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CHAP. siege, for he had no battering train; nor by investing LIV. the place, which had provisions for eight months; there could therefore be no hope of its capture but by storm, and as the engagements of the New England men ended with the thirty first of December, the assault must be made within twenty six days. He grieved for the loss of life that might ensue, but his decision was prompt and unchanging. The works of the lower town were the weakest; these he thought it possible to carry, and then the favor of the inhabitants in the upper town, their concern for their property, the unwarlike character of the garrison, the small military ability of Carleton, offered chances of victory.

The first act of Montgomery was a demand for the surrender of the city; but his flag of truce was not admitted. On the sixth he addressed an extravagant and menacing letter to Carleton, which was sent by a woman of the country, and of which a copy was afterwards shot into the town upon an arrow; but Carleton would hold no communication with him, and every effort at correspondence with the citizens failed.

Four or five mortars were placed in St. Roc's, but the small shells which they threw did no essential injury to the garrison. Meantime a battery was begun on the heights of Abraham, about seven hundred yards southwest of St. John's gate. The ground was frozen and covered with deep snow, so that earth was not to be had; the gabions and the interstices of the fascines were therefore filled with snow; and on this water was poured in large quantities, which froze instantly in the intense cold. On the fifteenth, the

LIV.

day after the work was finished, a flag of truce was CHAP. again sent towards the wall with letters for the governor; but he refused to receive them or "hold any 1775 kind of parley with rebels." Montgomery knew that Carleton was sincere, and if necessary would sooner be buried under heaps of ruins than come to terms. The battery, consisting of but six twelve-pounders and two howitzers, had been thrown up only to lull the enemy into security at other points; it was too light to make any impression on the walls, while its embankment was pierced through and through, and its guns destroyed, by the heavy artillery of the fortress. Some lives were lost, but the invaders suffered more from pleurisy and other diseases of the lungs ; and the smallpox began its ravages.

A faint glimmer of hope still lingered, that the repeated defiance would induce Carleton to come out; but he could not be provoked into making an attempt to drive off the besiegers. "To the storming we must come at last," said Montgomery. On the evening of the sixteenth, a council was held by all the commissioned officers of Arnold's detachment, and a large majority voted for making an assault as soon as the men could be provided with bayonets, hatchets, and hand grenades. "In case of success," said Montgomery, "the effects of those who have been most active against the united colonies must fall to the soldiery." Days of preparation ensued, during which he revolved his desperate situation. His rapid conquests had filled the voice of the world with his praise; the colonies held nothing impossible to his good conduct and fortune; he had received the order of congress to hold Quebec, if it should come into his

CHAP. hands; should that fortress be taken the Canadians LIV. would enter heartily into the Union and send their 1775. deputies to congress. "Fortune," said he, "favors the brave; and no fatal consequences are likely to attend a failure."

Dec.

One day the general, accompanied by his aide-decamp, Macpherson, the pure-minded, youthful enthusiast for liberty, went out to meditate on "the spot where Wolfe had fallen, fighting for England in friendship with America." He ran a parallel in his mind between the career of Wolfe and his own; he had lost the ambition which once sweetened a military life, and a sense of duty was now his only spring of action; if the Americans should continue to prosper, he wished to return to the retired life in which he alone found delight; but said he, "should the scene change, I shall be always ready to contribute to the public safety." And his last message to his brother-in-law was: "Adieu, my dear Robert; may your happy talents ever be directed to the good of mankind.”

As the time for the assault drew near, three captains in Arnold's battalion, whose term of service was soon to expire, created dissension, and showed a mutinous disaffection to the service. In the evening of the twenty third, Montgomery repaired to their quarters, and in few words gave them leave to stand aside; "he would compel none; he wanted with him no persons who went with reluctance." His words recalled the officers to their duty, but the incident hurried him into a resolution to attempt gaining Quebec before the first of January, when his legal authority to restrain the waywardness of the discontented would cease. At sundown of Christmas he reviewed

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Arnold's battalion at Morgan's quarters, and ad- CHAP. dressed them with spirit; after which a council of war agreed on a night attack on the lower town. For the 1775. following days the troops kept themselves in readiness at a moment's warning. In the interval the intention was revealed by a deserter to the garrison, so that every preparation was made against a surprise; two thirds of the men lay on their arms; in the upper town, Carleton and others not on duty slept in their clothes; in the lower, volunteer pickets kept watch; and they all wished ardently that the adventurous attempt might not be delayed.

The night of the twenty sixth was clear, and so cold that no man could handle his arms or scale a wall. The evening of the twenty seventh was hazy, and the troops were put in motion; but as the sky soon cleared up, the general, who was tender of their lives, called them back, choosing to wait for the shelter of a favorable night, that is, for a night of clouds and darkness with a storm of wind and snow.

For the next days the air was serene, and a mild westerly wind brightened the sky. On the thirtieth a snow storm from the northeast set in. But a few hours more of the old year remained, and with it the engagement of many of his troops would expire; Montgomery must act now, or resign the hope of crowning his career by the capture of Quebec. Orders were therefore given for the troops to be ready at two o'clock of the following morning; and that they might recognise one another, each soldier wore in his cap a piece of white paper, on which some of them wrote: "LIBERTY OR DEATH."

It was Montgomery's plan to alarm the garrison

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CHAP. at once, along the whole line of their defences. Colonel James Livingston, with less than two hun1775. dred Canadians, was to attract attention by appearing before St. John's gate, on the southwest; while a company of Americans under Brown were to feign a movement on Cape Diamond, where the wall faces south by west, and from that high ground, at the proper time, were to fire rockets, as the signal for beginning the real attacks on the lower town, under Arnold from the west and north, under Montgomery from the south and east.

The general, who reserved for his own party less than three hundred Yorkers, led them in Indian file from head quarters at Holland House to Wolfe's Cove, and then about two miles further along the shore. The path was so rough that in several places they were obliged to scramble up slant rocks covered with two feet of snow, and then, with a precipice on their right, to descend by sliding down fifteen or twenty feet. The wind, which was at east by north, blew furiously in their faces, with cutting hail, which the eye could not endure; their constant step wore the frozen snow into little lumps of ice, so that the men were fatigued by their struggles not to fall, and they could not keep their arms dry.

The signal from Cape Diamond being given more than half an hour too soon, the general with his aidede-camps, Macpherson and Burr, pushed on with the front, composed of Cheesman's company and Mott's ; and more than half an hour before day they arrived at the first barrier, with the guides and carpenters. The rest of the party lagged behind; and the ladders were not within half a mile. Montgomery and Chees