The Battle for Quebec 1759 E-Book

Matthew C Ward

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 391

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

On 13 September 1759, British and French forces fought one of the most decisive battles in history, on the Plains of Abraham outside the Canadian capital, Quebec. The British force decisively routed the French, seizing the city and, ultimately, all of Canada. But the struggle for Quebec was far more than one climactic battle: the campaign involved an immense military and naval operation, an eighteenth-century D-Day. Matthew Ward has researched extensively in archives in Britain and Canada to look at the entire campaign for Quebec, from its inception in Whitehall to its ultimate culmination in Montreal in 1760. He has probed beyond the actions of commanders and generals, to examine the experiences of the campaign for the ordinary soldier and civilian. What emerges is not just a picture of bravery and heroism, but also of a campaign which became increasingly brutal and cruel, both sides resorting to practices such as the routine scalping of enemy dead. It is also a surprising picture of the day-to-day, often mundane, lives of civilians and troops many thousands of miles from home.

Leseprobe

First published 2005

This edition published 2009

The History Press

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This ebook edition first published in 2016

© Matthew C. Ward 2005, 2009

The right of Matthew C. Ward to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Contents

About the Author

Introduction

1 Two Empires

2 Two Armies

3 Beginnings

4 Frustration

5 The Distasteful War

6 The Plains of Abraham

7 Survivors

8 Conclusion: Conquest

Notes

Maps

Further Reading

List of Illustrations

About the Author

Matthew Ward is lecturer in history at the University of Dundee. He is one of the world’s leading experts on the Seven Years’ War. His other books include Breaking the Backcountry: The Seven Years’ War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754-1765. He lives in Dundee.

Introduction

On the morning of 13 September 1759, the armies of Britain and France clashed on the Plains of Abraham outside the city of Quebec in French Canada. The battle was an overwhelming victory for the British forces, but during the conflict the commander of the British forces, General James Wolfe, received a mortal wound. Dying before the battle was even finished, he guaranteed himself a place in the hearts of the British nation as a man who had given his very life for his country. At almost the same time that Wolfe received his fatal wound, the commander of the French forces, General Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm-Gozon de Saint-Véran, also received a fatal wound. Dying in agony the next day, his death seemed to epitomise the end of the French regime in Canada.

The deaths of Wolfe and Montcalm, full of pathos and drama, loom over the British campaign to conquer Canada. For many authors and historians the conquest of Canada is the story of Wolfe, and its defence is the tale of Montcalm. The conflicts between both generals and their subordinates, which influenced their conduct of the war, have become the story of the campaign, as epitomised by Francis Parkman’s monumental Montcalm and Wolfe, a sweeping work that unfortunately is almost as much fiction as fact.1 Attention to the actions of the commanders during the campaign has further intensified because ever since their deaths there has been a fierce debate over the relative merits of their command. Historians have debated whether Wolfe was really no more than a good regimental officer, promoted beyond his capacity, whether Montcalm’s disdain for his Canadian troops was responsible for his ultimate defeat, or whether the machinations of the governor of Canada, Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, served to undo his efforts to defend the country.

Such questions, which focus purely on the actions and decisions of the armies’ commanders, portray the British campaign to conquer Quebec through a very narrow perspective. If the campaign is about Montcalm and Wolfe then their deaths must mark the end of the campaign, and the battle of the Plains of Abraham becomes the climactic conclusion of the struggle. Such a view is surely wrong. British control of Quebec was far from secure until the arrival of the British relief fleet in May 1760. Indeed, it could be argued that the arrival of the British fleet in May 1760, though lacking all the drama of the battle of the Plains of Abraham, was in many ways as important as the battle itself. Even with the arrival of the British fleet, the conquest of Canada would take another determined summer’s campaigning. The British conquest of Canada was not just one climactic battle, but a protracted campaign which lasted for eighteen months.

A focus on the commanders also fails to acknowledge adequately the roles of the thousands of men who fought in the British and French forces. The fate of Canada was determined not just by the actions of a handful of officers but by the actions of thousands of soldiers and sailors. These soldiers did not form one homogeneous social group. Both armies contained soldiers from widely different backgrounds: from the Canadian militia, skilled in woodcraft, to the highly disciplined regular troupes de terre; from the American ranger companies to the fearsome Scottish Highlanders of Fraser’s Regiment. In addition to the thousands of soldiers and sailors, hundreds of Native Americans fought alongside the French and hundreds of British civilians accompanied the British army, as sutlers (sellers of supplies and provisions), labourers, nurses and washerwomen. Collected from around the globe, the two armies which met in Canada were vibrant military communities with different traditions and skills. Their role in the campaign, though more subtle than the decisions of their commanders, was equally, if not more, important.

A focus on the commanders also ignores the experiences of civilians during the war. For civilians this war was markedly different from previous wars. The campaign in Canada was in many ways a total war. The French mobilised the Canadian civilian population to resist the British onslaught. Thousands of Canadian farmers – the habitants of the St Lawrence Valley – participated in the militia and exposed British troops to constant attacks from French skirmishing parties. Women and children hauled supplies and provided military intelligence. In retaliation, the British waged total war on the civilian population of Canada, destroying villages, crops, and livestock, rounding up women and children and forcing them from their homes. In so doing, the British pushed the eighteenth-century concepts of limited war and the ‘rules of war’ to their very limits, if not beyond.

There were other forces that also determined the fate of Canada. Some of them could be called long-term ‘structural’ developments in Europe, far beyond the immediate scope of the campaign. The expansion of British financial institutions, which enabled the government to wage such an expensive campaign, the securing of British naval superiority and the development of new naval and military tactics all aided the British victory. Pure luck also played an important role. Before the 1759 expedition Canadians seemed to have been protected by ‘divine providence’. All previous expeditions against the city and colony had failed miserably. During the Quebec campaign, while the British had their share of misfortune, when luck and chance most mattered, particularly on the night of 12-13 September, fortune favoured the British.

This book examines the British campaign for Canada from its origins in the cabinet offices of London and Versailles to the final capitulation of the colony in September 1760. It views the campaign in its entirety and does not concentrate solely on the events of 13 September 1759. The focus is not purely on the actions and decisions of commanders but also examines the experiences of ordinary soldiers and civilians in the British and French armies during the war, and the war’s broader impact on the civilian population of Canada. It demonstrates how the campaign deteriorated from the civilised war, fought very much in a European fashion, to the irregular ‘war of the worst shape’ berated by Brigadier-General George Townshend.2 For both soldiers and civilians, this ‘irregular’ war was as important a part of the Campaign for Canada as the more ‘regular’ combat on the Plains of Abraham.

While the campaign on the St Lawrence is often viewed as the first ‘regular’ military campaign in North America, fought according to European military traditions, the campaign which consequently emerged was very different from a regular campaign in Europe. While there was one major ‘regular’ battle fought on the Plains of Abraham in September 1759, and another on the edge of the Plains near St Foy in April 1760, and a large-scale skirmish near the Falls of Montmorency at the end of July 1759, all of which could be regarded as part of regular campaigning, the rest of the conflict was as different from war in Europe as any other operations in North America. Even in these ‘regular’ battles, combat was adjusted to meet peculiarly American circumstances. Consequently, the experiences of British troops who fought on the St Lawrence in 1759 and 1760 were as alien from the experiences of those who fought on the North German Plain as were those of troops fighting in the Appalachian Mountains or in the tropical forests of Martinique.

It is in the totality of the Canadian war effort that the campaign is perhaps most striking and diverges most from European campaigns. Nearly all adult Canadian males fought at some time during the campaign, a level of mobilisation which would not have been seen in Europe until the twentieth century. Women, children and clergymen all served the French war effort in some capacity, and as such became targets for British reprisals. This marked the Quebec campaign as a very different type of war from that fought in Europe. By examining the totality of the campaign, and looking at the experiences of ordinary soldiers and civilians as well as of officers and commanders, and by expanding the focus beyond the battle of the Plains of Abraham, the 1759 Campaign for Quebec and Canada emerges as a rather different experience of warfare, where the traditions and practices of the British army, in particular, were stretched to their limits.

1

Two Empires

On 23 May 1759, the beacons along the St Lawrence River were lit to announce the arrival of a British fleet in the St Lawrence River.1 The news caused the French settlers, or habitants, who lived along the lower reaches of the river to panic. In haste they hid their women and children, cattle and food stores, in stashes in the forest and prepared for the arrival of the enemy. In Quebec City itself, the target of the expedition, the wealthy citizens evacuated the town for safer locations in Montreal or further up the St Lawrence. Their safety now depended upon the French regulars and colonial troops and militia who were quickly assembling to oppose the British. On board their ships, the British troops watched the countryside slip slowly past and wondered at the beauty of the lower St Lawrence. While eager to land and resolve the campaign, they were apprehensive about the fate which awaited them when they finally landed in the heart of the French empire in North America.

The success or failure of this expedition would depend on a wide variety of different influences. Some of these were very immediate, such as the decisions of opposing commanders and the different strategies and tactics employed. Others were much more long-term, such as the ability of the British and French to equip and supply their forces and undertake prolonged warfare at such a distance from Europe, and also the relative importance both countries placed on North America. The outcome of the campaign would also depend to a great degree on luck, which seemed previously to have favoured the French.

The immediate events which would determine the outcome of this campaign had been set into motion some years previously and were determined by ministers of the British and French crowns. In London, two men in particular influenced affairs in North America. They were Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, who had been influential in British politics for over two decades, and William Pitt, who held the important post of Secretary of State for the Southern Department, with responsibility for affairs in all the British colonies and relations with France, Spain and the Mediterranean states. In France, the most influential minister was Nicolas-René Berryer, minister of the Marine and Colonies. He was advised by Charles-Louis-Auguste Fouquet, Maréchal et Duc de Belle-Isle, the minister of war, and Étienne-François, Duc de Choiseul, the minister of foreign affairs. These men would play a major role in shaping the course of the campaign.2

These ministers in London and Versailles had not planned on a global war for empire. Indeed, if there were ‘imperialists’ in the early eighteenth century, they were to be found in large numbers not in London or Versailles, but rather in the North American provincial capitals of Williamsburg, New York, Philadelphia and even Quebec. In the late 1740s, land-speculators from the British colony of Virginia and fur-traders from Pennsylvania had begun to move into the Ohio Valley. This was territory in the interior of North America which both the British and French claimed, although neither occupied. The French had responded by constructing a series of small posts and forts in the region. To Britain’s colonists in Virginia and Pennsylvania, this action was seen as nothing less than a French invasion of the Ohio. The governor of Virginia responded by sending a small force commanded by George Washington to oppose the French. When Washington was forced to surrender to the French, Virginia appealed to Britain for aid.3

Britain countered by sending Major-General Edward Braddock to North America with two regiments of regular troops, in effect starting a war. When these troops were not just defeated but completely routed at the battle of the Monongahela in July 1755, this provided the French with an unparalleled opportunity. By committing regular troops, the British had in effect declared war on France in North America. The Duke of Newcastle still hoped that the war could remain limited to North America, for ‘in North America, the Disputes are; And there They shall remain for us; And there the War may be kept’.4 Newcastle’s hopes proved unfounded. The French were well aware that if the struggle was limited solely to North America the British colonies so outnumbered the French colonies that their weight of numbers would eventually tell. Braddock’s defeat, however, gave the French a very rare opportunity. It meant the French had military dominance, if only temporarily, in North America. In Europe, French forces had an overwhelming superiority over the British. In addition, the French had managed to break apart Britain’s alliance with Austria and Russia and left Britain with Prussia as her only continental ally. If a war could be fought quickly in Europe, before the British could turn the tables in North America, the French might be able to force some major concessions from Great Britain. The French took the war to Europe by attacking the British-held island of Minorca in the Mediterranean in May 1756. Suddenly, the hostilities had become a world war. In Canada, French regular troops were to hold colonial forces at bay while parties of Indians commanded by French officers were to harass the colonial frontier. In Europe, the French army was to invade and plunder George II’s electorate of Hanover.5

In its early stages, the progress of the war was disastrous for the British. In 1756, the French captured the important British post of Oswego on Lake Erie, depriving the British of any access to the Great Lakes and threatening the western frontier of New York. In the meantime, Native American warriors descended on the colonial frontier from New York to North Carolina, wreaking havoc. Throughout 1756 British military officers wrangled with the provincial assemblies in each of the British colonies, as they complained about the cost of assisting the war effort, about raising provincial troops to fight, and about the devastation on their frontiers.6

In 1757, the British mounted their biggest offensive so far in North America. On 20 June, the commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, left New York harbour with the largest seaborne expeditionary force ever assembled in North America. Its objective was the French fortress of Louisbourg. Located at the northern tip of Île-Royale or Cape Breton Island, near the entrance to the Gulf of St Lawrence, the fortress protected a large harbour from which ships could protect or intercept convoys of supplies heading into the St Lawrence. Control of the fortress made it difficult for an enemy to send ships or supplies to Canada. Consequently, its capture was vital to allow an attack on Quebec; otherwise the British fleet lay dangerously exposed to French attack. Delayed by bad weather and poor planning, Loudoun did not reach Louisbourg until early August. There he discovered that three French naval squadrons, which included eighteen ships of the line and five frigates, had slipped past the British fleet in the western Atlantic and made it into Louisbourg. With his naval escort outnumbered by the French, and so late in the season, there was little chance of success. Loudoun returned to New York having achieved nothing.7

Loudoun’s concentration of his forces against Louisbourg had allowed the French commander, General Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm-Gozon de Saint-Véran, to concentrate his forces on Lake Champlain and to launch a devastating attack southwards into New York. A French force advanced south from Lake Champlain and besieged the British post at Fort William Henry. The commander of the fort, Lieutenant-Colonel George Monro, wrote desperately to General Daniel Webb, only a few miles away at Fort George, begging for assistance. Webb dithered and was reluctant to expose his force to the French. With no prospect of relief, Fort William Henry’s garrison was forced to surrender. An even worse fate was in store. As the garrison marched out of the fort, the Native American warriors accompanying the French descended on the column of British troops, butchering many of them. The fall of the fort created panic along the frontier. Even residents of New York City, 250 miles to the south, fretted about the danger of a French invasion. The massacre of the garrison created resentment and distrust of the French, and especially of their Native American allies.8

The French capture of Fort William Henry had other results less beneficial for the French, which would directly influence the campaign of 1759. With French forces so victorious, and the British in such disarray, the civilian governor of Canada, Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, believed that Montcalm should have advanced further south to take Fort George, or Fort Lydius, as the French called it. The New York frontier lay exposed and from there the French could have laid waste to much of the colony. It seemed a great opportunity for the French to win a decisive victory. However, Montcalm knew that much of his army was composed of Canadian troops and militia who were anxious to return to their homes for the harvest. If the harvest was not gathered, the loss of supplies would have been a disaster for the colony worse than the loss of a battle. Furthermore, Montcalm’s disgust at the behaviour of his Native American allies resulted in most of them abandoning his army and returning home. Montcalm would never again trust them. Vaudreuil for his part would not trust Montcalm. Soon he and his supporters began a whispering campaign against Montcalm. The bitter disputes between Montcalm and Vaudreuil would seriously handicap French efforts to defend Quebec in 1759.9

After Fort William Henry, the tide of war, both in North America and around the world, changed in favour of the British with amazing speed. The British planned three separate campaigns for the summer of 1758: one from the backcountry of Pennsylvania on Fort Duquesne; one against the French fort of Ticonderoga at the southern end of Lake Champlain; the third a renewed attempt to seize Louisbourg. The British operation against Louisbourg in the summer of 1758 was the most important British campaign of the war so far. Louisbourg was perhaps the most heavily fortified town in North America, more heavily fortified in many ways than Quebec itself. The fortress had stone walls several feet thick and was built in the fashion of European military engineer Marshall Vauban, with bastions, half bastions, a ditch, glacis (sloping banks) and cannon mounted where they could sweep all the defences. Inside were 6,000 troops, regulars and Canadians, militia and seamen.10

The expedition was ready to sail much earlier than Loudoun’s in the previous year. Eight ships of the line had wintered in Halifax and were ready to sail as soon as the ice cleared. However, the fate of Louisbourg had in fact been sealed the previous autumn, when many of the French ships returning from North America had been captured or sunk by the Royal Navy. In the spring, a British victory in the Mediterranean prevented any ships from leaving the south of France for Louisbourg, while the British squadrons operating in the western approaches intercepted many supply ships. Louisbourg was much more exposed in 1758 than in 1757. The British force arrived on 3 June, but heavy surf prevented a landing until 8 June. Even then, the waves capsized many boats and many men drowned. Ironically, the surf may have provided a degree of protection from the fire of the French troops entrenched along the shore, for the boats bobbing violently in the swell proved difficult targets to hit. Once ashore, the army conducted the siege fully in the European tradition, following Vauban’s On the Attack and Defense of Fortified Places to the letter. The British rained shells on the town, destroying buildings and ships. The French held out desperately for seven weeks, to ensure that it was too late for the army to continue the campaign with an attack against Quebec. Finally, on 26 July, the French commander, Augustin de Drucourt, asked for terms.11

The Louisbourg campaign revealed how British naval and land forces could work together effectively. It also highlighted the potential of several officers, in particular James Wolfe. Wolfe demonstrated his organisational skills by overseeing many of the preparations for the expedition in Halifax, before the arrival of the expedition’s commander, Sir Jeffery Amherst. More importantly, he displayed great military acumen in leading the landings and then building the batteries to besiege the city. Wolfe’s ability, energy and skill quickly brought him to the attention of the ministry in London. The lessons learned at Louisbourg would directly influence the planning of the campaign against Quebec in 1759.12

After Louisbourg, both the British and French had to decide their future commitment in North America and draw appropriate lessons. The fundamental issue to be decided by the ministries in both Whitehall and Versailles was the extent to which it was worth attacking, or defending, Canada. At first sight Canada seemed relatively unappealing. By the middle of the eighteenth century the British and French had both built global trading empires. Commerce was the engine that had driven both countries into conflict in the Americas, Africa and Asia. Both countries had established colonies in the West Indies producing sugar, in West Africa exploiting the slave trade, and in Asia trading in tea, spices and cloth. In comparison, the North American colonies seemed much less significant. For the British, Virginia produced tobacco and the Carolinas rice and indigo (cotton would not be grown in any great quantities in North America until the early nineteenth century). New England and the colonies of New York and Pennsylvania, however, produced little that could not also be found in the British Isles.

For the French, Canada’s sole commercial lure was the fur trade. However, following the collapse of the beaver trade in the 1690s, the trade had not been particularly profitable, and had been supported as much to maintain Native American alliances as to generate profits. The population of between 60,000 and 70,000 was insufficient to provide any significant market for French goods, and was scattered along almost 300 miles of the St Lawrence River. By the 1750s the economy was beginning to diversify and in good years Canada’s habitants produced a surplus of grain which could be traded to the West Indies. In years of poor harvest, however, the colony remained dependent upon imports from France. The colony did include access to the Great Lakes and the lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains, but these were too remote in the mid-eighteenth century to be of any great commercial importance. For the French ministry in Versailles there were few compelling reasons to commit substantial resources to the defence of Canada. At first sight, British ministers should also have dismissed any serious thought of conquest in Canada, and concentrated instead on more lucrative conquests in the West Indies, Africa and India.13

The importance of Canada was not economic; rather, it was strategic. The reduction of Canada would provide the British colonies which sprawled along the eastern seaboard with a security previously undreamed of and would open up lands in the interior for future settlement. The idea of launching such a major expedition had been mooted as early as the autumn of 1756 by Loudoun, who had written that ‘there is no method of carrying on War with Success in this Country, but by striking at the Root of the Evil at once, by making your Attempts on Quebec, by the River St Lawrence’.14 His views were echoed by Governor Pownall of Massachusetts, who argued that as long as the war remained a struggle in the Ohio Valley and on Lakes George and Champlain ‘we are still engaged in a petty skirmishing War, from the State of which ’twas always plain and experience now proves we shall ever be Inferiour and Beat by the French’.15 If the British instead resorted to a regular war on the St Lawrence, the superiority of British arms must tell. Once Quebec had been captured, the rest of Canada could not resist for long. Quebec was the centre of the French presence in North America. It was the political capital of Canada. It was here that the governor and council met. It was the seat of the colony’s Roman Catholic bishop. Its capture would thus severely disrupt the functioning of the French colonial regime. It was the largest settlement in Canada, with a population in 1759 of approximately 8,000. Montreal, the second largest settlement, had a population of only 4,000. Indeed, it contained almost an eighth of the population of all Canada. Perhaps most importantly, its strategic location meant that if it was captured the rest of Canada would surely fall, for Quebec controlled access to the St Lawrence and thus to Europe. With Quebec in British hands, Montreal and the Canadian interior would be isolated from European aid and could be picked off by the British at will.16

This meant that the campaign was a new departure in the war in North America: it was about the future control of the continent. Indeed, Pownall summed up these sentiments neatly. He pointed out that ‘we have chang’d the Point and brought it to its true Issue… – whether We as Provinces of Great Britain or Canada as the Province of France shall be Superiour in America’.17 This significance did not go unnoticed by France’s Canadian colonists, the habitants of New France. To them the expedition was no less than a conquest by a hostile power. Indeed, the Seven Years’ War in French Canada is simply termed La Guerre de la Conquête – The War of the Conquest. Canadians suspected that a British conquest would at the very least rob them of their religion and government; at the worst they could suffer like their Acadian counterparts and be driven from their lands and forced to become refugees.

For 150 years Quebec had served as a barrier to British expansion and as a threat to the security of the British colonies. Now one man in particular determined that the main goal of the war should be the conquest of Quebec. That man was William Pitt. Pitt’s support for waging war in North America was motivated, at least in part, by political calculation. Pitt had built his popularity by opposing the expenditure of vast sums of money on continental wars. To the ordinary inhabitants of Britain, the Seven Years’ War in Europe meant little. British victories would be lauded, but in its early years the war simply meant higher taxes – particularly higher excise taxes on beer and cider – which were very unpopular. Then, as fears of French invasion grew, came the 1757 Militia Act. The Militia Act revived the English militia, which had fallen into neglect. However, the militia was not to be a part-time amateur army, but rather a professional army drawn from the ranks of the English citizenry. Men were chosen by ballot from the adult male population in each county. Those chosen were required to serve for three years, although they were promised that they would not be sent overseas. They could pay for a replacement, which most chose to do, but the poor could not afford the cost. For those middling landowners or artisans who were selected, the payment of a replacement essentially became another onerous tax. As a result, when magistrates tried to enforce the act, there were sizeable riots across most of England.18

By the summer of 1757 there was substantial hostility to the war across Britain. The landed and mercantile elites resented the high taxes, the labouring poor the demand for militia service. This opposition was further fuelled by a perception that the war was being fought largely in defence of George II’s electorate of Hanover. William Pitt’s great strategy when he came to power was to convert the war into a war for empire, to be fought not in Germany but across the oceans of the world and in North America, to be fought for the benefit of British commerce and the British ‘empire’. However, to most ordinary Britons the concept of ‘empire’ meant little more than being able to buy more ‘exotic’ goods like sugar, tea and coffee in the local store. Even to the merchants of Britain’s port towns, the possible conquest of Canada was of limited importance. Compared to the West Indies, to West Africa and to India, where the British were also making territorial advances against the French, Canada was little more than a barren wasteland with only a few greasy furs to tempt merchants.19

Pitt’s ‘genius’ was to tap into popular opinion to build support for an overseas war – to launch a ‘great war for empire’ against the French. Money would be spent on equipping British expeditions, not on supporting continental allies. (Once in power, Pitt, despite his rhetoric, soon found that his German allies were essential to the war effort, and most of the subsidies continued.) The benefits of war, Pitt argued, would be seen by all Britons, not just the king’s German subjects. Pitt realised that Britain had several important advantages in waging an all-out war against the French in the colonies, advantages that he was determined to utilise to the utmost. The first of these was simply Britain’s ability to raise money to fight the war. The ‘financial revolution’ which had taken place from the late seventeenth century and continued through the first half of the eighteenth century allowed the British government to borrow huge sums during the Seven Years’ War to fund the campaign. These loans were secured on future tax revenues of the country. With the prospect of secure interest payments on loans to the government, many merchants and bankers invested their surplus capital in government loans. Lending to the government was facilitated by the creation of the Bank of England, established in 1694, which could administer these loans. Tax revenues paid on land and excise revenues on trade were sufficient to guarantee substantial loans. Ably administered by the Duke of Newcastle, the exchequer’s regular annual income was sufficient to allow government debt to rise to £137 million by the end of the war, with interest rates of less than 5 per cent per annum. In contrast, although French trade had grown even faster than British trade in the first half of the eighteenth century, the French government was able to raise much less money and had to pay much higher interest rates, averaging nearly 10 per cent and ranging up to 14 per cent.20

The ability to raise such substantial funds was central to the British war effort. First, it allowed the British to subsidise their continental allies. The ‘Army of Observation’ which fought in Hanover was composed not principally of British troops, but their German allies and British mercenaries. Subsidies were essential in maintaining these allies. In particular, substantial subsidies to Frederick of Prussia allowed him to continue the war, and encouraged him to continue fighting even when all hope of victory seemed lost. In July 1757, the French decisively defeated the British army, under the command of the Duke of Cumberland, at the battle of Hastenbeck. Cumberland was compelled to sign the humiliating Convention of Klosterseven, removing his army from the field while the French occupied most of the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the Austrians defeated Frederick at the battle of Kolin, while the Russians occupied Berlin. Substantial British subsidies enabled Frederick to continue the war. Had Frederick decided to make peace at this point, the British would probably also have had to come to terms with the French. It is probable that had peace been made at this point the British would have been compelled to recognise French possession of the Ohio Valley and possibly return Nova Scotia.21

The second crucial long-term structural advantage was the development of the Royal Navy. The construction of large and dedicated naval dockyards at Chatham and Portsmouth in the early eighteenth century had allowed British naval construction to advance substantially. Large numbers of naval vessels could be built relatively quickly. Before the mid-eighteenth century, British vessels had had no superiority over French vessels in their construction. However, during the early 1750s the First Lord of the Admiralty, George Anson, introduced several new ship designs, and these arguably gave the Royal Navy a slight advantage. Most important of these was the two-deck seventy-four-gun warship. This was large enough to engage in battle with any French vessel, but had a shallower draught and was more manoeuvrable than larger vessels. Anson also introduced several new types of frigate, increasing their firepower. Indeed, frigates, with a shallower draught and greater manoeuvrability than men-of-war, would play an important role on the St Lawrence.22

More important than design advantages, by the late 1750s the Royal Navy had a clear numerical superiority. During the first half of the eighteenth century the British had invested heavily in the construction of new naval vessels. By 1758 the Royal Navy had 275 ships in commission, with a further forty-nine being built, compared to France’s meagre seventy-two. Equally important, Anson had undertaken a thorough reform of the naval officer corps, making it easier to gain promotion through proven ability rather than through purchase alone. In contrast, the French navy was particularly poorly officered. A French naval career was viewed as unattractive and good officers were few and far between. French seamen were equally difficult to find, as the French merchant marine was substantially smaller than the British and France lacked the British ‘maritime tradition’. Consequently, French ships were less well commanded and manned than British ships. The British also had an important superiority over the French in their provisioning of the navy. The development of the contracting system around the world, where local suppliers were given a regular contract to provision British ships, meant that the Royal Navy was kept supplied with fresh provisions and provisions of a generally high quality. Consequently, when it came to battle, a far higher percentage of British crews were fit and functional than their French counterparts. Numbers, design, better officers and fitter crews all served to give the British an important superiority in the war at sea.23

The real importance of British naval superiority told in operations off the French coast. British warships operating out of Gibraltar effectively prevented French warships and supply ships from leaving the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, the British Atlantic fleet under Admiral Holmes kept the French Atlantic fleet blockaded in port. Naval superiority had a very direct impact upon the war in North America. In 1755, even before an official declaration of war, the Royal Navy had begun to seize French merchantmen around the world and threatened French supply lines. By the end of 1755 the navy had captured nearly 300 French merchantmen, including sixteen provision ships bound for New France, and over 8,000 French mariners. By 1757, despite a string of French military victories on land in Europe and North America, Canada was desperately short of supplies.24

The French also felt unable to send reinforcements to North America for fear that they would be captured in the North Atlantic. Without reinforcements from France, Canada’s military power was slowly ground down by the British military machine. In addition, colonial regiments were not always raised to full strength because there were not the supplies needed for them. For the French military, maintaining supplies and conserving supplies became an essential part of their strategy. Within Canada, troops were dispatched later in the campaign than officers would have liked, to ensure that supplies could be maintained and their wastage lessened. During 1759 the shortage of supplies experienced by the French in Canada, a consequence of the long-term development of British naval power, would dramatically shape the nature of the campaign.

While Pitt was able to argue for a vigorous expansion of the war into North America, to drive the French from the continent, the French drew opposite conclusions. As war commenced, French strategy depended upon winning major land victories in Europe while simply holding the British at bay in North America. Any losses in North America would be traded for gains in Europe. French strategy thus depended upon winning decisive victories in Europe before they suffered too many losses in North America. In Europe matters looked very hopeful. The French had assembled an alliance with the Russians and Austrians who opposed Britain’s only ally, the Prussians. It seemed unlikely that Britain’s small ‘Army of Observation’ in George II’s electorate of Hanover and the Prussian army would be able to hold off the French alliance for any great length of time.

In North America, French Canada was dwarfed by the British mainland colonies. French hopes for victory lay in using Canada’s limited resources on the St Lawrence and Hudson rivers against the main British and American provincial armies, while encouraging their Native American allies to paralyse the frontier of the British colonies to the south. In 1756, Canadian governor Vaudreuil outlined French military policy. He declared that there was no possibility ‘of managing the English. Their enterprises are carried to excess, and... they are making new and greater efforts against this Colony.’ The only opportunity to halt the British advance, he believed, was ‘to carry the war into their country... [by] sending parties of Indians into the English Colonies’. He concluded that ‘nothing is more calculated to disgust the people of those Colonies and to make them desire the return of peace’.25

Vaudreuil and his fellow Canadians still assumed that they would receive assistance from France in their struggle. The ministry in Versailles, however, felt differently. France’s resources were stretched in Europe, and ministers feared that the Royal Navy would intercept any aid that might be sent. Canada would have to fend for itself. Instead of attempting to relieve the French colonies and to stem the British tide in North America, French ministers proposed that France should instead attempt an invasion of Great Britain and consolidate their position in Germany. No reinforcements and few supplies could be spared for North America. Any losses in Canada would be recompensed by gains in Europe. To the British, then, the struggle for Germany was being fought in Canada; to the French, the struggle for Canada was being fought in Germany. Although aware that the British were planning to launch a major expedition against Canada, most Canadians doubted that it could ever succeed. Quebec’s mariners all maintained that the St Lawrence was extremely difficult to navigate. A large fleet would never be able to reach Quebec.26

Indeed, this was far from the first British attempt to seize Quebec. In 1690, during King William’s War, or the War of the League of Augsburg, Sir William Phips had headed a three-pronged campaign against Quebec. This campaign was funded and equipped not by the government in London, but by the colonies of New England. In the summer of 1690, 2,300 men had sailed from Boston to Quebec, while an overland expedition attacked up Lake Champlain, a plan very similar to that being discussed for 1759. Phips had delayed in Boston, vainly hoping for assistance from London, and it was mid-summer before his expedition departed. It successfully navigated the St Lawrence, no mean feat in itself, but he did not reach Quebec until October. In desperation, knowing that winter was about to freeze the St Lawrence, Phips’s fleet bombarded the city while his men attempted to make a landing. The resulting attack was chaotic and the expedition was abandoned.27 Plans for an attack on Quebec were revived in 1711 when another major expedition was launched, commanded by Admiral Sir Hovendon Walker. This time the major participants were not colonial forces but British regulars, including some veterans from the Duke of Marlborough’s campaigns in Europe. Walker assembled a force of almost sixty vessels and over 12,500 men, half the population of all Canada. However, once more, the expedition started late in the year. It was beset by bad weather and foundered, literally, in the St Lawrence River. Once more the expedition was abandoned.28 Plans for yet another expedition were mooted in 1745 following the capture of Louisbourg. New Englanders mustered their troops and waited anxiously in the spring of 1746 for ships, supplies, and reinforcements from Great Britain. None came. The British were distracted by the Jacobite uprising and war in Europe. Without British naval power, New Englanders were reluctant to attack the bastion of French power in North America, and plans for the attack were postponed and would not be revived before the Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle was signed in 1748.29

To many Canadians, the failure of these expeditions provided evidence that the colony was protected by divine providence. Even at the start of the Seven Years’ War, British forces had been routed and defeated where they should have won victories. A nun in the General Hospital in Quebec summed up the feeling of many Canadians: ‘During the first attacks of our enemy… every where they appeared, they were beaten and repulsed with considerable loss… our warriors returned crowned with laurels... It was miraculous; their small numbers, without heavenly aid, could not so completely have accomplished it.’30 With God’s protection, they believed, Canada would survive. This fervent belief was reflected in the way the residents of Quebec commemorated their earlier escapes. After Phips abandoned his siege of the city in 1690, to thank the Virgin Mary for her protection, the church of Ste Genevieve was renamed Notre Dame de la Victoire to commemorate the victory. Every year, on the anniversary of the expedition, residents would congregate for a celebratory Mass. When Walker’s fleet was wrecked in 1711, the inhabitants again flocked to the church to give thanks and it was renamed Notre Dame des Victoires.31

While Canadians may have felt confident in God’s protection, they were less confident in their own governors. There were severe shortages of foodstuffs throughout the colony and in December 1758 rumours of a reduction in civilian rations caused widespread discontent. This discontent grew as throughout the winter the Intendant, François Bigot, had continued to throw lavish balls and parties in his palace while the people starved. Finally, on 2 January 1759, a mob of 400 women assembled in the town and rioted in the snowy streets. Bigot’s actions caused many Quebecers to wonder whether they still merited God’s protection. Such concerns intensified over the winter, when a brothel was established in the city. So worried was the bishop of Quebec at the growing immorality of his flock that in April he called for a day of public prayer and fasting, to ask for God’s forgiveness and beg for his protection in the coming campaign.32

If Canadians were concerned about their ability to resist the British, and placed their trust in divine providence, Pitt had every reason to be confident that this expedition could succeed where previous expeditions had failed. The British forces attacking Canada had a decisive numerical advantage over the French and Canadian forces. In North America they would send out three separate expeditions against the French strongholds of Quebec, Montreal and Fort Niagara. Each would be an independent operation, but together they would form part of the overall scheme for the conquest of Canada. These expeditions would see a substantial commitment of about 30,000 British regular troops to North America. They would be supported by an even greater number of provincial troops raised in North America, a substantial proportion of the Royal Navy, and by millions of pounds of British gold.33 If the seaborne invasion along the St Lawrence failed, an overland expedition up Lake Champlain and the Richelieu river might yield fruit. If that failed, there was always the possibility that the expedition against Fort Niagara could advance down the St Lawrence to strike into the heart of Canada. These three expeditions would force the French to divide their meagre forces. Each one of them should be victorious, since British troops were better equipped, better trained and better prepared than for any previous expedition. Most importantly, at Louisbourg British troops had gained experience in conducting combined operations with the Royal Navy and in launching amphibious assaults.

As British troops sailed into the St Lawrence River in the summer of 1759, the experience of years of warfare in North America shaped their expectations. Decisions already made in London and Paris would influence their chances of success; so would pure chance, and many Canadians desperately hoped that once more fortune would favour them. However, they soon found that their luck was now deserting them.

2

Two Armies

W