of 1780 Washington himself wrote that his troops were "constantly
on the point of starving for want of provisions and forage." He saw "in
every line of the army the most serious features of mutiny and
sedition." Indeed he had "almost ceased to hope," for he found the
country in general "in such a state of insensibility and indifference to
its interests" that he dare not flatter himself "with any change for the
better." The war under such circumstances would have come to a sudden
end had not France liberally responded to Washington's appeals and
supported him with her money, her sailors and her soldiers. In the
closing years of the war Great Britain had not only to fight France,
Spain, Holland and her own colonies, but she was without a single ally
in Europe. Her dominion was threatened in India, and the king prevented
the intervention of the only statesman in the kingdom to whom the
colonists at any time were likely to listen with respect. When Chatham
died with a protest on his lips "against the dismemberment of this
ancient monarchy," the last hope of bringing about a reconciliation
between the revolutionists and the parent state disappeared for ever,
and the Thirteen Colonies became independent at Yorktown.

SECTION 2.--Canada and Nova Scotia during the Revolution.

If Canada was saved to England during the American Revolution it was not
on account of the energy and foresight shown by the king and his
ministers in providing adequately for its defence, but mainly through
the coolness and excellent judgment displayed by Governor Carleton. The
Quebec act, for which he was largely responsible, was extremely
unpopular in the Thirteen Colonies, on account of its having extended
the boundaries of the province and the civil law to that western country
beyond the Alleghanies, which the frontiersmen of Pennsylvania and
Virginia regarded as specially their own domain. The fact that the
Quebec act was passed by parliament simultaneously with the Boston port
bill and other measures especially levelled against Massachusetts, gave
additional fuel to the indignation of the people, who regarded this
group of acts as part of a settled policy to crush the British-speaking
colonies.

Under these circumstances, the invasion of Canada by Arnold in 1775,
with the full approval of the continental congress, soon after the
taking of Crown Point and Ticonderoga by the "Green Mountain boys" of
Vermont, was a most popular movement which, it