The plan was similar to the one which Amherst and Wolfe carried
to success exactly fifty years later, and with a Wolfe in command
it might now have succeeded. The troops from England were to be
at Boston before the end of May, 1709. The colonial forces
gathered. New Jersey and Pennsylvania refused, indeed, to send
any soldiers; but New York and the other colonies concerned did
their full share. By the early summer Colonel Francis Nicholson,
with some fifteen hundred men, lay fully equipped in camp on Wood
Creek near Lake Champlain, ready to descend on Montreal as soon
as news came of the arrival of the British fleet at Boston for
the attack on Quebec. On the shores of Boston harbor lay another
colonial army, large for the time--the levies from New England
which were to sail to Quebec. Officers had come out from England
to drill these hardy men, and as soldiers they were giving a good
account of themselves. They watched, fasted, and prayed, and
watched again for the fleet from England. Summer came and then
autumn and still the fleet did not arrive.
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