— 36 — 



against the four largest ships of the fleet. One of their 

 shots cut the flagstaff of the Admiral, and the Cross of 

 St. George fell into the water. It drifted with the tide 

 towards the north shore ; whereupon several Canadians 

 paddled out in a birch canoe, secured it and brought it 

 back in triumph. On the spire of the Cathedral of the 

 Upper Town had been hung a picture of the Holy 

 Family as an invocation of divine aid. The Puritan 

 gunners wasted their ammunition in vain attempts to 

 knock it down. That it escaped their malice was 

 ascribed to miracle, but the miracle would have been 

 greater if they had hit it." 



A furious cannonade was kept up all this time 

 between Quebec and the Massachusetts fleet. Mere 

 Juchereau de Saint-Ignace, a Hotel-Dieu nun, draws a 

 very dark picture of the interior of Quebec during this 

 dreadful' week. The nuns restricted themselves to a 

 daily morsel of bread, and the loaves which they 

 furnished to the soldiers were impatiently devoured in 

 the shape of dough ; terror and distress reigned in the 

 city, " for ", in her simple but affecting language, 

 everything diminished except hunger." To add to the 

 general confusion, the English squadron kept up a 

 tremendous cannonade, more to the alarm than to the 

 injury of the inhabitants. " It is easy to imagine how our 

 alarms redoubled ; when we heard the noise of the cannon 

 we were more dead than alive ; every time the combat 

 was renewed the bullets fell on our premises in such 

 numbers that in one day we sent twenty- six of them 

 to our artillery-men to be sent back to the English. 

 Several of us thought that we were killed by them ; 

 the danger was so evident that the bravest officers 

 regarded the capture of Quebec as inevitable. In spite 

 of all our fears we prepared different places for the 

 reception of the wounded, because the combat had 

 commenced with an air to make us believe that our 

 hospital would not be capable of containing those who 

 might have need of our assistance. But God spared 



