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What added to our discomfiture, was that we were confronted mainly by our own countrymen. Our own countrymen, Sieur Sarpy. There was Dumas who led them. There was Dambourges who performed prodigies of valour. There was a giant, named Charland, who sprang upon the barrier and pulled our ladders over it to his own side. The sight of these things enraged and paralyzed me.
"Major Nairne of the Royal Emigrants and M. Dambourges of the same corps by their gallant behaviour attracted the attention of every body," writes an English officer. By ladders, taken from the enemy, they mounted to a window of one of the houses, from which came a destructive fire, and at the point of the bayonet drove the foe out by the door into the street.
It was extremely narrow, and obstructed with blocks of ice and snow-drifts. It was in the neighbourhood of where now are the wharves of the Allan Line Steamship Co. In the narrowest part the Americans marched slowly and cautiously. They passed the outer barrier without resistance and approached the inner, commanded by Dambourges. All was apparently unwarned and silent, but it was not deserted.
Nor should it be forgotten that at the siege of Quebec by Arnold the Canadian officers Colonel Dupré and Captains Dambourgès, Dumas, and Marcoux, with many others, were among Carleton's most trusted and efficient aides in driving back the invading Americans.
Major Nairne and Lieutenant Dambourges of the Royal Emigrants at once climbed in at the head of a storming-party and wild work followed with the bayonet. All the Americans inside were either killed or captured. Meanwhile a vigorous British nine-pounder had been turned on another house they occupied.
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