A threefold English advance on Montreal was planned. Murray was to move up the river from Quebec. Brigadier Haviland was to force the passage of the Île aux Noix at the end of Lake Champlain, and strike the St. Lawrence opposite Montreal. Amherst himself, with the main army, starting from Oswego on Lake Ontario, was to come down the river from the west. Murray was first in motion. He embarked {320} 2,400 men on ships and boats, and on July 14 took his way up stream, followed and joined on August 17 by two regiments from Louisbourg, which was being dismantled and abandoned. The troops went slowly up the river, passed French outposts at various points, landed here and there, here and there exchanged shots, and were often supplied with provisions by the peasantry, who preferred bargaining to fighting, and many of whom took the oath of allegiance. At Sorel, at the mouth of the Richelieu river, Bourlamaque was stationed with a comparatively strong force to prevent a junction between Murray and Haviland, who was coming down from Lake Champlain; but no battle took place, and, after Murray had reluctantly burnt the deserted houses of the inhabitants of Sorel, who were absent in arms, the English on the river, and the French on either bank, moved onward side by side towards Montreal. By the end of August, Murray was encamped on an island a few miles below Montreal, gradually gathering intelligence of Haviland's and Amherst's advance; and on September 7 he landed on the island of Montreal itself. During the voyage up the river two facts had become manifest. One was that the country higher up the St. Lawrence was less impoverished, and supplies were more plentiful, than in the neighbourhood of Quebec. The other was that the Canadians, who still had something to lose, were anxious for peace. The constant advance of the English, the obvious futility of Vaudreuil's boasts and threats, the good treatment of the inhabitants who offered no resistance, had due effect. The country side surrendered, the militia deserted, the French regulars began to follow suit; and the few remaining troops, driven back on Montreal, recognized the hopelessness of their position. [Sidenote: _Haviland's advance._]