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cessively surrendered, leaving "the flower of the rebel army" "cooped up" within the town. Morgan proposed that they should cut their way through their enemies; but it had become impracticable; and, after maintaining the struggle till the last hope was gone, at ten o'clock they gave themselves up. To the captives Carleton proved a humane and generous enemy. The loss of the British was inconsiderable; that of the Americans, in killed or wounded, was about sixty; in prisoners, between three and four hundred.

When the battle was over, thirteen bodies were found at the place now known as Pres-de-Ville. That of Cheesman, whose career had been brief but gallant, had fallen over the rocks. In the pathway lay Macpherson, the pure-minded, youthful enthusiast for liberty, as spotless as the new-fallen snow which was his winding-sheet; full of promise for war, lovely in temper, dear to the army, honored by the affection and confidence of his chief. There, too, by his side, lay Richard Montgomery, on the spot where he fell. At his death he was in the first month of his fortieth year. He was tall and slender, well-limbed, of a graceful address, and a strong and active frame. He could endure fatigue, and all changes and severities of climate. His judgment was cool, though he kindled in action, imparting sympathetic courage. Never negligent of duty, never avoiding danger, discriminating and energetic, he had the power of conducting free men by their voluntary love and esteem. An experienced soldier, he was well versed in letters and in natural science. In private life, he was a good husband, brother, and son, an amiable and faithful friend. He overcame difficulties which others shunned to encounter. Foes and friends paid tribute to his worth. The governor, lieutenant-governor, and council of Quebec, and all the principal officers of the garrison, buried him and his aidede-camp, Macpherson, with the honors of war.

At the news of his death, "the city of Philadelphia was in tears; every person seemed to have lost his nearest friend." Congress proclaimed for him "their grateful remembrance, respect, and high veneration; and, desiring to transmit to future ages a truly worthy example of patriotism, conduct, boldness of enterprise, insuperable perseverance, and contempt of dan

ger and death," they reared a marble monument "to the glory of Richard Montgomery."

Frederic of Prussia gave him praise as a military chief. In the British parliament Barré, his veteran fellow-soldier in the late war, wept profusely as he expatiated on their fast friendship and participation of service in the season of enterprise and glory, when Canada was conquered for Britain, and, holding up the British commanders in review, pronounced a glowing tribute to his superior merits. Edmund Burke contrasted the condition of the eight thousand men, starved, disgraced, and shut up within the single town of Boston, with the movements of the hero who in one campaign had conquered two thirds of Canada. "I," replied North, "cannot join in lamenting the death of Montgomery as a public loss. Curse on his virtues, they've undone his country. He was brave, he was able, he was humane, he was generous; but still he was only a brave, able, humane, and generous rebel." "The term of rebel," retorted Fox, "is no certain mark of disgrace. The great assertors of liberty, the saviors of their country, the benefactors of mankind in all ages, have been called rebels. We owe the constitution which enables us to sit in this house to a rebellion."

So passed away Montgomery, with the love of all that knew him, the grief of the rising republic, and the eulogies of the world.

CHAPTER XX.

ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE.

LAST MONTHS OF 1775-MARCH 1776.

A STEADY current drifted the country toward a closer union and independence. The British government refused to treat with the general congress. The American colonies, if they mean to make their resistance effectual, must confine their intercourse with the British government exclusively to the representatives of the colonies in union. In New Jersey the assembly granted the usual annual support of the royal government, and then considered the draft of a separate address to the king; but, as that mode of action tended to insulate the provinces, Dickinson, Jay, and Wythe were sent by the general congress to Burlington, to dissuade from the measure. Admitted to the assembly on the fifth of December, Dickinson invited them to wait and find an answer in the conduct of the parliament and the administration. "After Americans were put to death without cause at Lexington," said he, "had the new continental congress drawn the sword and thrown away the scabbard, all lovers of liberty would have applauded. To convince Britain that we will fight, an army has been formed and Canada invaded. Success attends us everywhere; the Canadians fight in our cause; so that we have nothing to fear but from Europe, which is three thousand miles distant. Until this controversy, the strength and importance of our country were not known; united it cannot be conquered. Should Britain be unsuccessful in the next campaign, France will not sit still. Nothing but unity and bravery will bring Britain to terms; separate petitions we should avoid, for they would break our

union; rest, then, on your former noble petition, and on that of united America." "We have nothing to expect from the mercy or justice of Britain," argued Jay; "vigor and unanimity, not petitions, are our only means of safety." Wythe of Virginia spoke to the same purpose; and the well-disposed assembly of New Jersey conformed to their advice.

Under orders from the New York Convention, Isaac Sears, in the night of the twenty-fourth of August, removed cannon from the battery of the city. Captain Vandeput, of the Asia, a British man-of-war in the harbor of the city, kept up a heavy but ineffective fire on the working party, who succeeded in removing twenty-one eighteen-pounders with their carriages. It was feared that a bombardment would follow, and families began to retreat into the country.

Congress, on the sixth of October, under the form of a general resolution, advised the arrest of Tryon; on the twentyseventh, when his arrest was imminent, he fled. From a shipof-war in the harbor, he recommended to the inhabitants of New York a separate petition. Their congress, on the motion of John Morin Scott, rejected the thought of "a separate declaration, as inconsistent with the glorious plan of American union;" on motion of Macdougall, they confirmed the deliberative powers of the continental congress; and they established a committee of safety, with full executive powers within the colony. The general congress gave directions to Lord Stirling to garrison fortresses on Hudson river by six companies from New Jersey, and to encamp the rest of the New Jersey troops contiguous to New York. Aided by his battalion, a party of Jersey minute-men disarmed the disaffected in Queen's county, Long Island.

Under the influence of Sir John Johnson, the Indian agent among the Mohawks, disbanded Highlanders who dwelt in the valley of the Mohawk river prepared to rally to the king's standard. By order of the general congress, Schuyler with militia from Albany, joined on the way by Herkimer and other militia, marched upon Johnstown, took the parole of Johnson to preserve neutrality, and, on the twentieth of January 1776, compelled between two and three hundred Highlanders to ground their arms in front of his forces.

In the two following days Herkimer completed the disarmament of the disaffected. Schuyler and his party received the approbation of congress.

British men-of-war were masters of the bay and the harbor of New York, the East river, and Hudson river below the Highlands; neither Staten Island nor Long Island could prevent the landing of British troops; the possession of Long Island would give the command of Manhattan Island. The colony of New York, guided by men of high ability, courage, and purity, had pursued a system of moderation, at first from a desire to avoid a revolution, if it could be done without a surrender of American rights; and, when that hope failed, with the purpose of making it manifest to all that independence was adopted from necessity. It was wise to delay the outbreak of hostilities till warlike stores could be imported. Under a sort of truce the British men-of-war were not fired upon; and in return vessels laden with provisions to purchase powder in St. Eustatius went and came without question.

The declaration of independence by the united colonies was prepared in the convictions of all the American people. The many are more sagacious, disinterested, and courageous than the few. Language was their creation; the science of ethics, as the word implies, is deduced from their conscience; law itself, as the greatest jurists have perceived, is moulded by their nature; the poet imbodies in words their oracles and their litanies; the philosopher draws ideal thought from the storehouse of their mind; the national heart is the home of high, enduring designs. The people, whose spirit far outran conventions and congresses, had grown weary of atrophied institutions. Instead of continuing a superstitious reverence for the sceptre and the throne, as the symbols of order, they yearned for a system resting directly on the eternal, unchangeable rule of right.

Reid, among Scottish metaphysicians, and Chatham, the foremost of British statesmen, had discovered in coMMON SENSE the criterion of morals and truth; the common sense of the people claimed its right to sit in judgment on the greatest question ever raised in the political world. The people were more and more possessed with a silent, meditative feeling of

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