Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France) -- Fiction; United States -- History -- French and Indian War, 1754-1763 -- Fiction
Canadian beheld and with reluctance temporized." After a series of
adventures, and dangers of every kind, the fugitives succeeded in
capturing a French boat. Next, they surprised a French sloop, and,
after a most hazardous voyage, they finally, in their prize, landed
at Louisbourg, to the general amazement. Stobo missed the English
fleet; but took passage two days after in a vessel leaving for
Quebec, where he safely arrived to tender his services to the
immortal Wolfe, who gladly availed himself of them. According to the
Memoirs, Stobo used daily to set out to reconnoitre with Wolfe on
the deck of a frigate, opposite the Falls of Montmorency, some French
shots were nigh carrying away his "decorated" and gartered legs.
We next find the Major, on the 21st July, 1759, piloting the
expedition sent to Deschambault to seize, as prisoners, the Quebec
ladies who had taken refuge there during the bombardment--"Mesdames
Duchesnay and Decharnay; Mlle. Couillard; the Joly, Malhiot and
Magnan families." "Next day, in the afternoon, les belles captives,
who had been treated with every species of respect, were put on
shore and released at Diamond Harbour. The English admiral, full of
gallantry, ordered the bombardment of the city to be suspended, in
order to afford the Quebec ladies time to seek places of safety."
The incident is thus referred to in a letter communicated to the
Literary and Historical Society by Capt. Colin McKenzie.
Stobo next points out the spot, at Sillery, where Wolfe landed,
and soon after was sent with despatches, via the St. Lawrence, to
General Amherst; but, during the trip, the vessel was overhauled and
taken by a French privateer, the despatches having been previously
consigned to the deep. Stobo might have swung at the yard-arm in
this new predicament, had his French valet divulged his identity
with the spy of Fort du Quesne; but fortune again stepped in to
preserve the adventurous Scot. There were already too many prisoners
on board of the French privateer. A day's provision is allowed the
English vessel, which soon landed Stobo at Halifax, from whence
he joined General Amherst, "many a league across the country." He
served under Amherst on his Lake Champlain expedition, and there he
finished the campaign; which ended, he begs to go to Williamsburg,
the then capital of Virginia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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