Deserters continued to arrive in the camp from the garrison, and the reports they brought of the condition of affairs within the walls left no doubt of a successful issue to the assault, or an early capitulation.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CAPITULATION OF QUEBEC.

W ITHIN the walls of Quebec, the enfeebled and half

starved garrison had awaited in vain the provisions and reinforcements promised by Vaudreuil. For over two months the town had been almost daily bombarded. One hundred and eighty houses had been destroyed by fire, and almost all the others had been riddled by shot and shell the total number destroyed being five hundred and thirty-five. In the Lower Town, only one had been left standing. Walls six feet thick were unable to resist the cannonading, and vaults in which valuables had been stored, had been shattered and destroyed with their contents. The Cathedral was entirely consumed. The buildings of the Seminary were so seriously damaged that no part of them but the kitchen was habitable. The Bishop who had taken refuge at Charlesbourg, was compelled to use that apartment as a residence on his return to town. The little old Church of Notre-Dame des Victoires, in the Lower Town had been destroyed, and those of the Seminary, of the Recollets and of the Jesuits were rendered unserviceable by reason of the damages they had sustained. All the convents and the Jesuit College were