Death or Victory: The Battle for Quebec and the Birth of Empire. Dan Snow
‘almost too ludicrous to mention’.6 Even so the cannon represented a threat to the ships especially since any damage to the hull or rigging was especially serious when the ship was thousands of miles deep in enemy territory. Le Mercier made his way across to the island arriving on 16 June just in time to witness Captain Gordon of the Devonshire dispatching the boats from his vanguard to ‘cut out’ or capture a French ship that lay in the channel to the north of the Île d’Orléans. Crowded with marines and sailors, the boats rowed towards their prey. Suddenly there was a volley of fierce ‘musketry from the shore’ and twenty-five canoes emerged from the cover of the island. Native Americans paddled furiously, propelling the canoes at a surprising speed. The young Master and Commander of the Porcupine sloop, John Jervis, a promising young officer destined for great things, attempted to bring his vessel into the shallower water and use his fourteen guns to send the Native American attack packing. A sudden dearth of wind left him dead in the water. The sails hung limply and the crew watched impotently as the British open boats clumsily turned around and fled. One boat was unable to escape. The cutter of the frigate Squirrel was designed for sailing with two stowable masts. Its small crew would not have been able to row the boat as fast as some of the others, having just one man on each oar, whereas a ‘pinnace’, for example, had two men straining on the same blade. With hundreds of sailors and troops watching the cutter was overhauled and captured. The crew of eight were taken prisoner and provided the French with valuable intelligence.
The next morning Le Mercier opened fire on the ships. Centurion’s log records that she ‘received several shot’ from the French, which ‘cut away a bobstay and the clue of our maintopsail’. Both she and the Pembroke kept up a heavy fire on the battery all night but at 0700 hours on 18 June according to Cook’s log, ‘we and the Centurion shifted our berths further off; afterwards the firing ceased’. This first large skirmish in which Native Americans in canoes had complemented the artillery barrage under Le Mercier had resulted in a sharp French victory. It was a potent lesson in the limitations of sailing ships when operating close to enemy shores in variable winds. Although the French lacked the seagoing firepower of the British fleet, if they could utilize their advantage in fast moving, small, oar and paddle powered boats and their large arsenal of artillery they could mount a serious challenge to the control of the water on which any British plan depended.7
As the first real blows were being exchanged, the rest of the fleet, further downstream, was following slowly. The weather was getting ‘hot and sultry’. In light airs, the gun decks would have been getting uncomfortable to sleep on. On the night of the 22/23 June the tide had ebbed at a stunning 6.5 knots and Montresor’s ship, like several others, had dragged its anchor. Luckily the wind was blowing from the east and they could stem their drift. Both Montresor and Knox commented on the great increase in the number of habitations on the banks as the fleet edged past the Île aux Coudres. Knox wrote that there were ‘settlements now on each side of us’. The landscape grew ever more dramatic. Knox commented that ‘the land [is] uncommonly high above the level of the river’. Another British officer reported, ‘towering among the clouds, the most noble and awful ridges of mountains that I ever saw: they give one a highly finished image of the grandeur and rude magnificence of nature’. The woods were thick, green blankets of trees ‘of every genus’ and the steep valleys that cut through the mountainous rampart often had ‘surprising cascades’ running down their centre. He also noticed more and more evidence of human settlement: ‘The inhabitants have cleared and levelled some few spots around their dwellings, which form a delightful terrace.’ The officers had plenty of time to observe the shores because the ships were advancing up the river at a crawl, but Knox reports that ‘the reason for our not working up with more despatch does not proceed from any obstructions in the navigation, but in the necessity there is of sounding as we advance; for which purpose, a number of boats are out ahead’. Saunders was taking no chances. Despite the route finding of Durell’s ships and the presence of French pilots, each division was still feeling its way. 8 Behind Knox’s transport, the 15th Regiment of Foot had taken to their ship’s boats to attempt to suppress musketry coming from the banks but a greater threat than the nuisance of the Canadian militia on the banks were still the other ships. A combination of fast currents and light breezes, especially if combined with poor seamanship, was deadly. Knox was involved in two collisions in as many days. Neither, he reported thankfully, with fatal consequences.
Montresor heard that Wolfe, their thrusting young commander, had pushed ahead in the Richmond frigate to join the vanguard of the fleet. Wolfe had been bridling for some time and had eventually lost his patience. His frustration can only be guessed at, but anyone who has sat at anchor all day with limp sails drying in the sun, buffeted by a contrary current, can probably empathize. Wolfe returned again to his theme of leaving the larger ships behind. On 19 June he confided in his journal that Saunders was ‘running all the great Ships of War in amongst the Divisions of the Transports threatening some danger & a good deal of Disorder, as the Wind blew fresh’. It was the arrival of the news of ‘some cannonading from that Island [d’Orléans] on the shipping’ that determined him to get up the river and put himself at the very front of the expedition. On 22 June his journal says that he sent his aide-de-camp with a ‘memorandum to Mr Durell and inform him that I proposed to go on the next morning if possible’. He also ‘enquired what troops Mr Durell had detained and desired they might be forwarded’.Wolfe wanted every man and ship up to the Île d’Orléans as soon as possible.9
The next day he boarded the Princess Amelia to demand in person that Durell push more ships up the river. Durell acquiesced, sending the two warships ahead and instructing the Captain of the Richmond to ‘proceed with General Wolfe up the Traverse, and land him when he shall think proper’.10 There is more than a hint here of frustration with an army officer who clearly did not understand the complexities of the passage. On 25 June Wolfe was again disagreeing with the naval officers over how many ships should be pushed ahead. His journal says that the suggestions of Captain Mantell of the Centurion ‘nearly drove me into expressing my mind with some Freedom’. Only the ‘good sense and management’ of Wolfe’s good friend, the expedition’s Quartermaster General, Colonel Guy Carleton ‘averted this’.11 The growing tension was not helped by soaring temperatures. Knox’s journal says again that it was getting ‘inconceivably hot’ and mosquitoes were ‘very troublesome to us’. Such is the remarkable transition from winter to summer in that part of the world. A journey that had begun with sailors risking frostbite now threatened them with sunstroke.
Wolfe demanded that the transports with the troops on board be prioritized. It was midsummer and not a British boot had touched the soil around Quebec. Saunders attempted to mollify his frustrated army counterpart. He ordered the larger warships carrying seventy to ninety guns and drawing more than twenty feet to stay behind and attempt the Traverse in their own time. He ‘switched his flag’ or moved ship from the Neptune to the smaller Hind, which proudly recorded in her log that she ‘made new pole topgallant masts to accommodate Admiral Saunders for hoisting his flag’. Sadly for the Hind the next day he switched again, this time to the Stirling Castle, a sixty-four-gun ship which was small enough to push quickly through the Traverse. By the afternoon of the twenty-seventh the Stirling Castle was through with three warships and ‘several transports’. The log reports that Saunders had left the ship in his cutter, so it is possible that as parts of the fleet passed the Traverse, Saunders was personally racing to and fro, shouting instructions to his captains on how to get the ships through.12
The Goodwill attempted the Traverse on 25 June. On board Knox and the others were left in no doubt as to the danger of the operation. They watched as ‘a trading schooner struck on a rock, near to the place where we first anchored, and instantly went to pieces; the weather being moderate the crew were saved, and some casks of wine’.13