Death or Victory: The Battle for Quebec and the Birth of Empire. Dan Snow
impressive record both before and after the gale it is very likely that he spoke the truth.
The French were euphoric as the gale tore down the St Lawrence valley. The first reports in Quebec were that there had been huge losses. Montcalm wrote in his journal that he hoped the British fleet would be badly damaged. He noted bitterly that a French fleet would have ‘perished’ in such conditions.58 When ‘the truth came to be ascertained’ reported a diarist in Quebec, and it appeared that the only damage was ‘two small vessels wrecked, and five or six of the same size driven on shore’ which ‘were easily pulled off’, there was enormous disappointment. The diarist bemoaned that, ‘if the gale of wind had lasted only one hour altogether, perhaps two thirds of the English fleet would have been destroyed’. Apart from the fickle wind he blamed the French leadership. He wrote that there had been ‘upon this island 1200 men, Canadians and Savages, who undoubtedly might have been extremely troublesome to the English during their debarkation, and particularly whilst the tempest lasted’, because the British ‘were in a state of disorder and dismay’. However, the force was no longer there thanks to orders, ‘sent the preceding night from the Marquis de Vaudreuil for it to evacuate the island and pass over to the Beauport coast’. An equally good opportunity was missed, ‘in not having kept upon the South Shore 3 or 400 Savages, who remained in Quebec, where they did nothing but create disturbances and who might with the greatest ease have destroyed vast numbers of the English left upon the shore, in consequence of the stranding of their vessels upon the coast’.59 A British account hints at guerrilla activity that was progressing as the storm caused havoc among the fleet, recording that ‘a ranger killed and scalped, and a stake drove through his body’.60
Montcalm had no intention of fighting a guerrilla war of hit and run. He regarded operations involving the Canadian irregulars and Native Americans as worthless and beneath his dignity. He was determined to wait in his fixed positions and let Wolfe break his army on them. Yet again, however, this conservatism had caused him to miss an opportunity to strike at the British when they were vulnerable. The French would not remain totally inactive, though. In the meantime they would deploy yet another weapon against the British. Their invasion force had overcome the treacherous St Lawrence with its rocky banks and irresistible currents. They had survived the gale. There was a further elemental force that could destroy their ships, one that the French were able to control: fire.
First Skirmishes
THE LOOKOUTS KNEW what to watch for. Wolfe’s Chief Engineer, Patrick Mackellar, had warned his fellow officers that the French would attempt to burn the British fleet. He knew that the French would prepare sacrificial ships and were planning to use them as huge floating bonfires. During his captivity in Quebec he had heard the constant boasts of his jailers and had even been shown a local variation on this tactic, the radeaux à feu, rafts packed with combustibles, which the French assured him would burn any fleet that showed itself before Quebec.1 So it was no surprise when just after midnight on the night of 28/29 June the dark Quebec basin was pricked by a flash of light. Soon other lights appeared until from a distance it looked like a procession of blazing torches. The glow from the dancing flames illuminated the woods on the south shore, the shadows of the trees quivering as the fire rose in intensity. The British fleet was spread along the south shore of the Île d’Orléans and the easternmost ships could see the clear silhouettes of the upriver ships against the light cast by the fires and their reflections off the surface of the St Lawrence. The French were sending fireships towards the heart of the British fleet. Men of war cleared for action, bells rang and the watch below came sprinting up through the hatches and prepared to slip anchors and make sail. The British were ready: the ships’ boats had been standing by and their crews heaved on the oars, domes of white water atop the end of each blade. In the bows bosun’s mates prepared grappling hooks and lines, carefully coiling the rope to ensure that they would not snag.
Fireships were something of an anachronism by 1759. In fact, this was the only example of their use during the Seven Years War. Two hundred years before they had been a battle-winning weapon but their use had declined as ships and tactics had progressed. They were most famously used by Lord Howard of Effingham and Sir Francis Drake against the Spanish Armada as it sat at anchor off Calais in 1588. On that occasion eight ships of the English fleet were sacrificed; their helms lashed in place, their hulls filled with gunpowder and pitch and they were sent into the Spanish fleet with a following wind. The Spanish panicked, cut their anchors, and abandoned their formation. The scattered Spanish ships were attacked and defeated in the battle of Gravelines the following day. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries fleets fought in tightly packed formations and the aim of an admiral was to break up that of his enemy and in the melee destroy or capture the isolated ships. Fireships were ideally suited for this role. But by the eighteenth century cannon fleet actions were more spread out as ships fought gunnery duels sailing in long lines. Fireships had no part to play.
In very specific circumstances, however, they could still be very useful. In August 1666 English Admiral Sir Robert Holmes had launched a devastating attack on a mass of Dutch merchantmen lying off the coast in the Vliestroom, which destroyed over one hundred and fifty ships.2 It was in these conditions, a narrow channel, with a following wind and a strong ebb tide, that they could be sent into a crowded anchorage and cause mayhem among an enemy fleet. Conditions like those off Quebec in late June 1759.
The French had been preparing for weeks. At vast expense merchant ships were purchased and made ready. To ensure that the fire was fed by a constant stream of fresh air the gun ports were hinged at the bottom rather than the top so they would fall open when their retaining ropes burnt through. Funnels were bored to provide a clear updraught from below decks to the rigging above. The masts were strengthened to make sure they did not collapse too soon. Barrels of gunpowder and anything flammable were packed on board. Cannon were loaded with double shot.3 It was a delicate process; one of the eight ships burst into flame in the harbour according to a French officer, ‘through the imprudence of the men who were preparing it’.4 Another journal says that ‘either from inattention or ignorance’ the ship caught fire ‘at the very moment of its completion’. In all, ‘twelve men were killed by the fire’ and for a terrifying moment ‘the most serious apprehensions were entertained’ of it setting the other ships or even the town itself aflame. It was a terrible demonstration of the potency of fire in a wooden world.5
The wind was blowing from the south-west. The logs agree that it was a squally night with a bit of rain in the air. It was as dark as ‘sable’ according to Knox, with ‘no light but what the stars produced’.6 The ebb tide was running and with conditions close to perfect the French decided to deploy their fireships. They had high hopes. One journal speculated that ‘if they acted effectually, [they] would completely put an end to the enterprise of the English’.7 Success depended on the crews being brave enough, first, to sail their ships towards an enemy fleet carrying hundreds of cannon and, second, to set fire to the ships at the last possible minute. A length of quick match ran along a trough from barrels of gunpowder and resin to the escape hatch in the ship’s side. The minute that was lit the crew would clamber down into the longboats which the fireships towed and make their escape. It required nerves of steel and a good deal of luck.
The French crews lacked both. Nearly all the sources agree that the French fired their ships too soon. This advertised their presence to the British and gave them vital extra minutes to prepare. One journal records that the day before the French captains ‘differed widely in their