MONTCALM:--That brave militia deserves justly the greatest praise. Not a man of them stirred from his post, and they showed as much ardour, courage and resolution as my regular troops. I had no more than fifty men killed and wounded by your furious cannonade, which proves how little cannons are hurtful in comparison to the dread and respect they inspire. Permit me, sir, to tell you that your countrymen, the English, appear to me, from their conduct in Canada, to be as rash, inconsiderate and hot-headed as the French, who have ever enjoyed that character, notwithstanding your countrymen's reputation for coolness and phlegmatic bravery, since I have seen several examples of their attacking us before they had examined the _locale_, or known our position; and if the two nations are compared impartially, I am persuaded that you will do us the justice to own that in our operations in Canada we have shown much more circumspection and coolness than your English generals. Your attack of the 31st July, without having procured beforehand an exact knowledge of the hill and of the places adjacent, is not the first example of great temerity and impatience on their part. The proximity of your camp to this hill might have furnished you the means to have a thorough knowledge of our position, by sending proper persons to cross over the ford of the river Montmorency where it falls into the river St. Lawrence, and where it is fordable at low water. They might, in a dark night and bad weather, have not only examined the steepness of the height, but have even gone over all our camp without being discovered; I always imagined you did so until the day of your attack, which soon convinced me of the contrary. Your brother in arms, Abercrombie, your predecessor in the command of the army, committed the same fault at Ticonderoga as you did the 31st of July; but it cost him much dearer, the clouds which saved you not having come to his assistance. I set out from Montreal on the 5th of May, 1758, to go to Ticonderoga, with all my regular troops--the regiments of La Sarre, La Reine, Royal Rousillon, Berne, Guienne, Languedoc, Berry of two battalions, and the independent companies of the marine detached in Canada; the regiments from France not being recruited, the whole amounted to only about four thousand men. I had no positive information that the English army had formed the design to come by the lake St. Sacrament in order to attack Ticonderoga (Carillon), and from thence to go to Montreal--but I suspected it, from the proximity of this ford to your settlement upon lake St. Sacrament; nor did I cease beseeching continually M. Vaudreuil, who was then at Quebec, to send me with all possible diligence the Canadian militia, which was the principal force for the defence of the colony.