It is
necessary, he adds, that ample supplies of all kinds should be sent out
in the autumn, with the distribution of which Cadet offers to charge
himself, and to account for them at their first cost; but he does not
say what prices his disinterested friend will compel the destitute
Canadians to pay for them.[704]
[Footnote 704: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 28 Mai, 1759_.]
Five battalions from France, nearly all the colony troops, and the
militia from every part of Canada poured into Quebec, along with a
thousand or more Indians, who, at the call of Vaudreuil, came to lend
their scalping-knives to the defence. Such was the ardor of the people
that boys of fifteen and men of eighty were to be seen in the camp.
Isle-aux-Coudres and Isle d'Orleans were ordered to be evacuated, and an
excited crowd on the rock of Quebec watched hourly for the approaching
fleet. Days passed and weeks passed, yet it did not appear. Meanwhile
Vaudreuil held council after council to settle a plan of defence, They
were strange scenes: a crowd of officers of every rank, mixed pell-mell
in a small room, pushing, shouting, elbowing each other, interrupting
each other; till Montcalm in despair, took each aside after the meeting
was over, and made him give his opinion in writing.[705]
[Footnote 705: _Journal du Siege de Quebec depose a la Bibliotheque de
Hartwell, en Angleterre_. (Printed at Quebec, 1836.)]
He himself had at first proposed to encamp the army on the plains of
Abraham and the meadows of the St.
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