INVASION
1775
Carleton's first eight years as governor of Canada were
almost entirely occupied with civil administration. The
next four were equally occupied with war; so much so,
indeed, that the Quebec Act could not be put in force on
the 1st of May 1775, as provided for in the Act itself,
but only bit by bit much later on. There was one short
session of the new Legislative Council, which opened on
the 17th of August. But all men's minds were even then
turned towards the Montreal frontier, whence the American
invasion threatened to overspread the whole country and
make this opening session the last that might ever be
held. Most of the members were soon called away from the
council-chamber to the field. No further session could
be held either that year or the next; and Carleton was
obliged to nominate the judges himself. The fifteen years
of peace were over, and Canada had once more become an
object of contention between two fiercely hostile forces.
The War of the American Revolution was a long and
exceedingly complicated struggle; and its many varied
fortunes naturally had a profound effect on those of
Canada. But Canada was directly engaged in no more than
the first three campaigns, when the Americans invaded
her in 1775 and '76, and when the British used her as
the base from which to invade the new American Republic
in 1777. These first three campaigns formed a purely
civil war within the British Empire. On each side stood
three parties. Opponents were ranged against each other
in the mother country, in the Thirteen Colonies, and in
Canada. In the mother country the king and his party
government were ranged against the Opposition and all
who held radical or revolutionary views. Here the strife
was merely political. But in the Thirteen Colonies the
forces of the Crown were ranged against the forces of
the new Continental Congress. The small minority of
colonists who were afterwards known as the United Empire
Loyalists sided with the Crown. A majority sided with
the Congress. The rest kept as selfishly neutral as they
could. Among the English-speaking civilians in Canada,
many of whom were now of a much better class than the
original camp-followers, the active loyalists comprised
only the smaller half. The larger half sided with the
Americans, as was only natural, seeing that most of them
were immigrants from the Thirteen Colonies. But by no
means all these sympathizers were ready for a fight.
Among the French Canadians the loyalists included very
few besides the seigneurs, the clergy, and a handful of
educated people in Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec.
The mass of the habitants were more or less neutral. But
many of them were anti-British at first, while most of
them were anti-American afterwards.
Events moved quickly in 1775. On the 19th of April the
'shot heard round the world' was fired at Lexington in
Massachusetts. On the 1st of May, the day appointed for
the inauguration of the Quebec Act, the statue of the
king in Montreal was grossly defaced and hung with a
cross, a necklace of potatoes, and a placard bearing the
inscription, _Here's the Canadian Pope and English
Fool--Voila le Pape du Canada et le sot Anglais_. Large
rewards were offered for the detection of the culprits;
but without avail. Excitement ran high and many an argument
ended with a bloody nose.
Meanwhile three Americans were plotting an attack along
the old line of Lake Champlain. Two of them were outlaws
from the colony of New York, which was then disputing
with the neighbouring colony of New Hampshire the possession
of the lawless region in which all three had taken refuge
and which afterwards became Vermont. Ethan Allen, the
gigantic leader of the wild Green Mountain Boys, had a
price on his head. Seth Warner, his assistant, was an
outlaw of a somewhat humbler kind. Benedict Arnold, the
third invader, came from Connecticut. He was a horse-dealer
carrying on business with Quebec and Montreal as well as
the West Indies. He was just thirty-four; an excellent
rider, a dead shot, a very fair sailor, and captain of
a crack militia company. Immediately after the affair at
Lexington he had turned out his company, reinforced by
undergraduates from Yale, had seized the New Haven powder
magazine and marched over to Cambridge, where the
Massachusetts Committeemen took such a fancy to him that
they made him a colonel on the spot, with full authority
to raise men for an immediate attack on Ticonderoga. The
opportunity seemed too good to be lost; though the
Continental Congress was not then in favour of attacking
Canada, as its members hoped to see the Canadians throw
off the yoke of empire on their own account. The British
posts on Lake Champlain were absurdly undermanned.
Ticonderoga contained two hundred cannon, but only forty
men, none of whom expected an attack. Crown Point had
only a sergeant and a dozen men to watch its hundred and
thirteen pieces. Fort George, at the head of Lake George,
was no better off; and nothing more had been done to man
the fortifications at St Johns on the Richelieu, where
there was an excellent sloop as well as many cannon in
charge of the usual sergeant's guard. This want of
preparation was no fault of Carleton's. He had frequently
reported home on the need of more men. Now he had less
than a thousand regulars to defend the whole country:
and not another man was to arrive till the spring of next
year. When Gage was hard pressed for reinforcements at
Boston in the autumn of 1774 Carleton had immediately
sent him two excellent battalions that could ill be spared
from Canada. But when Carleton himself made a similar
request, in the autumn of 1775, Admiral Graves, to his
lasting dishonour, refused to sail up to Quebec so late
as October.
The first moves of the three Americans smacked strongly
of a well-staged extravaganza in which the smart Yankees
never failed to score off the dunderheaded British. The
Green Mountain Boys assembled on the east side of the
lake. Spies walked in and out of Ticonderoga, exactly
opposite, and reported to Ethan Allen that the commandant
and his whole garrison of forty unsuspecting men would
make an easy prey. Allen then sent eighty men down to
Skenesborough (now Whitehall) at the southern end of the
lake, to take the tiny post there and bring back boats
for the crossing on the 10th of May. Then Arnold turned
up with his colonel's commission, but without the four
hundred men it authorized him to raise. Allen, however,
had made himself a colonel too, with Warner as his
second-in-command. So there were no less than three
colonels for two hundred and thirty men. Arnold claimed
the command by virtue of his Massachusetts commission.
But the Green Mountain Boys declared they would follow
no colonels but their own; and so Arnold, after being
threatened with arrest, was appointed something like
chief of the staff, on the understanding that he would
make himself generally useful with the boats. This
appointment was made at dawn on the 10th of May, just as
the first eighty men were advancing to the attack after
crossing over under cover of night. The British sentry's
musket missed fire; whereupon he and the guard were
rushed, while the rest of the garrison were surprised in
their beds. Ethan Allen, who knew the fort thoroughly,
hammered on the commandant's door and summoned him to
surrender 'In the name of the Great Jehovah and the
Continental Congress!' The astonished commandant, seeing
that resistance was impossible, put on his dressing-gown
and paraded his disarmed garrison as prisoners of war.
Seth Warner presently arrived with the rest of Allen's
men and soon became the hero of Crown Point, which he
took with the whole of its thirteen men and a hundred
and thirteen cannon. Then Arnold had his own turn, in
command of an expedition against the sergeant's guard,
cannon, stores, fort, and sloop at St Johns on the
Richelieu, all of which he captured in the same absurdly
simple way. When he came sailing back the three victorious
commanders paraded all their men and fired off many
straggling fusillades of joy. In the meantime the
Continental Congress at Philadelphia, with a delightful
touch of unconscious humour, was gravely debating the
following resolution, which was passed on the 1st of
June: _That no Expedition or Incursion ought to be
undertaken or made, by any Colony or body of Colonists,
against or into Canada_.
The same Congress, however, found reasons enough for
changing its mind before the month of May was out. The
British forces in Canada had already begun to move towards
the threatened frontier. They had occupied and strengthened
St Johns. And the Americans were beginning to fear lest
the command of Lake Champlain might again fall into
British hands. On the 27th of May the Congress closed
the phase of individual raids and inaugurated the phase
of regular invasion by commissioning General Schuyler to
'pursue any measures in Canada that may have a tendency
to promote the peace and security of these Colonies.'
Philip Schuyler was a distinguished member of the family
whose head had formulated the 'Glorious Enterprize' of
conquering New France in 1689. [Footnote: See, in this
Series, _The Fighting Governor_.] So it was quite in line
with the family tradition for him to be under orders to
'take possession of St Johns, Montreal, and any other
parts of the country,' provided always, adds the cautious
Congress, that 'General Schuyler finds it practicable,
and that it will not be disagreeable to the Canadians.'
A few days later Arnold was trying to get a colonelcy
from the Convention of New York, whose members just then
happened to be thinking of giving commissions to his
rivals, the leaders of the Green Mountain Boys, while,
to make the complication quite complete, these Boys
themselves had every intention of electing officers on
their own account. In the meantime Connecticut, determined
not to be forestalled by either friend or foe, ordered
a thousand men to Ticonderoga and commissioned a general
called Wooster to command them. Thus early were sown the
seeds of those dissensions between Congress troops and
Colony troops which nearly drove Washington mad.
Schuyler reached Ticonderoga in mid-July and assumed his
position as Congressional commander-in-chief. Unfortunately
for the good of the service he had only a few hundred
men with him; so Wooster, who had a thousand, thought
himself the bigger general of the two. The Connecticut
men followed Wooster's lead by jeering at Schuyler's men
from New York; while the Vermonters added to the confusion
by electing Seth Warner instead of Ethan Allen. In
mid-August a second Congressional general arrived, making
three generals and half a dozen colonels for less than
fifteen hundred troops. This third general was Richard
Montgomery, an ardent rebel of thirty-eight, who had been
a captain in the British Army. He had sold his commission,
bought an estate on the Hudson, and married a daughter
of the Livingstons. The Livingstons headed the
Anglo-American revolutionists in the colony of New York
as the Schuylers headed the Knickerbocker Dutch. One of
them was very active on the rebel side in Montreal and
was soon to take the field at the head of the American
'patriots' in Canada. Montgomery was brother to the
Captain Montgomery of the 43rd who was the only British
officer to disgrace himself during Wolfe's Quebec campaign,
which he did by murdering his French-Canadian prisoners
at Chateau Richer because they had fought disguised as
Indians. [Footnote: See _The Passing of New France_, p.
118.] Richard Montgomery was a much better man than his
savage brother; though, as the sequel proves, he was by
no means the perfect hero his American admirers would
have the world believe. His great value at Ticonderoga
was his professional knowledge and his ardour in the
cause he had espoused. His presence 'changed the spirit
of the camp.' It sadly needed change. 'Such a set of
pusillanimous wretches never were collected' is his own
description in a despairing letter to his wife. The
'army,' in fact, was all parts and no whole, and all the
parts were mere untrained militia. Moreover, the spirit
of the 'town meeting' ruled the camp. Even a battery
could not be moved without consulting a council of war.
Schuyler, though far more phlegmatic than Montgomery,
agreed with him heartily about this and many other
exasperating points. 'If Job had been a general in my
situation, his memory had not been so famous for patience.'
Worn out by his worries, Schuyler fell ill and was sent
to command the base at Albany. Montgomery then succeeded
to the command of the force destined for the front. The
plan of invasion approved by Washington was, first, to
sweep the line of the Richelieu by taking St Johns and
Chambly, then to take Montreal, next to secure the line
of the St Lawrence, and finally to besiege Quebec.
Montgomery's forces were to carry out all the preliminary
parts alone. But Arnold was to join him at Quebec after
advancing across country from the Kennebec to the Chaudiere
with a flying column of Virginians and New Englanders.
Carleton opened the melancholy little session of the new
Legislative Council at Quebec on the very day Montgomery
arrived at Ticonderoga--the 17th of August. When he closed
it, to take up the defence of Canada, the prospect was
already black enough, though it grew blacker still as
time went on. Immediately on hearing the news of
Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and St Johns at the end of May
he had sent every available man from Quebec to Montreal,
whence Colonel Templer had already sent off a hundred
and forty men to St Johns, while calling for volunteers
to follow. The seigneurial class came forward at once.
But all attempts to turn out the militia en masse_ proved
utterly futile. Fourteen years of kindly British rule
had loosened the old French bonds of government and the
habitants were no longer united as part of one people
with the seigneurs and the clergy. The rebels had been
busy spreading insidious perversions of the belated Quebec
Act, poisoning the minds of the habitants against the
British government, and filling their imaginations with
all sorts of terrifying doubts. The habitants were
ignorant, credulous, and suspicious to the last degree.
The most absurd stories obtained ready credence and ran
like wildfire through the province. Seven thousand Russians
were said to be coming up the St Lawrence--whether as
friends or foes mattered nothing compared with the awful
fact that they were all outlandish bogeys. Carleton was
said to have a plan for burning alive every habitant he
could lay his hands on. Montgomery's thousand were said
to be five thousand, with many more to follow. And later
on, when Arnold's men came up the Kennebec, it was
satisfactorily explained to most of the habitants that
it was no good resisting dead-shot riflemen who were
bullet-proof themselves. Carleton issued proclamations.
The seigneurs waved their swords. The clergy thundered
from their pulpits. But all in vain. Two months after
the American exploits on Lake Champlain Carleton gave a
guinea to the sentry mounted in his honour by the local
militia colonel, M. de Tonnancour, because this man was
the first genuine habitant he had yet seen armed in the
whole district of Three Rivers. What must Carleton have
felt when the home government authorized him to raise
six thousand of His Majesty's loyal French-Canadian
subjects for immediate service and informed him that the
arms and equipment for the first three thousand were
already on the way to Canada! Seven years earlier it
might still have been possible to raise French-Canadian
counterparts of those Highland regiments which Wolfe had
recommended and Pitt had so cordially approved. Carleton
himself had recommended this excellent scheme at the
proper time. But, though the home government even then
agreed with him, they thought such a measure would raise
more parliamentary and public clamour than they could
safely face. The chance once lost was lost for ever.
Carleton had done what he could to keep the enemy at
arm's length from Montreal by putting every available
man into Chambly and St Johns. He knew nothing of Arnold's
force till it actually reached Quebec in November. Quebec
was thought secure for the time being, and so was left
with a handful of men under Cramahe. Montreal had a few
regulars and a hundred 'Royal Emigrants,' mostly old
Highlanders who had settled along the New York frontier
after the Conquest. For the rest, it had many American
and a few British sympathizers ready to fly at each
others' throats and a good many neutrals ready to curry
favour with the winners. Sorel was a mere post without
any effective garrison. Chambly was held by only eighty
men under Major Stopford. But its strong stone fort was
well armed and quite proof against anything except siege
artillery; while its little garrison consisted of good
regulars who were well provisioned for a siege. The mass
of Carleton's little force was at St Johns under Major
Preston, who had 500 men of the 7th and 26th (Royal
Fusiliers and Cameronians), 80 gunners, and 120 volunteers,
mostly French-Canadian gentlemen. Preston was an excellent
officer, and his seven hundred men were able to give a
very good account of themselves as soldiers. But the fort
was not nearly so strong as the one at Chambly; it had
no natural advantages of position; and it was short of
both stores and provisions.
The three successive steps for Montgomery to take were
St Johns, Chambly, and Montreal. But the natural order
of events was completely upset by that headstrong Yankee,
Ethan Allen, who would have his private war at Montreal,
and by that contemptible British officer, Major Stopford,
who would not defend Chambly. Montgomery laid siege to
St Johns on the 18th of September, but made no substantial
progress for more than a month. He probably had no use
for Allen at anything like a regular siege. So Allen and
a Major Brown went on to 'preach politicks' and concert
a rising with men like Livingston and Walker. Livingston,
as we have seen already, belonged to a leading New York
family which was very active in the rebel cause; and
Livingston, Walker, Allen, and Brown would have made a
dangerous anti-British combination if they could only
have worked together. But they could not. Livingston
hurried off to join Montgomery with four hundred 'patriots'
who served their cause fairly well till the invasion was
over. Walker had no military qualities whatever. So Allen
and Brown were left to their own disunited devices.
Montreal seemed an easy prey. It had plenty of rebel
sympathizers. Nearly all the surrounding habitants were
either neutrals or inclined to side with the Americans,
though not as fighting men. Carleton's order to bring in
all the ladders, so as to prevent an escalade of the
walls, had met with general opposition and evasion.
Nothing seemed wanting but a good working plan.
Brown, or possibly Allen himself, then hit upon the idea
of treating Montreal very much as Allen had treated
Ticonderoga. In any case Allen jumped at it. He jumped
so far, indeed, that he forestalled Brown, who failed to
appear at the critical moment. Thus, on the 24th of
September, Allen found himself alone at Long Point with
a hundred and twenty men in face of three times as many
under the redoubtable Major Carden, a skilled veteran
who had won Wolfe's admiration years before. Carden's
force included thirty regulars, two hundred and forty
militiamen, and some Indians, probably not over a hundred
strong. The militia were mostly of the seigneurial class
with a following of habitants and townsmen of both French
and British blood. Carden broke Allen's flanks rounded
up his centre, and won the little action easily, though
at the expense of his own most useful life. Allen was
very indignant at being handcuffed and marched off like
a common prisoner after having made himself a colonel
twice over. But Carleton had no respect for
self-commissioned officers and had no soldiers to spare
for guarding dangerous rebels. So he shipped Allen off
to England, where that eccentric warrior was confined in
Pendennis Castle near Falmouth in Cornwall.
This affair, small as it was, revived British hopes in
Montreal and induced a few more militiamen and Indians
to come forward. But within a month more was lost at
Chambly than had been gained at Montreal. On the 18th of
October a small American detachment attacked Chambly with
two little field-guns and induced it to surrender on the
20th. If ever an officer deserved to be shot it was Major
Stopford, who tamely surrendered his well-armed and
well-provided fort to an insignificant force, after a
flimsy resistance of only thirty-six hours, without even
taking the trouble to throw his stores into the river
that flowed beside his strong stone walls. The news of
this disgraceful surrender, diligently spread by rebel
sympathizers, frightened the Indians away from St Johns,
thus depriving Major Preston, the commandant, of his best
couriers at the very worst time. But the evil did not
stop there; for nearly all the few French-Canadian
militiamen whom the more distant seigneurs had been able
to get under arms deserted _en masse_, with many threats
against any one who should try to turn them out again.
Chambly is only a short day's march from Montreal to the
west and St Johns to the south; so its capture meant that
St Johns was entirely cut off from the Richelieu to the
north and dangerously exposed to being cut off from
Montreal as well. Its ample stores and munitions of war
were a priceless boon to Montgomery, who now redoubled
his efforts to take St Johns. But Preston held out bravely
for the remainder of the month, while Carleton did his
best to help him. A fortnight earlier Carleton had arrested
that firebrand, Walker, who had previously refused to
leave the country, though Carleton had given him the
chance of doing so. Mrs Walker, as much a rebel as her
husband, interviewed Carleton and noted in her diary that
he 'said many severe Things in very soft & Polite Termes.'
Carleton was firm. Walker's actions, words, and
correspondence all proved him a dangerous rebel whom no
governor could possibly leave at large without breaking
his oath of office. Walker, who had himself caused so
many outrageous arrests, now not only resisted the legal
arrest of his own person, but fired on the little party
of soldiers who had been sent to bring him into Montreal.
The soldiers then began to burn him out; whereupon he
carried his wife to a window from which the soldiers
rescued her. He then surrendered and was brought into
Montreal, where the sight of him as a prisoner made a
considerable impression on the waverers.
A few hundred neighbouring militiamen were scraped
together. Every one of the handful of regulars who could
be spared was turned out. And Carleton set off to the
relief of St Johns. But Seth Warner's Green Mountain
Boys, reinforced by many more sharpshooters, prevented
Carleton from landing at Longueuil, opposite Montreal.
The remaining Indians began to slink away. The
French-Canadian militiamen deserted fast--'thirty or
forty of a night.' There were not two hundred regulars
available for a march across country. And on the 30th
Carleton was forced to give up in despair. Within the
week St Johns surrendered with 688 men, who were taken
south as prisoners of war. Preston had been completely
cut off and threatened with starvation as well. So when
he destroyed everything likely to be needed by the enemy
he had done all that could be expected of a brave and
capable commander.
It was the 3rd of November when St Johns surrendered.
Ten days later Montgomery occupied Montreal and Arnold
landed at Wolfe's Cove just above Quebec. The race for
the possession of Quebec had been a very close one. The
race for the capture of Carleton was to be closer still.
And on the fate of either depended the immediate, and
perhaps the ultimate, fate of Canada.
The race for Quebec had been none the less desperate
because the British had not known of the danger from the
south till after Arnold had suddenly emerged from the
wilds of Maine and was well on his way to the mouth of
the Chaudiere, which falls into the St Lawrence seven
miles above the city. Arnold's subsequent change of sides
earned him the execration of the Americans. But there
can be no doubt whatever that if he had got through in
time to capture Quebec he would have become a national
hero of the United States. He had the advantage of leading
picked men; though nearly three hundred faint-hearts did
turn back half-way. But, even with picked men, his feat
was one of surpassing excellence. His force went in eleven
hundred strong. It came out, reduced by desertion as well
as by almost incredible hardships, with barely seven
hundred. It began its toilsome ascent of the Kennebec
towards the end of September, carrying six weeks' supplies
in the bad, hastily built boats or on the men's backs.
Daniel Morgan and his Virginian riflemen led the way.
Aaron Burr was present as a young volunteer. The portages
were many and trying. The settlements were few at first
and then wanting altogether. Early in October the drenched
portagers were already sleeping in their frozen clothes.
The boats began to break up. Quantities of provisions
were lost. Soon there was scarcely anything left but
flour and salt pork. It took nearly a fortnight to get
past the Great Carrying Place, in sight of Mount Bigelow.
Rock, bog, and freezing slime told on the men, some of
whom began to fall sick. Then came the chain of ponds
leading into Dead River. Then the last climb up to the
height-of-land beyond which lay the headwaters of the
Chaudiere, which takes its rise in Lake Megantic.
There were sixty miles to go beyond the lake, and a badly
broken sixty miles they were, before the first settlement
of French Canadians could be reached. There was no trail.
Provisions were almost at an end. Sickness increased.
The sick began to die. 'And what was it all for? A chance
to get killed! The end of the march was Quebec
--impregnable!' On the 24th of October Arnold, with
fifteen other men, began 'a race against time, a race
against starvation' by pushing on ahead in a desperate
effort to find food. Within a week he had reached the
first settlement, after losing three of his five boats
with everything in them. Three days later, and not one
day too soon, the French Canadians met his seven hundred
famishing men with a drove of cattle and plenty of
provisions. The rest of the way was toilsome enough. But
it seemed easy by comparison. The habitants were friendly,
but very shy about enlisting, in spite of Washington's
invitation to 'range yourselves under the standard of
general liberty.' The Indians were more responsive, and
nearly fifty joined on their own terms. By the 8th of
November Arnold was marching down the south shore of the
St Lawrence, from the Chaudiere to Point Levis, in full
view of Quebec. He had just received a dispatch ten days
old from Montgomery by which he learned that St Johns
was expected to fall immediately and that Schuyler was
no longer with the army at the front. But he could not
tell when the junction of forces would be made; and he
saw at once that Quebec was on the alert because every
boat had been either destroyed or taken over to the other
side.
The spring and summer had been anxious times enough in
Quebec. But the autumn was a great deal worse. Bad news
kept coming down from Montreal. The disaffected got more
and more restless and began 'to act as though no opposition
might be shown the rebel forces.' And in October it did
seem as if nothing could be done to stop the invaders.
There were only a few hundred militiamen that could be
depended on. The regulars, under Colonel Maclean, had
gone up to help Carleton on the Montreal frontier. The
fortifications were in no state to stand a siege. But
Cramahe was full of steadfast energy. He had mustered
the French-Canadian militia on September 11, the very
day Arnold was leaving Cambridge in Massachusetts for
his daring march against Quebec. These men had answered
the call far better in the city of Quebec than anywhere
else. There was also a larger proportion of English-speaking
loyalists here than in Montreal. But no transports brought
troops up the St Lawrence from Boston or the mother
country, and no vessel brought Carleton down. The loyalists
were, however, encouraged by the presence of two small
men-of-war, one of which, the _Hunter_, had been the
guide-ship for Wolfe's boat the night before the Battle
of the Plains. Some minor reinforcements also kept
arriving: veterans from the border settlements and a
hundred and fifty men from Newfoundland. On the 3rd of
November, the day St Johns surrendered to Montgomery, an
intercepted dispatch had warned Cramahe of Arnold's
approach and led him to seize all the boats on the south
shore opposite Quebec. This was by no means his first
precaution. He had sent some men forty miles up the
Chaudiere as soon as the news of the raids on Lake
Champlain and St Johns had arrived at the end of May.
Thus, though neither of them had anticipated such a bolt
from the blue, both Carleton and Cramahe had taken all
the reasonable means within their most restricted power
to provide against unforeseen contingencies.
Arnold's chance of surprising Quebec had been lost ten
days before he was able to cross the St Lawrence; and
when the habitants on the south shore were helping his
men to make scaling-ladders the British garrison on the
north had already become too strong for him. But he was
indefatigable in collecting boats and canoes at the mouth
of the Chaudiere, and at other points higher up than
Cramahe's men had reached when on their mission of
destruction or removal, and he was as capable as ever
when, on the pitch-black night of the 13th, he led his
little flotilla through the gap between the two British
men-of-war, the _Hunter_ and the _Lizard_. The next day
he marched across the Plains of Abraham and saluted Quebec
with three cheers. But meanwhile Colonel Maclean, who
had set out to help Carleton at Montreal and turned back
on hearing the news of St Johns, had slipped into Quebec
on the 12th. So Arnold found himself with less than seven
hundred effectives against the eleven hundred British
who were now behind the walls. After vainly summoning
the city to surrender he retired to Pointe-aux-Trembles,
more than twenty miles up the north shore of the St
Lawrence, there to await the arrival of the victorious
Montgomery.
Meanwhile Montgomery was racing for Carleton and Carleton
was racing for Quebec. Montgomery's advance-guard had
hurried on to Sorel, at the mouth of the Richelieu,
forty-five miles below Montreal, to mount guns that would
command the narrow channel through which the fugitive
governor would have to pass on his way to Quebec. They
had ample time to set the trap; for an incessant nor'-easter
blew up the St Lawrence day after day and held Carleton
fast in Montreal, while, only a league away, Montgomery's
main body was preparing to cross over. Escape by land
was impossible, as the Americans held Berthier, on the
north shore, and had won over the habitants, all the way
down from Montreal, on both sides of the river. At last,
on the afternoon of the 11th, the wind shifted. Immediately
a single cannon-shot was fired, a bugle sounded the _fall
in!_ and 'the whole military establishment' of Montreal
formed up in the barrack square--one hundred and thirty
officers and men, all told. Carleton, 'wrung to the soul,'
as one of his officers wrote home, came on parade 'firm,
unshaken, and serene.' The little column then marched
down to the boats through shuttered streets of timid
neutrals and scowling rebels. The few loyalists who came
to say good-bye to Carleton at the wharf might well have
thought it was the last handshake they would ever get
from a British 'Captain-General and Governor-in-chief'
as they saw him step aboard in the dreary dusk of that
November afternoon. And if he and they had known the
worst they might well have thought their fate was sealed;
for neither of them then knew that both sides of the St
Lawrence were occupied in force at two different places
on the perilous way to Quebec.
The little flotilla of eleven vessels got safely down to
within a few miles of Sorel, when one grounded and delayed
the rest till the wind failed altogether at noon on the
12th. The next three days it blew upstream without a
break. No progress could be made as there was no room to
tack in the narrow passages opposite Sorel. On the third
day an American floating battery suddenly appeared, firing
hard. Behind it came a boat with a flag of truce and the
following summons from Colonel Easton, who commanded
Montgomery's advance-guard at Sorel:
SIR,--By this you will learn that General Montgomery
is in Possession of the Fortress Montreal. You are
very sensible that I am in Possession at this Place,
and that, from the strength of the United Colonies on
both sides your own situation is Rendered Very
disagreeable. I am therefore induced to make you the
following Proposal, viz.:--That if you will Resign
your Fleet to me Immediately, without destroying the
Effects on Board, You and Your men shall be used with
due civility, together with women & Children on Board.
To this I shall expect Your direct and Immediate
answer. Should you Neglect You will Cherefully take
the Consequences which will follow.
Carleton was surprised: and well he might be. He had not
supposed that Montgomery's men were in any such commanding
position. But, like Cramahe at Quebec, he refused to
answer; whereupon Easton's batteries opened both from
the south shore and from Isle St Ignace. Carleton's
heaviest gun was a 9-pounder; while Easton had four
12-pounders, one of them mounted on a rowing battery that
soon forced the British to retreat. The skipper of the
schooner containing the powder magazine wanted to surrender
on the spot, especially when he heard that the Americans
were getting some hot shot ready for him. But Carleton
retreated upstream, twelve miles above Sorel, to Lavaltrie,
just above Berthier on the north shore, where, on attempting
to land, he was driven back by some Americans and habitants.
Next morning, the 16th, a fateful day for Canada, the
same Major Brown who had failed Ethan Allen at Montreal
came up with a flag of truce to propose that Carleton
should send an officer to see for himself how well all
chance of escape had now been cut off. The offer was
accepted; and Brown explained the situation from the
rebel point of view. 'This is my small battery; and, even
if you should chance to escape, I have a grand battery
at the mouth of the Sorel [Richelieu] which will infallibly
sink all of your vessels. Wait a little till you see the
32-pounders that are now within half-a-mile.' There was
a good deal of Yankee bluff in this warning, especially
as the 32-pounders could not be mounted in time. But the
British officer seemed perfectly satisfied that the way
was completely blocked; and so the Americans felt sure
that Carleton would surrender the following day.
Carleton, however, was not the man to give in till the
very last; and one desperate chance still remained. His
flotilla was doomed. But he might still get through alone
without it. One of the French-Canadian skippers, better
known as 'Le Tourte' or 'Wild Pigeon' than by his own
name of Bouchette because of his wonderfully quick trips,
was persuaded to make the dash for freedom. So Carleton,
having ordered Prescott, his second-in-command, not to
surrender the flotilla before the last possible moment,
arranged for his own escape in a whaleboat. It was with
infinite precaution that he made his preparations, as
the enemy, though confident of taking him, were still on
the alert to prevent such a prize from slipping through
their fingers. He dressed like a habitant from head to
foot, putting on a tasselled _bonnet rouge_ and an _etoffe
du pays_ (grey homespun) suit of clothes, with a red sash
and _bottes sauvages_ like Indian moccasins. Then the
whaleboat was quietly brought alongside. The crew got in
and plied their muffled oars noiselessly down to the
narrow passage between Isle St Ignace and the Isle du
Pas, where they shipped the oars and leaned over the side
to paddle past the nearest battery with the palms of
their hands. It was a moment of breathless excitement;
for the hope of Canada was in their keeping and no turning
back was possible. But the American sentries saw no
furtive French Canadians gliding through that dark November
night and heard no suspicious noises above the regular
ripple of the eddying island current. One tense half-hour
and all was over, The oars were run out again; the men
gave way with a will; and Three Rivers was safely reached
in the morning.
Here Carleton met Captain Napier, who took him aboard
the armed ship _Fell_, in which he continued his journey
to Quebec. He was practically safe aboard the _Fell_;
for Arnold had neither an army strong enough to take
Quebec nor any craft big enough to fight a ship. But the
flotilla above Sorel was doomed. After throwing all its
powder into the St Lawrence it surrendered on the 19th,
the very day Carleton reached Quebec. The astonished
Americans were furious when they found that Carleton had
slipped through their fingers after all. They got Prescott,
whom they hated; and they released Walker, whom Carleton
was taking as a prisoner to Quebec. But no friends and
foes like Walker and Prescott could make up for the loss
of Carleton, who was the heart as well as the head of
Canada at bay.
The exultation of the British more than matched the
disappointment of the Americans. Thomas Ainslie, collector
of customs and captain of militia at Quebec, only expressed
the feelings of all his fellow-loyalists when he made
the following entry in the extremely accurate diary he
kept throughout those troublous times:
'On the 19th (a Happy Day for Quebec!), to the unspeakable
joy of the friends of the Government, and to the utter
Dismay of the abettors of Sedition and Rebellion, General
Carleton arrived in the _Fell_, arm'd ship, accompanied
by an arm'd schooner. We saw our Salvation in his Presence.'