On February 17 Wolfe departed with Saunders’ fleet of twenty-one sail, bearing the king’s secret instructions to “carry into execution the said important operation with the utmost application and vigor.”[28] The voyage was protracted, and after arrival at Louisburg he was obliged to wait long before the promised troops appeared. He had expected regiments from Guadeloupe, but these could not yet be spared, owing to their wretched condition; and the Nova Scotia garrisons had also been weakened by disease, so that of the twelve thousand agreed upon he finally could muster somewhat under nine thousand.[29] These were of the best quality of their kind; although the general still entertained a low opinion of the value of the provincials, who, it must be admitted, were, however serviceable in bush-ranging, far below the efficiency of the regulars in a campaign of this character. The force was divided into three brigades, under Monckton, Townsend, and Murray, young men of ability; although Townsend’s supercilious manner--the fruit of a superior social connection--did not endear him either to his men or his colleagues. On June 1 the fleet began to leave Louisburg. There were thirty-nine men-of-war, ten auxiliaries, seventy-six transports, and a hundred and sixty-two miscellaneous craft, which were manned by thirteen thousand naval seamen and five thousand of the mercantile marine--an aggregate of eighteen thousand, or twice as many as the landsmen under Wolfe.[30] While to the latter is commonly given credit for the result, it must not be forgotten that the victory was quite as much due to the skilful management of the navy as to that of the army, the expedition being in all respects a joint enterprise, into which the men of both branches of the service entered with intense enthusiasm. The French had placed much reliance on the supposed impossibility of great battle-ships being successfully navigated up the St. Lawrence above the mouth of the Saguenay without the most careful piloting. This portion of the river, a hundred and twenty miles in length, certainly is intricate water, being streaked with perplexing currents created by the mingling of the river’s strong flow with the flood and ebb of the tide; the great stream is diverted into two parallel channels by reefs and islands, and there are numerous shoals--moreover, the French had removed all lights and other aids to navigation. But British sailors laughed at difficulties such as these, and, while they managed to capture a pilot, had small use for him, preferring their own cautious methods. Preceded by a crescent of sounding-boats, officered by Captain James Cook, afterward of glorious memory as a pathfinder, the fleet advanced slowly but safely, its approach heralded by beacons gleaming nightly to the fore, upon the rounded hill-tops overlooking the long thin line of riverside settlement which extended eastward from Quebec to the Saguenay.[31]