hat happens afterwards is of no great
consequence." He sent to his mother an affectionate letter of farewell,
went to Spithead, embarked with Admiral Saunders in the ship "Neptune,"
and set sail on the seventeenth of February. In a few hours the whole
squadron was at sea, the transports, the frigates, and the great
line-of-battle ships, with their ponderous armament and their freight of
rude humanity armed and trained for destruction; while on the heaving
deck of the "Neptune," wretched with sea-sickness and racked with pain,
stood the gallant invalid who was master of it all.

The fleet consisted of twenty-two ships of the line, with frigates,
sloops-of-war, and a great number of transports. When Admiral Saunders
arrived with his squadron off Louisbourg, he found the entrance blocked
by ice, and was forced to seek harborage at Halifax. The squadron of
Admiral Holmes, which had sailed a few days earlier, proceeded to New
York to take on board troops destined for the expedition, while the
squadron of Admiral Durell steered for the St. Lawrence to intercept the
expected ships from France. In May the whole fleet, except the ten ships
with Durell, was united in the harbor of Louisbourg. Twelve thousand
troops were to have been employed for the expedition; but several
regiments expected from the West Indies were for some reason
countermanded, while the accessions from New York and the Nova Scotia
garrisons fell far short of the looked-for numbers. Three weeks before
leaving Louisbourg, Wolfe writes to his uncle Walter that he has an army
of nine thousand men. The actual number seems to have been somewhat
less.[697] "Our troops are good," he informs Pitt; "and if valor can
make amends for the want of numbers, we shall probably succeed."

[Footnote 697: See _Grenville Correspondence,_ I. 305.]

Three brigadiers, all in the early prime of life, held command under
him: Monckton, Townshend, and Murray. They were all his superiors in
birth, and one of them, Townshend, never forgot that he was so. "George
Townshend," says Walpole, "has thrust himself again into the service;
and, as far as wrongheadedness will go, is very proper for a hero."[698]
The same caustic writer says further that he was of "a proud, sullen,
and contemptuous temper," and that he "saw everything in an ill-natured
and ridiculous light."[699] Though his perverse and envious disposition
made him a difficult colleague, Townshend had both talents and energy;
as a