number of tents which he counted on the summit, that the Canadian post
which guarded it could not exceed a hundred. Here he resolved to land
his army by surprise. To mislead the enemy, his troops were kept far
above the town; while Saunders, as if an attack was intended at
Beauport, set Cook, the great mariner, with others, to sound the water
and plant buoys along that shore.

The day and night of the twelfth were employed in preparations. The
autumn evening was bright; and the general, under the clear starlight,
visited his stations, to make his final inspection and utter his last
words of encouragement. As he passed from ship to ship, he spoke to
those in the boat with him of the poet Gray, and the 'Elegy in a Country
Churchyard.' "I," said he, "would prefer being the author of that poem
to the glory of beating the French to-morrow;" and, while the oars
struck the river as it rippled in the silence of the night air under the
flowing tide, he repeated:--

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour--
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

Every officer knew his appointed duty, when, at one o'clock in the
morning of the thirteenth of September, Wolfe, Monckton, and Murray, and
about half the forces, set off in boats, and, using neither sail nor
oars, glided down with the tide. In three quarters of an hour the ships
followed; and, though the night had become dark, aided by the rapid
current, they reached the cove just in time to cover the landing. Wolfe
and the troops with him leaped on shore; the light infantry, who found
themselves borne by the current a little below the intrenched path,