3. The fleet, with nine thousand troops on board, sailed out of the harbour of Louisbourg in June, 1759, the officers drinking to the toast, "British colours on every French fort, port, and garrison in America," Fifteen months later this wild wish was realised, except at New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi.
4. While the British fleet is making its way up the St. Lawrence, the French under their brave, able and humane general, Montcalm, take up a strong position east of Quebec, between two rivers, and behind earthworks which lined the shore. The British army landed on the Isle of Orleans three or four miles below Quebec. Wolfe soon saw that the task before him was a desperate one. Before him frowned the rock of Quebec, rising vertically more than 300 feet; and crowning the rock was a citadel girdled with batteries.
5. Our troops had hardly taken up their quarters, after landing, than the enemy in the hope of cutting off their retreat attempted to destroy our fleet by means of fire-ships, filled with pitch, tar, and other combustibles, mixed with bombs, grenades, and old cannon and muskets loaded to the mouth. On they came with the tide, flaming and exploding, yet doing no harm except to a few French sailors who were steering them. Some of them ran ashore before reaching the fleet; the others were caught with grappling irons by the British tars, and towed safely out of harm's way. A second attempt, later on, to burn the English fleet by means of a fire-raft met with no better success. It consisted of seventy rafts, boats, and schooners chained together. Nothing saved the fleet but the undaunted courage of the British sailors, who towed the fire-raft safe to shore, and left it at anchor, whilst sounding the well-known refrain, All's well.
GENERAL WOLFE'S ATTACK ON QUEBEC.
6. Wolfe, meanwhile, had laid Quebec in ruins, but no injury he could do could draw "the wary old fox" from his cover. The question was less how to fight the enemy than how to get at him. Montcalm persisted in doing nothing that his antagonist wished him to do. "I can't get at him," wrote Wolfe, "without spilling a torrent of blood, and that perhaps to little purpose." At last the attempt was made, and many lives were lost in vain. The troops, however, so loved and trusted their general that they were ready to do his bidding with alacrity when he resolved on a still more daring venture.
7. The time was fast approaching when the English fleet would have to leave the St. Lawrence to escape imprisonment in the ice. As a forlorn hope, it occurred to Wolfe that an attempt might be made to scale the heights under cover of night. About a mile above Quebec was a tiny bay, now called Wolfe's Cove, from which a narrow path passed up the face of the woody precipice, known as the Heights of Abraham. Close upon the brow of the hill was the post of a French captain with 150 men.
8. Whilst the main fleet made a feigned attack below Quebec, Wolfe was quietly preparing for his venture ten miles further up the river. There a squadron of ships, with 3600 troops on board, lay tranquil at anchor. Around it was collected a number of boats sufficient to take half the troops. At one o'clock two lanterns were raised to the maintop of the leading ship as a signal for the soldiers to enter the boats; and an hour later, when the tide began to ebb, the order was given to cast off and glide down with the current. The vessels, with the rest of the troops, were to follow a little later.
9. For full two hours the procession of boats floated silently down the St. Lawrence. The stars were visible but the night was moonless and sufficiently dark. The general, who was in one of the foremost boats, repeated, in a low voice to the officers sitting round, Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard. "Gentlemen," he said, as he finished his recital, "I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec."