The Campaign of 1760 in Canada | Page 4

the English, upon the hardest terms, as laws
of the conqueror.

The boat upset and sunk at Cap Rouge was the primary cause and the
first link of the chain which had the greatest influence over all the
affairs of Europe. If M. de Levis had saved the cannonier at Cap Rouge,
what a multitude of events would have been nipped in the bud! Perhaps
even Great Britain would have been forced to receive the peace from
France instead of granting it on her own conditions.
There is scarcely any human action that is not the beginning of a chain
of results.
The French army took possession of the village of St. Foye the moment
the English went out of it, retiring to Quebec, and passed there the
night between the 27th and 28th of April. Next morning M. de Levis
being informed that the English army was come out of the town, and
that they were drawn up in battle upon the same ground that the French
army had occupied the year before at the battle of the 13th September,
he drew out his men and advanced in order of battle to meet the English
army. Though fully persuaded that the English general would not risk a
battle out of his town, where he had a great deal to lose in being beat,
and could gain little by a victory, he was fully persuaded that he would
return at the approach of the French army.
General Murray, who does the greatest honor to his country by his great
knowledge of the art of war, good sense and ability, had come out of
the town in order to cover that place with a retrenchment, which was
very evident from the prodigious quantity of working tools that were
taken by the French; and the vast rapidity with which the French army
advanced in all appearance, deprived him of the possibility of getting
back into Quebec without leaving a part of them to be cut to pieces by
the Canadians.
The English army had the advantage of position. They were drawn up
in battle upon rising ground, their front armed with twenty-two brass
field-pieces--the Palace battery which De Ramsay refused to Send to M.
de Montcalm. The engagement began by the attack of a house
(Dumont's) between the right wing of the English army and the French
left wing, which was alternately attacked and defended by the Scotch
Highlanders and the French Grenadiers, each of them taking it and

losing it by turns. Worthy antagonists!--the Grenadiers, with their
bayonets in their hands, forced the Highlanders to get out of it by the
windows; and the Highlanders getting into it again by the door,
immediately obliged the Grenadiers to evacuate it by the same road,
with their daggers. Both of them lost and retook the house[B] several
times, and the contest would have continued whilst there remained a
Highlander and a Grenadier, if both generals had not made them retire,
leaving the house neuter ground. The Grenadiers were reduced to
fourteen men--a company at most. No doubt the Highlanders lost in
proportion. The left of the French army, which was in hollow ground,
about forty paces from the English, was crushed to pieces by the fire of
their artillery loaded with grape-shot. M. de Levis, perceiving their bad
position, sent M. de La Pause, Adjutant of the Guienne Regiment, with
orders for the army to retire some steps behind them, in order to occupy
an eminence parallel to the rising ground occupied by the English; but
whether this officer did not comprehend M. de Levis' intentions, or
whether he delivered ill the orders to the different regiments, by his
stupidity the battle was very near being lost irremediably. He ran along
the line, ordering each regiment to the right about, and to retire, without
any further explanation of M. de Levis' orders. Some of the left of the
French army being so near as twenty paces to the enemy, the best
disciplined troops in that case can scarce be expected to be able to retire
without the greatest disorder and confusion, or without exposing
themselves evidently to be defeated and slaughtered. Upon this
movement, the English, believing them in flight, quitted their
advantage of the rising ground in order to pursue them, complete their
disorder, and break them entirely. M. Dalquier, who commanded the
Bearn Regiment, with the troops of the colony upon the left of the
French army, a bold, intrepid old officer, turned about to his soldiers
when La Pause gave him M. de Levis' order to retire, and told them, "It
is not time now, my boys, to retire when at twenty paces from the
enemy; with your bayonets upon your muskets, let us throw ourselves
headlong amongst them--that is better." In