Wolfe’s proclamation, at first unavailing, was now taking effect.  A large number of Canadian prisoners, brought in on the twenty-fifth, declared that their countrymen would gladly accept his offers but for the threats of their commanders that if they did so the Indians should be set upon them.  The prisoners said further that “they had been under apprehension for several days past of having a body of four hundred barbarians sent to rifle their parish and habitations."[718] Such threats were not wholly effectual.  A French chronicler of the time says:  “The Canadians showed their disgust every day, and deserted at every opportunity, in spite of the means taken to prevent them.”  “The people were intimidated, seeing all our army kept in one body and solely on the defensive; while the English, though far less numerous, divided their forces, and undertook various bold enterprises without meeting resistance."[719]

[Footnote 718:  Knox, I. 347; compare pp. 339, 341, 346.]

[Footnote 719:  Journal du Siege (Bibliotheque de Hartwell).]

On the eighteenth the English accomplished a feat which promised important results.  The French commanders had thought it impossible for any hostile ship to pass the batteries of Quebec; but about eleven o’clock at night, favored by the wind, and covered by a furious cannonade from Point Levi, the ship “Sutherland,” with a frigate and several small vessels, sailed safely by and reached the river above the town.  Here they at once attacked and destroyed a fireship and some small craft that they found there, Now, for the first time, it became necessary for Montcalm to weaken his army at Beauport by sending six hundred men, under Dumas, to defend the accessible points in the line of precipices between Quebec and Cap-Rouge.  Several hundred more were sent on the next day, when it became known that the English had dragged a fleet of boats over Point Levi, launched them above the town, and despatched troops to embark in them.  Thus a new feature was introduced into the siege operations, and danger had risen on a side where the French thought themselves safe.  On the other hand, Wolfe had become more vulnerable than ever.  His army was now divided, not into three parts, but into four, each so far from the rest that, in case of sudden attack, it must defend itself alone.  That Montcalm did not improve his opportunity was apparently due to want of confidence in his militia.

The force above the town did not lie idle.  On the night of the twentieth, Colonel Carleton, with six hundred men, rowed eighteen miles up the river, and landed at Pointe-aux-Trembles, on the north shore.  Here some of the families of Quebec had sought asylum; and Wolfe had been told by prisoners that not only were stores in great quantity to be found here, but also letters and papers throwing light on the French plans.  Carleton and his men drove off a band of Indians who fired on them, and spent a quiet day around