On November 11, two days before Preston's men surrendered, Carleton, with two or three military officers disguised as peasants, boarded one of three armed vessels to go down from Montreal to Quebec. All the cannon at Montreal had been dismounted and spiked. What powder could not be carried away was buried or thrown into the river. Amid funereal silence, shaking hands sadly with the Montreal friends who had gathered at the wharf to say farewell, the English Governor left Montreal. That night the wind failed, and the three vessels lay to with limp sails. At Sorel, at Three Rivers, at every hamlet on both sides of the St. Lawrence, lay American scouts to capture the English Governor. All next day the vessels lay wind-bound. Desperate for the fate of Quebec, Carleton embarked on a river barge propelled by sweeps. Passing Sorel at night Carleton and his disguised officers could see the camp fires of the American army. Here oars were laid aside and the raft steadied down the tide by the rowers paddling with the palms of their hands. Three Rivers was found in possession of the Americans, and a story is told of Carleton, foredone from lack of sleep, dozing in an eating house or tavern with his head sunk forward upon his hands, when two or three American scouts broke into the room. Not a sign did the English party in peasant disguise give of alarm or uneasiness, which might have betrayed the Governor. "Come, come," said one of the English officers in French, slapping Sir Guy Carleton carelessly on the back, "we must be going"; and the Governor escaped unsuspected. November 19, to the inexpressible relief of Quebec Carleton reached the capital city.
Quebec now had a population of some five thousand. All able-bodied men who would not fight were expelled from the city. What with the small garrison, some marines who happened to be in port, and the citizens themselves, eighteen hundred defenders were mustered. On the walls were a hundred and fifty heavy cannon, and all the streets leading from Lower to Upper Town had been barricaded with cannon mounted above. At each of the city gates were posted battalions. Sentries never left the walls, and the whole army literally slept in its boots. It will be remembered that the natural position of Quebec was worth an army in itself. On all sides there was access only by steepest climb. In front, where the modern visitor ascends from the wharf to Upper Town by Mountain Street steep as a stair, barricades had been built. To the right, where flows St. Charles River past Lower Town, platforms mounted with cannon guarded approach. To the rear was the wall behind which camped Arnold; to the left sheer precipice, above which the defenders had suspended swinging lanterns that lighted up every movement on the path below along the St. Lawrence.
MAP OF QUEBEC DURING SIEGE OF CONGRESS TROOPS
Early in December comes Montgomery himself to Quebec, on the very ships which Carleton had abandoned. Carleton refuses even the letter demanding surrender. Montgomery is warned that forthwith any messenger sent to the walls will come at peril of being shot as rebel. Henceforth what communication Montgomery has with the inhabitants must be by throwing proclamations inside or bribing old habitant women as carriers,—for the habitants continue to pass in and out of the city with provisions; and a deserter presently brings word that Montgomery has declared he will "eat his Christmas dinner in Quebec or in Hell!" Whereupon Carleton retorts, "He may choose his own place, but he shan't eat it in Quebec."
Montgomery was now in the same position as Wolfe at the great siege. His troops daily grew more ragged; many were without shoes, and smallpox was raging in camp. He could not tempt his foe to come out and fight; therefore he must assault the foe in its own stronghold. It will be remembered, Wolfe had feigned attack to the fore, and made the real attack to the rear. Montgomery reversed the process. He feigned attack to the rear gates of St. John and St. Louis, and made the real attack to the fore from the St. Charles and the St. Lawrence. While a few soldiers were to create noisy hubbub at St. John and St. Louis gates from the back of the city, Arnold was to march through Lower Town from the Charles River side, Montgomery along the narrow cliff below the Citadel, through Lower Town, to that steep Mountain Street which tourists to-day ascend directly from the wharves of the St. Lawrence. On the squares of Upper Town the two armies were to unite and fight Carleton. The plan of attack practically encompassed the city from every side. Spies had brought rumors to Carleton that the signal for assault for the American troops was to be the first dark stormy night. Christmas passed quietly enough without Montgomery carrying out his threat, and on the night before New Year's all was quiet. Congress soldiers had dispersed among the taverns outside the walls, and Carleton felt so secure he had gone comfortably to bed. For a month, shells from the American guns had been whizzing over Upper Town, with such small damage that citizens had continued to go about as usual. On the walls was a constant popping from the sharpshooters of both sides, and occasionally an English sentry, parading the walls at imminent risk of being a target, would toss down a cheery "Good morrow, gentlemen," to a Congress trooper below. Then, quick as a flash, both men would lift and fire; but the results were small credit to the aim of either shooter, for the sentry would duck off the wall untouched, just as the American dashed for hiding behind barricade or house of Lower Town. Some of the Americans wanted to know what were the lanterns and lookouts which the English had constructed above the precipice of Cape Diamond. Some wag of a habitant answered these were the sign of a wooden horse with hay in front of it, and that the English general, Carleton, had said he would not surrender the town till the horse had caught up to the hay. Skulking riflemen of the Congress troops had taken refuge in the mansion of Bigot's former magnificence, the Intendant's Palace, and Carleton had ordered the cannoneers on his walls to knock the house down. So fell the house of Bigot's infamy.
Towards 2 A.M. of December 31 the wind began to blow a hurricane. The bright moonlight became obscured by flying clouds, and earth and air were wrapped in a driving storm of sleet. Instantly the Congress troops rallied to their headquarters behind the city. Montgomery at quick march swept down the steep cliff of the river to the shore road, and in the teeth of a raging wind led his men round under the heights of Cape Diamond to the harbor front. Heads lowered against the wind, coonskin caps pulled low over eyes, ash-colored flannel shirts buttoned tight to necks, gun casings and sacks wrapped loosely round loaded muskets to keep out the damp, the marchers tramped silently through the storm. Overhead was the obscured glare where the lanterns hung out in a blare of snow above Cape Diamond. Here rockets were sent up as a signal to Arnold on St. Charles River. Then Montgomery's men were among the houses of Lower Town, noting well that every window had been barricaded and darkened from cellar to attic. Somewhere along the narrow path in front of the town Montgomery knew that barricades had been built with cannon behind, but he trusted to the storm concealing his approach till his men could capture them at a rush. At Près de Ville, just where the traveler approaching harbor front may to-day see a tablet erected in memory of the invasion, was a barricade. Montgomery halted his men. Scouts returned with word that all was quiet and in darkness—the English evidently asleep; and uncovering muskets, the Congress fighters dashed forward at a run. But it was the silence that precedes the thunderclap. The English had known that the storm was to signal attack, and guessing that the rockets foretokened the assailants' approach, they had put out all lights behind the barricade. Until Montgomery's men were within a few feet of the log, there was utter quiet; then a voice shrieked out, "Fire!—fire!" Instantly a flash of flame met the runners like a wall. Groans and screams split through the muffling storm. Montgomery and a dozen others fell dead. The rest had broken away in retreat,—a rabble without a commander,—carrying the wounded. Behind the barricade was almost as great confusion among the English, for Quebec's defenders were made up of boys of fifteen and old men of seventy, and the first crash of battle had been followed by a panic, when half the guards would have thrown down their arms if one John Coffin, an expelled royalist from Boston, had not shouted out that he would throw the first man who attempted to desert into the river.
Meantime, how had it gone with Arnold?