As December wore on Montgomery grew eager to seize his prey. Carleton sat unmoved behind his walls and allowed the enemy to invest the town. He would hold no communication with the rebel army. When Montgomery sent messengers to the gates, under a flag of truce, Carleton would not receive them; the only message he would take, he said, would be an appeal to the mercy of the King, against whom they were in rebellion. Montgomery, too, showed for his foe lofty scorn, in words at least. On December 15th in General Orders he spoke of "the wretched garrison" posted behind the walls of Quebec, "consisting of sailors unacquainted with the use of arms, of citizens incapable of the soldier's duty and [a gibe at the corps in which Nairne served] a few miserable emigrants." He went on to promise his troops that when they took Quebec "the effects of the Governor, garrison, and of such as have been active in misleading the inhabitants and distressing the friends of liberty" should be equally divided among the victors. The opposing sides showed, in truth, the bitterness and exasperation of family quarrels and abandoned the usual courtesies of war. The Americans lay in wait to shoot sentries; they fired on single persons walking on the ramparts. It was reported to the British that Montgomery had said "he would dine in Quebec or in Hell on Christmas"--gossip probably untrue, as a British diarist of the time is fair enough to note, since it is not in accord with the dignity and sobriety of Montgomery's character. He did what he could to make possible this Christmas festivity within Quebec's walls. His men got together some five hundred scaling ladders. Then heavy snow came and the defenders jeered at such preparations: "Can they think it possible that they can approach the walls laden with ladders, sinking to the middle every step in snow? Where shall we be then? Shall we be looking on cross-armed?" The clear and inconceivably cold weather was also one of Quebec's defences for, as one diarist puts it, no man, after being exposed to it for ten minutes, could hold arms in his half-frozen hands firmly enough to do any execution. But by nothing short of death itself was Montgomery to be daunted; steadily he made his plans to assault the town.