garrisoned by five battalions, bounded the horizon. At midnight on the 28th, the short darkness was lighted up by a fleet of fire-ships, that, after a furious storm of wind, came down with the tide in the proper direction. But the British sailors grappled with them and towed them free of the shipping. The river was Wolfe's; the men-of-war made it so; and, being master of the deep water, he also had the superiority on the south-shore of the St. Lawrence. In the night of the 29th, Monckton, with four battalions, having crossed the south channel, occupied Point Levi; and where the mighty current, which below the town expands as a bay, narrows to a deep stream of but a mile in width, batteries of mortars and cannon were constructed. The citizens of Quebec, foreseeing the ruin of their houses, volunteered to pass over the river and destroy the works; but, at the trial, their courage failed them, and they retreated. The English, by the discharge of red-hot balls and shells, set on fire fifty houses in a night, demolished the lower town, and injured the upper. But the citadel was beyond their reach, and every avenue from the river to the cliff was too strongly intrenched for an assault." The summer was going rapidly, and as yet no real progress had been made. Wolfe was eager for action,--and he pursued his researches into the nature of the formidable position with extraordinary eagerness:--