“M. de Vaudreuil,” pursues Johnstone, “was closeted in a house in the inside of the hornwork with the Intendant and some other persons.  I suspected they were busy drafting the articles for a general capitulation, and I entered the house, where I had only time to see the Intendant, with a pen in his hand, writing upon a sheet of paper, when M. de Vaudreuil told me I had no business there.  Having answered him that what he had said was true, I retired immediately, in wrath to see them intent on giving up so scandalously a dependency for the preservation of which so much blood and treasure had been expended.”  On going out he met Lieutenant-colonels Dalquier and Poulariez, whom he begged to prevent the apprehended disgrace; and, in fact, if Vaudreuil really meant to capitulate for the colony, he was presently dissuaded by firmer spirits than his own.

Johnstone, whose horse could carry him no farther, set out on foot for Beauport, and, in his own words, “continued sorrowfully jogging on, with a very heavy heart for the loss of my dear friend M. de Montcalm, sinking with weariness, and lost in reflection upon the changes which Providence had brought about in the space of three or four hours.”

Great indeed were these changes.  Montcalm was dying; his second in command, the Brigadier Senezergues, was mortally wounded; the army, routed and demoralized, was virtually without a head; and the colony, yesterday cheered as on the eve of deliverance, was plunged into sudden despair.  “Ah, what a cruel day!” cries Bougainville; “how fatal to all that was dearest to us!  My heart is torn in its most tender parts.  We shall be fortunate if the approach of winter saves the country from total ruin."[787]

[Footnote 787:  Bougainville a Bourlamaque, 18 Sept. 1759.]

The victors were fortifying themselves on the field of battle.  Like the French, they had lost two generals; for Monckton, second in rank, was disabled by a musket-shot, and the command had fallen upon Townshend at the moment when the enemy were in full flight.  He had recalled the pursuers, and formed them again in line of battle, knowing that another foe was at hand.  Bougainville, in fact, appeared at noon from Cap-Rouge with about two thousand men; but withdrew on seeing double that force prepared to receive him.  He had not heard till eight o’clock that the English were on the Plains of Abraham; and the delay of his arrival was no doubt due to his endeavors to collect as many as possible of his detachments posted along the St. Lawrence for many miles towards Jacques-Cartier.

Before midnight the English had made good progress in their redoubts and intrenchments, had brought cannon up the heights to defend them, planted a battery on the Cote Ste.-Genevieve, descended into the meadows of the St. Charles, and taken possession of the General Hospital, with its crowds of sick and wounded.  Their victory had cost them six hundred and sixty-four of all ranks, killed, wounded, and missing.  The French loss is placed by Vaudreuil at about six hundred and forty, and by the English official reports at about fifteen hundred.  Measured by the numbers engaged, the battle of Quebec was but a heavy skirmish; measured by results, it was one of the great battles of the world.