ity remained indifferent. Montgomery captured
Montreal, but in the attack on Quebec he was slain, and Arnold wounded in
the leg, and the Americans were defeated with a loss of about four
hundred killed, wounded and prisoners. The death of Montgomery was a
severe blow to the American cause. He was one of the ablest commanders in
the service at a time when the colonists were much in need of practiced
military men, and even in England he was held in high regard. "Curse on
his virtues," said Lord North; "they've undone his country."

* * *

In March, 1776, General William Howe evacuated Boston and sailed to
Halifax, taking with him a number of refugees. Howe busied himself in
Halifax in fitting out a powerful expedition for the capture of New York,
where the people had taken up with enthusiasm the cause of the colonies.
Late in April General Washington moved to New York and prepared to defend
that city. Meantime Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, after
endeavoring to excite an insurrection of the slaves, had been conducting
a predatory and incendiary warfare against the colony, until driven away
by the militia, when he sailed off in a fleet loaded with plunder. In
North Carolina, where an association of patriots had declared for
independence at Mecklenburg as early as May, 1775, a severe battle
occurred at Moore's Creek Bridge, February 26, 1776, between the
patriots, led by Colonel James Moore, and the loyalists or Tories, many
of whom had fought for the Young Pretender in Scotland, but were now
equally devoted to the House of Hanover. The Tories were completely
routed, and the plans of the British to make North Carolina a centre of
royalist operations were disconcerted.

* * *

The Declaration of Independence was now inevitable. Many of the
colonists, including a large proportion of the well-to-do, were unwilling
to throw off allegiance to the crown, and these were known as Tories and
punished as traitors whenever they gave active expression to their
sentiments. The majority of the people, however, were for complete
separation from England, and were ready to support that determination
with their lives. Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, made a motion in the
Continental Congress, June 7, 1776, "that these united colonies are and
of right ought to be free and independent States, that they are absolved
from all allegiance to the Britis