Читать книгу In the Heart of Old Canada - William Charles Henry Wood - Страница 13

The Plains of Abraham stand alone among the world's immortal battlefields, as the place where an empire was lost and won in the first clash of arms, the balance of victory was redressed in the second, and the honour of each army was heightened in both.

Famous as they are, however, the Plains are not the only battlefield at Quebec, nor even the only one that is a source of pride to the French- and English-speaking peoples. In less than a century Americans, British, French and French-Canadians took part in four sieges and five battles. There were decisive actions; but the losing side was never disgraced, and the winning side was always composed of allied forces who shared the triumph among them. American Rangers accompanied Wolfe, and French-Canadians helped Carleton to save the future Dominion; while French and French-Canadians together won the day under Frontenac, under Montcalm at Montmorency, and under Lévis at Ste. Foy.

There is no record known—nor even any legend in tradition—of so many momentous feats of arms performed, on land and water, by fleets and armies of so many different peoples, with so much alternate victory and such honour in defeat—and all within a single scene. And so it is no exaggeration of this commemorative hour, but the lasting, well-authenticated truth to say, that, take them for all in all, the fields of battle at Quebec are quite unique in universal history.

And is not to-day also unique as an opportunity of taking occasion by the hand, to set this priceless ground apart from the catalogue of common things, and preserve it as an Anglo-French heirloom for all time to come? An appeal to history would be most appropriate to any year within the final decade of the Hundred Years' Peace between the once-contending powers of France, the British Empire, and the United States. But 1908 is by far the best year among the ten; for it marks the 300th birthday of that Canada which has become the senior of all the oversea self-governing dominions of King Edward VII—and under what king could we more fitly celebrate this imperishable entente cordiale d'honneur?