The Quebec Act, guaranteeing the rights of the French Canadians, had barely been put in force before the Congress of the 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 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 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 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.
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.