, the batteries completed, and Quebec secured against a coup de main’.85 The number of men present for the defence of the city was far greater than people had dared hope for. The walls of the city and the north bank of the St Lawrence bristled with cannon. Supplies of food and powder were
sufficient, if not plentiful. In fact, there was an odd feeling of anticlimax. The whole population had believed that the British would land within days of their appearance at Bic. They had thrown themselves into the task of protecting the city but as June plodded on there was no sign of the British and ‘the delay…gave leisure for that ardour to cool’. After all, the Canadians were ‘by nature impatient’.86
Their desire to meet the enemy stemmed from a conviction that they would beat any British force. Importantly, people believed that Quebec would hold out. The history of Canada, from Cartier’s first pathetic attempts to survive the winter, was one of struggle against the climate, the Native Americans, and invasions by land and sea. Time and again grave threats to the colony had been overcome. Quebecers believed that their town was impregnable and had been protected by the Virgin Mary herself against pagans and heretics for hundreds of years.
One myth fast being demolished, however, was that of the impassable St Lawrence. While Montcalm’s men dug, built, and sweated under the increasingly warm early summer sun it seemed to them that the north-east wind blew with depressing regularity. This is not entirely corroborated by the more objective logs of the British ships but the British were certainly blessed with fairly benign conditions. The news that the British ships had arrived at the Île aux Coudres ‘renewed the consternation, for no doubt was now entertained, that the whole English fleet was closely following’. It was particularly embarrassing for the French sailors: ‘our seamen, who had always represented the navigation of the river to be extremely difficult (which indeed the very frequent accidents that befell our ships, gave every reason to believe was true) had cause to blush at seeing the English ships accomplish it, without incurring any loss or danger’.87 Voices in the colony had for some time demanded manmade defences for suitable points on the river. Despite everyone blaming each other it seems the main reason for these not being put into action was simply the vast cost and considerable logistical effort in building forts and batteries on inaccessible headlands and islands. The French were not totally downcast, however. They knew that the toughest stretch of navigation in the whole river still lay ahead of the British. Although the river was still around fourteen miles wide at the Île aux Coudres, the navigable channel was narrow and ran tight along the north shore, between Coudres and the awesome Cap Tourmente, thirty miles away, with its steep, heavily wooded sides. From here the passage crossed diagonally to the south between rocks, sand spits, and reefs. The ebb tide tears through the passage at up to six knots, even with a light contrary wind it will kick up such steep waves that small boats can be swamped and lost. It was uncharted, had never been passed by a large ship and the French had removed all the navigation marks. It was the final and most formidable navigational hurdle before the fleet reached Quebec. It was known simply as ‘the Traverse’.
THREE
Mastering the St Lawrence
FOR DAYS THE SMALL BOATS bobbed around on anchor or crept forward under oar and sail whenever wind and tide permitted. During the halts the sailors leant on their blades, readying themselves for the next burst of activity. In the stern the master took frequent soundings, noted down the results, and used compass and landmarks to fix their position. The current ebbed and flowed under them at a giddy speed of up to six knots. Only men who had crept cautiously around Alderney in the Channel Islands or knew the Bristol Channel would have seen anything like it before. Frequent squalls soaked the crews and the red-coated soldiers and marines tried to wrap the breeches of their muskets in rags to keep their powder dry. Every day they edged slightly further along the channel close to the north shore, but when they ventured too close puffs of smoke would billow out from the treeline accompanied by the sharp crack of a musket. Each attack would provoke a pointless game of cat and mouse as guard boats carrying infantrymen pulled hard at their oars, heading for the shore. But by the time they arrived the shadowy Canadian marksmen had melted further into the thick forest where the redcoats feared to follow.
One man who spent more time in the sounding boats than any other was the master of the Pembroke, James Cook. The man who was to become the first European to explore the east coast of Australia, Hawaii and great swathes of the Pacific was 30 years old and a newcomer to the navy. He had grown up in a family of landlubbers, twenty miles from the North Sea in Yorkshire. His father had worked his way up to farm manager and the farmer paid for young James to go to school. After a brief stint as a shopkeeper’s boy, he went to sea at age 18. He served Mr Walker, a Quaker from Whitby, who made his money delivering coal from north-east England down to London where a nascent industrial revolution was firing a demand for coal that employed 400 ships a year making the dangerous journey from the Tyne to the Thames. Treacherous enough with GPS, charts, weather forecasts, navigation marks, and engines, the east coast of England was a harsh nursery of seamanship. If Cook could learn how to avoid the East and West Barrow in the Thames Estuary, the sandbanks off Ipswich, the North Sea fogs and the violent squalls he could face any waters in the world. It was a ruthless meritocracy which ensured only the competent survived. Cook became a talented seaman. Walker offered him command of a ship in his late twenties but Cook made a surprising decision. Perhaps driven by a thirst for adventure he elected to join the Royal Navy as a lowly able seaman. War had just broken out with France and Cook would have his fill of action. Within a month his skills were recognized and he was promoted to Master’s Mate. He faced the enemy for the first time in May 1757 on board the Eagle; she captured a valuable French merchantman but only after a stiff fight in which she was shot to pieces. Skill was prized above birth in the navy, for the same reason as it was on the colliers, and promotion beckoned if he could pass his exams. Cook sat and passed for the position of Master in late 1757. The next year he was in North American waters, Master of the sixty-four-gun ship Pembroke. The job has no modern equivalent and was already dying out in Cook’s time. Traditionally the King’s government had hired ships to fight in times of war. The Master came with the ship to sail it. The officers were gentlemen put on board to fight it. The post had survived into the age of full-time naval ships and it still had responsibility for navigation, pilotage, log keeping, and other technical aspects of being at sea. Masters did not wear uniforms but their high degree of technical know-how made them one of the most important men on the ship even if they lacked the lace of an officer.
The Pembroke had supported the operations off Louisbourg during the siege in the summer of 1758. During a trip ashore Cook had a chance meeting with Samuel ‘Holland’ that was to change his life. Holland was a Dutch engineer and excellent draughtsman. He had been sent to map parts of the coastline. With his skipper’s permission Cook set about learning the art of mapmaking. He produced his first chart in the autumn of 1758 and during the winter of 1758/9 together with Holland he tried to build a picture of the St Lawrence from existing, fragmentary French charts found at Louisbourg and the results of their own soundings on an autumnal cruise along the north shore of modern New Brunswick and into the Gulf of St Lawrence itself. Holland wrote years later, ‘during our stay in Halifax, whenever I could get a moment of time from my duty, I was on board the Pembroke where the great cabin, dedicated to scientific purposes and mostly taken up with a drawing table, furnished no room for idlers’. Together they produced a chart and Holland claimed that ‘these charts were of much use, as some copies came out prior to our sailing from Halifax for Quebec in 1759’.1
After arriving off Bic, Durell had ordered Captain William Gordon of the Devonshire to take with him the Pembroke, Centurion, Squirrel, and three transport ships and press on up the St Lawrence. Cook has traditionally been given all of the plaudits for the pilotage, but although his role was to grow as the summer went on, at this point he was just one of the several masters who all share the credit for providing information about where the channel lay. Men like Hammond, Master of Durell’s flagship, the Princess Amelia, spent long days in the open boats with sounding equipment. This was e
ssentially a long line with a twelve-pound lead weight on the end. Along the line were coloured markers at intervals of one fathom (six feet), allowing the men to gauge the depth. The bottom of the lead was hollowed out and filled with rendered beef or mutton fat, tallow, which collected a sample of the riverbed. Slowly they developed an accurate idea of the depth of water and whether the bottom was rock, sand or shale.2
This advance guard moved up the St Lawrence, feeling their way and praying their anchors would hold through the ebb tide and frequent squalls. The routine of shipboard life continued. The logs went on recording the state of the stores and the frequent occasions on which the ships ‘exercised great guns and small arms’.3 By the afternoon of 8 June 1759 the mighty Cap Tourmente loomed on their starboard bows and they were at the start of the Traverse, the most treacherous part of the St Lawrence. On the ninth the Devonshire signalled ‘for all boats manned and armed in order to go and sound the channel of the Traverse’. Cook and the other masters, with their mates, plus sailors to row them and soldiers to protect them, spent their time feeling out the bottom of the river with their lead lines. On the tenth Cook in his tiny, neat hand wrote in the Pembroke’s log, ‘all the boats went a sounding as before’.4
To the astonishment of the officers the legendary Traverse was found to be wider than expected. By 11 June it seems that Cook ‘returned satisfied with being acquainted with the Channel’.5 On 13 June the Centurion weighed anchor at 1700 hours and three hours later dropped it on the eastern tip of the Île d’Orléans on the far side of the Traverse, becoming in the process the largest ship to have ever passed through it. The final, supposedly impassable barrier to Quebec had been penetrated in less than a week. Buoys were laid and, together with the anchored boats, were used to guide the following ships and the process of getting the rest of the fleet through could now commence.
