only a mile and a half above Quebec. The wooded cliffs were so high and steep that, as Montcalm had said, ‘a hundred men posted there would stop their whole army’ (Parkman, ii. 276); but it was the more likely to be left ill-guarded, especially after Wolfe's demonstrations higher up, and it was a point on which he could quickly concentrate all his troops. ‘This alteration of the plan of operations was not, I believe, approved of by many beside himself. It had been proposed to him a month before, when the first ships passed the town, and when it was entirely defenceless and unguarded, but Montmorency was then his favourite scheme, and he rejected it. He now laid hold of it when it was highly improbable he should succeed from every circumstance that had happened since;’ so wrote Admiral Holmes, the commander of the up-stream squadron, on the 18th (Addit. MS. 32895, fol. 449).
The admiral was not alone in his disposition to find fault. Townshend had written to his wife on the 6th: ‘I never served so disagreeable a campaign as this … General Wolf's health is but very bad. His generalship in my opinion is not a bit better.’ Murray wrote a month afterwards: ‘His orders throughout the campaign shows little stability, stratagem, or fixt resolution’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. pt. iv. pp. 309 and 316). When Wolfe issued his final orders on the morning of 12 Sept., the three brigadiers sent him a joint letter, requesting ‘as distinct orders as the nature of the thing will admit of, particularly [as] to the place or places we are to attack. This circumstance (perhaps very decisive) we cannot learn from the public orders.’ Such a step implies rather strained relations. Wolfe wrote to Monckton in reply, telling him the place, which he had indicated to him the day before, and adding: ‘It is not a usual thing to point out in the public orders the direct spot of our attack, nor for any inferior officers not charged with a particular duty to ask instructions upon that point. I had the honour to inform you to-day that it is my duty to attack the French army. To the best of my knowledge and abilities I have fixed upon that spot where we can act with the most force, and are most likely to succeed. If I am mistaken I am sorry for it, and must be answerable to his majesty and the public for the consequences’ (Addit. MS. 32895, fol. 92).
After dark seventeen hundred men entered the boats, and at 2 A.M., when the tide had turned, they dropped down the river to the point chosen. The light infantry climbed the cliffs, and drove away the guard, which was not on the alert; the others quickly followed, Wolfe among them. The upstream squadron had drifted down after the boats, and the troops that had been left on board were soon landed. Other troops had marched up the right bank from Point Levi, and were ferried across. By daybreak 4,500 men with two guns were on the heights above Quebec. Meanwhile the line-of-battle ships had been cannonading the French camp at Beauport, and boats filled with sailors and marines had threatened a landing there with such success that when Montcalm first heard the British were on shore above the town he took it for a feint.
As soon as he knew the truth he decided to engage them with all the troops he could collect, before they could entrench themselves. But besides the detachments he had made to Cap Rouge and to Montreal, a great many of his men had deserted by this time, and some were detained by the governor in the camp. Montcalm was only able to muster a force about equal to the English in number, and far inferior in quality (Parkman, ii. 298).
‘The officers and men will remember what their country expects from them, and what a determined body of soldiers are capable of doing against five weak battalions, mingled with a disorderly peasantry. The soldiers must be attentive to their officers, and resolute in the execution of their duty.’ These were the last words of Wolfe's last order, anticipating the signal of Trafalgar. His aim was not to entrench, but ‘to bring the French and Canadians to battle,’ and he had led his men forward to the plains of Abraham, an open tract within a mile of Quebec. They were drawn up with six battalions in first line facing Quebec, two covering the left flank, and one in reserve. One had been left to guard the landing-place. After some skirmishing Montcalm attacked in three columns about 10 A.M. These columns were allowed to come within forty paces, then the British first line shattered them with its fire, and charged.
Wolfe went forward to some high ground on the right, where he had an advanced post of the Louisbourg grenadiers much exposed to the enemy's sharpshooters. He had already been hit twice, and here a third bullet struck him in the breast. With the help of two or three grenadiers he walked about a hundred yards to the rear, and then had to lie down. ‘Don't grieve for me,’ he said to one of them; ‘I shall be happy in a few minutes. Take care of yourself, as I see you are wounded.’ He asked eagerly how the battle went, and some officers who came up told him that the French had given
