making tools
and gun-carriages. Stores were impressed from the merchants; and
certain articles, which could not otherwise be had, were smuggled,
with extraordinary address, out of Quebec itself.[827] Early in
spring the militia received orders to muster for the march. There
were doubts and discontent; but, says a contemporary, "sensible
people dared not speak, for if they did they were set down as
English." Some there were who in secret called the scheme
"Levis' folly;" yet it was perfectly rational, well conceived,
and conducted with vigor and skill. Two frigates, two sloops-of-war,
and a number of smaller craft still remained in the river, under
command of Vauquelin, the brave officer who haddistinguished himself
at the siege of Louisbourg. The storesand cannon were placed on
board these vessels, the army embarkedin a fleet of bateaux, and on
the twentieth of April thewhole set out together for the scene of
action. They comprised eight battalions of troops of the line and
two of colony troops; with the colonial artillery, three thousand
Canadians, and four hundred Indians. When they left Montreal, their
effective strength, besides Indians, is said by Levis to have been six
thousand nine hundred and ten, a number which was increased
as he advanced by the garrisons of Jacques-Cartier, Deschambault,
and Pointe-aux-Trembles, as well as by the Canadians on both side
of the St. Lawrence below Three Rivers; forVaudreuil had ordered
the militia captains to join his standard, with all their followers,
armed and equipped, on pain of death.[828] These accessions appear
to have raised his force to between eight and nine thousand.

[Footnote 827: __Vaudreuil au Ministre, 23 Avril, 1760_.]

[Footnote 828: _Vaudreuil aux Capitaines de Milice, 16 Avril, 1760_. I am
indebted to Abbe H.R. Casgrain for a copy of this letter.]

The ice still clung to the river banks, the weather was bad,
and the navigation difficult; but on the twenty-sixth the army
landed at St. Augustin, crossed the river of Cap-Rouge on
bridges of their own making, and moved upon the English outpost
at Old Lorette. The English abandoned it and fell backto Ste.-Foy.
Levis followed. Night came on, with a gale from the southeast, a
driving rain, and violent thunder, unusual at that season. The road,
a bad and broken one, led through themarsh called La Suede. Causeways
and bridges broke down under the weight of the marching columns and
plunged the men into water, mud