The grand totals, all over the
seat of war, were 44,000 British against 22,000 French.
Having done all he could for Niagara, Ontario, and Lake
Champlain, Montcalm hurried down to Quebec on May 22.
Vaudreuil followed on the 23rd. On the same day the
advance guard of the British fleet arrived at Bic on the
lower St Lawrence. From that time forward New France was
sealed up as completely as if it had shrunk to a single
fort. Nothing came in and nothing went out. The strangling
coils of British sea-power were all round it. But still
Montcalm stood defiantly at bay. 'You must maintain your
foothold to the very last.'--'I shall do it or die.'
His plan was to keep the British at arm's length as long
as possible. The passage known as the 'Traverse' from
the north channel to the south, at the lower end of the
Island of Orleans, was a good place to begin. Strong
batteries there might perhaps sink enough of the fleet
to block the way for the rest. These Montcalm was eager
to build, but Vaudreuil was not. Had not Vaudreuil's
Canadian pilots prophesied that no British fleet could
possibly ascend the river in safety, even without any
batteries to hinder it? And was not Vaudreuil so sure of
this himself that he had never had the Traverse properly
sounded at all? He would allow no more than a couple of
useless batteries, which the first British men-of-war
soon put to silence.
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