among the dearest, though most mournful recollections of his country, and that country would have been spared the single traitorous blot that dims the bright page of its revolutionary history." Arnold being wounded, Captain Morgan immediately took the command. Urging forward his men, Morgan carried the first barrier, and pushed on to the second, which was also, after an obstinate fight, carried by the Americans; but Montgomery being dead, Carleton sent a detachment upon Morgan's rear; they were surrounded, and finally, to the number of four hundred and twenty-six, obliged to surrender. Neither of the parties thus reached the main point of attack at Prescott Gate, where the Governor was stationed, with the determination to maintain it to the last extremity. on the roll of noble and gallant chiefs who fell beneath the walls of Quebec.* Arnold succeeded to the command, and attempted still to maintain his ground; but the dispirited state of his men, still more than his actual loss, rendered him unable to keep up more than an imperfect blockade, at the distance of three miles. In April, 1776, his place was taken by General Wooster, who brought a reinforcement, and made some fresh attempts, but without success. Early in May, several vessels arrived from England, with troops and supplies, on which the Americans raised the siege, and fell back upon Montreal. Thence they were driven from post to post, by a superior British force, disgraced, defeated, discontented, dispirited, diseased, undisciplined, eaten up with vermin, no clothes, beds, blankets, nor medicines, and no victuals but salt pork and flour;" and on the 18th of June, they finally evacuated the province. General Gates received the retreating 66 * All enmity to Montgomery ceased with his life. He was honorably buried by order of General Carleton, and even in Parliament his eulogy was pronounced by men like Chatham, Burke, and Barré. His remains were, in 1818, removed to New York. The British were not yet aware of all the results of the contest. As soon as the retreat of the first party was ascertained, they went out and collected, from under the snow which had already covered them, thirteen bodies. The surmise soon arose, that one of them was that of the commander; yet some hours elapsed before an officer of Arnold's division identified him, with the deepest expressions of admiration and memory, with an inscription expressive of their venregret. Montgomery, a gentleman of good family in the north of Ireland, had served under Wolfe, but having afterwards formed a matrimonial connection in America, he had adopted with enthusiasm the cause of his adopted country. His military character, joined to his private virtues, inspired general esteem, and has secured to him a place eration for his character, and of their deep sense of many signal and important services; and to his " transmit to future ages, as examples truly worthy of imitation, his patriotism, conduct, boldness of enterprise, insuperable perseverance, and contempt of with emblematic devices, has accordingly been danger and death." A monument of white marble, erected to his memory, in front of St. Paul's chapel, in the city of New York. May his name never be forgotten! † See Murray's "History of British America," vol. i., p. 181. CH. XIII.] WASHINGTON'S DIFFICULTIES. forces at Crown Point, and in due time was able to put an effectual stop upon the vainly confident advance of Burgoyne, as will be related in a subse- | quent chapter. army; 375 thousand men. It was supposed that thirty-two thousand men might be raised in the four New England colonies for one year, which was the extent of time that Congress was willing to fix for all the enlistments. This short term of enlistment, as we have before pointed out, was a well nigh fatal error, and the consequences of it were severely felt throughout the whole war. Washington's discretion, prudence, and firmness, were severely tried, before he succeeded in accomplishing the difficult task of organizing the army according to the plan agreed upon. Beside the troops already engaged for service, Congress had made arrangements for increasing the number, by various regiments from the southern colonies, and also from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Congress likewise issued a proclamation, in which it was threatened, that measures of severity would be retorted upon the supporters of royal authority, in case any attempt were made to act towards the Americans in a way not usual in honorable warfare. Toward the close of September, Washington felt compelled to write to Congress in regard to the position in which he was placed before Boston. "It gives me great distress," he 1775. said, "to oblige me to solicit the attention of the honorable Congress to the state of this army, in terms which imply the slightest apprehension of being neglected. But my situation is inexpressibly distressing, to see the winter fast approaching upon a naked the time of their service within a few weeks of expiring; and no provision yet made for such important events. Added to these, the military chest is totally exhausted; the paymaster has not a single dollar in hand. The commissary-general assures me he has strained his credit for the subsistence of the army to the utmost. The quartermaster-general is precisely in the same situation; and the greater | part of the troops are in a state not far The alarming deficiency of powder from mutiny, upon a deduction from in the camp, and the extreme difficulty their stated allowances." Congress re- of getting supplies, rendered Washingsponded to the commander-in-chief's ton's position not only very uncomfortappeal. About the middle of October, able but also very critical; for had a committee of that body, Franklin, General Howe been disposed to venLynch and Harrison, arrived at Cam- ture upon more active measures, and bridge, to meet delegates from the had he attacked the Americans in the New England colonies, to take the midst of the annoyance and perplexity steps necessary in the present emer- arising out of a part of the troops leavgency. Twenty-six regiments were, in ing and going home, and new recruits accordance with Washington's recom- being brought in, it is almost certain mendation, authorized to be enrolled, that victory must have attended his making in all, rather more than twenty | arms, and disaster and ruin have fallen upon the army of Washington.* But But the British general kept himself very quiet, and, after a time, the commanderin-chief felt somewhat relieved of his anxiety on this point. The feeling in Congress and else where was, that Washington ought to do something more than besiege Boston; murmurs, more or less loud, were heard against the inactivity of the forces; and it was thought strange that Washington did not attack the city. His own impulses urged him to this step, and he called a council of war, early in January, 1776, to consider the expediency of such a movement. The council opposed the plan decidedly, and the commander-in-chief felt obliged to yield; but he yielded unwillingly. "Could I have foreseen the difficulties which have come upon us," said he, in a letter written at the, time; "could I have known that such backwardness would have been discovered by old soldiers to the service, all the generals upon earth should not have convinced me of the propriety of delaying an attack upon Boston until this time." A month later, writing to Joseph Reed, he gives expression to his feelings, under the severe trials and discouragements which had come upon him during several months past: "I know the unhappy predicament in which I stand. I know that much is expected from me. I know that, without men, without arms, without ammu * The Connecticut troops determined to go off in nition, without any thing fit for the ac a body when their term of service was about to expire, which would have left a fearful blank in the commodation of a soldier, little is to be army, already weak enough. Their extraordinary done; and what is mortifying, I know conduct hurt Washington's feelings very much, and notwithstanding all his efforts, they could not be induced to remain more than ten days, to allow, meanwhile, the militia to be called in. Washington wrote that I cannot stand justified to the world without exposing my own weakness, and injuring the cause, by declar to Governor Trumbull on this subject, and the latter, ing my wants, which I am determined as quoted by Mr. Sparks, replied in the following terms: "There is great difficulty to support liberty, to exercise government, and maintain subordination, and at the same time to prevent the operation of licentious and levelling principles, which many very easily imbibe. The pulse of a New England man beats high for liberty, his engagement in the service he thinks purely voluntary; therefore, when the time of enlistment is out, he thinks himself not holden without further engagement. This was the case in the last war. I greatly fear its operation amongst the soldiers of the other colonies, as I am sensible this is the spirit and genius of our people." Mr. Irving mentions, in this connection, that these Connecticut men found so little sympathy on the road homeward, that they could hardly get any thing to eat, and also that when the women at home got hold of them, they expressed their feelings in such plain terms, that the recreant soldiers deemed it better to face the enemy and British cannon, than bear the vigorous thrusts of the patriot wives and mothers of Connecticut. not to do, further than unavoidable necessity brings every man acquainted with them. My situation is so irksome to me at times, that if I did not consult the public good more than my own. tranquillity, I should long ere this have put every thing on the cast of a die. So far from my having an army of twenty thousand men well armed, I have been here with less than half that number, including sick, furloughed, and on command, and those neither armed nor clothed as they should be. In short, my situation has been such, that I have been obliged to use every art to conceal it from my own officers." Well CH. XIII.] BOMBARDMENT OF FALMOUTH. was it for the cause to which his life was devoted, that he did not yield to the pressure of difficulties, and lose his confident trust in the superintending care and favor of Divine Providence. The Provincial Congress having passed a resolution to prevent Tories from carrying off their effects, the inhabitants of Falmouth, in the northeastern part of Massachusetts, now Portland, in Maine, obstructed, accordingly, the loading of a mast-ship. The destruction of the town was, therefore, determined on, as an example of vindictive punishment. Captain Mowat, detached for that purpose, with armed vessels, by Admiral Greaves, arrived off the place on the evening of the 17th of October, and gave notice to the inhabitants that he would allow them two hours "to remove the human species." Upon being solicited to afford 1775. some explanation of this extraordinary summons, he replied, that he had orders to set on fire all the seaport towns from Boston to Halifax, and that he supposed New York was already in ashes. He could dispense with his orders, he said, on no terms, but the compliance of the inhabitants to deliver up their arms and ammunition, and their sending on board a supply of provisions, and four of the principal persons in the town, as hostages, that they should engage not to unite with their country in any kind of opposition to Britain; and he assured them, that, on a refusal of these conditions, he should lay the town in ashes within three hours. Unprepared for the attack, the inhabitants, by entreaty, ob VOL. I.-50 377 tained the suspension of an answer till the morning, and employed this interval in removing their families and effects. The next day, Captain Mowat commenced a furious cannonade and bombardment; and a great number of people, standing on the heights, were spectators of the conflagration, which reduced many of them to penury and despair. More than four hundred houses and stores were burnt. Newport, Rhode Island, being threatened with a similar attack, was compelled to stipulate for a weekly supply to avert it.* Outrages of this kind did but exasperate the feelings of the colonists, and it was not long before their enterprising spirit led them to undertake expeditions against the British on the water. Several vessels were fitted out, and the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, on the 10th of November, passed a law for granting letters of marque and reprisal against the shipping of Great Britain. A court of admiralty was also established by the provincial authorities. The colonies farther south had entered upon similar movements, and five or six armed vessels were fitted out by Washington, to prevent, as far as possible, supplies from reaching Boston by sea. Several captures were made, and particularly a valuable one 1775, by Captain Manly, November 29th, consisting of munitions of war, which were especially acceptable in the present emergency. On the whole, however, these enterprises were not particularly successful, for the officers, * Holmes's "Annals," vol. ii., p. 219. many of them, were incompetent, and the men were mutinously inclined, so that the entire matter was more plague than profit to the commander-in-chief. We may mention here, also, that Congress, about the middle of December, resolved to fit out thirteen ships, of various sizes and capacities, a movement which gave birth to that illustrious navy, whose brilliant exploits we shall be called upon to narrate in subsequent chapters of this history.* * * See Cooper's "Naval History," vol. i., p. 50, 51. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XIII. I.—A DECLARATION, SETTING FORTH THE CAUSES AND NECESSITY OF THE COLONIES TAKING UP ARMS.* Ir it was possible for men, who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these colonies might at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body. But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates. of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject that government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end. The legislature of Great Britain, however, stimulated by an inordinate passion for a power not only unjustifiable, but which they know to be peculiarly reprobated by the very constitution of that kingdom, and desperate of success in any mode of contest where regard should be had to truth, law, or right, have at length, deserting those, attempted to effect their cruel and impolitic purpose of enslaving these colonies by vio *Adopted July 6, 1775. lence, and have thereby rendered it necessary for us to close with their last appeal from reason to arms. Yet, however blinded that Assembly may be by their intemperate rage for unlimited domination, so to slight justice and the opinion of mankind, we esteem ourselves bound by obligations of respect to the rest of the world to make known the justice of our cause. Our forefathers, inhabitants of the Island of Great Britain, left their native land to seek on these shores a residence for civil and religious freedom. At the expense of their blood, at the hazard of their fortunes, without the least charge to the country from which they removed, by unceasing labor and an unconquerable spirit, they effected settlements in the distant and inhospitable wilds of America, then filled with numerous and warlike nations of barbarians. Societies or governments vested with perfect legislatures were formed under charters from the crown, and an harmonious intercourse was established between the colonies and the kingdom from which they derived their origin. The mutual benefits of this union became in a short time so extraordinary as to excite astonishment. It is universally confessed that the amazing increase of the wealth, strength, and navigation of the realm arose from this source, and the minister who so wisely and successfully directed the measures of Great Britain in the late war publicly declared, that these colonies enabled her to triumph over her enemies. Towards the conclusion of that war it pleased |