on was made, the supplies were all on board, and after a
grand review of the troops on the fields of Noddle's Island, the whole
force set sail on the thirtieth of July, the provincials wishing them
success, and heartily rejoicing that they were gone.

The fleet consisted of nine ships of war and two bomb-ketches, with
about sixty transports, store-ships, hospital-ships, and other vessels,
British and provincial. They carried the seven British regiments,
numbering, with the artillery train, about fifty-five hundred men,
besides six hundred marines and fifteen hundred provincials; counting,
with the sailors, nearly twelve thousand in all.[163]

Vetch commanded the provincials, having been brought from Annapolis for
that purpose. The great need was of pilots. Every sailor in New England
who had seen the St. Lawrence had been pressed into the service, though
each and all declared themselves incapable of conducting the fleet to
Quebec. Several had no better knowledge of the river than they had
picked up when serving as soldiers under Phips twenty-one years before.
The best among them was the veteran Captain Bonner, who afterwards
amused his old age by making a plan of Boston, greatly prized by
connoisseurs in such matters. Vetch had studied the St. Lawrence in his
several visits to Quebec, but, like Bonner, he had gone up the river
only in sloops or other small craft, and was, moreover, no sailor. One
of Walker's ships, the "Chester," sent in advance to cruise in the Gulf,
had captured a French vessel commanded by one Paradis, an experienced
old voyager, who knew the river well. He took a bribe of five hundred
pistoles to act as pilot; but the fleet would perhaps have fared better
if he had refused the money. He gave such dismal accounts of the
Canadian winter that the Admiral could see nothing but ruin ahead, even
if he should safely reach his destination. His tribulation is recorded
in his Journal. "That which now chiefly took up my thoughts, was
contriving how to secure the ships if we got up to Quebec; for _the ice
in the river freezing to the bottom_ would have utterly destroyed and
bilged them as much as if they had been squeezed between rocks."[164]
These misgivings may serve to give the measure of his professional
judgment. Afterwards, reflecting on the situation, he sees cause for
gratitude in his own mishaps; "because, had we arrived safe at Quebec,
our provisions would have been reduced to a very small proportion,