132 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



spaice of ground called the race-coiirse could not have been trodden 

 by any soldier on that day. 



Nevertheless Mr. Doughty asserts that the Third Battalion of the 

 Royal Americans was detached to the ground of Marchmont and occupied 

 the whereabouts of the present buildings to preserve the communication 

 with the beach and the boats. This, he adds, proves that the line of 

 battle was not in the immediate vicinity of the Marchmont property. 

 The inference is not to be so lightly drawn. The true reason is affixed 

 and precedes : it was becausie " the twa armies m'oved a little nearer to 

 each other," and the Third Battalion, which had been left to guard the 

 landing, was detached from there at that time for the purpose. Mante, 

 (not Manthe), p. 255. 



This indicates that the line was not then far away and that this bat- 

 talion formed part of the rear guard as well, in case of a possible retreat. 

 More than that, the communication thus secured between this rear and 

 the front line and advanced outposts cannot but be considered otherwise 

 than covering the field of battle from Marchmont towards the town on a 

 space hardly more than half a mile. 



How Wolfe could avoid trespassing on the race course, when two 

 roads were leading and joining through it, and not take advantage of the 

 shortest cut before him, we are at a loss to understand. It would have 

 been impossible for him to form his right wing near the cliff and reserve 

 behind without utilizing a part of it, the more so as he rested this wing 

 on the lower road. 



But without going outside of my own family tradition, I may in- 

 form Mr. Doughty that the three brothers Duperron, Louis and François 

 Bâby, my great-grand-uncles, served during the whole of the seven years 

 war, down to the capitulation of Montreal. François, then 26 years 

 of age, survived to October, 1820, and was a contemporary of and in im- 

 mediate contact with my mother, Elizabeth Anne Bâby, his grand,-niece, 

 bom in 1803, and who died at Quebec at the ripe age of 86 years. From 

 that source she was possessed of many incidents and details of the war. 

 On the other hand she knew Marguerite Cassault, wife of Jean-Fran- 

 çois Casgrain, my great-grandfather. This old lady had lived 25 years 

 und.er the old régime, and had been an eye-witness at Chateau-Richer, 

 her native place, of the devastation and burning of all the surrounding 

 country by Wolfe, as also of the shelling and destruction of her home in 

 Champlain street. Let me add further that this Jean-François Casgrain, 

 her husband, born in 1716, was present at Fontenoy, 11th May, 1745, 

 and was serving then in the "Carabineers," sumamed 'Ties Invincibles;" 

 and these, together with the Brigade Irlandaise, as is well known, re- 

 trieved the day which had been nearly lost. Wolfe, then a young lieuten- 

 ant of 18 years of age, was in the opposite ranks, though not on the field 



