The division which was to attack Pres-de-Ville assembled at 2 o’clock A. M. of the 31st December, at Montgomery’s headquarters, Holland House (now the property of Frank Ross, Esq.), and headed by Montgomery, marched across the Plains of Abraham and descended into the beach path, now Champlain street. Those who were to make the attack by the suburbs of St. Roch, headed by Arnold, were about 800 strong. The plan was that Montgomery and Arnold were to meet at the foot of Mountain Hill and storm the Upper Town. A heavy northeast snowstorm was raging at 4 o’clock that dark morning when Montgomery had descended the cliff and advanced along the narrow beach path, a ledge flanked to the left by the perpendicular cliffs of Cape Diamond and to the right by a precipitous descent at whose base flowed the tide of the St. Lawrence. The Pres-de-Ville barricade and the blockhouse at the narrowest part of the road was defended by Captain Chabot, Lieut. Picard, 30 Canadian militiamen, Captain Barnesfare and 15 seamen, Sergeant Hugh McQuarters, of the Royal Artillery, with several small guns, and Mr. John Coffin, 50 in all. The garrison was alert and saw the head of the column approach and halt some fifty yards from the barricade, when a man approached to reconnoitre, and on his return the column continued its advance, when it was fired on by cannon and musketry, whose first discharge killed Montgomery, his aides Macpherson and Cheeseman, and 10 men. Thereupon the rest of the 700 men turned and fled, pursued by the bullets of the Canadians till there was nothing more to fire at. None behind the leading sections knew what happened, and the slain, left as they fell, were buried by the drifting snow, whence their frozen bodies were dug out later in the day. Arnold’s column carried the barricade across Sous-le-Cap street, situated beneath the Half-Moon battery, and were stopped at the second barricade at the end of that narrow street (quite close to where is now Molsons Bank), defended by Major Nairne, Dambourges and others, who held them in check until Captain Laws’ strong party, coming from Palace Gate, took them in rear and caused their surrender, 427 in all, thus completing the victory of that morning. Arnold was put out of action early in the fight by a ball[1] from the ramparts near Palace Gate, when passing with the leading sections, and was carried to the General Hospital. * * * * * The late Governor-General, Lord Minto, took great interest in the tablets, and approved of the inscriptions which were submitted for his consideration. These tablets, in shield form, are of statuary bronze, with the lettering cast in relief. The large one on the rock under Cape Diamond measures six feet three inches by five feet nine inches, and is thus inscribed: