hundreds of miles apart, by routes full of difficulty, and with no possibility of intercommunication, were to meet at the same place at the same time, or, failing to do so, run the risk of being destroyed in detail.  If the French troops could be kept together, and if the small army of Murray or of Haviland should reach Montreal a few days before the co-operating forces appeared, it might be separately attacked and overpowered.  In this lay the hope of Vaudreuil and Levis.[836]

[Footnote 836:  Levis a Bourlamaque, Juillet, Aout, 1760.]

After the siege of Quebec was raised, Murray had an effective force of about twenty-five hundred rank and file.[837] As the spring opened the invalids were encamped on the Island of Orleans, where fresh air, fresh provisions, and the change from the pestiferous town hospitals wrought such wonders on the scorbutic patients, that in a few weeks a considerable number of them were again fit for garrison duty, if not for the field.  Thus it happened that on the second of July twenty-four hundred and fifty men and officers received orders to embark for Montreal; and on the fifteenth they set sail, in thirty-two vessels, with a number of boats and bateaux.[838] They were followed some time after by Lord Rollo, with thirteen hundred additional men just arrived from Louisbourg, the King having ordered that fortress to be abandoned and dismantled.  They advanced slowly, landing from time to time, skirmishing with detachments of the enemy who followed them along the shore, or more frequently trading with the farmers who brought them vegetables, poultry, eggs, and fresh meat.  They passed the fortified hill of Jacques-Cartier, whence they were saluted with shot and shell, stopped at various parishes, disarmed the inhabitants, administered oaths of neutrality, which were taken without much apparent reluctance, and on the fourth of August came within sight of Three Rivers, then occupied by a body of troops expecting an attack.  “But,” says Knox, “a delay here would be absurd, as that wretched place must share the fate of Montreal.  Our fleet sailed this morning.  The French troops, apparently about two thousand, lined their different works, and were in general clothed as regulars, except a very few Canadians and about fifty naked Picts or savages, their bodies being painted of a reddish color and their faces of different colors, which I plainly discerned with my glass.  Their light cavalry, who paraded along shore, seemed to be well appointed, clothed in blue, faced with scarlet; but their officers had white uniforms.  In fine, their troops, batteries, fair-looking houses; their situation on the banks of a delightful river; our fleet sailing triumphantly before them, with our floating batteries drawn up in line of battle; the country on both sides interspersed with neat settlements, together with the verdure of the fields and trees and the clear, pleasant weather, afforded as agreeable a prospect as the most lively imagination can conceive.”