The Father of British Canada | Page 3

not recalled. None but a particularly good officer would have been appointed as its first commandant. Carleton spent many busy days here preparing an advanced base for the coming siege, while the subsequently famous Captain Cook was equally busy 'a-sounding of the channell of the Traverse' which the fleet would have to pass on its way to Quebec. Some of Durell's ships destroyed the French 'long-shore batteries near this Traverse, at the lower end of the island of Orleans, while the rest kept ceaseless watch to seaward, anxiously scanning the offing, day after day, to make out the colours of the first fleet up. No one knew what the French West India fleet would do; and there was a very disconcerting chance that it might run north and slip into the St Lawrence, ahead of Saunders, in the same way as the French reinforcements had just slipped in ahead of Durell. Presently, at the first streak of dawn on the 23rd of June, a strong squadron was seen advancing rapidly under a press of sail. Instantly the officers of the watch called all hands up from below. The boatswains' whistles shrilled across the water as the seamen ran to quarters and cleared the decks for action. Carleton's camp was equally astir. The guards turned out. The bugles sounded. The men fell in and waited. Then the flag-ship signalled ashore that the strangers had just answered correctly in private code that all was well and that Wolfe and Saunders were aboard.
Next to Wolfe himself Carleton was the busiest man in the army throughout the siege of Quebec. In addition to his arduous and very responsible duties as quartermaster-general, he acted as inspector of engineers and as a special-service officer for work of an exceptionally confidential nature. As quartermaster-general he superintended the supply and transport branches. Considering that the army was operating in a devastated hostile country, a thousand miles away from its bases at Halifax and Louisbourg, and that the interaction of the different services--naval and military, Imperial and Colonial--required adjustment to a nicety at every turn, it was wonderful that so much was done so well with means which were far from being adequate. War prices of course ruled in the British camp. But they compared very favourably with the famine prices in Quebec, where most 'luxuries' soon became unobtainable at any price. There were no canteen or camp-follower scandals under Carleton. Then, as now, every soldier had a regulation ration of food and a regulation allowance for his service kit. But 'extras' were always acceptable. The price-list of these 'extras' reads strangely to modern ears. But, under the circumstances, it was not exorbitant, and it was slightly tempered by being reckoned in Halifax currency of four dollars to the pound instead of five. The British Tommy Atkins of that and many a later day thought Canada a wonderful country for making money go a long way when he could buy a pot of beer for twopence and get back thirteen pence Halifax currency as change for his English shilling. Beef and ham ran from ninepence to a shilling a pound. Mutton was a little dearer. Salt butter was eightpence to one-and-threepence. Cheese was tenpence; potatoes from five to ten shillings a bushel. 'A reasonable loaf of good soft Bread' cost sixpence. Soap was a shilling a pound. Tea was prohibitive for all but the officers. 'Plain Green Tea and very Badd' was fifteen shillings, 'Couchon' twenty shillings, 'Hyson' thirty. Leaf tobacco was tenpence a pound, roll one-and-tenpence, snuff two-and-threepence. Sugar was a shilling to eighteen pence. Lemons were sixpence apiece. The non-intoxicating 'Bad Sproos Beer' was only twopence a quart and helped to keep off scurvy. Real beer, like wine and spirits, was more expensive. 'Bristol Beer' was eighteen shillings a dozen, 'Bad malt Drink from Hellifax' ninepence a quart. Rum and claret were eight shillings a gallon each, port and Madeira ten and twelve respectively. The term 'Bad' did not then mean noxious, but only inferior. It stood against every low-grade article in the price-list. No goods were over-classified while Carleton was quartermaster-general.
The engineers were under-staffed, under-manned, and overworked. There were no Royal Engineers as a permanent and comprehensive corps till the time of Wellington. Wolfe complained bitterly and often of the lack of men and materials for scientific siege work. But he 'relied on Carleton' to good purpose in this respect as well as in many others. In his celebrated dispatch to Pitt he mentions Carleton twice. It was Carleton whom he sent to seize the west end of the island of Orleans, so as to command the basin of Quebec, and Carleton whom he sent to take prisoners and gather information at Pointe-aux-Trembles, twenty miles above the city. Whether or not he revealed the whole of