height of land to the upper waters of the Chaudiere, which
discharges into the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec. There were
heavy rains. Sometimes the men had to wade breast high in
dragging heavy and leaking boats over the difficult places. A
good many men died of starvation. Others deserted and turned
back. The indomitable Arnold pressed on, however, and on the 9th
of November, a few days before Montgomery occupied Montreal, he
stood with some six hundred worn and shivering men on the strand
of the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec. He had not surprised the
city and it looked grim and inaccessible as he surveyed it across
the great river. In the autumn gales it was not easy to carry
over his little army in small boats. But this he accomplished and
then waited for Montgomery to join him.

By the 3d of December Montgomery was with Arnold before Quebec.
They had hardly more than a thousand effective troops, together
with a few hundred Canadians, upon whom no reliance could be
placed. Carleton, commanding at Quebec, sat tight and would hold
no communication with despised "rebels." "They all pretend to be
gentlemen," said an astonished British officer in Quebec, when he
heard that among the American officers now captured by the
British there were a former blacksmith, a butcher, a shoemaker,
and an innkeeper. Montgomery was stung to violent threats by
Carleton's contempt, but never could he draw from Carleton a
reply. At last Montgomery tried, in the dark of early morning of
New Year's Day, 1776, to carry Quebec by storm. He was to lead an
attack on the Lower Town from the west side, while Arnold was to
enter from the opposite side. When they met in the center they
were to storm the citadel on the heights above. They counted on
the help of the French inhabitants, from whom Carleton said