1759] The siege of Quebec. 139 entrenched hills. Filled with an overweening confidence in their powers, without waiting for the regiments behind, or the orders of their own officers, who had nothing for it but to go with them, they threw them- selves upon the steep slopes from whose embattled crests a storm of grape and musketry could sweep them at will. They never reached the summit, but through the gloom of a sudden and drenching thunderstorm fell back to the boats with the loss of 443 men, including 36 officers. It was a sad fiasco, and added to the depression that was fast settling on Wolfe's sen- sitive mind But his soldiers never for a moment lost faith in him ; and, as he lay foi some days in a critical condition, wracked with the pain of his recurrent maladies, and by mental torture at the thoughts of failure, one note of sympathy permeated the whole army and one chorus of joy greeted his recovery. August passed away, and, save for the fact that the churches, convents and houses of Quebec had been battered into ruins by Monkton's guns on Point Levis, things were no further advanced ; and news had come that Amherst could not reach Montreal. Wolfe had already been up the river and looked at the cliffs which for six miles defended the plateau on whose eastern point Quebec was perched. When he rose from his sick bed on August 31 he had made, after consultation with his brigadiers, that famous resolution which cost him his life and gained him immortal fame. For its execution he could only employ some 4200 men, out of an army reduced by death and sickness to 7000. Abandoning the Montmorency camp on September 3rd, and leaving the remainder of his army at the Isle of Orleans and Point Levis, he marched up the south shore to where Admiral Holmes with some ships of the fleet well supplied with boats was awaiting him. Mont- calm was puzzled : Bougainville, who lay entrenched at Cap Rouge near to Wolfed new quarters, with 1500 men, was equally perplexed. Few besides the British general himself knew that he had selected for his despe- rate venture a spot where, at the Anse du Foulon, a mile above Quebec, a rude path zigzagged up the cliff. After a few days of seemingly purpose- less manoeuvring up the river the critical moment arrived. While below Quebec, on the day and night of the 12th the guns of the fleet and batteries, in accordance with secret instructions, were by their unusual activity exciting suspicions of some fresh endeavour under cover of their fire, Wolfe with 3600 picked men in boats was waiting for midnight to drop down to the Anse du Foulon. Not without some good luck, they passed the unsuspecting sentries in the small hours of the morning and, before dawn broke, were clambering up the two hundred feet of bushy precipice that led to the plains of Abraham which fronted the city. Six hundred more men under Burton, who had waited for them across the river, crossed in the same boats and followed rapidly on their tracks. A weak outpost at the top was instantly overpowered. The alarm was given, but there were no facilities within reach for serious resistance. At daylight Wolfe was marshalling on the plateau behind the city 'II. IV.
