Braddock's forces were cut to pieces: very few of his stout thousand escaped to spread horror through the English colonies by the news of their misfortunes. The banner of the Leopard had gone down indeed before the white coats and the Silver Lilies of France and the painted fantasies of Indian braves and sachems. The fair hair of English soldiers graced the wigwams of the wild and remorseless Red Man, and it seemed for the moment as if the fighting power of England had gone. But, indeed, English fighting power was made of sterner stuff. The fact is, perhaps, never more happily exemplified than in this very story of the dying Braddock himself. As he was carried away, bleeding, to his death, from that fatal ambuscade, something of the hero animated and exalted {287} the spirit of that drink-hardy and foolhardy soldier. "I must do better another time," he is reported to have said; and it would not be easy to say with what gallanter words a stout soldier could go to his account. Against such a spirit as that which animated the dying Braddock the soldiers of France were not destined to triumph. "The last of the Gracchi," said Mirabeau, "when dying, flung dust to heaven, and from that dust sprang Marias." Braddock, promising himself to do better next time, spoke not indeed for himself, but for his nation. The next time came in its due season, but the man who "did better," who carried that "banner of the Leopard" high over the Lilies, was not Braddock, but James Wolfe. England thirsted for revenge. The years came and the years went, and at last they brought the hour and the men. An elaborate campaign in 1759 had been prepared, by which Amherst, coming by Lake George, Ticonderoga, and Lake Champlain; Prideaux and Johnson coming by Fort Niagara, Lake Ontario, and Montreal; and Wolfe coming by the St. Lawrence River, were to unite in attacking Quebec. But the first two divisions of the whole force were unable to make the connection in the due time, and to Wolfe's command alone was given the honor of assailing Quebec. He advanced up the St. Lawrence with some 7000 men and the fleet under Admiral Saunders, and encamped on the Island of St. Orleans in the St. Lawrence River, some eight miles from Quebec. The whole world, perhaps, hardly holds a scene more picturesque, whether looked at from above or from below, from the rock or from the river, than that which is given by the city of Quebec. At some places the bold mass of rock and clay descends almost sheer to the lower level and the river-shore. One can see that splendid heap of rock and clay from the distant Falls of Montmorency, standing out as the Acropolis of Athens or as Acrocorinth may be seen from some far-off point of view. The newer part of the city and the fortifications are perched high upon the great mound or mass of clay and rock, which looks over the {288} confluence of a mighty river and a great stream. The lower and older