In the first attack upon the fortress Wolfe was driven back with a loss of 400 men. Well might he become dispirited and long for the day when Amherst, now that Niagara had surrendered, would come marching to his aid. But Amherst did not come, while all the time the situation grew more critical. Not only was there a strongly entrenched enemy in Quebec, but from every wood shots were fired at the British, and every night rang with false alarms to wear down their strength and courage. At last Wolfe, weak with fever, but burning with the greater fire of patriotism, resolved to wait no longer. It came to his knowledge that up the cliff side of the fortress there was a narrow pathway leading to a plateau upon the Plains of Abraham. Should he contrive to capture such a commanding position the enemy could be met upon fair terms. The situation is aptly expressed in the jingle: Quebec was once a Frenchman’s town, but twenty years ago, King George the Second sent a man called General Wolfe, you know, To clamber up a precipice and look into Quebec, As you’d look down a hatchway when standing on the deck.[5] Upon the 5th and 6th of September he embarked his forces and planned to take the French by surprise. It was a very dark night, and no moon shining, when Wolfe’s force, including Fraser’s Highlanders, took to their boats, and soon, in absolute silence, the transports were gliding like ghosts over the water. Wolfe, spent with sickness, sat amongst his officers, and it is recorded that as the boats reached the cliff up which they hoped to find the way to victory, he repeated to himself some verses from ‘An Elegy in a Country Churchyard,’ remarking, “I would rather have written that poem than take Quebec.” By a simple ruse the boats arrived at the shore. They were challenged by a sentry, but a Highland officer replied with more resource than truthfulness that they were French. For the moment the danger was negotiated, and soon they were at the foot of a precipitous cliff which rose some 200 feet sheer above them. Landing in absolute silence, the Highlanders began to move up its front, hoisting and pulling each other from foot to foot, and ledge to ledge, clinging to roots and trees with bleeding hands and knees—but always nearing the top. The few French pickets, nodding in the darkness above, saw the danger that had crept out of the night too late. They were speedily overcome and silenced, and at dawn of day some 4000 British troops were drawn up upon the Plains of Abraham. Well might Montcalm say, “They have at last got to the weak side of this miserable garrison; we must give battle and crush them before midday.” Quebec was, in that admission, already half won.