DELIVERANCE
1776
The Continental Congress had always been anxious to have
delegates from the Fourteenth Colony. But as these never
came the Congress finally decided to send a special
commission to examine the whole civil and military state
of Canada and see what could be done. The news of
Montgomery's death and defeat was a very unwelcome
surprise. But reinforcements were being sent; the Canadians
could surely be persuaded; and a Congressional commission
must be able to set things right. This commission was a
very strong one. Benjamin Franklin was the chairman.
Samuel Chase of Maryland and Charles Carroll of Carrollton
were the other members. Carroll's brother, the future
archbishop of Baltimore, accompanied them as a sort of
ecclesiastical diplomatist. Franklin's prestige and the
fact that he was to set up a 'free' printing-press in
Montreal were to work wonders with the educated classes
at once and with the uneducated masses later on. Chase
would appeal to all the reasonable 'moderates.' Carroll,
a great landlord and the nearest approach yet made to an
American millionaire, was expected to charm the Canadian
noblesse; while the fact that he and his exceedingly
diplomatic brother were devout Roman Catholics was thought
to be by itself a powerful argument with the clergy.
When they reached St Johns towards the end of April the
commissioners sent on a courier to announce their arrival
and prepare for their proper reception in Montreal. But
the ferryman at Laprairie positively refused to accept
Continental paper money at any price; and it was only
when a 'Friend of Liberty' gave him a dollar in silver
that he consented to cross the courier over the St
Lawrence. The same hitch occurred in Montreal, where the
same Friend of Liberty had to pay in silver before the
cab-drivers consented to accept a fare either from him
or from the commissioners. Even the name of Carroll of
Carrollton was conjured with in vain. The French Canadians
remembered Bigot's bad French paper. Their worst suspicions
were being confirmed about the equally bad American paper.
So they demanded nothing but hard cash--_argent dur_.
However, the first great obstacle had been successfully
overcome; and so, on the strength of five borrowed silver
dollars, the accredited commissioners of the Continental
Congress of the Thirteen Colonies made their state entry
into what they still hoped to call the Fourteenth Colony.
But silver dollars were scarce; and on the 1st of May
the crestfallen commissioners had to send the Congress
a financial report which may best be summed up in a
pithy phrase which soon became proverbial--'Not worth
a Continental.'
On the 10th of May they heard the bad news from Quebec
and increased the panic among their Montreal sympathizers
by hastily leaving the city lest they should be cut off
by a British man-of-war. Franklin foresaw the end and
left for Philadelphia accompanied by the Reverend John
Carroll, whose twelve days of disheartening experience
with the leading French-Canadian clergy had convinced
him that they were impervious to any arguments or
blandishments emanating from the Continental Congress.
It was a sad disillusionment for the commissioners, who
had expected to be settling the affairs of a fourteenth
colony instead of being obliged to leave the city from
which they were to have enlightened the people with a
free press. In their first angry ignorance they laid the
whole blame on their unfortunate army for its 'disgraceful
flight' from Quebec. A week later, when Chase and Charles
Carroll ought to have known better, they were still
assuring the Congress that this 'shameful retreat' was
'the principal cause of all the disorders' in the army;
and even after the whole story ought to have been understood
neither they nor the Congress gave their army its proper
due. But, as a matter of fact, the American position had
become untenable the moment the British fleet began to
threaten the American line of communication with Montreal.
For the rest, the American volunteers, all things
considered, had done very well indeed. Arnold's march
was a truly magnificent feat. Morgan's men had fought
with great courage at the Sault-au-Matelot. And though
Montgomery's assault might well have been better planned
and executed, we must remember that the good plan, which
had been rejected, was the military one, while the bad
plan, which had been adopted, was concocted by mere
politicians. Nor were 'all the disorders' so severely
condemned by the commissioners due to the army alone.
Far from it, indeed. The root of 'all the disorders' lay
in the fact that a makeshift government was obliged to
use makeshift levies for an invasion which required a
regular army supported by a fleet.
On the 19th of May another disaster happened, this time
above Montreal. The Congress had not felt strong enough
to attack the western posts. So Captain Forster of the
8th Foot, finding that he was free to go elsewhere, had
come down from Oswegatchie (the modern Ogdensburg) with
a hundred whites and two hundred Indians and made prisoners
of four hundred and thirty Americans at the Cedars, about
thirty miles up the St Lawrence from Montreal. Forster
was a very good officer. Butterfield, the American
commander, was a very bad one. And that made all the
difference. After two days of feeble and misdirected
defence Butterfield surrendered three hundred and fifty
men. The other eighty were reinforcements who walked into
the trap next day. Forster now had four American prisoners
for every white soldier of his own; while Arnold was near
by, having come up from Sorel to Lachine with a small
but determined force. So Forster, carefully pointing out
to his prisoners their danger if the Indians should be
reinforced and run wild, offered them their freedom on
condition that they should be regarded as being exchanged
for an equal number of British prisoners in American
hands. This was agreed to and never made a matter of
dispute afterwards. But the second article Butterfield
accepted was a stipulation that, while the released
British were to be free to fight again, the released
Americans were not; and it was over this point that a
bitter controversy raged. The British authorities maintained
that all the terms were binding because they had been
accepted by an officer commissioned by the Congress. The
Congress maintained that the disputed article was obtained
by an unfair threat of an Indian massacre and that it
was so one-sided as to be good for nothing but repudiation.
'The Affair at the Cedars' thus became a sorely vexed
question. In itself it would have died out among later
and more important issues if it had not been used as a
torch to fire American public opinion at a time when the
Congress was particularly anxious to make the Thirteen
Colonies as anti-British as possible. Most of Forster's
men were Indians. He had reminded Butterfield how dangerous
an increasing number of Indians might become. Butterfield
was naturally anxious to prove that he had yielded only
to overwhelming odds and horrifying risks. Americans in
general were ready to believe anything bad about the
Indians and the British. The temptation and the opportunity
seemed made for each other. And so a quite imaginary
Indian massacre conveniently appeared in the American
news of the day and helped to form the kind of public
opinion which was ardently desired by the party of revolt.
The British evidence in this and many another embittering
dispute about the Indians need not be cited, since the
following items of American evidence do ample justice to
both sides. In the spring of 1775 the Massachusetts
Provincial Congress sent Samuel Kirkland to exhort the
Iroquois 'to whet their hatchet and be prepared to defend
our liberties and lives'; while Ethan Allen asked the
Indians round Vermont to treat him 'like a brother and
ambush the regulars.' In 1776 the Continental Congress
secretly resolved 'that it is highly expedient to engage
the Indians in the service of the United Colonies.' This
was before the members knew about the Affair at the
Cedars. A few days later Washington was secretly authorized
to raise two thousand Indians; while agents were secretly
sent 'to engage the Six Nations in our Interest, on the
best terms that can be procured.' Within three weeks of
this secret arrangement the Declaration of Independence
publicly accused the king of trying 'to bring on the
inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages.'
Four days after this public accusation the Congress gave
orders for raising Indians along 'the Penobscot, the St
John, and in Nova Scotia'; and an entry to that effect
was made in its Secret Journal. Yet, before the month
was out, the same Congress publicly appealed to 'The
People of Ireland' in the following words: 'The wild and
barbarous savages of the wilderness have been solicited
by gifts to take up the hatchet against us, and instigated
to deluge our settlements with the blood of defenceless
women and children.'
The American defeats at Quebec and at the Cedars completely
changed the position of the two remaining commissioners.
They had expected to control a victorious advance. They
found themselves the highest authority present with a
disastrous retreat. Thereupon they made blunder after
blunder. Public interest and parliamentary control are
the very life of armies and navies in every country which
enjoys the blessings of self-government. But civilian
interference is death. Yet Chase and Carroll practically
abolished rank in the disintegrating army by becoming an
open court of appeal to every junior with a grievance or
a plan. There never was an occasion on which military
rule was more essential in military matters. Yet, though
they candidly admitted that they had 'neither abilities
nor inclination' to command, these wretched misrulers
tried to do their duty both to the Congress and the army
by turning the camp into a sort of town meeting where
the best orders had no chance whatever against the loudest
'sentiments.' They had themselves found the root of all
evil in the retreat from Quebec. Their army, like every
impartial critic, found it in 'the Commissioners and the
smallpox'--with the commissioners easily first. The
smallpox had been bad enough at Quebec. It became far
worse at Sorel. There were few doctors, fewer medicines,
and not a single hospital. The reinforcements melted away
with the army they were meant to strengthen. Famine
threatened both, even in May. Finally the commissioners
left for home at the end of the month. But even their
departure could no longer make the army's burden light
enough to bear.
Thomas, the ex-apothecary, who did his best to stem the
adverse tide of trouble, caught the smallpox, became
blind, and died at the beginning of June. Sullivan, the
fourth commander in less than half a year, having determined
that one more effort should be made, arrived at Sorel
with new battalions after innumerable difficulties by
the way. He was led to believe that Carleton's
reinforcements had come from Nova Scotia, not from England;
and this encouraged him to push on farther. He was
naturally of a very sanguine temper; and Thompson, his
second-in-command, heartily approved of the dash. The
new troops cheered up and thought of taking Quebec itself.
But, after getting misled by their guide, floundering
about in bottomless bogs, and losing a great deal of very
precious time, they found Three Rivers defended by
entrenchments, superior numbers, and the vanguard of the
British fleet. Nevertheless they attacked bravely on the
8th of June. But, taken in front and flank by well-drilled
regulars and well-handled men-of-war, they presently
broke and fled. Every avenue of escape was closed as they
wandered about the woods and bogs. But Carleton, who came
up from Quebec after the battle was all over, purposely
opened the way to Sorel. He had done his best to win the
hearts of his prisoners at Quebec and had succeeded so
well that when they returned to Crown Point they were
kept away from the rest of the American army lest their
account of his kindness should affect its anti-British
zeal. Now that he was in overwhelming force he thought
he saw an even better chance of earning gratitude from
rebels and winning converts to the loyal side by a still
greater act of clemency.
The battle of Three Rivers was the last action fought on
Canadian soil. The American army retreated to Sorel and
up the Richelieu to St Johns, where it was joined by
Arnold, who had just evacuated Montreal. Most of the
Friends of Liberty in Canada fled either with or before
their beaten forces. So, like the ebbing of a whole river
system, the main and tributary streams of fugitives drew
south towards Lake Champlain. The neutral French Canadians
turned against them at once; though not to the extent of
making an actual attack. The habitant cared nothing for
the incomprehensible constitutionalities over which
different kinds of British foreigners were fighting their
exasperating civil war. But he did know what the king's
big fleet and army meant. He did begin to feel that his
own ways of life were safer with the loyal than with the
rebel side. And he quite understood that he had been
forced to give a good deal for nothing ever since the
American commissioners had authorized their famishing
army to commandeer his supplies and pay him with their
worthless 'Continentals.'
From St Johns the worn-out Americans crawled homewards
in stray, exhausted parties, dropping fast by the way as
they went. 'I did not look into a hut or a tent,' wrote
a horrified observer, 'in which I did not find a dead or
dying man.' Disorganization became so complete that no
exact returns were ever made up. But it is known that
over ten thousand armed men crossed into Canada from
first to last and that not far short of half this total
either found their death beyond the line or brought it
back with them to Lake Champlain.
It was on what long afterwards became Dominion Day--the
1st of July--that the ruined American forces reassembled
at Crown Point, having abandoned all hope of making Canada
the Fourteenth Colony. Three days later the disappointed
Thirteen issued the Declaration of Independence which
virtually proclaimed that Canadians and Americans should
thenceforth live a separate life.