A.D. 1775.] and eight. OPPOSITION TO MINISTERIAL MEASURES. In the house of lords, lord Rockingham moved a similar amendment, and a warm debate took place, presenting some startling features. Lord Dartmouth, the secretary for American affairs, admitted that the late campaign had been unsuccessful; and lord Gower attributed this to the delusive nature of the information regarding America which had hitherto been given to ministers. But the most startling thing was to see the duke of Grafton, who had originally been as active as any one in the ministry in prosecuting the quarrel, suddenly back out of it, and take the most determined stand against the war. In August Grafton had written to lord North, strongly urging the advisability of a reconciliation with America. Seven weeks he had waited in vain for a reply, and that only came in'closing the king's speech. Grafton immediately hastened up to town, and in an audience with the king, told him that he would discover too late, that his ministers were misleading him, and that he would find that twice the number of troops would only augment the disgrace, and never effect his purpose. This remonstrance having no effect, he immediately resigned the privy seal, and took his stand with the opposition, to the public astonishment, in favour of a full and immediate conciliation of the outraged colonists. Unfortunately for England, lord Chatham was again oppressed with his former malady, and could not take an active part in politics, nor did he recover fully from it till the spring of 1777. His powerful voice was therefore lost on this most important occasion, but his opinions were well known, and he had lately recovered himself sufficiently to show how strong that opinion was. His eldest son, lord Pitt, had been aide-de-camp to general Carleton in Canada, and this autumn was sent home with dispatches. Chatham now induced him to withdraw from the army rather than be employed against the Americans; and the earl of Effingham also resigned his commission on the same grounds. These circumstances added great force to the resignation of the duke of Grafton, and to his decided testimony to the impolicy and wickedness of the war against the colonies. He confessed his hitherto total ignorance of the real condition and real temper of the colonies; that he had been persuaded that a show of coercion would prevent the exercise of coercion itself; that he now saw the folly of these opinions, and protested that nothing but a total and immediate repeal of all the coercive acts would make accommodation possible. The bishop of Peterborough supported the views of Grafton, fully justifying the duke for his present conduct by the total failure of all the promises of ministers to him, and by the delusive information given him. It was difficult to say where this defection would end, and nothing was more significant than the fact that all the men of superior genius and ability, Chatham, Burke, Fox, Barré, and out of parliament, Junius and Horne Tooke, were ranged on the side of conciliation; all the commonplace and routine minds only were for increased rigour. America was lost in spite of the most determined warnings of the highest intellect of the nation, and by men only fitted to travel in the wake of greatness. The motion of lord Rockingham suffered the fate of such motions, though two bishops voted in favour of it, and nineteen peers entered a protest against the decision. The opposition maintained the struggle, with a resolution 131 fully justified by the immense importance of the cause, on every possible opportunity. On the report of the address, and again on the 1st of November, the duke of Manchester moved a resolution against the employment of foreign troops, as contrary to the Bill of Rights. The same motion was introduced into the commons two days after its defeat in the lords, and was defeated there also. These vain endeavours to stop the fatal rage for crushing the colonists, who were only taking the same stand on the same principles as our reformers had done in 1688, was immediately followed by lord Dartmouth quitting the office of secretary of state for the colonies, and taking the privy seal, resigned by Grafton, whilst, to the astonishment of the whole nation, the colonial office was filled by lord George Germaine, the disgrace of Minden, and notorious for his proud, imperious, and rash temper, as active in mischief in official life as he had been inactive at the necessary moment in the crisis of battle. Besides this most disastrous change as it regarded America, lord Rochford also resigned, and was succeeded as secretary of state for the southern department by lord Weymouth, and "the wicked" lord Lyttleton, so notorious for his debauched life, was called to serve the moral George in the privy council, and as chief justice in Eyre, notwithstanding his fierce attacks up to this time on all the measures of ministers against America. On the 30th of October lord North brought in a bill, in pursuance of a passage in the king's speech, to call out the militia in cases of actual rebellion. This was violently opposed, as tending to bring the people under martial law, and for inducing the militia to volunteer for foreign service. In his speech in reply, lord North commented sharply on the conduct of the Constitutional Society, at the head of which was Horne Tooke, who was now under prosecution for the circulation of letters from this society, denouncing the affair at Lexington as a bloody murder of subjects on our part. Besides this, the society had agreed that the sum of one hundred pounds should be raised for the relief of the widows, and orphans, and aged parents, of those who fell there on the American side. Notwithstanding the sturdy resistance of the opposition, this bill was carried, and in December another bill was carried, extending the militia act to Scotland for the first time. Ministers having thus passed these measures on the country, called for twenty-five thousand sailors and fifty-five thousand soldiers as the force for the year. Of these twentyeight thousand soldiers were to be employed in America, and seventy-eight sail of the line on her coast. Besides this, lord Barrington, secretary at war, asked two million pounds for the pay and contingent expenses of five battalions of Hessians. Barrington excused the employment of the foreign troops by the impossibility almost of recruiting at home-a pretty clear indication of the view which the common people took of this struggle. He said no means had been left untried to recruit; the bounty money had been raised, the standard of height had been lowered, attempts had been made to enlist Irish catholics and foreigners individually, but in vain. We shall soon find it declared in parliament that, though we had spent fifty millions of money, we had yet no army; such was the popular repugnance to this unnatural war. One of the most extraordinary spectacles was that of lord On the 7th of November the duke of Richmond proposed Barrington, in his place as minister of war, declaring that that Mr. Penn should be heard at the bar of the house of an army in America was as absolutely necessary as a fleet lords, in relation to the petition which he had brought on its coast, whilst he had long been contending to lord from America. This was overruled; but the duke again North quite the contrary. Like Barré, he was perfectly moved that he should be heard the next day, and, after much persuaded of the fatality of following the Americans, opposition, carried his object. Penn, who was the grandson admirable marksmen as they were, into the interior, amid of the founder of Pennsylvania, and had been governor of it their woods, bogs, and numerous rivers. He pointed out himself, was then examined. He denied that the colonists the difficulties of conveying artillery, stores, &c., into such wished for independence, but, on the contrary, they desired an interior, and the danger of losing communication with peace, and therefore had called the petition intrusted to the fleet. He went further than Barré-he would have no him "The Olive Branch." He stated that Pennsylvania army at all on land, but would blockade the forts, and have alone had sixty thousand men capable of bearing arms, and strong fleets out everywhere along the coasts to cut off at that twenty thousand had already enrolled themselves; that once all trade with the colonies, and all access to interfer- four thousand five hundred minute-men also were maining foreign powers. He would withdraw the garrisons tained by that province. The opposition dwelt on the from the backwood frontiers, and leave the colonists open to the inroads of the Indians, who had cost us so much to keep back. He considered that our fighting on land only tended to kindle the enthusiasm of the colonists, and that if left to starve, without conflict, in their blockaded country, their distresses, not relieved by any little successes, would soon sink their spirits, and then, when they were ready to concede, we ought to be ready to concede too. Just before the meeting of parliament, lord Barrington wrote to lord North, urging these views again, and declaring that the Americans might be reduced by the fleet, but never by the army. Had lord Barrington, when he saw that his plan of the campaign was not adopted, resigned his post, and openly proclaimed his views, he would have done great service, but he was weak enough to allow the king to persuade him to retain office, whilst George went on pursuing his own plans in spite not only of Barrington, but of lord North himself. strong nature of the country, its swamps, its vast rivers, its almost interminable forests; the ministerial party on the discrepancy betwixt the smooth language of the petition and the pacific statements of Penn, and the language of the addresses to the people of England and Ireland, to say nothing of the Americans being already in arms. The duke of Richmond's motion was lost. Then the duke of Grafton moved a string of resolutions-namely, that ministers should lay before parliament a statement of the number of soldiers employed in America before the disturbances, and their respective stations; their number now, and their stations; the plans for their winter quarters; and also an estimate of the number of soldiers that they deemed requisite to send against America. Ministers very properly replied that this was precisely the information that would be most serviceable to the American insurgents, and lord Gower added what was equally true, that all the measures determined upon in England were a recognition of the congress, and a full amnesty for all past offences. Fox, Conway, Sir George Saville, strongly supported Burke, and governor Pownall declared that even Burke's proposals did not now go far enough. Admiral lord Howe, who was ordered to head the fleet against the colonies, expressed his painful sense of the duty imposed on him of making war on his fellow-subjects, and declared that, if he consulted his private feelings, he should decline. In the lords the same style of debate followed; but now the news of the expedition against Canada had arrived, and lord Mansfield exclaimed: "We are now in such a situation that we must either fight or be pursued. If we do not get the better of America, America will get the better of us! They have begun to raise a navy; trade, if left free to them, will beget opulence, and enable them to hire ships from foreign powers. It is said the present war is only defensive on the part of America. Is the attack on Canada a defensive war? Is their prohibiting all trade and commerce with every part of the British dominions, and starving our sugar islands, acting on the defensive? No; though those people never offended us, we will distress them, say they, because that will be distressing Great Britain. Are we, in the midst of all outrages of hostility, of seizing our ships, entering our provinces at the head of numerous armies, and seizing our forts, to stand idle, because we are told that this is an unjust war, and wait till the Americans have brought their arms to our very doors? The justice of the cause must give way to our present situation; and the consequences which must ensue, should we now recede, would, nay, must, be infinitely worse than any we have to dread by pursuing the present plan, or agreeing at once to a final separation." This was a melancholy situation to be reduced to by a blind and arbitrary policy-to be compelled to fight with our fellow-countrymen, though we felt that we were fighting unjustly. But so it was, and under this impression all proposals of accommodation on the part of the opposition were rejected, and the war went on. enough to refuse them. The Indians had noted the careless way in which the Americans held the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point after they had taken them from the English, and offered to take them back for England, and he refused that too; whereupon, in their resentment, they offered themselves to the Americans. They came most opportunely to Montgomery, who had just been foiled by another party of Indians, and he immediately advanced to the siege of St. John's, and thence to Montreal. Arnold, meantime, had gone to communicate a plan of his own to Washington, hoping to join the troops of Montgomery at Quebec by a different route, or to surprise it by himself. Ethan Allen, who served under general Montgomery, proceeded with a detachment of one hundred and fifty men, to attempt the surprise of Montreal. He crossed the St. Lawrence about four miles below that town, and at the moment when he made himself pretty sure of his prize, he was himself surprised by major Campbell, at the head of only about thirty-six men of the 26th Regiment, but well supported by the people of Montreal and other French Canadians. Allen was directly put in irons as a felon and a traitor, and sent to England. Meantime, general Montgomery had reached the St. Lawrence, and detached six hundred men to invest Fort Chamblé, situated on the river Sorel, about five miles above Fort St. John. Carleton made a clumsy and ineffectual effort to prevent the attack on the Fort, and Chamblé was surprised on the 3rd of November. Major Stopford, who had one hundred and sixty men there, made a shameful defence, not even destroying the ammunition, but letting it fall into the hands of the enemy, when the Americans were reduced to almost their last cartridge. Major Preston, who commanded at St. John's, finding that colonel Maclean, who was on the march to his assistance, had been compelled to return to Quebec, to anticipate the arrival of Arnold, also surrendered that fort with five hundred regulars and one hundred Canadian volunteers, who had behaved with much bravery. The menaced condition of Quebec compelled general Carleton to abandon Montreal to its fate, and to hasten to the capital, and Montgomery immediately took possession of it. So far all succeeded with the American expedition. Carleton, to reach Quebec, had to pass through the American forces on the St. Lawrence. He went in disguise, and The expedition against Canada, the news of which came with such conclusive effect on these debates, was projected by colonel Arnold and Ethan Allen at the taking of the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. The recommendations of Allen were taken up, and on the 27th of June, although they had on the first of that month declared their determination not to invade or molest Canada, the congress passed other resolutions, instructing Philip Schuyler, one of their newly-dropped down the river by night, with muffled oars, threadmade generals, to proceed to Ticonderoga, and from thence, if he saw it practicable, to go on and secure St. John's and Montreal, and to take any other measures against Canada which might have a tendency to promote the security of the colonies. ing the American craft on the river, and so reached Quebec alone, but in safety. Montgomery was determined to fall down the St. Lawrence too, to support Arnold; but his position was anything but enviable. He had been obliged to garrison Forts Chamblé and St. John's, and he was now This compelled to leave another garrison at Montreal. done, he had only four hundred and fifty men left, and they were in the most discontented and insubordinate condition. It was autumn, however, before the American force destined for this expedition, amounting to two thousand men, assembled on Lake Champlain; and Schuyler being taken ill, the command then devolved on general Mont-Though he had married an American lady, and had emgomery. General Carleton, the governor of Canada, to braced the cause of the colonists with enthusiasm, he was whom the Americans, when it suited their purpose, were now greatly disgusted with the service, and declared that be always attributing designs of invasion of the colonies, had would resign at the end of the campaign. He found his not, in fact, forces sufficient to defend himself properly. men far more disposed to follow their own wills than his Governor Johnson had offered the aid of seven hundred of orders. Instead of obeying, they questioned and disputed the Indians of the Six Nations, and he had been impolitic his commands. Their term of service expired in a few A.D. 1775.] EXPEDITION AGAINST QUEBEC. weeks, and they were impatient even of that time. They complained of the severity of the service and the season. As he proceeded, therefore, he found them fast melting away by desertion; and, had he not soon fallen in with Arnold and his band at Point aux Trembles, he would have found himself alone. Arnold had meantime arranged everything with Washington, at Cambridge, for his expedition. Amongst his instructions was one enjoining him, if he found lord Pitt, Chatham's son, still serving in Canada, and he should happen to fall into his power, to treat him with the highest respect, for that he could not err in doing too much honour to the son of so illustrious a character-so true a friend of America. Arnold marched away from Cambridge with twelve hundred men, and on reaching the Kennebec River, one hundred and thirty miles north of Boston, embarked upon it, carrying with him one thousand pounds in money, 135 Arnold now sent out his men in all directions to forage for provisions; and, allowing time to rest and for the stragglers to come up, he did not advance again till the 9th of November. He emerged on the river St. Lawrence, at Point Levis, immediately over against Quebec. Could Arnold have crossed immediately, such was the suddenness of the surprise, that he probably would have taken the city. But a rough gale was blowing at the time, and for five days he was detained on the right bank of the river by that circumstance and the want of boats. By that time, colonel Maclean had made good his retreat into the city, and put it in a state of defence. Some small armed vessels were anchored in front of the town, and boats filled with armed men rowed to and fro to keep watch on the Americans oa the opposite shore. Arnold, nevertheless, managed to cross the river in the night, about a mile and a half above the place where Wolfe and a whole cargo of man.festoes for distribution among the Canadians. The Kennebec is a wild and rapid stream, rising in Lake St. Pierre, or Moosehead, in a mountain range separating Maine from Canada. Great part of this stream had never been surveyed; it was full of rapids and falls, and so strong that, on an average, the men had to wade above half the way. Arnold, in his dispatches, said"You would have thought them amphibious." Thence he had to traverse a terrible wilderness of woods, swamps, streams, and rugged heights, where the men had to carry their boats and their provisions on their shoulders, and where, for two-and-thirty days, they saw no house, wigwam, or sign of human life. So extreme were his distresses, that for the last several days they had to live on their own dogs. It was the 3rd of November before they reached the first Canadian settlement on the river Chaudière, which flows into the St. Lawrence opposite to Quebec. His second in command, colonel Enos, had got entangled in the windings of the Dead River, a tributary of the Kennebec, and had been so completely bewildered that he had returned with one-third of the detachment to Cambridge. had crossed. Finding the cliffs there too high to scale, he followed the shore down to Wolfe's Cove, and ascended the heights just where Wolfe had done so. Like Wolfe, Arnold formed his band on the heights of Abraham, and, trusting to the belief that the Canadians were in favour of the Americans, proposed to make a dash up to the gates of the city before day broke; but his followers protested against this design. When day dawned, Arnold saw so many men on the walls and batteries that he knew the assault was hopeless, and retired to Point aux Trembles, where he was joined by Montgomery, who took the chief command. Arnold had not been able to bring any artillery with him: Montgomery had a little. They had about twelve hundred men altogether; and with this force they now marched upon Quebec. On the 20th of December they commenced firing on the town from a six-gun battery; but their cannon was too light to make much impression-they had no guns heavier than twelve-pounders, and these were soon dismounted by colonel Maclean and his sailors. The Ameri cans withdrew their guns to a safer distance; and their troops were desirous to abandon the enterprise as impracticable, |