reasons, obliges me to retreat."
"I have received all your letters. As I set out this moment, I pray
you not to write again. You shall hear from me to-morrow. I wish
you good evening." With these notes came the following order:
"M. de Ramesay is not to wait till the enemy carries the town by
assault. As soon as provisions fail, he will raise the white flag."
This order was accompanied by a memorandum of terms which Ramesay
was to ask of the victors.[797]

[Footnote 796: _Memoire du Sieur de Ramesay._]

[Footnote 797: _Memoire pour servir d'Instruction a M. de Ramesay, 13 Sept.
_ 1759. Appended, with the foregoing notes, to the _Memoire de
Ramesay._]

"What a blow for me," says the unfortunate commandant,
"to find myself abandoned so soon by the army, which alone
could defend the town!" His garrison consisted of between
one and two hundred troops of the line, some four or five
hundred colony troops, a considerable number of sailors, and
the local militia.[798] These last were in a state of despair. The
inhabitants who, during the siege, had sought refuge in the
suburb of St. Roch, had returned after the battle, and there
were now twenty-six hundred women and children, with about a
housand invalids and other non-combatants to be supported, though
the provisions in the town, even at half rations, would hardly last
a week. Ramesay had not been informed that a good supply was left in
the camps of Beauport; and when he heard at last that it was there,
and sent out parties to get it, they found that the Indians and the
famished country people had carried it off.

[Footnote 798: The English returns give a total of 615 French regulars in
the place besides sailors and militia.]

"Despondency," he says again, "was complete; discouragement
extreme and universal. Murmurs and complaints against the army that
had abandoned us rose to a general outcry. I could not prevent the
merchants, all of whom were officers of the town militia, from meeting
at the house of M. Daine, the mayor. There they declared for capitulating,
and presented me a petition to that effect, signed by M. Daine and
all the principal citizens."

Ramesay called a council of war. One officer alone, Piedmont,
captain of artillery, was for reducing the rations still
more, and holding out to the last. All the others gave their
voices for capitulation.[799] Ramesay might have yielded without
dishonor; but he still held out till an event fraught with
new hope too