Battle of Pointe-aux-Trembles | |||||||
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Part of the Seven Years' War & the Siege of Quebec | |||||||
An 18th-century illustration of the Saint Lawrence River | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Great Britain | France | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Robert Swanton | Jean Vauquelin | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
1 ship of the line 2 frigates | 2 frigates 2 schooners 2 armed ships | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
1 frigate damaged | 1 frigate destroyed 1 frigate captured 2 schooners captured 2 armed ships captured [1] |
The Battle of Pointe-aux-Trembles was a naval and land engagement that took place on 16 May 1760 during the French and Indian War on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River. It was near the present-day village of Neuville, in New France, during the French siege of Quebec. A relief force of the Royal Navy, having forced a passage through ice up the Saint Lawrence River, destroyed the French ships led by Jean Vauquelin that were assisting in the French siege of Quebec. The British victory forced the French under Chevalier de Lévis to raise the siege and to end their attempts to retake Quebec City. [2] [3]
After the capture of Quebec in 1759, the defeated French forces collected on the Jacques-Cartier River west of the city. Pack ice had closed the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, forcing the British Royal Navy to leave shortly after. The Chevalier de Lévis, General Montcalm's successor as French commander, marched his 7,000 troops to Quebec and besieged it. During that harsh winter, James Murray, the British commander, had lost numerous troops to illness, for instance, scurvy had reduced his garrison to only 4,000 men. [4]
On 28 April 1760, Lévis's forces met and defeated the British at the Battle of Sainte-Foy, immediately west of the city, but the British were able to withdraw within the walls of Quebec. British improvements to the fortifications combined with the lack of French heavy artillery and ammunition, preventing them from quickly retaking the city. [5] A siege by Lévis began but the success of the French army's offensive against Quebec in the spring of 1760 depended on the arrival of a French armada, with fresh troops and supplies. [6] The British too were anxious to get a war fleet into the Saint Lawrence River in the spring before supplies and reinforcements could arrive from France. [6]
On 9 May, a ship arrived off Pointe-Lévis; the French broke into shouts of Vive le roi!, believing the ship to be theirs. The anxious British expected the worst. [4] But the ship was HMS Lowestoffe, detached from a squadron under Lord Colville who were just outside the Saint Lawrence River, ready to force the passage themselves. When the ship conducted a twenty-one-gun salute and hoisted the Union flag, British fears turned to sudden joy. Lévis and the French were in despair and tried to bombard Quebec into submission before the main British force arrived. Although the heavy bombardment damaged the city's walls, casualties were light. The bombardment expressed Lévis's frustration, as he knew he could not take the city without naval support. [4] Colville's ships were soon navigating up the Saint Lawrence already made easy by James Cook's mapping the previous year. [7]
During the night of 15 to 16 May, Lévis was informed of the appearance of two British vessels between Île d'Orléans and Pointe-Lévis. [3] Dishearteningly, he immediately sent orders to the French vessels transporting the supplies of his army to retire and to his two frigates to be on alert and to be also ready to retire. [8] Bad weather caused his orders to the vessels to be delayed. [2] On 16 May at daybreak, in response to the expressed wishes of Murray, Commodore Robert Swanton gave orders to HMS Diana and Lowestoffe, soon followed by HMS Vanguard, to pass the town and to attack the French vessels in the river above. [7]
At 5 a.m, the six French vessels (two frigates escorting the two smaller armed ships and two schooners which served as the transport vessels), commanded by Captain Jean Vauquelin, had set sail when the British vessels appeared. [9] The French vessels immediately cut their cables; Pomone in the confusion forced herself too close to shore and ran aground. The two British frigates meanwhile sailed past blasting away at her but instead of stopping, they ignored her and pursued Atalante, which joined the French transport vessels at Cap-Rouge. [2] Atalante's commander, seeing that the British frigates were catching up with the French transport vessels, ordered them to beach so that Lévis could salvage the provisions they transported. [8] Atalante then sailed upstream but was forced to run aground at Neuville, then called Pointe-aux-Trembles. [3]
Vauquelin had managed to turn Atalante to broadside to fight it out. He nailed his colours to the mast and engaged the two frigates that had pursued him. Vauquelin did not belie his reputation and fought his ship for two hours with persistent bravery until his ammunition was spent. He even refused to strike his flag, and it was only when his ship was a burning, dismasted hulk that he was made prisoner; he was treated by the British with distinguished honour. [3] Meanwhile, Vanguard did not sail farther than Saint-Michel and returned to Anse-au-Foulon and in so doing enfiladed the French trenches with grapeshot, forcing their abandonment. Vanguard then sailed back to Quebec to round up the beached French ships, taking prisoners and their stores. [7] After the engagement, the two British frigates remained at Neuville.
The destruction of the French vessels was a death blow to the hopes of Lévis, who thus lost his stores of food and ammunition. [8] Lévis resolved to wait for the night before he retired, and he then hastened to raise the siege, leaving behind him the whole of his material for the siege and his sick and wounded. [10] He also gave orders to throw his artillery down the cliff near Anse-au-Foulon and to distribute provisions to the troops. At 10 p.m., the army marched with the cannon having been sent forward. Deserters from Lévis's camp then told Murray that the French were in full retreat on which all the British batteries opened fire at random through the darkness and sending cannonballs en ricochet, bowling by scores together, over the Plains of Abraham on the heels of the retreating French army. [10] The British naval presence was reinforced on 18 May with the arrival of Lord Colville's squadron. Lowestoffe ran aground a few days later because of strong currents, and the damage sustained in the battle left her a wreck. [8]
At the Battle of Quiberon Bay, just off the coast of France, the Royal Navy destroyed the French fleet and so France could not send a significant reserve force to save New France. A small French relief fleet, commanded by François-Chenard Giraudais, managed to get through the British blockade but did not attempt to go up the Saint Lawrence River when he learned that the British had preceded him. [1] Giraudais was later defeated in the Bay of Chaleur at the Battle of Restigouche. [11] With Quebec City secure, it became a staging point for the conquest of the remainder of Canada. Montreal, the last major French stronghold of which Lévis's forces had retreated to was now the target. Forces under Jeffery Amherst approached on 8 September 1760. Lévis was ordered by Governor Marquis de Vaudreuil to surrender the city, which he soon did. [12]
1760 (MDCCLX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1760th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 760th year of the 2nd millennium, the 60th year of the 18th century, and the 1st year of the 1760s decade. As of the start of 1760, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
The Battle of Sainte-Foy sometimes called the Battle of Quebec, was fought on April 28, 1760 near the British-held town of Quebec in the French province of Canada during the Seven Years' War. It was a victory for the French under the Chevalier de Lévis over the British army under General Murray. The battle was notably bloodier than the Battle of the Plains of Abraham of the previous September, with 833 French casualties to 1,124 British casualties.
Lévis is a city in eastern Quebec, Canada, located on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, opposite Quebec City. A ferry links Old Quebec with Old Lévis, and two bridges, the Quebec Bridge and the Pierre-Laporte Bridge, connect western Lévis with Quebec City.
Events from the year 1760 in Canada.
HMS Vanguard was a 70-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 16 April 1748. She was built by Philemon Ewer at his East Cowes yard on the Isle of Wight to the draught specified by the 1745 Establishment, at a cost of £8,009. She was the fourth vessel of the Royal Navy to bear the name Vanguard.
The Battle of the Thousand Islands was an engagement fought on 16–24 August 1760, in the upper St. Lawrence River, among the Thousand Islands, along the present day Canada–United States border, by British and French forces during the closing phases of the Seven Years' War, as it is called in Canada and Europe, or the French and Indian War as it is referred to in the United States.
Fort Lévis, a fortification on the St. Lawrence River, was built in 1759 by the French. They had decided that Fort de La Présentation was insufficient to defend their St. Lawrence River colonies against the British. Named for François Gaston de Lévis, Duc de Lévis, the fort was constructed on Isle Royale, 3 miles (4.8 km) downstream from the other fort. The fort surrendered after intense bombardment in August 1760 to the British and was renamed Fort William Augustus. The fort was abandoned in 1766. During the construction of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, the remains of the fort were destroyed and submerged beneath the waters of the river.
The Battle of Restigouche was a naval battle fought in 1760 during the Seven Years' War on the Restigouche River between the British Royal Navy and the small flotilla of vessels of the French Navy, Acadian militia and Mi'kmaq militias. The loss of the French vessels, which had been sent to support and resupply the troops in New France after the fall of Quebec, marked the end of any serious attempt by France to keep hold of their colonies in North America. The battle was the last major engagement of the Mi'kmaq and Acadian militias before the Burying of the Hatchet Ceremony between the Mi'kmaq and the British.
François-Gaston de Lévis, 1st Duke of Lévis, styled as the Chevalier de Lévis until 1785, was a French Royal Army officer and nobleman. He served with distinction in the War of the Polish Succession and the War of the Austrian Succession. During the Seven Years' War, he was second-in-command to Louis-Joseph de Montcalm in the defense of New France and then, after the surrender of New France in 1760, he served in Europe. After the war, he was appointed Governor of Artois, and in 1783 he was made a Marshal of France.
Rear-Admiral Alexander Colville, 7th Lord Colville of Culross, served as the Commodore and Commander in Chief of His Majesty's Ships and Vessels in North America from 1757 to 1762.
The siege of Louisbourg was a pivotal operation of the French and Indian War in 1758 that ended French colonial dominance in Atlantic Canada and led to the subsequent British campaign to capture Quebec in 1759 and the remainder of New France the following year.
Neuville is a village on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, just west of Quebec City, part of the Portneuf Regional County Municipality, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1684, it remains picturesque.
HMS Lowestoffe was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Built during the latter part of the Seven Years' War, she went on to see action in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary War, and served often in the Caribbean. A young Horatio Nelson served aboard her shortly after passing his lieutenant's examination.
Jean Vauquelin was a French naval officer.
The Naval battle off St. John took place on July 14, 1696, between France and England toward the end of King William's War in the Bay of Fundy off present-day Saint John, New Brunswick. The English ships were sent from Boston to interrupt the supplies being taken by French officer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville from Quebec to the capital of Acadia, Fort Nashwaak on the Saint John River. The French ships of war Envieux and Profond captured the English frigate Newport, while the English frigate Sorlings and a provincial tender escaped.
HMCS Lévis was a River-class frigate that served with the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War. She served primarily as a convoy escort in the Battle of the St. Lawrence and the Battle of the Atlantic. She was the second ship to bear the name of Lévis, the first being a Flower-class corvette that had been sunk earlier in the war. She was named for Lévis, Quebec.
The Statue of Jean Vauquelin by Eugène Bénet is a sculpture installed in Montreal's Vauquelin Square, in Quebec, Canada in 1930. The statue depicts an event that took place during the Battle of Pointe-aux-Trembles in the Saint Lawrence River on 16 May 1760 during the French and Indian War. Jean Vauquelin is shown standing on the deck of the frigate Atalante in front of the mast having nailed his colours to it. He fought for two hours with persistent bravery till his ammunition was spent before surrendering. The statue was created by sculptor Eugène-Paul Benet.
The siege of Quebec, also known as the second siege of Quebec, was a 1760 French attempt to retake Quebec City, in New France, which had been captured by Britain the previous year. The siege lasted from 29 April to 15 May, when British ships arrived to relieve the city and compelled the French commander, Francis de Gaston, Chevalier de Lévis, to break off the siege and to retreat.
The Montreal campaign, also known as the fall of Montreal, was a British three-pronged offensive against Montreal which took place from July 2 to 8 September 1760 during the French and Indian War as part of the global Seven Years' War. The campaign, pitted against an outnumbered and outsupplied French army, led to the capitulation and occupation of Montreal, the largest remaining city in French Canada.
The Sainte-Thérèse Raid was a military raid on the town of Sainte-Thérèse in French Canada conducted by British elite forces known as Rogers' Rangers that took place during the French and Indian War from 3 to 18 June 1760. Led by Robert Rogers the raid was a pre-emptive strike ordered by Major General Jeffery Amherst as a prelude to his three pronged attack on Montreal the following month.