French-Canadians. That the stories of his strength and vigor are true is corroborated by every circumstance which has been perpetuated about him. His ruddy, energetic face is preserved in portraits among his family, and his walking-stick, said to be an enormous article, is kept at Quebec in the collection of the Literary and Historical Society.

De Salaberry's Voltigeurs were organized at a peculiar juncture. "The discords between French and English in Quebec had emboldened the United States," says Garneau, "and the English Governors harassed the French. An opposite conduct might bring back calm to men's spirits. The Governor of Nova Scotia, Sir George Provost, a former officer, of Swiss origin, offered all the conditions desirable.... Arriving at Quebec, Sir George Provost strove to introduce peace and to remove animosity. He showed the completest confidence in the fidelity of the French-Canadians, and studied how to prove at every opportunity that the accusations of treason which had been brought against them had left no trace in the soul of England nor in his own.... Soon the liveliest sympathy arose between Sir George Prevost and the people."[15] It was in pursuance of this policy that the order to raise the Voltigeur force was given by him.

While Hampton was at Four Corners, Sir George, thus now Commander-in-Chief of all the forces in Canada, was at the camp which had just been formed at La Fourche, and of which a description is given by Mr. Sellar in his history of the district. Sir George was a man quite devoid of the decisiveness necessary to a soldier, and though, as we have seen, he was useful in reconciling the French, his errors in military matters several times brought disgrace on the British forces, and gave rise to storms of rage and disgust among them.[16] De Salaberry was now ordered by him on the Quixotic errand of attacking, with about 200 Voltigeurs and some Indians, the large camp of Hampton at Four Corners. De Salaberry promptly obeyed these impracticable orders, and it is probably at this juncture that a little anecdote comes in which I have heard as told by one of his men. De Salaberry was down the river dining at a tavern, when a despatch was brought to him.

"D—— it!" he exclaimed, jumping up from his seat, "Hampton is at Four Corners, and I must go and fight him!" and mounting his fine white charger, he dashed away from the door.

On the 1st of October he crept up with his force to the edge of the American camp. There they saw the assemblage spread out in all the array of war, with its host of tents, stacked guns, flags, moving men and sentries, and he prepared to strike it as ordered. One of his Indians indiscreetly discharged his musket. The camp was in alarm in an instant. De Salaberry, finding his approach discovered, immediately collected about fifty of his Voltigeurs, with whom and the Indians he pushed into the enemy's advanced camp, consisting of about 800 men, and, catching them in their confusion, drove them for a considerable distance, until, seeing the main body manoeuvring to cut off his little handful, he fell back and took up his position at the skirt of the woods. Once again he sallied out and charged, but with all the army now thoroughly aroused it was useless, and the Indians having retreated, most of his own men ran off, leaving him and Captains Chevalier Duchesnay and Gaucher, officers much like himself in stamp, with a few trusty Voltigeurs to skirmish with the enemy as long as daylight permitted it.[17] He then withdrew to Châteauguay, taking the precaution of breaking up the forest road in his rear, in pursuance of the general policy of the campaign, which was to destroy and obstruct as much as possible in the path of the enemy. Acquainting himself also with the ground over which Hampton was expected to make his way into the Province, he finally stopped, selected and took up the position where the battle afterwards took place, in a thick wood on the left bank of the Châteauguay River at the distance of two or three leagues above its Fork with English River, where he threw up his works of defence, with the approval of General De Watteville. The plan of the British commanders, owing to the smallness and inefficiency of their forces, was the stern one of burning and destroying all houses and property, and retreating slowly to the St. Lawrence, harassing the enemy in his advance.[18] The position chosen was as strong as the nature of that flat and wooded country and the route of the American march would allow. Here his experience and quick eye came in.[19]

Now as to the measures of fortification taken by De Salaberry. In his rear there was a small rapid where the river was fordable in two spots close to one another. He commanded this with a strong breastwork and a guard. There were four ravines which issued from the very thick woods, crossing the road, and distant from each other two hundred yards or so. On their banks he made his men fell trees and build them into breastworks—"a kind of parapet extending into the woods some distance." To prevent the American cannon from bearing on these breastworks, he felled trees and bush, covering a large stretch of ground with obstructions in the front. The breastwork on the front-line formed an obtuse angle at the right of the road, and extended along the curves of the ravine. The Colonel then sent forward to a spot some distance in advance of the front-line a party of Beauharnois' axemen, well accustomed to felling trees, who destroyed the bridges and obstructed the road with their fragments and fallen trees and brush. Lieut. Guy, with twenty Voltigeurs, guarded them in front, and Lieut. Johnson, with about the same number, in rear. Working incessantly, these axemen made a formidable series of such obstructions in front of the first line, extending from the river three or four acres into the woods, where they joined an almost impracticable marsh. On the opposite bank of the river De Salaberry also placed a picket of sixty Beauharnois militia under Captain Bruyère, so as to check any advance on the ford, which was his weak point in the rear.

Part of De Salaberry's line at the abattis, was a small blockhouse on the river-bank (which, however, is not that which has since been reputed to be the one concerned), and the works there blocked the commencement of the wood and looked out on a broadening plain or level of clearings, across which the enemy would have to pass.

The Glengarry men now came down, under McDonell of Ogdensburgh, famous for his adventurous capture of that place, and whose exploit the Salaberry was about to match. Lieut.-Colonel McDonell—"Red George"—was at Prescott drilling a new force of Canadian Fencibles, made up, some say, chiefly of Scotch and loyalists,[20] others chiefly of