Canada Under Attack

by Jennifer Crump

  A French sentry challenged the boats and a fast thinking officer quickly answered him in French. When they were challenged again, the same officer told them to shut up or “you’ll give us away to the English.” As his boat bumped up against the shoreline, Wolfe leapt onto the beach, the first man to do so, and quietly ordered the men behind him to take the path to the guard post at the top of the cliff. Luck intervened there as well. The officer in charge of the sentries had let many of his men return home to help with the harvest. The remainder were quickly overwhelmed by the English soldiers, except one who escaped to sound the warning.

  Neither Montcalm nor de Rigaud believed the news when it was brought to them. The English could not possibly be launching an invasion now, and certainly not where the sentry claimed they had landed.

  As we came into la Canardière courtyard, a Canadian arrived from the post of Mr de Vergor, to whom the Anse-au-Foulon post had been entrusted truly at the worst of times. This Canadian told us with the validation of undisputed fear that he was the only one who had escaped and that the enemy was on top of the hills. We well knew about the difficulty of forcing our way through this place even when it was barely defended, so that we did not believe a word of the account of a man whose head, we thought, had been turned by fear.

  A Plan of Quebec City at the Time of the Siege, 1759.

  A sceptical Montcalm hurried to a vantage point overlooking the Plains of Abraham and saw hundreds of redcoats spilling over the edge of the cliffs and onto the flat, hard ground beyond the city.

  As Wolfe massed his troops at the edge of the Plains of Abraham, and handfuls of rangers captured surrounding houses, Montcalm considered his options. He could wait for reinforcements to arrive from Bougainville. He had barely 3,000 troops on hand, and most of those were militia. He could not strip the city of its defenders, but on the other hand there did not appear to be too many British soldiers. He also could not afford to wait. As he explained, “We cannot avoid the issue. The enemy is entrenched; he already has two pieces of cannon. If we give him the time to establish himself, we’ll never be able to attack him with the few troops we have. Is it possible that Bougainville doesn’t know this?”17 Unfortunately for Montcalm, the rough terrain hid many of the invaders. He made the call to advance immediately on the British. The difference between the two armies was never as obvious as it was on the Plains of Abraham. Montcalm’s inexperienced militia ran forward in a disorganized charge, shooting wildly. Few of their bullets found their intended targets. Wolfe’s experienced troops advanced slowly in a solid red line, holding their fire until they neared the French troops and then, in unison, they took careful aim and fired their weapons. The volley hit the French line like a devastating tidal wave. The French quickly broke ranks and began an equally disorganized retreat to the fort.

  Wolfe was in the midst of his men, urging them on. One of the first volleys launched by the French caught him in the wrist. Another caught him in the stomach, but he forced himself forward. Almost at the same time, Montcalm was struck in his side by a British musket and he was carried from the field. Wolfe, mortally wounded, finally fell to the ground. An aide tried to ease his pain by telling him of the battle’s progress. When the aide announced that the enemy was routed, Wolfe is said to have proclaimed, “[N]ow I can die in peace.” He rolled over on his side and died shortly thereafter. Montcalm would die the next day of the injuries he had sustained early in the battle.

  Within the city, other leaders met to discuss whether to defend or surrender. Montcalm’s aides urged them to fight on. They had nearly 13,000 men, a force far larger than that commanded by the British. But the city fathers and many of the officers had lost their general; they were sick of war and far less confident in the unseasoned troops. They decided to sue for peace. The siege of Quebec was over.

  CHAPTER FOUR:

  THE FOURTEENTH COLONY

  While Wolfe’s career ended on the Plains of Abraham, the career of one of his most trusted lieutenants began there. Guy Carleton had been the officer to whom Wolfe entrusted construction of the British batteries. When war once more brewed on the continent, Carleton would be the man who the British government allowed to control defences for Quebec. Other than two tiny islands at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, the French had abandoned the Canadian colonies. But the British and French were no longer the only ones interested in eastern Canada.

  For years the population of the 13 British colonies south of the St. Lawrence had separately brooded over taxation and attempts by the British to limit colonization of the North American west. In the spring of 1775, the brooding exploded into violent confrontation near the towns of Concord and Lexington. Those 13 colonies joined the battle to dislodge their British masters.

  They had once hoped to be 14.

  Quebec was just one of several colonies invited to join the Continental Congress in their fight against British tyranny in 1774, but it was considered the ideal prize. The hated Quebec Act had greatly enlarged Quebec’s borders and the colony encased the entire Ohio Valley, among other choice territories. The Americans labelled the act one of the Intolerable Acts and called for its immediate revocation by the British. The territorial slights were bad enough but the Canadians were also denied habeas corpus, trial by jury, and representative government under the act. Surely, the Americans reasoned, despite the grants of land, the French Canadians were as outraged by that as they were. It did not occur to the Americans that the French Canadians would not embrace the idea of ridding themselves of the British yoke. The Quebec Act had also guaranteed the French Canadians lan guage and religious freedoms. That alarmed the American leaders, though it must have reassured the Canadians.

  The delegates to the Congress drafted a letter and had it translated into French. Two thousand copies were printed and delivered to Canada. In the open letter to the citizens of Quebec, distributed on October 26, 1774, the Americans urged the Canadians to join their cause and become the 14th colony.

  Seize the opportunity presented to you by Providence itself. You have been conquered into liberty, if you act as you ought. This work is not of man. You are a small people, compared to those who with open arms invite you into a fellowship. A moment’s reflection should convince you which will be most for your interest and happiness, to have all the rest of North-America your unalterable friends, or your inveterate enemies. The injuries of Boston have roused and associated every colony, from Nova-Scotia to Georgia. Your province is the only link wanting, to compleat the bright and strong chain of union. Nature has joined your country to theirs. Do you join your political interests. For their own sakes, they never will desert or betray you. Be assured, that the happiness of a people inevitably depends on their liberty, and their spirit to assert it. The value and extent of the advantages tendered to you are immense.

  The colonies’ arguments seemed, to them at least, to be perfectly sound and logical. Quebec was joined to the American colonies by geography; it only made sense that the colonies forge political ties as well. To add more punch to their argument they pointed out that Quebec was much smaller and less populous than the rest of the colonies and therefore it would be in Quebeckers best interest to count the Americans as friends rather than enemies. What the Americans did not include in the letter was that they were equally perturbed by the clauses in the Act that ensured the preservation of the French language and gifted numerous rights to French Catholics and perks to the French Catholic clergy. A young Alexander Hamilton, who would later earn fame as one of the founding fathers of the United States, even penned a pamphlet in which he warned that another Inquisition was imminent and American heretics would soon be burning at the stake.

  When their first letter was ignored, the Americans sent another on May 29, 1775. That time they entreated the Canadians to join the cause, arguing quite eloquently that they considered the Canadians friends and disliked the idea of being forced to consider them enemies.

  In Canada, unsettled by events in the south, the British
governor, Sir Guy Carleton, called up the local militia. But having lent two regiments of regulars to the defence of Boston, he had just 800 men at his disposal to protect all of Quebec. He needed the militia but no one wanted to join. The habitants were annoyed that the power to tithe had been restored to the Catholic Church and the Seigneuries, and they were not about to risk their lives to protect them. They were also tired of war and of their farms and fields serving as battlegrounds for foreign troops. Both the British and the Americans had drastically misjudged the Canadians. They were not willing to join the revolution but they were not interested in actively resisting it either. “We have nothing to fear from them while we are in a state of prosperity,” Carleton wrote, “and nothing to hope for when in distress. I speak of the People at large; there are some among them who are guided by sentiments of honour, but the multitude are influenced by fears of gain, or fear of punishment.”1

  While Governor Carleton accepted that the French were allies of convenience only and could not be counted on to defend the country, the Americans refused to accept that the French would not eventually embrace their cause. Popular wisdom within Congress suggested that it was only a matter of time before the oppressed French joined with their American liberators. They just needed to be convinced that the Americans were serious. The way to do that, many suggested, was to invade the country. Once the Americans were at their door, the French would embrace them. Canada, George Washington firmly believed, was ripe for the taking. A young colonel by the name of Benedict Arnold was dispatched to open up the lightly defended route to Lake Champlain. He struck first at Ticonderoga (Fort Carillon), where they met a brief challenge from the single sentry and then roused the commander of the fort from his sleep so he could surrender. Less than 50 men defended Ticonderoga.

  Crown Point, the next fort in their path, was even more lightly defended: nine British soldiers guarded the fort. They wisely offered the Americans terms. Buoyed by his quick successes, Arnold ventured over the border to attack Fort St.-Jean. Lacking sufficient troops to hold the fort, he satisfied himself by burning a British ship and helping himself to some of the British stores.

  The road to Canada was wide open. Congress was finally ready to act and plans were laid for an invasion. It was to be a two-pronged attack. The first 2,000 man force would be lead by General Philip Schuyler and would use a route that would take the army across Lake Champlain and then up the Richelieu River to invade Montreal and then Quebec City. A second force of just over 1,500 men, commanded by Benedict Arnold, would launch from Boston and head directly to Quebec City.

  Benedict Arnold, American general, traitor, and would-be conqueror of Canada.

  Schuyler arrived at Ticonderoga in the middle of July and immediately began to train the inexperienced, undisciplined troops. By early September he finally felt they were ready and he led them along Lake Champlain to the tiny island of Île-aux-Noix in the Richelieu River. By the time the troops had arrived on the island, Schuyler was ill. Eventually he grew too ill to lead and ceded command to Brigadier-General Richard Montgomery, who launched a series of quick raids into Canada. The focus of the raids was the British controlled fort of St.-Jean.

  Fort St.-Jean had been on the alert since Arnold’s raid in May. Governor Carleton had dispatched 140 regulars, accompanied by 50 members of the Montreal militia. Additional troops of Native warriors were assigned to patrol around the fort. As the sole guard on the road to Montreal, Fort St.-Jean was a critical element in controlling the colony; Carleton was as determined to protect it as Montgomery was to conquer it. The first attempt by Montgomery, on September 7, failed miserably. Quebec newspapers reported that a mere 60 Native warriors had driven off nearly 1,500 American soldiers. Worse news awaited the Americans. An American sympathizer living near Fort St.-Jean, Moses Haven, arrived with the news that while the habitants were sympathetic to their cause, they had no intention of joining the Americans until there was clear evidence they would be victorious.

  Not all Canadians remained neutral. Mistreatment by the Americans encouraged some to actively support the British. Others, for various reasons, actively worked for the Americans. When war broke out, James Livingston, a resident of Montreal, recruited an army of men from Chambly, Quebec, to aid the Americans. He was eventually given commanded of that army, known as the First Canadian Regiment of the Continental Army.

  Montgomery decided they might have better luck with a night attack. Two days later he led a 1,000 strong force back up the river. While Montgomery and several other officers waited by the boats, his men scattered into the woods that lay between the river and the fort. In the confusion of the dark woods the Americans began to fire on one another, and they made a hasty retreat back to boats. A furious Montgomery sent them back out again, but this time the Americans met a small party of Native warriors and habitants. Once again the troops retreated to the boats. As their commanders met to discuss a new strategy, rumours spread that a British warship was on its way. This sparked a mass panic and the Americans fled back to Île-aux-Noix, almost leaving their commanders behind.

  Although their attempts to take the fort were unsuccessful the Americans surrounded it, essentially cutting it off from the rest of Quebec. The same sickness that had felled Schuyler, exacerbated by the damp swampy ground of the island, began infecting many of the American soldiers. To make matters worse, several days of stormy weather delayed the next attempt on Fort St.-Jean. The Americans had more luck on September 17, when they managed to capture a supply wagon headed toward the fort and drive back the Canadian militia that had ventured out to retrieve it.

  Despite their efforts, the Americans could not draw out the main force and the Canadians refused to surrender. But with hundreds of women and children inside, and food supplies running low, it was only a matter of time. Fort Chambly, to the east of Fort St.-Jean, had fallen on September 20. Montgomery dispatched Ethan Allen’s forces to guard the road to Montreal. Not content with simply enforcing the siege, Allen took his 250 men to the gates of Montreal. There they engaged with a smaller Canadian and Native force before breaking ranks and retreating back toward Fort St.-Jean. Carleton bolstered the troops and gathered 2,000 Canadian militiamen to defend Montreal. But when the siege dragged on and no orders were given to relieve them, the men drifted back to their homes and farms for the fall harvest. The Americans continued to tighten their hold and finally, on November 3, as an early fall snow storm set in, Fort St.-Jean capitulated

  Ethan Allen

  Ethan Allen, a businessman, farmer, and experienced guerrilla leader, was best known as the leader of the Green Mountain Boys, a fiercely independent paramilitary militia that had formed in southern Vermont in the decade before the Revolutionary War. By 1775, Allen and his “boys” were lending their substantial military experience to the war effort, and the revolutionary government turned to them to help with the capture of Ticonderoga.

  On November 17, Carleton arrived in Quebec City where he learned that a second force was headed toward him from Boston. Montgomery arrived two weeks later and set up camp outside the city. Once again the two generals had a common objective. Both felt that the city of Quebec was the key to controlling Canada. Despite the fact that his troops controlled every other major fort within Quebec and had overrun most of the colony, Montgomery refused to claim victory. “I need not tell you,” he wrote, “till Quebeck is taken, Canada is unconquered.”2 While Carleton believed that Quebec would be his last stand against the American invasion and that holding the city was crucial, he was less convinced that he would be successful. He mistrusted the citizenry. “Could the people in the town be depended upon,” Carleton wrote to Lord Dartmouth. “I should flatter myself, we might hold out…. But, we have as many enemies within, and a foolish people, dupes to those traitors, with the natural fears of men unused to war, I think our fate extremely doubtful, to say nothing worse.”3

  His distrust of the populace led Carleton to issue a proclamation shortly after his arrival in Quebec City, �
��In order to rid the town of all useless, disloyal and treacherous persons … I do hereby strictly order all persons who have refused to enrol their names in the militia lists and to take up arms to quit the town in four days together with their wives and children under pain of being treated as rebels or spies.”4

  But the people of Quebec were not as sympathetic toward the American cause as Carleton feared. They might be opportunistic — many had sold the American Army beef and other goods during their occupation of Canada — but as soon as the American’s cash ran out, the habitants refused them credit. And when the army retaliated by raiding farms and capturing supply wagons to take what they needed, they lost any Canadian sympathy they might have gained.

  When Montgomery arrived outside Quebec on November 17, 1775, he was met by a second American force. Benedict Arnold had finally arrived in Canada, but his force of 1,500 had been halved by disease and desertion. A dearth of supplies and the arduous journey they had undertaken to get to Quebec had destroyed the spirits of the remainder. This was not the quick thrust into Canada that George Washington had envisioned when he pitched his plan to congress,

  I am now to inform the Honourable Congress that, encouraged by the repeated declarations of the Canadians and Natives, and urged by their requests, I have detached Col. Arnold, with one thousand men, to penetrate into Canada by way of Kennebeck River, and, if possible, to make himself master of Quebeck … I made all possible inquiry as to the distance, the safety of the route, and the danger of the season being too far advanced, but found nothing in either to deter me from proceeding, more especially as it met with very general approbation from all whom I consulted upon it … For the satisfaction of the Congress, I here enclose a copy of the proposed route.5