Wolfe, therefore, was forced to the conviction that his chances were of the smallest.  It is said that, despairing of any decisive stroke, he conceived the idea of fortifying Isle-aux-Coudres, and leaving a part of his troops there when he sailed for home, against another attempt in the spring.  The more to weaken the enemy and prepare his future conquest, he began at the same time a course of action which for his credit one would gladly wipe from the record; for, though far from inhuman, he threw himself with extraordinary intensity into whatever work he had in hand, and, to accomplish it, spared others scarcely more than he spared himself.  About the middle of August he issued a third proclamation to the Canadians, declaring that as they had refused his offers of protection and “had made such ungrateful returns in practising the most unchristian barbarities against his troops on all occasions, he could no longer refrain in justice to himself and his army from chastising them as they deserved.”  The barbarities in question consisted in the frequent scalping and mutilating of sentinels and men on outpost duty, perpetrated no less by Canadians than by Indians.  Wolfe’s object was twofold:  first, to cause the militia to desert, and, secondly, to exhaust the colony.  Rangers, light infantry, and Highlanders were sent to waste the settlements far and wide.  Wherever resistance was offered, farmhouses and villages were laid in ashes, though churches were generally spared.  St. Paul, far below Quebec, was sacked and burned, and the settlements of the opposite shore were partially destroyed.  The parishes of L’Ange Gardien, Chateau Richer, and St. Joachim were wasted with fire and sword.  Night after night the garrison of Quebec could see the light of burning houses as far down as the mountain of Cape Tourmente.  Near St. Joachim there was a severe skirmish, followed by atrocious cruelties.  Captain Alexander Montgomery, of the forty-third regiment, who commanded the detachment, and who has been most unjustly confounded with the revolutionary general, Richard Montgomery, ordered the prisoners to be shot in cold blood, to the indignation of his own officers.[753] Robineau de Portneuf, cure of St. Joachim, placed himself at the head of thirty parishioners and took possession of a large stone house in the adjacent parish of Chateau Richer, where for a time he held the English at bay.  At length he and his followers were drawn out into ambush, where they were surrounded and killed; and, being disguised as Indians, the rangers scalped them all.[754]

[Footnote 753:  Fraser Journal.  Fraser was an officer under Montgomery, of whom he speaks with anger and disgust.]

[Footnote 754:  Knox, II. 32.  Most of the contemporary journals mention the incident.]