"
Some days later, he wrote to the Earl of Holdernesse: "The Marquis of
Montcalm has a numerous body of armed men (I cannot call it an army),
and the strongest country perhaps in the world. Our fleet blocks up the
river above and below the town, but can give no manner of aid in an
attack upon the Canadian army. We are now here [_off Cap-Rouge_] with
about thirty-six hundred men, waiting to attack them when and wherever
they can best be got at. I am so far recovered as to do business; but my
constitution is entirely ruined, without the consolation of doing any
considerable service to the state, and without any prospect of it." He
had just learned, through the letter brought from Amherst by Ensign
Hutchins, that he could expect no help from that quarter.
Perhaps he was as near despair as his undaunted nature was capable of
being. In his present state of body and mind he was a hero without the
light and cheer of heroism. He flattered himself with no illusions, but
saw the worst and faced it all. He seems to have been entirely without
excitement. The languor of disease, the desperation of the chances, and
the greatness of the stake may have wrought to tranquillize him. His
energy was doubly tasked: to bear up his own sinking frame, and to
achieve an almost hopeless feat of arms.
Audacious as it was, his plan cannot be called rash if we may accept the
statement of two well-informed writers on the French side.
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