The winter which followed was a trying one for the garrison at Quebec. They held the battered town, amid constant rumours of attack, ill provided with warm clothing, with scanty supplies of firewood, suffering much from sickness, and, as Knox tells us, in arrears of pay, 'from which they might derive many comforts and refreshments under their present exigencies.'[28] Outposts were established at Point Levis, Sainte Foy, Lorette, and Cap Rouge; and here and there skirmishes took place with parties of the enemy. Levis was at Montreal, bent upon recovering Quebec. When the English fleet had left, he sent messages to France to ask that {316} provisions might be sent as early as possible in the coming year, with ships of war, timed to arrive in the St. Lawrence before the English should return, and numerous enough to hold the river for France. Meanwhile, he debated whether or not to attack Quebec in mid-winter, and attempt to carry it by a _coup de main_; but eventually determined to await the coming of spring and the opening of the waters. Thus the anxious winter passed, and the middle of April came. Attack became imminent, and Murray knew it. He ordered the French residents to leave Quebec, called in his outposts, and with a force sadly reduced by sickness awaited Levis' army. [Footnote 28: vol. ii, p. 241.] [Sidenote: _His advance in the spring of 1760._] At the end of October the effective strength of the garrison had been 7,313. On March 1 the number of fighting men, owing to scurvy and other diseases, was reduced to 4,800;[29] and, though April, with its milder weather, saw the beginning of recovery, the English force was greatly outmatched by the enemy, for Levis had with him, all told, at least 10,000 men.[30] About April 20, the French advance from Montreal began. The troops were brought down the river in ships and boats, and, landing some thirty miles above Quebec, crossed the Cap Rouge river and marched on to Lorette and Sainte Foy. [Footnote 29: Knox, vol. ii, p. 267.] [Footnote 30: Knox gives the French numbers as 15,000, against 3,140 English (p. 295).] [Sidenote: _The battle of Sainte Foy, and defeat of the English._]