rapids, and that the river was not navigable up to the lake. Colonel Enos, his second in command, after getting embarrassed in the windings of the Dead River, a branch of the Kennebec, gave up the enterprise in despair, and returned with one-third of the detachment to head-quarters at Cambridge.* Quitting the river, Arnold forced his way through swamps, forests, and savannahs-across a dismal wilderness as yet untrodden by the foot of the white man, and where for two-and-thirty long days he neither saw habitation, wigwam, nor any other sign of human life.t Owing to all these obstacles he did not reach the first Canadian settlements on the river Chaudière, which flows into the St. Lawrence nearly opposite to Quebec, until the 3rd of November, when he had divided among his men the last fragments of the provisions they

brought with them. He then divided his halffamished troops into separate companies, each of which ran on as fast as it could to obtain food, shelter, and rest, in the thinly inhabited part of the country near the mouth of the Chaudière. | Arnold rested for two or three days at a little village, in order to circulate his manifestoes, promises, and friendly assurances among the Canadians, and to allow his rear and stragglers to come up; and it was not until the 9th of November that he reached Point Levi, on the right bank of the St. Lawrence, and immediately opposite to the town of Quebec. It has been conjectured that, if he could have crossed the broad deep river at once, he might have obtained easy possession of the panicstricken capital of Canada; but it blew a gale of wind; he could procure no proper boats, and he was detained on the right bank, within sight of the walls and towers of Quebec, during five anxious days. This check, owing to the elements rather than to any mortal agency, allowed time to Colonel Maclean and his brave Highlanders, who had been falling back from the Sorel, to get into the menaced city. Some small armed vessels were also brought to anchor in front of the town, and row boats filled with armed men were employed to ply about the river and watch the Americans on the opposite bank. Yet on the 14th, at the dead of night, the hurricane having abated, Arnold embarked his men in canoes, which had been col

For this conduct Enos was put under arrest and brought to trial before Washingtou and a court-martial. But he was honourably ac. quitted, on the evidence given that he had found it absolutely impracticable to obtain provisions to keep his troops from perishing of hunger.-Marshall's Life of Washington.

+ Montgomery had none of these physical difficulties to contend with: instead of ascending an unknown river, he descended a comparatively small stream, the perfectly known Sorel, or Richelieu. The wild and immense country through which Arnold forced his way-a country very nearly as large as the whole of Ireland-has since been claimed by the Americans, and forms the state of Maine, the most northern of the United States. Thriving towns-Portland, Arundel, Wells, York, Brunswick, Kennebec, Lubec, Paris, Berwick, and several others have risen up in the desert with wonderful rapidity; but a large part of the country is still overrun with dense forests and wilds which can scarcely be said to have ever been exploded or surveyed. The whole of the cultivated land does not Occupy a twentieth part of the surface.-Penny Cyclopædia, Art. Maine.

lected, and, ascending the stream, and eluding the vigilance of the English ships and boats, he crossed the St. Lawrence, and landed without being discovered about a mile and a half above the spot where the gallant Wolfe had disembarked in circumstances equally desperate. It is quite clear that he must have been greatly indebted either to the negligence or to the stupidity of his opponents. Finding the rugged cliffs above his landing-place inaccessible, Arnold marched down the shore to Wolfe's Cove, and with his followers climbed the very same precipice which the English hero had ascended. Like Wolfe, too, Arnold formed his men on the Heights of Abraham. They were nearly all armed with rifles, but artillery they had none. It is said, however, that Arnold, counting on friendly assistance within the walls of Quebec, proposed making a rush to the gates before the dawn of day; and that this plan was overruled by his followers. Before the sun rose he marched his men to a greater distance from the town, and paraded them along the heights so as to make their number appear greater than it really was. the Highlanders discovered them, they proposed to march out with some Canadians and English veterans, and attack them; but Colonel Maclean wisely kept his little force within the town. Arnold then sent two flags, to use bold language with the colonel in summoning him to surrender the place, and gentle language with the townspeople, in order to induce them to open the gates; but old Maclean refused to receive his flags, and fired on those who bore them. At the same time the veteran Scot armed a considerable number of the respectable townspeople, who seemed determined to fight for

When

their houses and their property; and he brought up some sailors and placed them on the batteries. There were thus as many men under arms within Quebec as Arnold could count in his whole army. Siege and assault were therefore hopeless, and he retired to Point Aux Trembles, twenty miles above Quebec, to await there the arrival of Montgomery. He had spent the thousand pounds, and his people now helped themselves to what they could get without paying the Canadians for it a little fact which went to destroy the last hope of any sympathy or co-operation from the country people. At Point Aux Trembles Arnold was very near taking prisoner General Carleton and his staff, who had only quitted that place a few hours before the arrival of the Americans.* But Carleton, having escaped this danger, got into Quebec before Montgomery reached Point Aux Trembles from Montreal, and set instantly about making every possible preparation for a vigorous defence. When the two American corps joined, their united numbers did not exceed eleven, or at the most twelve, hundred men; but Montgomery had brought a little artillery with him from Montreal; and now he and Arnold marched together to lay immediate siege to Quebec. On or about the 20th of December they opened a six-gun battery within seven hundred yards of the walls; but their artillery was too light to make a breach-their heaviest guns were only twelve-pounders; and all the six were soon dismounted by the town-guns fired by the seamen under the direction of Colonel Maclean,

Some three months before this General Carleton and his aidede-camp, Lord Pitt, were within a quarter of an hour of falling into the hands of one 'eremiah Duggan, formerly a barber, but now a major in the provincials!

who continued to behave with indefatigable dili- | gence, ability, and intrepidity. He was, in fact, the good genius of our arms in Canada. The Americans removed their guns to a safer distance, and continued their ineffectual fire, with the hope of amusing the garrison and concealing their design of making an assault in another direction. Montgomery and Arnold were obliged not only to consult their officers individually, but also to reason with their men, in order to make them consent to this very desperate enterprise. Many of the New Englanders thought the scheme too dangerous, and were against taking any part in it, until their imaginations were captivated and heated by the prospect held out to them of plundering Quebec, in which they knew a very large amount of property was collected.* The men then agreed to do what their officers wished; and without their consent there would have been no doing anything, for these early American armies paid little respect to the will of their commanders. On the last day of the year, between four and five o'clock in the morning, and in the midst of a violent storm of wind and snow, they divided themselves into four small columns, and, while two of them, under Major Livingston and Major Brown, were to make two feigned attacks upon the upper town, at St. John's and Cape Diamond, the other two, led by Montgomery and Arnold, were to make real attacks on opposite sides of the lower town, in which all the wealth of Quebec was deposited. Montgomery, descending to the bed of the St. Lawrence, advanced by the way of Anse de Mer, along a strip of beach, under Cape Diamond. Here he had to encounter a block-house and piquet, and a little farther on, at a place called the Pot Ash, a small battery; but the Canadians at the block-house, after giving a random fire, fled back to the battery; and for some minutes the battery itself was abandoned. But Montgomery's march was impeded by enormous and rugged masses of ice which had been piled on each other, and, while his people were slipping and sliding, crawling and falling among the ice, some Highlanders and English sailors came down to the battery, and stood firm and ready to receive the Americans, who, after falling over the ice-heaps, had to advance in a long thin line. Captain Bairnsfeather, the master of a British transport, took a slow match and stood by a well charged gun until the American front was within thirty or forty paces of the battery;-he then gave fire-and one fire was enough! The gallant Montgomery, Captain Macpherson his aide

As if unwilling to accuse virtuous and devout citizens, who took forts in the name of the Great Jehovah, of such profane soldier vices as sacking and plundering, the American writers generally make use of a little circumlocution to colour the fact. The following specimen is amusing:-"The proposition was at first received coldly by a part of Arnold's corps, who were, by some means, disgusted with their commanding officer; but the influence of Morgan, who was particularly zealous for an assault, and who held up, as a powerful inducement, the rights conferred by the usages of war on those who storm a fortified town, at length prevailed; and the measure was almost unanimously approved."-Marshall, Life of Washington. It does not appear to be proved that either officers or men were disgusted with Arnold. His keeping the army together for months, after their failure and the death of Montgomery, seems to be a proof to the contrary.

de-camp, Captain Cheeseman, an orderly serjeant, and a private, fell dead upon the spot, and all the rest of the column instantly ran back over the ice along the beach and up the cliffs. In the mean time Arnold was proceeding along the narrow street of the Faubourg St. Roque towards the Saut de Matelot, where there was a strong barrier with a battery of two twelve-pounders. As brave as Montgomery, Arnold led the van, and was followed by Captain Lamb, with his company of artillery and a field piece mounted on a sledge. Morgan's riflemen came next, and then the main body-all moving rapidly and silently through the thick still snow that fell upon them and hung upon them like a winding-sheet. They had not gone far when they were saluted by a smart flank fire of musketry. Arnold was hit in the leg, had the bone shattered, and was carried off the field to the rear in anguish. Morgan rushed forward to the battery. The Canadians posted there fled after firing the two cannons, and a handful of English seamen staid to be all either killed or wounded. Morgan and his men thus carried the first barrier, but there was a second barrier only forty paces from them, though concealed from their immediate view by an angle of the street. Waiting until the whole of the very small main body came up, Morgan then pushed forward for this second barrier, which the Americans attempted to scale by means of some ladders they had brought with them; but two or three guns in battery and loaded with grape-shot met them in the teeth, and a fire of musketry was opened on both their flanks ;they reeled back, marking their path with blood, and threw themselves into some stone houses in the suburb of St. Roque. They had not been there long when day dawned, and discovered a force so placed as to render their retreat to the rest of the American army as impracticable as their advance into the town.* It is said that Morgan talked of the probability of Montgomery's success, and then of cutting his way through the forces gathering in his rear; but the certain end of all was, that he and his people, to the number of 340, surrendered themselves prisoners of war. Between sixty and seventy Americans fell in this daring attempt; but the loss most generally deplored was that of the handsome, gallant Montgomery. The day after the fatal attack his body was found torn by three mortal wounds. By the order of General Carleton, it was interred with the honours due to an officer of rank, and congress afterwards ordered a monument to be erected to his memory.† The remainder of the American army retired three or four miles from Quebec, and encamped in the best manner

It is to be understood that the most the Americans expected in these night assaults was to carry the lower town, where the wealth lay: the upper town was defended by works they could not venture to attack with the means at their disposal.

† Richard Montgomery was not, by birth, an American. He was born of a good family, in the north of Ireland, had borne the king's commission in the last war, and had served with some distinction against the French in Canada. After the peace he purchased an estate in the colony of New York, and married an American lady, the daughter of Livingstone, who became one of the leaders of the revolution.

they could behind the Heights of Abraham, with the intention of distressing the garrison by cutting off supplies and ingratiating themselves with the Canadians. Carleton and Maclean were soon strong enough to have driven them beyond the St. Lawrence; but they preferred waiting until spring should open the navigation of that river, and bring such a force as would enable them to act continuously and extensively on the offensive. Arnold, though suffering severely from his wound, and though abandoned by many of his men, who deserted to their homes, retained his courage and activity, and must have exercised considerable genius or address to maintain himself in that isolated position, as he did for four long wintry months. This remarkable campaign in the great basin of the St. Lawrence had cost the British, after all, but few men, and had given them the comfortable assurance, that, if the Canadians could not be universally depended upon in the field, they were little disposed to fraternise with the New Englanders and Connecticut men, and not at all prepared to risk life and property by making common cause with the colonies. Nor was it to any purpose that congress, during the winter, sent Franklin's son, two other commissioners, and a newspaper press, to inflame the minds of the Canadians against the British government."

In the great southern state of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, the governor, had made a determined but ineffectual struggle in support of the authority of the mother country. Knowing that it was about to be employed against him, his lordship seized all the gunpowder in the magazine at Williamsburgh, and put it on board an armed schooner, then lying in James's River. The corporation of Williamsburgh demanded the powder back, which was about as reasonable as asking the governor to shoot himself. Patrick Henry, the orator, encouraged by the news of the first affair at Lexington, excited the young Virginians to fly to arms, and he put himself at the head of some volunteers, and was on his march to recover the powder by force, when he was stopped by some of the delegates to the general congress, who advised him to be satisfied with sum of money which was offered in lieu of the powder by the king's receiver general.† In spite

Stedman.-Gordon.-Ann. Reg.-Letters and Papers in Almon's Remembrancer.-Marshal's Life of Washington.-Carlo Botta, Storia della Guerra Americana.

According to the American orator's very enthusiastic biographer, "this powder was a minor object in his esteem. What he deemed of much higher importance was, that that blow which must be struck sooner or later should be struck at once, before an overwhelming force should enter the colony; that that habitual deference and subjection to the governor as the representative of royalty, which bound the people's spirits in a kind of torpid spell, should be dissolved and dissipated; that the military resources of the country should be developed; that the people might see and feel their strength by being brought out together; that the revolution should be set in actual motion in the colony; that the martial prowess of the country should be awakened, and the soldiery animated by that proud and resolute confidence which a successful enterprise in the commencement of a contest never fails to inspire. These sentiments were then avowed by him to confidential friends; to whom he further declared that he considered the outrage on the powder-magazine as a most fortunate circumstance, and as one which would rouse the people from north to south. You may in vain talk to them,' said he, about the duties on tea, &c. These things will not affect them. They depend on principles too abstracted for their apprehension and feeling! But tell them of the robbery of the magazine, and that the next step will be to disarm

of this arrangement, some young men on the night of the 5th of June attempted to break open a magazine of arms and powder, and two of them were wounded-according to a Virginian writer, by a concealed spring gun, placed there by order of the governor. A few days after his lordship was compelled to deliver up all the arms and powder that had been left on shore, and to retreat in the middle of the night, with his family, to the Fowey man-of-war then lying at York. A series of irritating messages and letters then passed between his lordship, who declared that his life was not safe among them, and the burgesses, who declared that he had nothing to fear. But the animosities of the Virginia planters had long been carried to the height of a frenzy against Dunmore on two especial accounts, besides the affair of the gunpowder. In letters which had been laid before the English parliament, and published to the whole world, he had represented the planters as ambitious, selfish men, pursuing their own interests and advancement at the expense of their poorer countrymen, and as being ready to make every sacrifice of honesty and principle;* and he had said more privately that, since they were so anxious for liberty-for more freedom than was consistent with the free institutions of the mother country and the charter of the colony-that since they were so eager to abolish a fanciful slavery in a dependence on Great Britain, he would try how they liked an abolition of real slavery by setting free all their negroes and indentured servants, who were in fact little better than white slaves. This,

to the Virginians, was like passing a rasp over a gangrened place; it was probing a wound that was incurable, or which has not yet been healed. Later in the year, when the battle of Bunker's Hill had been fought, when our forts on Lake Champlain had been taken from us, and when Montgomery and Arnold were pressing on our possessions in Canada, Lord Dunmore carried his threat into execution. Having established his head-quarters at Norfolk, he proclaimed freedom to all the slaves who would repair to his standard and bear arms for the king. The summons was readily obeyed by most of the negroes who had the

them, you bring the subject home to their bosoms, and they will be ready to fly to arms to defend themselves."-Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry; by William Wirt, of Richmond, Virginia. Philadelphia, 1818. And yet this Patrick Henry, who was so eager that "the revolution should be set in actual motion," was a member of the provincial assembly which declared immediately after that they did and would bear faith and true allegiance to their most gracious sovereign George III., their only lawful and rightful king; was a member of the general congress, and set his name to their second petition to the king, in which they solemnly denied all revolutionary intentions!

The following passages in Lord Dunmore's letters stung the Virginians to the quick :-"The true cause of so many persons join. ing in the opprobrious (measures was to engage their English creditors, who are numerous, to join in the clamours of this country; and not a few to avoid paying the debts in which many of the principal people here are much involved. . . As to manufacturing for themselves, the people of Virginia are very far from being naturally industrious; and it is not by taking away the principal, if not the sole, encouragement to industry, that it can be excited; nor is it in times of anarchy and confusion that the foundation of such improvements can be laid. The lower class of people too well discover that they have been duped by the richer sort, who, for their part, elude the whole effects of the (non-trading) association, by which their poor neighbours perish."-Parliamentary Register.-Almon, Remen

brancer.

means of escaping to him. He, at the same time, issued a proclamation,* declaring martial law throughout the colony of Virginia; and he collected a number of armed vessels, which cut off the coasting-trade, made many prizes, and greatly distressed an important part of that province. If he could have opened a road to the slaves in the interior of the province, his measures would have been very fatal to the planters. In order to stop the alarming desertion of the negroes, and to arrest his lordship in his career, the provincial assembly detached against him a strong force of more than a thousand men, who arrived in the neighbourhood of Norfolk in the month of December. Having made a circuit they came to a village called Great Bridge, where the river Elizabeth was traversed by a bridge. But before their arrival the bridge had been made impassable, and some works, defended chiefly by negroes, had been thrown up. The Virginians, therefore, entrenched themselves on the opposite side of the river, in the expectation that their opponents would soon be obliged to retire. Lord Dunmore rather rashly attempted to dislodge them from their entrenchments, and he detached from Norfolk, at midnight, Captain Fordyce of the 14th regiment, with about 120 men, black and white. That brave officer arrived at Great Bridge before daybreak, caused the planks of the bridge to be replaced as speedily and silently as possible, and as day dawned he crossed the bridge and pushed along the causeway, which extended across a swamp to a gentle eminence on which were the enemy's entrenchments; but the secret of his coming had been betrayed, the Virginians were on the alert, and when he got near the works he was saluted by a triple fire in front, and on both his flanks. Fordyce fell dead within a few feet of the breastwork, thirty more fell killed or wounded, and the rest of the detachment ran back along the causeway and across the bridge. On the night following this encounter, the English -scarcely a handful of men-abandoned all their posts between the Elizabeth and the town of Norfolk; and on the next day, when the Americans crossed the river and advanced, Lord Dunmore, with such of the inhabitants as were attached to the king's cause, and with some of the negroes who had committed themselves by obeying the proclamation, retired on board ship. The Virginians then took possession of the town; but Lord Dunmore set fire to the wharfs, and the flames spreading, the prosperous town of Norfolk, one of the most flourishing places on the Chesapeake, was soon reduced to ashes. Lord Dunmore lingered in the river or on the coast till the following summer, when, unable any longer to obtain provisions, he set sail with his flotilla and joined the main body of the English army. As long as his flag remained in sight, many of the Virginians, averse to the revolution, or to its leaders, indulged the hope that the cause

For some time the Virginians had been issuing counter-procla mations, putting-instead of the concluding formula, "God save the king"-" GOD SAVE THE LIBERTIES OF AMERICA."

+ Stedman.-Gordon.-Ann. Reg.-Tucker, Life of Jefferson. VOL. I.

of government might prevail; and, when he departed by water, many others prepared to follow him by land, conscious that there was no safety for men of their political principles. As the mournful story is generally told by historians, there were only two parties contending-the king's troops and officers on one side, and all the Americans on the other; but the truth is, that in every one of the colonies there was a third class, consisting of men, as a body at least as respectable as the revolutionists, who wished to preserve at all hazards the connexion with the mother country; and there was also a fourth class, for a long time as numerous as any in America, who wished, above all things, for peace and tranquillity, and who, for the most part, were fully determined to side neither with king nor congress till they should see which proved the stronger. The men of movement, energy, and passion had of course the advantage of this latter class, as a body in motion has always more force than one at rest; and bitterly did the waiters upon events pay for their neutrality. In many places their houses, like those of the professed royalists, were burnt to the ground, their estates destroyed, and their persons kept in constant jeopardy.

In the mean while Dr. Franklin had arrived at Philadelphia from England, and congress, though still delaying their proclamation of absolute independence, had been pursuing a course which no longer left their intentions doubtful to any man. They had been in session from the 10th of May, with John Hancock, the owner of the " Liberty' sloop, for their president; they had formed the plan of a confederation and perpetual union, the chief articles of which were:-1. That the name of the confederacy should henceforth be, the UNITED COLONIES OF NORTH AMERICA. 2. That they bound themselves and their posterity for their common defence against their enemies, the security of their liberties, their mutual and general welfare, &c. 3. That each colony should enjoy and retain as much as it might think fit of its own present laws, customs, rights, privileges, and peculiar jurisdiction, within its own limits; and might amend its own constitution as should seem best to its own assembly or convention. 4. That, for the management of general interests, delegates should be elected annually in each colony, to meet in general congress; and that, where particular circumstances should not make a deviation necessary, it was to be understood as a rule that each succeeding congress should be held in a different colony, till the whole number should be gone through, and so in perpetual rotation; and that, accordingly, the next congress after the present should be held at Annapolis in Maryland. 5. That the power of the congress should extend to the determining on war and peace, the entering into alliances, the reconciliation with Great Britain, the

The doctor, after putting into the hands of Lord Dartmouth his protest against all the measures adopted by ministry and the British parliament, left England towards the end of April. During his voy. age his active mind employed itself in making experiments and observations on the waters of the ocean, in order to ascertain the limits of the Gulf-stream-a great desideratum to mariners.

2 G