SIEGE OF QUEBEC, 1775-76.
Sketched from a manuscript plan noted in the Sparks Catalogue (p. 208), which belongs to Cornell University, and was kindly communicated to the editor. The original (18½ × 15 inches) is marked as "on a scale of 30 chaines to an Inch", and is signed "E. Antill ft." in the corner. Mr. Sparks has marked it "Siege of Quebec, 1776." It is endorsed on the outside, "Genl Arnold's plan of Quebec, with ye Americans besieging it, ye winter of 1776." It bears the following Key: "H, Headquarters. A, A, A, advanced guards. B, B, B, main guards. C, C, C, quarter guards. D, Capt. Smith's riflemen. E, cul-de-sac, where the men-of-war lay, F, governor's house. G, where all materials are carried to build our batteries, out of view of the town. I, lower town. K, the barrier, near which General Montgomery fell. K L, the dotted line shews the route the troops took under the general, thro' deep snow without any path." The dotted line in the river marks the extent of ice from the shore, and in the open stream are the words: "(Unfrose) Ice driving with ye Tide." The roads are marked by broken lines – – – – – – –. The position of patrols are marked by the letter P.
The principal engraved map is a Plan of the city and environs of Quebec with its siege and blockage by the Americans from the 8th of December, 1775, to the 13th of May, 1776. Engraved by Wm. Faden, London; published 12 Sept., 1776. The original MS. draft is among the Faden maps (no. 20) in the library of Congress. There are other plans as follows: Mag. of Amer. Hist., April, 1884, p. 282; Leake's Life of Lamb, p. 130; Atlas to Marshall's Washington; Carrington's Battles, p. 138; Stone's Invasion of Canada, p. xvii.; a marginal plan in Sayer and Bennett's New Map of the Province of Quebec, published Feb. 16, 1776; and a German "Plan von Quebec" in the Geschichte der Kriege in und ausser Europa, Nuremberg, 1777, Dritter Theil. There is a marginal map of Quebec in an edition of Carver's map of the Province of Quebec, published by Le Rouge in Paris in 1777, and included in the Atlas Ameriquain (1778).
For views of Quebec and the points of attack, see Moore's Diary of the Rev., i. 185; Lossing's Field-Book, i. 198; and Mag. of Amer. Hist., April, 1884, p. 274. A view of the plains of Abraham is in Ibid., p. 296.
The retreat continued to Crown Point, and in July Sullivan was relieved by Gates; and the campaign was over,—nothing accomplished. On July 26th Governor Trumbull reviews the condition of the army in a letter in Hinman's Conn. during the Rev. (p. 560).[653] The letters of Ira Allen and John Hurd express the uneasy state of mind along the frontier, which now took possession of the exposed settlers (N. H. Prov. Papers, viii. pp. 301, 306, 311, 315-317, 405). Insecurity was felt at Ticonderoga (N. H. State Papers, viii. 576, 581).
Congress twice appointed commissioners to proceed towards Canada. In Nov., 1775, Robert R. Livingston, John Langdon, and Robert Treat Paine were sent, with instructions dated Nov. 8th,[654] to examine the fortifications of Ticonderoga and the highlands, and "to use their endeavors to procure an accession of the Canadians to a union with these colonies;" and their report (Nov. 17th), with a letter to Montgomery (Nov. 30th), is in the Sparks MSS. (lii. vol. ii.). In March, 1776, Benj. Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll were instructed (Journals of Congress, i. 289; Force, v. 411) to proceed to Canada to influence, if possible, the sympathies of the Canadians. Carroll was a Roman Catholic, and he was accompanied by his brother, John Carroll, a priest.[655] Much was expected of the mission on this account (Adams's Familiar Letters, 135). Franklin, delayed at Saratoga (April), began to feel that the exposures of the expedition were too much for one of his years, and sat down to write "to a few friends by way of farewell."[656] Carroll kept a diary, which has been since printed.[657] There are papers appertaining to the mission in Force's Archives, 4th, iv., v.; Sparks's Washington (iii. 390), and his Corresp. of the Rev. (i. 572), and Lossing's Schuyler (vol. ii.).[658] On Jan. 31, 1850, Mr. William Duane delivered an address on Canada and the Continental Congress before the Penna. Hist. Soc., which is printed among their occasional publications.
