He has
been blamed not only for fighting too soon, but for fighting at all. In
this he could not choose. Fight he must, for Wolfe was now in a position
to cut off all his supplies. His men were full of ardor, and he resolved
to attack before their ardor cooled. He spoke a few words to them in his
keen, vehement way. "I remember very well how he looked," one of the
Canadians, then a boy of eighteen, used to say in his old age; "he rode
a black or dark bay horse along the front of our lines, brandishing his
sword, as if to excite us to do our duty. He wore a coat with wide
sleeves, which fell back as he raised his arm, and showed the white
linen of the wristband."[780]
[Footnote 780: _Recollections of Joseph Trahan_, in _Revue Canadienne_,
IV.]
The English waited the result with a composure which, if not quite real,
was at least well feigned. The three field-pieces sent by Ramesay plied
them with canister-shot, and fifteen hundred Canadians and Indians
fusilladed them in front and flank. Over all the plain, from behind
bushes and knolls and the edge of cornfields, puffs of smoke sprang
incessantly from the guns of these hidden marksmen. Skirmishers were
thrown out before the lines to hold them in check, and the soldiers were
ordered to lie on the grass to avoid the shot. The firing was liveliest
on the English left, where bands of sharpshooters got under the edge of
the declivity, among thickets, and behind scattered houses, whence they
killed and wounded a considerable number of Townshend's men.
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