We were now shut up in the island of Montreal on all sides. The
English were masters of the River Chambly by the possession of Isle
aux Noix. General Amherst approached with his army from Lake Ontario;
and General Murray was in march, coming up from Quebec, with six
thousand men that had passed through the winter there, and with some
men-of-war, one of which of about forty guns, on its arrival in sight
of the town of Montreal, greatly astonished, and excited the
admiration of, the inhabitants, who, from the ignorance and negligence
of those persons charged with the sounding of the St. Lawrence, had
never seen vessels arrive there of above sixty or seventy tons.

General Murray conducted himself as an officer of great understanding,
knowledge and capacity, and left nothing to do for General Amherst; he
employed five weeks in coming from Quebec to Montreal, which is only
sixty leagues, and did us during his march more harm by his policy
than by his army. He stopped often in the villages; spoke kindly to
the inhabitants he found at home in their houses--whom hunger and
famine had obliged to fly from our army at Montreal; gave provisions
to those unhappy creatures perishing for want of subsistence. He
burned, in some cases, the houses of those who were absent from home
and in the French army at Montreal, publishing everywhere an amnesty
and good treatment to all Canadians who would return to their
habitations and live there peaceably. In short--flattering some and
frightening others--he succeeded so well, that at last there was no
more possibility of keeping them at Montreal. It is true we had now
only need of them to make a good countenance. The three English armies
amounting to above twenty thousand men, it was impossible to make any
further resistance.

Amherst's army appeared in sight from the town of Montreal, towards