" The effect,
however, was admirable. The spirit of the men rose to the crisis.
Murray, no less than his officers, had all their confidence; for if
he had fallen into a fatal error, he atoned for it now by unconquerable
resolution and exhaustless fertility of resource. Deserters said that
Levis would assault the town; and the soldiers replied: "Let him come on;
he will catch a Tartar."
Levis and his army were no less busy in digging trenches
along the stony back of the Buttes-a-Neveu. Every day the
English fire grew hotter; till at last nearly a hundred and fifty
cannon vomited iron upon them from the walls of Quebec,
and May was well advanced before they could plant a single
gun to reply. Their vessels had landed artillery at the Anse
du Foulon; but their best hope lay in the succors they daily
expected from the river below. In the autumn Levis, with a
view to his intended enterprise, had sent a request to Versailles
that a ship laden with munitions and heavy siege-guns should be sent
from France in time to meet him at Quebec in April; while he looked
also for another ship, which had wintered at Gaspe, and which therefore
might reach him as soon as navigation opened. The arrival of these
vessels would have made the position of the English doubly critical; and,
on the other hand, should an English squadron appear first,
Levis would be forced to raise the siege. Thus each side
watched the river with an anxiety that grew constantly more
intense; and the English presently descried signals along the
shore which seemed to say that French ships were moving
up the St.
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