of
the coercive measures forced on Parliament by the King's pliable
ministers, led by Lord North. The "declaration," {283} however, was
not finally proclaimed until nearly two years later--on July 4,
1776,--when the Thirteen Colonies declared themselves "free and
independent States," absolved of their allegiance to the British Crown.
But many months before this great epoch-making event, war had actually
commenced on Lake Champlain. On an April day, in the now memorable
year, 1775, the "embattled farmers" had fired at Concord and Lexington,
the shots "heard round the world," and a few weeks later the forts of
Crown Point and Ticonderoga, then defended by very feeble garrisons,
were in the possession of Colonial troops led by Ethan Allen and Seth
Warner, two of the "Green Mountain Boys," who organised this
expedition. Canada was at this time in a very defenceless condition.
Only eight hundred regular troops altogether were in the colony, very
many of the English residents of Montreal and Quebec were of doubtful
loyalty, the majority of the French Canadians were indifferent, and
could not be induced to rally in any numbers to the defence of the
province. Happily for the best interests of Canada at this crisis
there was at the head of the administration one of the ablest men who
have ever been sent to Canada--a governor-general who may well be
compared with Frontenac as a soldier and Lord Elgin as a statesman--and
that was Sir Guy Carleton, the friend of Wolfe, with whom he had served
at Quebec. His conciliatory attitude towards the French Canadian
population, and his influence in moulding the Quebec Act, gave him
great weight with the bishop and clergy of the Roman Catholic {284}
faith and leading men of the majority. The British Government, with
culpable neglect of his warnings and appeals, left him unsupported
until the very last moment, when the fate of Canada was literally
trembling in the balance. In the autumn of 1775 General Montgomery, at
the head of a considerable force of congress troops, captured the forts
of Chambly and St. Johns on the Richelieu, and a few days later
occupied Montreal, which had been hastily evacuated by Carleton, who at
once recognised the impracticability of defending it with any chance of
success, since he had an insufficient force, and could not even depend
on the fealty of the inhabitants. Quebec, at this juncture, was the
key to Canada, and there he determined to make his fight.