The right of fishing on these Banks, though by the law of nature it should have been common to all nations, had been appropriated by the French and British, who at this time had frigates constantly cruising there to prevent encroachment by ships of other nations. And, by an Act of the previous year, the revolted colonists of New England had been excluded from the Banks, though it was on the cod-fishery that their wealth had been founded and was still largely maintained. The New Englanders took this very hard, and the fishermen of Marblehead and Salem who lost their employment because of the Act were, as privateers, to do us more mischief in the war almost than any other class of Americans.
We passed close by several of these fishing-vessels, which had galleries erected on the outside of the rigging from the main-mast to the stern, and sometimes the whole length of the ship. On the galleries were ranged barrels with the tops struck out, into which the fishermen would get to shelter themselves from the weather. The stay of these vessels on the Banks was but short, for the method of curing was as quick as the catching. As soon as the cod was hauled up, the fisherman cut out its tongue, then passed it to a mate who struck off its head, plucked out liver and entrails, and tossed it to a third hand, who drew out the bone as far as the navel; then down the carcass went into the hold. In the hold stood men who salted and ranged the cod-fish in exact piles, taking care that just sufficient salt was laid between each row of fish to prevent them from touching.
It was on this sunny day, May 14th, that we first saw icebergs; but these were small bergs floated down from the St Lawrence River. Four days later we had a view of the mountains of Newfoundland, covered with snow. We had been forty days at sea without landfall and this dreary island was therefore very pleasant to our eyes. On the following day we entered the noble Bay of St Lawrence our fleet being all in sight. We doubled Cape Rosier and found ourselves in the St Lawrence River itself, which at this place is no less than ninety miles in breadth, with very boisterous water. Soon we were boarded by our first visitor from the New World, at whom we all gazed with the greatest interest, as if to divine from his appearance what sort of fate we were destined to encounter
He was a French-Canadian pilot, a low-statured, yellow-faced, merry man dressed in seal-skin jacket, well-tarred trousers and stout sea-boots. He affected also a prodigiously long pig-tail, bound with eel-skins, a heavy gilt crucifix about his neck and a round cap of white fox fur.
It was from this person that we heard the first particulars of the recent fighting, which had favoured our arms. The frigate had the day before signalled the fleet the good news that, though Montreal had been in American hands for some months now, the British standard still flew at Quebec. The pilot assured us, it was not to be expected that the Americans would stand their ground much longer, hearing of our approach. It was therefore with relieved minds and no immediate expectation of battle that we continued our voyage up the river.
We passed by Bored Island, so called from an opening in its middle through which a small schooner might pass with her sails up; and Miscou Island with its excellent harbour, in the offing of which a fresh spring spouted up to a considerable height from the salt water; and the Island of Birds, shaped like a sugar-loaf, which gave off a most insufferable stench from the droppings of the innumerable sea-fowl that nested upon it – we sent our boat to it, which returned laden with eggs; and the large Island of Anticosti which, upon my inquiry, the pilot represented as absolutely good for nothing.
In the third week of May, we saw, for the first time since we left Ireland, houses and cultivated land: a number of pleasant-looking French plantations upon Mounts Notre Dame and St Louis. Our navigation grew slow; for, after the river narrowed to about nine miles across at Red Island, shoals, sunken rocks, and whirlpools became frequent. It was here that I caught my first sight of the Indian aboriginals: three of them (of whom one appeared to be a chief by his feathered head-dress) passed within musket-shot of us in a birch-bark canoe, which they paddled downstream with inconceivable celerity. Their faces were painted with green stripes and they paid no attention at all to us when we hailed them.
Before the week was out we had passed by several more islands, but these for the most part well inhabited and cultivated. Stone churches, wayside crucifixes, and neat, whitewashed buildings with boarded roofs were now to be seen almost everywhere; and well-kept woods of red pine-trees, valuable for their profuse yield of turpentine, which we thought very graceful besides. The river-water was sweet to the taste at last, having been brackish for the first three hundred and thirty miles up from the ocean.
In the fourth week we entered a part of the river where the stream was no more than a mile across, and came to our destination – the noble port of Quebec, remarkable for being able to accommodate one hundred ships of the line at four hundred and twenty miles distance from the ocean. The newly arrived troops were not permitted to go ashore, except for a short fatigue-duty across the river at Point Levy, since there was fighting promised for them farther up the ever; but disappointment was assuaged by the fresh meat, poultry, and vegetables brought aboard. I was fortunate enough to be an exception to this rule against the allowance of shore-leave; for I was sent to the Upper Town with a detachment of The Ninth, which as the eldest regiment was chosen to provide guards for the day. I had a great curiosity to visit Quebec, if only for the sake of childish memories of the Heights of Abraham (represented by our wood-shed) and the death of that hero, Major-General Sir James Wolfe.
Chapter XI
WHEN THE Americans had entered Canada that autumn, the Governor, Sir Guy Carleton, escaped down the St Lawrence River from Montreal in a dug-out canoe, by night, and with difficulty reached Quebec. Our pilot described him as ‘a man of ten thousand eyes, very courageous’. He was evidently prudent besides, for he had immediately expelled from Quebec, together with their families, all persons of military age who refused to take up arms for the King. On December 1st General Montgomery joined Colonel Benedict Arnold before the city and mounted his cannon for a siege. By a perfect novelty in military science he placed them on platforms of snow and water congealed into solid ice. The shot, however, was too light to make any great impression on the defence; whereupon, after consulting with his officers, General Montgomery determined on a general assault to be delivered simultaneously in two quarters, for the night of December 23rd. He boasted that he would eat his Christmas dinner in Quebec or Hell. Yet he was forced to go back on this undertaking because of the clearness of the weather: since, for a successful assault, he needed the cloak of a snowstorm. Difficult as the situation of the defenders was, with great scarcity of fuel, short rations, a wide circuit of walls to defend and a restless alien citizenry to keep in check, that of the besiegers was far worse. No unanimity existed among these troops, composed of contingents from several colonies, of whom only the Virginian riflemen, being better shod than the rest, did not now have their enthusiasm frozen to death. The temperature had fallen so low that it was found impossible to touch metal with the naked hand lest it should strip off the skin. Even in the city it was sufficient employment for the soldiers to keep their noses from the frost-bite, and several sentries lost the sight of their eyes from the extreme cold.
How any at all of the Americans managed to survive, I do not know. The Virginians wore white linen smocks, which were so obviously unfitted for use in winter that a legend arose among the French peasantry that they were impervious to cold. In the accounts that spread of their exploits the word toile, which means ‘linen’ in the French language, became changed to tôle, which is ‘sheet-iron’, and a legend will doubtless go down to posterity of ogres clad in white, frost-proof, iron armour, who sought to invade the country. To add to their discomforts, a severe epidemic of smallpox raged in the enemy camp. Desertions from the New England companies were frequent, and many men avoided duty by feigning sick; for which crime they had halters put around their necks and were paraded in derision before their comrades, and then lashed. What made matters yet worse wa
s that sufficient pay in hard money for these troops was wanting. The injunction of the American Congress against alienating the Canadians’ affections was so strict, that necessary supplies of food and clothing might not be seized from the country people, nor could they be compelled by any means to accept the new American paper money, termed ‘Continental currency’.
General Montgomery had no alternative but either to attack or to retire, for he failed in all attempts to seduce the French population of Quebec to revolt. Messages to that purpose had been shot over the walls tied to arrows, and one emissary, a woman, had somehow contrived to gain admittance: she was seized, tried, jailed, and then drummed out with ignominy.
The distinguishing badge adopted by the Americans, who had no common uniform, was hemlock worn in the hat; but General Montgomery, now deciding on an assault for New Year’s Eve, replaced these withered sprigs with a paper badge on which was inscribed, in each soldier’s own handwriting: ‘Liberty or Death!’
In the words of our French pilot, who appeared greatly tickled by the circumstance – ‘By Gar, ze General he oblige to try zat day – last day possible.’
‘How the last day possible?’ we had asked.
‘Ze New England militia, zey finish, at finish of year; zey go home goddam quick, finish of year, by Gar.’
The assault was delivered at about five o’clock in the morning of the New Year of 1776 with the aid of a blinding blizzard. The garrison, though warned beforehand that an attack was expected, were distracted by two feints at an escalade made at distant points of the defences, which were no less than three miles in circumference. Many of our men were also incapacitated by having drunk too deeply the health of the New Year. With little opposition the Virginian riflemen, under their gigantic commander Colonel Dan Morgan, forced their way into the Lower Town, which was a large suburb of wooden houses contiguous to the River, and there penetrated to the foot of Mountain Street, which zigzagged upwards to the Upper Town. Here they found the sally port of the lower barrier open, by mistake; and the French levies soon came running down past our well-placed batteries there in whole platoons, to give themselves up as prisoners. This barrier was captured at the first rush. But, instead of pressing on, the Virginians loyally waited: this was their agreed rendezvous with General Montgomery’s column, whose attack was being made at some little distance away. They waited in vain, for he was dead, shot through both thighs and the head by a sudden discharge of grape in the moment of assault.
Colonel Benedict Arnold, under whom the Virginians were serving, was adjudged to be the boldest and most skilful soldier in the whole American Army. If he had not had the misfortune, a few minutes before, that his leg was shattered by a musket ball, he would never have permitted the delay and Quebec would doubtless have fallen, for the upper barrier of Mountain Street was only weakly held. But, by the time that the Virginians came to know that they could only count upon their own exertions, the British had rallied and were strongly placed behind the upper barrier. The chance had slipped. The American plan had been to fire the Lower Town, in order to provide a screen of smoke for the storming of the Mountain Street barriers, but this was not effected, and, when morning came, such of the Americans as had not already retreated were surrounded and captured. The enemy lost between six and seven hundred men and officers, more than half their force, in killed, wounded, and prisoners: the British losses were less than twenty. Yet Colonel Arnold had the temerity to encamp within three miles of the city, where smallpox and misery continued to diminish the numbers of his men. Even so, General Carleton was not to be tempted to attack: he lay close in the Upper Town. In April the Americans were reinforced, so that they numbered about two thousand men: but these were insufficient for a renewed assault. On May 3rd three British warships forced their way through the floating ice, to the great encouragement of the garrison. The Americans then broke camp and retired hastily up the River St Lawrence.
Let me conjure up a picture of Quebec as I saw it from mid-stream of the river, on the morning of May 28th 1776. At the water’s edge was a cluster of warehouses and dwellings, the Lower Town, and behind them rose a cliff consisting of slate and marble, upon which, behind batteries and palisades, stands the Upper Town. In the middle of the cliff ran a serpentine road, Mountain Street, and a zigzag footpath with a hand-rail led up past the great grey palace of the Roman Catholic bishop; and, on the left, a little above it, stood Castle St Louis, the residence of the Governor, a long, irregularly constructed, yellow building of two storeys. The Castle was thought to be out of range of guns, because of its elevation, but this proved an error: for one evening of the siege a shot passed through a room next to that where General Carleton sat at cards with his family. Beyond were seen the slate-covered spire of the Cathedral surrounded by the spires of other religious buildings, namely, those of the Jesuits, the Franciscan Recollects, the Ursulines, and the Hotel Dieu, and by many tall and beautiful trees. To the left of Castle St Louis was a rounded pinnacle of dark slate, known as Cape Diamond where was a square fort, the Citadel of Quebec; and on the highest point of the pinnacle a look-out box, an iron cage formerly used to house the bodies of felons. Cape Diamond stood upwards of one thousand feet above the level of the water.
Such a sight was beautiful in the extreme and improved by the numerous ships anchored in the intervening waters; but from a close view, when I went ashore for the Guard, many imperfections appeared. The fortifications, though extensive, wanted much in regularity and solidity, and, the parapet being broken down in many places, the ways of communication between the works proved rugged in the extreme. A number of houses, moreover, had been destroyed for fuel by the besieged inhabitants; shot and shells had continually defaced and burned the remainder; and the pavement of Mountain Street had been purposely torn up – in order that the shells might bury themselves in the ground before they burst and so spread less of death – and not yet replaced. Besides this, the streets were very narrow and dirty, and the buildings in general were small, ugly, and inconvenient. But I was delighted with the Canadian women whom I saw as I passed through the town; they were not beautiful but had something to set off this defect, a charm of behaviour and a lively neatness which is more difficult to forget than to describe. I was amused, too, by a curiosity, namely a great number of broad-shouldered, short-legged dogs yoked in little carts bringing country produce to the market.
The Guard of which I was the Sergeant, under a good-humoured young lieutenant named Kemmis, was a double one: over the St John’s Gate, at the south-east of the city looking across the Charles River, and over the American captives in the solidly built jail near by. General Arnold’s attack, which was made at this point, must have been the maddest possible, for the gate and the walls adjoining were stupendous and not to be attempted without heavy artillery.
I was shocked at the appearance of the captives: they had suffered terribly during the siege, though General Carleton had showed them as much humanity and consideration as he could afford. Their living had been salt pork and salt fish, biscuit, rice, and a little butter, but there was no means of providing them with remedies against the scurvy, which many of them, already weakened by the smallpox, took very badly, so that their teeth had loosened and dropped out and their flesh seemed to be rotting on their bones. Their clothing was ragged and verminous, and all their laughter had long forsaken them, giving place to a fixed melancholy. An attempt had been made by them to escape on April 1st, with which was connected a plan for seizing St John’s Gate and admitting Colonel Arnold’s forces into the city; but it miscarried. The cause of this failure was that common to almost all American war-like enterprises’ the refusal of inexperienced participants to subordinate themselves to the experienced. Towards the completion of their plan only one obstacle still remained to be surmounted: which was the removal of a block of ice that prevented their prison door from opening outwards. Two good men were chosen to creep out and whittle this obstruction silently away with the long knives of which they were posse
ssed; but a pair of meddling know-alls anticipated them by chipping at it with axes – which noise the guards overheard. All was discovered, and the conspirators were thereupon manacled and put in foot-irons. This hindrance to their taking exercise in the prison parade depressed their health further and aided the scurvy, of which many scores of them perished. Governor Carleton, however, had allowed them fresh beef about the middle of April and relieved them of their fetters, soon as the city was relieved. He had also distributed clothing to the naked. Thus I did not see them at their worst, though what I saw was shocking enough.
When I called out one of them, by name James Melville, or perhaps it was Mellon – I disremember – to discourse with me, what he disclosed rang so piercingly in my ears that I could never afterwards forget it. He said: ‘If ever I am released from this jail and get home to our people, and fight again – before God I swear that I will never again suffer myself to be taken prisoner in my versal life. I have lost the half of my soul here, seared away by those cold irons. Look at me – you English soldier – I was as hale and stout a man as you in September last when I marched with the rest from Cambridge in Captain Dearborn’s company. Nor was it the Kennebec River that did this for me, despite the hideous woods and mountains, and the tarnal hunger and heavy loads; nor the Height of Land where I wore the flesh from my shoulders at the Terrible Carry. Nor was it the Chaudière River, where we waded knee-deep for miles in the icy alder swamps, the abode only of herons and adders, and fed upon raw dog-meat and the bark of trees, and I roasted my leather shot-pouch and ate it; and also had the flux, nation bad upon me. Nor was it the complicated distresses of the campaign before this city, in the coldest winter but one that the oldest man can recall, and in rags of uniform. It was these solid prison walls, and the foot-irons.’