A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs: The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861Wrong, George McKinnon
History
A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs: The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861
Wrong, George McKinnon
La Malbaie (Québec); Nairne family; Nairne, John, -1802
On Friday, July 13th, the scene changed. Wolfe was planning an attack on
Montcalm's camp and Fraser writes: "I was sent orderly officer to the
Camp, at Montmorency, where I had an opportunity of seeing our own, and
the French posts nigh the Fall. The river is fordable below the Fall at
low water." On July 24th, 350 of the Highlanders under Col. Simon Fraser
were sent down the river to bring in prisoners and cattle. The Highland
leader met with misfortune. On July 26th Fraser writes: "Lieut.
Alexander Fraser, Junior, returned to camp from the detachment which
marched with the Col. on the 24th. He brings news of the Colonel's
having been wounded in the thigh, by an unlucky shot from a small party
of Canadians who lay in ambush and fired on the detachment out of a
bush, and then retired. In the evening, the Col. came to camp with Capt.
McPherson, who was wounded by the same shot, and the ball lodged in his
thigh; but it is thought neither of their wounds are (_sic_) dangerous.
There was not another man of the detachment touched." Next day the rest
of the detachment "returned with three women and one man prisoners, and
above two hundred head of cattle."
On the following night July 28th, the French tried to destroy the
British fleet by a fire ship. "This night the French sent down a large
fire raft which they did not set fire to till they were fired on by some
of the boats who are every night on the watch for them above the
shipping. Our boats immediately grappled it, and tho' it burnt with
great violence, they towed it past all the shipping without any damage."
We know from other sources that one of the sailors engaged in dragging
away the fireship likened it to having "hell-fire in tow."
Fraser records on Tuesday, July 31st, the disastrous attempt by the
British to carry by a frontal attack Montcalm's entrenchments along the
Beauport shore. The attack failed partly through the rashness of the
Grenadiers who dashed forward prematurely. For this Wolfe rebuked them
but he commended the cool steadiness of the Highlanders. Some 700
British casualties were the results of the attack. When the British drew
off they left many of their men fallen on the shore. Fraser says: "I
observed some men coming down from the trenches where some of our people
lay killed; we imagined they were Indians who were sent to scalp them,
after the whole had retreated."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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