When the spring came round, the French again made their appearance on high ground between the town and Abraham's Plains, and General Murray must needs march us out to fight them. At this time scarcely a man in the garrison but was afflicted with colds or coughs. The day fixed on orders was the 28th April, 1760, at seven in the morning, and cold and raw enough it was! Before the sortie I took a biscuit and, spread a bit of butter over it, and I set about 'cranching' it, and said to Hector Munro, for whom I had a great attachment: "You had better do as I am doing, for you cannot know when you may be able to get your next meal." Hector answered, "I will not touch anything; I have already taken my last meal, for something tells me that I shall never require another meal in this world." "Hout! man," said I, "you are talking nonsense; take a biscuit, I tell you." But no, Hector would have none! Well, the hour came for parading, and we were soon afterwards marched out of the garrison. It was my lot to act as covering sergeant to Lieutenant Fraser of our Grenadiers, who had already been wounded at the affair of the Falls, through the belly and out at his back, without his scarcely having felt it. (This Lieutenant Fraser was nephew to my friend Captain Baillie, who was the first man killed at the landing at Louisbourg, and who, had he lived, would have been the means of securing to me my commission, as had been the understanding between him and Colonel Fraser, when I volunteered in Scotland for service in America). Early in the action with the French, Lieut. Fraser received a shot in the temple, which felled him to the very spot on which he then stood, and as not an inch of ground was to be lost, I had to move up into line, which I could not have done without my resting one foot upon his body! The affair went altogether against us, and we had to retreat back into the town. When I got back to my quarters, I there found poor Hector Munro, who not being able to walk, had been carried in, owning to a wound he had received in the lower part of the belly, through which his bowels were coming out! He had his senses about him, and reminded me of our conversation just before the battle. He was taken to the Hôtel Dieu, where he died the next morning, in great agony. When I first saw the French soldiers I thought them a dirty, ragged set--their clothing was originally white. Many of them, particularly in the 'Regiment de la Reine,' had a bit of blue ribbon to the buttonhole of their coat, with a little white shell fixed to it, which they called 'Papa,' and this, it seems, was a mark of honour for having distinguished themselves on some