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

17 | A Spirit of Cooperation and Understanding: William Goforth, Jean-Baptiste Badeaux, and Trois-Rivières

Chapter 17 A Spirit of Cooperation and Understanding William Goforth, Jean-Baptiste Badeaux, and Trois-Rivières This district laying between the army of Quebec and Montreal I conceive to be the quietest part of Canada at present. | Captain William Goforth to John Jay, Three-Rivers in Canada, 8 April 1776 The United Colonies’adventure in Canada was heavily focused on Montréal and Québec City. While the province’s third city,Trois-Rivières, had a relatively minor role in the overall campaign, it offers a particularly interesting case study in Continental-Canadien relations.During one New York captain’s two-month tour of duty in that city, he fostered remarkably strong relations with its citizens, while effectively minimizing loyalist conflict and dissent. Trois-Rivières sits on the north bank of the St.Lawrence,midway between the capital and Montréal.The city was so named because the St-Maurice River, about a half mile north,splits into three channels as it meets the St.Lawrence, creating the appearance of “three rivers.”Even if the little city was not massive or opulent,contemporary visitors considered it a “pleasant place,”with about one thousand “Trifluviens,”as city residents are called.With “well cultivated” wheat fields on the city’s south and west sides,citizens were “more devoted . . . to agriculture than to trade,”the only other significant local business coming from the forges six miles up the St-Maurice. The city’s “small and indifferent ” homes were almost exclusively made of wood, unlike the stone edifices predominant in Montréal and Québec City; a few regional seigneurs kept “exceedingly nice houses furnished very respectably.” The only substantial 244 The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony structures were the parish church, the “government house”barracks, and the Recollet and Ursuline Convents.1 Trois-Rivières had been guardedly loyal in the fall campaign. Sixty-seven citizen militiamen marched toward Montréal in October,until intercepted by the patriots at Berthier-en-haut.Then,the short November visits-in-flight by Maclean and Carleton were immediately followed by the Morris-Badeaux embassy to Montréal, through which the Trifluviens offered their long-distance capitulation to Montgomery on the twentieth.2 About one week after Colonel James Livingston’s Canadians were the first Continentals to march through the city, another Canadian Continental company visited in early December, also en route to the capital.During their short stay,Captain Augustin Loiseau had his men disarm Trois-Rivières’most prominent loyalists—including MilitiaColonel Louis-Joseph Godefroy-de-Tonnancour,his deputy Louis Cressé,and active loyalist seigneur Joseph Boucher-de-Niverville, who had just returned to the city from accompanying Governor Carleton on his harrowing Laurentian escape.The Continentals seized an odd assortment of weapons—swords, handguns, and a few muskets—more novel and sentimental than dangerous; yet that evening, local patriots informed Loiseau that Tonnancour had additional powder and weapons hidden on his property.The captain demonstrated prudence; instead of pursuing the questionable tip, Loiseau led his company out of town the next morning to join Montgomery.3 District patriots had already started to exert their influence in the countryside . In Ste-Anne-de-la-Pérade, thirty miles downstream from Trois-Ri­ vières, partisan habitants persistently harassed Louis Gouin, a loyalist who had shown “great zeal”for the government’s October militia call-up. A party of fellow patriots from south bank St-Pierre-les-Becquets,opposite la-Pérade, even crossed the St. Lawrence to help vex Gouin. When the les-Becquets curé subsequently denied them sacraments, the patriot partisans petitioned General Montgomery to punish their priest.No troops were sent,but the curé received a written reprimand from the general’s aide. Meanwhile, the parish continued as the district’s hub for patriot activity.4 The two most prominent regional patriots, though, happened to be at the St-Maurice Forges: transplanted Frenchmen Christophe Pélissier and Pierre de Sales-Laterrière.Both viewed the Continental invasion as an opportunity to bring Enlightenment principles of liberty to their Canadian home.While Pélissier was busy visiting with the Continental generals and encouraging patriot activity in Montréal, Laterrière kept the forge fires burning.5 Militia-Colonel Tonnancour,6 seigneur of several nearby parishes, was A Spirit of Cooperation and Understanding 245 the district’s senior loyalist and one of Governor Carleton’s most trusted allies ; but the...