[Footnote 716:  Evenements de la Guerre en Canada (Hist.  Soc.  Quebec, 1861). Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.  Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct. 1759.  L’Abeille, II.  No. 14 (a publication of the Quebec Seminary). Journal du Siege de Quebec (Bibliotheque de Hartwell).  Panet, Journal du Siege.  Foligny, Journal memoratif.  Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, by John Johnson, Clerk and Quartermaster-Sergeant to the Fifty-eighth Regiment.]

The presentiment of the unhappy burghers proved too true.  The English batteries fell to their work, and the families of the town fled to the country for safety.  In a single day eighteen houses and the cathedral were burned by exploding shells; and fiercer and fiercer the storm of fire and iron hailed upon Quebec.

Wolfe did not rest content with distressing his enemy.  With an ardor and a daring that no difficulties could cool, he sought means to strike an effective blow.  It was nothing to lay Quebec in ruins if he could not defeat the army that protected it.  To land from boats and attack Montcalm in front, through the mud of the Beauport flats or up the heights along the neighboring shore, was an enterprise too rash even for his temerity.  It might, however, be possible to land below the cataract of Montmorenci, cross that stream higher up, and strike the French army in flank or rear; and he had no sooner secured his positions at the points of Levi and Orleans, than he addressed himself to this attempt.

On the eighth several frigates and a bomb-ketch took their stations before the camp of the Chevalier de Levis, who, with his division of Canadian militia, occupied the heights along the St. Lawrence just above the cataract.  Here they shelled and cannonaded him all day; though, from his elevated position, with very little effect.  Towards evening the troops on the Point of Orleans broke up their camp.  Major Hardy, with a detachment of marines, was left to hold that post, while the rest embarked at night in the boats of the fleet.  They were the brigades of Townshend and Murray, consisting of five battalions, with a body of grenadiers, light infantry, and rangers,—­in all three thousand men.  They landed before daybreak in front of the parish of L’Ange Gardien, a little below the cataract.  The only opposition was from a troop of Canadians and Indians, whom they routed, after some loss, climbed the heights, gained the plateau above, and began to intrench themselves.  A company of rangers, supported by detachments of regulars, was sent into the neighboring forest to protect the parties who were cutting fascines, and apparently, also, to look for a fording-place.