ong them again, rekindling their ardor, and
imparting a cheer that he could not share. For himself he had no pity;
but when he heard of the illness of two officers in one of the ships, he
sent them a message of warm sympathy, advised them to return to Point
Levi, and offered them his own barge and an escort. They thanked him,
but replied that, come what might, they would see the enterprise to an
end. Another officer remarked in his hearing that one of the invalids
had a very delicate constitution. "Don't tell me of constitution," said
Wolfe; "he has good spirit, and good spirit will carry a man through
everything."[762] An immense moral force bore up his own frail body and
forced it to its work.

[Footnote 762: Knox, II. 61, 65.]

Major Robert Stobo, who, five years before, had been given as a hostage
to the French at the capture of Fort Necessity, arrived about this time
in a vessel from Halifax. He had long been a prisoner at Quebec, not
always in close custody, and had used his opportunities to acquaint
himself with the neighborhood. In the spring of this year he and an
officer of rangers named Stevens had made their escape with
extraordinary skill and daring; and he now returned to give his
countrymen the benefit of his local knowledge.[763] His biographer says
that it was he who directed Wolfe in the choice of a landing-place.[764]
Be this as it may, Wolfe in person examined the river and the shores as
far as Pointe-aux-Trembles; till at length, landing on the south side a
little above Quebec, and looking across the water with a telescope, he
descried a path that ran with a long slope up the face of the woody
precipice, and saw at the top a cluster of tents. They were those of
Vergor's guard at the Anse du Foulon, now called Wolfe's Cove. As he
could see but ten or twelve of them, he thought that the guard could not
be numerous, and might be overpowered. His hope would have been stronger
if he had known that Vergor had once been tried for misconduct and
cowardice in the surrender of Beausejour, and saved from merited
disgrace by the friendship of Bigot and the protection of
Vaudreuil.[765]

[Footnote 763: Letters in _Boston Post Boy,_ No. 97, and _Boston Evening
Post,_ No. 1,258.]

[Footnote 764: _Memoirs of Major Robert Stobo._ Curious, but often
inexact.]

[Footnote 765: See _supra_, p. 186.]

The morning of the seventh was fair and warm, and the vessels of Holmes,
their crowded decks gay with scarlet uni