That he had little hope of success is shown by the tone of his correspondence. In his last dispatch to Pitt, dated September 2, he wrote, 'there is such a choice of difficulties, that I own myself at a loss how to determine.'[14] To Admiral Saunders, two or three days before, he had written of himself as 'a man that must necessarily be ruined';[14] and in his last letter to his mother, written on August 31, he spoke of being determined to leave the service at the earliest opportunity.[14] Townshend, meanwhile, in private, criticized him much as Wolfe himself had criticized his superior officers the year before. 'General Wolfe's health,' he wrote to his wife, 'is but very bad: his generalship, in my poor opinion, is not a bit better.'[15] Yet, sick and despondent as he was, Wolfe did not lie down in the furrow. For past failures he blamed no one but himself; manfully he faced the future in all its gloom; and, if Townshend felt little confidence in his leading, the soldiers knew better; and he led them to victory. [Footnote 14: Wright, pp. 548, 549, 553.] [Footnote 15: From the _Townshend Papers_. The letter is quoted in full by Kingsford in his _History of Canada_, vol. iv, p. 226, note.] [Sidenote: _Disposition of Wolfe's army at the end of August._] At the end of August, the following was the disposition of the English forces. Murray, with Admiral Holmes, was operating above the city; Monckton was at Point Levis, and near him Admiral Saunders, with the main English fleet, was anchored in the basin of Quebec. Wolfe himself, with Townshend, was still encamped on the northern shore below the Montmorency; and Admiral Durell, with the rearguard of the fleet, was watching the river below. Amherst's successes were known to Wolfe and his colleagues, but they soon learnt also that no help could be expected from him. September was on them, and at the end of September, or at {305} latest by the middle of October, the campaign would close. Whatever had to be done must be done quickly. [Sidenote: _The camp at the Montmorency broken up, and the troops moved up the river._] [Sidenote: _Montcalm deceived._]