chevalier de James Johnstone Johnstone

“ The affection, approbation and regret of the worthiest part of mankind is greatly preferable and much above the vain honours conferred by a blind people, who judge according to the event, and are incapable to analyse the operations. I was unknown to them before the expedition which I commanded in Canada; and if fortune, to whom I entirely owe my success, had less favoured me, perhaps, like Byng, I would have been the victim of a furious and unruly populace. The multitude has and can have success only for the rule of their judgment. ”

“ The Canadians and savages who knew the uprightness of my soul, ever devoted to the interests of my beloved king and country, they alone rendered me justice, with a few sincere friends, who, not daring to oppose themselves openly to the torrent of my enemies, bewailed in secret my unhappy fate, and shed on my tomb their friendly tears. ”

“ Disinterested persons of probity must respect your virtue. All officers versed in the art of war will justify your military tactics, and your operations can be blamed only by the ignorant. Were my army consulted, they would be as many witnesses in your favour. Your humanity towards prisoners won you the heart of all my soldiers. They saw with gratitude and veneration your continual care and vigilance to snatch them from out of the hands of the Indians, when those barbarians were ready to cut their throats, and prepared to make of human flesh their horrible banquets ”

“ I hope I have demonstrated clearly to you that, had you been acquainted with the locale, you could have made the glorious conquest of Canada without shedding a drop of blood.
Wolfe:​—​You argue, sir, at your ease! How was it possible to examine and know the locale of that country, your bloodhounds​—​the Indians and Canadians​—​being constantly at our heels: one cannot send out scouts in Canada, as is done in Europe.
Montcalm:​—​Why not? Men cannot be in two places at the same time; and you managed to find everywhere Indians and Canadians in your way! ”

“ I know not a better method to oppose a descent than to have bodies of troops in battle, ready to rush upon the enemy, with their bayonets upon their muskets, attacking the moment the enemy land, whilst they are yet few and in confusion from the disorder which must necessarily happen at their coming out of their boats, and before they can present a considerable front in battle. ”

“ Montcalm:​—​I verily believe, sir, that your idea is just. The Indians told me, on their return, that it was now no more possible to fight you as formerly, since the English had learned their (the Indians’) way of fighting. There cannot be a greater advantage for a General than the entire knowledge of the country​—​the seat of war: without this, he must always grope in the dark​—​be foiled in his operations​—​rest often inactive, uncertain in his projects; and be only inactive and on the defensive, as you were all the summer as much as me. ”

“ It appears to me that my extraordinary sufferings that night were a presage of my cruel fate some hours afterwards. At daybreak they fired some cannon from our battery at Samos, near Sillery. I then had no more doubts of our boats being taken by you. Alas! I would never have imagined that my provisions were in safety at Cap Rouge with de Bougainville, and that you were upon the heights of Abraham since midnight, without my being informed of an event of so great importance, and which was known through all the right of our camp. ”

“ The aide-de-camp being thus assured of the fact, ordered, in M. de Levis’ name, a detachment to be sent instantly, with the necessary tools to intrench itself.
Wolfe:​—​Had I been so lucky as you, sir, to discover that ford, there is no doubt I would not have let slip so favourable an opportunity of distinguishing myself, and would have fallen like lightning upon that part of your camp. There can be nothing more dangerous than the neighbourhood of rivers and swamps, that have not been sounded and examined with the greatest care and attention. ”

“ Had you attacked me, I would have had the advantage of the rising ground, which I would have fortified with intrenchments, and with a chain of redoubts from Quebec to Cap Rouge, where these heights terminate in a deep ravine, with a small river at the bottom of it, overhung with rocks, at three leagues from Quebec. This advantageous position, not to be successfully attacked by any number of men, would have been my advanced post. ”

“ It is true the death of the general-in-chief​—​an event which never fails to create the greatest disorder and confusion in an army​—​may plead as an excuse for the English neglecting so easy an operation as to take all our army prisoners. ”

“ The sea and the land service are sciences whose principles are entirely different; as certainly there can be no analogy between the working of a ship and the drill of a regiment. Nevertheless, the Admiral meddles continually with the land operations, and the General will have the fleets do things that are impossible​—​both of them equally ignorant of each other’s service; from whence results a clashing discord in their operations, when sent out with equal power. ”

“ You were no sooner hotly engaged in the attack, without a possibility of withdrawing yourself out of the scrape, when from a clear sunshine there fell in that most critical juncture, of a sudden, the most violent even, down pour of rain from a cloud, which, as the cloud that saved Eneas from the fury of Diomed, placed you immediately out of our sight, so that in an instant we could not see half way down the hill. ”

“ It is evident that had Repentigny passed the river with his detachment of eleven hundred Canadians, you must have been cut to pieces, and that affair would have terminated your expedition. Your army could have no more hopes of succeeding after such a loss; their spirits would have been damped, and Canada would have been secure from any further invasion from Great Britain.
Fortune was always as favourable to you, as she constantly frowned upon us. M. de Levis is not to be blamed ”

“ It is certain that when fear once seizes hold of men it not only deprives them totally of their judgment and reflection, but also of the use of their eyes and their ears, and they become a thousand times worse than the brute creation, guided by instinct only, or by that small portion of reason which the author of nature has assigned it, since it preserves the use of it on all occasions. ”

“ Thus the head of a column of a great depth of ranks must infallibly pierce through lines who have only at most two or three men deep; and by feint attacks all over the front of a line, you cannot weaken one part of it by drawing troops from it to fortify another part of it, unless the point of the enemy’s principal attack is manifestly known. ”

“ Self-preservation is natural to all mankind, and the hour of death must strike with horror the bravest man. But fear is pardonable amongst soldiers only when there exists a real cause for fear; and is not to be tolerated when groundless: this is so much the case of your soldiers with regard to the Indians, that, demoralized by fear, they suffer themselves to be butchered by a vastly inferior number of Indians, without ever thinking of defending themselves, even when they know they will have no quarter. ”

“ His aide-de-camp alone maintained a different opinion, out of a real friendship for M. de Levis. He told them that there was not the smallest probability it could be all the English army, since the Indians, who never fail to magnify the number, computed them at only two thousand men. That even supposing it to be the whole English army, it would be the most lucky thing that could happen to us to have a general engagement in the woods, where a Canadian is worth three disciplined soldiers, as a soldier in a plain is worth three Canadians ”

“ I imagined that this terrible cannonade all20 that day, without a moment’s intermission, would have intimidated your Canadians and make them quit the trenches; my battery at the Sault being thirty or forty feet higher than your camp, we saw them down at the shore. Certainly you must have lost a great number of men.
Montcalm:​—​That brave militia deserves justly the greatest praise. Not a man of them stirred from his post, and they showed as much ardour, courage and resolution as my regular troops. ”

“ Negligence, ignorance and headstrong obstinacy are equally fatal in military affairs; and the misfortune of a Lieutenant-General, in Scotland, against the Highlanders at the battle of Prestonpans, made so deep an impression upon me that I am always on my guard when near such places. ”

“ I cannot condemn my predecessors who had the command of the English armies in Canada. The way of fighting of the Canadians and Indians in the woods is so different from that practised in Europe, that I readily believe the most able General, with an army of the best disciplined troops, in following exactly the rules of the art of war,​—​whose principles are sure, fixed and demonstrable in European warfare,​—​may28 be easily cut to pieces in those vast forests by a very few Indians. ”

“ These unfortunate heroes​—​who were most of them cut to pieces​—​saved your army the loss of a great many men, by not being hotly pursued; and if your left, who followed these two hundred Canadians down to the plain, had crossed it from the bakehouse to the River St. Charles, only three or four hundred paces, they would have cut off the retreat of our army, invested the three-fourths of them in Quebec, without provisions, and M. de Vaudreuil, next day, must have surrendered the town and asked to capitulate for the colony. ”

“ Fleets are seldom ready to sail at the time appointed; and this often renders fruitless the best concocted enterprise by sea, from the uncertainty of the arrival of the army at its destination. The smallest delay is often dangerous, as it gives the enemy the time to prepare themselves for defence, without hurry or confusion. ”

“ Wolfe:​—​In this blessed abode, inaccessible to prejudice, I vow to you, sir, I envy your condition, notwithstanding the horrible injustice and ingratitude of your countrymen. What can give more pleasure and self-satisfaction than the esteem and approbation of honest men? ”

“ My conduct denounced and censured without measure, is the continual subject of conversation for gossiping fools and knaves, who form the majority in all communities, and prevail against the infinitely small number to be found of honest, judicious, impartial men, capable of reflection. ”

“ Their descriptions and plans of the country would have enlightened you, and furnished the means of destroying and crushing our army without fighting: this is the touchstone to prove superior talents and capacity in a General. The30 gaining of a battle is very often the effect of mere chance. But reducing an enemy without fighting must be the result of well-combined operations,​—​is the essence of military science, and was always the most radient and distinctive trait in the conduct and character of the great men whom history has handed down to us. ”

“ Montcalm:​—​Can there be any divine or human law to punish a man for the faults of others? Should they not answer personally? It has often happened that the safety of a whole army has depended upon a subaltern’s guard!37 You see that the deserters caused you to make a last attempt​—​prevented your embarking your army for England​—​your giving up your enterprise​—​and, in short, ended in adding Canada to the British dominions ”

“ There was an outcry in England against General Braddock, for allowing his army of four thousand men to be cut to pieces at the river Ohio,F in the year 1755, by six hundred and fifty Canadians and Indians only, much more than they blame General Abercrombie.
The reason of it is clear. Abercrombie lived to return to England: the living always find means to justify themselves. But Braddock was killed: the dead are always in the wrong, and never find disinterested advocates to plead their cause. Braddock’s order of march​—​criticised by your French Generals​—​may, at first sight, appear singular ”

“ From Quebec to Beauport, which was about four miles, it is a marshy ground, very little higher than the surface of the St. Lawrence at full tide. The heights begin at the ravine at Beauport, and rise gradually all along the border of the river, until at Johnstone’s redoubt and battery​—​where you made your descent and attack​—​they become a steep high hill, which ends in a deep precipice at the Sault de Montmorency. Opposite to Johnstone’s redoubt it is so steep that your soldiers could scarce be able to climb it, even without the encumbrance of their arms. ”

“ The example of the bravest soldiers in a regiment​—​the Grenadiers and Volunteers​—​suffices to infuse courage in the most timid, who can follow the road shown to them, but cannot lead the way. The brave Canadian Militia saw us with heavy hearts, grief and despair, from the other side of the St. Charles river, cut to pieces upon the heights, stopped, as they were, in the hornwork, and prevented by superior orders from rushing to our assistance. About two hundred brave and resolute Canadians rallied in the hollow48 at the bakehouse, and returned upon the heights. ”

“ Covetousness and avarice carried them to Canada;38 they left their honour and honesty in France on embarking, easily forgetting what it is to be just and patriotic. I would have soon confounded them. Truth supports oppressed innocence, and, sooner or later, dispels the clouds which too often overshadow it. I shall give you a faithful and exact account of my conduct with regard to the operations of the 13th September, following scrupulously truth, which has always been the rule of my actions and is held in great veneration by me ”

“ The moment I perceived the disorder, I ran there, encouraged the soldiers of the regiment, made them return to their post, and supported them by the grenadiers, whom I had kept in order of battle, at a small distance from the trenches, as a reserve, to be employed wherever the line might be forced by your troops, to charge upon them headlong, their bayonets upon their muskets, without firing: having neglected nothing that the short time allowed me to do, in order to make a vigorous defence​—​without aught to reproach myself with​—​had I been overpowered by your army ”

“ If each of them would confine himself to that part of the art of war which he has studied, and have only in his soul the good and welfare of his King and Country, these mixed expeditions of land and sea would succeed much better than they generally do. ”

“ How much inferior to them do the greater portion of mankind appear, with their boasted reason, when reduced to madness and automata, on occasions when they require the more the use of their reason.
The hornwork had the River St. Charles before it, about seventy paces broad, which served it better than an artificial ditch; its front, facing the river and the heights, was composed of strong, thick, and high palisades, planted perpendicularly, with gunholes pierced for several pieces of large cannon in it; the river is deep and only fordable at low water, at a musket shot before the fort. ”