What happened to the Scots that lost at the battle of Culloden? Some went to France. There they became good Frenchmen and fought for the French king. One of them, the soldier James Johnstone, later went to French Canada, in time for the war with England over control of the North American colonies, which they lost. Here is the account of the loss of Quebec, by this man who was an aide-de-camp to General Montcalm, who commanded it and died there, as did the British victor General Wolfe. Johnstone recounts what he saw and felt about the Battle of Quebec in the form of a conversation between the “shades” of Montcalm and Wolfe.
Military and civil corruption and betrayal caused the loss of French Canada, and Montcalm, also betrayed, was the ultimate victim. As the Dialogue in Hades relates, dead losers always get blamed. Some things never change.
When the basic premise of any war is to kill other people, how can the process and the participants escape the immorality of those involved in it?
This text was thought to be a modernized version from an English manuscript, which was at one time in the war Archives in France. J. M. LeMoine, who pens the short introductory notice to the Dialogue in Hades and adds some Notes, said that it was poorly written, with multiple misspellings and grammatical errors in the English. Well, this modern version was not error free, by any means, which only goes to show that nastiness in editors is never rewarded. I have corrected the typos, and the original errors can be seen in the source code, as is true with all the texts on Elfinspell.
However, it later was determined by P. B. Casgrain that Johnstone wrote his Memoirs in French, and that these were translated by Charles Winchester, who states that the French of Johnstone’s Memoirs was excellent. The translation of Winchester is online and differs significantly from the present text. Whether the bad English translation that LeMoine saw was the work of Winchester, which is implied by Casgrain, is unclear.
The copy I have was bound separately in a paper-back edition. It was later included in a collection of the works of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, which is online elsewhere.
Why read this version, instead of another? Other than correcting the typos, I have translated Montcalm's burial notice, and included a very bad [but funny] pun by my buddy, Bill Thayer. What more could you want?
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