Towards five o’clock two green rockets shot up from Montgomery’s position beside the Anse des Meres under Cape Diamond.  This was the signal for attack.  Montgomery’s column immediately struggled on again along the path leading round the foot of the Cape towards the Pres-de-Ville barricade.  Livingston’s serious ‘patriots’ on the top of the Cape changed their dropping shots into a hot fire against the walls; while Jerry Duggan’s little mob of would-be looters shouted and blazed away from safer cover in the suburbs of St John and St Roch.  Arnold’s mortars pitched shells all over the town; while his storming-party advanced towards the Sault-au-Matelot barricade.  Carleton, naturally anxious about the landward walls, sent some of the British militia to reinforce the men at Cape Diamond, which, as he knew, Montgomery considered the best point of attack.  The walls lower down did not seem to be in any danger from Jerry Duggan’s ‘patriots,’ whose noisy demonstration was at once understood to be nothing but an empty feint.  The walls facing the St Charles were well manned and well gunned by the naval battalion.  Those facing the St Lawrence, though weak in themselves, were practically impregnable, as the cliffs could not be scaled by any formed body.  The Lower Town, however, was by no means so safe, in spite of its two barricades.  The general uproar was now so great that Carleton could not distinguish the firing there from what was going on elsewhere.  But it was at these two points that the real attack was rapidly developing.

The first decisive action took place at Pres-de-Ville.  The guard there consisted of fifty men—­John Coffin, who was a merchant of Quebec, Sergeant Hugh McQuarters of the Royal Artillery, Captain Barnsfair, a merchant skipper, with fifteen mates and skippers like himself, and thirty French Canadians under Captain Chabot and Lieutenant Picard.  These fifty men had to guard a front of only as many feet.  On their right Cape Diamond rose almost sheer.  On their left raged the stormy St Lawrence.  They had a tiny block-house next to the cliff and four small guns on the barricade, all double-charged with canister and grape.  They had heard the dropping shots on the top of the Cape for nearly an hour and had been quick to notice the change to a regular hot fire.  But they had no idea whether their own post was to be attacked or not till they suddenly saw the head of Montgomery’s column halting within fifty paces of them.  A man came forward cautiously and looked at the barricade.  The storm was in his face.  The defences were wreathed in whirling snow.  And the men inside kept silent as the grave.  When he went back a little group stood for a couple of minutes in hurried consultation.  Then Montgomery waved his sword, called out ‘Come on, brave boys, Quebec is ours!’ and led the charge.  The defenders let the Americans get about half-way before Barnsfair shouted ‘Fire!’ Then the guns and muskets volleyed together, cutting down the whole front of the densely massed column.  Montgomery, his two staff-officers, and his ten leading men were instantly killed.  Some more farther back were wounded.  And just as the fifty British fired their second round the rest of the five hundred Americans turned and ran in wild confusion.