With his characteristic patience and assiduity, however, he overcame these difficulties. By the influence of the respect which his character inspired, he reduced these jarring elements to some degree of order. His encampments were regularly supplied with provisions. By extraordinary exertions he procured a sufficient stock of ammunition and military stores; and though the well-dressed scouting parties of the British who approached his lines could not repress a smile on seeing his soldiers equipped in hunting-shirts, the affair at Breed's Hill had taught them that a handsome uniform is by no means essential to bravery in battle.

On the 10th of October, General Gage resigned the command of the British army to General Howe, and sailed for England in a vessel of war. Had he made

the voyage in a transport, he would have run some risk of being taken prisoner; for towards the close of this year, (1775,) Congress fitted out several privateers, which were eminently successful in capturing the store-ships which had been sent from Great Britain with supplies for the royal army. These captures at once crippled the enemy and furnished the Americans with important requisites for carrying on the war.

SECTION XV.

INVASION OF CANADA.-DEATH OF MONTGOMERY.

Nor were the offensive operations of the provincials confined to the sea. Having, as has been before related, obtained possession of Ticonderoga, which is the key of Canada, the Congress determined to invade that province, in the hope that its inhabitants would welcome the forces which they might send against it, as their deliverers from the yoke of oppression. They accordingly gave the command of 1000 men to Generals Schuyler and Montgomery, with directions to

Dur

march into Canada. When the expedition had advanced to the town of St. John's, Schuyler, in consequence of the bad state of his health, resigned the command to his associate, and returned home. In attacking St. John's, the commander of which made a brave defence, Montgomery experienced considerable difficulties in consequence of his want of the chief requisites for conducting a siege; but he vanquished them all, and compelled the garrison, consisting of 500 regulars and 100 Canadians, to surrender. ing the progress of the siege, Sir Guy Carleton, the Governor of Canada, had collected 800 men at Montreal, for the purpose of attacking the besieging army; but he was driven back by a body of the Vermont militia, commanded by General Warner. Montgomery, therefore, proceeded to Montreal, the garrison of which attempted to escape down the river, but were intercepted and captured by the American Colonel Easton and Governor Carleton himself was so hard pressed, that he was glad to escape to Trois Rivières, whence he proceeded to Quebec. To this place he was pursued by Montgomery, who in the course of his march, adopted the wisest measures to gain over the inhabitants of the province. With the peasants he succeeded; but upon the priests and the seigneurs, or feudal lords, who foresaw that a revolution would be detrimental to their interests, he made little impression.

Whilst Montgomery was penetrating into Canada by the St. Lawrence, General Arnold, who afterwards rendered himself infamous by his treachery, was advancing to co-operate with him by the way of the Kennebeck river and the Chaudière. This route appears upon the map to be a very direct one; but it was beset with formidable difficulties. In their voyage up the Kennebeck, Arnold and his comrades had to pull against a powerful stream interrupted by rapids,

over which they were obliged to haul their boats with excessive labor. The space which intervenes between the mouth of the Kennebeck and that of the Chaudière was a wild and pathless forest, through a great part of which they were compelled to cut their way with hatchets; and so scantily were they furnished with provisions, that when they had eaten their last morsel they had thirty miles to travel before they could expect any farther supplies. In spite of these obstructions, Arnold persevered in his bold enterprize; and on the 8th of November he arrived at Point Levi, opposite Quebec; and had he possessed the means of immediately passing the St. Lawrence, such was the panic occasioned by his unexpected appearance, that it is probable that the city, in the absence of the Governor, would have surrendered to him. But whilst he was collecting craft to effect his passage, the inhabitants recovered from their consternation, the Governor arrived, and the place was put in a posture of defence. On the 1st of December, Montgomery, having effected a junction with Arnold, broke ground before Quebec. But he labored under insuperable disadvantages. His forces were inferior in number to those of the garrison. He was destitute of a proper battering train. His soldiers were daily sinking under the hardships of a Canadian winter; and their -term of enlistment was soon to expire. Seeing that no hopes were left, but that of the success of a desperate effort, he attempted to carry the city by assault, and had penetrated to the second barrier, when he fell by a musket shot, leaving behind him the character of a brave soldier, an accomplished gentleman, and an ardent friend of liberty. Arnold was carried wounded from the field; but on the death of his friend he took the command of the remnant of his forces, which he encamped at the short distance of three miles from the city.

SECTION XVI.

EVACUATION OF BOSTON, MARCH 17, 1776.

Whilst these transactions were carrying on to the northward of the American continent, the inhabitants of the middle and southern provinces were employed in preparing for resistance against the demands of the British government, and in general compelled such of their governors as took any active measures for the support of royal authority, to consult for their safety by taking refuge on board of ships of war. In Virginia, the imprudence of Lord Dunmore provoked open hostilities, in the course of which he burned the town of Norfolk. By this act, however, and by a proclamation, in which he promised freedom to such of the negroes as should join his standard, he only irritated the provincials, without doing them any essential injury; and being finally driven from the colony, he returned to England.

Towards the close of this year, the commander-inchief of the American forces found himself in circumstances of extreme embarrassment. 'It gives me great distress,' thus he wrote in a letter to Congress of the date of Sept. 21, 1775, 'to be obliged 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 army; 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 from mutiny upon the deduction from their stated allowance.' The fact is, that the troops had engaged in the service of their country with feelings of ardent zeal; but, with a mistaken idea that the contest would be decided by a single effort, they had limited the time of their service to a short period, which was ready to expire. Congress had appointed a committee, consisting of Dr. Franklin and two other individuals, to organize an army for the year 1776. But when these gentlemen repaired to head quarters, and sounded the dispositions of the troops as to a second enlistment, they did not find in them the alacrity which they expected. The soldiers were, as they had evinced in all services of danger, personally brave; but they were unaccustomed to the alternate monotony and violent exertion of a military life, and their independent spirit could ill brook the necessary restraints of discipline. From these causes so many quitted the camp when the term of their service was expired, that on the last day of the year Washington's muster-roll contained the names of only 9650 men. By the exertions of the committee, however, these were speedily reinforced by a body of militia, who increased their numbers to 17,000. Upon these circumstances, the commander-in-chief, in one of his despatches to Congress, made the following striking remarks. It is not in the pages of history, perhaps, to furnish a case like ours-to maintain a post within musket-shot of the enemy for six months together without ammunition, and, at the same time, to disband one army and recruit another, within that distance of twenty odd British regiments, is more, probably, than ever was attempted. But if we succeed as well in the last, as we have heretofore in the first, I shall think it the most fortunate event of my whole life.' It may be permitted us to conjecture that in