battle upon rising ground, their front armed with twenty-two brass
field-pieces--the Palace battery which De Ramsay refused to Send to
M. de Montcalm. The engagement began by the attack of a house
(Dumont's) between the right wing of the English army and the French
left wing, which was alternately attacked and defended by the Scotch
Highlanders and the French Grenadiers, each of them taking it and
losing it by turns. Worthy antagonists!--the Grenadiers, with their
bayonets in their hands, forced the Highlanders to get out of it by
the windows; and the Highlanders getting into it again by the door,
immediately obliged the Grenadiers to evacuate it by the same road,
with their daggers. Both of them lost and retook the house[B] several
times, and the contest would have continued whilst there remained a
Highlander and a Grenadier, if both generals had not made them retire,
leaving the house neuter ground. The Grenadiers were reduced to
fourteen men--a company at most. No doubt the Highlanders lost in
proportion. The left of the French army, which was in hollow ground,
about forty paces from the English, was crushed to pieces by the fire
of their artillery loaded with grape-shot. M. de Levis, perceiving
their bad position, sent M. de La Pause, Adjutant of the Guienne
Regiment, with orders for the army to retire some steps behind them,
in order to occupy an eminence parallel to the rising ground occupied
by the English; but whether this officer did not comprehend M. de
Levis' intentions, or whether he delivered ill the orders to the
different regiments, by his stupidity the battle was very near being
lost irremediably. He ran along the line, ordering each regiment to
the right about, and to retire, without any further explanation of M.
de Levis' orders. Some of the left of the French army being so near as
twenty paces to the enemy, the best disciplined troops in that case
can scarce be expected to be able to retire without the greatest
disorder and confusion, or without exposing themselves evidently to