The English had to retreat within their walls, but Murray, calling even on the sick and maimed for such aid as they could give, gallantly defended his crumbling battlements till a fleet from England came to his relief.
In his turn, De Lévis was forced to retreat, and, though the war smouldered on for a few months longer, the situation was hopeless for the French, and just before the anniversary of Wolfe’s great victory, their leaders signed the capitulation of Canada.
V. The Fifth Siege of Quebec
IN November, 1775, when the British flag had waved for sixteen years over Quebec, there marched into the village of Point Lévis a little army of gaunt half-starved, wayworn men, who for forty days had been pushing their way through the hungry wilderness from the settlements of Maine. On this terrible march the weaklings of their force had fallen or turned back, and those who reached the St. Lawrence (but two-thirds of the original eleven hundred) had proved their fitness for hard service by grim, dogged endurance to the very point of death.
At their head was a strong, dark-skinned, black-browed man, full of daring and energy—Benedict Arnold—ex-druggist, horse-trader, smuggler, future traitor, but at that moment, and for several years to come, one of the ablest and most inspiring officers in the recently formed army of the United Colonies.
He and his few hundred bush-rangers and Indian-fighters had come on a mighty errand. Without stores, artillery, or ships, Arnold proposed to do again Wolfe’s work and conquer Quebec.
True, times had changed since Wolfe’s day. That general’s friend and subordinate, Sir Guy Carleton, who proved himself great alike in war and peace, was now in command. But, when Arnold reached the St. Lawrence, Carleton was absent in Montreal, whence came rumors of his discomfiture and capture, and there was but a feeble garrison of eighteen hundred men to defend the city. There was now no army encamped outside the walls to dispute the landing of the foe; the inhabitants of the country around were indifferent, if not hostile, to the English, and Colonel MacLean, Carleton’s second-in-command, found the situation disheartening.
Arnold, trusting much to the friendship of the French, had proposed to take the city by surprise; but the St. Lawrence flowed deep and wide between him and his intended prey, and on the first rumor of his approach the English had taken the precaution of removing every possible means of transport out of the invaders’ reach. Not a bateau, not a canoe was to be had, and the eager Arnold had to send twenty miles inland for canoes before he could get within striking distance of Quebec.
At last, on the evening of November 13th, he embarked five hundred of his men, leaving a hundred and fifty at Point Lévis, and stole in the darkness across the river to Wolfe’s Cove. Unopposed, he climbed the heights, and before daybreak drew up his little army on the Plains of Abraham; then, with characteristic audacity, he marched almost up to the St. Louis Gate, and, with loud cheers, challenged the enemy to sally forth. They refused to give him battle, however, and scorned his summons to surrender, so he retreated some twenty miles up the river to Point aux Trembles, there to await the arrival of reinforcements under General Montgomery—an Irishman of good family who had held a commission in the British army before taking up arms for the seceding Colonies. Entering Canada by way of Lake Champlain, he had captured the Forts of St. John’s and Chambly, and had received the submission of Montreal. Thus the whole country save Quebec was at his feet.
But General Carleton had not submitted, and while Quebec held out for England he did not despair of saving the country. On the approach of the enemy he had left Montreal, which he judged indefensible, and had hastened down the river in a birch-bark canoe. He had slipped past some American vessels under cover of darkness; and Arnold, before he left the neighborhood of Quebec, had the mortification of hearing the great guns of the citadel thundering a welcome to the resolute Governor. Carleton’s arrival put new heart into the garrison, and he began instantly to take measures for a vigorous defence.
It was early in December when Montgomery reached Point aux Trembles with clothing, stores and a few hundred ill-disciplined troops, most of whom were counting the days till the term of their enlistment ended with the close of the year.
Joined by a few Canadians, the little American army now returned to invest Quebec. Again the garrison was summoned to surrender. Again the demand was treated with contempt. In fact Carleton refused to “hold any parley with rebels”; but the American leaders hoped soon to humble his pride. Throwing up batteries of ice and snow, they began to bombard the walls; but their guns were too light to make any impression on the masonry, and the besieged kept vigilant guard against surprise. On moonless nights they lighted the great ditch surrounding their ramparts by lanterns hung on poles from the bastions, and thus not even a dog could approach unobserved.
Discouraged by ill-success and weakened by smallpox, the American army appeared to be in danger of melting away, but the two leaders resolved to try to capture Quebec by one bold stroke before more of the discontented troops left them.
Their plan was a complicated one. Montgomery was to advance along a narrow road skirting the base of Cape Diamond, while Arnold, from the suburb of St. Roch, already in possession of the Americans, was to enter the Lower Town from the opposite side, meet Montgomery’s division at the foot of Mountain Street, and join in an attempt to force the barrier (where later was erected the Prescott Gate) which guarded the approach to the Upper Town. Meanwhile, to distract the attention of the besieged, a feint was to be made against St. John’s Gate.
The time fixed for the attempt was the early hours of the thirty-first day of December. The weather was wild and blustering, promising that the planned surprise would be complete, and two hours after midnight Montgomery marched his troops down to Wolfe’s Cove, and thence along the narrow drifted path below the cliff, now known as Champlain Street.
That they might know each other in the darkness, his soldiers wore in their caps slips of white paper, on which they had written as a watchword, “Liberty or death!” Through the blinding snow they pressed on till they reached a barrier of palisades below the precipitous rock now crowned by the Citadel. Forcing this, they rushed forward, with their intrepid leader at their head, to capture a battery directly in their path. They had almost reached it, when the guns suddenly blazed forth a deadly storm of grapeshot. Montgomery fell dead, with several of his followers, and the rest broke and fled precipitately along the narrow path swept by the cannon, leaving behind them their dead and dying in the snow.
Arnold, meanwhile, at the head of his column, was pressing towards the rendezvous, though when he passed Palace Gate he knew that the attack would be no surprise, for bells were ringing and drums beating the call to arms. In single file, with bent heads, and guns covered with their coats, the Americans dashed forward, stormed the first barrier at the corner of Sault-au-Matelot Street, and captured its defenders. But Arnold was severely wounded in the leg by a musket-ball, and had to drag himself back to the General Hospital, whilst his men made a gallant attempt to seize the second barrier also.
In this they failed. Many lost their lives or their liberty, and the remainder fled. Later in the day the British sallied out and set fire to the suburb of St. Roch, which had so long given shelter to the rebels. Amongst the buildings consumed was the Intendant’s Palace, where Bigot, not many years earlier, had dazzled with his shameless luxury the wretched people he was defrauding.
Again there was rejoicing in old Quebec; but Arnold, beaten, wounded, short of supplies as he was, kept up the blockade of the city till spring. Then Carleton received reinforcements from England, and sallying out of his fortifications swept the foe before him up the St. Lawrence. Thus Quebec was saved to the Empire, and with it was saved the possibility of the second British “Dominion” in North America.
Since that time—though the old city has often rung with the stir of warlike preparations—though her steep streets have echoed to the tread of regiments coming and going—though the Basin has given anchorage to privateers and their prizes—though the wharves have witnessed the struggles of many a luckless fisherlad or townsman in the clutches of the press-gang—no hostile army has ever threatened the safety of the “Queen of the North.” Even during the fierce strife of the War of 1812, thanks to the valor of the descendants of those who at the side of Montcalm so long withstood Wolfe and his disciplined veterans, the invading army came no nearer to Quebec than the field of Chateauguay, where the valiant De Salaberry and his Voltigeurs earned the undying gratitude of all lovers of their country.