Death or Victory: The Battle for Quebec and the Birth of Empire

(#litres_trial_promo)

For those who were worried about the British braving the cannon fire and pushing through the narrows to probe above the town, the Plan gave contained reassurance. The combination of the town’s batteries and the French frigates above the town was being counted on to hold back the British: ‘there is no reason to believe that the enemy is thinking of attempting to pass in front of the town and landing at L’Anse des Mères, and so long as the frigates are active, we have at least nothing to fear on that side’.

(#litres_trial_promo)

In this febrile fortnight Montcalm made several decisions that would have a momentous impact on the defence of Quebec and Canada. While he strengthened the fortifications he also planned for defeat. Canada clung to the banks of the St Lawrence. At many places the colony merely stretched inland the length of one farm. Nearly every settlement had river frontage and all the major towns were sited along the river. A gap of 110 miles separated Quebec from the next principal town, Trois Rivières, and Montreal was almost exactly the same distance further upriver. As a result the contingency for defeat was obvious: to withdraw along the St Lawrence. A journal recorded that ‘it was doubtful what might be the issue of a battle; after the English had made good a landing, it was determined to construct ovens, all the way up from Quebec to Trois Rivières; and to establish storehouses, and small magazines in different places, for securing a retreat’. Troops were also ‘ordered to retain the smallest quantity of baggage possible and to send the rest away into the interior’. Despite Montcalm’s insistence that Canada was lost if Quebec fell, he was clearly preparing for continued resistance should Wolfe capture the town, in accordance with the instructions from the French court to keep hold of a scrap of territory no matter how small. One decision in particular was to have a major impact on the campaign. He decided that ships carrying much of the essential supplies for the colony would be moved just over fifty miles upriver from Quebec to Batiscan. This was above the Richelieu rapids, which only very shallow-draught ships could negotiate and only at certain times. Here the ships and stores would be safe from Saunders. It also meant that if Quebec fell, the colony’s entire supply of food and powder would not fall with it and there was hope for further resistance. Montcalm’s army would be supplied by a regular flow of food and stores that would come in small boats down the St Lawrence from Batiscan to Quebec. It was a long supply line and therefore vulnerable. The danger was that in planning for the aftermath of the fall of Quebec he risked weakening his position and thus hastening that eventuality. His plan for the defence of Quebec now relied on the assumption that he could stop the British from passing the narrows and operating above the town, where they would be able to intercept his supplies.

(#litres_trial_promo)

Having waited in vain for the mighty river to swallow up the British fleet, the French resorted to that other traditional instrument of salvation, the raid and ambush. On 30 May, as so often before in the bloody history of Canada, a party of between two hundred and fifty and three hundred Canadians and Native Americans ‘was sent…to the coast of the Ile aux Coudres to skirmish with the English who had landed there, and to lay in ambush for them under cover of the woods, with which the island was almost wholly overgrown’. A French army officer, with a scorn of their Native allies typical of his class, said that on seeing the British the Native Americans refused to continue ‘and the expedition had to be abandoned’. But it seems that a small group of Canadians insisted on pressing on and lay in wait on the island. Three young British naval officers blundered into the trap and triggered the first contact of the 1759 campaign. It was a quick and easy Canadian success. The war party ‘killed the horses which they rode, without hurting the riders who they brought away’. The three men were midshipmen, the most junior naval officers, and they had been ‘placed as sentinels to make signals when they described any vessels to the southward’. They were brought back to Quebec. Another journal recorded that they were as young as 14. No less than three sources agree that, remarkably, one of the teenagers was a relative of Rear Admiral Durell, probably a grandson. According to Panet they ‘were treated honourably’ during their time in Quebec where they spoke freely about the British fleet, somewhat exaggerating its size, and of the British expectation that Quebec would fall without too much resistance. Indeed, Panet thought they sounded like ‘they considered this operation already accomplished’. After just over a week they were sent further inland to Trois Rivières, to keep them out of mischief but not before they had ‘praised the skill of the Canadians for having killed their horses without having harmed them’.

Despite the unorthodox methods of the Canadians and Native Americans they proved on this first foray that they had huge potential as irregular troops, in this instance gaining the first real intelligence about the British fleet. Our scornful French officer refused to be impressed. In his journal he pointed out that the midshipmen told their captors that another 600 men were unarmed and milling about on the beach. He regretted this missed opportunity, writing that they could all have been ‘destroyed’ by the ‘smallest detachment’.

(#litres_trial_promo)

Even so, it was no doubt a morale-boosting success. By the beginning of June a cautious optimism had replaced the panic occasioned by the fiery beacons. A journal recounted that ‘by the end of the month [May] the palisades were fixed, the batteries completed, and Quebec secured against a coup de main’.

(#litres_trial_promo) The number of men present for the defence of the city was far greater than people had dared hope for. The walls of the city and the north bank of the St Lawrence bristled with cannon. Supplies of food and powder were sufficient, if not plentiful. In fact, there was an odd feeling of anticlimax. The whole population had believed that the British would land within days of their appearance at Bic. They had thrown themselves into the task of protecting the city but as June plodded on there was no sign of the British and ‘the delay…gave leisure for that ardour to cool’. After all, the Canadians were ‘by nature impatient’.

(#litres_trial_promo)

Their desire to meet the enemy stemmed from a conviction that they would beat any British force. Importantly, people believed that Quebec would hold out. The history of Canada, from Cartier’s first pathetic attempts to survive the winter, was one of struggle against the climate, the Native Americans, and invasions by land and sea. Time and again grave threats to the colony had been overcome. Quebecers believed that their town was impregnable and had been protected by the Virgin Mary herself against pagans and heretics for hundreds of years.

One myth fast being demolished, however, was that of the impassable St Lawrence. While Montcalm’s men dug, built, and sweated under the increasingly warm early summer sun it seemed to them that the north-east wind blew with depressing regularity. This is not entirely corroborated by the more objective logs of the British ships but the British were certainly blessed with fairly benign conditions. The news that the British ships had arrived at the Île aux Coudres ‘renewed the consternation, for no doubt was now entertained, that the whole English fleet was closely following’. It was particularly embarrassing for the French sailors: ‘our seamen, who had always represented the navigation of the river to be extremely difficult (which indeed the very frequent accidents that befell our ships, gave every reason to believe was true) had cause to blush at seeing the English ships accomplish it, without incurring any loss or danger’.

(#litres_trial_promo) Voices in the colony had for some time demanded manmade defences for suitable points on the river. Despite everyone blaming each other it seems the main reason for these not being put into action was simply the vast cost and considerable logistical effort in building forts and batteries on inaccessible headlands and islands. The French were not totally downcast, however. They knew that the toughest stretch of navigation in the whole river still lay ahead of the British. Although the river was still around fourteen miles wide at the Île aux Coudres, the navigable channel was narrow and ran tight along the north shore, between Coudres and the awesome Cap Tourmente, thirty miles away, with its steep, heavily wooded sides. From here the passage crossed diagonally to the south between rocks, sand spits, and reefs. The ebb tide tears through the passage at up to six knots, even with a light contrary wind it will kick up such steep waves that small boats can be swamped and lost. It was uncharted, had never been passed by a large ship and the French had removed all the navigation marks. It was the final and most formidable navigational hurdle before the fleet reached Quebec. It was known simply as ‘the Traverse’.

THREE (#ulink_9d12fce9-d3a1-5236-99b8-d01327f7f44c)

Mastering the St Lawrence

FOR DAYS THE SMALL BOATS bobbed around on anchor or crept forward under oar and sail whenever wind and tide permitted. During the halts the sailors leant on their blades, readying themselves for the next burst of activity. In the stern the master took frequent soundings, noted down the results, and used compass and landmarks to fix their position. The current ebbed and flowed under them at a giddy speed of up to six knots. Only men who had crept cautiously around Alderney in the Channel Islands or knew the Bristol Channel would have seen anything like it before. Frequent squalls soaked the crews and the red-coated soldiers and marines tried to wrap the breeches of their muskets in rags to keep their powder dry. Every day they edged slightly further along the channel close to the north shore, but when they ventured too close puffs of smoke would billow out from the treeline accompanied by the sharp crack of a musket. Each attack would provoke a pointless game of cat and mouse as guard boats carrying infantrymen pulled hard at their oars, heading for the shore. But by the time they arrived the shadowy Canadian marksmen had melted further into the thick forest where the redcoats feared to follow.

One man who spent more time in the sounding boats than any other was the master of the Pembroke, James Cook. The man who was to become the first European to explore the east coast of Australia, Hawaii and great swathes of the Pacific was 30 years old and a newcomer to the navy. He had grown up in a family of landlubbers, twenty miles from the North Sea in Yorkshire. His father had worked his way up to farm manager and the farmer paid for young James to go to school. After a brief stint as a shopkeeper’s boy, he went to sea at age 18. He served Mr Walker, a Quaker from Whitby, who made his money delivering coal from north-east England down to London where a nascent industrial revolution was firing a demand for coal that employed 400 ships a year making the dangerous journey from the Tyne to the Thames. Treacherous enough with GPS, charts, weather forecasts, navigation marks, and engines, the east coast of England was a harsh nursery of seamanship. If Cook could learn how to avoid the East and West Barrow in the Thames Estuary, the sandbanks off Ipswich, the North Sea fogs and the violent squalls he could face any waters in the world. It was a ruthless meritocracy which ensured only the competent survived. Cook became a talented seaman. Walker offered him command of a ship in his late twenties but Cook made a surprising decision. Perhaps driven by a thirst for adventure he elected to join the Royal Navy as a lowly able seaman. War had just broken out with France and Cook would have his fill of action. Within a month his skills were recognized and he was promoted to Master’s Mate. He faced the enemy for the first time in May 1757 on board the Eagle; she captured a valuable French merchantman but only after a stiff fight in which she was shot to pieces. Skill was prized above birth in the navy, for the same reason as it was on the colliers, and promotion beckoned if he could pass his exams. Cook sat and passed for the position of Master in late 1757. The next year he was in North American waters, Master of the sixty-four-gun ship Pembroke. The job has no modern equivalent and was already dying out in Cook’s time. Traditionally the King’s government had hired ships to fight in times of war. The Master came with the ship to sail it. The officers were gentlemen put on board to fight it. The post had survived into the age of full-time naval ships and it still had responsibility for navigation, pilotage, log keeping, and other technical aspects of being at sea. Masters did not wear uniforms but their high degree of technical know-how made them one of the most important men on the ship even if they lacked the lace of an officer.

The Pembroke had supported the operations off Louisbourg during the siege in the summer of 1758. During a trip ashore Cook had a chance meeting with Samuel ‘Holland’ that was to change his life. Holland was a Dutch engineer and excellent draughtsman. He had been sent to map parts of the coastline. With his skipper’s permission Cook set about learning the art of mapmaking. He produced his first chart in the autumn of 1758 and during the winter of 175

/

together with Holland he tried to build a picture of the St Lawrence from existing, fragmentary French charts found at Louisbourg and the results of their own soundings on an autumnal cruise along the north shore of modern New Brunswick and into the Gulf of St Lawrence itself. Holland wrote years later, ‘during our stay in Halifax, whenever I could get a moment of time from my duty, I was on board the Pembroke where the great cabin, dedicated to scientific purposes and mostly taken up with a drawing table, furnished no room for idlers’. Together they produced a chart and Holland claimed that ‘these charts were of much use, as some copies came out prior to our sailing from Halifax for Quebec in 1759’.

(#litres_trial_promo)

After arriving off Bic, Durell had ordered Captain William Gordon of the Devonshire to take with him the Pembroke, Centurion, Squirrel, and three transport ships and press on up the St Lawrence. Cook has traditionally been given all of the plaudits for the pilotage, but although his role was to grow as the summer went on, at this point he was just one of the several masters who all share the credit for providing information about where the channel lay. Men like Hammond, Master of Durell’s flagship, the Princess Amelia, spent long days in the open boats with sounding equipment. This was essentially a long line with a twelve-pound lead weight on the end. Along the line were coloured markers at intervals of one fathom (six feet), allowing the men to gauge the depth. The bottom of the lead was hollowed out and filled with rendered beef or mutton fat, tallow, which collected a sample of the riverbed. Slowly they developed an accurate idea of the depth of water and whether the bottom was rock, sand or shale.

(#litres_trial_promo)

This advance guard moved up the St Lawrence, feeling their way and praying their anchors would hold through the ebb tide and frequent squalls. The routine of shipboard life continued. The logs went on recording the state of the stores and the frequent occasions on which the ships ‘exercised great guns and small arms’.

(#litres_trial_promo) By the afternoon of 8 June 1759 the mighty Cap Tourmente loomed on their starboard bows and they were at the start of the Traverse, the most treacherous part of the St Lawrence. On the ninth the Devonshire signalled ‘for all boats manned and armed in order to go and sound the channel of the Traverse’. Cook and the other masters, with their mates, plus sailors to row them and soldiers to protect them, spent their time feeling out the bottom of the river with their lead lines. On the tenth Cook in his tiny, neat hand wrote in the Pembroke’s log, ‘all the boats went a sounding as before’.

(#litres_trial_promo)

To the astonishment of the officers the legendary Traverse was found to be wider than expected. By 11 June it seems that Cook ‘returned satisfied with being acquainted with the Channel’.

(#litres_trial_promo) On 13 June the Centurion weighed anchor at 1700 hours and three hours later dropped it on the eastern tip of the Île d’Orléans on the far side of the Traverse, becoming in the process the largest ship to have ever passed through it. The final, supposedly impassable barrier to Quebec had been penetrated in less than a week. Buoys were laid and, together with the anchored boats, were used to guide the following ships and the process of getting the rest of the fleet through could now commence.

As the first British ships anchored off the Île d’Orléans some French officers had begged to be allowed to try to take the fight to the invaders. Groups of Canadian and Native American troops were sent out to lie in ambush for British landing parties and met with mixed success. A request was made by François-Marc-Antoine le Mercier, the commander of the artillery around the city, to place cannon on the island. The confused chain of command meant that he was dispatched by Vaudreuil without Montcalm’s knowledge.

He took four cannon with him to the Île d’Orléans. It was a small battery but he would have stood a chance of doing real damage to the British ships if he had been able to fire red-hot shot. This was a complicated business. To make the shot red hot the iron cannonballs were heated in a portable forge. A charge of gunpowder was placed in the mouth or muzzle of the cannon and then rammed all the way down the barrel to the breech at the end. Then a ‘wad’ was put in, made of wood to separate the powder from the red-hot shot which was placed in next after some wet rags to protect the wood and prevent the heat of the shot immediately igniting the powder. Last, the shot was picked out of the forge with a ‘scoop’ and placed in the muzzle, where it rolled down and came to rest on the wadding. The powder charge was pricked by prodding it through a touch-hole on top of the barrel with a sharp priming iron, more powder was tipped into the touch-hole and then a linstock or portfire, essentially some lit match, was applied to the powder in and around the touch-hole, which burst into flame and in turn ignited the main charge which blasted the shot out of the muzzle of the cannon. The shot could do fatal damage to a wooden ship. As well as the physical destruction of the iron projectile passing through the ship, the heat of the iron shot meant that if it lodged in the hull it would almost definitely start a fire on board. Fire was a dreadful prospect on the wooden ships packed with flammable materials. Many eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century fleet actions were illuminated by an inferno as one or two unlucky ships caught fire and burnt down to the waterline.

Saunders’ ships would not face this threat at least. In a bitterly critical tone, one of the leading French journals recounted that ‘in the whole corps of artillery belonging to the colony, not one man could be found who was capable of showing the way in which the balls were to be made red hot’. The diarist concluded that the situation was ‘almost too ludicrous to mention’.

(#litres_trial_promo) Even so the cannon represented a threat to the ships especially since any damage to the hull or rigging was especially serious when the ship was thousands of miles deep in enemy territory. Le Mercier made his way across to the island arriving on 16 June just in time to witness Captain Gordon of the Devonshire dispatching the boats from his vanguard to ‘cut out’ or capture a French ship that lay in the channel to the north of the Île d’Orléans. Crowded with marines and sailors, the boats rowed towards their prey. Suddenly there was a volley of fierce ‘musketry from the shore’ and twenty-five canoes emerged from the cover of the island. Native Americans paddled furiously, propelling the canoes at a surprising speed. The young Master and Commander of the Porcupine sloop, John Jervis, a promising young officer destined for great things, attempted to bring his vessel into the shallower water and use his fourteen guns to send the Native American attack packing. A sudden dearth of wind left him dead in the water. The sails hung limply and the crew watched impotently as the British open boats clumsily turned around and fled. One boat was unable to escape. The cutter of the frigate Squirrel was designed for sailing with two stowable masts. Its small crew would not have been able to row the boat as fast as some of the others, having just one man on each oar, whereas a ‘pinnace’, for example, had two men straining on the same blade. With hundreds of sailors and troops watching the cutter was overhauled and captured. The crew of eight were taken prisoner and provided the French with valuable intelligence.

The next morning Le Mercier opened fire on the ships. Centurion’s log records that she ‘received several shot’ from the French, which ‘cut away a bobstay and the clue of our maintopsail’. Both she and the Pembroke kept up a heavy fire on the battery all night but at 0700 hours on 18 June according to Cook’s log, ‘we and the Centurion shifted our berths further off; afterwards the firing ceased’. This first large skirmish in which Native Americans in canoes had complemented the artillery barrage under Le Mercier had resulted in a sharp French victory. It was a potent lesson in the limitations of sailing ships when operating close to enemy shores in variable winds. Although the French lacked the seagoing firepower of the British fleet, if they could utilize their advantage in fast moving, small, oar and paddle powered boats and their large arsenal of artillery they could mount a serious challenge to the control of the water on which any British plan depended.

(#litres_trial_promo)

As the first real blows were being exchanged, the rest of the fleet, further downstream, was following slowly. The weather was getting ‘hot and sultry’. In light airs, the gun decks would have been getting uncomfortable to sleep on. On the night of the 22/23 June the tide had ebbed at a stunning 6.5 knots and Montresor’s ship, like several others, had dragged its anchor. Luckily the wind was blowing from the east and they could stem their drift. Both Montresor and Knox commented on the great increase in the number of habitations on the banks as the fleet edged past the Île aux Coudres. Knox wrote that there were ‘settlements now on each side of us’. The landscape grew ever more dramatic. Knox commented that ‘the land [is] uncommonly high above the level of the river’. Another British officer reported, ‘towering among the clouds, the most noble and awful ridges of mountains that I ever saw: they give one a highly finished image of the grandeur and rude magnificence of nature’. The woods were thick, green blankets of trees ‘of every genus’ and the steep valleys that cut through the mountainous rampart often had ‘surprising cascades’ running down their centre. He also noticed more and more evidence of human settlement: ‘The inhabitants have cleared and levelled some few spots around their dwellings, which form a delightful terrace.’ The officers had plenty of time to observe the shores because the ships were advancing up the river at a crawl, but Knox reports that ‘the reason for our not working up with more despatch does not proceed from any obstructions in the navigation, but in the necessity there is of sounding as we advance; for which purpose, a number of boats are out ahead’. Saunders was taking no chances. Despite the route finding of Durell’s ships and the presence of French pilots, each division was still feeling its way.

(#litres_trial_promo) Behind Knox’s transport, the 15th Regiment of Foot had taken to their ship’s boats to attempt to suppress musketry coming from the banks but a greater threat than the nuisance of the Canadian militia on the banks were still the other ships. A combination of fast currents and light breezes, especially if combined with poor seamanship, was deadly. Knox was involved in two collisions in as many days. Neither, he reported thankfully, with fatal consequences.

Montresor heard that Wolfe, their thrusting young commander, had pushed ahead in the Richmond frigate to join the vanguard of the fleet. Wolfe had been bridling for some time and had eventually lost his patience. His frustration can only be guessed at, but anyone who has sat at anchor all day with limp sails drying in the sun, buffeted by a contrary current, can probably empathize. Wolfe returned again to his theme of leaving the larger ships behind. On 19 June he confided in his journal that Saunders was ‘running all the great Ships of War in amongst the Divisions of the Transports threatening some danger & a good deal of Disorder, as the Wind blew fresh’. It was the arrival of the news of ‘some cannonading from that Island [d’Orléans] on the shipping’ that determined him to get up the river and put himself at the very front of the expedition. On 22 June his journal says that he sent his aide-de-camp with a ‘memorandum to Mr Durell and inform him that I proposed to go on the next morning if possible’. He also ‘enquired what troops Mr Durell had detained and desired they might be forwarded’.Wolfe wanted every man and ship up to the Île d’Orléans as soon as possible.

(#litres_trial_promo)

The next day he boarded the Princess Amelia to demand in person that Durell push more ships up the river. Durell acquiesced, sending the two warships ahead and instructing the Captain of the Richmond to ‘proceed with General Wolfe up the Traverse, and land him when he shall think proper’.

(#litres_trial_promo) There is more than a hint here of frustration with an army officer who clearly did not understand the complexities of the passage. On 25 June Wolfe was again disagreeing with the naval officers over how many ships should be pushed ahead. His journal says that the suggestions of Captain Mantell of the Centurion ‘nearly drove me into expressing my mind with some Freedom’. Only the ‘good sense and management’ of Wolfe’s good friend, the expedition’s Quartermaster General, Colonel Guy Carleton ‘averted this’.

(#litres_trial_promo) The growing tension was not helped by soaring temperatures. Knox’s journal says again that it was getting ‘inconceivably hot’ and mosquitoes were ‘very troublesome to us’. Such is the remarkable transition from winter to summer in that part of the world. A journey that had begun with sailors risking frostbite now threatened them with sunstroke.

Wolfe demanded that the transports with the troops on board be prioritized. It was midsummer and not a British boot had touched the soil around Quebec. Saunders attempted to mollify his frustrated army counterpart. He ordered the larger warships carrying seventy to ninety guns and drawing more than twenty feet to stay behind and attempt the Traverse in their own time. He ‘switched his flag’ or moved ship from the Neptune to the smaller Hind, which proudly recorded in her log that she ‘made new pole topgallant masts to accommodate Admiral Saunders for hoisting his flag’. Sadly for the Hind the next day he switched again, this time to the Stirling Castle, a sixty-four-gun ship which was small enough to push quickly through the Traverse. By the afternoon of the twenty-seventh the Stirling Castle was through with three warships and ‘several transports’. The log reports that Saunders had left the ship in his cutter, so it is possible that as parts of the fleet passed the Traverse, Saunders was personally racing to and fro, shouting instructions to his captains on how to get the ships through.

(#litres_trial_promo)

The Goodwill attempted the Traverse on 25 June. On board Knox and the others were left in no doubt as to the danger of the operation. They watched as ‘a trading schooner struck on a rock, near to the place where we first anchored, and instantly went to pieces; the weather being moderate the crew were saved, and some casks of wine’.

(#litres_trial_promo) Knox finally got a look at one of the French pilots who had been lured on board the British fleet by such dirty tricks.

(#litres_trial_promo) The Goodwill’s captain, Killick, and this pilot did not get on. The former considered it an insult, the latter, ‘gasconaded at most extravagant rate, and gave us to understand it was much against his inclination that he was become an English Pilot’. Knox goes on to describe the pilot’s dark predictions:

The poor fellow assumed great latitude in his conversation; said, ‘he made no doubt that some of the fleet would return to England, but they should have a dismal tale to carry with them; for Canada should be the grave of the whole army, and he expected in a short time to see the walls of Quebec ornamented with English scalps.’ Had it not been in obedience to the Admiral, who gave orders that he should not be ill used, he would certainly have been thrown over-board.

(#litres_trial_promo)

An hour later the Goodwill was in the Traverse, ‘reputed a place of the greatest difficulty and danger’. Knox was fascinated by the terrible Cap Tourmente on the north shore, ‘a remarkably high, black looking promontory’, as the ship glided past on the flood tide. Meanwhile the relationship between Killick and the pilot had not blossomed. ‘As soon as the pilot came on board today, he gave his direction for the working of the ship.’ A mistake clearly; Killick’s word alone was law on the Goodwill. The captain ‘would not permit him to speak; he fixed his mate at the helm, charged him not to take orders from any person except himself, and, going forward with his trumpet to the forecastle, gave the necessary instructions’. Knox’s commanding officer protested to Killick and the pilot ‘declared we should be lost, for that no French ship ever presumed to pass there without a pilot’. Killick replied casually, ‘Aye, aye my dear, but damn me I’ll convince you, that an Englishman shall go where a Frenchman dare not show his nose.’ Knox joined the captain at the bows where Killick pointed out the discolorations of the water, ripples and swirls that showed him the best route. Before one gives Killick too much credit for his supernatural ability to see what lay beneath the surface, it is worth remembering that Saunders had placed ships’ boats to act as navigational markers. As Knox reported, ‘soundings boats…lay off each side, with different coloured flags for our guidance’. Even so Killick’s seamanship is commendable, the product of a lifetime spent in the Thames Estuary. ‘He gave his orders with great unconcern’ and even ‘joked with the sounding boats’. He said wryly, ‘aye aye my dear, chalk it down, a damned dangerous navigation—eh, if you don’t make a sputter about it, you’ll get no credit for it in England’. Having brought the Goodwill safely through the channel, which Knox said ‘forms a complete zig-zag’, he shouted to his mate, ‘Damn me, if there are not a thousand places in the Thames fifty times more hazardous that this; I am ashamed that Englishmen should make such a rout about it.’ The pilot asked Knox if Killick had ever sailed these waters before; ‘I assured him in the negative, upon which he viewed him with great attention, lifting, at the same time, his hands and eyes to heaven with astonishment and fervency.’