Notwithstanding that the number of guns of the British fleet exceeded both the armaments of the French ships and of all the forts, these British ships did not risk an attack, but merely acted as transports and as a blockading squadron.

Even the French naval defence, and the outer works commanding the harbor, were reduced by the temporary land-batteries which Wolfe erected; and the main work, although besieged by an inequality of forces of nearly _five_ to _one_, held out for two months, and even then surrendered through the fears and petitions of the non-combatant inhabitants, and not because it had received any material injury from the besiegers.

The defence, however, had been continued long enough to prevent, for that campaign, any further operations against Canada.

The whole number of the English land forces in this campaign was computed at fifty thousand men, of which more than forty thousand were in the field.
The _first_ division, of nine thousand men, was directed against Fort Du Quesne, whose garrison did not exceed as many hundred.

The _second_ division, of sixteen thousand effective troops, proceeded against Ticonderoga and Crown Point; while a detachment of three thousand men captured Fort Frontenac, then garrisoned by only one hundred and ten men.