ARNOLD BLOCKADES QUEBEC—HIS DIFFICULTIES—ARRIVAL OF GENERAL WOOSTER—OF
GENERAL THOMAS—ABORTIVE ATTEMPT ON QUEBEC—PREPARATIONS FOR
RETREAT—SORTIE OF CARLETON—RETREAT OF THE AMERICANS—HALT AT POINT
DESCHAMBAULT—ALARM IN THE COLONIES AT THE RETREAT OF THE ARMY—POPULAR
CLAMOR AGAINST SCHUYLER—SLANDERS REFUTED.
In a former chapter, we left Arnold before the walls of Quebec, wounded,
crippled, almost disabled, yet not disheartened; blockading that “proud
town” with a force inferior, by half, in number to that of the garrison.
For his gallant services, Congress promoted him in January to the rank
of brigadier-general.
Throughout the winter he kept up the blockade with his shattered army;
though had Carleton ventured upon a sortie, he might have been forced to
decamp. That cautious general, however, remained within his walls. He
was sure of reinforcements from England in the spring, and, in the mean
time, trusted to the elements of dissolution at work in the besieging
army.
Arnold, in truth, had difficulties of all kinds to contend with. His
military chest was exhausted; his troops were in want of necessaries; to
procure supplies, he was compelled to resort to the paper money issued
by Congress, which was uncurrent among the Canadians; he issued a
proclamation making the refusal to take it in payment a penal offence.
This only produced irritation and disgust. As the terms of their
enlistment expired, his men claimed their discharge and returned home.
Sickness also thinned his ranks; so that, at one time, his force was
reduced to five hundred men, and for two months, with all his
recruitments of raw militia, did not exceed seven hundred.
The failure of the attack on Quebec had weakened the cause among the
Canadians; the peasantry had been displeased by the conduct of the
American troops; they had once welcomed them as deliverers; they now
began to regard them as intruders. The seigneurs, or noblesse, also,
feared to give further countenance to an invasion, which, if defeated,
might involve them in ruin.
Notwithstanding all these discouragements, Arnold still kept up a bold
face; cut off supplies occasionally, and harassed the place with alarms.
Having repaired his batteries, he opened a fire upon the town, but with
little effect; the best part of the artillerists, with Lamb, their
capable commander, were prisoners within the walls.
On the 1st day of April, General Wooster arrived from Montreal, with
reinforcements, and took the command. The day after his arrival, Arnold,
by the falling of his horse, again received an injury on the leg
recently wounded, and was disabled for upwards of a week. Considering
himself slighted by General Wooster, who did not consult him in military
affairs, he obtained leave of absence until he should be recovered from
his lameness, and repaired to Montreal, where he took command.
General Thomas arrived at the camp in the course of April, and found the
army in a forlorn condition, scattered at different posts, and on the
island of Orleans. It was numerically increased to upwards of two
thousand men, but several hundred were unfit for service. The smallpox
had made great ravages. They had inoculated each other. In their sick
and debilitated state, they were without barracks, and almost without
medicine. A portion, whose term of enlistment had expired, refused to do
duty, and clamored for their discharge.
The winter was over, the river was breaking up, reinforcements to the
garrison might immediately be expected, and then the case would be
desperate. Observing that the river about Quebec was clear of ice,
General Thomas determined on a bold effort. It was, to send up a
fire-ship with the flood, and, while the ships in the harbor were in
flames, and the town in confusion, to scale the walls.
Accordingly, on the third of May, the troops turned out with scaling
ladders; the fire-ship came up the river under easy sail, and arrived
near the shipping before it was discovered. It was fired into. The crew
applied a slow match to the train and pulled off. The ship was soon in a
blaze, but the flames caught and consumed the sails; her way was
checked, and she drifted off harmlessly with the ebbing tide. The rest
of the plan was, of course, abandoned.
Nothing now remained but to retreat before the enemy should be
reinforced. Preparations were made in all haste, to embark the sick and
the military stores. While this was taking place, five ships made their
way into the harbor, on the 6th of May, and began to land troops. Thus
reinforced, General Carleton sallied forth, with eight hundred or a
thousand men. We quote his own letter for an account of his sortie. “As
soon as part of the 29th regiment with the marines, in all about two
hundred, were landed, they, with the greatest part of the garrison, by
this time much improved, and in high spirits, marched out of the ports
of St. Louis and St. Johns, to see what these mighty boasters were
about. They were found very busy in their preparations for a retreat. A
few shots being exchanged, the line marched forward, and the place was
soon cleared of these plunderers.”
By his own account, however, these “mighty boasters” had held him and
his garrison closely invested for five months; had burnt the suburbs;
battered the walls; thrown red-hot shot among the shipping; made
repeated and daring attempts to carry the place by assault and
stratagem, and rendered it necessary for soldiers, sailors, marines, and
even judges and other civil officers to mount guard.[65] One officer
declares, in a letter, that for eighty successive nights he slept in his
clothes, to be ready in case of alarm.
All this, too, was effected by a handful of men, exposed in open
encampments to the rigors of a Canadian winter. If in truth they were
boasters, it must be allowed their deeds were equal to their words.
The Americans were in no condition to withstand Carleton’s unlooked-for
attack. They had no intrenchments, and could not muster three hundred
men at any point. A precipitate retreat was the consequence, in which
baggage, artillery, every thing was abandoned. Even the sick were left
behind; many of whom crawled away from the camp hospitals, and took
refuge in the woods, or among the Canadian peasantry.
General Carleton did not think it prudent to engage in a pursuit with
his newly-landed troops. He treated the prisoners with great humanity,
and caused the sick to be sought out in their hiding-places, and brought
to the general hospitals; with assurances, that, when healed, they
should have liberty to return to their homes.
General Thomas came to a halt at Point Deschambault, about sixty miles
above Quebec, and called a council of war to consider what was to be
done. The enemy’s ships were hastening up the St. Lawrence; some were
already but two or three leagues distant. The camp was without cannon;
powder, forwarded by General Schuyler, had fallen into the enemy’s
hands; there were not provisions enough to subsist the army for more
than two or three days; the men-of-war, too, might run up the river,
intercept all their resources, and reduce them to the same extremity
they had experienced before Quebec. It was resolved, therefore, to
ascend the river still further.
General Thomas, however, determined to send forward the invalids, but to
remain at Point Deschambault with about five hundred men, until he
should receive orders from Montreal, and learn whether such supplies
could be forwarded immediately as would enable him to defend his
position.[66]
The despatches of General Thomas, setting forth the disastrous state of
affairs, had a disheartening effect on Schuyler, who feared the army
would be obliged to abandon Canada. Washington, on the contrary, spoke
cheeringly on the subject. “We must not despair. A manly and spirited
opposition only can insure success, and prevent the enemy from improving
the advantage they have obtained.”[67]
He regretted that the troops had not been able to make a stand at Point
Deschambault, but hoped they would maintain a post as far down the river
as possible. The lower it was, the more important would be the
advantages resulting from it, as all the country above would be
favorable, and furnish assistance and support; while all below would
necessarily be in the power of the enemy.
The tidings of the reverses in Canada and the retreat of the American
army, had spread consternation throughout the New Hampshire Grants, and
the New England frontiers, which would now be laid open to invasion.
Committees of towns and districts assembled in various places, to
consult on the alarming state of affairs. In a time of adversity, it
relieves the public mind to have some individual on whom to charge its
disasters. General Schuyler, at present, was to be the victim. We have
already noticed the prejudice and ill will, on the part of the New
England people, which had harassed him throughout the campaign, and
nearly driven him from the service. His enemies now stigmatized him as
the cause of the late reverses. He had neglected, they said, to forward
reinforcements and supplies to the army in Canada. His magnanimity in
suffering Sir John Johnson to go at large, while in his power, was again
misconstrued into a crime: he had thus enabled that dangerous man to
renew his hostilities. Finally, it was insinuated that he was untrue to
his country, if not positively leagued with her enemies.
These imputations were not generally advanced; and when advanced, were
not generally countenanced; but a committee of King’s County appears to
have given them credence, addressing a letter to the commander-in-chief
on the subject, accompanied by documents.
Washington, to whom Schuyler’s heart had been laid open throughout all
its trials, and who knew its rectitude, received the letter and
documents with indignation and disgust, and sent copies of them to the
general. “From these,” said he, “you will readily discover the
diabolical and insidious arts and schemes carrying on by the tories and
friends of government to raise distrust, dissensions, and divisions
among us. Having the utmost confidence in your integrity, and the most
incontestable proof of your great attachment to our common country and
its interest, I could not but look upon the charge against you with an
eye of disbelief, and sentiments of detestation and abhorrence; nor
should I have troubled you with the matter, had I not been informed that
copies were sent to different committees, and to Governor Trumbull,
which I conceived would get abroad, and that you, should you find I had
been furnished with them, would consider my suppressing them as an
evidence of my belief, or at best of my doubts, of the charges.”[68]
We will go forward, and give the sequel of this matter. While the
imputations in question had merely floated in public rumor, Schuyler had
taken no notice of them; “but it is now,” writes he in reply to
Washington, “a duty which I owe myself and my country, to detect the
scoundrels, and the only means of doing this is by requesting that an
immediate inquiry be made into the matter; when I trust it will appear
that it was more a scheme calculated to ruin me, than to disunite and
create jealousies in the friends of America. Your Excellency will,
therefore, please to order a court of inquiry the soonest possible; for
I cannot sit easy under such an infamous imputation; since on this
extensive continent, numbers of the most respectable characters may not
know what your Excellency and Congress do of my principles and exertions
in the common cause.”
He further adds: “I am informed by persons of good credit, that about
one hundred persons, living on what are commonly called the New
Hampshire Grants, have had a design to seize me as a tory, and perhaps
still have. There never was a man so infamously scandalized and
ill-treated as I am.”
We need only add, that the Berkshire committees which, in a time of
agitation and alarm, had hastily given countenance to these imputations,
investigated them deliberately in their cooler moments, and
acknowledged, in a letter to Washington, that they were satisfied their
suspicions respecting General Schuyler were wholly groundless. “We
sincerely hope,” added they, “his name may be handed down, with immortal
honor, to the latest posterity, as one of the great pillars of the
American cause.”