Montcalm and Wolfe: The Riveting Story of the Heroes of the French & Indian War (57 page)

We have the honor to be, etc.,
E. B
OSCAWEN
,
J. A
MHERST
.
²

Drucour answered as follows:—

G
ENTLEMEN
,—To reply to your Excellencies in as few words as possible, I have the honor to repeat that my position also remains the same, and that I persist in my first resolution.

I have the honor to be, etc.,
T
HE
C
HEVALIER DE
D
RUCOUR
.

In other words, he refused the English terms, and declared his purpose to abide the assault. Loppinot was sent back to the English camp with this note of defiance. He was no sooner gone than Prévost, the intendant, an officer of functions purely civil, brought the Governor a memorial which, with or without the knowledge of the military authorities, he had drawn up in anticipation of the emergency. “The violent resolution which the council continues to hold,” said this document, “obliges me, for the good of the state, the preservation of the King’s subjects, and the averting of horrors shocking to humanity, to lay before your eyes the consequences that may ensue. What will become of the four thousand souls who compose the families of this town, of the thousand or twelve hundred sick in the hospitals, and the officers and crews of our unfortunate ships? They will be delivered over to carnage and the rage of an unbridled soldiery, eager for plunder, and impelled to deeds of horror by pretended resentment at what has formerly happened in Canada. Thus they will all be destroyed, and the memory of their fate will live forever in our colonies. . . . It remains, Monsieur,” continues the paper, “to remind you that the councils you have held thus far have been composed of none but military officers. I am not surprised at their views. The glory of the King’s arms and the honor of their several corps have inspired them. You and I alone are charged with the administration of the colony and the care of the King’s subjects who compose it. These gentlemen, therefore, have had no regard for them. They think only of themselves and their soldiers, whose business it is to encounter the utmost extremity of peril. It is at the prayer of an intimidated people that I lay before you the considerations specified in this memorial.”

“In view of these considerations,” writes Drucour, “joined to the impossibility of resisting an assault, M. le Chevalier de Courserac undertook in my behalf to run after the bearer of my answer to the English commander and bring it back.” It is evident that the bearer of the note had been in no hurry to deliver it, for he had scarcely got beyond the fortifications when Courserac overtook and stopped him. D’Anthonay, with Duvivier, major of the battalion of Artois, and Loppinot, the first messenger, was then sent to the English camp, empowered to accept the terms imposed. An English spectator thus describes their arrival: “A lieutenant-colonel came running out of the garrison, making signs at a distance, and bawling out as loud as he could,
‘We accept! We accept!’
He was followed by two others; and they were all conducted to General Amherst’s headquarters.”
¹
At eleven o’clock at night they returned with the articles of capitulation and the following letter:—

S
IR
,—We have the honor to send your Excellency the articles of capitulation signed.

Lieutenant-Colonel D’Anthonay has not failed to speak in behalf of the inhabitants of the town; and it is nowise our intention to distress them, but to give them all the aid in our power.

Your Excellency will have the goodness to sign a duplicate of the articles and send it to us.

It only remains to assure your Excellency that we shall with great pleasure seize every opportunity to convince your Excellency that we are with the most perfect consideration,

Sir, your Excellency’s most obedient servants,
E. B
OSCAWEN
.
J. A
MHERST
.

The articles stipulated that the garrison should be sent to England, prisoners of war, in British ships; that all artillery, arms, munitions, and stores, both in Louisbourg and elsewhere on the Island of Cape Breton, as well as on Isle St.-Jean, now Prince Edward’s Island, should be given up intact; that the gate of the Dauphin’s Bastion should be delivered to the British troops at eight o’clock in the morning; and that the garrison should lay down their arms at noon. The victors, on their part, promised to give the French sick and wounded the same care as their own, and to protect private property from pillage.

Drucour signed the paper at midnight, and in the morning a body of grenadiers took possession of the Dauphin’s Gate. The rude soldiery poured in, swarthy with wind and sun, and begrimed with smoke and dust; the garrison, drawn up on the esplanade, flung down their muskets and marched from the ground with tears of rage; the cross of St. George floated over the shattered rampart; and Louisbourg, with the two great islands that depended on it, passed to the British Crown. Guards were posted, a stern discipline was enforced, and perfect order maintained. The conquerors and the conquered exchanged greetings, and the English general was lavish of courtesies to the brave lady who had aided the defence so well. “Every favor she asked was granted,” says a Frenchman present.

Drucour and his garrison had made a gallant defence. It had been his aim to prolong the siege till it should be too late for Amherst to co-operate with Abercromby in an attack on Canada; and in this, at least, he succeeded.

Five thousand six hundred and thirty-seven officers, soldiers, and sailors were prisoners in the hands of the victors. Eighteen mortars and two hundred and twenty-one cannon were found in the town, along with a great quantity of arms, munitions, and stores.
¹
At the middle of August such of the prisoners as were not disabled by wounds or sickness were embarked for England, and the merchants and inhabitants were sent to France. Brigadier Whitmore, as governor of Louisbourg, remained with four regiments to hold guard over the desolation they had made.

The fall of the French stronghold was hailed in England with noisy rapture. Addresses of congratulation to the King poured in from all the cities of the kingdom, and the captured flags were hung in St. Paul’s amid the roar of cannon and the shouts of the populace. The provinces shared these rejoicings. Sermons of thanksgiving resounded from countless New England pulpits. At Newport there were fireworks and illuminations; and, adds the pious reporter, “We have reason to believe that Christians will make wise and religious improvement of so signal a favor of Divine Providence.” At Philadelphia a like display was seen, with music and universal ringing of bells. At Boston “a stately bonfire like a pyramid was kindled on the top of Fort Hill, which made a lofty and prodigious blaze”; though here certain jealous patriots protested against celebrating a victory won by British regulars, and not by New England men. At New York there was a grand official dinner at the Province Arms in Broadway, where every loyal toast was echoed by the cannon of Fort George; and illuminations and fireworks closed the day.
¹
In the camp of Abercromby at Lake George, Chaplain Cleaveland, of Bagley’s Massachusetts regiment, wrote: “The General put out orders that the breastwork should be lined with troops, and to fire three rounds for joy, and give thanks to God in a religious way.”
²
But nowhere did the tidings find a warmer welcome than in the small detached forts scattered through the solitudes of Nova Scotia, where the military exiles, restless from inaction, listened with greedy ears for every word from the great world whence they were banished. So slow were their communications with it that the fall of Louisbourg was known in England before it had reached them all. Captain John Knox, then in garrison at Annapolis, tells how it was greeted there more than five weeks after the event. It was the sixth of September. A sloop from Boston was seen coming up the bay. Soldiers and officers ran down to the wharf to ask for news. “Every soul,” says Knox, “was impatient, yet shy of asking; at length, the vessel being come near enough to be spoken to, I called out, ‘What news from Louisbourg?’ To which the master simply replied, and with some gravity, ‘Nothing strange.’ This answer, which was so coldly delivered, threw us all into great consternation, and we looked at each other without being able to speak; some of us even turned away with an intent to return to the fort. At length one of our soldiers, not yet satisfied, called out with some warmth: ‘Damn you, Pumpkin, is n’t Louisbourg taken yet?’ The poor New England man then answered: ‘Taken, yes, above a month ago, and I have been there since; but if you have never heard it before, I have got a good parcel of letters for you now.’ If our apprehensions were great at first, words are insufficient to express our transports at this speech, the latter part of which we hardly waited for; but instantly all hats flew off, and we made the neighboring woods resound with our cheers and huzzas for almost half an hour. The master of the sloop was amazed beyond expression, and declared he thought we had heard of the success of our arms eastward before, and had sought to banter him.”
³
At night there was a grand bonfire and universal festivity in the fort and village.

Amherst proceeded to complete his conquest by the subjection of all the adjacent possessions of France. Major Dalling was sent to occupy Port Espagnol, now Sydney. Colonel Monckton was despatched to the Bay of Fundy and the River St. John with an order “to destroy the vermin who are settled there.”
¹
Lord Rollo, with the thirty-fifth regiment and two battalions of the sixtieth, received the submission of Isle St.-Jean, and tried to remove the inhabitants,—with small success; for out of more than four thousand he could catch but seven hundred.
²

The ardent and indomitable Wolfe had been the life of the siege. Wherever there was need of a quick eye, a prompt decision, and a bold dash, there his lank figure was always in the front. Yet he was only half pleased with what had been done. The capture of Louisbourg, he thought, should be but the prelude of greater conquests; and he had hoped that the fleet and army would sail up the St. Lawrence and attack Quebec. Impetuous and impatient by nature, and irritable with disease, he chafed at the delay that followed the capitulation, and wrote to his father a few days after it: “We are gathering strawberries and other wild fruits of the country, with a seeming indifference about what is doing in other parts of the world. Our army, however, on the continent wants our help.” Growing more anxious, he sent Amherst a note to ask his intentions; and the General replied, “What I most wish to do is to go to Quebec. I have proposed it to the Admiral, and yesterday he seemed to think it impracticable.” On which Wolfe wrote again: “If the Admiral will not carry us to Quebec, reinforcements should certainly be sent to the continent without losing a moment. This damned French garrison take up our time and attention, which might be better bestowed. The transports are ready, and a small convoy would carry a brigade to Boston or New York. With the rest of the troops we might make an offensive and destructive war in the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I beg pardon for this freedom, but I cannot look coolly upon the bloody inroads of those hell-hounds, the Canadians; and if nothing further is to be done, I must desire leave to quit the army.”

Amherst answered that though he had meant at first to go to Quebec with the whole army, late events on the continent made it impossible; and that he now thought it best to go with five or six regiments to the aid of Abercromby. He asked Wolfe to continue to communicate his views to him, and would not hear for a moment of his leaving the army; adding, “I know nothing that can tend more to His Majesty’s service than your assisting in it.” Wolfe again wrote to his commander, with whom he was on terms of friendship: “An offensive, daring kind of war will awe the Indians and ruin the French. Blockhouses and a trembling defensive encourage the meanest scoundrels to attack us. If you will attempt to cut up New France by the roots, I will come with pleasure to assist.”

Amherst, with such speed as his deliberate nature would permit, sailed with six regiments for Boston to reinforce Abercromby at Lake George, while Wolfe set out on an errand but little to his liking. He had orders to proceed to Gaspé, Miramichi, and other settlements on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, destroy them, and disperse their inhabitants; a measure of needless and unpardonable rigor, which, while detesting it, he executed with characteristic thoroughness. “Sir Charles Hardy and I,” he wrote to his father, “are preparing to rob the fishermen of their nets and burn their huts. When that great exploit is at an end, I return to Louisbourg, and thence to England.” Having finished the work, he wrote to Amherst: “Your orders were carried into execution. We have done a great deal of mischief, and spread the terror of His Majesty’s arms through the Gulf, but have added nothing to the reputation of them.” The destruction of property was great; yet, as Knox writes, “he would not suffer the least barbarity to be committed upon the persons of the wretched inhabitants.”
¹

He returned to Louisbourg, and sailed for England to recruit his shattered health for greater conflicts.

N
OTE
.—Four long and minute French diaries of the siege of Louisbourg are before me. The first, that of Drucour, covers a hundred and six folio pages, and contains his correspondence with Amherst, Boscawen, and Desgouttes. The second is that of the naval captain Tourville, commander of the ship “Capricieux,” and covers fifty pages. The third is by an officer of the garrison whose name does not appear. The fourth, of about a hundred pages, is by another officer of the garrison, and is also anonymous. It is an excellent record of what passed each day, and of the changing conditions, moral and physical, of the besieged. These four Journals, though clearly independent of each other, agree in nearly all essential particulars. I have also numerous letters from the principal officers, military, naval, and civil, engaged in the defence,—Drucour, Desgouttes, Houllière, Beaussier, Marolles, Tourville, Courserac, Franquet, Villejouin, Prévost, and Querdisien. These, with various other documents relating to the siege, were copied from the originals in the Archives de la Marine. Among printed authorities on the French side may be mentioned Pichon,
Lettres et Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire du Cap-Breton,
and the
Campaign of Louisbourg,
by the Chevalier Johnstone, a Scotch Jacobite serving under Drucour.