An Ominous-Looking Black-Board, Affixed To One Of The
Projecting Rocks Of The Cape, Indicates The Spot Below Where
One of their
countrymen, Brigadier-General Richard Montgomery, with his two aides-
de-camp, Cheeseman and McPherson, received their death
Wounds during a
violent snow storm about five o'clock in the morning, the 31st December,
1775. On this disastrous morning the post was guarded by Canadian
militiamen, Messieurs Chabot and Picard. Captain Barnesfare, an English
mariner, had pointed the cannon; Coffin and Sergeant Hugh McQuarters
applied the match. At the eastern extremity, under the stairs, now styled
"Breakneck Steps," according to Messrs. Casgrain and Laverdiere, was
discovered Champlain's tomb, though a rival antiquary, M. S. Drapeau, says
that he is not certain of this. [104]
A little to the west is Cap Blanc, inhabited by a small knot of French-
Canadians and some Irish; near by, was launched in October, 1750, the
Orignal, a King's ship, built at Quebec; at that period the lily flag of
France floated over the bastions of Cape Diamond; the Orignal, in being
launched, broke her back and sank. Among the notabilities of Cap Blanc,
one is bound to recall the athletic stevedore and pugilist, Jacques
Etienne Blais. Should the fearless man's record not reach remote
posterity, pointing him out as the Tom Sayers of Cap Blanc, it cannot fail
to be handed down as the benefactor of the handsome new church of Notre
Dame de la Garde, erected on the shore in 1878, the site of which was
munificently given by him on the 17th June, 1877.
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