*
Here it is necessary only to note its bearings on the fate of
Canada.
* See "The Eve of the Revolution" and "Washington and His
Comrades in Arms" (in "The Chronicles of America").
Early in 1775 the Continental Congress undertook the conquest of
Canada, or, as it was more diplomatically phrased, the relief of
its inhabitants from British tyranny. Richard Montgomery led an
expedition over the old route by Lake Champlain and the
Richelieu, along which French and Indian raiding parties used to
pass years before, and Benedict Arnold made a daring and
difficult march up the Kennebec and down the Chaudiere to Quebec.
Montreal fell to Montgomery; and Carleton himself escaped capture
only by the audacity of some French-Canadian voyageurs, who,
under cover of darkness, rowed his whaleboat or paddled it with
their hands silently past the American sentinels on the shore.
Once down the river and in Quebec, Carleton threw himself with
vigor and skill into the defense of his capital. His generalship
and the natural strength of the position proved more than a match
for Montgomery and Arnold. Montgomery was killed and Arnold
wounded in a vain attempt to carry the city by storm on the last
night of 1775. At Montreal a delegation from Congress, composed
of Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of
Carrollton, accompanied by Carroll's brother, a Jesuit priest and
a future archbishop, failed to achieve-more by diplomacy than
their generals had done by the sword.
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