"I know perfectly well you cannot cure me," he said to the surgeon; "but pray make me up so that I may be without pain for a few days, and able to do my duty; that is all I want," To Pitt he wrote--and this was his last despatch: "The obstacles we have met with in the operations of the campaign are much greater than we had reason to expect, or could foresee; not so much from the number of the enemy (though superior to us), as from the natural strength of the country, which the Marquis de Montcalm seems wisely to depend upon. When I learned that succours of all kinds had been thrown into Quebec--that five battalions of regular troops, completed from the best inhabitants of the country, some of the troops of the colony, and every Canadian that was able to bear arms, besides several nations of savages, had taken the field in a very advantageous situation,--I could not flatter myself that I should be able to reduce the place. I sought, however, an occasion to attack their army, knowing well that with these troops I was able to fight, and hoping that a victory might disperse them....I found myself so ill, and am still so weak, that I begged the general officers to consult together for the general utility. They are all of opinion that, as more ships and provisions are now got above the town, they should try, by conveying up a corps of four or five thousand men (which is nearly the whole strength of the army after the Points of Lévi and Orleans are left in a proper state of defence), to draw the enemy from their present situation and bring them to an action. I have acquiesced in the proposal, and we are preparing to put it into execution." Carrying out this new plan, Wolfe first abandoned his camp at Montmorency, and for the moment concentrated his strength at Lévi and Orleans. Then Admiral Holmes's division in the river above the city was strengthened, and on the night of the 4th of September ships and transports, carrying five months' provisions, silently and successfully ran the blockade of the citadel's guns and anchored off Cap Rouge. On the 5th, Murray, Monckton, and Townshend marched seven battalions overland from Point Lévi to the mouth of the river Etechemin opposite Sillery Cove; and on the 6th, Wolfe found himself cruising above the town with twenty-two ships and thirty-six hundred men.