Some of them ran ashore before reaching the fleet; the others
were seized by the intrepid English sailors, who, approaching in their
boats, threw grappling-irons upon them and towed them towards land, till
they swung round and stranded. Here, after venting their fury for a
while, they subsided into quiet conflagration, which lasted till
morning. Vaudreuil watched the result of his experiment from the steeple
of the church at Beauport; then returned, dejected, to Quebec.
Wolfe longed to fight his enemy; but his sagacious enemy would not
gratify him. From the heights of Beauport, the rock of Quebec, or the
summit of Cape Diamond, Montcalm could look down on the river and its
shores as on a map, and watch each movement of the invaders. He was
hopeful, perhaps confident; and for a month or more he wrote almost
daily to Bourlamaque at Ticonderoga, in a cheerful, and often a jocose
vein, mingling orders and instructions with pleasantries and bits of
news. Yet his vigilance was unceasing. "We pass every night in bivouac,
or else sleep in our clothes. Perhaps you are doing as much, my dear
Bourlamaque."[714]
[Footnote 714: _Montcalm a Bourlamaque, 27 Juin, 1759._ All these
letters are before me.]
Of the two commanders, Vaudreuil was the more sanguine, and professed
full faith that all would go well. He too corresponded with Bourlamaque,
to whom he gave his opinion, founded on the reports of deserters, that
Wolfe had no chance of success unless Amherst should come to his aid.
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