Excerpt from History of Canada, Vol. 3 of 3: From the Time of Its Discovery Till the Union Year (1840-1) The capital then had a population of about souls. Its garrison was strong, including 550 Canadians. The forces were of a heterogeneous kind, made up of regulars, militia, armed sailors, but there was enough of provisions and warlike muni tions in store for eight months. The fortifications had been great ly strengthened since the previous war, and improvements on them were continued since hostilities recommenced. The ramparts, on the landward side, were mounted with cannon and mortars; to wards the river St. Charles, and facing the St. Lawrence, there was on the margin of the cape (above the lower town) a palisaded line bristling with heavy artillery. The lower town was itself de fended, at the centre, by batteries erected on the quays; and to wards each extremity, by barricades. At the end of Champlain street, in a locality below where the citadel has since been construc ed, two batteries were raised, with space intervening, the cannon in which commanded the narrow pathway, between cliff and flood. At the other extremity of the lower town, the endings of St. Peter's and Sault - au-matelot streets were barricaded; while the contiguous portion of the quay was mounted with ordnance. Two hundred yards further on, another barricade was raised in old saultrau-matelot street; a narrow and then the sole issue existing between the cape and the river St. Charles, for communi cating between the Palais and the lower town. More than 150 pieces of artillery were in position in the upper and lower town, at the beginning of December. Had the besiegers been more nu merous, from to soldiers would have been needful to man properly the defences of Quebec; but the force then in the city was quite sufficient for the purpose: in fact, at no time during the siege, did the enemy's number exceed that of the garrison; and we know not which of two things to marvel at the most, the temerity of Montgomery and Arnold in attacking, or the timidity of Carleton in his manner of defending, the city. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.