Deeds that Won the Empire | Page 7

and crowned with batteries. The banks of the St. Lawrence,
that define what we have called the throat of the bull, are precipitous
and lofty, and seem by mere natural strength to defy attack, though it
was just here, by an ant-like track up 250 feet of almost perpendicular
cliff, Wolfe actually climbed to the plains of Abraham. To the east of
Quebec is a curve of lofty shore, seven miles long, between the St.
Charles and the Montmorenci. When Wolfe's eye followed those seven
miles of curving shore, he saw the tents of a French army double his
own in strength, and commanded by the most brilliant French soldier of
his generation, Montcalm. Quebec, in a word, was a great natural
fortress, attacked by 9000 troops and defended by 16,000; and if a
daring military genius urged the English attack, a soldier as daring and
well-nigh as able as Wolfe directed the French defence.
Montcalm gave a proof of his fine quality as a soldier within
twenty-four hours of the appearance of the British fleet. The very
afternoon the British ships dropped anchor a terrific tempest swept over
the harbour, drove the transports from their moorings, dashed the great
ships of war against each other, and wrought immense mischief. The
tempest dropped as quickly as it had arisen. The night fell black and
moonless. Towards midnight the British sentinels on the point of the

Isle of Orleans saw drifting silently through the gloom the outlines of a
cluster of ships. They were eight huge fire-ships, floating mines packed
with explosives. The nerve of the French sailors, fortunately for the
British, failed them, and they fired the ships too soon. But the spectacle
of these flaming monsters as they drifted towards the British fleet was
appalling. The river showed ebony-black under the white flames. The
glare lit up the river cliffs, the roofs of the city, the tents of Montcalm,
the slopes of the distant hills, the black hulls of the British ships. It was
one of the most stupendous exhibitions of fireworks ever witnessed!
But it was almost as harmless as a display of fireworks. The boats from
the British fleet were by this time in the water, and pulling with steady
daring to meet these drifting volcanoes. They were grappled, towed to
the banks, and stranded, and there they spluttered and smoked and
flamed till the white light of the dawn broke over them. The only
mischief achieved by these fire-ships was to burn alive one of their own
captains and five or six of his men, who failed to escape in their boats.
Wolfe, in addition to the Isle of Orleans, seized Point Levi, opposite the
city, and this gave him complete command of the basin of Quebec;
from his batteries on Point Levi, too, he could fire directly on the city,
and destroy it if he could not capture it. He himself landed the main
body of his troops on the east bank of the Montmorenci, Montcalm's
position, strongly entrenched, being between him and the city. Between
the two armies, however, ran the deep gorge through which the swift
current of the Montmorenci rushes down to join the St. Lawrence. The
gorge is barely a gunshot in width, but of stupendous depth. The
Montmorenci tumbles over its rocky bed with a speed that turns the
flashing waters almost to the whiteness of snow. Was there ever a more
curious military position adopted by a great general in the face of
superior forces! Wolfe's tiny army was distributed into three camps: his
right wing on the Montmorenci was six miles distant from his left wing
at Point Levi, and between the centre, on the Isle of Orleans, and the
two wings, ran the two branches of the St. Lawrence. That Wolfe
deliberately made such a distribution of his forces under the very eyes
of Montcalm showed his amazing daring. And yet beyond firing across
the Montmorenci on Montcalm's left wing, and bombarding the city
from Point Levi, the British general could accomplish nothing.

Montcalm knew that winter must compel Wolfe to retreat, and he
remained stubbornly but warily on the defensive.
On July 18 the British performed a daring feat. In the darkness of the
night two of the men-of-war and several sloops ran past the Quebec
batteries and reached the river above the town; they destroyed some
fireships they found there, and cut off Montcalm's communication by
water with Montreal. This rendered it necessary for the French to
establish guards on the line of precipices between Quebec and
Cap-Rouge. On July 28 the French repeated the experiment of
fire-ships on a still more gigantic scale. A vast fire-raft was constructed,
composed of some seventy schooners, boats, and rafts, chained together,
and loaded with combustibles and explosives. The fire-raft