"En reunissant le corps M. de Bougainville, les
bataillons de Montreal _[laisses au camp de Beauport]_ et la garrison
de la ville, il nous restoit encore pres de 5,000 hommes de troupes
fraiches." _Journal tenu a l'Armee._ Vaudreuil says that there were
fifteen hundred men in garrison at Quebec who did not take part
in the battle. If this is correct, the number of fresh troops after
it was not five thousand, but more than six thousand; to whom
the defeated force is to be added, making, after deducting killed
and wounded, some ten thousand in all.]
[Footnote 789: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct._ 1759.]
It was said at the time that the officers voted for retreat
because they thought Vaudreuil unfit to command an army,
and, still more, to fight a battle.[790] There was no need, however,
to fight at once. The object of the English was to take
Quebec, and that of Vaudreuil should have been to keep it.
By a march of a few miles he could have joined Bougainville;
and by then intrenching himself at or near Ste.-Foy he would
have placed a greatly superior force in the English rear, where
his position might have been made impregnable. Here he might be
easily furnished with provisions, and from hence he could readily
throw men and supplies into Quebec, which the English were too few
to invest. He could harass the besiegers, or attack them, should
opportunity offer, and either raise the siege or so protract it
that they would be forced by approaching winter to sail homeward,
robbed of the fruit of their victory.
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