THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
[Sidenote: Ticonderoga and Crown Point.]
The War of American Independence began with the skirmish at
Lexington on the 19th of April, 1775. The battle of Bunker’s Hill
was fought on the following 16th of June. Between these two dates
a forward move was made towards Canada by the American colonists,
and the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point on Lake Champlain were
surprised and taken.
[Sidenote: Carleton urges the upkeep of strong forts in North
America.]
[Sidenote: Carleton’s policy: (1) adequate defences and garrisons:
(2) attachment of the Canadians to the British Crown especially by
giving them employment under the government.]
Years before, shortly after taking over the administration of
Canada, Carleton had called attention to the dilapidated condition
of these forts. In a letter, dated the 15th of February, 1767,[58]
he wrote to General Gage, then Commander-in-Chief in North
America--‘the forts of Crown Point, Ticonderoga, and Fort George
are in a very declining condition, of which, I believe, your
Excellency is well informed. Should you approve of keeping up
these posts, it will be best to repair them as soon as possible.’
The letter went on to suggest that, in addition to repairing the
forts in question, there should be ‘a proper place of arms near the
town of New York and a citadel in or near the town of Quebec’, the
object being to secure communication with the mother country and
to link the two provinces together. Written in view of ‘the state
of affairs on this continent’, the letter was statesmanlike and
farseeing in a high degree. The writer argued that ‘the natural
and political situation of the provinces of Quebec and New York
is such as must for ever give them great influence and weight in
the American system’. He pleaded, therefore, for strong forts at
Quebec and New York, and strong posts on the line between New York
and Canada. Thus, in the event of war breaking out, the King’s
magazines would be kept secure, the northern colonies would be
separated from the southern, and delay in transport and difficulty
of communication, so dangerous, especially in the early stages of
a war, would be averted. In the years which preceded the War of
American Independence, Carleton had constantly in view the twofold
contingency of war with France and war with the British colonies in
America; and there were two cardinal points in his policy, which he
never ceased to impress upon the Home Government, on the one hand
the necessity for adequate military forces, and adequate forts in
America, on the other the necessity for taking such steps as would
attach the Canadians to the British Crown.
In November, 1767,[59] he wrote to Shelburne, ‘The town of Quebec
is the only post in this province that has the least claim to be
called a fortified place; for the flimsy wall about Montreal, was
it not falling to ruins, could only turn musketry.’ He went on to
show how the French officers who still remained in Canada, and the
Canadian seigniors who had served France, had lost their employment
through the conquest of Canada, and, not having been taken into the
English King’s service, had no motive to be ‘active in the defence
of a people that has deprived them of their honours, privileges,
profits, and laws’; and again he urged the importance of building a
citadel, for which he enclosed a plan, within the town of Quebec.
‘A work of this nature,’ he wrote, ‘is not only necessary as
matters now stand, but supposing the Canadians could be interested
to take a part in the defence of the King’s Government, a change
not impossible to bring about, yet time must bring forth events
that will render it essentially necessary for the British interests
on this continent to secure this port of communication with the
mother country.’
In January, 1868,[60] he wrote again to Shelburne, and referring to
his previous letter and to the scheme for constructing a citadel
at Quebec, he said--‘Was this already constructed, and I could
suppose it impossible for any foreign enemy to shake the King’s
dominion over the province, still I shall think the interests of
Great Britain but half advanced, unless the Canadians are inspired
with a cordial attachment and zeal for the King’s Government.’ Once
more he urged that the Canadians had no motive of self-interest to
attach them to British rule. The laws and customs which affected
their property had been overturned. Justice was slow and expensive.
The different offices claimed ‘as their right, fees calculated for
much wealthier provinces’; and the leading Canadians were excluded
from all places of trust and profit. Give the people back their old
laws and customs in civil matters, let them feel thereby secure
in their property, take a few Canadians into the service of the
Crown, enlist in the King’s forces ‘a few companies of Canadian
foot, judiciously officered’, ‘hold up hopes to the gentlemen, that
their children, without being bred up in France, or in the French
service, might support their families in the service of the King
their master,’ and, at any rate, some proportion of the French
Canadians would be found loyally attached to the British Government.
Another letter, written to Lord Hillsborough in November, 1768,[61]
was in similar terms. It referred to rumours of French intrigues
and of a contemplated rising on the part of the Canadian gentry.
Carleton discredited the rumours, but added, ‘Notwithstanding this,
and their decent and respectful obedience to the King’s Government
hitherto, I have not the least doubt of their secret attachment to
France, and think this will continue, as long as they are excluded
from all employments under the British Government.’ He reflected
‘that France naturally has the affections of all the people: that,
to make no mention of fees of office and of the vexations of the
law, we have done nothing to gain one man in the province, by
making it his private interest to remain the King’s subject’. He
went on to point out that ‘the King’s dominion here is maintained
but by a few troops, necessarily dispersed, without a place of
security for their magazines, for their arms, or for themselves,
amidst a numerous military people, the gentlemen all officers of
experience, poor, without hopes that they or their descendants will
be admitted into the service of their present Sovereign’, and he
argued that, were a war with France to coincide with a rising of
the British colonies in North America, the danger to the British
power would be great. ‘Canada, probably, will then become the
principal scene, where the fate of America may be determined.’ On
the other hand he urged--‘How greatly Canada might for ever support
the British interests on this continent, for it is not united in
any common principle, interest, or wish with the other provinces,
in opposition to the supreme seat of government, was the King’s
dominion over it only strengthened by a citadel, which a few
national troops might secure, and the natives attached by making it
their interest to remain his subjects.’
[Sidenote: Carleton’s sympathy with the French Canadians.]
[Sidenote: The French Canadians were a people of soldiers
accustomed to personal rule.]
In the second of these letters[62] from which quotations have
been made, Carleton said that he would endeavour to represent
the true situation of the province to the ministers at home, who
were already engaged in considering ‘the improvement of the civil
constitution of Quebec’, lest the King’s servants, with all their
ability, should be at a disadvantage in forming their conclusions
‘for want of having truly represented to them objects at so great
a distance, and in themselves so different from what is to be
found in any other of his dominions’. But it was not merely a case
of the man on the spot advising the men at a distance; the value
of Carleton’s advice was largely due to the fact of his being a
soldier. To this fact must be attributed, in great measure, the
strong sympathy which the soldier-governors felt with the French
Canadians, and on Carleton’s part more especially with the French
Canadian gentry. As Murray had pointed out,[63] the Canadians
were a people of soldiers; they were accustomed to personal rule
and attachment rather than to the rule of the law. To high minded
English officers, themselves brought up in the King’s service,
trained to discipline, to well ordered grades of obedience, the
old Canadian system with its feudal customs was congenial and
attractive, and they resented attempts to substitute for it the
beginnings of undisciplined democracy. Hence Carleton laid stress
on taking Canadian gentlemen into the government service, and on
enlisting companies of Canadian soldiers, in other words, on making
the Canadians feel that they were, as they had been in past times,
the King’s men. Hence, too, we find him in a letter to Shelburne of
April, 1768,[64] recommending full recognition and continuance of
the old feudal tenures of Canada, including ‘a formal requisition
of all those immediately holding of the King, to pay faith and
homage to him at his castle of St. Lewis’. If left to himself, he
would have liked to repeal entirely the Ordinance of September,
1764, which introduced English laws into Canada, ‘and for the
present leave the Canadian laws almost entire;’[65] and, though
he assented to the compromise embodied in the Quebec Act, whereby
the criminal law was to be that of England, while in civil matters
Canadian law and custom were in the main to prevail, we find him in
June, 1775,[66] after war had begun, writing to Dartmouth, ‘For my
part, since my return to this province I have seen good cause to
repent my ever having recommended the Habeas Corpus Act and English
criminal laws.’
It was due to Carleton that the Ordinance of 1770, to which
reference has already been made,[67] was passed, taking away from
the justices of the peace jurisdiction in matters of private
property which had been exercised to the detriment of the French
Canadians. It was due to him that in 1771 a new Royal Instruction
was issued, authorizing the governor to revert to the old French
system of grants of Crown lands ‘in Fief or Seigneurie’;[68] and
his influence was all in favour of the clauses in the Quebec Act
which were favourable to the ‘new subjects’, the French Canadians,
who, at the time when the War of American Independence began, seem
to have numbered under 100,000.[69]
[Sidenote: Carleton returns from England in September, 1774, and
sends two regiments to Boston.]
As has been told, Carleton came back from England to Quebec in the
middle of September, 1774, finding the French Canadians in great
good humour at the passing of the Quebec Act. Twenty hours after
his arrival an express letter reached him from General Gage, still
Commander-in-Chief in North America, who was then at Boston.[70]
In it Gage asked his colleague to send at once to Boston, if
they could be spared, the 10th and 52nd Regiments, which formed
a large part of the scanty garrison of Canada. The transports
which brought the letter were to take back the troops. September,
1774, was a critical month in the North American provinces. The
first continental Congress met at Philadelphia; and at Suffolk,
near Boston, on the 9th September, a public meeting passed
resolutions,[71] boldly advocating resistance to the recent Acts of
Parliament.
[Sidenote: Proposals to raise Canadian and Indian forces.]
[Sidenote: Carleton strongly favours raising a Canadian regiment.]
Accordingly, in addition to his request for the two regiments, Gage
wrote--‘As I must look forward to the worst, from the apparent
disposition of the people here, I am to ask your opinion, whether
a body of Canadians and Indians might be collected and confided
in, for the service in this country, should matters come to
extremities.’ Carleton promptly replied: ‘Pilots are sent down the
river, the 10th and 52nd shall be ready to embark at a moment’s
notice;’ and the regiments were sent to Boston, as in later
years Lord Lawrence, at the time of the Indian Mutiny, denuded
the Punjaub of soldiers, in order to strengthen the force which
was besieging Delhi. Carleton’s letter continued: ‘The Canadians
have testified to me the strongest marks of joy and gratitude,
and fidelity to the King, and to his Government, for the late
arrangements made at home in their favour: a Canadian regiment
would complete their happiness, which in time of need might be
augmented to two, three, or more battalions ... the savages of this
province, I hear, are in very good humour, a Canadian battalion
would be a great motive and go far to influence them, but you know
what sort of people they are.’ Here was the opportunity which
Carleton desired, of taking the Canadians into the King’s service.
Following on the Quebec Act, he looked to such a measure as likely
to rivet Canadian loyalty to the British Crown, and evidently took
himself, and inspired the Home Government with, too hopeful a
view of the amount of support to be expected from the Canadians,
looking to and sympathizing with the seigniors rather than the
lower classes of the people of Canada. It will be noted that both
Gage and he contemplated employing Indians, in the event of war
between the mother country and the North American colonies. Indians
had been used on either side in the wars with the French, but it
seems strange that there is no hint or suggestion in these letters
of the danger and impolicy of employing them against the British
colonists.[72]
In November, 1774, writing to Dartmouth,[73] Carleton still spoke
of the gratitude and loyalty of the French Canadians, but there
was a warning note in his letter. While the respectable members of
the English community at Quebec supported the Government, there
was much disloyalty among the British residents at Montreal. The
resolutions of the Philadelphia Congress, and their address to
the people of Canada, had reached that place. Walker was much in
evidence, embittered by the outrage which he had suffered some
years before,[74] and, with others, was organizing meetings and
petitions both at Montreal and at Quebec. These proceedings,
Carleton wrote, were causing uneasiness to the Canadians, and he
concluded that ‘Government cannot guard too much, or too soon,
against the consequences of an infection, imported daily, warmly
recommended, and spread abroad by the colonists here, and indeed by
some from Europe, not less violent than the Americans’.
[Sidenote: Canadian feeling at the beginning of 1775.]
[Sidenote: Carleton strongly urges employing the Canadian gentry in
the regular army.]
The year 1774 ended in anxiety and suspense, and the year 1775
opened, memorable and disastrous to Great Britain. On Christmas
Day, 1774, Gage had written again to Carleton on the subject of
Canadian and Indian levies, and on the 4th of February, 1775,
Carleton answered the letter.[75] Political matters relating to the
Indians, he said, he had always considered to be the special charge
of the late Sir William Johnson, and outside the sphere of his own
authority, but his intelligence was to the effect that the Indians
would be ready for service if called upon.[76] Of the Canadians
Carleton wrote that they had in general been made very happy by
the passing of the Quebec Act, but he reminded Gage that that Act
did not come into force until the 1st of May following, that the
new commissions and instructions expected in connexion with it had
not yet arrived, and that the whole machinery for carrying out the
new system of government had still to be created. ‘Had the present
settlement taken place,’ he added, ‘when first recommended, it
would not have aroused the jealousy of the other colonies, and had
the appearance of more disinterested favour to the Canadians.’ He
pointed out that the gentry, ‘well disposed and heartily desirous
as they are, to serve the Crown, and to serve it with zeal,
when formed into regular corps, do not relish commanding a bare
militia.’ They had not been used to act as militia officers under
the French Government, and they were further deterred from taking
such employment by recollection of the sudden disbandment of a
Canadian regiment, which had been raised in 1764, and subsequently
broken up, ‘without gratuity or recompense to officers, who engaged
in our service almost immediately after the cession of the country,
or taking any notice of them since, though they all expected half
pay.’[77] The habitants, again, had since the introduction of
civil government into Canada, and in consequence of the little
authority which had been exercised, ‘in a manner emancipated
themselves.’ Time and good management would be necessary ‘to recall
them to their ancient habits of obedience and discipline’, and
meanwhile they would be slow to allow themselves to be suddenly and
without preparation embodied into a militia. Carleton accordingly
deprecated attempting to raise a militia force in Canada and
recommended enlisting one or two regular battalions of Canadian
soldiers. ‘Such a measure might be of singular use, in finding
employment for, and consequently firmly attaching the gentry to our
interests, in restoring them to a significance they have lost, and
through their means obtaining a further influence upon the lower
class of people, a material service to the state, besides that of
effectually securing many nations of savages.’
[Sidenote: Summary of the political conditions of Canada at the
beginning of the War of American Independence.]
From the above correspondence we can form some impression of the
state of political feeling in Canada, when the great revolt of the
American colonies began. We have the picture of a conquered people,
accustomed to a military system, to personal rule, and to feudal
laws and customs. This people had been brought by the fortune of
war under the same flag as covered very democratic communities,
which communities were their immediate neighbours and had been
their traditional rivals. The few years which had passed since the
conquest of Canada had, with the exception of the Indian rising
under Pontiac, been years of uncomfortable peace and administrative
weakness. The government of the country, which was the mother
country of the old colonies and the ruler of the new possession,
was anxious to curtail expenses as much as possible, in view of the
great expenditure which had been caused by the Seven Years’ War; to
maintain and, if possible, to emphasize its precarious authority
over the democratic communities of the Atlantic seaboard; and, on
the other hand, in a sense to relax its authority over Canada, by
modifying in the direction of English institutions the despotism
which had prevailed under the old French régime. The net result was
that on the American continent the Executive, having insufficient
force behind it and in the old colonies no popular goodwill, was
increasingly weak, and the people were more and more unsettled.
The democratic communities became more democratic, and from those
communities individuals brought themselves and their ideas into
the sphere of French conservatism, adding to the uncertainty and
confusion which attempts to introduce English laws and customs
had already produced in Canada. The Canadian gentry under British
rule found their occupation gone, their importance minimized,
and no outlet for their military instincts and aspirations. The
peasantry found old rules relaxed and unaccustomed freedom.
Strength was nowhere in evidence in Canada. The forts were
falling into ruin; the English soldiers were few; there was the
King’s Government without the backing of the King’s men; the old
subjects were a small number of men, of whom a large proportion
were noisy, disloyal, adventurers; the new subjects were not held
in submission, but not admitted to confidence. On the other hand,
the French Canadians had recent and undeniable evidence of the
goodwill of the British Government in the passing of the Quebec
Act. Their governors, Murray and Carleton, had transparently shown
their sympathies with the French Canadian race, its traditions, and
even its prejudices. Amid many inconveniences, and with some solid
grounds for discontent, the Canadians had none the less tasted
British freedom since the cession of Canada; and they had not yet
imbibed it to such an extent as to overcome their traditional
animosity to, and their inveterate suspicion of, the militant
Protestants of the old colonies who were rising against the King.
It is unnecessary for the purposes of this book to give a full
account of the War of American Independence, except so far as
Canada was immediately concerned. Here the Americans appeared in
the character of invaders, and the issue really depended upon the
attitude of the French Canadians. Would they rise against their
recent conquerors and join hands with the rebellious colonists,
or would their confidence in Carleton, coupled with their long
standing antipathy to the British settlers in America, keep them in
allegiance to the British Crown? For the moment all went well for
the Americans.
[Sidenote: The Green Mountain rising.]
[Sidenote: Ethan Allen.]
[Sidenote: Capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point.]
It was characteristic of the state of unrest which prevailed at
this time in America that, while the colonies as a whole were
quarrelling with the mother country, one portion of a colony was
declaring its independence of the state to which it was supposed
to belong. On the eastern side of Lake Champlain were a number of
settlers who had come in under grants issued by the Governor of
New Hampshire, but over whom the government and legislature of New
York claimed jurisdiction, the New York claim having moreover been
upheld by the Imperial Government. These settlers were known at the
time as the ‘Green Mountain Boys’, and they were the nucleus of
the present state of Vermont. In April, 1775, they held a meeting
to declare their independence of New York, their leaders being
Ethan Allen, who had been proclaimed an outlaw by the Governor of
New York in the previous year, and Seth Warner. They had already
apparently in their minds the possibility of taking possession of
the forts on Lake Champlain. There were few men at Ticonderoga and
Crown Point, only about fifty at the former and half a dozen or so
at the latter, belonging to the 26th Regiment, enough and no more
than sufficient to guard the guns and the stores. The garrison
apprehended no attack and had made no preparations for defence.
The news of Lexington suggested to the Green Mountain Boys to
commend themselves to Congress by at once securing these two
forts. If they had any instructions in planning their expedition,
those instructions seem to have come from Connecticut; and though,
before a start was made, Benedict Arnold was sent up by Congress
to take the matter in hand, the insurgents refused his leadership;
and, while he accompanied the expedition, it was Allen who mainly
carried out the enterprise. Under Allen’s command, on the night of
the 9th of May, a band of armed men, variously estimated at from
under 100 to over 200 in number, marched to the shore of the Lake
Champlain, where it narrows to little more than a river immediately
opposite Ticonderoga; and, crossing over in two parties, early
on the morning of the 10th were admitted to the fort on pretence
of bringing a message to the commandant, overpowered the guard,
and surprised the rest of the little garrison in their beds. Two
days later Crown Point was secured by Seth Warner; and shortly
afterwards, under the command of Arnold, part of the expedition
made their way in a captured schooner to the northern end of the
lake, took prisoners a dozen men who represented the garrison at
the fort of St. John’s, seized a vessel belonging to the Government
which was lying off the fort, and retreated up the lake on the
approach of a detachment from Montreal.[78]
Thus the old fighting route by the way of Lakes George and
Champlain, the scene of numberless raids and counter-raids, where
Robert Rogers, William Johnson, Montcalm, Abercromby, Amherst, and
many others had played their parts, passed into the hands of the
revolutionary party, and only the forts of St. John’s and Chambly,
beyond the outlet of Lake Champlain, barred the way to Montreal.
The British power in Canada seemed gone to nothingness, and at the
beginning of June, in reporting to Dartmouth what had taken place,
Carleton wrote: ‘We are equally unprepared for attack or defence;
not six hundred rank and file fit for duty upon the whole extent of
this great river,[79] not an armed vessel, no place of strength;
the ancient provincial force enervated and broke to pieces; all
subordination overset, and the minds of the people poisoned by the
same hypocrisy and lies practised with so much success in the other
provinces.’[80]
[Sidenote: Miscalculations as to Canadian feeling.]
The gentry and clergy, he reported, had shown zeal and loyalty in
the King’s service, but they had lost much of their influence over
the people, and the Indians had been as backward as the peasantry
in rallying to the defence of Canada. The crisis had come, and
Carleton’s warnings of past years had been amply justified. Absence
of military preparations, and neglect to take measures to attach
the Canadians to the British Crown had resulted in a situation
full of danger, a province open to invasion, a government without
material for defence, and a confused and half-hearted people. Even
Carleton’s forecast had not been wholly accurate. He seems to have
over-rated the good effects of passing the Quebec Act, and not to
have fully realized the strength of class feeling in Canada, or the
extent to which the peasantry, under the influence of the disloyal
British minority and of emissaries from the revolting colonies,
had emancipated themselves from the control of the seigniors and
the gentry. It was even suggested that the lower orders in the
province, instead of being grateful for the Quebec Act, regarded
it with suspicion and dislike, as intended to restore a feudal
authority which they had repudiated, and such no doubt would have
been the doctrine taught by the British malcontents inside and
outside the province. ‘What will be your lordship’s astonishment,’
wrote Hey, the Chief Justice of Canada, to the Lord Chancellor,
towards the end of the following August,[81] ‘when I tell you that
an Act passed for the express purpose of gratifying the Canadians,
and which was supposed to comprehend all that they either wished
or wanted, is become the first object of their discontent and
dislike. English officers to command them in time of war, and
English laws to govern them in time of peace, is the general wish.
The former they know to be impossible (at least at present), and by
the latter, if I understand them right, they mean no laws and no
government whatsoever. In the meantime, it may be truly said that
General Carleton has taken an ill measure of the influence of the
seigniors and clergy over the lower order of people.’ If Carleton
had misjudged the feelings of the Canadians, the Chief Justice
frankly admitted that he himself had been fully as much deceived.
[Sidenote: Mistakes of the Home Government.]
The mischief was that the Government in England had imbibed the
confident anticipations of Canadian loyalty which had been formed
by the men on the spot immediately after the passing of the Quebec
Act; and, instead of sending reinforcements to Canada, they
expected Carleton to reinforce Gage’s army in New England. On the
1st of July, Dartmouth wrote to Carleton, instructing him to raise
a body of 3,000 Canadians to co-operate with Gage; on the 24th of
July, having had further news from America, he doubled the number
and authorized a levy of 6,000 Canadians; and no hope was given of
sending British troops to Canada until the following spring. At the
beginning of the American war the greatest danger to the British
Empire consisted in the utter weakness of the position in Canada.
It was some excuse, no doubt, for the ministers at home that the
Governor of Canada had latterly over-estimated the loyalty of the
Canadians; and it may well have been too that the dispatch of
troops to the St. Lawrence was delayed in order not to alarm the
American colonies, before they openly revolted, and while there was
still some faint hope of peace, by a measure which might have been
interpreted as a threat of war. But those who were responsible for
the safe keeping of British interests in America stand condemned
in the light of the repeated warnings which Carleton had given in
previous years. As a skilled soldier, he had pointed out, and
history confirmed, the vital importance of Canada in the event of
war in America, its commanding position for military purposes in
relation to the other[82] provinces. He had urged the necessity
of military strength in Canada, of strength which was both actual
and apparent; of forts strong enough to be defended and of British
soldiers numerous enough to defend them; moreover, of forts strong
enough and British soldiers numerous enough to at once compel and
attract the attachment of a military people. As a statesman, he had
recommended more than a Quebec Act, years before the Quebec Act was
passed. Political and financial exigencies outside Canada may have
made it impossible to take his guidance, but had it been followed,
the whole course of history might have been changed.
[Sidenote: Carleton moves troops to St. John’s.]
[Sidenote: The Americans under Richard Montgomery invade Canada.]
On hearing of the capture of the forts on Lake Champlain,
Carleton took what measures he could. He moved all his available
troops, including some Canadian volunteers,[83] to St. John’s,
and strengthened its defences. He went up himself from Quebec to
Montreal, where he arrived on the 26th of May. On the 9th of June
he called out the Canadian militia under the old French law, with
little effect beyond causing irritation and discontent, which
American emissaries and sympathizers turned to account; and on
the 2nd of August he went back to Quebec, to summon the first
Legislative Council which was constituted under the Quebec Act,
that Act having now come into operation. Meanwhile, after the
battle of Bunker’s Hill, the American Congress had resolved on
invading Canada in force; General Philip Schuyler was placed in
charge of the expedition, but, his health giving way, the command
devolved upon Richard Montgomery, who had served under Amherst
throughout the campaign which ended with the conquest of Canada,
and had subsequently settled in the state of New York and married
an American lady.
At the beginning of September, the American troops moved northward
down Lake Champlain, and took up a position at the Isle aux Noix,
twelve miles from the fort at St. John’s, preparatory to besieging
that fort. ‘The rebels are returned into this province in great
numbers, well provided with everything, and seemingly resolved to
make themselves masters of this province. Hardly a Canadian will
take arms to oppose them, and I doubt all we have to trust to is
about 500 men and two small forts at St. John’s. Everything seems
to be desperate,’ so wrote Chief Justice Hey from Quebec to the
Lord Chancellor on the 11th of September.[84] On the 17th he added,
‘The rebels have succeeded in making peace with the savages who
have all left the camp at St. John’s, many of the Canadians in that
neighbourhood are in arms against the King’s troops, and not one
hundred except in the towns of Montreal and Quebec are with us. St.
John’s and Montreal must soon fall into their hands, and I doubt
Quebec will follow too soon.’
There was skirmishing between scouts and outposts, and on the night
of the 24th of September, a party of about 150 Americans under
Ethan Allen crossed over into the island of Montreal and penetrated
to the suburbs of the town. Their daring attempt, however,
miscarried: they were driven out: Allen was taken prisoner and
sent in irons to England: and his failure gave for the moment some
encouragement to the Loyalists’ cause.
[Sidenote: Carleton applies to Gage for reinforcements.]
[Sidenote: Admiral Graves refuses to move.]
On hearing of Schuyler’s and Montgomery’s advance Carleton at once
hurried back from Quebec to Montreal. There were two possibilities
of saving the town, and with it, perhaps, the whole of Canada. One
was by obtaining reinforcements from the British army at Boston,
the other by contriving, even without reinforcements, to hold the
forts at St. John’s and Chambly until winter drove the invaders
back whence they had come. Early in September Carleton applied to
Boston for two regiments, the same number that in the previous
autumn he had sent to Boston at Gage’s request; his message came to
hand on the 10th of October, just as Gage was leaving for England,
and Howe, who took over the command of the troops, at once prepared
to send the men. But there was a blight on English sailors as on
English soldiers in America in these days. Admiral Graves, who
commanded the ships, refused to risk the dangers of the passage
from Boston to Quebec at the season of the year, and Carleton in
his sore straits was left unaided. All, therefore, turned on the
defence of the forts.
[Sidenote: The siege of St. John’s and Chambly.]
[Sidenote: The two forts taken.]
St. John’s fort was manned by between 600 and 700 men, 120 of whom
were Canadian volunteers, the rest being regulars. Chambly was held
by some 80 men of the line. A few men were stationed at Montreal,
but Quebec was almost emptied of its garrison. Major Preston,[85]
of the 26th Regiment, commanded at St. John’s, and Chambly was in
charge of Major Stopford. On the 18th of September Montgomery laid
siege to the former fort, cutting off communication between the
defenders and the outside world; but, notwithstanding, news reached
Preston of Allen’s unsuccessful attempt on Montreal, and he held
out bravely, helped by the fact that Montgomery had hardly any
artillery, and could only rely on starving out the garrison, while
his own men were suffering from exposure, privations, and want of
ammunition. But in the middle of October the outlook was changed,
for, after less than two days’ siege, the fort at Chambly, said to
have been well provisioned, and with ample means of defence, was on
the 17th of that month surrendered,[86] providing Montgomery with
supplies, guns, and ammunition to be used against the main fort.
Preston’s condition was now desperate. An attempt made by Carleton
to cross from Montreal to his relief on the 30th of October was
beaten back, and on the 2nd of November, St. John’s surrendered,
after having held out for forty-five days.
[Sidenote: Carleton leaves Montreal,]
[Sidenote: which is occupied by the Americans.]
[Sidenote: Carleton narrowly escapes capture and reaches Quebec.]
The fall of St. John’s made the defence of Montreal impossible.
Carleton dismissed such of the militia as were in arms to their
homes, and with the few Imperial troops in the town, rather over
100 in number, and any arms and supplies that he could carry away,
embarked on the afternoon of the 11th of November to make the best
of his way to Quebec. On the 13th, Montgomery and his men entered
Montreal. Already advanced parties of the Americans were heading
down the river banks. Colonel Maclean, who had come up from Quebec
as far as the Richelieu river with a small body of Canadians and
Scotchmen, to co-operate with Carleton for the relief of St.
John’s, had fallen back, Benedict Arnold was threatening Quebec
itself, and it became a question whether Carleton would ever reach
the city to take charge of its defence. His vessels and boats
sailed down the river to a point some miles above Sorel at the
confluence of the Richelieu river. There one of them grounded; the
wind veered round and blew up-stream; for three days the little
flotilla remained stationary; the enemy overtook them on the land,
raised batteries in front to bar their progress, and summoned them
to surrender. On the night of the 16th Carleton went on board a
whale boat; silently, with muffled oars, and at one point propelled
only by the rowers’ hands, she dropped down-stream, undetected
by the watchers on the banks. On the 17th Carleton reached Three
Rivers, with the American troops close behind him, and lower
down he met an armed British ship, which carried him in safety
to Quebec. He entered the city on the 19th. On the same day the
vessels in which he had started from Montreal surrendered with all
on board, and, being brought back to Montreal, were used to carry
Montgomery and his men down to Quebec.
[Sidenote: Arnold’s march from the mouth of the Kennebec to Quebec.]
Quebec was already threatened by a small force under Benedict
Arnold. In the year 1761, while General Murray was in military
command of the city and district, an engineer officer, acting
under his instructions, had marked out a trail along the route
from the Atlantic coast, at the mouth of the Kennebec river, to
the confluence of the Chaudière with the St. Lawrence over against
Quebec. In 1775, when the American colonists determined to invade
Canada, Washington decided to send an expedition by this route to
co-operate with the main advance by Lake Champlain and the St.
Lawrence. The enterprise required a daring, resourceful leader,
and the command was given to Arnold. In the middle of September,
Arnold embarked with 1,100 men at Newbury port at the mouth of
the Merrimac, and sailed for the Kennebec. In the latter days of
September he began his march: some 200 batteaux were taken up the
Kennebec, carrying arms, ammunition, and supplies; the troops
were partly on board the boats, partly kept pace with them on the
banks. The expedition followed the course of the Kennebec and its
tributary, the Dead River, crossed the height of land, reached the
headwaters of the Chaudière in Lake Megantic, and descended the
Chaudière to the St. Lawrence. It was a march of much danger and
privation, no easy task for a skilled backwoodsman to accomplish,
and full of difficulty when it was a case of transporting a small
army. All through October and into November the men toiled in
the wilderness, boats were lost, provisions were scarce, the
sick and ailing were left behind, the rearguard turned back, but
eventually Arnold brought two-thirds of his men through, and,
with the goodwill and assistance of the Canadians on the southern
bank of the St. Lawrence, emerged at Point Levis on the 8th of
November, having achieved a memorable exploit in the military
history of America. On the 14th he crossed the river by night,
landed where Wolfe had landed before his last memorable fight, and,
after summoning the city to surrender without effect, retreated to
Pointe aux Trembles, nearly twenty miles up the river, to await
Montgomery’s arrival. Meanwhile, Carleton passed by and entered
Quebec.
[Sidenote: Montgomery arrives before Quebec.]
On the 5th of December, Montgomery came upon the scene, having
landed his guns at Cap Rouge, about nine miles above the city.[87]
A threatening letter which he sent to Carleton on the day after
his arrival summoning the British general to surrender, received
no answer, and he took up his position and planted batteries
within reach of the walls on the western side--the side of Wolfe’s
attack, while Arnold occupied the suburb of St. Roch, on the north
of the city, with the river St. Charles behind him. So far the
American advance had been little more than a procession. Montreal
had received Montgomery without fighting. Three Rivers had given
in its adhesion to the revolutionary cause, without requiring
the general’s presence, as he passed down the river. Nearly all
the British regulars were prisoners; and, with the help of the
disloyal element in the population, Montgomery had good reason to
expect that Quebec would forthwith pass into his hands and the
Imperial Government be deprived of its last foothold in Canada.
He was soon undeceived, however, and found the task beyond his
strength.
[Sidenote: The siege of Quebec.]
[Sidenote: Number of the garrison.]
His whole force, when united to Arnold’s and including some
Canadians, seems not to have exceeded 2,000 men; his artillery was
inadequate, and winter was coming on. On the other hand, Carleton’s
garrison was a nondescript force of some 1,600 to 1,800 men. Nearly
one-third of the number were Canadians. About 400 were seamen and
marines from the ships in the harbour, including the _Lizard_ ship
of war, which, with one convoy ship containing stores and arms,
represented all the aid that had come from England. There were less
than 300 regulars, including about 200 of a newly-raised corps
under Colonel Maclean’s command, Scotch veterans who were known
as the Royal Highland Emigrants; and there were about 300 militia
of British birth. But the city was well provisioned; the disloyal
citizens had been ejected; Carleton himself had been through the
famous winter siege of 1759-60; and the preparations which had been
made during his recent absence at Montreal, showed that he had
capable officers serving under him. The upper classes of Canada
had from the first sided with the British Government, and now that
Quebec, the hearth and home of Canada, was in deadly peril, some
spirit of Canadian citizenship was stirred in its defence.
[Illustration: PLAN OF QUEBEC IN 1775-6
Reduced from Plan in Colonial Office Library
_To face p. 112_
]
[Sidenote: Montgomery plans a night attack.]
Montgomery’s army was too small in numbers, without the support of
powerful artillery which he did not possess, to justify a direct
assault upon the town walls, and a prolonged siege in the depth of
winter meant severe strain on the American resources with no sure
hope of ultimate success. Moreover, many of the men had enlisted
only for a specified term, which expired at the end of the year.
Before the year closed, therefore, the general determined to
attempt a night surprise, and laid his plans not to attack the
city from the plateau, but to storm the barricades which guarded
the lower town by the water’s edge, and thence to rush the heights
above.
[Sidenote: The attack of December 31, 1775.]
Before dawn on the morning of Sunday the 31st of December,[88]
1775, between the hours of two and seven, in darkness and driving
snow, the attempt was made. From Montgomery’s batteries on the
Heights of Abraham the guns opened fire on the town. At Arnold’s
camp at St. Roch, troops placed themselves in evidence under arms;
and, while this semblance of attack was made, the two leaders led
two separate columns from opposite directions, intended to converge
in the centre of the lower town, so that the combined parties might
force the steep ascent from the port to the city on the cliff.
[Sidenote: Repulse of Montgomery and his death.]
About two in the morning Montgomery led his men, according to
one account, 900 in number, down to the river side at Wolfe’s
landing-place; and signalling with rockets to Arnold to begin his
march, started about four o’clock along a rough pathway which
skirted the river under Cape Diamond and led to the lower town.
Unnoticed, it would seem, by an outpost on Cape Diamond, and by
an advance picket, he came at the head of his force within thirty
yards of a barricade, which had been constructed where the houses
began at Prés de Ville. Up to this point the defenders had given no
sign, but now every gun, large and small, blazed forth: the general
fell dead with 12 of his following, and the whole column beat a
hasty retreat.
[Sidenote: Repulse of Arnold’s column.]
Meanwhile, on the other side, in the angle between the St. Charles
and the St. Lawrence, Arnold led forward 700 men, passing below
Palace Gate, and fired at from the walls where the garrison were
all on the alert, for Carleton had for some days past been warned
of a coming attack. The Americans crossed a small projecting point,
known as the Sault au Matelot, and reached one end of the narrow
street which bore the same name. Here there was a barricade, a
second barricade having been erected at the other end of the
street. The first barrier was forced, but not until Arnold himself
had been disabled by a wound; and led by the Virginian, Daniel
Morgan, who was second in command, and who, later in the war, won
the fight at Cowpens, the assailants pressed boldly on to take
the second barricade and effect a junction with Montgomery. But
Montgomery was no more; the garrison grew constantly stronger at
the threatened point; the way of retreat was blocked; and caught in
a trap, under fire from the houses, the attacking party surrendered
to the number of 431, in addition to 30 killed, including those who
fell with Montgomery. The day had hardly broken when all was over,
the result being an unqualified success for the English, a crushing
defeat for the American forces. Quebec was saved, and with Quebec,
as events proved, the whole of Canada.
[Sidenote: Continuance of the siege.]
[Sidenote: Quebec relieved on May 6, 1776.]
The English, according to a letter from Carleton to General Howe,
written on the 12th of January, only lost 7 killed and 11 wounded
on this memorable night; but, notwithstanding, in view of the small
numbers of the garrison, the governor did not follow up his success
by any general attack on the American lines; he contented himself
with bringing in five mortars and a cannon from Arnold’s position,
and settled down with his force to wait for spring. The Americans,
from time to time reinforced by way of Montreal, continued the
blockade, but it was somewhat ineffective, as firewood and even
provisions were at intervals brought into the town. On the 25th
of March a party of Canadians, who attempted to relieve Quebec by
surprising an American battery at Point Levis, on the other side of
the St. Lawrence, were themselves surprised and suffered a reverse;
on the 4th of April the battery in question opened on the town with
little effect: on the 3rd of May a fire ship was directed against
the port and proved abortive. On the 6th of May English ships once
more came up the river with reinforcements, and the siege was at
an end. The Congress troops retreated in hot haste, as Levis’s men
had fled when Murray was relieved: artillery, ammunition, stores,
were left behind; and the retreat continued beyond Three Rivers, as
far as Sorel, at the mouth of the Richelieu.
[Sidenote: Carleton’s Report.]
‘After this town had been closely invested by the rebels for
five months and had defeated all their attempts, the _Surprise_
frigate, _Isis_ and sloop _Martin_ came into the Basin the 6th
instant.... Thus ended our siege and blockade, during which the
mixed garrison of soldiers, sailors, British and Canadian militia,
with the artificers from Halifax and Newfoundland, showed great
zeal and patience under very severe duty and uncommon vigilance.’
So wrote Carleton to Lord George Germain on the 14th of May,
1776, having conducted a singularly successful defence of an all
important point. Murray’s defence of Quebec had been marked by a
severe reverse, great sickness, privation, and loss. Nothing of the
kind happened under Carleton. He had, it is true, a far smaller
army against him than besieged Murray, and he had the inestimable
advantage of personal experience of the former siege, but on the
other hand the force which he commanded was infinitely weaker,
numerically and in training, than Murray’s. He made no mistakes,
incurred no risks, his one aim was to save Quebec, and he saved it.
[Sidenote: Importance of holding Quebec.]
The more the history of these times is studied, the greater
importance will be attached to Carleton’s successful defence of
Quebec, and his defeat of the American forces beneath its walls;
the more clearly too it will be seen that the net result of the
American war was due at least as much to the agency of individual
men as to any combination of moral or material forces. Whoever held
Quebec held Canada; and, if Great Britain had lost Quebec in the
winter of 1775-6, she would in all probability have lost Canada
for all time. Wolfe’s victory before Quebec, and the surrender of
the city which followed, determined that Canada should become a
British possession. Carleton’s defeat of Montgomery and Arnold in
the suburbs of Quebec, and the holding of the city which followed,
determined that Canada should remain a British possession. It was
not merely a question of the geographical position of Quebec, great
as was its importance from a strategical point of view. It was a
question of the effect of its retention or its loss upon the minds
of men. The Canadians were wavering: the tide was flowing against
the English: one rock alone was not submerged: the waves beat
against it and subsided. Thenceforward Canada was never in serious
danger. The Americans were not liked in Canada. They carried many
of the Canadians with them in the first impulse, but, when once
they were checked and driven back, the Canadians were given time to
think, and they inclined to the cause personified by the man who
had stemmed the tide of invasion and held Quebec.
[Sidenote: Carleton as a general,]
[Sidenote: and as a statesman.]
[Sidenote: Carleton’s character.]
When the news of what had taken place reached England at the
beginning of June, Horace Walpole wrote to his friend Sir Horace
Mann. ‘The provincials have again attempted to storm Quebec and
been repulsed with great loss by the conduct and bravery of
Carleton, who, Mr. Conway has all along said, would prove himself
a very able general.’[89] Two months later he wrote again to the
same friend: ‘You have seen by the public newspapers that General
Carleton has driven the provincials out of all Canada. It is well
he fights better than he writes. General Conway has constantly
said that he would do great service.’[90] Of Carleton’s merits as
a soldier there can be no question. No one ever gauged a military
situation better. No one ever displayed more firmness and courage
at a time of crisis, made more of small resources, or showed more
self-restraint. But he was more than a good military leader; he was
also a statesman of high order, and, had he been given a free hand
and supreme control of the British forces and policy in America,
he might well have kept the American colonies as he kept Quebec.
For Carleton was an understanding man. No Englishman in America, or
who dealt with America, was of the same calibre. He knew the land:
he knew the people: he had the qualities which were conspicuously
wanting in other English leaders of the time, firmness, foresight,
breadth of view, sound judgement as to what was possible and what
was not; above all, he had a character above and beyond intrigue.
Had he not been ousted by malign influence, but been given wider
powers and a more extensive command, the British cause in North
America might have had the one thing needful, a personality to
stand in not unworthy comparison with that of Washington.
[Sidenote: Benedict Arnold.]
Carleton was a little over fifty years old at the time of the
siege of Quebec. The two American generals who confronted him were
younger men. Montgomery was just under forty years of age when
he was killed; Arnold at the time was not thirty-five. It would
have been well for Arnold’s reputation had he shared Montgomery’s
fate. A New Englander by birth, a native of Connecticut, he seems
to have been a restless, adventurous man, with no strong sense of
principle. His name is clouded by his grievous treachery at West
Point, but his military capacity was as great as his personal
courage, and of all the American leaders in the earlier stages of
the war, he was the man who dealt the hardest blows at the British
cause in Canada. From the capture of the forts on Lake Champlain
till the fights before Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga, at almost
every point on the frontier he was in evidence, leading attack,
covering retreat, invaluable as a leader in border war.
[Sidenote: Richard Montgomery.]
Of Montgomery, Horace Walpole wrote that he ‘was not so fortunate
as Wolfe to die a conqueror, though very near being so’.[91] He
was so far fortunate in his death, that his name has passed into
American history as that of a martyr to the cause of liberty.
He was known to Burke, Fox, and the leaders of the Opposition in
England; and he seems to have been an attractive man in private
life as well as a capable soldier. We read in the _Annual Register_
for 1776 that ‘The excellency of his qualities and disposition
had procured him an uncommon share of private affection, as his
abilities had of public esteem; and there was probably no man
engaged on the same side, and few on either, whose loss would have
been so much regretted both in England and America’.[92] In America
addresses and monuments commemorated his name, Tryon county of New
York was renamed Montgomery county in honour to his memory, and
in 1818 his remains were exhumed and taken to New York for public
burial. In England leading politicians bore tribute to his merits,
and as late as the year 1791, in the House of Commons, Fox called
to Burke’s remembrance how the two friends had ‘sympathized almost
in tears for the fall of a Montgomery.’[93] He died fighting for
what proved to be the winning cause, and men spoke well of him.
But there is another side to the picture which should not be
overlooked. Montgomery was not, like Arnold, born and bred on New
England soil. He was ‘a gentleman of good family in the kingdom
of Ireland’,[94] and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He had
worn the King’s uniform from 1756 to 1772; he had served as a
subaltern at the capture of Louisbourg, under Amherst again on
Lake Champlain, and with Haviland’s division in the final British
advance on Montreal, by the line by which in 1775 he led the
American troops into Canada. After the British conquest of Canada
he had seen active service in the West Indies. His connexion with
the North American colonies consisted in having bought an estate in
New York, having married a lady of the well-known Livingston family
in that state, and having made his home there after retirement
from the army. That retirement took place in 1772. In 1775 he was
a brigadier-general in the American army, not concerned to defend
house and home against unprovoked attack, but to lead an army of
invasion into a neighbouring British province, endeavouring to
wrest from Great Britain what he himself had fought to give her,
and identifying oppression with one whose worth he must well have
known, with a fellow British soldier of Carleton’s high character
and name. Montgomery was an Irishman. In his case, as in that of
Arnold, the wife’s influence probably counted for much; and the
time was one when what were called generous instincts were at
a premium and principles were at a discount. But the terms[95]
in which he summoned Carleton to surrender suggest unfavourable
contrast between his own words and actions on the one hand,
and on the other the stern old-fashioned views of loyalty and
military honour which Carleton held, and which forbade him to pay
to Montgomery in his lifetime the respect which was ensured by a
soldier’s death.
Montgomery had charged Carleton with inhumanity. Carleton was a
soldier who did not play with war and rebellion, but he was also
a humane man, and the charge, if it needed any contradiction, is
belied by a proclamation which he issued on the 10th of May, four
days after the relief of Quebec. In it search was directed to be
made for sick and wounded Americans, reported to be ‘dispersed in
the adjacent woods and parishes, and in great danger of perishing
for want of proper assistance’. They were to be given relief and
brought in to the General Hospital at Quebec, a promise being added
that, as soon as their health was restored, they should be at
liberty to return to their homes.[96]
[Sidenote: The affair of the Cedars.]
Quebec was relieved on the 6th of May. Some ships were sent up the
river, but Carleton waited for the reinforcements which were fast
coming in from England before making a decided move, and it was
not until the beginning of June that Three Rivers was re-occupied
by the Royal troops. Meanwhile, the American head quarters at
Montreal had been alarmed by a diversion from another quarter.
The invading forces had broken into Canada at two points only.
Montgomery’s advance had been direct to Montreal: Arnold had
marched straight on Quebec. The British outposts above Montreal and
in the west had been left undisturbed. One of them, very small in
numbers, was stationed at Ogdensburg, then known as Oswegatchie, a
few years previously the scene of the Abbé Piquet’s mission of La
Présentation. The commander was Captain Forster of the 8th Regiment
of the line, the same regiment which in the later war of 1812
played so conspicuous a part in the defence of Canada. Towards the
end of the second week in May, Forster, with about 50 regulars and
volunteers and some 200 Indians,[97] started down the St. Lawrence,
his objective being the Cedars, a place on the northern bank of the
St. Lawrence below Lake St. Francis in that river, and a few miles
above Lake St. Louis and the island of Montreal. Here an American
force was stationed, numbering nearly 400 men. On the 18th and 19th
of May Forster attacked the post, which surrendered on the second
day; and on the 20th another small party of Americans, rather under
100 in number, which was advancing from Vaudreuil, seven miles to
the north of the Cedars, surrendered to a mixed body of Canadians
and Indians. By these two successes Forster secured between 400
and 500 prisoners, and crossing over to the island of Montreal, he
advanced against Lachine, where a considerable force of Americans
was encamped. These men were under the command of Arnold who, on
recovering from the wound which he had received at Quebec, had been
placed in charge of the Congress troops at Montreal. Forster found
the position and the numbers defending it too strong to attack,
although he had been reinforced by a large party of Canadians.
Accordingly, he retired to the mainland. Arnold then attempted to
cross and make a counter attack, but was in turn obliged to recross
to the island. There then followed negotiations for the release of
the prisoners, who were handed over to Arnold on condition that
British prisoners should be subsequently released in exchange, and
at the end of the month Forster returned to Oswegatchie.
His exploit had been a notable one. With a very insignificant
following he had defeated superior numbers and had threatened
Montreal. History repeated itself; and, as in the days of New
France, the Canadians and Indians showed themselves formidable
in sudden raids, supplementing the regular plan of campaign. The
affair of the Cedars proved that, as long as Quebec and the mouth
of the St. Lawrence were in British keeping, the American army
of occupation would be troubled on the western side by home-bred
combatants, stiffened by British outposts which could only be
dislodged as the result of a general conquest of Canada. Canada was
in fact far from conquered, and in a very short time the country
was cleared of its foes.
[Sidenote: Dispute with Congress as to the exchange of prisoners.]
But Forster’s enterprise obtained notoriety for another and a
different reason. The Congress of the revolting states refused to
ratify the agreement to which Arnold had consented. The American
prisoners, with the exception of a few hostages, were sent back,
but the promised exchanges were not made, and the reason given for
not fulfilling the engagement was that some of Forster’s prisoners
had been murdered and others maltreated and plundered. Congress
therefore resolved not to give back the requisite number of British
prisoners, until the authors and abettors of the alleged crimes
had been handed over and compensation made for the plunder. The
allegations seem in the main not to have been substantiated, as is
shown by a letter from one of the American hostages themselves.[98]
That the Indians looted some of the prisoners’ property was
undeniable, but Forster appears to have used every effort to secure
the safety and good treatment of those who were in his hands, and
the charges of murder were not made good. Carleton wrote strongly
on the subject,[99] attributing the action of the American Congress
to a desire to embitter their people against the English and to
prolong the war; but at this distance of time it is unnecessary to
revive the controversy. What is worth noting is the feeling aroused
when coloured men are enlisted, or even alleged to be enlisted, on
either side in white men’s quarrels, the exaggerated reports which
are spread abroad, and the credence which is given to them. The
record of Indian warfare in North America was a terrible one, and
it is no matter for surprise if, when Indians were found fighting
on the British side, the barbarities of the past were reported to
have been reproduced at a later date.
[Sidenote: American delegates sent to Montreal.]
[Sidenote: Retreat of the American army.]
[Sidenote: Montreal re-occupied by the English, and preparations
made for an advance up Lake Champlain.]
Before Quebec had been relieved, the weakness of the American hold
on Canada, and the condition of the army of occupation, had given
anxiety to Congress, who sent special commissioners to Montreal.
The commissioners were three in number. One was Benjamin Franklin,
and another was Carroll, a Roman Catholic, who was accompanied
by his brother, a Jesuit priest. The object was to ascertain
the actual position of matters military and political, and to
conciliate Canadian feeling. What was ascertained was depressing
enough, and the efforts at conciliation came to nothing. While
the commissioners were at Montreal, they received news of the
relief of Quebec, and events soon swept away recommendations. The
American army fell back from Quebec to the Richelieu; and, as the
troops came in from England, including some German regiments under
Baron Riedesel, Carleton sent them up the St. Lawrence by land and
water, Burgoyne being in command. In the first days of June Three
Rivers was garrisoned; and within a week, on the 8th of June, an
American general, Thompson, who made an attempt to regain the
position, crossing over by night from the southern shore, was cut
off and taken prisoner with over 200 of his men. This completed the
discomfiture of the Americans: small-pox and other diseases were
rife in their ranks: their posts on the line of the Richelieu were
hastily abandoned; Arnold barely had time to evacuate Montreal;
and, before the last week of June began, Montreal, Chambly, and St.
John’s were all again in British possession, and the invasion of
Canada was at an end.
The Americans, however, still retained their hold on Lake
Champlain. It was impossible to dislodge them without organizing
transport by water as well as by land, and building armed vessels
to overpower the ships with which they commanded the lake. For when
they overran Canada as far as Quebec, they secured all the sailing
craft and bateaux on the Upper St. Lawrence. ‘The task was indeed
arduous,’ says a contemporary writer, ‘a fleet of above thirty
fighting vessels, of different kinds and sizes, all furnished
with cannon, was to be little less than recreated.’[100] Three
months, therefore, were taken up in boat-building, the material
being in large measure sent out from England, in making roads,
constructing entrenchments, drilling the troops, and collecting
supplies. The troops, over 10,000 in number, were stationed at
La Prairie on the St. Lawrence, immediately opposite Montreal,
at Chambly, St. John’s, and the Isle aux Noix, with detachments
lower down the Richelieu river than Chambly in order to keep all
the communications open; and in September, when the preparations
were nearly completed, advanced parties were moved forward to the
opening of Lake Champlain.
[Sidenote: Fighting on Lake Champlain.]
[Sidenote: Destruction of the American flotilla.]
[Sidenote: Crown Point abandoned by the Americans.]
[Sidenote: Close of the campaign.]
In October the newly-constructed gunboats ascended the Richelieu
river from St. John’s, and entered the lake. On the 11th they
came into touch with the American vessels, which were then
stationed, under Arnold’s command, between Valcour Island and the
western shore of the lake. The place was about five miles south
of Plattsburg, about twenty-five miles south of what is now the
boundary line of Canada, and a little less than fifty miles to
the north of Crown Point. The strait between the island and the
mainland is about a mile wide, and across it was the American line
of battle. The English had the superiority in numbers and, as the
result of the first day’s fighting, being carried to the south of
the enemy’s ships, were at the close of the day drawn up in line
to intercept their retreat. At night, however, Arnold, bold and
skilful as ever, found a passage through and sailed off to the
south, hotly pursued by Carleton’s squadron. On the 13th fighting
began again, and ended with the capture or destruction of twelve
American vessels, out of a total of fifteen, over 100 prisoners
being taken including the second in command to Arnold. Crown Point
was set on fire and abandoned by the Americans, and on the 14th
Carleton wrote from his ship off that place reporting his success.
In his dispatch he expressed doubts whether anything further could
be done at that late season of the year, and he subsequently came
to the conclusion that an attack on Ticonderoga, which was held by
a strong force under Gates, must be postponed till the following
spring. Nor did he think it prudent to occupy Crown Point, which
was in a dismantled and ruined condition, through the winter, and
by the middle of November, he had withdrawn all his forces to the
Isle aux Noix and St. John’s, whence he had started.
[Sidenote: Carleton censured by Germain.]
It was a good summer’s work. Quebec had been relieved, the whole
of Canada had been recovered, and on the main line of invasion,
Lake Champlain, the English had obtained the upper hand by the
destruction of Arnold’s vessels. This last part of the campaign
stands out in bright contrast to the abortive Plattsburg expedition
in the later war of 1812. If there had been any delay, it was
largely due to the fact that Carleton had not received from England
all the boats and materials for boat-building for which he had
requisitioned; and, to judge from Horace Walpole, intelligent
observers in England were not disappointed with the outcome of
the autumn fighting. ‘You will see the particulars of the naval
victory in the _Gazette_,’ he wrote to Sir Horace Mann on the 26th
of November, 1776, ‘It is not much valued here, as it is thought
Carleton must return to Quebec for the winter.’ Nevertheless,
the British Government, as represented by Lord George Germain,
professed to be dissatisfied that more had not been achieved,
and that, having reached Crown Point, the general had not made a
further advance against Ticonderoga, or at least held his ground
where he was through the winter. Germain, who in January, 1776,
had succeeded Dartmouth in charge of colonial matters, had begun
by finding fault with Carleton, complaining that the latter had
left the Home Government in the dark as to his plan of operations
after the relief of Quebec, and as to the position in Canada. The
result was, Germain wrote, that it was impossible at the time to
send Carleton any further instructions.[101] It would have been
well if the impossibility had continued. He found new ground for
criticism in Carleton’s temporary retreat from Lake Champlain,
but the criticism was wholly without justification. Carleton was
a cautious leader; he had shown caution in the defence of Quebec,
where events had justified his attitude; but the whole record of
the 1776 campaign had proved him to be at the same time a man of
energy, firmness, and resource, unwearied in organizing, prompt in
action. Wolfe, it might be said, would at all hazards have attacked
Ticonderoga, but it must be remembered that Wolfe in America, where
he always preached and practised forward aggressive movement, was
fighting Frenchmen and Indians, not soldiers of the same race as
his own. If we compare Amherst, on the other hand, with Carleton,
we find that Amherst in 1759, having taken Ticonderoga and Crown
Point by the beginning of August, made no further move till the
middle of October, and then, after an abortive start down Lake
Champlain, gave up active operations for the winter. There is no
valid reason to suppose that Carleton’s judgement was otherwise
than sound. At any rate, to quote his own words to Germain in a
letter written on the 20th of May, 1777, ‘Any officer entrusted
with the supreme command ought, upon the spot, to see what was most
expedient to be done, better than a great general at 3,000 miles
distance.’[102]
[Sidenote: The English generals in America.]
Less capable than Carleton were the other British officers in
America, and far less satisfactory were the results of their
efforts. In the early days of 1775, before fighting actually
began, Amherst, the former Commander-in-Chief in North America,
was invited by the King to resume his command, but declined the
invitation, and General Gage was accordingly retained in that
position. To support him, three generals were sent out from
England, Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton. They arrived towards the end
of May, 1775, after the fight at Lexington had taken place, and
before the battle of Bunker’s Hill. Early in 1776 Lord Cornwallis
also appeared upon the scene. After the battle of Bunker’s Hill,
Gage was recalled to England, and Howe was placed in command of
the troops on the Atlantic seaboard, while Carleton was given
independent command in Canada. Gage left in October, 1775, and
Howe, his successor, remained in America till May, 1778, having
sent in his resignation a few months previously. Clinton succeeded
Howe, and held the command until the surrender of Cornwallis at
Yorktown in October, 1781, turned out the ministry and practically
finished the war. Then, when it was too late, Carleton was named as
commander-in-chief, and arrived at New York in May, 1782, by which
time the fighting was practically over.
[Sidenote: Howe.]
[Sidenote: Clinton.]
[Sidenote: Burgoyne.]
[Sidenote: Cornwallis.]
These men, who commanded the armies of England in America during a
disastrous war, were by no means hopelessly incompetent. Howe had
been one of the best of Wolfe’s officers. He had led the advanced
party which stormed the Heights of Abraham on the memorable
morning of the 13th of September, 1759. In the revolutionary war,
though found wanting in some of the qualities which make a great
general, he none the less showed firmness, courage, and skill in
various actions from Bunker’s Hill onwards, and he achieved several
notable successes. Clinton proved himself to be at least an average
commander. Burgoyne, in a subordinate position, was apparently a
good soldier; and the subsequent career of Lord Cornwallis showed
that he was a man of capacity. Comparing them with the predecessors
of Wolfe and Amherst in the late French war, with Loudoun, Webb,
and Abercromby, and bearing in mind that they had a far more
difficult task, they stand in no unfavourable light. But they were
not leaders of men themselves, and there was no man in power in
England, such as Chatham had been, who was a leader of men, strong
enough to break down political intrigue and court influence, to
find the best men and send them out, superseding the second best,
encouraging and supporting his soldiers and sailors, but not
worrying them with ill-timed and ignorant interference.
[Sidenote: The English admirals.]
On the sea England was even less fortunate in the men who served
her than on land, whereas, as events proved, the possibility of
success in the war depended entirely on keeping command of the
sea. In the time of the Seven Years’ War, the English admirals
were at their best. Hawke, in his brilliant fight at Quiberon, did
hardly better service than the less known Admiral Saunders, who
co-operated heart and soul with Wolfe at Quebec. Widely different
was the naval record of the War of American Independence. The
French navy, it is true, was stronger than in former years, but the
naval commanders on the English side were also less adequate. The
competent men were superseded by, or had to serve under, senior
and less competent officers. Sir George Collier, who showed energy
and ability, was succeeded by an inferior man, Marriot Arbuthnot;
and, at the most critical point of the campaign, when the French
admiral, de Grasse, combined with Washington to procure the
surrender of Cornwallis, Sir Samuel Hood, one of the best, had to
take his orders from Admiral Graves, one of the least competent
of British naval officers. Even Rodney, who had not yet won the
great victory in the West Indies, by which he is best remembered,
seems to have been remiss in regard to North America; and, if Hood
be excepted, Lord Howe alone among the famous seamen of England,
during a short period of the war, showed something of the skill and
energy which, at other times, and in other than American waters,
characterized the leaders of the British navy.
[Sidenote: Military science was not conspicuous in the American War
of Independence.]
Apart altogether from its causes and its results, and dealing
only with the actual operations, the War of American Independence
was a most unsatisfactory, and for the English, a most inglorious
war. It might well have resulted in a far more crushing defeat for
England, and yet have left a much better impression on English
minds. Though the war lasted for fully seven years, on neither
side, with one exception, were very great military reputations
made. The American Civil War of later days was marked by notable
military achievements, and extraordinarily stubborn fighting. It
was a terrible but a heart-whole struggle, fought hard to the
bitter end under men, among winners and losers alike, whose names
will live to all time in military history. In the American War of
Independence, on the other hand, though good soldiers were engaged
on either side and some, such as the American general, Nathaniel
Greene, deservedly attained high reputation, yet the only name
which lives for the world at large because of the war itself, is
that of Washington; and it lives not so much because of brilliant
feats of generalship, as because he led a murmuring people through
the wilderness with statesmanship, rare nobility of character,
and unconquerable patience. ‘Few of the great pages of history,’
writes Mr. Lecky, ‘are less marked by the stamp of heroism than the
American Revolution.’[103] The Americans muddled through, because
the English made more mistakes, and because, though the American
people were divided among themselves, their leaders, at any rate,
knew their own minds, and were not half-hearted like the majority
of leading men at the time in the United Kingdom.
[Sidenote: Wavering attitude of the English Government]
For neither the English nation nor the English Government were
wholehearted in the war. It was of the nature of a civil war, with
little to appeal to on the English side. It is true that it was
for a time popular in England, that the intervention of France
prolonged its popularity, and that the outrageous extravagances
of Fox and other extreme Whigs also tended to provoke honest
patriotism in favour of the Government and their policy; but it was
not truly a nation’s war, guided by the nation’s chosen leaders.
Not only was there strong opposition to it in England, for reasons
which have already been given, strong especially in the personality
of men like Chatham and Burke who opposed it, but the ministry
themselves showed that their heart was not in their work. Twice
in the middle of the struggle they tried to make peace. In 1776,
the brothers Howe at New York, Whigs themselves, were commissioned
to open negotiations with the colonists: but their powers in
granting concessions were far too limited to satisfy opponents,
who had already, on the 4th of July in that year, declared for
independence. Again in 1778, under an Act of Parliament, specially
passed for the purpose, commissioners were appointed to negotiate
for peace. They were five in number, two being, as before, the
brothers Howe,[104] and the other three being delegates specially
sent out from home. This time ample powers were given to make
concessions, but the situation was wholly changed. Burgoyne had
surrendered in the preceding autumn, the French had joined hands
with the colonists, and Philadelphia was being evacuated by the
British troops. Had the commissioners been sent out after some
striking success on the side of England, offering generous terms
from a strong and resolute nation, they might have gained a
hearing, and the proffered concessions might have been accepted.
Under the circumstances the mission was interpreted as a sign of
weakness, and the messages which were brought were treated with
contempt.
[Sidenote: and of the generals.]
As it was with the Government, so it was also with the military
men. Amherst would not serve because of his old friendly relations
with the Americans. General Howe, for similar reasons, was at first
loth to serve, and his delays and shortcomings in prosecuting
the war may perhaps be in part attributed to the same cause.
Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton all came out in 1775 from the House
of Commons, politicians as well as soldiers.[105] Burgoyne was
brought home towards the end of 1775. He went out again to Canada
in the spring of 1776, again went home in the autumn of that year,
and again went out in 1777 for his last disastrous campaign.
Cornwallis went to England twice in the course of the war. It was
probably a mere coincidence, but the fact remains that the two
commanders who suffered the greatest disasters, were the two who
went back and fore between England and America, and presumably
came most under the influence of the mischievous ministry at home.
It is true that Wolfe had gone home in 1758 after the taking of
Louisburg, discontented with the tardiness of Amherst’s movements,
and that he went out again in 1759 to his crowning victory and
death; but Wolfe went home to Chatham, Burgoyne and Cornwallis to
Lord George Germain.
[Sidenote: Want of continuity in the military operations on the
English side.]
Take again the spasmodic operations of the war. Boston, held when
war broke out, and for the retention of which Bunker’s Hill was
fought, was subsequently abandoned. Philadelphia was occupied and
again evacuated. The southern colonies were over-run but not held.
At point after point the Loyalists were first encouraged and then
left to their fate. Everything was attempted in turn but nothing
done, or what was done was again undone. The vacillation and
infirmity of purpose, which has so often marred the public action
of England, was never more manifest than in the actual campaigns of
the War of American Independence. The great difficulty to contend
with was the large area covered by the revolting colonies; and
the one hope of subduing them lay in blockading the coasts and
concentrating instead of dispersing the British land forces. Lord
Howe and Lord Amherst are credited with the view that the only
chance of success for England lay in a purely naval war; and it
is said to have been on Amherst’s advice that Philadelphia was
abandoned and the troops concentrated at New York. The true policy
was, as Captain Mahan has pointed out,[106] and as Carleton had
seen before the war came,[107] to cut the colonies in two by
holding the line of the Hudson and Lake Champlain; and the object
of sending Burgoyne down from Canada by way of Lake Champlain
in 1777 was that he might join hands with the British forces on
the Atlantic coast, as they moved up the Hudson from New York.
But, while Burgoyne was marching south, Howe carried off the bulk
of the troops from New York to attack Philadelphia; and there
followed, as a direct consequence, the ruin of Burgoyne’s force and
its surrender at Saratoga. No positive instructions had reached
Howe as to co-operating with Burgoyne, and the well-known story
goes[108] that this oversight was due to Lord George Germain, who
had fathered the enterprise, going out of town at the moment when
the dispatches should have been signed and sent. At any rate,
it is clear that, even when the British Government had formed a
right conception of the course to be followed, they failed to take
ordinary precautions for ensuring that it was carried into effect.
In Canada alone did the English rise to the occasion. Here, and
here only, was a man among them in the early stages of the war
who moved on a higher plane altogether than his contemporaries in
action, a statesman-general of dignity, foresight and prudence.
Here alone too the English were repelling invasion, and keeping for
the nation what the nation had won. In this wrong-headed struggle
the one and only ray of brightness for England shone out from
Canada.
[Sidenote: Operations on the Atlantic seaboard.]
After the battle of Bunker’s Hill, in June, 1775, the British army
of occupation at Boston spent the year in a state of siege. Gage
was recalled to England in October, the command of the troops being
handed over to Howe. Burgoyne too went home, returning to Canada in
the following spring. The autumn and the winter went by, Carleton
being beleaguered in Quebec, and Howe cooped up in Boston, while
British ships bombarded one or two of the small seaport towns on
the American coast, causing misery and exasperation, without
effecting any useful result. Early in 1776, Clinton and Cornwallis
were sent to carry war into the southern states, and towards the
end of June made an unsuccessful attack on Charleston Harbour.
[Sidenote: Howe evacuates Boston and occupies New York.]
In March Howe evacuated Boston, and brought off his troops to
Halifax. In June he set sail for New York, which was held by
Washington; established himself on Staten Island, where he was
joined by his brother, the admiral, with strong reinforcements;
and, having now ample troops under his command, he took action in
the middle of August. Crossing over to Long Island, he inflicted
a heavy blow on Washington’s army on the 27th of August, but did
not follow up his success, with the result that Washington two
days later carried over his troops to New York. In the middle of
September New York was evacuated by the Americans and occupied
by the English, and through October and November, Washington was
driven back with loss, until by the beginning of the second week in
December, he had retreated over the Delaware to Philadelphia, and
the whole of the country between that river and the Hudson, which
forms the State of New Jersey, was in British hands. The American
cause was further depressed by the temporary loss of General
Charles Lee, who had been surprised and taken prisoner. He was one
of the few American leaders who was a practised soldier, having
been before the war a half-pay officer of the British army; at the
time of his capture he stood second only to Washington.
[Sidenote: Howe’s delays.]
Howe had been almost uniformly successful, but at each step he had
been slow to follow up his successes. In all wars in which trained
soldiers are pitted against untrained men, it must be of the utmost
importance to give as little breathing space as possible to the
latter, for delay gives time for learning discipline, regaining
confidence, and realizing that defeat may be repaired. Easy to
check and to keep on the run in the initial stages of such a war,
the untried levies gradually harden into seasoned soldiers, taking
repulses not as irreparable disasters, but as incidents in a
campaign. For those who set out to subdue a stubborn race it is a
fatal mistake to give their enemies time to learn the trade of war.
Especially is it a mistake when, as in the case of the Americans,
the causes of the war and the ultimate objects are at the outset
not yet clearly defined, when there are misgivings and hesitations
as to the rights and wrongs, the necessities of the case, the most
desirable issue: most of all when one side represents a loose
confederation of jealous states, and not one single-minded nation.
Howe seems to have lost sight of these considerations, and not
to have wished to press matters too far. While engaged in taking
New York, he was also busy with his brother in trying vainly to
negotiate terms of peace; and subsequently, while mastering New
Jersey, instead of completing his success by sending ships and
troops round to the Delaware to attack Washington in Philadelphia,
he dispatched Clinton to the north to occupy Newport in Rhode
Island, a point of vantage for the naval warfare, but held at the
cost of dispersing instead of concentrating the British forces.
[Sidenote: Washington’s victory at Trenton.]
[Sidenote: Howe retreats from the Jerseys, and occupies
Philadelphia.]