Before Colonel Gore left he had sent on young Lieutenant Weir, in plain clothes, to prepare for the advance. He was to meet the troops at Sorel, but failed to do so, as they had taken a byroad known as the Pot-au-Beurre to avoid St. Ours, a stronghold of the rebels. This Weir did not know. He took a calèche, and insisted that the man should drive him by the very road which it was impolitic to take. He gave up this calèche, being urged by a Frenchman to take one driven by himself. Weir believed the man’s assertions, engaged the calèche for the balance of his journey, and was driven straight to Nelson’s quarters. When he arrived there and was stopped by the rebel sentry he boldly asked where the troops were. This was the first intimation to the others that the troops were expected. Tied hand and foot, he was put into a cart and removed under escort. As Weir was at once arrested he had disappeared before his friends’ arrival. Among the preparations Nelson immediately set his son Horace and his pupil Dansereau to make bullets.
At the outskirts another skirmishing party gave the troops a brisk salute, and from nine in the morning till four in the afternoon the struggle lasted. Success in resistance seemed so uncertain that Nelson persuaded Papineau to retire and save the person most sacred to the cause. “It is not here you are most useful,” said he; “we shall want your presence at another time.” Papineau argued that his retirement at such a moment might be misinterpreted, but eventually agreed that his rôle was more that of orator than soldier--to breathe fire-eating words rather than to stand the fire of Colonel Gore’s guns. Nelson then rode out to reconnoitre, was afraid he would fall in with the advancing column, and came back at a hard gallop. In the meantime Captain Markham at the head of his men was pushing on, taking house after house, till he reached a stockade across the road which fenced off the large stone building, four stories high, where Nelson had ensconced himself, with other houses so situated as to strengthen its position. The howitzer now came into play; one of the houses was taken, and attention was turned towards securing a large distillery near by. Captain Markham, severely wounded in the knee and with two balls in his neck, still kept with his men; but they, too, began to fall. The previous night’s toil, the cold and hunger, told on them; ammunition began to run out, and the insurgents received additions to their numbers from the neighbouring villages. One of the defenders was Père Laflèche, who had been soldier before priest and now combined his callings. He was telling his beads when he first caught sight of the troops, and in a twinkling exchanged his rosary for a musket. “Hue donc!” he cried, and a ball sped to the death of an advance guard. Another, David Bourdages, son of a celebrated patriot, kept two boys busy loading for him for nearly two hours; he then tranquilly lit his pipe and began again, still smoking. The chronicle says that nearly every shot dealt death. At that rate of computation a simple problem in junior mathematics would show that Bourdages alone could have comfortably despatched half the attacking force.