[832]
[Footnote 832: Thompson, deceived by Hazen's baptismal name, Moses,
thought that he was a Jew. (_Revue Canadienne_, IV, 865.) He was,
however, of an old New England Puritan family. See the Hazen
genealogy in _Historic-Genealogical Register_, XXXIII.]
The English lost above a thousand, or more than a third
of their whole number, killed, wounded, and missing.[833] They
carried off some of their wounded, but left others behind;
and the greater part of these were murdered, scalped, and
mangled by the Indians, all of whom were converts from the
mission villages. English writers put the French loss at two
thousand and upwards, which is no doubt a gross exaggeration.
Levis declares that the number did not exceed six or eight hundred;
but afterwards gives a list which makes it eight hundred and
thirty-three.
[Footnote 833: _Return of Killed, Wounded, and Missing_, signed J. Murray.]
Murray had left three or four hundred men to guard Quebec
when the rest marched out; and adding them to those who had returned
scathless from the fight, he now had about twenty-four hundred rank
and file fit for duty. Yet even the troops that were rated as effective
were in so bad a condition that the hyperbolical Sergeant Johnson
calls them "half-starved, scorbutic skeletons." That worthy soldier,
commonly a model of dutiful respect to those above him, this time so
far forgets himself as to criticise his general for the "mad,
enthusiastic zeal" by which he nearly lost the fruits of Wolfe's
victory.
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