A History of the British Army, Vol. 2: First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' WarFortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
History
A History of the British Army, Vol. 2: First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' War
Fortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
Great Britain -- History, Military; Great Britain. Army -- History
On the following day the troops were skilfully withdrawn without
loss from the camp on the Montmorenci. On the night of the 4th a
flotilla of flat-boats passed successfully above the town with
the baggage and stores, and on the 5th seven battalions marched
westward overland from Point Lévis and embarked, together with
Wolfe himself, on Admiral Holmes' ships. Montcalm thereupon
reinforced Bougainville to a strength of three thousand men and
charged him to watch the movements of the fleet with the utmost
vigilance. Bougainville's headquarters were at Cap Rouge, with
detached fortified posts at Sillery, six miles down the river,
at Samos yet farther down, and at Anse du Foulon, now called
Wolfe's Cove, a mile and a half above Quebec. It was by this last
that Wolfe, searching the heights for mile after mile with his
telescope, perceived a narrow path running up the face of the
precipice. From the path he turned his glass to the post above it,
and seeing but ten or twelve tents concluded that the guard was not
numerous and might be overpowered. There then was a way found for
the ascent of the cliffs from the river: the next problem was how
to turn the discovery to good account.
On the morning of the 7th of September Holmes' squadron weighed
anchor and sailed up to Cap Rouge. The French instantly turned
out to man their entrenchments; and Wolfe, having kept them in
suspense for a sufficient time, ordered the troops into the
boats and directed them to row up and down as if in search of a
landing-place. The succeeding days were employed in a series of
similar feints, the ships drifting daily up to Cap Rouge with
the flood tide and dropping down to Quebec with the ebb, till
Bougainville, who followed every movement with increasing anxiety
and bewilderment, fairly wore out his troops with incessant
marching to and fro.
[Sidenote: Sept. 12.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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