The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony: America’s War of Liberation in Canada, 1774–1776

13 | Contest of Wills at Québec: The Fortress Capital — Key to Victory?

Chapter 13 Contest of Wills at Québec The Fortress Capital—Key to Victory? I fear the Canadians will not relish a union with the Colonies, till they see the whole Country in our hands. | General Richard Montgomery to General Philip Schuyler, headquarters outside Quebec, 18 December 1775 Let not one small disaster among so many noble deeds, discourage the Sons of Liberty. | Pennsylvania Packet, 19 February 1776 Isolated behind Québec City’s ramparts, loyalists were disgusted by the unwillingness of the habitants to bring provisions into the capital following Arnold’s 19 November departure. Whether from “ingratitude, or fear of the resentment of the rebels,” the locals were “neither bringing provisions nor allowing them to be brought by others.” Citizens, especially Old Subjects, maligned their rural neighbors as “traitorous, faithless, ungrateful villains.” It was an “absurdity” that “a party of fifty rebels hinders a body of from 4 to 5,000 Canadians from doing as they please.”1 Capital loyalists were correct; the habitants were making a clear statement. Arnold’s men had been eagerly attended when settled around the Plains of Abraham; Carleton’s garrison received virtually nothing. It obviously was not about money; the governor’s coin was just as valuable as the rebels’. Thirty miles downriver in the southshore community of Pointe-à-la-Caille,the habitants took a more drastic step. When loyalists loaded a vessel in that parish with livestock and provisions for Québec City, locals “forcibly detain’d”the boat. A party of ardent patriots from St-François-du-Sud, ten miles away, helped block the shipment and subsequently redirected it to the rebels—the only thing reaching the capital from Pointe-à-la-Caille was demoralizing news of the incident.2 For the first few days of December, a long string of brilliantly decorated Contest of Wills at Québec 183 habitant sleighs, heavily laden with soldiers and baggage, jingled toward the snow-blanketed Plains of Abraham.With Arnold’s rifle companies in the lead, the Continentals deployed in a sweeping arc surrounding the capital,ranging from Charlesbourg in the north to Ste-Foy (see Map 7). They found cozy accommodations and hospitable hosts in numerous “low and pretty country houses”a few miles from the capital fortifications. General Montgomery established his headquarters at Holland House, the estate home of provincial surveyor-general Major Samuel Holland and the leased residence of legislative councilor and “Le Canadien Patriote”author Hugh Finlay, conveniently situated on the Ste-Foy road at the southwest end of the Plains; Caldwell’s house, which had been Arnold’s headquarters, was no longer habitable. By 6 December,the army was adequately arranged “to prevent any further supplies arriving” for Québec City.3 Amidst the snowy fields, light woods, and whitewashed habitant homes interspersed along Continental lines, there was one anomaly: a substantial compound less than a mile from the capital’s St-Jean gate, the General-HosMap 7: Québec City Environs. 184 The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony pital (Hôpital-Général).Near the Charles River,the hospital’s large,main stone structure had been called “the finest building in all Canada,” surrounded by gardens, outbuildings, and even a windmill. A religious home for the city’s indigent elderly and infirm,run by thirty nuns,this facility would be the stage for an intriguing interplay between its loyalist staff and Continentals.4 In November,Arnold’s corps had explored the General-Hospital’s military possibilities; so when the army returned, hundreds of troops sought quarters in the substantial edifice. Nuns feared the rebels would draw artillery, but Continentals were rightly convinced that Carleton had forbidden all fire toward the charitable institution—a benefit to both soldiers and sisters.Equally disturbed by the overwhelming mass of guests,Father Superior Charles-Régis Bergères-de-Rigauville5 visited Holland House to politely protest the imposition .Montgomery,Arnold,and the father returned,finding the building so full of troops that they could barely enter the door.The general surveyed the situation and issued new orders, relocating most Continentals; only Captain Henry Dearborn’s New Hampshire company remained. Just ten days later, they were moved as well, to make room for Doctor Isaac Senter’s principal army hospital.6 General Montgomery, while focused on establishing the blockade, had not completely ignored Canadian politics.On 4 December,his translator produced a French version of John Hancock’s...