ENGLISH FLEET DAMAGED BY A STORM.

In the meantime, the fleet was exposed to the most imminent danger. Immediately after the troops had been landed on the island of Orleans, the wind increased to a furious storm, which blew with such violence, that many transports ran foul of one another, and were disabled. A number of boats and small craft foundered, and divers large ships lost their anchors. The enemy resolving to take advantage of the confusion which they imagined this disaster must have produced, prepared seven fire ships; and at midnight sent them down from Quebec among the transports, which lay so thick as to cover the whole surface of the river. The scheme, though well contrived, and seasonably executed, was entirely defeated by the deliberation of the British admiral, and the dexterity of his mariners, who resolutely boarded the fire ships, and towed them fast aground, where they lay burning to the water’s edge, without having done the least prejudice to the English squadron. On the very same day of the succeeding month they sent down a raft of fire-ships, or radeaux, which were likewise consumed without producing any effect.