miles below Quebec. Here, on the afternoon of June 20,
the sun shone down on a sight such as the New World had
never seen before, and has never seen again. The river
narrows opposite the Saguenay and is full of shoals and
islands; so this was the last day the whole one hundred
and forty-one vessels sailed together, in their three
divisions, under those three ensigns--'The Red, White,
and Blue'--which have made the British Navy loved, feared,
and famous round the seven seas. What a sight it was!
Thousands and thousands of soldiers and sailors crowded
those scores and scores of high-decked ships; while
hundreds and hundreds of swelling sails gleamed white
against the sun, across the twenty miles of blue St
Lawrence.

Wolfe, however, was not there to see it. He had gone
forward the day before. A dispatch-boat had come down
from Durell to say that, in spite of his advanced squadron,
Bougainville, Montcalm's ablest brigadier, had slipped
through with twenty-three ships from France, bringing
out a few men and a good deal of ammunition, stores, and
food. This gave Quebec some sorely needed help. Besides,
Montcalm had found out Pitt's plan; and nobody knew where
the only free French fleet was now. It had wintered in
the West Indies. But had it sailed for France or the St
Lawrence? At the first streak of dawn on the 23rd Durell's
look-out off Isle-aux-Coudres reported many ships coming
up the river under a press of sail. Could the French West
Indian fleet have slipped in ahead of Saunders, as
Bougainville had slipped in ahead of Durell himself? There