and disrespect with which the Americans behaved to the Catholic priests. Montgomery, arriving from Montreal in the beginning of December, and uniting his forces with those of Arnold, was slain in a desperate and ineffectual assault upon Quebec. In this sanguinary conflict, and in every circumstance of the campaign which afforded scope to the display of soldierly qualities, no officer in the American army was more conspicuous than Colonel Morgan, who now, by his heroic constancy and brilliant valor, laid the foundation of a fame which every year of his country's danger and glory contributed to enlarge. Anthony Wayne, hitherto known to his countrymen only as a supporter of the principles of liberty in the Pennsylvanian assembly, also commenced with much honor in this campaign a career that conducted him to the highest military renown. The martial taste and genius of Wayne (awakened probably by the interesting events of the war that issued in the British conquest of Canada) were signally illustrated in his boyhood, when he narrowly escaped expulsion from school for diverting his comrades from their studies by the continual rehearsal of sieges, skirmishes, and battles. Aaron Burr, likewise, more generally known by his subsequent title of Colonel Burr (grandson of the great Jonathan Edwards, and afterwards vice-president of the United States of North America) first distinguished himself in this campaign by the inflexible fortitude and the determined spirit of adventurous enterprise which he displayed, first as a voluntary associate of Arnold's followers, and then as aid-de-camp of Montgomery, the commander-in-chief; he was only nineteen years of age, when, deaf to the remonstrances of all his friends and relations, he braved and sustained the fatigues and dangers of the Canadian expedition. In the subsequent scenes of the Revolutionary War, till his broken health compelled him to abandon the field, he continued to approve himself one of the most skilful, intrepid, and efficient officers in the American army; but he obstructed his own promotion and the recognition of his real merit by his inordinate ambition, his moody, jealous pride, his splenetic obstinacy, and the unbounded license of profligacy which he indulged in his intercourse with women. The annals of America present no other instance of the dark, hard, restless, dangerous character disclosed in the career of Burr. Montgomery himself, whose fall we have remarked, was a native of Ireland, and, after serving with the British army during the last war in America, had married and established himself in the State of New York, and transferred his patriotic attachments to the new scene of his residence and domestic affections. His loss was deeply deplored, and his merits as a gallant and experienced officer and generous friend of liberty were enthusiastically commemorated in all the American States. Even the partisans of Britain admired his character, while they blamed his conduct; and Lord North, in alluding to him in the British House of Commons, exclaimed, "Curse on his virtues! for they have undone his country." Arnold, on whom the command of the invading forces now devolved, contrived through the whole winter to maintain the blockade of Quebec ; and it was not till the arrival of the following year and of strong reinforcements to the British army from Europe, that he and his American troops, successively abandoning post after post, were finally compelled to evacuate Canada.1 Among all the scenes of war to which the quarrel between Britain and America gave rise, this expedition was honorably distinguished both by the intrepid valor and endurance of the Americans, and (with the exception of the indignities inflicted on Allen) by the generous concern and respect for each other reciprocally demonstrated by the belligerent forces. The Americans warmly celebrated the merits of Carleton as a magnanimous foe, and ascribed to his undisguised abhorrence of the employment of Indian auxiliaries the policy which, unfortunately for Britain, prompted her ministers to divest him of his command and preferably intrust it to General Burgoyne. The 1 Annual Register for 1775 and for 1776. Gordon. Ramsay. Holmes. Williams's History of Vermont. Armstrong's Life of General Wayne. Davis's Memoirs of Aaron Burr. Walsh's Appeal. Pitkin. This last cited work, though invaluable from the access to novel and important American documents which its writer enjoyed, is rendered extremely perplexing to ordinary readers by its negligent composition and disregard of chronological arrange ment. 2 Carleton learned from his own feelings and understanding what Burgoyne ascertained by a lamentable experience, that the vindictive and ungovernable fury of the Indians was more fitted to provoke rage and despair than to inspire fear or recommend submission. Like those half-tamed beasts of prey em Canadian expedition of the Americans and its result, misrepresented by the folly and insolence of Burgoyne, induced the British cabinet to entertain a very erroneous view of the importance and facility of hostile operations in this quarter, and in the sequel exerted a very injurious influence on its military policy, which, instead of directing the British forces to act with combined vigor upon one point, divided them into two armies, of which the operations were totally unconnected, and of which the one was appointed to invade America in front from the seacoast, while the other, descending from Canada by the lakes, attempted from the rear to penetrate into the interior of the revolted provinces. ployed in the chase by the inhabitants of Eastern countries, they became dangerous to their employers whenever their unchained ferocity encountered a check or disappointment. CHAPTER V. Popular Feeling and public Policy in America. -American Negotiations with France. La Fayette.-Condition of the American Army. - Operations of Washington. — Retreat of the British Army from Boston. — Hostilities in South Carolina. - The Americans declare their Commerce free. Conduct of the American Quakers. — Proceedings in Congress. — Declaration of American Independence. - Conclusion. - OUR historical progress has at length conducted us to the last year [1776], during any part of which even a shadowy semblance or rather pretext of political union subsisted between Britain and the provinces of North America. For more than ten years, the parent state had, by a series of most impolitic measures, prolonged a quarrel of constantly augmenting bitterness with her colonies, and provoked them to demonstrate a more and more determined resistance to her authority. Since the refusal of the Americans to submit to the Stamp Act in 1765, the temper and deportment of both parties disclosed a reciprocal and progressive hostility; and every year had enlarged the numerical force of the partisans of America, confirmed their resolution, and extended the compass of their democratic view and purpose. In this country a whole generation had grown up from infancy to intelligent youth and manhood's dawn since the controversy began. Their education under such circumstances had not inculcated the respect that was formerly entertained for the parent state; and with the fearless, generous spirit that distinguishes their season of life, they warmly embraced the interests of liberty, and hailed the prospect of their country's independence. Nor was the gen 1 Almost all the young men in America were ardent patriots. At the commencement of the war, the College of New Jersey was deserted by many of its students, who rushed to join the ranks of the American army. Thither also repaired, from the school at which he was placed in South Carolina, at the age of fourteen, Andrew Jackson, afterwards president of the United States. Joel Barlow, the American poet, then a student at Yale College, always passed his vacations in the American camp. At the age of seventeen, John Marshall, of Virginia, afterwards so highly distinguished as a patriot, a lawyer, and chief justice of the United States, forsook his classical and juridical 55 VOL. IV. eral ardor for liberty confined to the more youthful inhabitants or even to the stronger sex in America; it glowed in the gentle bosoms of women, and triumphed over the feebleness and timidity of age. The female inhabitants of the county of Bristol, in Massachusetts, equipped a regiment at their own expense. The oldest German colonists at Philadelphia formed themselves into an armed company of veterans, and in the election of their officers gave the command to a man nearly a hundred years of age. While the Americans of British descent were inspired. with indignation by the intelligence that Britain had drawn a mercenary host from Germany to invade them, the colonists of German origin experienced no distraction of sentiment from this prospect; their zealous attachment to the 'adopted country where they found liberty and happiness was not abated by the hostility with which it was menaced from the instruments of that tyranny whence they themselves had sought refuge in America. This country at present exhibited the singular spectacle of a people professing allegiance to a distant monarch, whose commands they had for ten years openly disobeyed; zealously adhering to a domestic government which that monarch denounced as a traitorous usurpation; and maintaining an army avowedly raised to fight his troops, already engaged in battle with them, and latterly employed in the invasion of his territories. A state of things so heterogeneous could not subsist much longer; and, notwithstanding the exertions that were made to bridle the impetuosity of the partisans of independence, this great consummation was rapidly maturing, and became with more certainty from day to day the substantial, though unacknowledged, purpose of the Americans. Nay, its advancement was promoted studies to enrol himself in the militia of his native State. Such also was the conduct of John Trumbull, of Connecticut, whose talent as a draughtsman was appreciated and employed by Washington, and who now devoted to the military service of his country the pictorial genius which was afterwards exerted in delineating the scenes and particulars of her glory. No small surprise and admiration was excited in America by the discovery that some of the ablest and most eloquent compositions in support of liberty, that were published in the year 1774, were the productions of Alexander Hamilton, a student at New York College, only seventeen years of age. This young man in the present year entered the American army as an officer of artillery. He rose to the rank of general, and gained high distinction as a soldier, a statesman, and a political writer. Many years after, he was slain in a duel by Aaron Burr, his equally ardent, but far less virtuous, contemporary in youthful zeal and gallant exertion for American liberty. |