To increase the distress of the enemy, an order was issued from the English head-quarters on the 24th of July. "Our out-parties are to burn and lay waste the country for the future, sparing only churches, or houses dedicated to divine worship." However, it was again repeated, "that women and children are not to be molested, on any account whatsoever." We may suppose men received scant mercy. "We played so warmly on the town last night, that a fire broke out in two different parts of it at eleven o'clock, which burned with great rapidity until near three this morning. We are erecting a new six-gun battery to the right of the others, to keep the town in ruins, which appears to be almost destroyed." So writes an officer of the 43d, in his journal, dated Point Levi, 25th of July, 1759. Such is war, even when Wolfe, the pious, the domestic, and the tender-hearted, was the general! On the 26th the indefatigable British general proceeded up the left bank of the Montmorency River to reconnoiter some works which the enemy were erecting on the opposite side. His escort was attacked by a swarm of Indians, and for a time hardly pressed; many of the English soldiers were struck down before they could get sight of their subtle enemy; and when the savages were finally silenced, it was with the loss of nearly fifty of Wolfe's men killed and wounded. The next morning the 78th Highlanders surprised a French detachment, and slew nine of them; their own colonel and a captain were, however, wounded in the struggle. In consequence of some threatening movements in the British fleet, the French sent down a fire-raft on the night of the 28th. A number of small schooners, shallops, and rafts were chained together, to the breadth of 200 yards, and laden with shells, grenades, old guns, pistols, and tar barrels: this mischievous contrivance floated rapidly down with the ebb tide. The English seamen, however, were, as before, alert, and towed the fire-raft ashore, without its having caused the slightest damage. The following morning Wolfe sent a flag of truce to the garrison of Quebec, with the following message: "If the enemy presume to send down any more fire-rafts, they are to be made fast to two particular transports, in which are all the Canadian and other prisoners, in order that they may perish by their own base inventions." The French constructed no more fire-rafts. [Footnote 175: "That admiral (Saunders) was a pattern of most sturdy bravery, united with the most unaffected modesty. No man said less or deserved more. Simplicity in his manners, generosity, and good nature adorned his genuine love of his country."--Walpole's _Memoirs of George II._, p. 394.]