FROM MONTGOMERY’S LETTER TO MONTREAL, NOVEMBER 12, 1775
Meanwhile at Quebec, Carleton pursued Fabian tactics and would not venture out into the open. He had seen this mistake made by Wolfe, and he had not been his quarter-master-general for nothing, so he waited for the ships from England to come, as indeed they did, at last, on May 6th, the Surprise leading, followed by the Isis and the Martin. The flight of the Americans to Montreal soon began.
At Montreal exciting circumstances had occurred at the American headquarters, the Château de Ramezay, which had been that of Gage, Burton and other British commandants since it had ceased being the seat of the East India Fur Company under the French regime.
On April 26th its doors had opened to General John Thomas on his arrival to take command of the army before Quebec, and its council chamber had been the scene of hasty conference with Arnold and other gentlemen. It was now to receive the commissioners from congress, long asked for by Montgomery and Schuyler, but only named and appointed on the 15th of February by the resolution “that a committee of three (two of whom to be members of congress) to be appointed to proceed to Canada, there to pursue such instructions as shall be given them by congress.” The instructions given later directed the commissioners to represent to the Canadians in the strongest terms that it was the earnest desire of congress to adopt them as a side colony under the protection of the Union and to urge them to take a part in the contest then on, that the people should be guaranteed “the free and undisturbed exercise of their religion,” that the clergy should have the full, perfect and peaceable possession and enjoyment of all their estates and the entire ecclesiastical administration beyond an assurance of full religious liberty and civil privileges to every sect of Christians should be left in the hands of the good people of that province and such legislature as they should constitute. The commissioners started from New York on April 2d. They were men of mark—the great Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase of Maryland, and Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, described by John Adams as a “gentleman of independent fortune, perhaps the largest in America, one hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand pounds sterling, educated in some university in France, though a native of America, of great abilities and learning, complete master of the French language, a professor of the Roman Catholic religion, yet a warm, a firm, a zealous supporter of the rights of America in whose cause he has hazarded his all.” With the commissioners was adjoined John Carroll, the brother of Charles. He was a clever ecclesiastic, become through the suppression of the Society of Jesus, an ex-Jesuit who was afterwards to become the first archbishop of Baltimore. Much reliance was placed on his intermediary overtures to the Canadian clergy. On their arrival at St. John’s the commissioners felt their first check. They had carried no hard cash with them. They were brought up at once against the fundamental difficulty. In their letter to congress on May 1st the commissioners wrote, “It is impossible to give you a just idea of the lowness of continental credit here from the want of hard money and the prejudice it is to our affairs. Not the most trifling service can be purchased without an appearance of instant pay in silver or gold. The express we sent from St. John’s to inform the general of our arrival there and to request carriages for La Prairie, had to wait at the ferry till a friend, passing, changed a dollar for us into silver.” This friend, a Mr. McCartney, had also to pay for the calèches for La Prairie or they would have had to remain stranded.
They reached Montreal on April 27th and were received by Arnold with some ostentation at the Château, where guests among the French ladies were invited to meet them. That night after supper the commissioners lodged in Thomas Walker’s house.
Walker’s house was that originally built by Bécancourt, which became the depôt of the Compagnie des Indes. It passed finally into the McGill family. It stood immediately west of the Château de Ramezay. It was demolished in 1903.
With the commissioners there came about the same time the French printer, Fleury Mesplet. He was brought, along with his printing press, to spread campaign literature for the congress. His press was soon installed in the basement of the Château. It had been his press in Philadelphia from which the original proclamation of 1775 to the Canadians originated. He became the first printer of Montreal. The first book published by him is supposed to be “Réglement de la Confrèrie de l’Adoration Perpetuelle du Saint Sacrément et de la Bonne Mort, chez F. Mesplet et C. Berger, 1776.”[3] Another book bearing the same date, 1776, and published by Mesplet at Montreal, is “Jonathan et David, ou le Triomphe de L’Amitié,” tragedie en trois actes, representèe par les ecoliers de Montréal, a Montréal chez Fleury Mesplet et C. Berger, Imprimeurs et Libraires, 1776.
John Carroll early began to get in touch with the clergy, but he found an impenetrable barrier—the clergy had nothing to gain by swerving from their allegiance to England. What more than the Quebec act could the provincials give them? They feared the intolerance of the Americans. Had they not seen Wooster’s conduct? They were now offering religious freedom, but the clergy could not forget the letter addressed by congress to the British people in 1774, after the Quebec act, containing this significant sentence: “Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged your island in blood and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder and rebellion through every part of the world.”