ds on the St Charles side of the actual
Sault-au-Matelot or Sailor's Leap, which is the
north-easterly point of the Quebec promontory and nearly
a hundred feet high. Finally, they had to round this
point and attack the regular Sault-au-Matelot barricade.
This second barricade was about a hundred yards long,
from the rock to the river. It crossed Sault-au-Matelot
Street and St Peter Street, which were the same then as
now. But it ended on a wharf half-way down the modern St
James Street, as the outer half of this street was then
a natural strand completely covered at high tide. It was
much closer than the Pres-de-Ville barricade was to
Mountain Hill, at the top of which Carleton held his
general reserve ready in the Place d'Armes; and it was
fairly strong in material and armament. But it was at
first defended by only a hundred men.

The American forlorn hope, under Captain Oswald, got past
most of the Grand Battery unscathed. But by the time the
main body was following under Morgan the British
blue-jackets were firing down from the walls at less than
point-blank range. The driving snow, the clumps of bushes
on the cliff, and the little houses in the street below
all gave the Americans some welcome cover. But many of
them were hit; while the gun they were towing through
the drifts on a sleigh stuck fast and had to be abandoned.
Captain Dearborn, the future commander-in-chief of the
American army in the War of 1812, noted in his diary that
he 'met the wounded men very thick' as he was bringing
up the rear. When the forlorn hope reached the advanced
barricade Arnold halted it till the supports had come
up. The loss of the gun and the worrying his main body
was receiving from the sailors along the Grand Battery
spoilt his original plan of smashing in the barricade by
shell fire while Morgan circled round its outer flank on
the ice of the tidal flats and took it in rear. So he
decided on a frontal attack. When he thought he had a
fair chance he stepped to the front and shouted, 'Now,
boys, all together, rush!' But before he could climb the
barricade he was shot through the leg. For some time he
propped himself up against a house and, leaning on his
rifle, continued encouraging his men, who were soon firing
through the port-holes as well as over the top. But
presently growing faint from loss of blood he had to be
carried off the field to the General Hospital on the
banks of the St Charles.

The men now called out for