He now gave up all idea of his old plans against Beauport, as well as the new plan of the brigadiers, and decided on another plan of his own. It was new in one way, because he had never seen a chance of carrying it out before. But it was old in another way, because he had written to his uncle from Louisbourg on May 19, and spoken of getting up the heights four or five miles above Quebec if he could do so by surprise. Again, even so early in the siege as July 18 he had been chafing at what he called the 'coldness' of the fleet about pushing up beyond Quebec. The entry in his private diary for that day is: 'The _Sutherland_ and _Squirrell_, two transports, and two armed sloops passed the narrow passage between Quebec and Levy _without losing a man_.' Next day, his entry is more scathing still: 'Reconnoitred the country immediately above Quebec and found that _if we had ventured the stroke that was first intended we should infallibly have succeeded_.' This shows how long he had kept the plan waiting for the chance. But it does not prove that he had missed any earlier chances through the 'coldness' of the fleet. For it is significant that he afterwards struck out '_infallibly_' and substituted '_probably_'; while it must be remembered that the _Sutherland_ and her consorts formed only a very small flotilla, that they passed Quebec in the middle of a very dark night, that the St Lawrence above the town was intricate and little known, that the loss of several men-of-war might have been fatal, that the enemy's attention had not become distracted in July to anything like the same bewildering extent as it had in September, and that the intervening course of events--however disappointing in itself--certainly helped to make his plan suit the occasion far better late than soon. Moreover, in a note to Saunders in August, he had spoken about a 'desperate' plan which he could not trust his brigadiers to carry out, and which he was then too sick to carry out himself.