taking it by escalade, was the only one where there was the least
chance of success. This project was for some time agitated so
seriously, that workmen were employed in making wooden ladders; but
having always looked upon it as a wild and extravagant fancy of
priests and old women, I constantly argued against it whenever they
spoke of it, and it was continually the topic of conversation.

The Upper Town of Quebec lies upon the top of a rock, about two
hundred feet high, almost perpendicular in some parts of it, and
everywhere extremely steep and inaccessible, excepting towards the
_Hauteurs d'Abraham_, which is a continuation of the same hill, that
begins at Quebec and ends at Cap Rouge, diminishing gradually in
height in the space of these three leagues. The Lower Town is a narrow
piece of ground, from a hundred to four or five paces[A] broad,
between the foot of the rock and the St. Lawrence.

There is a street which goes up to the Upper Town without a
continuation of houses; it is impossible to climb up the rock from the
Lower Town, as I was employed three weeks upon it with miners and
other workmen, to render all the footpaths impracticable; we finished
only a few days before the arrival of the English fleet (in 1759). A
town built upon a vast extent of ground, which would require an army
to defend it, such as Ghent in Flanders, and which might be approached
on all sides at the same time, in order to divide the troops of the
garrison equally over all the town, may be surprised and taken by
escalade, and in our desperate situation might have been attempted by
risking all for all. A surprise in a dark night must naturally spread
universal terror, disorder and panic amongst those who are taken
unawares, and must soon be communicated through all the quarters of
the town. The soldiers are so much the more terrified that they know