ody hills that curved around
the town and harbor. Redoubts were made to protect its front, and
blockhouses to guard its left and rear from the bands of Acadians known
to be hovering in the woods.

Wolfe, with twelve hundred men, made his way six or seven miles round
the harbor, took possession of the battery at Lighthouse Point which the
French had abandoned, planted guns and mortars, and opened fire on the
Island Battery that guarded the entrance. Other guns were placed at
different points along the shore, and soon opened on the French ships.
The ships and batteries replied. The artillery fight raged night and
day; till on the twenty-fifth the island guns were dismounted and
silenced. Wolfe then strengthened his posts, secured his communications,
and returned to the main army in front of the town.

Amherst had reconnoitred the ground and chosen a hillock at the edge of
the marsh, less than half a mile from the ramparts, as the point for
opening his trenches. A road with an epaulement to protect it must first
be made to the spot; and as the way was over a tract of deep mud
covered with water-weeds and moss, the labor was prodigious. A thousand
men worked at it day and night under the fire of the town and ships.

When the French looked landward from their ramparts they could see
scarcely a sign of the impending storm. Behind them Wolfe's cannon were
playing busily from Lighthouse Point and the heights around the harbor;
but, before them, the broad flat marsh and the low hills seemed almost a
solitude. Two miles distant, they could descry some of the English
tents; but the greater part were hidden by the inequalities of the
ground. On the right, a prolongation of the harbor reached nearly half a
mile beyond the town, ending in a small lagoon formed by a projecting
sandbar, and known as the Barachois. Near this bar lay moored the little
frigate "Arethuse," under a gallant officer named Vauquelin. Her
position was a perilous one; but so long as she could maintain it she
could sweep with her fire the ground before the works, and seriously
impede the operations of the enemy. The other naval captains were less
venturous; and when the English landed, they wanted to leave the harbor
and save their ships. Drucour insisted that they should stay to aid the
defence, and they complied; but soon left their moorings and anchored as
close as possible under the guns of the town, in order to escape the
fire of Wolfe's batteries. Hence t