ONE:Wolfe raised batteries at Point Levi and on the island, and bombarded the town, but he could not draw the wary Montcalm from his strong position. In his front lay the river and some unapproachable sandbanks, behind and around him rocks and dense woods inaccessible. Once only he made a rush across the river, and endeavoured, with a detachment of one thousand six hundred men, to gain the batteries on Point Levi; but his troops soon saw the attempt to be hopeless, and retired. No measures were neglected by Wolfe, on his part, to draw Montcalm from his position. He marched along the banks of the Montmorency opposite to him, and made feints as if he would cross it somewhere above him, but to no purposeMontcalm knew his advantage. Wolfe wrote home, that if Montcalm had but shut himself up in Quebec, he could have taken the town very easily, but he could not readily force him from his admirable position. Growing at length impatient, he determined to attack him where he was, and he dispatched Admiral Holmes up the river with a number of transports, as though he contemplated something in that quarter. He then landed, on the 31st of July, a body of troops near the mouth of the Montmorency, which there falls three hundred feet into the St. Lawrence. He had discovered a ford at some distance up the river, and dispatched Brigadier Townshend to cross there and attack Montcalm in flank, whilst he himself, by means of the ships and their boats, gained the beach and attacked in front. The Centurion man-of-war was placed to engage a battery which swept the place of landing, and then the troops were conveyed in boats, which drew little water, towards the shore. Some of these, however, got entangled amongst rocks, and created a delay in getting them off. By this time the French were hurrying down towards the landing-place with their artillery, and began to fire murderously from the banks above upon them. Wolfe, seeing that Townshend would cross the ford before they were ready to co-operate, sent an officer to recall him. At this time, the Grenadiers having reached the beach, rushed forward upon the entrenchments before the rest of the troops could be got out of the boats to support them. They were met by such a destructive fire that they were compelled to fall back with much slaughter. By this time night was setting in, attended by a storm, the roaring of which, mingling with the roar of the mighty St. Lawrence as the tide fell, seemed to warn them to recover their camp. The word was given to re-cross the river, and they made good their retreat without the French attempting to pursue them, though the Indians lurked in the rear to scalp such of the dead and such of the wounded as could not be brought off.The Whigs were as active to bring over the Electoral Prince of Hanover as they were to drive the Pretender farther off. With the Prince in England, a great party would be gathered about him; and all those who did not pay court to him and promote the interests of his House would be marked men in the next reign. Nothing could be more hateful than such a movement to both the queen and her ministers. Anne had a perfect horror of the House of Hanover; and of the Ministers, Bolingbroke, at least, was staking his whole future on paving the way of the Pretender to the throne. When the Whigs, therefore, instigated Baron Schutz, the Hanoverian envoy, to apply to the Lord Chancellor Harcourt for a writ of summons for the Electoral Prince, who had been created a British peer by the title of the Duke of Cambridge, Harcourt was thrown into the utmost embarrassment. He pleaded that he must first consult the queen, who, on her part, was seized with similar consternation. The Court was equally afraid of granting the writ and of refusing it. If it granted it, the prince would soon be in England, and the queen would see her courtiers running to salute the rising sun; the Jacobites, with Bolingbroke at their head, would commit suicide on their own plans now in active agitation for bringing in the Pretender. If they refused it, it would rouse the whole Whig party, and the cry that the Protestant succession was betrayed would spread like lightning through the nation. Schutz was counselled by the leading WhigsDevonshire, Somerset, Nottingham, Somers, Argyll, Cowper, Halifax, Wharton, and Townshendto press the Lord Chancellor for the writ. He did so, and was answered that the writ was ready sealed, and was lying for him whenever he chose to call for it; but at the same time he was informed that her Majesty was greatly incensed at the manner in which the writ had been asked for; that she conceived that it should have first been mentioned to her, and that she would have given the necessary orders. But every one knew that it was not the manner, but the fact of desiring the delivery of the writ which was the offence.
Eiusmod tempor incididunt lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut.
