It does, indeed, seem that James Wolfe sensed that death was near him. On the evening of September 12, 1759, the night before the battle and Wolfe's death, he called for an old school friend who was the commander of one of the war sloops in the St. Lawrence River, John Jervis. Wolfe confided to Jervis that he would not survive the battle that was to come.

Wolfe gave Jervis the picture of Miss Lowther that he carried near his heart and asked - "If I fall, let it be given to her with my best love" (Dent, p. 224). Jervis promised to carry out this wish if necessary.

After this meeting and before landing on the shore, General James Wolfe spent time adding a codicil to his will and making final arrangements for the plan of attack.

As the boats moved towards the landing place below the cliffs of Quebec City in the L'Anse au Foulon (called Wolfe's Cove by the English after the victory), Wolfe quoted Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard, "The paths of glory lead but to the grave." (Bonner, p. 91)  To those around him, he added that he wished he had been the one who wrote that poem rather than being the one who was to take Quebec. (John Robinson, a young midshipman with Wolfe in Quebec and later a professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh is credited with the re-telling of this story from Wolfe's last night.)

 Works Cited