George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[359] Quebec. On the twenty-eighth of April, the

chap. XVI.} 1760.

vainglorious governor, marching out from the city, left the advantageous ground which he first occupied, and incautiously hazarded an attack near Sillery Wood. The advance-guard, under De Bourlamarque, met the shock with firmness, and returned the attack with ardor. In danger of being surrounded, Murray was obliged to fly, leaving ‘his very fine train of artillery,’ and losing a thousand men. The French appear to have lost about three hundred,¹ though Murray's report increased it more than eight-fold. During the two next days, De Levi opened trenches against the town; but the frost delayed the works. The English garrison, reduced by death during the winter, sickness, and the unfortunate battle, to twenty-two hundred effective men, exerted themselves with alacrity. The women, and even the cripples, were set to light work. In the French army not a word would be listened to of the possibility of failure. But Pitt's sagacity had foreseen and prepared for all. A fleet at his bidding was on its way to relieve the city; and to his wife, the sister of Lord Temple and George Grenville, he was able to write in June,—‘Join, my love, with me, in most humble and grateful thanks to the Almighty. The siege of Quebec was raised on the seventeenth of May, with every happy circumstance. The enemy left their camp standing, abandoned forty pieces of cannon. Swanton arrived there in the Vanguard on the fifteenth, and destroyed all the French shipping, six or seven in number. Happy, happy day! My joy and hurry are inexpressible.’²