LIII. Nov. party, except about one hundred and fifty left at CHAP Point Levi, were landed undiscovered, yet without their ladders, at Wolfe's cove. The feeble band met 1775 no resistance as they climbed the oblique path to the Plains of Abraham. Wolfe had come, commanding the river with a fleet, they, in frail bark canoes, hardly capable of holding a fourth of their number at a time; Wolfe, with a well appointed army of thousands, they with less than six hundred effective men or a total of about seven hundred, and those in rags, barefooted, and worn down with fatigue; Wolfe with artillery, they with muskets only, and those muskets so damaged that one hundred were unfit for service; Wolfe with unlimited stores of ammunition, they with spoiled cartridges and a very little damaged powder. If it had required weeks for Montgomery with an army of two thousand men to reduce St. John's, how could Quebec, a large and opulent town of five thousand inhabitants, strongly fortified and carefully guarded, be taken in a moment by five hundred half armed musketeers? "The enemy being apprised of our coming," says Arnold, "we found it impracticable to attack them without too great risk." In the course of the day he led two or three hundred men within sight of the walls, where they gave three huzzas of defiance; and in the evening he sent a flag to demand the surrender of the place. The flag was not received, and the British would not come out. For two or three days Arnold encamped about a mile and a half from town, posting on all its avenues small guards, which actually prevented fuel or refreshments of any kind being brought in. Yet the invaders Nov. CHAP. were not to be dreaded, except for their friends within LIII. the walls, whose rising would have offered the only 1775. chance of success; but of this there were no signs. Arnold then ordered a strict examination to be made into the state of his ammunition, and as the result showed no more than five rounds to each man, it was judged imprudent to run the risk of a battle; and on the nineteenth his party retired to Point aux Trembles, eight leagues above Quebec, where they awaited the orders of Montgomery. CHAPTER LIV. THE SIEGE OF QUEBEC. NOVEMBER, DECEMBER, 1775. LIV. Nov. THE day before Montgomery entered Montreal, CHAP. Carleton, with more than a hundred regulars and Canadians, embarked on board some small vessels in 1775. the port to descend to Quebec. He was detained in the river for several days by contrary winds, and moreover he found the St. Lawrence, near the mouth of the Sorel, guarded by continental troops under Easton. On the seventeenth of November, Prescott, the brigadier who had so lately treated Allen with insolent cruelty, surrendered the flotilla of eleven sail with all the soldiers, sailors, and stores on board; but in the darkest hour of the previous night, Carleton, entering a small boat in the disguise of a peasant, had been safely paddled through the islands that lie opposite the Sorel. Touching as a fugitive at Trois Rivières, he arrived on the nineteenth at Quebec, where his presence diffused joy and confidence among the loyal. Thus far he had shown CHAP. great poverty of resources as a military chief; but his LIV. humane disposition, his caution, his pride, and his 1775. firmness were guarantees that Quebec would be perNov. tinaciously defended. Besides, he had been Wolfe's quartermaster general, and had himself witnessed how much of the success of his chief had been due to the rashness of Montcalm in risking a battle outside of the walls. The rapid success of Montgomery had emboldened a party in Quebec to confess a willingness to receive him on terms of capitulation. But on the twenty second, Carleton ordered all persons who would not join in the defence of the town, to leave it within four days; and after their departure he found himself supported by more than three hundred regulars, three hundred and thirty Anglo-Canadian militia, five hundred and forty three French Canadians, four hundred and eighty five seamen and marines, beside a hundred and twenty artificers capable of bearing arms. Montgomery had conquered rather as the leader of a disorderly band of turbulent freemen, than as the commander of a disciplined army. Not only had the troops from the different colonies had their separate regulations and terms of enlistment, but the privates retained the inquisitiveness and self-direction of civil life, so that his authority depended chiefly on his personal influence and his powers of persuasion. Now that Montreal was taken and winter was come, homesickness so prevailed among them that he was left with no more than eight hundred men to garrison his conquests, and to go down against Quebec. He was deserted even by most of the Green Mountain Boys, who at first were disposed to share his winter LIV. campaign. The continental congress, which was eager CHAP. for the occupation of Canada, took no seasonable care to supply the places of his men as their time of enlist- 1775. ment expired. Nov. On the twenty sixth, leaving St. John's under the command of Marinus Willett of New York, and intrusting the government of Montreal to Wooster of Connecticut, and in the spirit of a lawgiver who was to regenerate the province making a declaration that on his return he would call a convention of the Canadian people, Montgomery embarked in a fleet of three armed schooners, with artillery and provisions and three hundred troops; and on the third day of De- Dec. cember, at Point aux Trembles, made a junction with Arnold. "The famine-proof veterans," now but six hundred and seventy five in number, were paraded in front of the Catholic chapel, to hear their praises from the lips of the modest hero, who, in animating words, did justice to the courage with which they had braved the wilderness, and to their superior style of discipline. From the public stores which he had taken, they received clothing suited to the terrible climate; and about noon on the fifth, the little army, composed of less than a thousand American troops and a volunteer regiment of about two hundred Canadians, appeared before Quebec, in midwinter, to take the strongest fortified city in America, defended by more than two hundred cannon of heavy metal, and a garrison of twice the number of the besiegers. Quick of perception, of a hopeful temperament, and impatient of delay, Montgomery saw at a glance his difficulties, and yet "thought there was a fair prospect of success." He could not expect it from a |