as to purge of treason the city upon which the hope of all
Canada now rested. Citizens suspected of disaffection were banished
beyond the walls; and though the garrison numbered only eighteen
hundred men, French and English, the loyalty of all was secure,
begetting confidence in their power to meet the attack. A contemporary
diary, that of James Thompson, refers thus to the defences: "I
received order from General Carleton to put the extensive
fortifications of Quebec in a state of repair at a time when there was
not a single article of material in store with which to perform such
an undertaking....My first object was to secure stout spar timber for
palisading a great extent of open ground between the gates called
Palace and Hope, and again from half-bastion of Cape Diamond along
the brow of the cliff towards Castle St. Lewis. I began at Palace
Gate, palisading with loopholes for musketry, and made a projection in
the form of a bastion, as a defence for a line of pickets, in the
gorge of which I erected a blockhouse, which made a good
defence....Also a blockhouse on the Cape under Cape Diamond
bastion....I also had a party of the carpenters barricading the
extremities of the Lower Town by blockading up all the windows of the
houses next to the riverside and those facing the water, leaving only
loopholes for musketry, as a defence in case the St. Lawrence should
freeze across....At this time, the nights being dark, I strongly
recommended the use of lanterns extended on poles from the salient
angles of all the bastions. By means of these lights even a dog could
be distinguished if in the great ditch in the darkest night. This we
continued in the absence of the moon, with the exception of a
composition burned in iron pots, substituted for candles."

[Illustration: GENERAL RICHARD MONTGOMERY
(Fell at Quebec 1775)]

It was November, and up to this time General Carleton had feared only
the arrival of Montgomery's army from Montreal. Suddenly, however, a
new enemy appeared at Point Levi. Benedict Arnold, at the head of
seven hundred men, had accomplished an amazing journey. Through the
tangled forests of New Hampshire and Maine, beset by the driving
storms of an early winter, this intrepid army toiled overland from
Boston to Point Levi. On the night of the 14th of November, Arnold's
force crossed the river, and gained the Plains of Abraham without
opposition. Three weeks later Montgomery's army arrived from Montreal,
and th