1690.] THE ENEMY ARRIVES. 26 1 



Two days passed in completing these defences 

 under the eye of the governor. Men were flock- 

 ing in from the parishes far and near ; and on the 

 evening of the fifteenth about twenty-seven hun- 

 dred, regulars and militia, were gathered within the 

 fortifications, besides the armed peasantry of Beau- 

 port and Beaupre, who were ordered to watch the 

 river below the town, and resist the English, should 

 they attempt to land. 1 At length, before dawn on 

 the morning of the sixteenth, the sentinels on the 

 Saut au Matelot could descry the slowly moving 

 lights of distant vessels. At daybreak the fleet 

 was in sight. Sail after sail passed the Point of 

 Orleans and glided into the Basin of Quebec. The 

 excited spectators on the rock counted thirty-four 

 of them. Four were large ships, several others 

 w T ere of considerable size, and the rest were brigs, 

 schooners, and fishing craft, all thronged with 

 men. 



commanded the town, was not fortified till three years later, nor were 

 any guns placed here during the English attack. 



1 Diary of S yl 'vanus Davis, prisoner in Quebec, in Mass. Hist. Coll. 

 8, I. 101. There is a difference of ten days in the French and English 

 dates, the New Style having been adopted by the former and not by the 

 latter. 



