272 DEFENCE OF QUEBEC. [1000. 



Here lie posted sentinels, and encamped for the 

 night. He had lost four killed and about sixty 

 wounded, and imagined that he had killed twenty 

 or thirty of the enemy. In fact, however, their 

 loss was much less, though among the killed was 

 a valuable officer, the Chevalier de Clermont, and 

 among the wounded the veteran captain of Beau- 

 port, Juchereau de Saint-Denis, more than sixty- 

 four years of age. In the evening, a deserter came 

 to the English camp, and brought the unwelcome 

 intelligence that there were three thousand armed 

 men in Quebec. 1 



Meanwhile, Phips, whose fault hitherto had not 

 been an excess of promptitude, grew impatient, and 

 made a premature movement inconsistent with the 

 preconcerted plan. He left his moorings, anchored 

 his largest ships before the town, and prepared to 

 cannonade it; but the fiery veteran, who watched 

 him from the Chateau St. Louis, anticipated him, 

 and gave him the first shot. Phips replied furi- 

 ously, opening fire with every gun that he could 

 bring to bear ; while the rock paid him back in kind, 



1 On this affair, Walley, Journal; Savage, Account of the Late Action 

 (in a letter to his brother) ; Monseignat, Relation ; Relation de la Descente 

 des Anghis; Relation de 1682-1712; La Hontan, I. 213. "M. le comte 

 de Frontenac se trouva avee 3,000 hommes." Belmont, Histoire du Canada, 

 a.d. 1690. The prisoner Captain Sylvanus Davis, in his diary, says, as 

 already mentioned, that on the day before Phips's arrival so many reg- 

 ulars and militia arrived that, with those who came with Frontenac, 

 there were about 2,700. This was before the arrival of Callieres, who, 

 according to Davis, brought but 300. Thus the three accounts of the 

 deserter, Belmont, and Davis, tally exactly as to the sum total. 



An enemy of Frontenac writes, " Ce n'est pas sa presence qui fit 

 prendre la fuite aux Anglois, mais le grand nombre de Francois aux- 

 quels ils virent bien que eeluy de leurs guerriers n'etoit pas capable de 

 faire tete." Re marques sur VOraison Funebre de feu M. de Frontenac. 



