{239} They also triumphed at a distance in our colonies, entirely abandoned to their forces, which prolonged in a heroic struggle the throes of their agony. Pitt had determined to achieve the conquest of Canada. Already the outposts of Louisburg and Cape Breton had succumbed beneath the attacks of the English. The Anglo-American forces were increased during the campaign of 1758 to sixty thousand men. The entire population of Canada was not more numerous. In 1759, three armies invaded the French territory at once. On the 29th of June, a considerable fleet carried to the Island of Orleans, fronting Quebec, General Wolfe, a young officer of great promise who had distinguished himself at the siege of Louisburg. Pitt believed that he discerned in him the elements of superior merit. In spite of the blundering-- sometimes presuming, and again depressed--of Wolfe, he had resolved to confide to him the direction of the great expedition he contemplated. "If the Marquis de Montcalm succeeds again this year in deceiving our hopes," said the new general, "he can pass for a clever man: either the colony has resources that are unknown, or our generals are worse than ordinary." Quebec occupied an advantageous position, but the fortifications were bad; the loss of the place involved that of Canada. "If the Marquis were shut up there," said Wolfe, "we should soon have triumphed; our artillery would have made short work of the walls." An intrenched camp stretched before Quebec. The Indian tribes, hitherto ardently attached to France by the habitual kindness of its commerce, were decimated by the war, or had silently withdrawn, gained over by the money as well as the success of England. The two great European nations did not hesitate to wage war by means of the cruel or perfidious proceedings of their Indian allies. {240} For more than a month the town had borne the enemy's fire. The churches and convents were in ruins, and the French had not stirred from their camp of _l'Ange-Gardien._ Skirmishes were frequent. "Old men of seventy and children of fifteen years fire on our detachments," wrote Wolfe. "Our men are wounded at every border of the forest." The anger of the English soldiers had little by little reduced to a desert both banks of the St. Lawrence. In every direction villages and scattered dwellings were given to the flames.