Canada: The Empire of the North — From 1763 to 1812, part 3

The Quebec Act, guaranteeing the rights of the French Canadians, had barely been put in force before the Congress of the {298} revolting English colonies sent up proclamations to be posted on the church doors of the parishes, calling on the French to throw off the British yoke, to join the American colonies, "to seize the opportunity to be free."

Unfortunately for this alluring invitation, Congress had but a few weeks previously put on record its unsparing condemnation of the Quebec Act.

Inspired by those New Englanders who, for a century, had suffered from French raids, Congress had expressed its verdict on the privileges granted to Quebec in these words: "_Nor can we supress our astonishment that a British Parliament should establish a religion that has drenched your island_ [England] _in blood_."

This declaration was the cardinal blunder of Congress as far as Canada was concerned.

Of the merits of the quarrel the simple French habitant knew nothing.

He did what his curé told him to do; and the Catholic Church would not risk casting in its lot with a Congress that declared its religion had drenched England in blood.

English inhabitants of Montreal and Quebec, who had flocked to Canada from the New England colonies, were far readier to listen to the invitation of Congress than were the French.

Governor Carleton had fewer than 800 troops, and naturally the French did not rally as volunteers in the impending war between England and her English colonies.

Should the Congress troops invade Canada?

The question was hanging fire when Ethan Allen, with his two hundred Green Mountain boys of Vermont, marched across to Lake Champlain in May of 1775, hobnobbed with the guards of Ticonderoga, who drank not wisely but too well, then rowed by night across the narrows and knocked at the wicket beside the main gate.

The sleepy guards, not yet sober from the night's carouse, admitted the Vermonters as friends.

In rushed the whole two hundred.

In a trice the Canadian garrison of forty-four were all captured and Allen was thundering on the chamber door of La Place, the commandant.

It was five in the morning.

La Place sprang up in his nightshirt and demanded in whose name he was ordered to surrender.

Ethan Allen answered in words that have gone {299} down to history, "_In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress_."

Later fell Crown Point.

So began the war with Canada in the great Revolution.

And now, from May to September, Arnold's Green Mountain boys sweep from Lake Champlain down the Richelieu to the St. Lawrence, as Iberville's bold bushrovers long ago swept through these woods.

However, the American rovers take no permanent occupation of the different forts on the falls of the Richelieu River, preferring rather to overrun the parishes, dispatching secret spies and waiting for the habitants to rally.

And they came once too often, once too far, these bold banditti of the wilderness, clad in buckskin, musket over shoulder, coonskin cap!

Montreal is so full of spies, so full of friendlies, so full of Bostonnais in sympathy with the revolutionists, that Allen feels safe in paddling across the St. Lawrence one September morning to the Montreal side with only one hundred and fifty men.

Montreal has grown in these ten years to a city of some twelve thousand, but the gates are fast shut against the American scouts; and while Allen waits in some barns of the suburbs, presto!

out sallies Major Garden with twice as many men armed to the teeth, who assault the barns at a rush.

Five Americans drop at the first crack of the rifles.

The Canadians are preparing to set fire to the barns.

Allen's men will be picked off as they rush from the smoke.

Wisely, he saves his Green Mountain boys by surrender.

Thirty-five capitulate.

The rest have escaped through the woods.

Carleton refuses to acknowledge the captives as prisoners of war.

He claps irons on their hands and irons on their feet and places them on a vessel bound for England to be treated as rebels to the crown.

It is said those of Allen's men who deserted were French Canadians in disguise--which may explain why Carleton made such severe example of his captives and at once purged Montreal of the disaffected by compelling all who would not take arms to leave.

Carleton's position was chancy enough in all conscience.

The habitants were wavering.

They refused point-blank to serve as volunteers.

They supplied the invaders with provisions.

Spies were everywhere.

Practically no help could come from {300} England till spring, and scouts brought word that two American armies were now marching in force on Canada,--one by way of the Richelieu, twelve hundred strong, led by Richard Montgomery of New York, directed against Montreal; the other by way of the Kennebec, with fifteen hundred men under Benedict Arnold, to attack Quebec.

Carleton is at Montreal.

He rushes his troops, six hundred and ninety out of eight hundred men, up the Richelieu to hold the forts at Chambly and St. John's against Montgomery's advance.

Half September and all October Montgomery camps on the plains before Fort St. John's, his rough soldiers clad for the most part in their shirt sleeves, trousers, and coon cap, with badges of "Liberty or Death" worked in the cap bands, or sprigs of green put in their hats, in lieu of soldier's uniform.

Inside the fort, Major Preston, the English commander, has almost seven hundred men, with ample powder.

It is plain to Montgomery that he can win the fort in only one of two ways,--shut off provisions and starve the garrison out, or get possession of heavy artillery to batter down the walls.

It is said that fortune favors the dauntless.

So it was with Montgomery, for he was enabled to besiege the fort in both ways.

Carleton had rushed a Colonel McLean to the relief of St. John's with a force of French volunteers, but the French deserted en masse.

McLean was left without any soldiers.

This cut off St. John's from supply of provisions.

At Chambly Fort was a Major Stopford with eighty men and a supply of heavy artillery.

Montgomery sent a detachment to capture Chambly for the sake of its artillery.

Stopford surrendered to the Americans without a blow, and the heavy cannon were forthwith trundled along the river to Montgomery at St. John's. Preston sends frantic appeal to Carleton for help.

He has reduced his garrison to half rations, to quarter rations, to very nearly no rations at all!

Carleton sends back secret express.

He can send no help.

He has no more men.

Montgomery tactfully lets the message pass in.

After siege of forty-five days, Preston surrenders with all the honors of war, his six hundred and eighty-eight men marching {301} out, arms reversed, and going aboard Montgomery's ships to proceed as prisoners up Lake Champlain.

The way is now open to Montreal.

Benedict Arnold, meanwhile, with the army directed against Quebec, has crossed from the Kennebec to the Chaudière, paddled across St. Lawrence River, and on the very day that Montgomery's troops take possession of Montreal, November 13, Arnold's army has camped on the Plains of Abraham behind Quebec walls, whence he scatters his foragers, ravaging the countryside far west as Three Rivers for provisions.

The trials of his canoe voyage from Maine to the St. Lawrence at swift pace have been terrific.

More than half his men have fallen away either from illness or open desertion.

Arnold has fewer than seven hundred men as he waits for Montgomery at Quebec.

[Illustration: GENERAL RICHARD MONTGOMERY] What of Guy Carleton, the English governor, now?

Canada's case seemed hopeless.

The flower of her army had been taken prisoners, and no help could come before May.

Desperate circumstances either make or break a man, prove or undo him.

As reverses closed in on Carleton, like the wrestlers of old he but took tighter grip of his resolutions.

On November 11, two days before Preston's men surrendered, Carleton, with two or three military officers disguised as peasants, boarded one of three armed vessels to go down from Montreal to Quebec.

All the cannon at Montreal had been dismounted and spiked.

What powder could not be carried {302} away was buried or thrown into the river.

Amid funereal silence, shaking hands sadly with the Montreal friends who had gathered at the wharf to say farewell, the English Governor left Montreal.

That night the wind failed, and the three vessels lay to with limp sails.

At Sorel, at Three Rivers, at every hamlet on both sides of the St. Lawrence, lay American scouts to capture the English Governor.

All next day the vessels lay wind-bound.

Desperate for the fate of Quebec, Carleton embarked on a river barge propelled by sweeps.

Passing Sorel at night Carleton and his disguised officers could see the camp fires of the American army.

Here oars were laid aside and the raft steadied down the tide by the rowers paddling with the palms of their hands.

Three Rivers was found in possession of the Americans, and a story is told of Carleton, foredone from lack of sleep, dozing in an eating house or tavern with his head sunk forward upon his hands, when two or three American scouts broke into the room.

Not a sign did the English party in peasant disguise give of alarm or uneasiness, which might have betrayed the Governor.

"Come, come," said one of the English officers in French, slapping Sir Guy Carleton carelessly on the back, "we must be going"; and the Governor escaped unsuspected.

November 19, to the inexpressible relief of Quebec Carleton reached the capital city.

Quebec now had a population of some five thousand.

All able-bodied men who would not fight were expelled from the city.

What with the small garrison, some marines who happened to be in port, and the citizens themselves, eighteen hundred defenders were mustered.

On the walls were a hundred and fifty heavy cannon, and all the streets leading from Lower to Upper Town had been barricaded with cannon mounted above.

At each of the city gates were posted battalions.

Sentries never left the walls, and the whole army literally slept in its boots.

It will be remembered that the natural position of Quebec was worth an army in itself.

On all sides there was access only by steepest climb.

In front, where the modern visitor ascends from the wharf to Upper Town by Mountain Street {303} steep as a stair, barricades had been built.

To the right, where flows St. Charles River past Lower Town, platforms mounted with cannon guarded approach.

To the rear was the wall behind which camped Arnold; to the left sheer precipice, above which the defenders had suspended swinging lanterns that lighted up every movement on the path below along the St. Lawrence.

[Illustration: MAP OF QUEBEC DURING SIEGE OF CONGRESS TROOPS] Early in December comes Montgomery himself to Quebec, on the very ships which Carleton had abandoned.

Carleton refuses even the letter demanding surrender.

Montgomery is {304} warned that forthwith any messenger sent to the walls will come at peril of being shot as rebel.

Henceforth what communication Montgomery has with the inhabitants must be by throwing proclamations inside or bribing old habitant women as carriers,--for the habitants continue to pass in and out of the city with provisions; and a deserter presently brings word that Montgomery has declared he will "_eat his Christmas dinner in Quebec or in Hell_!"

Whereupon Carleton retorts, "He may choose his own place, but he shan't eat it in Quebec."

Montgomery was now in the same position as Wolfe at the great siege.

His troops daily grew more ragged; many were without shoes, and smallpox was raging in camp.

He could not tempt his foe to come out and fight; therefore he must assault the foe in its own stronghold.

It will be remembered, Wolfe had feigned attack to the fore, and made the real attack to the rear.

Montgomery reversed the process.

He feigned attack to the rear gates of St. John and St. Louis, and made the real attack to the fore from the St. Charles and the St. Lawrence.

While a few soldiers were to create noisy hubbub at St. John and St. Louis gates from the back of the city, Arnold was to march through Lower Town from the Charles River side, Montgomery along the narrow cliff below the Citadel, through Lower Town, to that steep Mountain Street which tourists to-day ascend directly from the wharves of the St. Lawrence.

On the squares of Upper Town the two armies were to unite and fight Carleton.

The plan of attack practically encompassed the city from every side.

Spies had brought rumors to Carleton that the signal for assault for the American troops was to be the first dark stormy night.

Christmas passed quietly enough without Montgomery carrying out his threat, and on the night before New Year's all was quiet.

Congress soldiers had dispersed among the taverns outside the walls, and Carleton felt so secure he had gone comfortably to bed.

For a month, shells from the American guns had been whizzing over Upper Town, with such small damage that citizens had continued to go about as usual.

On the walls was a constant popping from the sharpshooters of both sides, and occasionally {305} an English sentry, parading the walls at imminent risk of being a target, would toss down a cheery "Good morrow, gentlemen," to a Congress trooper below.

Then, quick as a flash, both men would lift and fire; but the results were small credit to the aim of either shooter, for the sentry would duck off the wall untouched, just as the American dashed for hiding behind barricade or house of Lower Town.

Some of the Americans wanted to know what were the lanterns and lookouts which the English had constructed above the precipice of Cape Diamond.

Some wag of a habitant answered these were the sign of a wooden horse with hay in front of it, and that the English general, Carleton, had said he would not surrender the town till the horse had caught up to the hay.

Skulking riflemen of the Congress troops had taken refuge in the mansion of Bigot's former magnificence, the Intendant's Palace, and Carleton had ordered the cannoneers on his walls to knock the house down.

So fell the house of Bigot's infamy.

Towards 2 A. M.

of December 31 the wind began to blow a hurricane.

The bright moonlight became obscured by flying clouds, and earth and air were wrapped in a driving storm of sleet.

Instantly the Congress troops rallied to their headquarters behind the city.

Montgomery at quick march swept down the steep cliff of the river to the shore road, and in the teeth of a raging wind led his men round under the heights of Cape Diamond to the harbor front.

Heads lowered against the wind, coonskin caps pulled low over eyes, ash-colored flannel shirts buttoned tight to necks, gun casings and sacks wrapped loosely round loaded muskets to keep out the damp, the marchers tramped silently through the storm.

Overhead was the obscured glare where the lanterns hung out in a blare of snow above Cape Diamond.

Here rockets were sent up as a signal to Arnold on St. Charles River.

Then Montgomery's men were among the houses of Lower Town, noting well that every window had been barricaded and darkened from cellar to attic.

Somewhere along the narrow path in front of the town Montgomery knew that barricades had been built with cannon behind, but he trusted to the storm concealing his approach till his men could capture them at a rush.

At Près {306} de Ville, just where the traveler approaching harbor front may to-day see a tablet erected in memory of the invasion, was a barricade.

Montgomery halted his men.

Scouts returned with word that all was quiet and in darkness--the English evidently asleep; and uncovering muskets, the Congress fighters dashed forward at a run.

But it was the silence that precedes the thunderclap.

The English had known that the storm was to signal attack, and guessing that the rockets foretokened the assailants' approach, they had put out all lights behind the barricade.

Until Montgomery's men were within a few feet of the log, there was utter quiet; then a voice shrieked out, "Fire!

--fire!"

Instantly a flash of flame met the runners like a wall.

Groans and screams split through the muffling storm.

Montgomery and a dozen others fell dead.

The rest had broken away in retreat,--a rabble without a commander,--carrying the wounded.

Behind the barricade was almost as great confusion among the English, for Quebec's defenders were made up of boys of fifteen and old men of seventy, and the first crash of battle had been followed by a panic, when half the guards would have thrown down their arms if one John Coffin, an expelled royalist from Boston, had not shouted out that he would throw the first man who attempted to desert into the river.

Meantime, how had it gone with Arnold?

[Illustration: SIR GUY CARLETON] An English officer was passing near St. Louis Gate when, sometime after two o'clock, he noticed rockets go up from the river beyond Cape Diamond.

He at once sounded the alarm.

Bugles called to arms, drums rolled, and every bell in the city was set ringing.

In less than ten minutes every man of Quebec's eighteen hundred was in place.

American soldiers marching through St. Roch, Lower Town, have described how the tolling of the bells rolling through the storm smote cold on their hearts, for they knew their designs had been discovered, and they could not turn back, for a juncture must be effected with Montgomery.

A

moment later the sham assaults were peppering the rear gates of Quebec, but Guy Carleton was too crafty a campaigner to be tricked by any sham.

He rightly guessed that the real attack {307} would be made on one of the two weaker spots leading up from Lower Town.

"Now is the time to show what stuff you are made of," he called to the soldiers, as he ordered more detachments to the place whence came crash of heaviest firing.

This was at Sault-au-Matelot Street, a narrow, steep thoroughfare, barely twenty feet from side to side.

Up this little tunnel of a street Arnold had rushed his men, surmounting one barricade where they exchanged their own wet muskets for the dry guns of the English deserters, dashing into houses to get possession of windows as vantage points, over, some accounts say, yet another obstruction, till his whole army was cooped up in a canyon of a street directly below the hill front on which had been erected a platform with heavy guns.

It was a gallant rush, but it was futile, for now Carleton outgeneraled Arnold.

Guessing from the distance of the shots that the attack to the rear was sheer sham, the English general rushed his fighters downhill by another gate to catch Arnold on the rear.

Quebec houses are built close and cramped.

While these troops were stealing in behind Arnold to close on him like a trap, it was easy trick for another English battalion to scramble over house roofs, over back walls, and up the very stairs of houses where Arnold's troops were guarding the windows.

Then Arnold was carried past his men badly wounded.

"We are sold," muttered the Congress troops, "caught like rats in a trap."

Still they pressed toward in hand to hand scuffle, with shots at such close range the Boston soldiers were {308} shouting, "Quebec men, do not fire on your true friends!"

with absurd pitching of each other by the scruff of the neck from the windows.

Daylight only served to make plainer the desperate plight of the entrapped raiders.

At ten o'clock five hundred Congress soldiers surrendered.

It must not for one moment be forgotten that each side was fighting gallantly for what it believed to be right, and each bore the other the respect due a good fighter and upright foe.

In fact, with the exception of two or three episodes mutually regretted, it may be said there were fewer bitter thoughts that New Year's morning than have arisen since from this war.

The captured Americans had barely been sent to quarters in convents and hospitals before a Quebec merchant sent them a gift of several hogsheads of porter.

When the bodies of Montgomery and his fellow-comrades in death were found under the snowdrifts, they were reverently removed, and interred with the honors of war just inside St. Louis Gate.