Part 4 (1/2)

News came in occasionally from the outside world. There was intense indignation among the garrison when they learned that the American commanders in Montreal were imprisoning every Canadian officer who would not surrender his commission. Such an unheard-of outrage was worthy of Walker. But others must have thought of it; for Walker was now in Philadelphia giving all the evidence he could against Prescott and other British officers. Bad news for the rebels was naturally welcomed, especially anything about their growing failure to raise troops in Canada.

On hearing of Montgomery's defeat the Continental Congress had pa.s.sed a resolution, addressed to the 'Inhabitants of Canada' declaring that 'we will never abandon you to the unrelenting fury of your and our enemies.' But there were no trained soldiers to back this up; and the raw militia, though often filled with zeal and courage, could do nothing to redress the increasingly adverse balance.

In the middle of March the Americans sent in a summons.

But Carleton refused to receive it; and the garrison put a wooden horse and a bundle of hay on the walls with a placard bearing the inscription, 'When this horse has eaten this bunch of hay we will surrender.' Some excellent practice made with 13-inch sh.e.l.ls sent the Americans flying from their new battery at Levis; and by the 17th of March one of the several exultant British diarists, whose anonymity must have covered an Irish name, was able to record that 'this, being St Patrick's Day, the Governor, who is a true Hibernian, has requested the garrison to put off keeping it till the 17th of May, when he promises, they shall be enabled to do it properly, and with the usual solemnities.'

A fortnight later a plot concerted between the American prisoners and their friends outside was discovered just in time. With tools supplied by traitors they were to work their way out of their quarters, overpower the guard at the nearest gate, set fire to the nearest houses in three different streets, turn the nearest guns inwards on the town, and shout 'Liberty for ever!' as an additional signal to the storming-party that was to be waiting to confirm their success. Carleton seized the chance of turning this scheme against the enemy. Three safe bonfires were set ablaze. The marked guns were turned inwards and fired at the town with blank charges. And the preconcerted shout was raised with a will. But the besiegers never stirred.

After this the Old-Countrymen among the prisoners, who had taken the oath and enlisted in the garrison, were disarmed and confined, while the rest were more strictly watched.

Two brave attempts were made by French Canadians to reach Quebec with reinforcements, one headed by a seigneur, the other by a parish priest. Carleton had sent word to M. de Beaujeu, seigneur of Crane Island, forty miles below Quebec, asking him to see if he could cut off the American detachment on the Levis sh.o.r.e. De Beaujeu raised three hundred and fifty men. But Arnold sent over reinforcements. A habitant betrayed his fellow-countrymen's advance-guard. A dozen French Canadians were then killed or wounded while forty were taken prisoners; whereupon the rest dispersed to their homes. The other attempt was made by Father Bailly, whose little force of about fifty men was also betrayed. Entrapped in a country-house these men fought bravely till nearly half their number had been killed or wounded and the valiant priest had been mortally hit. They then surrendered to a much stronger force which had lost more men than they.

This was on the 6th of April, just before Arnold was leaving in disgust. Wooster made an effort to use his new artillery to advantage by converging the fire of three batteries, one close in on the Heights of Abraham, another from across the mouth of the St Charles, and the third from Levis. But the combination failed: the batteries were too light for the work and overmatched by the guns on the walls, the practice was bad, and the effect was nil. On the 3rd of May the new general, Thomas, an enterprising man, tried a fires.h.i.+p, which was meant to destroy all the s.h.i.+pping in the Cul de Sac. It came on, under full sail, in a very threatening manner. But the crew lost their nerve at the critical moment, took to the boats too soon, and forgot to lash the helm. The vessel immediately flew up into the wind and, as the tidal stream was already changing, began to drift away from the Cul de Sac just when she burst into flame. The result, as described by an enthusiastic British diarist, was that 'she affoard'd a very pritty prospect while she was floating down the River, every now & then sending up Sky rackets, firing of Cannon or bursting of Sh.e.l.ls, & so continued till She disappear'd in the Channell.'

Three days later, on the 6th of May, when the beleaguerment had lasted precisely five months, the sound of distant gunfire came faintly up the St Lawrence with the first breath of the dawn wind from the east. The sentries listened to make sure; then called the sergeants of the guards, who sent word to the officers on duty, who, in their turn, sent word to Carleton. By this time there could be no mistake. The breeze was freshening; the sound was gradually nearing Quebec; and there could hardly be room for doubting that it came from the vanguard of the British fleet. The drums beat to arms, the church bells rang, the news flew round to every household in Quebec; and before the tops of the _Surprise_ frigate were seen over the Point of Levy every battery was fully manned, every battalion was standing ready on the Grand Parade, and every non-combatant man, woman, and child was lining the seaward wall. The regulation shot was fired across her bows as she neared the city; whereupon she fired three guns to leeward, hoisted the private signal, and showed the Union Jack. Then, at last, a cheer went up that told both friend and foe of British victory and American defeat. By a strange coincidence the parole for this triumphal day was St George, while the parole appointed for the victorious New Year's Eve had been St Denis; so that the patron saints of France and England happen to be a.s.sociated with the two great days on which the stronghold of Canada was saved by land and sea.

The same tide brought in two other men-of-war. Some soldiers of the 29th, who were on board the _Surprise_, were immediately landed, together with the marines from all three vessels. Carleton called for volunteers from the militia to attack the Americans at once; and nearly every man, both of the French- and of the English-speaking corps, stepped forward. There was joy in every heart that the day for striking back had come at last. The columns marched gaily through the gates and deployed into line at the double on the Heights outside. The Americans fired a few hurried shots and then ran for dear life, leaving their dinners cooking, and, in some cases, even their arms behind them. The Plains were covered with flying enemies and strewn with every sort of impediment to flight, from a cannon to a loaf of bread. Quebec had been saved by British sea-power; and, with it, the whole vast dominion of which it was the key.

CHAPTER VI

DELIVERANCE 1776

The Continental Congress had always been anxious to have delegates from the Fourteenth Colony. But as these never came the Congress finally decided to send a special commission to examine the whole civil and military state of Canada and see what could be done. The news of Montgomery's death and defeat was a very unwelcome surprise. But reinforcements were being sent; the Canadians could surely be persuaded; and a Congressional commission must be able to set things right. This commission was a very strong one. Benjamin Franklin was the chairman.

Samuel Chase of Maryland and Charles Carroll of Carrollton were the other members. Carroll's brother, the future archbishop of Baltimore, accompanied them as a sort of ecclesiastical diplomatist. Franklin's prestige and the fact that he was to set up a 'free' printing-press in Montreal were to work wonders with the educated cla.s.ses at once and with the uneducated ma.s.ses later on. Chase would appeal to all the reasonable 'moderates.' Carroll, a great landlord and the nearest approach yet made to an American millionaire, was expected to charm the Canadian n.o.blesse; while the fact that he and his exceedingly diplomatic brother were devout Roman Catholics was thought to be by itself a powerful argument with the clergy.

When they reached St Johns towards the end of April the commissioners sent on a courier to announce their arrival and prepare for their proper reception in Montreal. But the ferryman at Laprairie positively refused to accept Continental paper money at any price; and it was only when a 'Friend of Liberty' gave him a dollar in silver that he consented to cross the courier over the St Lawrence. The same hitch occurred in Montreal, where the same Friend of Liberty had to pay in silver before the cab-drivers consented to accept a fare either from him or from the commissioners. Even the name of Carroll of Carrollton was conjured with in vain. The French Canadians remembered Bigot's bad French paper. Their worst suspicions were being confirmed about the equally bad American paper.

So they demanded nothing but hard cash--_argent dur_.

However, the first great obstacle had been successfully overcome; and so, on the strength of five borrowed silver dollars, the accredited commissioners of the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies made their state entry into what they still hoped to call the Fourteenth Colony.

But silver dollars were scarce; and on the 1st of May the crestfallen commissioners had to send the Congress a financial report which may best be summed up in a pithy phrase which soon became proverbial--'Not worth a Continental.'

On the 10th of May they heard the bad news from Quebec and increased the panic among their Montreal sympathizers by hastily leaving the city lest they should be cut off by a British man-of-war. Franklin foresaw the end and left for Philadelphia accompanied by the Reverend John Carroll, whose twelve days of disheartening experience with the leading French-Canadian clergy had convinced him that they were impervious to any arguments or blandishments emanating from the Continental Congress.

It was a sad disillusionment for the commissioners, who had expected to be settling the affairs of a fourteenth colony instead of being obliged to leave the city from which they were to have enlightened the people with a free press. In their first angry ignorance they laid the whole blame on their unfortunate army for its 'disgraceful flight' from Quebec. A week later, when Chase and Charles Carroll ought to have known better, they were still a.s.suring the Congress that this 'shameful retreat' was 'the princ.i.p.al cause of all the disorders' in the army; and even after the whole story ought to have been understood neither they nor the Congress gave their army its proper due. But, as a matter of fact, the American position had become untenable the moment the British fleet began to threaten the American line of communication with Montreal.

For the rest, the American volunteers, all things considered, had done very well indeed. Arnold's march was a truly magnificent feat. Morgan's men had fought with great courage at the Sault-au-Matelot. And though Montgomery's a.s.sault might well have been better planned and executed, we must remember that the good plan, which had been rejected, was the military one, while the bad plan, which had been adopted, was concocted by mere politicians. Nor were 'all the disorders' so severely condemned by the commissioners due to the army alone.

Far from it, indeed. The root of 'all the disorders' lay in the fact that a makes.h.i.+ft government was obliged to use makes.h.i.+ft levies for an invasion which required a regular army supported by a fleet.

On the 19th of May another disaster happened, this time above Montreal. The Congress had not felt strong enough to attack the western posts. So Captain Forster of the 8th Foot, finding that he was free to go elsewhere, had come down from Oswegatchie (the modern Ogdensburg) with a hundred whites and two hundred Indians and made prisoners of four hundred and thirty Americans at the Cedars, about thirty miles up the St Lawrence from Montreal. Forster was a very good officer. b.u.t.terfield, the American commander, was a very bad one. And that made all the difference. After two days of feeble and misdirected defence b.u.t.terfield surrendered three hundred and fifty men. The other eighty were reinforcements who walked into the trap next day. Forster now had four American prisoners for every white soldier of his own; while Arnold was near by, having come up from Sorel to Lachine with a small but determined force. So Forster, carefully pointing out to his prisoners their danger if the Indians should be reinforced and run wild, offered them their freedom on condition that they should be regarded as being exchanged for an equal number of British prisoners in American hands. This was agreed to and never made a matter of dispute afterwards. But the second article b.u.t.terfield accepted was a stipulation that, while the released British were to be free to fight again, the released Americans were not; and it was over this point that a bitter controversy raged. The British authorities maintained that all the terms were binding because they had been accepted by an officer commissioned by the Congress. The Congress maintained that the disputed article was obtained by an unfair threat of an Indian ma.s.sacre and that it was so one-sided as to be good for nothing but repudiation.

'The Affair at the Cedars' thus became a sorely vexed question. In itself it would have died out among later and more important issues if it had not been used as a torch to fire American public opinion at a time when the Congress was particularly anxious to make the Thirteen Colonies as anti-British as possible. Most of Forster's men were Indians. He had reminded b.u.t.terfield how dangerous an increasing number of Indians might become. b.u.t.terfield was naturally anxious to prove that he had yielded only to overwhelming odds and horrifying risks. Americans in general were ready to believe anything bad about the Indians and the British. The temptation and the opportunity seemed made for each other. And so a quite imaginary Indian ma.s.sacre conveniently appeared in the American news of the day and helped to form the kind of public opinion which was ardently desired by the party of revolt.

The British evidence in this and many another embittering dispute about the Indians need not be cited, since the following items of American evidence do ample justice to both sides. In the spring of 1775 the Ma.s.sachusetts Provincial Congress sent Samuel Kirkland to exhort the Iroquois 'to whet their hatchet and be prepared to defend our liberties and lives'; while Ethan Allen asked the Indians round Vermont to treat him 'like a brother and ambush the regulars.' In 1776 the Continental Congress secretly resolved 'that it is highly expedient to engage the Indians in the service of the United Colonies.' This was before the members knew about the Affair at the Cedars. A few days later Was.h.i.+ngton was secretly authorized to raise two thousand Indians; while agents were secretly sent 'to engage the Six Nations in our Interest, on the best terms that can be procured.' Within three weeks of this secret arrangement the Declaration of Independence publicly accused the king of trying 'to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages.'

Four days after this public accusation the Congress gave orders for raising Indians along 'the Pen.o.bscot, the St John, and in Nova Scotia'; and an entry to that effect was made in its Secret Journal. Yet, before the month was out, the same Congress publicly appealed to 'The People of Ireland' in the following words: 'The wild and barbarous savages of the wilderness have been solicited by gifts to take up the hatchet against us, and instigated to deluge our settlements with the blood of defenceless women and children.'

The American defeats at Quebec and at the Cedars completely changed the position of the two remaining commissioners.

They had expected to control a victorious advance. They found themselves the highest authority present with a disastrous retreat. Thereupon they made blunder after blunder. Public interest and parliamentary control are the very life of armies and navies in every country which enjoys the blessings of self-government. But civilian interference is death. Yet Chase and Carroll practically abolished rank in the disintegrating army by becoming an open court of appeal to every junior with a grievance or a plan. There never was an occasion on which military rule was more essential in military matters. Yet, though they candidly admitted that they had 'neither abilities nor inclination' to command, these wretched misrulers tried to do their duty both to the Congress and the army by turning the camp into a sort of town meeting where the best orders had no chance whatever against the loudest 'sentiments.' They had themselves found the root of all evil in the retreat from Quebec. Their army, like every impartial critic, found it in 'the Commissioners and the smallpox'--with the commissioners easily first. The smallpox had been bad enough at Quebec. It became far worse at Sorel. There were few doctors, fewer medicines, and not a single hospital. The reinforcements melted away with the army they were meant to strengthen. Famine threatened both, even in May. Finally the commissioners left for home at the end of the month. But even their departure could no longer make the army's burden light enough to bear.

Thomas, the ex-apothecary, who did his best to stem the adverse tide of trouble, caught the smallpox, became blind, and died at the beginning of June. Sullivan, the fourth commander in less than half a year, having determined that one more effort should be made, arrived at Sorel with new battalions after innumerable difficulties by the way. He was led to believe that Carleton's reinforcements had come from Nova Scotia, not from England; and this encouraged him to push on farther. He was naturally of a very sanguine temper; and Thompson, his second-in-command, heartily approved of the dash. The new troops cheered up and thought of taking Quebec itself.

But, after getting misled by their guide, floundering about in bottomless bogs, and losing a great deal of very precious time, they found Three Rivers defended by entrenchments, superior numbers, and the vanguard of the British fleet. Nevertheless they attacked bravely on the 8th of June. But, taken in front and flank by well-drilled regulars and well-handled men-of-war, they presently broke and fled. Every avenue of escape was closed as they wandered about the woods and bogs. But Carleton, who came up from Quebec after the battle was all over, purposely opened the way to Sorel. He had done his best to win the hearts of his prisoners at Quebec and had succeeded so well that when they returned to Crown Point they were kept away from the rest of the American army lest their account of his kindness should affect its anti-British zeal. Now that he was in overwhelming force he thought he saw an even better chance of earning grat.i.tude from rebels and winning converts to the loyal side by a still greater act of clemency.

The battle of Three Rivers was the last action fought on Canadian soil. The American army retreated to Sorel and up the Richelieu to St Johns, where it was joined by Arnold, who had just evacuated Montreal. Most of the Friends of Liberty in Canada fled either with or before their beaten forces. So, like the ebbing of a whole river system, the main and tributary streams of fugitives drew south towards Lake Champlain. The neutral French Canadians turned against them at once; though not to the extent of making an actual attack. The habitant cared nothing for the incomprehensible const.i.tutionalities over which different kinds of British foreigners were fighting their exasperating civil war. But he did know what the king's big fleet and army meant. He did begin to feel that his own ways of life were safer with the loyal than with the rebel side. And he quite understood that he had been forced to give a good deal for nothing ever since the American commissioners had authorized their famis.h.i.+ng army to commandeer his supplies and pay him with their worthless 'Continentals.'