That night Lieutenant Meech, with forty New England rangers, landed on the Island of Orleans, and found a body of armed inhabitants, who tried to surround him.  He beat them off, and took possession of a neighboring farmhouse, where he remained till daylight; then pursued the enemy, and found that they had crossed to the north shore.  The whole army now landed, and were drawn up on the beach.  As they were kept there for some time, Knox and several brother officers went to visit the neighboring church of Saint-Laurent, where they found a letter from the parish priest, directed to “The Worthy Officers of the British Army,” praying that they would protect the sacred edifice, and also his own adjoining house, and adding, with somewhat needless civility, that he wished they had come sooner, that they might have enjoyed the asparagus and radishes of his garden, now unhappily going to seed.  The letter concluded with many compliments and good wishes, in which the Britons to whom they were addressed saw only “the frothy politeness so peculiar to the French.”  The army marched westward and encamped.  Wolfe, with his chief engineer, Major Mackellar, and an escort of light infantry, advanced to the extreme point of the island.

Here he could see, in part, the desperate nature of the task he had undertaken.  Before him, three or four miles away, Quebec sat perched upon her rock, a congregation of stone houses, churches, palaces, convents, and hospitals; the green trees of the Seminary garden and the spires of the Cathedral, the Ursulines, the Recollets, and the Jesuits.  Beyond rose the loftier height of Cape Diamond, edged with palisades and capped with redoubt and parapet.  Batteries frowned everywhere; the Chateau battery, the Clergy battery, the Hospital battery, on the rock above, and the Royal, Dauphin’s, and Queen’s batteries on the strand, where the dwellings and warehouses of the lower town clustered beneath the cliff.

Full in sight lay the far-extended camp of Montcalm, stretching from the St. Charles, beneath the city walls, to the chasm and cataract of the Montmorenci.  From the cataract to the river of Beauport, its front was covered by earthworks along the brink of abrupt and lofty heights; and from the river of Beauport to the St. Charles, by broad flats of mud swept by the fire of redoubts, intrenchments, a floating battery, and the city itself.  Above the city, Cape Diamond hid the view; but could Wolfe have looked beyond it, he would have beheld a prospect still more disheartening.  Here, mile after mile, the St. Lawrence was walled by a range of steeps, often inaccessible, and always so difficult that a few men at the top could hold an army in check; while at Cap-Rouge, about eight miles distant, the high plateau was cleft by the channel of a stream which formed a line of defence as strong as that of the Montmorenci.  Quebec was a natural fortress.  Bougainville had long before examined the position, and reported that “by the help of intrenchments, easily and quickly made, and defended by three or four thousand men, I think the city would be safe.  I do not believe that the English will make any attempt against it; but they may have the madness to do so, and it is well to be prepared against surprise.”