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Simultaneously with Hampton's advance upon Chateauguay, or nearly so, Wilkinson proceeded down the St. Lawrence, with a flotilla of upwards of three hundred boats, protected by a division of gun-boats, until he was within three miles of Prescott, when he landed his troops, and marched down with them, by land, to a cove two miles below Fort Prescott, so as to avoid the British batteries.
A large portion of the best lands of French Canada were granted under this seigniorial system to men whose names frequently occur in the records of the colony down to the present day: Rimouski, Bic and Métis, Kamouraska, Nicolet, Verchères, Lotbinière, Berthier, Beloeil, Rouville, Juliette, Terrebonne, Champlain, Sillery, Beaupré, Bellechasse, Portneuf, Chambly, Sorel, Longueuil, Boucherville, Chateauguay, Lachine, are memorials of the seigniorial grants of the seventeenth century.
Of the engagements of the war there are two which, above all others, possess features on which the historian must always like to dwell. The battle which was fought against such tremendous odds on the banks of the Chateauguay by less than a thousand French Canadians, led by Salaberry and Macdonell, recalls in some respects the defeat of Braddock in 1755.
The woods of the Chateauguay did not present such a scene of carnage as was witnessed at the battle of the Monongahela, but nevertheless they seemed to the panic-stricken invaders, who numbered many thousands, alive with an enemy whose strength was enormously exaggerated as bugle sounds and Indian yells made a fearful din on every side.
"Your grandfather, the Honorable Chateauguay, this. This is his Lady, your grandmother. Here is her father, a LeGardeur de Repentigny. There is the old Marshal in armor. Here is Louise d'Argentenaye, of the time of Henry IV., who married a Montcalm. Here is the Count d'Argentenaye in armor." And thus he took me about on a singular round, and informed me concerning the whole gallery.
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