1763,Jlxy.1 a night ATTACK. 309 



cannon of the vessel. On the afternoon of the 

 thu'tieth, orders were issued and preparations 

 made for the meditated attack. Through the 

 inexcusable carelessness of some of the officers, 

 the design became known to a few Canadians, the 

 bad result of which will appear in the sequel. 



About two o'clock on the morning of the thirty- 

 first of July, the gates were thrown open in silence, 

 and the detachment, two hundred and fifty in num- 

 ber, passed noiselessly out. They filed two deep 

 along the road, while two large bateaux, each bear- 

 ing a swivel on the bow, rowed up the river abreast 

 of them. Lieutenant Brown led the advance 

 guard of twenty-five men ; the centre was com- 

 manded by Captain Gray, and the rear by Captain 

 Grant. The night was still, close, and sultry, and 

 the men marched in light undress. On their right 

 was the dark and gleaming surface of the river, 

 with a margin of sand intervening, and on their left 

 a succession of Canadian houses, with barns, or- 

 chards, and cornfields, from whence the clamorous 

 barking of watch-dogs saluted them as they passed. 

 The inhabitants, roused from sleep, looked from 

 the windows in astonishment and alarm. An old 

 man has told the writer how, when a child, he 

 climbed on the roof of his father's house, to look 

 down on the glimmering bayonets, and how, long 

 after the troops had passed, their heavy and meas- 

 ured tramp sounded from afar, through the still 

 night. Thus the English moved forward to the 

 attack, little thinking that, behind houses and 

 enclosures, Indian scouts watched every yard of 



