[721]
[Footnote 721: Panet, _Journal_.]
At half-past five o'clock the tide was out, and the crisis came. The
batteries across the Montmorenci, the distant batteries of Point Levi,
the cannon of the "Centurion," and those of the two stranded ships, all
opened together with redoubled fury. The French batteries replied; and,
amid this deafening roar of artillery, the English boats set their
troops ashore at the edge of the broad tract of sedgy mud that the
receding river had left bare. At the same time a column of two thousand
men was seen, a mile away, moving in perfect order across the
Montmorenci ford. The first troops that landed from the boats were
thirteen companies of grenadiers and a detachment of Royal Americans.
They dashed swiftly forward; while at some distance behind came
Monckton's brigade, composed of the fifteenth, or Amherst's regiment,
and the seventy-eighth, or Fraser's Highlanders. The day had been fair
and warm; but the sky was now thick with clouds, and large rain-drops
began to fall, the precursors of a summer storm.
With the utmost precipitation, without orders, and without waiting for
Monckton's brigade to come up, the grenadiers in front made a rush for
the redoubt near the foot of the hill. The French abandoned it; but the
assailants had no sooner gained their prize than the thronged heights
above blazed with musketry, and a tempest of bullets fell among them.
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