Page:Public School History of England and Canada (1892).djvu/225

 approaching which would bring relief to the garrison. Then it was that one of Wolfe’s staff, Townshend, proposed to climb the steep banks of the St. Lawrence, at a point some three miles above Quebec. The plan was adopted, and steps were at once taken to carry it into effect. Early in September, Wolfe managed, under cover of a pretended attack on the opposite (Beauport) shore, to have the main part of his army and fleet moved above Quebec. Taking advantage of a dark night, and knowing that a small body of French soldiers were coming down to Quebec from Montreal



with a supply of provisions, Wolfe’s fleet dropped silently down the river, escorting thirty barges laden with sixteen hundred men. With muffled oars they glided down the stream, hugging the north shore. The sentries along the bank were deceived, their challenges being correctly answered (a French deserter having given the English the proper countersign), and they thought it was the convoy expected from Montreal. As the boats glided on, Wolfe, weak with his recent illness, and Slled with hope and anxiety, softly repeated several stanzas of Gray’s “Elegy” written but a year before. Pausing on the words is?