The trees were once more clothed in their wonted green after the passing of a northern winter. The woods and fields were enameled in a thousand colors, and the birds were raising their cheerful voices to greet the spring of the year 1759. All Nature smiled; only man seemed sorrowful and cast down; and the laborer no more lifted his gay song, and the greater portion of the lands lay fallow for lack of hands to till them. A cloud hung over all New France, for the mother country, a veritable step-mother, had abandoned her Canadian children. Left to its own resources, the Government had called to arms every able-bodied man to defend the colony against the invasion that menaced it. The English had made vast preparations. Their fleet, consisting of twenty ships of the line, ten frigates, and eighteen smaller vessels, accompanied by a number of transports, and carrying eighteen thousand men, was ascending the St. Lawrence under the command of General Wolfe; while two land armies, yet more numerous, were moving to effect a junction under the very walls of Quebec. The whole adult population of Canada capable of bearing arms had responded with ardor to their country's appeal; and there remained at home none but the old and feeble, the women and the children. To resist an army more numerous than the entire population of New France the Canadians had little but the memory of past exploits, and of their glorious victory at Carillon in the preceding year. Of what avail their proved courage against an enemy so overpowering and sworn to their defeat? You have long been misunderstood, my brethren of old Canada! Most cruelly have you been slandered. Honor to them who have lifted your memory from the dust! Honor, a hundred times honor, to our fellow-countryman, M. Garneau, who has rent the veil that covered your exploits! Shame to us who, instead of searching the ancient and glorious annals of our race, were content to bow before the reproach that we were a conquered people! Shame to us who were almost ashamed to call ourselves Canadians! Dreading to confess ourselves ignorant of the history of Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, that of our own country remained a sealed book to us.