The English were allowed to come within close range unmolested.  Then the batteries opened, and a deadly storm of grape and musketry was poured upon the boats.  It was clear in an instant that to advance farther would be destruction; and Wolfe waved his hand as a signal to sheer off.  At some distance on the right, and little exposed to the fire, were three boats of light infantry under Lieutenants Hopkins and Brown and Ensign Grant; who, mistaking the signal or wilfully misinterpreting it, made directly for the shore before them.  It was a few roads east of the beach; a craggy coast and a strand strewn with rocks and lashed with breakers, but sheltered from the cannon by a small projecting point.  The three officers leaped ashore, followed by their men.  Wolfe saw the movement, and hastened to support it.  The boat of Major Scott, who commanded the light infantry and rangers, next came up, and was stove in an instant; but Scott gained the shore, climbed the crags, and found himself with ten men in front of some seventy French and Indians.  Half his followers were killed and wounded, and three bullets were shot through his clothes; but with admirable gallantry he held his ground till others came to his aid.[584] The remaining boats now reached the landing.  Many were stove among the rocks, and others were overset; some of the men were dragged back by the surf and drowned; some lost their muskets, and were drenched to the skin:  but the greater part got safe ashore.  Among the foremost was seen the tall, attenuated form of Brigadier Wolfe, armed with nothing but a cane, as he leaped into the surf and climbed the crags with his soldiers.  As they reached the top they formed in compact order, and attacked and carried with the bayonet the nearest French battery, a few rods distant.  The division of Lawrence soon came up; and as the attention of the enemy was now distracted, they made their landing with little opposition at the farther end of the beach whither they were followed by Amherst himself.  The French, attacked on right and left, and fearing, with good reason, that they would be cut off from the town, abandoned all their cannon and fled into the woods.  About seventy of them were captured and fifty killed.  The rest, circling among the hills and around the marshes, made their way to Louisbourg, and those at the intermediate posts joined their flight.  The English followed through a matted growth of firs till they reached the cleared ground; when the cannon, opening on them from the ramparts, stopped the pursuit.  The first move of the great game was played and won.[585]

[Footnote 584:  Pichon, Memoires du Cap-Breton, 284.]

[Footnote 585:  Journal of Amherst, in Mante, 117. Amherst to Pitt, 11 June, 1758. Authentic Account of the Reduction of Louisbourg, by a Spectator, 11. General Orders of Amherst, 3-7 June, 1759.  Letter from an Officer, in Knox, I. 191; Entick, III. 225.  The French accounts generally agree in essentials with the English.  The English lost one hundred and nine, killed, wounded, and drowned.]