CHAP. er; the affair is of no consequence, or of little conse quence, to us."

J.I.

1775.

But one greater than Robertson and wiser than Hume gave the best expression to the mind of Scot land. Adam Smith, the peer and the teacher of statesmen, enrolled among the servants of humanity and benefactors of our race, one who had closely studied France as well as Britain, and who in his style combined the grace and the clearness of a man of the world with profound wisdom and the sincere search for truth, applied to the crisis those principles of freedom and right which made Scotland, under every disadvantage of an oppressive form of feudalism and a deceitful system of representation, an efficient instrument in promoting the liberties of mankind. He would have the American colonies either fairly represented in parliament, or independent. The prohibitory laws of England towards the colonies he pronounced "a manifest violation of the most sacred rights," "impertinent badges of slavery imposed upon them without any sufficient reason by the groundless jealousy of the merchants and manufacturers of the mother country." "Great Britain," said he, " derives nothing but loss from the dominion she assumes over her colonies." "It is not very probable that they will ever voluntarily submit to us; the blood which must be shed in forcing them to do so is every drop of it the blood of those who are or of those whom we wish to have for our fellow citizens." "They are very weak who flatter themselves that in the state to which things are come, our colonies will be easily conquered by force alone." And he pointed out the vast immediate and continuing advantages

LI

which Great Britain would derive, if she "should CHAP. voluntarily give up all authority over her colonies, and leave them to elect their own magistrates, to 1775. enact their own laws, and to make peace and war as they might think proper."

Josiah Tucker, an English royalist writer on political economy, had studied perseveringly the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, in their application to commerce; and at the risk of being rated a visionary enthusiast, he now sought to convince the landed gentry, that Great Britain would lose nothing if she should renounce her colonies and cultivate commerce with them as an independent nation. This he enforced with such strength of argument and perspicu ity of statement, that Soame Jenyns wrote verses in his praise, and Mansfield approved his treatise.

Thus rose through the clouds of conflict and passion the cheering idea, that the impending change, which had been deprecated as the ruin of the empire, would bring no disaster to Britain. American statesmen had struggled to avoid a separation, which neither the indefatigable zeal of Samuel Adams, nor the eloquence of John Adams, nor the sympathetic spirit of Jefferson, could have brought about. The king was the author of American independence. His several measures, as one by one they were successively borne across the Atlantic-his contempt for the petition of congress, his speech to parliament, his avowed negotiations for mercenaries, the closing the ports of all the thirteen colonies and confiscating all their property on the ocean-forced upon them the conviction that they must protect and govern themselves.

CHAPTER LII.

THE CAPTURE OF MONTREAL.

CHAP.

AUGUST NOVEMBER, 1775.

WHEN Carleton heard of the surrender of Ticon

LII. deroga to Allen and Arnold, he resolved to attempt 1775. its recovery. The continental congress had, on the

first of June, explicitly disclaimed the purpose of invading Canada; and a French version of their resolution was very widely distributed among its inhabitants. But on the ninth of that month the governor of the province proclaimed the American borderers to be a rebellious band of traitors, established martial law, and summoned the French peasantry to serve under the old colonial nobility, while the converted Indian tribes and the savages of the northwest were instigated to take up the hatchet against New York and New England. These movements affected the intentions of congress, and made the occupation of Canada an act of self-defence.

The French nobility, of whom many under the Quebec act were received into the council or ap

LII.

pointed to executive offices, and the Catholic clergy CHAP. who were restored to the possession of their estates and their tithes, acquiesced in the new form of 1775 government; but by a large part of the British residents it was detested, as at war with English liberties, and subjecting them to arbitrary power. The instincts of the Canadian peasantry inclined them to take part with the united colonies: they denied the authority of the French nobility as magistrates, and resisted their claim of a right as seigniors to command their military services. Without the hardihood to rise of themselves, they were willing to welcome an invasion.

Carleton, in his distress, appealed to the Catholic bishop. That prelate, who was a stipendiary of the British king, sent a mandate to the several parishes, to be read by the subordinate clergy after divine service, but the peasantry persisted in refusing to

turn out.

We have seen the feeble and disorderly condition of the northern army at the time of Schuyler's arrival. His first object was to learn the state of Canada, and in Major John Brown he found a fearless, able, and trusty emissary. He next endeavored to introduce order into his command. On the twenty seventh of July the regiment of Green Mountain Boys elected its officers; the rash and boastful Ethan Allen was passed by, and instead of him Seth Warner, a man of equal courage and better judgment, was elected its lieutenant colonel.

Under the direction of Schuyler, boats were built Aug at Ticonderoga as fast as possible; and his humanity brooked no delay in adopting measures for the relief of the sick; but as twelve hundred men formed the

Aug.

CHAP. whole force that he could as yet lead beyond the bor LII. der, he feared that the naval strength of the enemy 1775 might prevent his getting down the Sorel river; and on the sixth of August he wrote to congress, which had already adjourned, for information whether he was to proceed. The reference implied his own conviction, that his army was inadequate to the vast enterprise. Before the middle of the month, Brown returned from his perilous march of observation, and reported that now was the time to carry Canada; that the inhabitants were friends; that the number of regulars in Canada was only about seven hundred, of whom three hundred were at St. John's; that the militia openly refused to serve under the French of ficers lately appointed. At the same time a new arrival at Ticonderoga changed the spirit of the camp.

We have seen Richard Montgomery, who had served in the army from the age of fifteen, gain distinction in the Seven Years' war. Several years after his return to Ireland, he took the steps which he believed sufficient for his promotion to a majority; failing in his pursuit and thinking himself overreached, he sold his commission in disgust, and emigrated to New York. Here, in 1773, he renewed his former acquaintance with the family of Robert R. Livingston, and married his eldest daughter. Never intending to draw his sword again, studious in his habits, he wished for retirement; and his wife, whose affections he entirely possessed, willingly conformed to his tastes. At Rhinebeck a mill was built, a farm stocked, and the foundation of a new house laid, so that peaceful years seemed to await them. Montgomery was of a sanguine temperament, yet