The faults of Montcalm have sufficiently appeared.
They were those of an impetuous, excitable, and impatient nature, by
no means free from either ambition or vanity; but they were
never inconsistent with the character of a man of honor. His
impulsive utterances, reported by retainers and sycophants,
kept Vaudreuil in a state of chronic rage; and, void as he
was of all magnanimity, gnawed with undying jealousy, and
mortally in dread of being compromised by the knaveries to
which he had lent his countenance, he could not contain
himself within the bounds of decency or sense. In another
letter he had the baseness to say that Montcalm met his death
in trying to escape from the English.
[Footnote 812: _Proces de Bigot, Cadet, et autres._]
Among the Governor's charges are some which cannot be
flatly denied. When he accuses his rival of haste and precipitation
in attacking the English army, he touches a fair subject
of criticism; but, as a whole, he is as false in his detraction
of Montcalm as in his praises of Bigot and Cadet.
The letter which Wolfe sent to Pitt a few days before his
death, written in what may be called a spirit of resolute
despair, and representing success as almost hopeless, filled
England with a dejection that found utterance in loud grumblings
against the Ministry. Horace Walpole wrote the bad news to his friend
Mann, ambassador at Florence: "Two days ago came letters from Wolfe,
despairing as much as heroes can despair.
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