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Caption: The death of General James Wolfe, as pointed by Edward Penny

This 1763 painting depicts the death of General James Wolfe. This work by Edward Penney is probably much closer to the truth of how Wolfe died than Benjamin West’s more famous painting. Of all the accounts of the general’s last moments, Captain John Knox’s version is generally accepted as the most credible. Knox stated that ‘various accounts have been circulated of General Wolfe’s manner of dying, his last words, and the officers into whose hands he fell; and many, from a vanity of talking, claimed the honour of being his supporters after he was wounded; but […] Lieutenant Brown, of the grenadiers of Louisbourg and the twenty-second regiment […] with Mr. Henderson, a volunteer in the same company, and a private man, were the three persons who carried his excellency to the rear; which an artillery officer seeing, immediately flew to his assistance; and these were all that attended him in his dying moments.’