He wrote a letter to Repentigny by Langlade, wherein he told him "having the greatest confidence in his prudence and good conduct, he might pass the river with his detachment, if he saw a certainty of success." His aide-de-camp told him, whilst he was sealing the letter, that Repentigny had too much judgment and good sense to take upon himself an affair of that importance; and his opinion of Repentigny was immediately justified by his answer; he asked M. de Levis to give him a clear and positive order. After thus loitering about an hour and a half, M. de Levis resolved at last to go himself to the ford, and give there his orders verbally; but he had scarce got half way to it when he heard a brisk fire. The Indians, losing all patience, after having remained so long hid at a pistol shot from you, like setter dogs upon wild fowl, at last gave you a volley, killed about a hundred and fifty of your soldiers, and then retired without losing a man. It is evident that had Repentigny passed the river with his detachment of eleven hundred Canadians, you must have been cut to pieces, and that affair would have terminated your expedition. Your army could have no more hopes of succeeding after such a loss; their spirits would have been damped, and Canada would have been secure from any further invasion from Great Britain. Fortune was always as favourable to you, as she constantly frowned upon us. M. de Levis is not to be blamed; an officer who serves under the orders of others can only be reproached when he does not execute punctually the orders he receives from his superiors; and he has always reason to be cautious and diffident in such cases where his honour and reputation may be engaged, as none can be positively certain of the issue of any military enterprise, and if success does not crown the venture, of which you have voluntarily burthened yourself, though undertaken from the best of motives and apparently for the good of the service, thousands of mouths will open to spit venom against you. But of all others, the ignorant amongst the military, and the knaves, to screen themselves, will surely be violent: this is so much the more astonishing, in the profession of arms, where sentiments of honour and honesty ought to be the foundation. WOLFE:--My intention in approaching so near your post at the ford was to examine it carefully, as I then had formed the design to attack it, little imagining that such a considerable detachment as I had with me would have been exposed to be set on by your Indians. Accustomed to European warfare, I could never have thought that a body of men should have been so long, so close to me without discovering them. Your intrenchments there appeared to be very trifling, but the sight of earth thrown up is respectable, and not to be despised.