Chapter IV: Independence (1)

[Sidenote: Washington arrives in Cambridge]

On the 2d of July, 1775, after a journey of eleven days, General Washington arrived in Cambridge from Philadelphia, and on the following day, under the shade of the great elm-tree which still stands hard by the Common, he took command of the Continental army, which as yet was composed entirely of New Englanders. Of the 16,000 men engaged in the siege of Boston, Massachusetts furnished 11,500, Connecticut 2,300, New Hampshire 1,200, Rhode Island 1,000. These contingents were arrayed under their local commanders, and under the local flags of their respective commonwealths, though Artemas Ward of Massachusetts had by courtesy exercised the chief command until the arrival of Washington. During the month of July, Congress gave a more continental complexion to the army by sending a reinforcement of 3,000 men from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, including the famous Daniel Morgan, with his sturdy band of sharpshooters each man of whom, it was said, while marching at double-quick, could cleave with his rifle-ball a squirrel at a distance of three hundred yards. The summer of 1775 thus brought together in Cambridge many officers whose names were soon to become household words throughout the length and breadth of the land, and a moment may be fitly spent in introducing them before we proceed with the narrative of events.

[Sidenote: Daniel Morgan]

[Sidenote: Benedict Arnold]

Daniel Morgan, who had just arrived from Virginia with his riflemen, was a native of New Jersey, of Welsh descent. Moving to Virginia at an early age, he had won a great reputation for bravery and readiness of resource in the wild campaigns of the Seven Years' War. He was a man of gigantic stature and strength, and incredible powers of endurance. In his youth, it is said, he had received five hundred lashes by order of a tyrannical British officer, and had come away alive and defiant. On another occasion, in a fierce woodland fight with the Indians, in which nearly all his comrades were slain, Morgan was shot through the neck by a musket-ball. Almost fainting from the wound, which he believed to be fatal, Morgan was resolved, nevertheless, not to leave his scalp in the hands of a dirty Indian; and falling forward, with his arms tightly clasped about the neck of his stalwart horse, though mists were gathering before his eyes, he spurred away through the forest paths, until his foremost Indian pursuer, unable to come up with him, hurled his tomahawk after him with a yell of baffled rage, and gave up the chase. With this unconquerable tenacity, Morgan was a man of gentle and unselfish nature; a genuine diamond, though a rough one; uneducated, but clear and strong in intelligence and faithful in every fibre. At Cambridge began his long comradeship with a very different character, Benedict Arnold, a young man of romantic and generous impulses, and for personal bravery unsurpassed, but vain and self-seeking, and lacking in moral robustness; in some respects a more polished man than Morgan, but of a nature at once coarser and weaker. We shall see these two men associated in some of the most brilliant achievements of the war; and we shall see them persecuted and insulted by political enemies, until the weaker nature sinks and is ruined, while the stronger endures to the end.

[Sidenote: John Sullivan]

[Sidenote: Nathanael Greene]

[Sidenote: Henry Knox]

Along with Morgan and Arnold there might have been seen on Cambridge Common a man who was destined to play no less conspicuous a part in the great campaign which was to end in the first decisive overthrow of the British. For native shrewdness, rough simplicity, and dauntless courage, John Stark was much like Morgan. What the one name was in the great woods of the Virginia frontier, that was the other among the rugged hills of northern New England,--a symbol of patriotism and a guarantee of victory. Great as was Stark's personal following in New Hampshire, he had not, however, the chief command of the troops of that colony. The commander of the New Hampshire contingent was John Sullivan, a wealthy lawyer of Durham, who had sat in the first Continental Congress. Sullivan was a gentleman of culture and fair ability as a statesman. As a general, he was brave, intelligent, and faithful, but in no wise brilliant. Closely associated with Sullivan for the next three years we shall find Nathanael Greene, now in command of the Rhode Island contingent. For intellectual calibre all the other officers here mentioned are dwarfed in comparison with Greene, who comes out at the end of the war with a military reputation scarcely, if at all, inferior to that of Washington. Nor was Greene less notable for the sweetness and purity of his character than for the scope of his intelligence.[7] He had that rare genius which readily assimilates all kinds of knowledge through an inborn correctness of method. Whatever he touched, it was with a master hand, and his weight of sense soon won general recognition. Such a man was not unnaturally an eager book-buyer, and in this way he had some time ago been brought into pleasant relations with the genial and intelligent Henry Knox, who from his bookshop in Boston had come to join the army as a colonel of artillery, and soon became one of Washington's most trusty followers.

[Portrait: Knox]

[Sidenote: Older officers]

[Sidenote: Israel Putnam]

Of this group of officers, none have as yet reached very high rank in the Continental army. Sullivan and Greene stand at the end of the list of brigadier-generals; the rest are colonels. The senior major-general, Artemas Ward, and the senior brigadiers, Pomeroy Heath, Thomas, Wooster, and Spencer, will presently pass into the background, to make way for these younger or more vigorous men. Major-General Israel Putnam, the picturesque wolf-slayer, a brave and sterling patriot, but of slender military capacity, will remain in the foreground for another year, and will then become relegated mainly to garrison duty.

[Sidenote: Horatio Gates and Charles Lee]

With the exception of Morgan, all the officers here noticed are New England men, as is natural, since the seat of war is in Massachusetts, and an army really continental in complexion is still to be formed. The Southern colonies have as yet contributed only Morgan and the commander-in-chief. New York is represented in the Continental army by two of the noblest of American heroes,--Major-General Philip Schuyler and Brigadier-General Richard Montgomery; but these able men are now watching over Ticonderoga and the Indian frontier of New York. But among the group which in 1775 met for consultation on Cambridge Common, or in the noble Tory mansion now hallowed alike by memories of Washington and of Longfellow, there were yet two other generals, closely associated with each other for a time in ephemeral reputation won by false pretences, and afterwards in lasting ignominy. It is with pleasure that one recalls the fact that these men were not Americans, though both possessed estates in Virginia; it is with regret that one is forced to own them as Englishmen. Of Horatio Gates and his career of imbecility and intrigue, we shall by and by see more than enough. At this time he was present in Cambridge as adjutant-general of the army. But his friend, Charles Lee, was for the moment a far more conspicuous personage; and this eccentric creature, whose career was for a long time one of the difficult problems in American history, needs something more than a passing word of introduction.

[Portrait: Charles Lee]

[Signature: Benja Church Junr.]

[Sidenote: Lee's personal peculiarities]

[Sidenote: Benjamin Church]

Although Major-General Charles Lee happened to have acquired an estate in Virginia, he had nothing in common with the illustrious family of Virginian Lees beyond the accidental identity of name. He was born in England, and had risen in the British army to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He had served in America in the Seven Years' War, and afterward, as a soldier of fortune, he had wandered about Europe, obtaining at one time a place on the staff of the king of Poland. A restless adventurer, he had come over again to America as soon as he saw that a war was brewing here. There is nothing to show that he cared a rush for the Americans, or for the cause in which they were fighting, but he sought the opportunity of making a name for himself. He was received with enthusiasm by the Americans. His loud, pompous manner and enormous self-confidence at first imposed upon everybody. He was tall, lank, and hollow-cheeked, with a discontented expression of face. In dress he was extremely slovenly. He was fond of dogs, and always had three or four at his heels, but toward men and women his demeanour was morose and insulting. He had a sharp, cynical wit, and was always making severe remarks in a harsh, rough voice. But the trustful American imagination endowed this unpleasant person with the qualities of a great soldier. His reputation was part of the unconscious tribute which the provincial mind of our countrymen was long wont to pay to the men and things of Europe; and for some time his worst actions found a lenient interpretation as the mere eccentricities of a wayward genius. He had hoped to be made commander-in-chief of the army, and had already begun to nourish a bitter grudge against Washington, by whom he regarded himself as supplanted. In the following year we shall see him endeavouring to thwart the plans of Washington at the most critical moment of the war, but for the present he showed no signs of insincerity, except perhaps in an undue readiness to parley with the British commanders. As soon as it became clear that a war was beginning, the hope of winning glory by effecting an accommodation with the enemy offered a dangerous temptation to men of weak virtue in eminent positions. In October, 1775, the American camp was thrown into great consternation by the discovery that Dr. Benjamin Church, one of the most conspicuous of the Boston leaders, had engaged in a secret correspondence with the enemy. Dr. Church was thrown into jail, but as the evidence of treasonable intent was not absolutely complete, he was set free in the following spring, and allowed to visit the West Indies for his health. The ship in which he sailed was never heard from again. This kind of temptation, to which Church succumbed at the first outbreak of the war, beset Lee with fatal effect after the Declaration of Independence, and wrought the ruin of Arnold after the conclusion of the French alliance.

[Sidenote: Difficult work for Washington]

To such a man as Charles Lee, destitute of faith in the loftier human virtues or in the strength of political ideas, it might easily have seemed that more was to be hoped from negotiation than from an attempt to resist Great Britain with such an army as that of which he now came to command the left wing. It was fortunate that the British generals were ignorant of the real state of things. Among the moral effects of the battle of Bunker Hill there was one which proved for the moment to be of inestimable value. It impressed upon General Howe, who now succeeded to the chief command, the feeling that the Americans were more formidable than had been supposed, and that much care and forethought would be required for a successful attack upon them. In a man of his easy-going disposition, such a feeling was enough to prevent decisive action. It served to keep the British force idle in Boston for months, and was thus of great service to the American cause. For in spite of the zeal and valour it had shown, this army of New England minute-men was by no means in a fit condition for carrying on such an arduous enterprise as the siege of Boston. When Washington took command of the army on Cambridge Common, he found that the first and most trying task before him was out of this excellent but very raw material to create an army upon which he could depend. The battle of Bunker Hill had just been lost, under circumstances which were calculated to cheer the Americans and make them hopeful of the future; but it would not do to risk another battle, with an untrained staff and a scant supply of powder. All the work of organizing an army was still to be done, and the circumstances were not such as to make it an easy work. It was not merely that the men, who were much better trained in the discipline of the town meeting than in that of the camp, needed to be taught the all-important lesson of military subordination: it was at first a serious question how they were to be kept together at all. That the enthusiasm kindled on the day of Lexington should have sufficed to bring together 16,000 men, and to keep them for three months at their posts, was already remarkable; but no army, however patriotic and self-sacrificing, can be supported on enthusiasm alone. The army of which Washington took command was a motley crowd, clad in every variety of rustic attire, armed with trusty muskets and rifles, as their recent exploit had shown, but destitute of almost everything else that belongs to a soldier's outfit. From the Common down to the river, their rude tents were dotted about here and there, some made of sail-cloth stretched over poles, some piled up of stones and turf, some oddly wrought of twisted green boughs; while the more fortunate ones found comparatively luxurious quarters in Massachusetts Hall, or in the little Episcopal church, or in the houses of patriotic citizens. These volunteers had enlisted for various periods, for the most part short, under various contracts with various town or provincial governments. It was not altogether clear how they were going to be paid, nor was it easy to see how they were going to be fed. That this army should have been already subsisted for three months, without any commissariat, was in itself an extraordinary fact. Day by day the heavy carts had rumbled into Cambridge, bringing from the highlands of Berkshire and Worcester, and from the Merrimac and Connecticut valleys, whatever could in any wise be spared of food, or clothing, or medicines, for the patriot army; and the pleasant fields of Cambridge were a busy scene of kindness and sympathy.

[Sidenote: Absence of governmental organization]

[Sidenote: New government of Massachusetts, July, 1775]

Such means as these, however, could not long be efficient. If war was to be successfully conducted, there must be a commissariat, there must be ammunition, and there must be money. And here Washington found himself confronted with the difficulty which never ceased to vex his noble soul and disturb his best laid schemes until the day when he swooped down upon Cornwallis at Yorktown. He had to keep making the army, with which he was often expected to fight battles ere it was half made; and in this arduous work he could get but little systematic help from any quarter. At present the difficulty was that there was nowhere any organized government competent to support an army. On Washington's arrival, the force surrounding Boston owed allegiance, as we have seen, to four distinct commonwealths, of which two, indeed,--Connecticut and Rhode Island,--preserving their ancient charters, with governors elected by themselves, were still in their normal condition. In New Hampshire, on the other hand, the royal governor, John Wentworth, whose personal popularity was deservedly great, kept his place until August, while Stark and his men had gone to Cambridge in spite of him. In Massachusetts the revolutionary Provincial Congress still survived, but with uncertain power; even the Continental Congress which adopted the Cambridge army in the name of the United Colonies was simply an advisory body, without the power to raise taxes or to beat up recruits. From this administrative chaos, through which all the colonies, save Connecticut and Rhode Island, were forced to pass in these trying times, Massachusetts was the first to emerge, in July, 1775, by reverting to the provisions of its old charter, and forming a government in which the king's authority was virtually disallowed. A representative assembly was chosen by the people in their town meetings, according to time-honoured precedent; and this new legislature itself elected an annual council of twenty-eight members, to sit as an upper house. James Bowdoin, as president of the council, became chief executive officer of the commonwealth, and John Adams was made chief justice. Forty thousand pounds were raised by a direct tax on polls and on real estate, and bills of credit were issued for 1,000 more. The commonwealth adopted a new seal, and a proclamation, issued somewhat later by Chief Justice Adams, enjoining it upon all people to give loyal obedience to the new government, closed with the significant invocation "God save the people," instead of the customary "God save the king."

[Sidenote: Congress sends a petition to the king]

In taking this decisive step, Massachusetts was simply the first to act upon the general recommendation of the Continental Congress, that the several colonies should forthwith proceed to frame governments for themselves, based upon the suffrages of the people. From such a recommendation as this to a formal declaration of independence, the distance to be traversed was not great. Samuel Adams urged that in declaring the colonies independent Congress would be simply recognizing a fact which in reality already existed, and that by thus looking facts squarely in the face the inevitable war might be conducted with far greater efficiency. But he was earnestly and ably opposed by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, whose arguments for the present prevailed in the Congress. It was felt that the Congress, as a mere advisory body, had no right to take a step of such supreme importance without first receiving explicit instructions from every one of the colonies. Besides this, the thought of separation was still a painful thought to most of the delegates, and it was deemed well worth while to try the effect of one more candid statement of grievances, to be set forth in a petition to his majesty. For like reasons, the Congress did not venture to take measures to increase its own authority; and when Franklin, still thinking of union as he had been thinking for more than twenty years, now brought forward a new scheme, somewhat similar to the Articles of Confederation afterwards adopted, it was set aside as premature. The king was known to be fiercely opposed to any dealings with the colonies as a united body, and so considerate of his feelings were these honest and peace-loving delegates that, after much discussion, they signed their carefully worded petition severally, and not jointly. They signed it as individuals speaking for the people of the American colonies, not as members of an organic body representing the American people. To emphasize still further their conciliatory mood, the delivery of the petition was entrusted to Richard Penn, a descendant of the great Quaker and joint-proprietary in the government of Pennsylvania, an excellent man and an ardent loyalist. At the same time that this was done, an issue of paper money was made, to be severally guaranteed by the thirteen colonies, and half a million dollars were sent to Cambridge to be used for the army.

Military operations, however, came for the time to a stand-still. While Washington's energies were fully occupied in organizing and drilling his troops, in providing them with powder and ball, in raising lines of fortification, in making good the troublesome vacancies due to short terms of enlistment, and above all in presenting unfailingly a bold front to the enemy; while the encampments about Boston were the daily scene of tedious works, without any immediate prospect of brilliant achievement, the Congress and the people were patiently waiting to hear the result of the last petition that was ever to be sent from these colonies to the king of Great Britain.

By the KING,
=A PROCLAMATION=.

For suppressing Rebellion and Sedition.

_GEORGE_ R.

Whereas many of Our Subjects in divers Parts of Our Colonies and
Plantations in _North America_, misled by dangerous and
ill-designing Men, and forgetting the Allegiance which they owe to
the Power that has protected and sustained them, after various
disorderly Acts committed in Disturbance of the Publick Peace, to
the Obstruction of lawful Commerce, and to the Oppression of Our
loyal Subjects carrying on the same, have at length proceeded to an
open and avowed Rebellion, by arraying themselves in hostile Manner
to withstand the Execution of the Law, and traitorously preparing,
ordering, and levying War against Us. And whereas there is Reason
to apprehend that such Rebellion hath been much promoted and
encouraged by the traitorous Correspondence, Counsels, and Comfort
of divers wicked and desperate Persons within this Realm: To the
End therefore that none of Our Subjects may neglect or violate
their Duty through Ignorance thereof, or through any Doubt of the
Protection which the Law will afford to their Loyalty and Zeal; We
have thought fit, by and with the Advice of Our Privy Council, to
issue this Our Royal Proclamation, hereby declaring that not only
all Our Officers Civil and Military are obliged to exert their
utmost Endeavours to suppress such Rebellion, and to bring the
Traitors to Justice; but that all Our Subjects of this Realm and
the Dominions thereunto belonging are bound by Law to be aiding and
assisting in the Suppression of such Rebellion, and to disclose and
make known all traitorous Conspiracies and Attempts against Us, Our
Crown and Dignity; And We do accordingly strictly charge and
command all Our Officers as well Civil as Military, and all other
Our obedient and loyal Subjects, to use their utmost Endeavours to
withstand and suppress such Rebellion, and to disclose and make
known all Treasons and traitorous Conspiracies which they shall
know to be against Us, Our Crown and Dignity; and for that Purpose,
that they transmit to One of Our Principal Secretaries of State, or
other proper Officer, due and full Information of all Persons who
shall be found carrying on Correspondence with, or in any Manner or
Degree aiding or abetting the Persons now in open Arms and
Rebellion against Our Government within any of Our Colonies and
Plantations in _North America_, in order to bring to condign
Punishment the Authors, Perpetrators, and Abettors of such
traitorous Designs.

Given at Our Court at _St. James's_, the Twenty-third day
of _August_, One thousand seven hundred and seventy-five,
in the Fifteenth Year of Our Reign.

God save the King.

LONDON:

Printed by _Charles Eyre_ and _William Strahan_, Printers to the
King's most Excellent Majesty. 1775.
]

[Sidenote: The king issues a proclamation, and tries to hire troops from
Russia]

[Sidenote: Catherine refuses]

[Sidenote: The king hires German troops]

[Sidenote: Indignation in Germany]

Penn made all possible haste, and arrived in London on the 14th of August; but when he got there the king would neither see him nor receive the petition in any way, directly or indirectly. The Congress was an illegal assembly which had no business to send letters to him: if any one of the colonies wanted to make terms for itself separately, he might be willing to listen to it. But this idea of a united America was something unknown either to law or to reason, something that could not be too summarily frowned down. So while Penn waited about London, the king issued a proclamation; setting forth that many of his subjects in the colonies were in open and armed rebellion, and calling upon all loyal subjects of the realm to assist in bringing to condign punishment the authors and abettors of this foul treason. Having launched this thunderbolt, George sent at once to Russia to see if he could hire 20,000 men to aid in giving it effect, for the "loyal subjects of the realm" were slow in coming forward. A war against the Americans was not yet popular in England. Lord Chatham withdrew his eldest son, Lord Pitt, from the army, lest he should be called upon to serve against the men who were defending the common liberties of Englishmen. There was, moreover, in England as well as in America, a distrust of regular armies. Recruiting was difficult, and conscription was something that the people would not endure unless England should actually be threatened with invasion. The king had already been obliged to raise a force of his Hanoverian subjects to garrison Minorca and Gibraltar, thus setting free the British defenders of these strongholds for service in America. He had no further resource except in hiring troops from abroad. But his attempt in Russia was not successful, for the Empress Catherine, with all her faults, was not disposed to sell the blood of her subjects. She improved the occasion--as sovereigns and others will sometimes do--by asking George, sarcastically, if he thought it quite compatible with his dignity to employ foreign troops against his own subjects; as for Russian soldiers, she had none to spare for such a purpose. Foiled in this quarter, the king applied to the Duke of Brunswick, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the princes of Waldeck and Anhalt-Zerbst, the Margrave of Anspach-Bayreuth, and the Count of Hesse-Hanau, and succeeded in making a bargain for 20,000 of the finest infantry in Europe, with four good generals,--Riedesel of Brunswick, and Knyphausen, Von Heister, and Donop of Hesse. The hiring of these troops was bitterly condemned by Lord John Cavendish in the House of Commons, and by Lords Camden and Shelburne and the Duke of Richmond in the House of Lords; and Chatham's indignant invectives at a somewhat later date are familiar to every one. It is proper, however, that in such an affair as this we should take care to affix our blame in the right place. The king might well argue that in carrying on a war for what the majority of Parliament regarded as a righteous object, it was no worse for him to hire men than to buy cannon and ships. The German troops, on their part, might justly complain of Lord Camden for stigmatizing them as "mercenaries," inasmuch as they did not come to America for pay, but because there was no help for it. It was indeed with a heavy heart that these honest men took up their arms to go beyond sea and fight for a cause in which they felt no sort of interest, and great was the mourning over their departure. The persons who really deserved to bear the odium of this transaction were the mercenary princes who thus shamelessly sold their subjects into slavery. It was a striking instance of the demoralization which had been wrought among the petty courts of Germany in the last days of the old empire, and among the German people it excited profound indignation. The popular feeling was well expressed by Schiller, in his "Cabale und Liebe." Frederick the Great, in a letter to Voltaire, declared himself beyond measure disgusted, and by way of thriftily expressing his contempt for the transaction he gave orders to his custom house officers that upon all such of these soldiers as should pass through Prussian territory a toll should be levied, as upon "cattle exported for foreign shambles."

[Sidenote: Burning of Portland, Oct 16, 1775]

When the American question was brought up in the autumn session of Parliament, it was treated in the manner with which the Americans had by this time become familiar. A few far-sighted men still urged the reasonableness of the American claims, but there was now a great majority against them. In spite of grave warning voices, both houses decided to support the king; and in this they were upheld by the university of Oxford, which a century ago had burned the works of John Milton as "blasphemous," and which now, with equal felicity, in a formal address to the king, described the Americans as "a people who had forfeited their lives and their fortunes to the justice of the state." At the same time the department of American affairs was taken from the amiable Lord Dartmouth, and given to the truculent Lord George Germain. These things were done in November, 1775, and in the preceding month they had been heralded by an act of wanton barbarity on the part of a British naval officer, albeit an unwarranted act, which the British government as promptly as possible disowned. On the 16th of October, Captain Mowatt had sailed with four small vessels into the harbour of Portland (then called Falmouth), and with shells and grenades set fire to the little town. St. Paul's Church, all the public buildings, and three fourths of all the dwellings were burned to the ground, and a thousand unoffending men, women, and children were thus turned out-of-doors just as the sharp Maine winter was coming on to starve and freeze them.

The news of the burning of Portland reached Philadelphia on the same day (October 31) with the news that George III. was about to send foreign mercenaries to fight against his American subjects; and now the wrath of Congress was thoroughly kindled, and the party which advised further temporizing was thrown into helpless minority.

[Sidenote: Effects upon Congress]

"Well, brother rebel," said a Southern member to Samuel Ward of Rhode Island, "we have now got a sufficient answer to our petition: I want nothing more, but am ready to declare ourselves independent." Congress now advised New Hampshire, Virginia, and South Carolina to frame for themselves new republican governments, as Massachusetts had already done; it urged South Carolina to seize the British vessels in her waters; it appointed a committee to correspond with foreign powers; and above all, it adopted unreservedly the scheme, already partially carried into operation, for the expulsion of the British from Canada.

[Portrait: Guy Carleton]

[Portrait: Rich^d. Montgomery]

[Sidenote: The Americans invade Canada, Sept., 1775]

At once upon the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington, the conquest of Canada had been contemplated by the Northern leaders, who well remembered how, in days gone by, the valley of the St. Lawrence had furnished a base for attacks upon the province of New York, which was then the strategic centre of the American world. It was deemed an act of military prudence to secure this region at the outset. But so long as the least hope of conciliation remained, Congress was unwilling to adopt any measures save such as were purely defensive in character. As we have seen, it was only with reluctance that it had sanctioned the garrisoning of Ticonderoga by the Connecticut troops. But in the course of the summer it was learned that the governor of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, was about to take steps to recover Ticonderoga; and it was credibly reported that intrigues were going on with the Iroquois tribes, to induce them to harry the New England frontier and the pleasant farms on the Hudson: so that, under these circumstances, the invasion of Canada was now authorized by Congress as a measure of self-defence. An expedition down Lake Champlain, against Montreal, was at once set on foot. As Schuyler, the commander of the northern department, was disabled by ill health, the enterprise was confided to Richard Montgomery, an officer who had served with distinction under Wolfe. Late in August, Montgomery started from Ticonderoga, and on the 12th of September, with a force of two thousand men, he laid siege to the fortress of St. John's, which commanded the approach to Montreal. Carleton, whose utmost exertions could bring together only some nine hundred men, made heroic but fruitless efforts to stop his progress. After a siege of fifty days, St. John's surrendered on the 3d of November, and on the 12th Montgomery entered Montreal in triumph. The people of Canada had thus far seemed favourably disposed toward the American invaders, and Montgomery issued a proclamation urging them to lose no time in choosing delegates to attend the Continental Congress.

[Sidenote: Arnold's march through the wilderness of Maine]

Meanwhile, in September, Washington had detached from the army at Cambridge one thousand New England infantry, with two companies of Pennsylvania riflemen and Morgan's famous Virginia sharpshooters, and ordered them to advance upon Quebec through the forests of Maine and by way of the rivers Kennebec and Chaudière. The expedition was commanded by Colonel Benedict Arnold, who seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to suggest it. Such plans of invading an enemy's territory, involving the march of independent forces upon convergent lines from remote points, were much more in favour with military men a century ago than to-day. The vice of such methods was often illustrated during our Revolutionary War. The vast distances and total lack of communication made effective coöperation between Montgomery and Arnold impossible; while a surprise of Quebec by the latter, with force sufficient to capture it unaided, was almost equally out of the question. But the very difficulty of the scheme commended it to the romantic and buoyant temper of Benedict Arnold. The enterprise was one to call for all his persistent daring and fertile resource. It was an amphibious journey, as his men now rowed their boats with difficulty against the strong, swift current of the Kennebec, and now, carrying boats and oars on their shoulders, forced their way through the tangled undergrowth of the primeval forests. Often they had to wade across perilous bogs, and presently their shoes were cut to pieces by sharp stones, and their clothes torn to shreds by thorns and briers. Their food gave out, and though some small game was shot, their hunger became such that they devoured their dogs. When they reached the head of the Chaudière, after this terrible march of thirty-three days, two hundred of their number had succumbed to starvation, cold, and fatigue, while two hundred more had given out and returned to Massachusetts, carrying with them such of the sick and disabled as they could save. The descent of the Chaudière in their boats afforded some chance for rest, and presently they began to find cattle for food. At last, on the 13th of November, the next day after Montgomery's capture of Montreal, they crossed the broad St. Lawrence, and climbed the Heights of Abraham at the very place where Wolfe had climbed to victory sixteen years ago. There was splendid bravado in Arnold's advancing to the very gates with his little, worn-out army, now reduced to seven hundred men, and summoning the garrison either to come out and fight, or to surrender the town. But the garrison very properly would neither surrender nor fight. The town had been warned in time, and Arnold had no alternative but to wait for Montgomery to join him.

[Sidenote: Assault upon Quebec, Dec. 31, 1775]

Six days afterward, Carleton, disguised as a farmer, and ferried down stream in a little boat, found his way into Quebec; and on the 3d of December, Montgomery made his appearance with a small force, which raised the number of the Americans to twelve hundred men. As Carleton persistently refused to come out of his defences, it was resolved to carry the works by storm,--a chivalrous, nay, one might almost say, a foolhardy decision, had it not been so nearly justified by the event. On the last day of 1775, England came within an ace of losing Quebec. At two o'clock in the morning, in a blinding snowstorm, Montgomery and Arnold began each a furious attack, at opposite sides of the town; and aided by the surprise, each came near carrying his point. Montgomery had almost forced his way in when he fell dead, pierced by three bullets; and this so chilled the enthusiasm of his men that they flagged, until reinforcements drove them back. Arnold, on his side, was severely wounded and carried from the field; but the indomitable Morgan took his place, and his Virginia company stormed the battery opposed to them, and fought their way far into the town. Had the attack on the other side been kept up with equal vigour, as it might have been but for Montgomery's death, Quebec must have fallen. As it was, Morgan's triumphant advance only served to isolate him, and presently he and his gallant company were surrounded and captured.

[Sidenote: Total failure of the attempt upon Canada]

With the failure of this desperate attack passed away the golden opportunity for taking the citadel of Canada. Arnold remained throughout the winter in the neighbourhood of Quebec, and in the spring the enterprise was taken up by Wooster and Sullivan with fresh forces. But by this time many Hessians had come over, and Carleton, reinforced until his army numbered 13,000, was enabled to recapture Montreal and push back the Americans, until in June, after a hazardous retreat, well conducted by Sullivan, the remnant of their invading army found shelter at Crown Point. Such was the disastrous ending of a campaign which at the outset had promised a brilliant success, and which is deservedly famous for the heroism and skill with which it was conducted. The generalship of Montgomery received the warm approval of no less a critic than Frederick the Great; and the chivalrous bravery of Arnold, both in his march through the wilderness and in the military operations which followed, was such that if a kind fate could then and there have cut the thread of his life, he would have left behind him a sweet and shining memory. As for the attempt to bring Canada into the American union, it was one which had no hope of success save through a strong display of military force. The sixteen years which had elapsed since the victory of Wolfe had not transformed the Canadian of the old _régime_ into a free-born Englishman. The question at present for him was only that of a choice of allegiance, and while at first the invaders were favourably received, it soon became apparent that between the Catholic and the Puritan there could be but little real sympathy. The Quebec Act, which legalized Catholic worship in Canada, had done much toward securing England's hold upon this part of her American possessions. And although, in the colourless political condition of this northern province, the capture of Quebec might well have brought it into the American union, where it would gradually have taken on a fresh life, as surely as it has done under British guidance, yet nothing short of such a military occupation could have had any effect in determining its languid preferences.

[Sidenote: The siege of Boston]

While Canada was thus freed from the presence of the Continental troops, the British army, on the other hand, was driven from Boston, and New England was cleared of the enemy. During the autumn and winter, Washington had drawn his lines as closely as possible about the town, while engaged in the work of organizing and equipping his army. The hardest task was to collect a sufficient quantity of powder and ball, and to bring together siege-guns. As the season wore on, the country grew impatient, and Washington sometimes had to listen to criticisms like those that were directed against McClellan in Virginia, at the beginning of 1862, or against Grant before Vicksburg, in the spring of 1863. President Hancock, who owned a great deal of property in Boston, urged him to set fire to the town and destroy it, if by so doing he could drive the British to their ships. But Washington had planned much more wisely. By the 1st of March a great quantity of cannon had been brought in by Henry Knox, some of them dragged on sledges all the way from Ticonderoga, and so at last Washington felt himself prepared to seize upon Dorchester Heights. This position commanded the town and harbour even more effectually than Bunker Hill, and why in all these months General Howe had not occupied it one would find it hard to say. He was bitterly attacked for his remissness by the British newspapers, as was quite natural.

[Sidenote: Washington seizes Dorchester Heights March 4, 1776]

[Sidenote: The British troops evacuate Boston March 17, 1776]

Washington chose for his decisive movement the night of the 4th of March. Eight hundred men led the way, escorting the wagons laden with spades and crowbars, hatchets, hammers, and nails; and after them followed twelve hundred men, with three hundred ox-carts, carrying timbers and bales of hay; while the rear was brought up by the heavy siege-guns. From Somerville, East Cambridge, and Roxbury, a furious cannonade was begun soon after sunset and kept up through the night, completely absorbing the attention of the British, who kept up a lively fire in return. The roar of the cannon drowned every other sound for miles around, while all night long the two thousand Americans, having done their short march in perfect secrecy, were busily digging and building on Dorchester Heights, and dragging their siege-guns into position. Early next morning, Howe saw with astonishment what had been done, and began to realize his perilous situation. The commander of the fleet sent word that unless the Americans could be forthwith dislodged, he could not venture to keep his ships in the harbour. Most of the day was consumed in deciding what should be done, until at last Lord Percy was told to take three thousand men and storm the works. But the slaughter of Bunker Hill had taught its lesson so well that neither Percy nor his men had any stomach for such an enterprise. A violent storm, coming up toward nightfall, persuaded them to delay the attack till next day, and by that time it had become apparent to all that the American works, continually growing, had become impregnable. Percy's orders were accordingly countermanded, and it was decided to abandon the town immediately. It was the sixth anniversary of the day on which Hutchinson had yielded to the demand of the town meeting and withdrawn the two British regiments from Boston. The work then begun was now consummated by Washington, and from that time forth the deliverance of Massachusetts was complete. Howe caused it at once to be known among the citizens that he was about to evacuate Boston, but he threatened to lay the town in ashes if his troops should be fired on. The selectmen conveyed due information of all this to Washington, who accordingly, secure in the achievement of his purpose, allowed the enemy to depart in peace. By the 17th, the eight thousand troops were all on board their ships, and, taking with them all the Tory citizens, some nine hundred in number, they sailed away for Halifax. Their space did not permit them to carry away their heavy arms, and their retreat, slow as it was, bore marks of hurry and confusion. In taking possession of the town, Washington captured more than two hundred serviceable cannon, ten times more powder and ball than his army had ever seen before, and an immense quantity of muskets, gun-carriages, and military stores of every sort. Thus was New England set free by a single brilliant stroke, with very slight injury to private property, and with a total loss of not more than twenty lives.

]

[Sidenote: A provisional flag]

[Sidenote: Effect of the hiring of "myrmidons"]

The time was now fairly ripe for the colonies to declare themselves independent of Great Britain. The idea of a separation from the mother-country, which in the autumn had found but few supporters, grew in favour day by day through the winter and spring. The incongruousness of the present situation was typified by the flag that Washington flung to the breeze on New Year's Day at Cambridge, which was made up of thirteen stripes, to represent the United Colonies, but retained the British crosses in the corner. Thus far, said Benjamin Harrison, they had contrived to "hobble along under a fatal attachment to Great Britain," but the time had come when one must consider the welfare of one's own country first of all. As Samuel Adams said, their petitions had not been heard, and yet had been answered by armies and fleets, and by myrmidons hired from abroad. Nothing had made a greater impression upon the American people than this hiring of German troops. It went farther than any other single cause to ripen their minds for the declaration of independence. Many now began to agree with the Massachusetts statesman; and while public opinion was in this malleable condition, there appeared a pamphlet which wrought a prodigious effect upon the people, mainly because it gave terse and vigorous expression to views which every one had already more than half formed for himself.

[Portrait: T. Paine]

[Sidenote: "Common Sense"]

Thomas Paine had come over to America in December, 1774, and through the favour of Franklin had secured employment as editor of the "Pennsylvania Magazine." He was by nature a dissenter and a revolutionist to the marrow of his bones. Full of the generous though often blind enthusiasm of the eighteenth century for the "rights of man," he was no respecter of the established order, whether in church or state. To him the church and its doctrines meant slavish superstition, and the state meant tyranny. Of crude undisciplined mind, and little scholarship, yet endowed with native acuteness and sagacity, and with no mean power of expressing himself, Paine succeeded in making everybody read what he wrote, and achieved a popular reputation out of all proportion to his real merit. Among devout American families his name was for a long time a name of horror and opprobrium, and uneducated free thinkers still build lecture-halls in honour of his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthday, with speeches full of harmless but rather dismal platitudes. The "Age of Reason," which was the cause of all this blessing and banning, contains, amid much crude argument, some sound and sensible criticism, such as is often far exceeded in boldness in the books and sermons of Unitarian and Episcopalian divines of the present day; but its tone is coarse and dull, and with the improvement of popular education it is fast sinking into oblivion. There are times, however, when such caustic pamphleteers as Thomas Paine have their uses. There are times when they can bring about results which are not so easily achieved by men of finer mould and more subtle intelligence. It was at just such a time, in January, 1776, that Paine published his pamphlet, "Common Sense," on the suggestion of Benjamin Rush, and with the approval of Franklin and of Samuel Adams. The pamphlet contains some irrelevant abuse of the English people, and resorts to such arguments as the denial of the English origin of the Americans. Not one third of the people, _even_ of Pennsylvania, are of English descent, argues Paine, as if Pennsylvania had been preëminent among the colonies for its English blood, and not, as in reality, one of the least English of all the thirteen. But along with all this there was a sensible and striking statement of the practical state of the case between Great Britain and the colonies. The reasons were shrewdly and vividly set forth for looking upon reconciliation as hopeless, and for seizing the present moment to declare to the world what the logic of events was already fast making an accomplished fact. Only thus, it was urged, could the States of America pursue a coherent and well-defined policy, and preserve their dignity in the eyes of the world.

84 COMMON SENSE

The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the
affair of a City, a County, a Province or a Kingdom; but of a
Continent--of at least one eight part of the habitable Globe. 'Tis
not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are
virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less
affected even to the end of time by the proceedings now. Now Is the
seed-time of Continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture
now, will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the
tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree,
and posterity read it in full grown characters.

By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new æra for
politics is struck--a new method of thinking hath arisen. All
plans, proposals, &c. prior to the 19th of April, _i. e._ to the
commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacks of the last
year; which tho' proper then, are superseded and useless now.
Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the
question then, terminated in one and the same point, viz. a union
with Great-Britain; the only difference between the parties, was
the method of effecting it; the one proposing force, the other
friendship: but it hath so far happened that the first hath failed,
and the second hath withdrawn her influence.

As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which
like an agreeable dream, hath passed away, and left us as we were,
it is but right that we should examine the contrary side of the
argument, and enquire into some of the many material injuries which
these Colonies sustain, and always will sustain, by being connected
with, and dependant on Great-Britain.--To examine that connection
and dependance, on the principles of nature and common sense, to
see what we have to trust to if separated, and what we are to
expect if dependant.
]

[Sidenote: Fulminations and counter-fulminations]

It was difficult for the printers, with the clumsy presses of that day, to bring out copies of "Common Sense" fast enough to meet the demand for it. More than a hundred thousand copies were speedily sold, and it carried conviction wherever it went. At the same time, Parliament did its best to reinforce the argument by passing an act to close all American ports, and authorize the confiscation of all American ships and cargoes, as well as of such neutral vessels as might dare to trade with this proscribed people. And, as if this were not quite enough, a clause was added by which British commanders on the high seas were directed to impress the crews of such American ships as they might meet, and to compel them, under penalty of death, to enter the service against their fellow-countrymen. In reply to this edict, Congress, in March, ordered the ports of America to be thrown open to all nations; it issued letters of marque, and it advised all the colonies to disarm such Tories as should refuse to contribute to the common defence. These measures, as Franklin said, were virtually a declaration of war against Great Britain. But before taking the last irrevocable step, the prudent Congress waited for instructions from every one of the colonies.

[Sidenote: The Scots in North Carolina]

[Sidenote: Clinton sails for the Carolinas]

[Sidenote: The fight at Moore's Creek, Feb. 27, 1776]

[Sidenote: North Carolina declares for independence]