He pretended that the presenting a great front to the enemy would give us a bold look, and inspire respect. As there can be no positive certainty in any military operation, from unforeseen accidents which often overturn the best combined project, I readily sacrificed to him my opinion, without insisting upon it. In this new position M. de Vaudreuil commanded the right of our camp, near Quebec; M. de Levis the left, at the Sault de Montmorency; and I commanded the centre, at Beauport. WOLFE:--Had you continued on the heights of Abraham you would have saved Quebec, but you would have abandoned to me all the country where I might have destroyed, burnt and ruined all the settlements at some leagues round it. MONTCALM:--That may be, but Canada would not have been taken, and certainly you durst not penetrate far into the country, leaving Quebec behind you. Had you attacked me, I would have had the advantage of the rising ground, which I would have fortified with intrenchments, and with a chain of redoubts from Quebec to Cap Rouge, where these heights terminate in a deep ravine, with a small river at the bottom of it, overhung with rocks, at three leagues from Quebec. This advantageous position, not to be successfully attacked by any number of men, would have been my advanced post. My right would have been applied to Quebec, and sustained by it. I never could guess, sir, your idea in reducing that town to ashes as you did, by throwing upon it continually, from your batteries on the opposite side of the river, that immense number of carcases and shells. It seems to me that when an army besieges a town, it is with the intention, on its surrendering, to keep possession of it, and have houses in it to lodge the troops, instead of heaps of ruins. This conduct was still more essentially necessary from the season being advanced, and from the impossibility of carrying-on any kind of house building during the winter. Moreover, the utter destruction of that town reduced to ashes could not hasten its being taken a moment sooner. You could do no harm to our batteries, which were much higher than yours; it is not by destroying houses that towns are taken. You always battered houses, without reflecting that it is only by ruining the fortifications--the defences--and by a breach in the walls, that success may be hoped for in sieges; and it is certain that you lavished a prodigious quantity of warlike stores very uselessly. What advantages could you expect by ruining and distressing the inhabitants of Quebec, whose houses you burnt? It was destroying alone for the pleasure of doing injury, without any advantage accruing to you from it. WOLFE:--My inaction during the whole summer should have made you perceive what little hopes I had of succeeding in my expedition; should it turn out fruitless after the sum it had cost England, the news of Quebec being reduced to ashes might blind the extravagant English populace, and blunt their fanatical fury.