y with the retiring force. Wolfe
entertained the prisoners kindly, and sent them, on the following day,
with a flag of truce into Quebec.

On the night of the 28th, the French made another attempt to burn the
English fleet, sending down a large number of schooners, shallops, and
rafts, chained together, and filled, as before, with combustibles.

This time, the fire was not applied too soon, and the English fleet was
for some time in great danger, but was again saved by the sailors, who,
in spite of the storm of missiles, vomited out by cannon, swivels,
grenades, shell, and gun and pistol barrels loaded up to the muzzle,
grappled with the burning mass, and towed it on shore.

It was now the end of July, and Wolfe was no nearer taking Quebec than
upon the day when he first landed there. In vain he had tempted
Montcalm to attack him. The French general, confident in the strength
of his position, refused to leave it.

Wolfe therefore determined to attack the camp in front. The plan was a
desperate one, for, after leaving troops enough to hold his two camps,
he had less than five thousand men to attack a position of commanding
strength, where Montcalm could, at an hour's notice, collect twice as
many to oppose him.

At a spot about a mile above the gorge of the Montmorenci a flat strip
of ground, some two hundred yards wide, lay between the river and the
foot of the precipices, and, at low tide, the river left a flat of mud,
nearly half a mile wide, beyond the dry ground.

Along the edge of the high-water mark, the French had built several
redoubts. From the river, Wolfe could not see that these redoubts were
commanded by the musketry of the intrenchments along the edge of the
heights above, which also swept with their fire the whole face of the
declivity, which was covered with grass, and was extremely steep. Wolfe
hoped that, if he attacked one of the redoubts, the French would come
down to defend it, and that a battle might be so brought on; or that,
if they did not do so, he might find a spot where the heights could be
stormed with some chance of success. At low tide, it was possible to
ford the mouth of the Montmorenci, and Wolfe intended that the troops
from his camp, on the heights above that river, should cross here, and
advance along the strand to cooperate with Monckton's brigade, who were
to cross from Point Levi.

On the morning of the 31st of July, the Centurion, of 64 guns; and two
armed transports, eac