[Footnote 759:  Montcalm a Vaudreuil, 27 Juillet.  Ibid., 29 Juillet, 1759.] The hundred men were there.  Captain de Vergor, of the colony troops, commanded them, and reinforcements were within his call; for the battalion of Guienne had been ordered to encamp close at hand on the Plains of Abraham.[760] Vergor’s post, called Anse du Foulon, was a mile and a half from Quebec.  A little beyond it, by the brink of the cliffs, was another post, called Samos, held by seventy men with four cannon; and, beyond this again, the heights of Sillery were guarded by a hundred and thirty men, also with cannon.[761] These were outposts of Bougainville, whose headquarters were at Cap-Rouge, six miles above Sillery, and whose troops were in continual movement along the intervening shore.  Thus all was vigilance; for while the French were strong in the hope of speedy delivery, they felt that there was no safety till the tents of the invader had vanished from their shores and his ships from their river.  “What we knew,” says one of them, “of the character of M. Wolfe, that impetuous, bold, and intrepid warrior, prepared us for a last attack before he left us.”

[Footnote 760:  Foligny, Journal memoratif.  Journal tenu a l’Armee, etc.]

[Footnote 761:  Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct. 1759.]

Wolfe had been very ill on the evening of the fourth.  The troops knew it, and their spirits sank; but, after a night of torment, he grew better, and was soon among them again, rekindling their ardor, and imparting a cheer that he could not share.  For himself he had no pity; but when he heard of the illness of two officers in one of the ships, he sent them a message of warm sympathy, advised them to return to Point Levi, and offered them his own barge and an escort.  They thanked him, but replied that, come what might, they would see the enterprise to an end.  Another officer remarked in his hearing that one of the invalids had a very delicate constitution.  “Don’t tell me of constitution,” said Wolfe; “he has good spirit, and good spirit will carry a man through everything."[762] An immense moral force bore up his own frail body and forced it to its work.

[Footnote 762:  Knox, II. 61, 65.]

Major Robert Stobo, who, five years before, had been given as a hostage to the French at the capture of Fort Necessity, arrived about this time in a vessel from Halifax.  He had long been a prisoner at Quebec, not always in close custody, and had used his opportunities to acquaint himself with the neighborhood.  In the spring of this year he and an officer of rangers named Stevens had made their escape with extraordinary skill and daring; and he now returned to give his countrymen the benefit of his local knowledge.[763] His biographer says that it was he who directed Wolfe in the choice of a landing-place.[764] Be this as it may, Wolfe in person examined the river and the shores as far as Pointe-aux-Trembles; till at length,