The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolfe
William Wood
AUTHOR'S NOTE
CHAPTER I. THE BOY 1727-1741
CHAPTER II. THE YOUNG SOLDIER 1741-1748
CHAPTER III. THE SEVEN YEARS' PEACE
1748-1755
CHAPTER IV. THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 1756-1763
CHAPTER V. LOUISBOURG 1758
CHAPTER VI. QUEBEC 1759
CHAPTER VII. THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM
September 13, 1759
CHAPTER VIII. EPILOGUE - THE LAST STAND
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Any life of Wolfe can be artificially simplified by treating his purely military work as something
complete in itself and not as a part of a greater whole. But, since such treatment gives a totally false idea
of his achievement, this little sketch, drawn straight from original sources, tries to show him as he really
was, a co-worker with the British fleet in a war based entirely on naval strategy and inseparably
connected with international affairs of world-wide significance. The only simplification attempted here is
that of arrangement and expression.
W.W.
Quebec, April 1914.
CHAPTER I. THE BOY 1727-1741
Wolfe was a soldier born. Many of his ancestors had stood ready to fight for king and country at a
moment's notice. His father fought under the great Duke of Marlborough in the war against France at the
beginning of the eighteenth century. His grandfather, his great-grandfather, his only uncle, and his only
brother were soldiers too. Nor has the martial spirit deserted the descendants of the Wolfes in the
generation now alive. They are soldiers still. The present head of the family, who represented it at the
celebration of the tercentenary of the founding of Quebec, fought in Egypt for Queen Victoria; and the
member of it who represented Wolfe on that occasion, in the pageant of the Quebec campaign, is an
officer in the Canadian army under George V.
The Wolfes are of an old and honourable line. Many hundreds of years ago their forefathers lived in
England and later on in Wales. Later still, in the fifteenth century, before America was discovered, they
were living in Ireland. Wolfe's father, however, was born in England; and, as there is no evidence that
any of his ancestors in Ireland had married other than English Protestants, and as Wolfe's mother was
also English, we may say that the victor of Quebec was a pure-bred Englishman. Among his Anglo-Irish
kinsmen were the Goldsmiths and the Seymours. Oliver Goldsmith himself was always very proud of
being a cousin of the man who took Quebec.
Wolfe's mother, to whom he owed a great deal of his genius; was a descendant of two good families in
Yorkshire. She was eighteen years younger than his father, and was very tall and handsome. Wolfe
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