The English penetrated there after him. Sir Edward Hawke engaged the _Soleil Royal_, which was commanded by the French admiral. His pilot represented to him the danger of navigating. The brave seaman let him talk. "Very well," he answered; "you have done your duty, now you have only to obey me; manage so as to place me alongside the _Soleil Royal_." The battle thus waged in the various narrow passages became disastrous to the French vessels. The commander of the rear guard, M. Saint-André du Verger, let it be raked by the enemy's cannon in order to cover the retreat. The admiral ran aground in the Bay of Croisic, and himself burned his vessel. Seven French and two English ships remained engaged in the Vilaine. M. de Conflaus' day, as the sailors named the episode, dealt a fatal blow to the unfortunate remnant of the French navy. The English triumphed everywhere on the sea, and even in our own waters.
They also triumphed at a distance in our colonies, entirely abandoned to their forces, which prolonged in a heroic struggle the throes of their agony. Pitt had determined to achieve the conquest of Canada. Already the outposts of Louisburg and Cape Breton had succumbed beneath the attacks of the English. The Anglo-American forces were increased during the campaign of 1758 to sixty thousand men. The entire population of Canada was not more numerous. In 1759, three armies invaded the French territory at once. On the 29th of June, a considerable fleet carried to the Island of Orleans, fronting Quebec, General Wolfe, a young officer of great promise who had distinguished himself at the siege of Louisburg. Pitt believed that he discerned in him the elements of superior merit. In spite of the blundering-- sometimes presuming, and again depressed--of Wolfe, he had resolved to confide to him the direction of the great expedition he contemplated. "If the Marquis de Montcalm succeeds again this year in deceiving our hopes," said the new general, "he can pass for a clever man: either the colony has resources that are unknown, or our generals are worse than ordinary."
Quebec occupied an advantageous position, but the fortifications were bad; the loss of the place involved that of Canada. "If the Marquis were shut up there," said Wolfe, "we should soon have triumphed; our artillery would have made short work of the walls." An intrenched camp stretched before Quebec. The Indian tribes, hitherto ardently attached to France by the habitual kindness of its commerce, were decimated by the war, or had silently withdrawn, gained over by the money as well as the success of England. The two great European nations did not hesitate to wage war by means of the cruel or perfidious proceedings of their Indian allies.