ENTRANCE TO THE CITADEL TO-DAY
GENERAL THE MARQUIS DE MONTCALM
Within the walls, the Chevalier de Ramézay commanded a garrison of above a thousand men. Every gate but one had been closed and barricaded, the Porte du Palais being left open to afford communication between the city and the camp by way of a bridge of boats across the St. Charles. Vaudreuil transferred the seat of government to Beauport, taking up his quarters at the centre with Montcalm; and those of the citizens who were not required to man the ramparts removed themselves and their valuables for safety to the country. Quebec was armed to the teeth. Three hundred feet above the river rose the battery of the citadel; on a lower level the Castle Battery frowned over towards Point Lévi, the Grand Battery commanding the harbour; while, on the wharves of Lower Town, the Queen's, Dauphin's, and Royal batteries were able to sweep the narrows. Even though the English fleet might run this gauntlet of heavy ordnance, the high cliffs for miles above the city remained practically inaccessible, and at almost any point a hundred resolute men would suffice to beat back an army. In the face of these preparations, it seemed an act of madness to attempt the reduction of Quebec. But within defences so secure the ardent spirits of the Canadian troops were chafing at enforced inaction; for although diligently exercised by their commanders, they still had leisure to think of the homes they loved, where the corn would never be garnered.
On the English side Captain Cook, as his biographer relates, "was employed to procure accurate soundings of the channel between the Island of Orleans and the shore of Beauport—a service of great danger, which could only be performed in the night-time. He had scarcely finished when he was discovered, and a number of Indians in canoes started to cut him off. The pursuit was so close that they jumped in at the boat's stern as Cook leaped out to gain the protection of the English sentinel. The boat was carried off by the Indians. Cook, however, furnished the admiral with as correct a draft of the channel and soundings as could afterwards have been made when the English were in peaceable possession of Quebec."
HOPE GATE
At length, towards the end of June, the invading ships sailed up the channel south of the Isle of Orleans; twenty ships of the line, twenty frigates, and a swarm of transports, bearing in all about nine thousand men. But Quebec, so often threatened in the past, and ever fortunate in resistance, gazed complacently down upon this imposing fleet. Montcalm feared but one contingency, the co-operation of Amherst with Wolfe from the west; and this, as we have seen, was a needless anxiety. Disembarking, Wolfe pitched his camp at the western end of the Isle of Orleans, four miles from Quebec. Before him rose the portentous batteries of the city, and, on his right, the long battle-line of Montcalm flaunted a desperate challenge. Remembering, however, that defences stronger still had been carried at Louisbourg, the English General confidently drew up his plans.
