I answered him: "That we would be beat before our columns could be formed so near to the enemy; and, besides, that our columns must be very weak, not having Grenadiers to place at their heads." I added, that "since it is decided to attack, it must be in Front Baudière(?)" I sent all the officers to their posts, and ordered the drummers to beat the charge. Our onset was neither brisk nor long. We went on in confusion--were repulsed in an instant; and it could not naturally be otherwise from the absence of our Volunteers and Grenadiers, and de Bougainville at Cap Rouge with the best of our Canadians; the Montreal regiments with Poularies at Beauport, a league and a half from the battle-field. The example of the bravest soldiers in a regiment--the Grenadiers and Volunteers--suffices to infuse courage in the most timid, who can follow the road shown to them, but cannot lead the way. The brave Canadian Militia saw us with heavy hearts, grief and despair, from the other side of the St. Charles river, cut to pieces upon the heights, stopped, as they were, in the hornwork, and prevented by superior orders from rushing to our assistance. About two hundred brave and resolute Canadians rallied in the hollow at the bakehouse, and returned upon the heights. They fell instantly upon your left wing with incredible rage; stopped your army for some minutes from pursuing our soldiers in their flight, by attracting your attention to them; resisted, undaunted, the shock of your left; and, when repulsed, they disputed the ground inch by inch from the top to the bottom of the height, pursued by your troops down to the valley at the bakehouse, opposite to the hornwork. These unfortunate heroes--who were most of them cut to pieces--saved your army the loss of a great many men, by not being hotly pursued; and if your left, who followed these two hundred Canadians down to the plain, had crossed it from the bakehouse to the River St. Charles, only three or four hundred paces, they would have cut off the retreat of our army, invested the three-fourths of them in Quebec, without provisions, and M. de Vaudreuil, next day, must have surrendered the town and asked to capitulate for the colony. But your conduct cannot be blamed, as it is always wise and prudent in giving--as Pyrrhus advises--a golden bridge to one's enemy in flight.