by Rob Mundle
Seizing the opportunity that came with the wind direction and a favourable tide on a dark, moonless night, Montcalm had set his fire-ships adrift and ablaze. His intention was for them to float downstream and create havoc among the enemy – the naval version of an archer’s flaming arrow. Unfortunately for the defenders, most of these combustible vessels had been set alight too soon, so by the time they reached the anchored British ships, they were merely smouldering hulks. Two that were still blazing ran aground, while those that reached the fleet were towed clear of their intended targets by British sailors before they caused any damage.
Wolfe established a land base for his men at the western end of Île d’Orléans, and then in early July a major battery, made up of hundreds of cannons, was put in place across the river from Québec. With the town now well within British sights, Wolfe initiated the first stage of his grand attack by commencing an incessant shelling of the fortress. For two months, cannonballs rained down on the Frenchmen, and twice the lower part of the town – that closest to the river – was set ablaze.
Cook, like the masters of all vessels, was busy ensuring that every manoeuvre, order and activity was carried out smoothly and efficiently aboard his ship. At one stage, Pembroke was directed into a rapid-response action to save HMS Richmond and Diana, his log recording:
Cut and Slipped per order of the admiral and ran up the river in order to cover the Richmond and Diana which was Attacked by a Number of the Enemy’s Row boats, which Rowed off as Soon as we got up … Sent the Long boats and 30 Men on Board the Diana to assist in getting her guns out, at 4 fired a 24 pound Shot at the Enemy’s Row boats going down the River …
Around this time, Wolfe decided to avoid the ongoing minor skirmishes with the French and go to the second stage of his plan: mounting a full-scale assault on the fortress by putting his troops ashore on the north side of the St Lawrence. But first he needed an accurate chart of river depths along the chosen shoreline.
Cook became an integral part of this project. He and others spent days taking soundings along the north shore, immediately below the fortress and on the upstream side, hoping they could find a location offering deep water and little current, so that the two primary vessels for landing troops could be secured as close to shore as possible. This is where Saunders and Wolfe drew on Cook’s previous experience, because the hulls of these landing vessels were similar in shape and proportion to the cats that the Yorkshireman had sailed out of Whitby for the Walkers. As a result of discussions with Cook, Wolfe wrote the following to his brigadier, Robert Monckton, on 28 July: ‘The Master of the Pembroke assures the Admiral that a Cat, can go within less than 100 yards of the Redoubt [stronghold] – if so, it will be a short affair …’
The location decided on by Wolfe for what would become the Battle of Beauport was immediately downstream of the fortress at an area known as the Shoals of Beauport. This part of the attack on Québec, which came on 31 July, turned into a disaster for the British. Despite Pembroke and HMS Centurion using their carronades to lob the heaviest possible ammunition onto the defenders, both cats carrying the troops were hammered by French cannon-fire, resulting in a total toll of 500 dead or wounded. The only option left for the British was to set fire to the two landing vessels, abandon the attack and retreat.
The major shortcoming in this attack was that the cats ran aground well away from the riverbank, so the majority of the troops could not get to the shore. Unfortunately for Cook, he was deemed by many to be wrong in his suggestion that the vessels could achieve their goal. He was eventually vindicated when it was shown that most of the soundings were taken at high tide, and the attack happened when the tide was on the ebb.
By early September 1759, there was still no sign of General Amherst and his ground troops moving towards Québec from the west. So, with autumn approaching and time running out, Wolfe decided he must go it alone.
Preparations were rapid and intense. Cook’s role in helping set up a decoy downriver from the main attack was revealed by Captain Wheelock in his log: ‘At 10 [am] our Master went and laid Several Buoys on the Shoals of Beauport … at noon the Enemy attempted to cut away the Buoys our Master laid, but was [driven] off by the fire of the Richmond …’ While a force led by Saunders would provide ‘a feint to Land at Beauport in order to Draw the Enemy’s Attention’, as Cook later put it, Wolfe’s plan was to land his troops upstream – 1½ miles south-west of Québec town, in a cove known as Anse-au-Foulon. To create added confusion for the French, another decoy landing using some of the warships was planned for Cap-Rouge, 6 nautical miles upstream.
Under the cover of darkness on 12 September – and with the decoys working to full effect – every available small boat in the fleet was used to transport 4500 British redcoats to the shore. Simultaneously, the cannons at Point Lévis provided ‘Continual fire against the Town all night’ from across the river. The soldiers were then able to land at their secluded cove, and from there they scaled the sloping cliffs of Cap Diamant, and at dawn surprised the French with their presence.
The final showdown came later that morning in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, named after the plateau just south-west of the fortress overlooking the river. There, the two sides lined up facing each other on the open field with just 35 yards separating them. Once in place, they started blazing away with their muskets and a few cannons. There was frenzied activity on both sides, as the muskets of the day took between fifteen and thirty seconds to reload.
In a battle that lasted little more than fifteen minutes, it was the British who, from the outset, showed they were faster and more capable with their weapons, and as a result, the French line was quick to collapse. From that moment, those French troops still standing made a hasty retreat to the fort. Yet even with the benefit of the security provided by the compound, the defenders were unable to gain the upper hand. Five days later, they realised that surrender was inevitable. It had been a bloody battle with a terrible toll: around 650 soldiers were killed or wounded on each side. Among the dead were the two army generals, James Wolfe and Louis-Joseph de Montcalm.
The British, with both Louisbourg and Québec now under the Union flag, were well on their way to changing North American history forever.
CHAPTER FOUR
Canadian Winters
Less than a week after the victory at Québec, it was time for Cook to pack his uniform and slops. He was being transferred under an order from Admiral Saunders to HMS Northumberland, a promotion of some importance. Captained by Alexander, Lord Colville, his new ship was a third-rate 70-gunner manned by 500 men, and not dissimilar to Pembroke. As it turned out, Colville was also destined for greater things, because within a month he too was promoted by Saunders – to the position of Commander-in-Chief in North America, with the rank of commodore.
With William Adams as the newly appointed captain, Northumberland was one of a small fleet of ships directed to return to Halifax for the winter. They arrived there on 27 October 1759 – the day that Cook turned thirty-one. He and all those who had wintered aboard their ships at Halifax the previous year knew what to expect. Some days were sunny and still, but most delivered bone-chillingly cold temperatures, boredom and the monotonous, often incessant sound of storm winds howling through the rigging.
With so many men on board, there was no pleasure for those in the cramped accommodation below deck. It was like a rabbit warren for humans, and much of it didn’t offer standing headroom. Worse still, the ‘head’ – the toilet – was located in the open air on deck, right at the bow. Cabin fever was rife in what Cook biographer John Cawte Beaglehole has described as these ‘between deck dungeons’, while suggesting: ‘A great many more men would have run away from the British navy, one fancies, winter or summer, if they had known where to run to …’
Their primary duty was to ensure that the ship would be ready to sail back to Québec as early as possible during the following spring. Ship’s Master Cook was no doubt overseeing the maintenance aboard Northum
berland. He also spent a considerable amount of time embracing his studies and developing his cartographical skills.
The latter was evident through his creation of a more precise chart of Halifax Harbour. Despite the winter weather, Cook took an extensive number of soundings across the waterway, and, thanks to his new-found talents as a surveyor, established a more accurate picture of the shoreline and its surrounds. A reference to his studies at this time comes from a young lieutenant named King, who greatly admired the Yorkshireman and wrote: ‘I have often heard him say, that, during a hard winter, he first read Euclid, and applied himself to the study of mathematics and astronomy, without any other assistance, than what a few books, and his own industry, afforded him.’ It was the late Captain Simcoe and Samuel Holland who had encouraged Cook to read the works of Euclid, the Greek mathematician from around 300 BC, considered the ‘Father of Geometry’.
It seems that while Cook was collecting data for his charts of Halifax Harbour, Admiral Saunders was, on the other side of the Atlantic, collating all the data taken from the surveys of ‘the River St Lawrence, with the Harbours, bays and Islands in that river’. He had gathered this information from numerous sources, including Cook, in response to special orders from the Admiralty, which required that observations, soundings and bearings be carefully carried out wherever possible ‘so that all existing charts may be corrected and improved’. After collating the results, Saunders then forwarded his report to the Lords of the Admiralty. Suitably impressed, their direction was that it be published.
The duty for such an undertaking fell to the most prominent and successful cartographical engraver in London at that time, Thomas Jefferys, of Charing Cross. There would have been little out of the ordinary for Jeffrys when it came to carrying out the Admiralty’s instructions, except for the considerable size of the publication – twelve sheets measuring some 7 feet by 3 feet, containing maps, charts and highly detailed sailing directions. With regard to its place in James Cook’s story, the published work owed much to his involvement. A considerable amount of the detail clearly came from his participation in surveys made while Saunders’ fleet was moving upriver towards Québec. Other details originated from the chart that he and Holland had created, with the assistance of Captain Simcoe, aboard Pembroke over the winter of 1758–59. So, while there was, quite understandably, no direct recognition of either Cook or Holland, because they were simply carrying out the tasks they had been ordered to do, this can be seen as the first major survey work to be published in which Cook made a substantial contribution. Of equal importance, the quality of the work left no doubt that he was emerging as the maritime equivalent of what Samuel Holland had proved to be on land.
Captain Adams consistently used two words in his journal – ‘nothing remarkable’ – to describe his impression of the days as they dragged on while Northumberland lay idly at anchor in Halifax. Meanwhile, Cook often busied himself with his ongoing survey of the harbour using one of the ship’s small boats.
It was 22 April 1760 when Colville decided that conditions were suitable for his fleet to set sail for Québec, where their role would be to help consolidate the British hold on the town. Their departure proved to be a premature one, however. Two days out of Halifax, progress was halted when the fleet encountered a dense fog and then became stuck in a field of ice for twenty-four hours. Life for those standing watch on deck was almost unbearable: ice was hanging off the rigging, while damp sheets, lines and ropes became frozen, making them near impossible to handle. Once free, the ships sailed through fields of ice until 12 May.
Four days later they reached Île du Bic, in the St Lawrence River. There, the captain of a British sloop that was already at anchor delivered news to Colville that caused considerable anxiety: the British hold on Québec was being challenged by the French, and help was needed immediately.
Weeks before, a French battalion under the command of General de Lévis had made a move to retake the town, and it was only through clever tactics and good fortune that the outnumbered British defenders had been able to catch the enemy unawares, strike a heavy blow and hinder the advance. Eventually, though, the numerical advantage held by the French became a telling factor in what became known as the Battle of Sainte-Foy. The British lost a considerable number of men while continuing their defence and, on 28 April, were forced to retreat behind the city wall, which they were still bravely defending.
Colville wasted no time in having his fleet weigh anchor and head for Québec. Just forty-eight hours later, his ships were anchored in the basin adjacent to the town. Once there they received some welcome news: three other British ships, including HMS Vanguard and HMS Diamond, had arrived a day earlier and were already fighting the French attackers, but it was not until Lévis saw Colville’s fleet arrive that he realised all was lost, and he made a rapid retreat.
It then became a relatively uneventful summer in Québec for the British, especially after Montréal and other provinces surrendered to General Amherst on 8 September. He had started his move north from what was the province of New York, up the Mohawk River, across Lake Ontario, then on to the St Lawrence River – a strategy that gave his army the easiest access to Montréal.
News of the French capitulation reached Colville four days later and rapidly spread to French and British ears across the provinces. When the French governor-general, Pierre, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnial, signed the surrender document, the British assured the near 70,000 former residents of New France that they would not be deported, their property would not be confiscated, and that they had freedom of religion, the right to migrate to France, and equal treatment in the fur trade. New France and its surrounding territories subsequently became a single British colony: Canada.
This news was soon being celebrated in the British territories to the south. The Old Church in Boston declared: ‘Grateful reflexions on the signal appearances of divine providence for Great Britain and its colonies in America, which diffuse a general joy …’ In the same announcement, the occasion was described as ‘the thanksgiving-day, on occasion of the surrender of Montreal, and the complete conquest of Canada, by the blessing of heaven on his Britannic Majesty’s brave troops, under the auspicious conduct of that truly great and amiable commander, General Amherst’.
With the cessation of hostilities, the lot of the sailors in Colville’s squadron was considerably easier. The ships remained at anchor in the river basin immediately below the town, and in clear sight of the large Union flag that was flying proudly over the fortress. They would remain there for a month following the 8 September surrender, with the majority of men being assigned to maintaining their ships. A few, including Cook, worked on further improving the existing charts of the St Lawrence River in that region, taking additional soundings in the waterway and surveying the shoreline.
Despite being able to stand down from their previous war footing, the sailors found that any breach of discipline would not be tolerated. Hardly a day went by when the lash did not come out to punish a man for insubordination, as decreed under the Royal Navy’s Articles of War, and at one stage an execution was carried out for all in the fleet to observe. This occurred after three men had deserted by stealing a canoe, and were subsequently caught, court-martialled and sentenced to death. Colville then decided that he should be more lenient – so only one man would die. As Adams recorded in his log: ‘The Commodore, having pardoned two of them, they Cast Lots who should die. He whose Lot it was, was Executed Accordingly …’ The unfortunate individual was hanged from one of Vanguard’s yardarms.
Cook was called on to apply his expertise to an unusual circumstance when he had to supervise the salvage of Northumberland’s longboat. It was a four-day exercise which started when the bower cable on Vanguard parted and the ship was carried by the current through the anchored fleet. Unfortunately, Vanguard fouled Northumberland, and as a result the heavily laden longboat capsized and sank.
The onset of winter meant it was time for Colville’s fleet to tak
e on board the departing British troops and head back to Halifax for yet another layover. During these preparations, Captain Adams was transferred to the 32-gun Diana and Nathaniel Bateman left HMS Eurus and joined Northumberland as captain. It appears that Cook was not overly concerned by Adams’ departure: there is no strong evidence of them striking any level of rapport.
After waiting for the start of the ebb tide, the fleet weighed anchor on 10 October, farewelled Québec and sailed for Halifax. Fifteen days later, the crew of Northumberland and those of all other ships in Colville’s fleet guided their vessels towards their designated anchorages, the men applying their long-learned seafaring skills.
As each ship approached that point, speed was reduced according to distance off through the progressive furling of the square sails, while fore and aft sails were either trimmed on or off to increase or decrease speed, or lowered completely. At the same time, the anchor on the starboard bow – the ‘best bower’ – was released from its stowage position and suspended from a solid piece of timber known as a cathead, which extended out over the water near the bowsprit. When the call came from the master for the bower to be released, a crewman would uncleat the line supporting the anchor on the cathead, and with that there would be a mighty splash as the anchor, weighing more than a ton, hit the water and descended to the bottom. Simultaneously, the heavy bower cable that was attached to it would slither rapidly off the foredeck, out through the deck-level hawsehole and into the water like a giant snake.
At the appropriate time, after the leadsman had declared the depth and enough cable had been let run out, the call would come from the foredeck, for the benefit of the senior officers on the quarterdeck, that the bower cable had been made fast. All was secure.
