ments; that is, a total of seven hundred and forty lives.[171] The
loss of the sailors is not given; but it could scarcely have exceeded
two hundred.

The fleet spent the next two days in standing to and fro between the
northern and southern shores, with the exception of some of the smaller
vessels employed in bringing off the survivors from the rocks of Isle
aux Oeufs. The number thus saved was, according to Walker, four
hundred and ninety-nine. On the twenty-fifth he went on board the
General's ship, the "Windsor," and Hill and he resolved to call a
council of war. In fact, Hill had already got his colonels together.
Signals were made for the captains of the men-of-war to join them, and
the council began.

"Jack Hill," the man about town, placed in high command by the influence
of his sister, the Queen's tire-woman, had now an opportunity to justify
his appointment and prove his mettle. Many a man of pleasure and
fashion, when put to the proof, has revealed the latent hero within him;
but Hill was not one of them. Both he and Walker seemed to look for
nothing but a pretext for retreat; and when manhood is conspicuously
wanting in the leaders, a council of war is rarely disposed to supply
it. The pilots were called in and examined, and they all declared
themselves imperfectly acquainted with the St. Lawrence, which, as some
of the captains observed, they had done from the first. Sir William
Phips, with pilots still more ignorant, had safely carried his fleet to
Quebec in 1690, as Walker must have known, for he had with him Phips's
Journal of the voyage. The expedition had lost about a twelfth part of
its soldiers and sailors, besides the transports that carried them;
with this exception there was no reason for retreat which might not as
well have been put forward when the fleet left Boston. All the war-ships
were safe, and the loss of men was not greater than might have happened
in a single battle. Hill says that Vetch, when asked if he would pilot
the fleet to Quebec, refused to undertake it;[172] but Vetch himself
gives his answer as follows: "I told him [the Admiral] I never was bred
to sea, nor was it any part of my province; but I would do my best by
going ahead and showing them where the difficulty of the river was,
which I knew pretty well."[173] The naval captains, however, resolved
that by reason of the ignorance of the pilots and the dangerous currents
it was impossible to go up to Quebec.[174] So discredita