Audacious as it was, his plan cannot be called rash if we may accept the statement of two well-informed writers on the French side.  They say that on the tenth of September the English naval commanders held a council on board the flagship, in which it was resolved that the lateness of the season required the fleet to leave Quebec without delay.  They say further that Wolfe then went to the Admiral, told him that he had found a place where the heights could be scaled, that he would send up a hundred and fifty picked men to feel the way, and that if they gained a lodgment at the top, the other troops should follow; if, on the other hand, the French were there in force to oppose them, he would not sacrifice the army in a hopeless attempt, but embark them for home, consoled by the thought that all had been done that man could do.  On this, concludes the story, the Admiral and his officers consented to wait the result.[755]

[Footnote 755:  This statement is made by the Chevalier Johnstone, and, with some variation, by the author of the valuable Journal tenu a l’Armee que commandoit feu M. le Marquis de Montcalm. Bigot says that, after the battle, he was told by British officers that Wolfe meant to risk only an advance party of two hundred men, and to reimbark if they were repulsed.]

As Wolfe had informed Pitt, his army was greatly weakened.  Since the end of June his loss in killed and wounded was more than eight hundred and fifty, including two colonels, two majors, nineteen captains, and thirty-four subalterns; and to these were to be added a greater number disabled by disease.

The squadron of Admiral Holmes above Quebec had now increased to twenty-two vessels, great and small.  One of the last that went up was a diminutive schooner, armed with a new swivels, and jocosely named the “Terror of France.”  She sailed by the town in broad daylight, the French, incensed at her impudence, blazing at her from all their batteries; but she passed unharmed, anchored by the Admiral’s ship, and saluted him triumphantly with her swivels.

Wolfe’s first move towards executing his plan was the critical one of evacuating the camp at Montmorenci.  This was accomplished on the third of September.  Montcalm sent a strong force to fall on the rear of the retiring English.  Monckton saw the movement from Point Levi, embarked two battalions in the boats of the fleet, and made a feint of landing at Beauport.  Montcalm recalled his troops to repulse the threatened attack; and the English withdrew from Montmorenci unmolested, some to the Point of Orleans, others to Point Levi.  On the night of the fourth a fleet of flatboats passed above the town with the baggage and stores.  On the fifth, Murray, with four battalions, marched up to the River Etechemin, and forded it under a hot fire from the French batteries at Sillery.  Monckton and Townshend followed with three more battalions, and the united force, of about thirty-six hundred men, was embarked on board the ships of Holmes, where Wolfe joined them on the same evening.