With his usual bravado, Arnold planned to capture the "Gibraltar of America" at one stroke. He little knew that, a few days before, some treacherous Indians had warned the British commander of his approach.
On the night of November 13, Arnold ferried five hundred of his men across the St. Lawrence, and climbed to the Heights of Abraham, at the very place where Wolfe had climbed to victory sixteen years before. At daybreak the walls of the city were covered with soldiers and with citizens. Within half a mile of the walls, which fairly bristled with cannon, the ragged soldiers halted and began to cheer lustily. The redcoats shouted back their defiance. Arnold wrote a letter to the governor of Quebec, demanding the surrender of the city. The bearer of the letter, although under a flag of truce, was not even allowed to come near the walls.
After six days the little army slipped away one dark night, and tramped to a village some twenty miles to the west of Quebec. Here they hoped to join forces with Montgomery, who had already captured Montreal, and then come back to renew the siege.
Ten days later, on December 1, Arnold paraded his troops in front of the village church to greet Montgomery with his army. The united forces, still less than a thousand men, now trudged their way back to Quebec. On { 31} arriving there, Montgomery boldly demanded the surrender of the town.
Meanwhile, on November 19, Sir Guy Carleton had left Montreal, and, having made his way down the river, in the disguise of a farmer, slipped into Quebec. This was the salvation of Canada.
The British general was an able soldier. He at once took energetic steps for the defense of the city. At every available point he built blockhouses, barricades, and palisades; and mounted one hundred and fifty cannon. He took five hundred sailors from the war vessels to help man the guns, and thus increased the garrison to eighteen hundred fighting men.
For two weeks the patriot army fired their little three-pounders, and threw several hundred "fire pills," as the men called them, against the granite ramparts and into the town. Even the women laughed at them, for they did no more harm than so many popguns. The redcoats kept up the bloodless contest by raking with their cannon the patriots' feeble breastworks of ice and snow.