Soldiers were allowed
about a pound of meat a day. This would have been luxury
if the meat had been good, and if they had had anything
else to eat with it. But a pound of bad beef, or of
scraggy horse-flesh, or some times even of flabby salt
cod-fish, with a quarter of a pound of bread, and nothing
else but a little Indian corn, is not a good ration for
an army. The Canadians were worse off still. In the spring
the bread ration was halved again, and became only a
couple of ounces. Two thousand Acadians had escaped from
the British efforts to deport them, and had reached the
St Lawrence region. Their needs increased the misery,
for they could not yet grow as much as they ate, even if
they had had a fair chance.
At last the poor, patient, down-trodden Canadians began
to grumble. One day a crowd of angry women threw their
horse-flesh at Vaudreuil's door. Another day even the
grenadiers refused to eat their rations. Then Montcalm's
second-in-command, Levis, who ate horse-flesh himself,
for the sake of example, told them that Canada was now
like a besieged fortress and that the garrison would have
to put up with hardships. At once the pride of the soldier
came out. Next day they brought him some roast horse,
better cooked and served than his own.
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