The 1711 Expedition to Quebec

Politics and the Limitations of British Global Strategy

Adam Lyons

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781441177834
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

In 1711, the newly formed Great Britain launched its first attempt to conquer French North America. The largest military force ever assembled to fight on the continent was dispatched and combined with colonial American units in Boston before proceeding up the St Lawrence River for Quebec. An additional colonial force set out from Albany to march on Montreal - but neither Briton nor colonist reached their respective targets. Adam Lyons looks at the expedition as a product of the turbulent political environment at the end of Queen Anne's reign and as a symbol of a shift in politics and strategy. Its failure proved to be detrimental to the reputation of the expedition's naval commander, Rear-Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker, but Lyons shows how true blame should lie with his political master, Secretary of State Henry St John, who ensured the expedition's failure by maintaining absolute control and secrecy. The 1711 Expedition to Quebec demonstrates how the expedition helped to alter British policy by renewing an interest in 'blue water', or maritime, operations that would gain dominance for Britain in commerce and at sea. This strategy would later see huge success, ultimately resulting in the fall of Quebec to Wolfe and the eventual conquest of French North America in the Seven Years War.

1

Colonies and Politics

The 1711 Quebec expedition was not the first time a strategy for the conquest of North America had been proposed, or executed. It was, however, the first to have the full backing of the British state, albeit acting in ignorance. Previously, after an easy victory at Port Royal in 1690, Massachusetts hubristically attempted to eliminate its French colonial rivals by conquering Quebec. Though it failed, English forces adopted similar plans to take New France in each successive war fought with the French. These plans were not initiated by an imperialistic design originating in London, but by the repeated requests of the colonists for the mother country to aid them in their desire for security. The 1711 expedition was intensely political and launched at the instigation of Henry St John. How he gained the authority to proceed with its execution, considering he personally encountered a great deal of opposition, is unclear, but the expedition certainly fits into the grand narrative of British strategic debate and the development of blue water operations.

The North American colonies

North America had witnessed rapid change because of large-scale colonization during the seventeenth century. Spain had begun its colonization drive, primarily in the south, during the sixteenth century. However, by the eighteenth century, as a power in irreversible decline, the Spanish proved to be of little trouble to the British colonies in the north, other than their occasional scrappy incursions around Florida.¹ The northern part of the continent would set the scene for most of the friction between the British and French colonial empires. By the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession, America was inhabited by hundreds of thousands of European-descended settlers. There could not have been a greater contrast between the English and French colonies, as each imitated the distinct characteristics of their respective mother nations.

New France was a vast, sprawling wilderness punctuated by its riverine lifeline – the St Lawrence. This river provided New France’s capital of Quebec with a communications route to the Atlantic and onwards to Europe. Quebec was ruled as if it were an extension of France. The personal rule of Louis XIV had stretched over the Atlantic to the forested swathes and snowy peaks of Canada, when royal control was established in 1663. The colonists there were French, Catholic and held close alliances with the indigenous peoples, a minority of whom angered their tribal communities by converting to Catholicism. Their reasons for doing so were usually selfish – to be saved from diseases that could not be cured by traditional shamans or to allow a trade in muskets – rather than due to any particular religious motivation. The Jesuits and Sulpicians were particularly active in New France, while the nuns at the Ursuline convent in Quebec schooled native girls. The colony did not attract large numbers of settlers from France: there were only 15–19,000 inhabitants in an area of many thousands of square miles.² The population of the city of Quebec itself only numbered less than 3,000.³ Nevertheless, these hardy settlers and their Indian allies developed a bellicosity that posed a great threat to the neighbouring colonies of New England.

There was already a long history of Anglo-French competition in the region stemming from the first permanently established settlements. When Quebec was still a small trading post, it was briefly occupied by the English Kirke brothers from 1629 to 1633. On its reversion to French control a small fortified château was constructed which served as Quebec’s citadel to prevent any further incursions. Similarly, Port Royal, in Acadia (roughly what is now Nova Scotia), had been taken on two occasions before the War of the Spanish Succession, in 1654 and 1690. The New Englanders actively sought to conquer their colonial neighbours during wartime, not only to heighten the economic benefits of monopolizing the fur and skins trade, but also to provide security from the proliferation of French and native border attacks.

New France was, in a sense, divided into three separate colonies modelled on the French provincial system: those of Canada, Acadia and Louisiana. Each colony was further divided into districts, though Quebec would emerge as the most significant settlement and would serve equally as the capital of New France, Canada and the Quebec district. Power in New France was centralized, manifested ultimately in the person of the king and represented by a governor general – always a military appointment – residing in Quebec. Although they took responsibility in military and diplomatic affairs, the governor generals took instructions directly from Paris exactly like any other French province. Given the distance, this resulted in very slow and inefficient government. The other Canadian towns of Montreal and Trois-Rivieres were also fortified and were capitals, under lieutenant governors, of their own districts within the colony of Canada. Only Roman Catholics were allowed to settle and all religious issues were handled by the Bishop of Quebec. France clearly wanted to retain its huge territorial claims and maintain the power of absolute monarchy, and the Catholic Church, in the New World.

The rigid, absolutist structure of New France did not face any internal threat to its system of government, even though its people lived in a completely alien environment compared to the population of an average French province. This was despite its proximity to the British colonies, which were developing individual systems of government. The British colonies were generally given a great deal of autonomy from the mother country and Protestant nonconformists were allowed to settle and rule according to their own particular beliefs. A variety of Christian traditions was established by (primarily) Protestant immigrants from the constituent nations under the Stuart Crown, as well as many Germanic settlers; this cosmopolitanism provided for a diverse and expanding population, yet united under the British sovereign. The roots of the ideals of federalism and democracy in the North American continent were, however, evident even at this early stage.⁴ Such differences engendered an independent streak in the colonial mind, as Great Britain repeatedly failed to heed the security concerns of its American subjects for the first half of the eighteenth century.⁵

Both the French and British colonists were very much aware of their respective strategic positions, though the latter were usually the victims of border raids by the French and their Indian allies. This occurred despite British America dwarfing New France in terms of population, boasting 350–400,000 colonists, though spread thinly across the eastern seaboard of the continent.⁶ The centralization that the government of New France offered allowed its people to fortify their towns and build outlying forts to act as a buffer to any potential attack. France also built a series of forts across North America to protect its territorial claims in an area which comprised huge swathes of sparsely populated territory. The capitals of each district were also fortified. This was in stark contrast to the English colonies where, although fearful of French and native attack, settlements were usually left unfortified, often possessing only a ‘garrison house’ to offer protection to the local population in the event of an attack.⁷ The French forts were primitive compared with the Vauban fortresses in Europe, naturally being smaller in scale and required to defend against raiding parties rather than large armies. However, the larger French settlements gradually built up their defences to provide more formidable protection, against not only raiders, but also larger forces intent on conquest. Fort Chambly was re-established as an extra defensive measure in 1709 to cover the likely invasion route from the American colonies to the St Lawrence valley, where Quebec and Montreal are situated.⁸

Skilled French engineers were responsible for fortifying much of New France. These ‘King’s Engineers’ were experts in fortification, picked according to their abilities. Indeed, the profession was held in such high esteem that the King’s Engineers were not part of the French Army’s structure but were a separate entity. Vauban’s most famous forts were located in Flanders, the perfect area for siege warfare, with large expanses of flat land, and numerous rivers and water obstacles that could be diverted to suit the requirements of a particular fortification. Yet Flanders could not be more dissimilar to French North America. With rocky mountains, river rapids, huge expanses of forest and swamp, geographical factors would determine a completely new attitude to the conduct of warfare. True geometrical Vauban-style fortresses could not be built in such a challenging domain, especially due to the lack of suitable labour. A compromise in fortress design had to be made. For North American warfare the rules would have to be rewritten, as would the great French tradition of fortress design. Many small fortress outposts were almost medieval in character, which suited the wilderness far better than contemporary European designs, and were more suited to repelling raids instead of huge armies.⁹ Even stone windmills were used as strong-points and one served as a defensive point in Quebec during the siege of 1690.¹⁰ Canada also lacked a road-based infrastructure, forcing armies to travel along rivers, even more so than in Europe, due to the impassable terrain and vast distances involved. Experience in the vast, but sparsely populated, New World would dictate new challenges to the Europeans in terms of warfare. The blurred, indistinct and ever-changing borders of colonial territories would only add to the confusion. The old rules of battle were of no use in this harsh and unforgiving environment, while the familiarity of formal engagement in open warfare was reshaped with the involvement of native tribes.

The English colonies engaged in warfare with their French counterparts not just to gain territory, trade or advantage for the mother country, but also primarily for security. French and Indian border incursions were relatively commonplace, devastating local communities by destroying farms and villages, and through the mass kidnapping of local inhabitants. The raid in 1704 on Deerfield, Massachusetts, is a particularly notorious example of the French threat to their neighbours in time of war, when an entire community was decimated with over 150 residents either kidnapped or killed. New Englanders were also unsafe at sea. Port Royal in Acadia provided a haven for the French privateers harassing the merchant shipping of the British colonials. The colonies of New England were not the only areas prone to attack. New York suffered from its large border areas and relied on maintaining good relations with the tribes of the Five Nations to remain intact.¹¹ Individual British colonies were not centralized like those of New France, nor were they martial in character. The colonists’ individualistic temperament was exacerbated when the Tories assumed office in 1710, as they had consistently tried to force the divisive Occasional Conformity Bill through parliament. Colonial dissenters were traditionally suspicious of Tory plans for the colonies although, ironically, it was the Tories who actually responded to their demands for an expedition against Canada. Such differences were illustrated in 1702 when Bostonian guns fired upon the Royal Navy sloop Swift when it attempted to sail with impressed seamen aboard.¹²

Unlike the tribes of New France, natives were generally badly treated in the British colonies barring those in Quaker Pennsylvania and among the traders of the Hudson’s Bay Company. For the British, this represented a lost chance at rapprochement with a potential ally knowledgeable of the local geography which could prove critical when engaged in conflict with the French. The British colonials, therefore, had not exploited this useful resource, allowing the French a virtual monopoly over Indian support which more than made up for a lack of French numbers. Although the Five Nations of the Iroquois were generally allied with the British and were more powerful than many of the pro-French Algonquin tribes, they were exploited rather than respected as the British attempted to interfere with internal matters, and little effort was made to engage with other tribes. However, the Iroquois were not simply victims; their factionalism would see that full military cooperation with the British occurred only during 1709–11.¹³ Later in the century, the colonials would, however, diverge from the European style of warfare and adopt some Indian practices which would become peculiar to that theatre.

Whereas differences between Briton and colonial were already apparent, another group was present, other than the natives, which would contribute to further campaigns. As many as 2,500 Palatines, German refugees escaping their war-ravaged homeland, had made their way to New York in 1710. Many would volunteer for service in the following year. It was initially hoped that these new settlers would serve as a bulwark against the French and Indians, as well as provide a trade in naval stores.¹⁴ North America generated some excitement due to the plentiful supply of pines (for use as masts) and it was thought expansion into Canada would have increased this important resource for the Royal Navy, which then heavily relied on Baltic suppliers.¹⁵ Even if it were not for the naval stores and the fur trade, Quebec remained a vital military target given its strategic location.

The capture of Quebec would certainly be problematical, but strategically it was one of the most important cities in North America and not only because of its political importance. ‘Quebec’, in the local Algonquin tongue, translates as ‘where the river narrows’. Approximately 70 miles wide at its mouth, the St Lawrence narrows at Quebec to less than a mile. The capital of the French empire in North America therefore guarded the Canadian interior. Its strategic value was amplified by the fact that the St Lawrence flows from the Great Lakes. From there, access to the Mississippi allowed the masters of Quebec to venture throughout the continent, right down to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico where the French later established the city of New Orleans.

Along this route, the French were able to establish forts to prevent the British colonies from expanding and to foster friendly relations with local Indian tribes. Indeed, this strategy was identified by English contemporaries. Robert Quary, surveyor general of customs in America, asserted that the French colonial presence ‘enclosed all [of] the Queen’s empire in North America’.¹⁶ The New Englanders were themselves worried by the impact of French encirclement on their trade.¹⁷ Quebec was vital in maintaining communications between France and its North American possessions. Being the furthest point inland which oceangoing ships could reach, it was an economic centre where goods could be loaded and unloaded for further distribution around New France, and was also where French troops disembarked. Canada’s regulars numbered fewer than 1,000 and were funded by the Ministry of Marine and Colonies. These Troupes de la Marine, though professional soldiers, were a distinctive Canadian force, issued with white uniforms with black facings.¹⁸

Quebec’s strategic importance was not necessarily realized 3,000 miles away in London, where North America did not feature in Britain’s immediate priorities. The New Englanders regularly and persistently pressed the ministry to take the war to New France. They desired security and realized that if Quebec were to fall, then New France would likely follow in its entirety. As the British colonies were poorly defended, the colonials regarded offensive operations as a necessary form of defence.¹⁹ Port Royal was an irritating nest of French privateers which was a particular menace to the British colonies, all of which relied on the sea. Vessels from Port Royal had cap...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• Introduction
• 1 Colonies and Politics
• 2 The Expedition’s Commanders
• 3 Organizing the Expedition
• 4 The Quebec Expedition
• 5 The Aftermath of the Expedition
• Conclusion
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index