A most painful one for a General-in-Chief, and
which causes me many distressing moments.
"Hitherto, I have been enabled to act successfully on the defensive;
but will a continuance in that course prove ultimately successful?
that is the question which events must decide! Of this, however, you
may rest assured, that I shall probably not survive the loss of the
colony. There are circumstances which leave to a General no choice but
that of dying with honour; such may soon be my fate; and I trust that
in this respect posterity will have no cause to reproach my memory."
[209]
MONTCALM, conspicuous in front of the left wing of his line, and
WOLFE, at the head of the 28th Regiment, and the Louisbourg
Grenadiers, towards the right of the British line, must have been
nearly opposite to each other at the commencement of the battle, which
was most severe in that part of the field; and, by a singular
coincidence each of these heroic leaders had been twice wounded during
the brief conflict before he received his last and fatal wound.
But the valiant Frenchman, regardless of pain, relaxed not his efforts
to rally his broken battalions in their hurried retreat towards the
city, until he was shot through the loins, when within a few yards of
the St. Louis Gate.
