other would make the mistake of charging. At last, about
one o'clock, the Highlanders in the centre and right
could be held back no longer. So eager were they to get
at the redcoats that most of them threw down their muskets
without even firing them, and then rushed on furiously,
sword in hand. ''Twas for a time,' said Wolfe, 'a dispute
between the swords and bayonets, but the latter was found
by far the most destructable [sic] weapon.' No quarter
was given or taken on either side during an hour of
desperate fighting hand to hand. By that time the steady
ranks of the redcoats, aided by the cavalry, had killed
five times as many as they had lost by the wild slashing
of the claymores. The Highlanders turned and fled. The
Stuart cause was lost for ever.

Again another year of fighting: this time in Holland,
where the British, Dutch, and Austrians under the Duke
of Cumberland met the French at the village of Laffeldt,
on June 21, 1747. Wolfe was now a brigade-major, which
gave him the same sort of position in a brigade of three
battalions as an adjutant has in a single one; that is,
he was a smart junior officer picked out to help the
brigadier in command by seeing that orders were obeyed.
The fight was furious. As fast as the British infantry
drove back one French brigade another came forward and
drove the British back. The village was taken and lost,
lost and taken, over and over again. Wolfe, though wounded,
kept up the fight. At last a new French brigade charged
in and swept the British out altogether. Then the duke
ordered the Dutch and Austrians to advance: But the Dutch