Part 16 (2/2)
Thirteen bodies lay half buried in the snow, and the only remains of the invading army were General Montgomery, his two aides-de-camp, Cheeseman and M'Pherson, a sergeant, and eight men. All but the sergeant were dead, and he too died within an hour. As for the General, only an arm appeared above the snow, and a drummer-boy picked up his sword close by. The English soldiers, uncertain whose body it was, fetched a prisoner, one of Arnold's forlorn hope, who could not restrain his grief for the brave General who had been the idol of his troops. Widow Prentice, of Freemasons' Hall, also recognised Montgomery by the sabre-cut upon his cheek; and Sir Guy Carleton having no further doubt as to his ident.i.ty, gave orders that the slain General should have honourable burial. Up Mountain Hill they bore him to the small house in St. Louis Street, still known as Montgomery House, and later in the same day he was laid in a coffin draped with black, and borne by soldiers to a new-made grave in the gorge of the St. Louis bastion. A bra.s.s tablet now marks the spot near the present St. Louis Gate.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPE DIAMOND (Pres-de-Ville, where Montgomery fell)]
Although both divisions of their army were defeated, over four hundred prisoners taken, and their General slain, the invaders were yet unwilling to give up the struggle against the grim walls of Quebec.
They were sore beset by cold, hunger, and the hards.h.i.+ps of active warfare; and smallpox carried off nearly five hundred of their number. On the death of Montgomery, Arnold had succeeded to the chief command, but it was April before his wound was healed. Meanwhile, they had quickly erected a new battery at Point Levi, and once again the guns of the citadel entered upon an artillery duel with that historic ravelin. From time to time rockets sent up from the enemy's camp threw the defenders of the city into unusual alarm, and once or twice, when the signals seemed more pregnant, the whole force turned out and swiftly took up their a.s.signed positions. General Carleton on the other side, not having enough soldiers to dislodge the besiegers, had been content to hold fast and wait until spring should bring him reinforcements from England. No vigilance on the part of the garrison was relaxed, and throughout the cold and dreary winter the sentries marched night and day upon the ramparts.
Towards late spring the increased activity of the besiegers caused a corresponding restiveness among the many prisoners within the city.
Sir Guy Carleton had treated them with as much liberality as was possible under the circ.u.mstances; but on an attempt on the part of some of the officers to bribe the guard, he speedily placed the offenders in irons. On the last day of March a large number of prisoners made an attempt to escape from the Dauphin barracks, just inside St. John's Gate. Their plan was to overpower the guard, whose strength was necessarily small, capture the adjacent city gate, and hold it open for their comrades on the Plains. The plot was discovered, however, and the prisoners were transferred to the British gunboats in the harbour.
As the weeks went by, the anxiety of an ever threatened attack told heavily on the garrison, and even the convalescent were called upon for guard-house duty. A blockade extending over four or five months was exhausting their provisions; and for fuel they were at length reduced to tearing down wooden houses in the suburb of St. Roch. For half a year the Richelieu, Montreal, and Three Rivers, in fact the whole of Canada, had been virtually in the enemy's hands; Quebec alone remained, but, commanded by Carleton, Quebec was a fortress in the most real sense.
It was the evening of the 3rd of May, and in the gathering darkness a s.h.i.+p rounded Point Levi and drew near to the s.h.i.+ps in the basin.
Cheers rose from the garrison and a saluting gun boomed from the citadel. Still the strange craft made no salute, and a heavy crash of artillery burst from the Grand Battery. For answer, flames leaped up the rigging and along the bulwarks of the approaching schooner. It was the _Gaspe_, which the enemy had fitted up as a fire-s.h.i.+p and sent into the harbour. The crew, being disconcerted by the alert challenge of the garrison, hastily lighted the fuses and escaped in small boats, but only to see the impotent fire-s.h.i.+p carried down the river by the ebbing tide.
Meanwhile, the invading army had drawn near to the ramparts, intending to a.s.sault the town under the confusion caused by the _Gaspe_. To these dogged troops, steeled for their last great effort, the failure of the fire-s.h.i.+p was a severe blow. Moreover, their slight remaining hope vanished a day or two later when the British frigate _Surprise_, arrived in the harbour, having boldly forced its way through the ice-packs which still beset the lower river. Not long afterwards the _Isis_, fifty guns, and the sloop-of-war _Martin_ also rounded Point Levi.
After six months of toil, privation, and suspense the brave garrison was at last relieved. Once more in Quebec numberless joy-bells rang out, and artillery crashed triumphantly across the tide. Flags ran up on every bastion and parapet within the walls, and the cheers of the reinforced garrison carried dark despair to the enemy's camp across the Plains.
The siege was immediately raised, the invaders thinking only of escape. General Carleton, with a force of only a thousand men, marched out by the city gates and tried to fall upon the enemy's flank. So rapid had been their flight, however, that only the van of his column was able to come up with the Provincials, who, in their hurried retreat, had not only abandoned their artillery, ammunition, and scaling-ladders, but had left their sick and wounded in the tents of Ste. Foye. Once more the invader had failed to seize the key of all Canada; and another successful conflict was written in the annals of Quebec. Never again was a hostile army to beset those grim grey walls.
”Twice conquered and thrice conquering” became the pregnant summary of two centuries of the history of the fortress, and the lapse of still another hundred years makes no amendment necessary. Like her younger sister, New Orleans, the city upon the St. Lawrence had often been the battlefield of the nations, but, for both, the centuries have brought prosperity and peace.
CHAPTER XVIII
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PROGRESS
Quebec had pa.s.sed through her last ordeal of fire and sword, and for many years the 31st of December was celebrated with enthusiasm as the anniversary of the victory. But although the effort to detach the French Canadians from their allegiance to Great Britain resulted miserably in the defeat of Montgomery and Arnold, the Thirteen Colonies did not quite relinquish the hope of accomplis.h.i.+ng their end.
Instead of an army, Congress now despatched commissioners to Canada, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton being of the number. The mission, however, was without success; for the ancient capital, although the most foreign in speech and custom of all places in British North America, remained steadfast under the temptation to swerve from her allegiance. Franklin, indeed, added nothing to his reputation by his general relations with the settlements on the St. Lawrence. For twenty-four years he had held the position of Deputy-Postmaster General for the English colonies, Quebec being regarded as in some sense within his jurisdiction; and the unsatisfactory monthly service between Quebec and Montreal as well as the absence of intermediate post-offices, had made him unpopular along the Canadian river. It is not surprising, therefore, that he failed to arouse the enthusiasm of the French, especially for a cause which their strong monarchical principles failed to approve.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (One of the four American Commissioners to Canada in 1776)]
It is estimated that more than twenty-five thousand United Empire Loyalists crossed the border at the end of the American Revolutionary War to live under the British flag. These, for the most part, went to Upper Canada, the settlements along Lake Ontario and the Bay of Quinte, being centres of vigorous life and progress; while not a few settled in Quebec, adding to the sound character of its st.u.r.dy population.
A further accession, moreover, was made by the arrival of two regiments of Hessians and Brunswickers, who came out to garrison the citadel. Many of these presently obtained their discharge in order to marry and settle down in Quebec. The current directory discloses many names of German origin, names now high up in the roll of citizens.h.i.+p, but once in the books of the Hanoverian regiments of George III.
A memorable figure pa.s.ses across the stage of Quebec history just at this time. In 1782 the frigate _Albemarle_, twenty-eight guns, lay in the harbour, and her brilliant, handsome commander was Horatio Nelson.
This paragon of fortune had entered His Majesty's Navy as a child of twelve; at fourteen he was captain's c.o.xswain on the expedition of the _Carca.s.s_ to the North Pole; and now, with an astonis.h.i.+ng experience crowded into a life of twenty-four years, he dropped anchor before the rock of Quebec.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON (One of the four American Commissioners to Canada in 1776)]
The sober Haldimand was Governor, and the _Sturm und Drang_ of the American Revolution had cast a cloud upon the social life of Canada.
For if Quebec was not what it had been in the days of Sir Guy and Lady Carleton, the sterner _regime_ of Haldimand had deeper influences behind it than the militarism of a rigid soldier. Nevertheless, Nelson and his gay company helped to lighten the heavy cloud, and for the s.p.a.ce of a few weeks dinners and dances, on sh.o.r.e and on board the _Albemarle_, enlivened the autumn season in the capital. Southey's _Life of Nelson_ contains rather a quaint picture of the commander of the _Albemarle_ about this time. Prince William Henry, then known as the Duke of Clarence, regarded him as the merest boy of a captain he had ever seen. Dressed in a full-laced uniform, an old-fas.h.i.+oned waistcoat with long flaps, and his lank, unpowdered hair tied in a stiff Hessian tail of extraordinary length, he made altogether so remarkable a figure that, to use the Prince's own words, ”I had never seen anything like it before, nor could I imagine who he was nor what he came about. But his address and conversation were irresistibly pleasing; and when he spoke on professional subjects, it was with an enthusiasm which showed he was no common being.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Fourth Duke of Richmond.
Governor General of Canada 1818-1819.]
Freemasons' Hall, at the top of Mountain Hill, was the fas.h.i.+onable rendezvous ash.o.r.e, and not since the days of Murray's garrison had the old stone hostel been so merrily possessed. One Miss Mary Simpson appears to have been a _belle_ of the period; and Sir James Le Moine, the antiquary, has identified her as the lady whose charms might have changed the course of history. ”At Quebec,” writes his biographer, ”Nelson became acquainted with Alexander Davison, by whose interference he was prevented from making what would have been called an imprudent marriage. The _Albemarle_ was about to leave the station, her captain had taken leave of his friends, and was gone down the river to the place of anchorage, when, the next morning, as Davison was walking on the beach, to his surprise he saw Nelson coming back in his boat. Upon inquiring the cause of his reappearance, Nelson took his arm to walk towards the town, and told him he found it utterly impossible to leave Quebec without again seeing the woman whose society contributed so much to his happiness, and then and there offering her his hand. 'If you do,' said his friend, 'your utter ruin must inevitably follow.' 'Then let it follow,' cried Nelson; 'for I am resolved to do it.' 'And I,' replied Davison, 'am resolved you shall not.' Nelson, however, on this occasion was less resolved than his friend, and suffered himself to be led back to the boat.”[37]
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