The brigade marched along the river to Point Levi, and drove off a body of French and Indians posted there, and, the next morning, began to throw up intrenchments and to form batteries.  Wolfe did not expect that his guns here could do any serious damage to the fortifications of Quebec.  His object was partly to discourage the inhabitants of the city exposed to his fire, partly to keep up the spirits of his own troops by setting them to work.

The guns of Quebec kept up a continual fire against the working parties, but the batteries continued to rise, and the citizens, alarmed at the destruction which threatened their houses, asked the governor to allow them to cross the river, and dislodge the English.  Although he had no belief that they would succeed, he thought it better to allow them to try.  Accordingly, some fifteen hundred armed citizens, and Canadians from the camp, with a few Indians, and a hundred volunteers from the regulars, marched up the river, and crossed on the night of the 12th of July.

The courage of the citizens evaporated very quickly, now they were on the same side of the river as the English, although still three miles from them.  In a short time a wild panic seized them.  They rushed back in extreme disorder to their boats, crossed the river, and returned to Quebec.

The English guns soon opened, and carried destruction into the city.  In one day eighteen houses, and the cathedral, were burned by exploding shells; and the citizens soon abandoned their homes, and fled into the country.

The destruction of the city, however, even if complete, would have advanced Wolfe’s plans but little.  It was a moral blow at the enemy, but nothing more.

On the 8th of July, several frigates took their station before the camp of General Levis, who, with his division of Canadian militia, occupied the heights along the Saint Lawrence next to the gorge of Montmorenci.  Here they opened fire with shell, and continued it till nightfall.  Owing to the height of the plateau on which the camp was situated, they did but little damage, but the intention of Wolfe was simply to keep the enemy occupied and under arms.

Towards evening, the troops on the island broke up their camp, and, leaving a detachment of marines to hold the post, the brigades of Townshend and Murray, three thousand strong, embarked after nightfall in the boats of the fleet, and landed a little below the Montmorenci, At daybreak, they climbed the heights, and, routing a body of Canadians and Indians who opposed them, gained the plateau and began to intrench themselves there.

A company of rangers, supported by the regulars, was sent into the neighbouring forests; to prevent the parties from cutting bushes for the fascines, to explore the bank of the Montmorenci, and, if possible, to discover a ford across the river.

Levis, with his aide-de-camp, a Jacobite Scotchman named Johnston, was watching the movements of Wolfe from the heights above the gorge.  Levis believed that no ford existed, but Johnston found a man who had, only that morning, crossed.  A detachment was at once sent to the place, with orders to intrench themselves, and Levis posted eleven hundred Canadians, under Repentigny, close by in support.