willing hand in action, helping the 'powder-monkeys'
--boys who had to pass the powder from the barrels to
the gunners--or even taking part in a siege, as at
Louisbourg.

The voyage to Halifax was long, rough, and cold, and
Wolfe was sea-sick as ever. Strangely enough, these ships
coming out to the conquest of Canada under St George's
cross made land on St George's Day near the place where
Cabot had raised St George's cross over Canadian soil
before Columbus had set foot on the mainland of America.
But though April 23 might be a day of good omen, it was
a very bleak one that year off Cape Breton, where ice
was packed for miles and miles along the coast. On the
30th the fleet entered Halifax. Slow old Durell was
hurried off on May 5 with eight men-of-war and seven
hundred soldiers under Carleton to try to stop any French
ships from getting up to Quebec. Carleton was to go ashore
at Isle-aux-Coudres, an island commanding the channel
sixty miles below Quebec, and mark out a passage for the
fleet through the 'Traverse' at the lower end of the
island of Orleans, thirty miles higher up.

On the 13th Saunders sailed for Louisbourg, where the
whole expedition was to meet and get ready. Here Wolfe
spent the rest of Map, working every day and all day.
His army, with the exception of nine hundred American
rangers, consisted of seasoned British regulars, with
all the weaklings left behind; and it did his heart good
to see them on parade. There was the 15th, whose officers