their success.  Carleton seized the chance of turning this scheme against the enemy.  Three safe bonfires were set ablaze.  The marked guns were turned inwards and fired at the town with blank charges.  And the preconcerted shout was raised with a will.  But the besiegers never stirred.  After this the Old-Countrymen among the prisoners, who had taken the oath and enlisted in the garrison, were disarmed and confined, while the rest were more strictly watched.

Two brave attempts were made by French Canadians to reach Quebec with reinforcements, one headed by a seigneur, the other by a parish priest.  Carleton had sent word to M. de Beaujeu, seigneur of Crane Island, forty miles below Quebec, asking him to see if he could cut off the American detachment on the Levis shore.  De Beaujeu raised three hundred and fifty men.  But Arnold sent over reinforcements.  A habitant betrayed his fellow-countrymen’s advance-guard.  A dozen French Canadians were then killed or wounded while forty were taken prisoners; whereupon the rest dispersed to their homes.  The other attempt was made by Father Bailly, whose little force of about fifty men was also betrayed.  Entrapped in a country-house these men fought bravely till nearly half their number had been killed or wounded and the valiant priest had been mortally hit.  They then surrendered to a much stronger force which had lost more men than they.

This was on the 6th of April, just before Arnold was leaving in disgust.  Wooster made an effort to use his new artillery to advantage by converging the fire of three batteries, one close in on the Heights of Abraham, another from across the mouth of the St Charles, and the third from Levis.  But the combination failed:  the batteries were too light for the work and overmatched by the guns on the walls, the practice was bad, and the effect was nil.  On the 3rd of May the new general, Thomas, an enterprising man, tried a fireship, which was meant to destroy all the shipping in the Cul de Sac.  It came on, under full sail, in a very threatening manner.  But the crew lost their nerve at the critical moment, took to the boats too soon, and forgot to lash the helm.  The vessel immediately flew up into the wind and, as the tidal stream was already changing, began to drift away from the Cul de Sac just when she burst into flame.  The result, as described by an enthusiastic British diarist, was that ’she affoard’d a very pritty prospect while she was floating down the River, every now & then sending up Sky rackets, firing of Cannon or bursting of Shells, & so continued till She disappear’d in the Channell.’