A history of Canada, 1763-1812

by Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas

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.

The Green Mountain rising.

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 Ethan Allen. 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 Capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 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]

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 Miscalculations as to Canadian feeling. 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.

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.