four thousand men, up the south bank of the river.
Fording, near waist-deep, the Etchemain River, they were received beyond
its mouth by the boats of the fleet, and, as each detachment arrived,
conveyed on board. The Forty-eighth, however, seven hundred strong, were
left, under Colonel Burton, near Point Levis to await orders.

The fleet, with Wolfe and some thirty-six hundred men on board, now
moved up to Cap Rouge, behind which, at the first dip in the high
barrier of cliffs, was Bougainville with fifteen hundred men (soon
afterward increased), exclusive of three hundred serviceable light
cavalry. The cove here was intrenched, and the French commander was so
harried with feigned attacks that he and his people had no rest. At the
same time, so well was the universal activity maintained that Montcalm,
eight miles below, was led to expect a general attack at the mouth of
the Charles River, under the city. Throughout the 8th and 9th the
weather was dark and rainy and the wind from the east, an unfavorable
combination for a movement requiring the utmost precision. On the 10th
the troops from the crowded ships were landed to dry their clothes and
accoutrements. Wolfe and his brigadiers now finally surveyed that line
of cliffs which Montcalm had declared a hundred men could hold against
the whole British army. It was defended here and there by small posts.
Below one of these, a mile and a half above the city, the traces of a
zigzag path up the bush-covered precipice could be made out, though
Wolfe could not see that even this was barricaded. Here, at the now
famous Anse du Foulon, he decided to make his attempt.

The ships, however, kept drifting up and down between Cap Rouge and the
city, with a view to maintaining the suspense of the French. Each
morning Wolfe's general orders to the soldiers were to hold themselves
in readiness for immediate action, with as full directions for their
conduct as was compatible with the suppression of the spot at which
they were to fight. On the night of the 11th the troops were reembarked,
and instructions sent to Burton to post the Forty-eighth on the south
shore opposite the Anse du Foulon. On the following day Wolfe published
his last orders, and they contained a notable sentence: "A vigorous blow
struck by the army at this juncture may determine the fate of Canada."
Almost at the same moment his gallant opponent from his head-quarters at
Beauport was writing to Bourlamaque at Montreal