He was
separated from other British forces by vast wastes of forest and
river, and until spring should come no fleet could aid him. Three
enemies of the English, the French said exultingly, would aid to
retake Quebec: the ruthless savages who haunted the outskirts of
the fortress and massacred many an incautious straggler; the
French army which could be recruited from the Canadian
population; and, above all, the bitter cold of the Canadian
winter. To Murray, as to Napoleon long afterward in his rash
invasion of Russia, General February was indeed the enemy. About
the two or three British ships left at Quebec the ice froze in
places a dozen feet thick, and snowdrifts were piled so high
against the walls of Quebec that it looked sometimes as if the
enemy might walk over them into the fortress. So solidly frozen
was the surface of the river that Murray sent cannon to the south
shore across the ice to repel a menace from that quarter. There
was scarcity of firewood and of provisions. Scurvy broke out in
the garrison. Many hundreds died so that by the spring Murray had
barely three thousand men fit for active duty.
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