le heights of Cap-Rouge. Montcalm
persisted in doing nothing that his enemy wished him to do. He would not
fight on Wolfe's terms, and Wolfe resolved at last to fight him on his
own; that is, to attack his camp in front.

The plan was desperate; for, after leaving troops enough to hold Point
Levi and the heights of Montmorenci, less than five thousand men would
be left to attack a position of commanding strength, where Montcalm at
an hour's notice could collect twice as many to oppose them. But Wolfe
had a boundless trust in the disciplined valor of his soldiers, and an
utter scorn of the militia who made the greater part of his enemy's
force.

Towards the Montmorenci the borders of the St. Lawrence are, as we have
seen, extremely high and steep. At a mile from the gorge of the cataract
there is, at high tide, a strand, about the eighth of a mile wide,
between the foot of these heights and the river; and beyond this strand
the receding tide lays bare a tract of mud nearly half a mile wide. At
the edge of the dry ground the French had built a redoubt mounted with
cannon, and there were other similar works on the strand a quarter of a
mile nearer the cataract. Wolfe could not see from the river that these
redoubts were commanded by the musketry of the intrenchments along the
brink of the heights above. These intrenchments were so constructed that
they swept with cross-fires the whole face of the declivity, which was
covered with grass, and was very steep. Wolfe hoped that, if he attacked
one of the redoubts, the French would come down to defend it, and so
bring on a general engagement; or, if they did not, that he should gain
an opportunity of reconnoitring the heights to find some point where
they could be stormed with a chance of success.

In front of the gorge of the Montmorenci there was a ford during several
hours of low tide, so that troops from the adjoining English camp might
cross to co-operate with their comrades landing in boats from Point Levi
and the Island of Orleans. On the morning of the thirty-first of July,
the tide then being at the flood, the French saw the ship "Centurion,"
of sixty-four guns, anchor near the Montmorenci and open fire on the
redoubts. Then two armed transports, each of fourteen guns, stood in as
close as possible to the first redoubt and fired upon it, stranding as
the tide went out, till in the afternoon they lay bare upon the mud. At
the same time a battery of more than forty heav