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

21 | May Tides: New Arrivals and Massive Change for the Province

Chapter 21 May Tides New Arrivals and Massive Change for the Province Your Commissioners themselves are in a critical and most irksome Situation, pestered hourly with Demands great and small that they cannot answer. | Commissioners to Canada to John Hancock, President of Congress, Montréal, 8 May 1776 In the most irregular, helter skelter manner we raised the siege, leaving every thing. | Journal of Doctor Isaac Senter Following their 26 March departure from Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll, and John Carroll adopted a deliberate pace toward Canada. Sailing up the Hudson, they surveyed progress on the Hudson River fortifications,reaching Albany on 8 April.Major-General Schuyler hosted them at his Saratoga estate for almost a week while they were “detained by the present state of the lakes.”During that time,the major-general shared the latest “Advices from Canada.” This news increased committee skepticism for the mission’s prospects. Franklin expressed their concerns to John Hancock, fearing that “we shall be able to effect but little there.” The much younger, and more optimistic, Charles Carroll observed, “Our affairs in Canada do not wear that flattering aspect as in other places,”but hoped “a proper force & good management may turn the tide once more in our favour” and politically that they might yet “engage the Canadians if not in the union, at least to observe the strictest neutrality.”1 Preparing to depart Saratoga, Franklin expressed worries that the journey would be too much for his aged body,sitting down to “write to a few friends, by way of farewell”; the trip proved to be uncomfortable, but bearable. The committee left Schuyler’s company on 16 April only to find that the lakes were still not yet open. After a few days’ delay at Lake George, the ice broke and 304 The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony they ventured down the Champlain corridor, reaching St-Jean on 27 April. Franklin, Chase, and the Carrolls spent their first Canadian night at Moses Hazen’s home on the Richelieu east shore,finding the house a “perfect wreck” with “scarcely a whole pane of glass in the house”—a result of the Continentals ’ punitive marauding in the fall, back when Hazen was still considered a loyalist.As the committee members awaited transportation to Montréal,they could see a new season springing to life in Canada as nearby habitants were sowing wheat on the freshly thawed ground.The Congressional envoys could only hope to plant equally productive political seeds of their own, but Chase confided to John Adams that he was “afraid all our Efforts to take Quebec will prove fruitless.”However,he was still willing to persevere in aiding their northern friends, claiming, “I now esteem Myself a Canadian.”2 On the evening of 29 April, seven months after General Montgomery’s first request and seventy-four days after being chartered by Congress,the Committee to Canada finally reached Montréal.General Arnold and “a great body of officers,gentry,&c.”eagerly greeted the delegation.Troops rendered “military honors”and Continental gunners fired a salute from the citadel, as the large party proceeded up to General Arnold’s quarters. The committee members and “a number of the friends to liberty spent the evening with decent mirth,” which included people “crowding in to pay their compliments”and “an elegant supper”—an unprecedented celebration in the six-month Continental occupation . When the evening was complete, Chase, the Carrolls, and Franklin were guided to Thomas Walker’s well-furnished abode,which the owner had offered for their use when they left Philadelphia.3 The commissioners had little opportunity to recover from their taxing trip, spending the following day “receiving visits, and dining in a large company.” Father Carroll was left alone to face the unrelenting social onslaught, as the three other delegates broke away for a council of war with General Arnold, General de Woedtke,Colonel Hazen,and Pennsylvania Colonel John Philip De Haas in a separate room.General JohnThomas was notably absent,already more than one hundred miles downriver in his rush to the Québec City camp. While the committee was authorized to participate in councils of war, their instructions did not specifically authorize them to act independently of the commanding general. Certainly Brigadier-General Arnold encouraged this May Tides 305 hasty meeting in the major-general’s absence; with easy access to the committee , he had an opportunity to expedite measures...