The Campaign of 1760 in Canada | Page 9

upon the English at
intervals until one in the morning. Imagining us then to be near
Montreal, he hoisted the white flag to capitulate, and the English, not
having the smallest notion of our retreat, granted him immediately very
honorable terms. We had eighty men killed or wounded during the
siege--a very inconsiderable loss for a cannonade of sixteen days'
duration, from five batteries, besides a bomb battery, without an
instant's intermission. Had it been a stony instead of a sandy ground,
we must have lost above one-half of the garrison, and could not have

resisted so long.
So soon as everyone had passed the river, we set out for Montreal,
crossing through the woods, which, in a straight line, is only eight
leagues from Isle aux Noix, always half running one after the other,
after having marched in this manner, from midnight until twelve at
noon, over fens, swamps, mosses, and sinking often up to the waist in
marshy ground, without reposing or halting one minute. Instead of
being near Montreal, as we imagined, we were thunderstruck on
finding ourselves, by the fault of our guides, to be only at the distance
of half a league from Isle aux Noix: our guide, not knowing the road
through the woods, had caused us to turn round continually for twelve
hours without advancing!
We were so near an English post at the Prairie de Boileau, that a
grenadier of the Regiment de Berry, seeing his commander, Cormier,
sink down with fatigue, and not in a condition to go any further, carried
off a horse from them which was upon the borders of the wood, and
mounted his commander on it; otherwise he would have been left aside
and taken prisoner by the English, or scalped by the Indians.
Having lost all hopes of going to Montreal through the woods, we took
the road to Fort St. Jean, on the River Chambly, four leagues lower
than Isle aux Noix, and five leagues by land to Montreal. My strength
was so entirely spent, that it was with great difficulty I could draw one
leg after the other. Nevertheless the fear of falling into the hands of the
Indians, the idea of the horrible cruelties which they practice on their
prisoners, which shock human nature, prevented me from sinking down
with pain, and gave me strength to push on.
Arrived at a settlement at four in the afternoon, about a league and a
half from St. John's Fort, where De Bougainville caused his detachment
to halt and repose themselves for the first time since midnight, that they
left Isle aux Noix. I perceived there a boat going off to St. Jean, and I
had only strength enough remaining to throw myself into it. We lost in
this march about eighty men: those who could not hold out were left
behind, victims to the Indians. Arriving at St. John's Fort, the first
person I saw there was Poularies, on the river side, who told me they

had news of our retreat, and that he was sent with his regiment to
sustain us in case we had been pursued by the English.
We were now shut up in the island of Montreal on all sides. The
English were masters of the River Chambly by the possession of Isle
aux Noix. General Amherst approached with his army from Lake
Ontario; and General Murray was in march, coming up from Quebec,
with six thousand men that had passed through the winter there, and
with some men-of-war, one of which of about forty guns, on its arrival
in sight of the town of Montreal, greatly astonished, and excited the
admiration of, the inhabitants, who, from the ignorance and negligence
of those persons charged with the sounding of the St. Lawrence, had
never seen vessels arrive there of above sixty or seventy tons.
General Murray conducted himself as an officer of great understanding,
knowledge and capacity, and left nothing to do for General Amherst; he
employed five weeks in coming from Quebec to Montreal, which is
only sixty leagues, and did us during his march more harm by his
policy than by his army. He stopped often in the villages; spoke kindly
to the inhabitants he found at home in their houses--whom hunger and
famine had obliged to fly from our army at Montreal; gave provisions
to those unhappy creatures perishing for want of subsistence. He
burned, in some cases, the houses of those who were absent from home
and in the French army at Montreal, publishing everywhere an amnesty
and good treatment to all Canadians who would return to their
habitations and live there peaceably. In short--flattering some and
frightening others--he succeeded so well, that at last there was no more
possibility of keeping them at Montreal. It is true we