future operations. The
government decided that the place should be held, and its enforced
evacuation was a moral defeat and a legitimate cause of triumph to the
Americans. Their exultation was dashed by the failure of their attempt
on Canada. Fresh troops were sent to support the invasion, but the
feelings of the people, English as well as French, were turning strongly
against the Americans. After the evacuation of Boston, congress ordered
Washington to send nearly half his effective force into Canada, and
despatched Franklin and other commissioners thither to allure the people
with promises. The Canadians turned a deaf ear to their offers. The
moment for which Carleton waited so patiently came at last. On May 6,
before the river was fully cleared of ice, three British ships made
their way to Quebec with reinforcements. He at once sallied out, and the
Americans fled in confusion, leaving their cannon and baggage behind,
and even their pots boiling, so that the king's troops sat down and ate
their dinners from them. Further reinforcements arrived from Halifax and
from Ireland, and in June Burgoyne, who had spent the winter at home,
brought over the Hessian and Brunswick troops, raising Carleton's army
to about 12,000 men. The Americans, under Sullivan, retreated from the
neighbourhood of Quebec to Sorel. A large detachment was routed at
Three Rivers, and Sullivan retreated to St. John's, leisurely pursued by
Burgoyne. There he was joined by Arnold, and the remnants of the army of
Canada, some 5,000 men, suffering severely from sickness and privation,
escaped to Isle-aux-Noix, and thence to Crown Point. Canada was
evacuated in June. Left almost defenceless by England, it was preserved
to her by Carleton's firmness and intrepidity.

By the beginning of 1776 the idea of separation from Great Britain was
daily gaining ground in the revolted colonies. It was strengthened by
the publication of a pamphlet entitled _Common Sense_ by Thomas Paine.
This Paine, a staymaker by trade, after he had failed in business in
England, and had been dismissed from employment as an exciseman for
neglect of duty, emigrated to America in 1774, and came into notice
through introductions given him by Franklin. He was bitterly hostile to
his own country, a violent advocate of revolutionary ideas, ignorant and
conceited; yet he had much shrewdness, and expressed his rude opinions
with a force and vivacity which appealed strongly to readers prepared