Carleton’s’ quiet refusal to recognize either him or any other rebel commander as the accredited leader of a hostile army.  It certainly must have been exasperating for the general of the Continental Congress to be reduced to such expedients as tying a grandiloquent ultimatum to an arrow and shooting it into the beleaguered town.  The charge of firing on flags of truce was another instance of ’talking for Buncombe.’  Carleton never fired on any white flag.  But he always sent the same answer:  that he could hold no communication with any rebels unless they came to implore the king’s pardon.  This, of course, was an aggravation of his offensive calmness in the face of so much revolutionary rage.  To individual rebels of all sorts he was, if anything, over-indulgent.  He would not burn the suburbs of Quebec till the enemy forced him to it, though many of the houses that gave the Americans the best cover belonged to rebel Canadians.  He went out of his way to be kind to all prisoners, especially if sick or wounded.  And it was entirely owing to his restraining influence that the friendly Indians had not raided the border settlements of New England during the summer.  Nor was he animated only by the very natural desire of bringing back rebellious subjects to what he thought their true allegiance, as his subsequent actions amply proved.  He simply acted with the calm dignity and impartial justice which his position required.

Three days before Christmas the bombardment began in earnest.  The non-combatants soon found, to their equal amazement and delight, that a good many shells did very little damage if fired about at random.  But news intended to make their flesh creep came in at the same time, and probably had more effect than the shells on the weak-kneed members of the community.  Seven hundred scaling-ladders, no quarter if Carleton persisted in holding out, and a prophecy attributed to Montgomery that he would eat his Christmas dinner either in Quebec or in Hell—­these were some of the blood-curdling items that came in by petticoat or arrow post.  One of the most active purveyors of all this bombast was Jerry Duggan, a Canadian ‘patriot’ barber now become a Continental major.

But there was a serious side.  Deserters and prisoners, as well as British adherents who had escaped, all began to tell the same tale, though with many variations.  Montgomery was evidently bent on storming the walls the first dark night.  His own orders showed it.

   HEAD QUARTERS, HOLLAND HOUSE. 
   Near Quebec, 15th Decr. 1755.

The General having in vain offered the most favourable terms of accommodation to the Governor of Quebec, & having taken every possible step to prevail on the inhabitants to desist from seconding him in his wild scheme of defending the Town—­for the speedy reduction of the only hold possessed by the Ministerial Troops in this Province—­The soldiers, flushed with continual success, confident