CHAPTER VII

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR OF 1775

MONTREAL THE SEAT OF DISCONTENT

THE QUEBEC ACT, A PRIMARY OCCASION OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION--MONTREAL BRITISH DISLOYAL--THE COFFEE HOUSE MEETING--WALKER AGAIN--MONTREAL DISAFFECTS QUEBEC--LOYALTY OF HABITANTS AND SAVAGES UNDERMINED--NOBLESSE, GENTRY AND CLERGY LOYAL--KING GEORGE’S BUST DESECRATED--“DELENDA EST CANADA”--“THE FOURTEENTH COLONY”--BENEDICT ARNOLD AND ETHAN ALLEN--BINDON’S TREACHERY--CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS FEEBLY ANSWERED--MILITIA CALLED OUT--LANDING OF THE REBELS--ENGLISH OFFICIAL APATHY--MONTREAL’S PART IN THE DEFENCE OF CANADA--THE FIRST SOLELY FRENCH-CANADIAN COMPANY OF MILITIA--NOTE: THE MILITIA.

The Quebec act, which was hailed by the leaders of the French-Canadians as their Magna Charta, was received with execration in England and America. On the day of the prorogation of Parliament, June 22d, the mayor of London, attended by the recorder, several aldermen and 150 of the common council, went to St. James with a petition to the king to withhold his assent from the bill. The lord chamberlain receiving them, told them that it was too late, that the king was then on the point of going to parliament to give his consent to a bill agreed on by both houses of parliament and that they must not expect an answer. Among other objections this petition claimed: “that the Roman Catholic religion which is known to be idolatrous and bloody is established by this bill and no legal provision is made for the free exercise of our reformed faith nor the security of our Protestant fellow subjects of the church of England in the true worship of Almighty God according to their consciences.”

In the American colonies the Quebec act largely precipitated the American Revolution then being concocted. Strong protest was made, as for example, that shown by the delegates of Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, in the address to the people of England; “By another act the Dominion of Canada is to be so extended, modeled and governed as that by being disunited from us, detached from our interests by civil as well as by religious prejudices, that by their numbers, swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by their devotion to administration so friendly to their religion, they might become formidable to us, and on occasion be fit instruments in the hands of power to reduce the ancient free Protestant colonies to the same state of slavery as themselves.” Again speaking of the Quebec Act, it adds “Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion which has deluged your Island in blood and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder and rebellion through every part of the world.” The Quebec act added fuel to the fire of discontent and the people were ready for war if the Congress said so. The congress of Philadelphia at the same time published a long, bombastic and revolutionary address signed by Henry Middleton, president.

“To the inhabitants of the province of Quebec.”

“We do not ask you to commence hostilities against the government of our common sovereign but we submit it to your consideration whether it may not be expedient to you to meet together in your several towns and districts and elect deputies who after meeting in a provincial congress may chose delegates to represent your province in the continental congress to be held at Philadelphia on the 10th of May, 1775.” An unanimous vote had been resolved “That you should be invited to accede to our federation.” It is interesting to note that, forgetful of the previous letter to the British parliament breathing religious intolerance just referred to, the artful Americans now used also the following _argumentum ad hominem_: “We are too well acquainted with the liberality of sentiment distinguishing your nation to imagine that difference of religion will prejudice you against a hearty amity with us. You know that the transcendent nature of freedom, elevates those who unite in the cause above all such low-minded infirmities.”

This was printed for wide circulation in Canada and the question of sending the delegates was eagerly discussed in Montreal’s affected circles.

The Quebec act was one of the causes of grievance which led to the American Revolution; it was one of the acts of tyranny specified in the Declaration of Independence, “For abolishing the free system of English law in a neighbouring province (Canada), establishing therein an arbitrary government and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rules into these colonies.”

But how was the bill received in Montreal? Truth to tell, Montreal was the seat of discontent in Canada. Its infection was carried to Quebec. Sir Guy Carleton, who shortly after the passage of the Quebec bill left England with his young wife,[1] the Lady Maria Howard, the third daughter of Thomas, the second Earl of Effingham, to resume his office as governor general, tells how the trouble started at Montreal in his letter to Dartmouth, dated Quebec, 11th of November, 1774. We are there informed that at Quebec there were addresses of loyal acceptation of the situation. “I believe,” wrote Carleton, “that most of them who signed this address were disposed to act up to their declaration, which probably would have been followed by those who did not, if their brethren at Montreal had not adopted very different measures. Whether the minds of the latter are of a more turbulent turn or that they caught the fire from some colonists settled among them, or in reality letters were received from the general congress, as reported, I know not; certain it is, however, that shortly after the said congress had published in all the American papers their approbation of the Suffolk County Resolves[2] in the Massachusetts Assembly, a report was spread at Montreal that letters of importance had been received from the general congress and all the British there flocked to the coffee house to hear the news. Grievances were publicly talked of and various ways for obtaining redress proposed, but that the government might not come to a true knowledge of their intentions a meeting was appointed at the house of a person then absent, followed by several others at the same place and a committee of four named, consisting of Mr. Walker, Mr. Todd, Mr. Price and Mr. Blake, to take care of their interests and prepare plans of redress. Mr. Walker now takes the lead. * * * Their plans being prepared and a subscription commenced, the committee set out for Quebec, attended in form by their secretary, a nephew of Mr. Walker and by profession a lawyer.”

Carleton proceeds to describe how the Montreal emissaries worked up the Quebecers[3] through several “town meetings” to join in petitions, for a repeal of the Quebec act, which were sent to “His Majesty, to the Lords spiritual and temporal, to the Honourable, the Commons.” The chief grievances were that they had lost the protection of the English laws and had thrust on them the laws of Canada which are ruinous to their properties as thereby they lose the invaluable privilege of trial by juries; that in matters of a criminal nature the habeas corpus act is dissolved and they are subjected to arbitrary fines and imprisonment at the will of the governor and council. Masères was entrusted with the promotion of their cause. The petitions were signed on November 12th. In February secret agents from congress were in Montreal to see if an aggressive policy could be safely pursued.

The majority of the English population was on the side of the discontented provinces. The French-Canadian _habitants_ were encouraged to remain neutral, being plied with specious arguments to undermine their loyalty to the king. They were told that they had nothing to lose from the government by this position and everything to gain from the congress faction who threatened reprisals if they became actively opposed to them. But the noblesse, the gentry and the clergy were against the congress, for the Quebec act had guaranteed them the securities for the rights they most valued; they knew that there was little to hope for from the Americans. The Quebec act came into operation on May 1st and an instance of the unsettled state of men’s minds in Montreal is remembered by the incident of the desecration of the king’s bust on this day. It was discovered daubed with black and decorated with a necklace of potatoes, and a cross attached with the words “voila le pape du Canada et le sot Anglais.”[4] Kingsford, following Sanguinet, says that the perpetrator of the foolish insult, for such it was intended to be, was never discovered. The act was regarded as insolent and disloyal and it caused great excitement. A public meeting was called at which 100 guineas were subscribed to discover the perpetrators. The company of grenadiers of the Twenty-Six made a proclamation by beat of drum offering a reward of $200 and a free pardon excepting the person who had disfigured it to any one giving information which would lead to the discovery of the offenders. The principal French-Canadians were greatly annoyed at this proceeding, the words being in French. It was claimed, however, that they were written by an English speaking revolutionist.

On April 19th the affair at Lexington, the commencement of a civil revolution, took place and rapidly the news of it spread. Montreal was well posted. The leaders of the provincial sympathizers here reported to the leaders of congress the easy fall of Canada to the insurgents. Canada was more feverishly coveted at this time than ever. In 1712 Dummers had written: “I am sure it has been the cry of the whole country ever since Canada was delivered up to the French,--Canada est delenda.” In 1756 Governor Livingston of New Jersey had cried: “Canada must be demolished--Delenda est Carthago,--or we are undone.” And now Canada was desired as the “fourteenth colony.”

In Montreal those who had received in the coffee house John Brown, John Adams’ ambassador, were still keeping up communications led by Thomas Walker, Price and others. At last the Congressists thought the conquest was being made, relying on the presumed neutrality of the Canadians. Ticonderoga had fallen in the beginning of May to the revolutionary party under Ethan Allen’s self-constituted forces. The road to Canada was being cleared. Benedict Arnold, sailing from Ticonderoga, had arrived unexpectedly on the morning of the 18th of May at Fort St. John’s and captured the small war sloop there and took prisoners the sergeant and ten men in charge of the military garrison. A second landing was made by Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys at St. John’s on the 18th and 19th with a party said to be three hundred strong, as Carleton was informed at Quebec. There was great consternation in Montreal when the news of the seizure of Ticonderoga and Crown Point and the first capture of St. John’s was brought by Moses Hazen,[5] a merchant of Montreal now living near St. John’s. The military was immediately put in motion by Colonel Templer who dispatched Colonel Preston with a regiment of one hundred men of the Twenty-sixth and this would have cut off Allen’s descent up the lake with his bateaux had not Bindon, a friendly Montreal merchant, hurried on horseback from Longueuil to St. John’s to apprize Allen of the approach of the party from Montreal.[6]

Allen before embarking gave a letter to this same Bindon addressed to one Morrison and the British merchants at Montreal, lovers of liberty, demanding a supply of provisions, ammunition and spirituous liquors which some of them were inclined enough to furnish had they not been prevented. (Carleton to Dartmouth, June 7, 1775, from Montreal.) Bindon in returning to Montreal fell across Colonel Preston who would have detained him but he rode off and, crossing the St. Lawrence, found his way to Montreal with his letters. On arriving he added to the excitement of Montreal--it being market day--by reporting that Preston’s detachment had been defeated. Colonel Templer called a meeting of the citizens for 3 o’clock at the Récollet church to consider the situation. It was numerously attended and it was resolved to take arms for the common defense. During the proceedings Templer received a letter from Preston detailing Bindon’s reprehensible conduct. Bindon was himself present and turned pale as the facts were read. The meeting was adjourned until 10 o’clock next morning when it was held on St. Anne’s common. Templer proposed that the inhabitants should form themselves into companies of thirty and elect their officers. Several well known citizens were chosen to make the roll of those willing to serve.[7] They were of the old Canadian families known for their loyalty. Preston’s detachment returned to Montreal, the men greatly infuriated against Bindon. They had learned that it was from no fault of his they had not been intercepted in the woods and shot down. So soon as they were dismissed for parade they went in search of him. When he was found the men forcibly led him to the pillory with the intention of hanging him, but they were without a ladder and the officers rescued Bindon before one could be obtained. But he was arrested and carried before the magistrates, when he pleaded guilty to imprudence but protested his innocence. To save his character he played the part of a loyalist and took service in the force organized for defense. The action of the troops with regard to Bindon was the occasion of a public meeting called by the party for congress.

Meanwhile a call for volunteers was met by an insignificant enrollment of fifty Canadians who set out for St. John’s under Lieutenant McKay, to remain there until relieved by the Twenty-sixth regiment. Carleton moved the troops from Quebec thither, also. The few troops at Three Rivers were also sent; the garrison of Montreal as well. Carleton arrived at Montreal on May 26th. He found how poorly the French-Canadians had responded to the call to organize themselves into companies. In St. Lawrence suburb the commissioners sent to enroll volunteers had been met by the women with threats of stoning. The loyalty of the French-Canadians had been sorely tampered with. There is not a family resemblance between the letters written by Carleton about the quality of their obedience, before the Quebec act and after. On June 7, 1775, Carleton wrote from Montreal to Dartmouth gloomily reviewing the situation and telling of the preparations for the safety of St. John’s. “The little force we have in the Province was immediately set in Motion and ordered to assemble at or near St. John’s; the Noblesse of this Neighbourhood were called upon to collect their Inhabitants in order to defend themselves. The Savages of these parts likewise had the same orders but though the Gentlemen testified great Zeal, neither their Entreaties or their Example could prevail upon the People; a few of the Gentry consisting principally of the Youth residing in this place and its Neighbourhood, formed a small Corps of Volunteers under the Command of Mr. Samuel McKay and took post at St. John’s; the Indians showed as much Backwardness as the Canadian Peasantry. * * * Within these few Days the Canadians and Indians seemed to return a little to their senses, the Gentry and Clergy had been very useful on this occasion and shewn great Fidelity and Warmth for His Majesty’s Service, but both have lost much of their influence over the People. I proposed trying to form a Militia and if their minds are favourably disposed will raise a Battalion upon the same plan as the other Corps in America, as to Numbers and Experience, and were it established I think it might turn out a great public Utility; but I have my doubts as to whether I shall be able to succeed.

“These Measures that formerly would have been extremely popular require at present a great Degree of Caution and Circumspection; so much have the Minds of the People been tainted by the Cabals and Intrigues, I have from time to time given to your Lordship some information of. I am as yet uncertain whether I shall find it advisable to proceed in the forementioned Undertaking; to defame their King and treat with Insolence and Disrespect, upon all Occasions to speak with the utmost contempt of His Government, to forward Sedition and applaud Rebellion, seems to be what too many of his British-American Subjects in those parts think their undoubted Right.” (Constitutional Documents, 1760-1791, page 450.)

On the 9th of June, Carleton, by proclamation, authorized the calling out of the militia throughout the whole province according to the provisions of the old law, reinstating officers appointed by Murray, Gage and Burton. The movement was not popular even with the new subjects, uninfluenced by the discontent of the disloyalists who feared in the return of the old militia the exactions of the French régime. Chief Justice Hey, then in Montreal, prevailed upon some of the dissatisfied “old” but “loyal” subjects to enroll for good example, which done, they were joined by the French-Canadians so that a sufficient force was ready for a review before General Carleton.

The Indians of Caughnawaga at first hesitated in their loyalty, which had also been tampered with, but they were also brought to serve. At this time Colonel Johnson arrived in Montreal with 300 Indians of the six nations; a council of 600 Indians was held and all agreed to take the field in defense, but not to commence hostilities. The congressists had endeavoured to persuade them to neutrality and the leaven was still working.

July was drawing to a close. Carleton left Montreal by way of Longueuil to inspect the militia at Sorel and then proceeded to Quebec, where he arrived on August 2d, to make preparations for the establishment of the new Legislative Council. This met for the first time on August 17th but it was adjourned on September 7th on account of news of the congress troops again appearing on the Richelieu. The lieutenant governor, Cramahé, writing to Dartmouth from Quebec on September 21st, tells the circumstances how on the news of the rebel army approaching, Carleton set out for Montreal in great haste; that “on the 7th inst. the Rebels landed in the woods near St. John’s and were beat back to their Boats by a Party of Savages encamped at that Place. In this Action the Savages behaved with great Spirit and Resolution and had they remained firm to our Interests probably the Province would have been Saved for this Year, but finding the Canadians in General adverse to taking up Arms for the Defence of their Country, they withdrew and made their peace. After their Defeat the Rebels returned to the Isle aux Noix, where they continued till lately, sending out some Parties and many Emisaries to debauch the Minds of the Canadians and Indians.”

Cramahé adds that no means had been left untried to bring the Canadian peasantry to a sense of their duty and to engage them to take up arms in defense of the province but to no purpose. “The Justice must be done to the Gentry, Clergy and most of the Burgeoisie that they have shewn the Greatest Zeal and Fidelity to the King’s Service and Exerted their best Endeavours to reclaim their infatuated Countrymen. Some Troops and a Ship of War or two would, in all likelihood, have prevented this general Defection.”[8]

Chief Justice Hey, writing at the end of August to the Lord Chancellor, says in a postscript dated September 11th “that all there was to trust to was about five hundred men, two war boats at St. John’s and Chambly; that the situation is desperate and that Canada would shortly be in complete possession of the rebels.” In a further postscript of September 17th he adds that not one hundred Canadians, except in the towns of Quebec and Montreal, are with the king. He holds himself ready to return, to be of more use in England. Carleton, sick at heart with disappointment at the ingratitude of the Canadians who would not march to defend their own country, the uncertainty of the Indians, and the disloyalty of many of the old subjects, and crippled by an inadequate army which was nearly all enclosed in Forts Chambly and St. John’s, nevertheless determined to act boldly on the defensive until General Gage should send from Boston the two regiments earnestly asked for.

Canada was abandoned at this period by as criminal apathy and ignorance on the part of English officials, as it had been before by the French. As Cramahé had pointed out, some troops and a ship of war or two sent from England, or from Gage in America, would have saved Canada from the invasion of 1775.

The part that Montreal took in the defence of Canada must now be told. When the news of the rebels advancing on to St. John’s reached Montreal, Colonel Prescott, then in command, sent an order to the parishes around the city for fifteen men of each company of militia to join the force at St. John’s. Though no report came from without, the Montreal army men came forward to the number of 120 French and Canadians under the command of de Belestre and de Longueuil, many of the volunteers being young men of family and several being prosperous merchants, this being perhaps the first recorded separate unit composed solely of French-Canadians, ever raised as an arm of Imperial defence. The party for St. John’s departed on September 7th. The loyal British volunteers remained to perform duty in Montreal. Time will discover who were truly loyal and who were not.

The Imperial forces in Canada were now represented by the two companies in Montreal, eighty-two men at Chambly and the garrison of St. John’s, consisting of 505 men of all rank, of the Seventh Royal Fusiliers and the Twenty-sixth Regiment, thirty of the Royal Artillery, eight of Colonel McLean’s newly raised corps from Quebec and fifteen of the Royal Horse and 120 volunteers from Montreal--the whole making a total of 696 in the garrison, not counting some artificers.

Around St. John’s and in the district of the Richelieu the inhabitants were either neutral or, with the majority, actively espousing the congress party, some by taking to the field, others by supplying provisions, assisting in the transport of munitions of war and artillery and giving information.

Surely the _morale_ of the once loyal French-Canadian _habitants_ had been undermined effectively by Walker and other malcontents and had been recently further weakened by the manifesto of General Schuyler from the Isle aux Noix on September 15th to his “dear friends and compatriots, the habitants of Canada,” advising them to join him and escape the common slavery prepared for them. Montgomery’s scouting parties, out for supplies and information, did the rest. Of Richard Montgomery, Schuyler’s second in command, we shall hear more.

NOTE

THE MILITIA

The militia, which was called out for service in the field in 1775, 1776, 1812, 1814, 1837, 1839, with the exception of a few small independent corps, consisted of provisionally organized units armed and equipped from the magazines, the regular army, paid by the British government, drilled, disciplined and often commanded by regular officers. After the denudation of Canada of the regular troops at the time of the Crimean war, it became necessary for the colony to take more provisions for its own defence. In 1855 the military act (18 Victoria, Chapter 77), passed by the Upper Canada, for raising and maintaining at the colonial expense, created the nucleus of our present militia system. The “Trent” excitement of 1861-62 and the Fenian raids of 1867-70 further stimulated the movement. The first Dominion militia act (31 Victoria, Chapter 40) was passed in 1868. The present militia act (4 Edward VII, Chapter 23) received assent on August 15, 1904. According to this statute the militia is divided into active and reserve forces.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Carleton was then in his fiftieth year, his wife in her twenty-second. They were married on May 22, 1772.

[2] Adopted on September 9, 1774.

[3] The Montreal agitators were fiercer than those of Quebec. John McCord, of Quebec, wrote April 27, 1775, to Lieutenant Pettigrew, “I pray God to grant peace at any price; the blood of British subjects is very precious.” Walker, writing to Samuel Adams on April 7th, breathes fire: “Few in this colony dare vent their quip but groan in silence and dream of _Lettres de Cachets_, confiscations and improvements.” The colonists had declared they would fight for their rights and liberties while they had a drop of their blood left.

[4] “This is the pope of Canada and the fool of England.”

[5] Moses Hazen passed his boyhood at Haverhill, in Massachusetts. He served in the Louisberg expedition, rose to be a captain in the Rangers at the taking of Quebec and was remarked by General Wolfe as a good soldier. Later he obtained a lieutenant’s commission in the 44th Foot and soon after the conquest retired on half pay. We then find his name attached to petitions of the Montreal merchants. At this time he appears to have settled near St. John’s, carrying on not only large farming operations but owning sawmills, a potash house and a forge.

[6] When the Americans appeared there in arms he saw, doubtless, the losses war would bring him and he wished them elsewhere. For a time he “trimmed” successfully, but at last was held suspicious by both parties and was held prisoner by both.

[7] Dupuy-Desauniers, de Longueuil, Panet, St. George Dupré, Mesére, Sanguinet, Guy and Lemoine Despins. (See the Abbé Verreau’s valuable book “Invasion du Canada par les Americains.”)

[8] Constitutional Documents, page 435.