Canada, unequal to the station which he had never sought and from which he was impatient to be relieved. Yet he was ever ready, in case of need, to sacrifice his life for his country. In the early part of his command he wisely arrested Campbell, the Indian agent of the British, and La Corne Saint-Luc, and sent them out of the province. He allowed each parish to choose its own officers, thus introducing the system of selfgovernment in towns. He intended, through committees of safety and committees of correspondence, to lead the way to a Canadian convention which might send delegates to the American congress. With Schuyler, who was far the more testy of the two, he had constant bickerings, which divided the opinion of congress.

On the first day of April, Wooster appeared near Quebec. Scattered on both sides of the river and at great distances from each other lay about two thousand Americans, of whom not many more than half were able to do duty. How to find food for them was a great difficulty. Their batteries were insignificant, their store of ammunition most scanty; there were no engineers and few artillerists. One half of the troops who had wintered in Canada, and Livingston's regiment of about two hundred Canadians would be free in fourteen days, and would certainly refuse to remain. Arnold, who had been made a brigadier, withdrew to Montreal. The Canadian peasantry had been forced to furnish wood and other articles at less than the market price, or for certificates, and felt themselves outraged by the arbitrariness of the military occupation. Of the more cultivated classes, French and English, seven eighths were willing to assist in repelling the invaders.

On the twenty-fifth of March "the congress, being of opinion that the reduction of Quebec and the general security of the province of Canada were objects of great concern,” directed Washington to detach four battalions into Canada. He received the order while yet in Boston; having completed the arrangements for sending to New York such troops as were then under his immediate command, he reached that city on the thirteenth of April, and made it his first duty to speed four battalions to Canada. "Too much despatch," wrote congress, "cannot be used in sending the battalion to Quebec, as it fre

quently happens that a week, a day, even an hour, proves decisive." But before this letter was received the brigade was sailing up the Hudson. On the twenty-third of April, Congress, without even consulting the commander-in-chief, suddenly gave him the order to detach six additional battalions for service in Canada, and inquired of him if he could spare more. Late at night on the twenty-fifth he received the order by express; his effective force consisted of but eight thousand three hundred and one; he resigned himself to the ill-considered votes of congress, and detached six of his best battalions, containing more than three thousand men, at a time when the British ministry was directing against New York thirty thousand veteran troops. The command of the brigade was given to Sullivan; among its officers were Stark and Reed of New Hampshire, Anthony Wayne and Irvine of Pennsylvania. "At the same time," so he wrote to congress, "trusting New York and Hudson river to the handful of men remaining here is running too great a risk. The general officers now here think it absolutely necessary to increase the army at this place with at least ten thousand men."

But congress, having stripped Washington of about half his effective force, next ordered that provisions, powder of which his stock was very low, and articles of clothing for ten thousand men, should follow, with all the hard money which the New England states could collect. Montgomery had asked for ten thousand men; they were resolved to maintain that number on the St. Lawrence, leaving Washington very much to his own devices for the protection of New York.

For Canada a general was wanted not less than an army. Schuyler, owning himself unable to manage the men of Connecticut, proposed to himself to resign. Thomas of Massachusetts, a man of superior ability and culture, though of little experience, was raised to the rank of major-general and ordered to Quebec. In the army with which he was to hold Canada, the small-pox raged; he had never been inoculated, and his journey to the camp was a journey to meet death unattended by glory.

He was closely followed by Franklin, Chase, and Charles Carroll, whom congress had commissioned to promise the clergy

a guarantee of their estates; to establish a free press; to allure the people of Canada by the prospect of a free trade with all nations; to set up a government for themselves, and join the federal union. John, the brother of Charles Carroll, a Jesuit, afterward archbishop of Baltimore, came with them in the hope of moderating the opposition of the Canadian clergy. The commissioners discovered on their arrival a general expectation that the Americans would be driven from the province; without hard money and a large army they could not ask the people to take part in the war.

Thomas arrived near Quebec on the first of May, and employed three days in ascertaining the condition of his command. He found one thousand six hundred men, including officers, beside three hundred whose enlistments had expired. The sick numbered nine hundred, chiefly of the small-pox which had raged among the Americans with extreme virulence, so that men feared to be near one another, and there were officers who advised to inoculate all of them who were liable to infection. Of efficient men there were but seven hundred; and of these not more than three hundred could be rallied at any one place. In all the magazines there remained but about one hundred and fifty pounds of powder and six days' provisions.

On the fifth a council of war agreed unanimously to prepare for a retreat. The decision had been delayed too long. Early on the sixth, three British ships-of-war, which had forced their way up the St. Lawrence when it was almost impracticable from ice, came into the basin and landed their marines and that part of the twenty-ninth regiment which they had on board; and not far from noon, while the Americans were embarking their sick and their artillery, about one thousand men, in two divisions, sallying out of the gates of St. John and St. Louis, attacked the American sentinels and main guard. Thomas attempted to bring his men under arms; but, unable to collect more than two hundred and fifty on the plains, he directed a retreat to Deschambault, forty-eight miles above Quebec. The troops fled with precipitation, leaving their provisions, cannon, five hundred muskets, and about two hundred of their sick. Of these, one half crept away to the Canadian peasants, by

whom they were nursed with tenderness; Carleton, by proclamation, opened the general hospital to them all, with leave to return home on their recovery.

At Deschambault it was ordered that the half-starved army should not attempt to make a stand below Sorel. The English in pursuit burned the houses of the French who had befriended the rebels.

On the eighth the forty-seventh regiment arrived from Halifax, and, five days later, more transports and troops from Europe, while Thomas remained fifteen leagues below Montreal, at Sorel. That city was approached on the north-west, near the pass of the Cedars, by a party composed of forty regular troops from the station at Detroit, a hundred Canadians, and several hundred Indians. The troops which Arnold sent to the Cedars met with discomfitures till he went to their relief; the Indians violated capitulations by sacrificing American prisoners for their warriors who had fallen.

The American commissioners, Franklin and his colleagues, observed that the invaders had lost the affections of the Canadian people; that, for the want of hard money, they were distressed for provisions; that they were incapable of exact discipline, because sent for short periods of service; that, always too few in numbers, they were wasted by the small-pox; and they unanimously advised immediately to withdraw the army from Canada, fortify the passes on the lakes, and station Sullivan's brigade at Fort George.

But congress insolently enjoined Thomas to "display his military qualities and acquire laurels." Of hard money it

sent forward all that it had, which was sixteen hundred sixtytwo pounds, one shilling and threepence; and, unable to collect more, it resolved to supply the troops in Canada with provisions and clothing from the other colonies. It voted the necessity of keeping possession of the country and of contesting every foot of ground, especially on the St. Lawrence below the mouth of the Sorel. But the campaign in Canada was decided before its votes were known.

At the end of May confusion prevailed in every department of the American army. Their number did not exceed four thousand men of whom three fourths had never had the

small-pox; many of their officers were incompetent. They were often without meat, and lived by levying contributions of meal.

In the blindness of helpless zeal, on the first day of June congress resolved "that six thousand militia be employed to reenforce the army in Canada, and to keep up the communication with that province;" it called upon Massachusetts to make up half that number, Connecticut one quarter, New Hampshire and New York the rest; and, with a useless dereliction from sound policy, it authorized the employment of Indians.

On that same day the first division of the Brunswick troops under Riedesel arrived with Burgoyne at Quebec, and, with the regiments from Ireland and others, put into the hands of Carleton an army of nine thousand nine hundred and eightyfour effective men.

The small-pox seized Thomas, and he died just a month and a day after taking the command round Quebec. Sullivan, arriving with his party at Sorel on the fifth, found the retreat in safe progress, the heavy baggage and most of the artillery already removed to St. John's and Chambly. Assuming the command, he ordered all who were on the retreat to turn about and follow him, and the cannon to be brought back. "I assure you and the congress," he reported through Washington to congress on the sixth, "that I can in a few days reduce the army to order and put a new face to our affairs here. All our operations ought to be down the river." He sent a detachment, under a subordinate general, with one fourth of his whole force to Three Rivers, through a country with which he was unacquainted, and in ignorance of the strength and the positions of the enemy. A peasant made known to the English their approach. Twenty-five newly arrived transports, laden with troops, had, by Carleton's directions, been piloted past Quebec without stopping; and they arrived at Three Rivers just in time to take part in repelling the attack which was gallantly begun by Wayne. The Americans were driven back to Sorel, losing more than two hundred men, chiefly as prisoners, saving the rest only by Carleton's want of alertness.

The remains of the American army encamped at Sorel did not exceed two thousand five hundred men; about a thousand