Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/149

A.D.1775.] weeks, and they were impatient even of that time. They complained of the severity of the service and the season. As he proceeded, therefore, he found them fast melting away by desertion; and, had he not soon fallen in with Arnold and his band at Point aux Trembles, he would have found himself alone.

Arnold had meantime arranged everything with Washington, at Cambridge, for his expedition. Amongst his instructions was one enjoining him, if he found lord Pitt, Chatham's son, still serving in Canada, and he should happen to fall into his power, to treat him with the highest respect, for that he could not err in doing too much honour to the son of so illustrious a character—so true a friend of America. Arnold marched away from Cambridge with twelve hundred men, and on reaching the Kennebec River, one hundred and thirty miles north of Boston, embarked upon it, carrying with him one thousand pounds in money, and a whole cargo of manifestoes for distribution among the Canadians.



The Kennebec is a wild and rapid stream, rising in Lake St. Pierre, or Moosehead, in a mountain range separating Blaine from Canada. Great part of this stream had never been surveyed; it was full of rapids and falls, and so strong that, on an average, the men had to wade above half the way. Arnold, in his dispatches, said—"You would have thought them amphibious." Thence he had to traverse a terrible wilderness of woods, swamps, streams, and rugged heights, where the men had to carry their boats and their provisions on their shoulders, and where, for two-and-thirty days, they saw no house, wigwam, or sign of human life. So extreme were his distresses, that for the last several days they had to live on their own dogs. It was the 3rd of November before they reached the first Canadian settlement on the river Chaudierè, which flows into the St. Lawrence opposite to Quebec.

His second in command, colonel Enos, had got entangled in the windings of the Dead River, a tributary of the Kennebec, and had been so completely bewildered that he had returned with one-third of the detachment to Cambridge. Arnold now sent out his men in all directions to forage for provisions; and, allowing time to rest and for the stragglers to come up, he did not advance again till the 9th of November. He emerged on the river St. Lawrence, at Point Levis, immediately over against Quebec. Could Arnold have crossed immediately, such was the suddenness of the surprise, that he probably would have taken the city. But a rough gale was blowing at the time, and for five days he was detained on the right bank of the river by that circumstance and the want of boats. By that time, colonel Maclean had made good his retreat into the city, and put it in a state of defence. Some small armed vessels were anchored in front of the town, and boats tilled with armed men rowed to and fro to keep watch on the Americans on the opposite shore.

Arnold, nevertheless, managed to cross the river in the night, about a mile and a half above the place where Wolfe had crossed. Finding the cliffs there too high to scale, he followed the shore down to Wolfe's Cove, and ascended the heights just where Wolfe had done so. Like Wolfe, Arnold formed his band on the heights of Abraham, and, trusting to the belief that the Canadians were in favour of the Americans, proposed to make a dash up to the gates of the city before day broke; but his followers protested against this design. When day dawned, Arnold saw so many men on the walls and batteries that he knew the assault was hopeless, and retired to Point aux Trembles, where he was joined by Montgomery, who took the chief command.

Arnold had not been able to bring any artillery with him; Montgomery had a little. They had about twelve hundred men altogether; and with this force they now marched upon Quebec. On the 20th of December they commenced firing on the town from a six-gun battery; but their cannon was too light to make much impression—they had no gins heavier than twelve-pounders, and these were soon dismounted by colonel Maclean and his sailors. The Americans withdrew their guns to a safer distance; and their troops were desirous to abandon the enterprise as impracticable,