J SAUNDERS BEFORE QUEBEC AMES WOLFE, the man whom Pitt had selected Wolfe to solve the Quebec problem, was the son of an officer who had fought under Marlborough and who died a lieutenant-general in the English army. His mother was a pious gentle lady to whose training the son owed much of his unaffected reverence for religion and the restless sense of duty that made him such a contrast to most of the soldiers of his day. He was born in the quiet village of Westerham in the county of Kent on the second of January, 1727. At Home of General Wolfe Swinden's in Greenwich, he was a fellow student with "Jack" Jervis, the future admiral and Lord Saint Vincent. In his school-days he showed no remarkable precocity, but appears to have been an ordinary lad, of feeble constitution, impetuous and somewhat headstrong, with great fondness for his parents and a taste for his father's profession. Officer In 1740, his father was appointed adjutant-general of A Young the unsuccessful expedition against Cartagena and it was intended that James, then thirteen years of age, should 174 accompany him, but an opportune illness prevented. In 1 7 5 1 the following year, James was made a second lieutenant in his father's regiment of marines. At sixteen, he acted as adjutant to a battalion at Dettingen and with his commanding officer went along the lines trying to make the men reserve their fire until the French were within easy range, an interesting parallel to a subsequent action. He assisted in putting down the Jacobite uprising in Scotland and was present at Culloden where the Stuart cause received its crushing blow. In 1747, he returned to the continent, served as brigade-major in the bloody and protracted battle of Lauffeldt, was wounded, and is said to have been publicly thanked by the duke of Cumberland for his brilliant and valorous conduct. Unrequited A Significant Soon after the return of peace, he was commissioned major of the Twentieth Foot, now known as the Lancashire Fusileers, and was stationed in Scotland. There he studied hard but found his stay very irksome, partly on account of the character of the people and country but largely, no doubt, because he was in love with a Miss Lawson, a maid of honor to the princess of Wales. His suit was opposed by his parents who had selected an heiress for him, nor does it appear to have been favored by the lady herself. In April, 1750, he was promoted lieutenant-colonel, but he failed to obtain leave of absence to study the military systems of the continent. Disappointed both in this matter and in his affair of the heart, he threw himself, for the first and last time, into the whirlpool of frivolity and debauchery that was then the custom of men of fashion. Disgusted and repentant, he returned in the spring of 1751 to Scotland and thence, at midnight of his twentyfifth birthday, wrote to his mother a letter so characteristic of the man and illustrative of the reflective and serious side of his character that it deserves to be quoted in part: "This day I am twenty-five years of age, and all that time is as nothing. When I am fifty (if so it happens) and look back, it will be the same; and so on to the last hour. But it is worth a moment's consideration that one may be called away on a sudden, unguarded and 1 7 5 I unprepared, and the oftener these things are entertained the less will be the dread or fear of death. judge by this You will sort of dis- can contribute to the success of His Majesty's Arms course that it in is the dead of night, when most humble Servant. Jam- Woff Part of Wolfe's Letter to Pitt, all is quiet and rest, and one I 75 I Son. Better be a savage of some use than a gentle I 7 5 8 amorous puppy, obnoxious to all the world. One of the wildest of wild clans is a worthier being than a perfect Philander." Promotion By the outbreak of the war with France, Wolfe was and Betrothal regarded as one of the best officers of his rank in the service. When the expedition was sent against Rochefort, he was quartermaster-general and fourth in rank. The expedition proved a failure because of the irresolution of the three higher officers. But in the council of war Wolfe urged the adoption of a plan that would probably have brought success and, this fact becoming known, he was brevetted colonel and gained the favor of Pitt. As a result, Pitt appointed him junior brigadier under Amherst for the expedition against Louisburg where his decision. and energy made him the hero of the siege. He returned Commander Expedition Miss Lowther to England in the same ship that carried the unfortunate Abercromby, landed on the first of November, and, after a trip to London to visit his parents, went to Bath to recruit his shattered health. There he wooed and became betrothed to Miss Katherine Lowther, daughter of a former governor of Barbados and sister of the future Lord Lonsdale. From her he received a miniature that he wore around his neck until the night before his death. About this time, he wrote: "I have this day signified of the Quebec to Mr. Pitt that he may dispose of my slight carcass as he pleases, and that I am ready for any undertaking within compass of my skill and cunning. I am in a very bad the condition both with gravel and rheumatism; but I had 1 7 5 8 much rather die than decline any kind of service that 1 759 offers. If I followed my own taste, it would lead me into Germany. However, it is not our part to choose November but to obey. My opinion is that I shall join the army 22, 1758 in America." His surmise was correct. Pitt selected him to command the Quebec expedition with the rank in America of major-general. The part assigned to him was greater, he modestly wrote, "than I wished or desired. The backwardness of some of the older officers has in some measure forced the Government to come down so low. I shall do my best and leave the rest to fortune, as perforce we must when there are not the most commanding abilities. A London life and little exercise disagrees with me entirely, but the sea still more. If I have health and constitution enough for the campaign, I shall think myself a lucky man; what happens afterwards is of no great consequence." As usual in such cases, the appointment aroused much ire and indignation among incapables of higher rank, some of whom asserted that Wolfe was "mad." The duke of Newcastle carried the saying to the king. The king's reply was: "Mad, is he? Then I hope he will bite some of my other generals." Abraham Lincoln may have heard the story. In personal appearance, Wolfe did not measure up to Personal the common ideal of a military hero. With receding Appearance chin and forehead, upturned nose, a mouth "by no means shaped to express resolution," and red hair tied in a queue behind, his profile was not likely to impress a stranger with a feeling that he was in the presence of his own superior and his most familiar pictures are in profile. On his head he wore a black, three-cornered hat; his scarlet frock with broad cuffs and ample skirts that reached the knee hung upon shoulders that were narrow and added little to the bulk of a body that was slender and of limbs that were long and thin. The band of crape that he wore upon his arm was in token of mourning for his father who had recently died. In fact, Wolfe was physically feeble and often irritable, but through his |