Sentence:  I was on a rampart watching the enemy pitch their camp; and, seeing the crowd of idlers round the stream, I asked M. du Pont, commissary of the artillery, to send one cannon-shot among this <WSD>canaille</WSD>: he gave me a flat refusal, saying that all this sort of people was not worth the powder would be wasted on them. Again I begged him to level the cannon, telling him, “The more dead, the fewer enemies;” which he did for my sake: and the shot killed fifteen or sixteen, and wounded many. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The lowest class of people; the rabble; the vulgar.