he had never seen a chance of carrying it out before.
But it was old in another way, because he had written to
his uncle from Louisbourg on May 19, and spoken of getting
up the heights four or five miles above Quebec if he
could do so by surprise. Again, even so early in the
siege as July 18 he had been chafing at what he called
the 'coldness' of the fleet about pushing up beyond
Quebec. The entry in his private diary for that day is:
'The _Sutherland_ and _Squirrell_, two transports, and
two armed sloops passed the narrow passage between Quebec
and Levy _without losing a man_.' Next day, his entry is
more scathing still: 'Reconnoitred the country immediately
above Quebec and found that _if we had ventured the stroke
that was first intended we should infallibly have
succeeded_.' This shows how long he had kept the plan
waiting for the chance. But it does not prove that he
had missed any earlier chances through the 'coldness' of
the fleet. For it is significant that he afterwards struck
out '_infallibly_' and substituted '_probably_'; while
it must be remembered that the _Sutherland_ and her
consorts formed only a very small flotilla, that they
passed Quebec in the middle of a very dark night, that
the St Lawrence above the town was intricate and little
known, that the loss of several men-of-war might have
been fatal, that the enemy's attention had not become
distracted in July to anything like the same bewildering
extent as it had in September, and that the intervening
course of events--however disappointing in itself--certainly
helped to make his plan suit the occasion far better late
than soon. Moreover, in a note to Saunders in August, he