s of Montcalm showed his
amazing daring. And yet beyond firing across the Montmorenci on
Montcalm's left wing, and bombarding the city from Point Levi, the
British general could accomplish nothing. Montcalm knew that winter must
compel Wolfe to retreat, and he remained stubbornly but warily on the
defensive.

On July 18 the British performed a daring feat. In the darkness of the
night two of the men-of-war and several sloops ran past the Quebec
batteries and reached the river above the town; they destroyed some
fireships they found there, and cut off Montcalm's communication by water
with Montreal. This rendered it necessary for the French to establish
guards on the line of precipices between Quebec and Cap-Rouge. On July
28 the French repeated the experiment of fire-ships on a still more
gigantic scale. A vast fire-raft was constructed, composed of some
seventy schooners, boats, and rafts, chained together, and loaded with
combustibles and explosives. The fire-raft is described as being 100
fathoms in length, and its appearance, as it came drifting on the
current, a mass of roaring fire, discharging every instant a shower of
missiles, was terrifying. But the British sailors dashed down upon it,
broke the huge raft into fragments, and towed them easily ashore. "Hang
it, Jack," one sailor was heard to say to his mate as he tugged at the
oar, "didst thee ever take hell in tow before?"

Time was on Montcalm's side, and unless Wolfe could draw him from his
impregnable entrenchments and compel him to fight, the game was lost.
When the tide fell, a stretch of shoal a few score yards wide was left
bare on the French side of the Montmorenci. The slope that covered this
was steep, slippery with grass, crowned by a great battery, and swept by
the cross-fire of entrenchments on either flank. Montcalm, too, holding
the interior lines, could bring to the defence of this point twice the
force with which Wolfe could attack it. Yet to Wolfe's keen eyes this
seemed the one vulnerable point in Montcalm's front, and on July 31 he
made a desperate leap upon it.

The attack was planned with great art. The British batteries thundered
across the Montmorenci, and a feint was made of fording that river higher
up, so as to distract the attention of the French, whilst the boats of
the fleet threatened a landing near Quebec itself. At half-past five the
tide was at its lowest, and the boat-flotilla, swinging round at a
signal, pul