He added that, while he could complain of no unkindness on the part of the British, the Canadian militia had taunted these Americans often and threatened torture and death, though in effect doing nothing. ‘But our worst enemy proved he who should have been our friend, a villain named Dewey, chosen from among us to be our quartermaster sergeant. He defrauded us of a great part of our provision, so that we had not above three ounces of pork and not half a pint of rice and two biscuits a day. Yet the Lord of Hosts delivered us out of his hands. The villain took the smallpox, which soon swept him off the face of the earth.’
I asked this soldier, the first native-born American with whom I ever conversed, a variety of questions. He told me that he had used his musket at Lexington in April 1775, marching with his neighbours from Hubbardston in Massachusetts, and that his enthusiasm for the cause of Liberty had first been fired by a Methodist preacher, lately arrived from Ireland, a most persuasive speaker. This preacher had taken his text from Nehemiah iv. 14: Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord who is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses. ‘He had a face the colour of a biscuit and a black, wet lock hanging over his eyes. His words were like swords,’ this man Melville said.
I asked him, what quarrel he could possibly have with King George. He replied that this preacher, along with the rest, had assured him that the King, not content with forcing him to drink that noxious weed tea, plotted to establish Popery in New England.
‘But the King at his Coronation abjured Popery in the most solemn fashion,’ said I, smiling. ‘He is no more a Papist than you are.’
‘Ah,’ said he earnestly, ‘so you may believe. But I dare swear that he is not the first great person to forswear himself when it was to his convenience. What of the Quebec Act of two years ago? Was that the Act of a Protestant Monarch? It established Popery in Canada as the State Religion, tithes and all. Now missionaries will breed here under the royal protection and spread like flies over our border and seduce all our young people.’
‘Well,’ said I, ‘I see no great harm in granting the French-Canadians permission to continue worshipping God as freely in their ancestral manner as do your allies, the Papists of Maryland; indeed, I consider it a necessary and humane measure. It pleases me to know that on a Sunday, after the Romish service is over, General Carleton with his officers and soldiers resort to the Cathedral for their own worship; and neither party demands the reconsecration of the edifice between whiles.’ I would gladly have said much more on this issue, remembering with shame my wretched fellow-countrymen at Timolin, and all along the road from Dublin to Waterford, wishing for humanity’s sake that a Quebec Act could be passed by the Irish Parliament, so that the tithes sweated from these poor wretches could at least be paid to priests of their own faith, for the spiritual comfort that would accrue. But I did not wish to make a gratuitous parade or confession before this American of the ills from which Ireland suffered; and kept strictly to the matter in hand.
I am of an inquiring turn of mind and had already been at pains to find out as much as possible about the conditions obtaining in Canada. I was therefore able to tell him: ‘As for the other main provision of the Act, against which your Congress has protested as fastening fetters upon the Habitants of Canada – namely, that of re-establishing the French Civil Law except in criminal cases – I am informed that the English-speaking settlers, who are outnumbered as two hundred to one by the French-speaking, have been the only persons to complain. Indeed, I hear that we have forced on the French of this province a greater measure of liberty than they can well digest: they are said to abominate trial by jury, deeming their Seigneurial judges as more likely to give them justice than a parcel of tradesmen crowded together in the jury box.’
At that very moment, as we talked together in the main doorway, a tinkle of a bell was heard up the street; and we saw how the people prostrated themselves before the Host conveyed by a robed priest to a dying man in a house near by. Acolytes carried lighted candles before the sacred wafer, which was enclosed in a gilt box laid upon a purple embroidered cushion, and handsome young nuns of the Ursulines walked behind, with their eyes fixed upon the ground. A number of soldiers were in the street, including Highlanders of the Royal Emigrant Regiment and German mercenaries from Brunswick who had sailed in the convoy that had arrived just ahead of us. But one and all obeyed the Governor’s orders and doffed feather bonnet, cocked hat, or grenadier’s cap as the procession passed; and, as required, the sentry at the gate presented arms.
‘Faugh,’ exclaimed this Melville, when they had passed, ‘if that is not the dissemination of Scarlet Popery, what tarnal other name would you give it?’
‘Good manners,’ said I, ‘which I am always pleased to witness. I wish we had more of them back in my own country.’
‘I watched that same crew perform over a Frenchman in the hospital a month or two ago,’ he remarked in a hollow voice. ‘The nuns came and read over him, and then the priest entered and they fetched in a table covered with a white cloth, and lighted two wax candles about three feet long and set them on the table. The priest had on his white robe, and the nuns kneeled down, and he stood and read a sentence, and then the nuns a sentence, and so they went on for some time. Then the priest prayed by himself, then the nuns by themselves, and then the priest again. Then all together they read a spell, and finally the priest alone. Then the priest stroked the man’s face; then they took away their candles and table. But the man died for all that, I should nation well reckon.’
He described Colonel Benedict Arnold as the most terrible man in America, and said that it was a pity that he was so much of a gentleman.
I pretended not to pay much attention to this, so that his tongue might run on unchecked. ‘There was Colonel Easton of Connecticut who disputed the command with Colonel Arnold at Crown Point last year; Colonel Arnold made it a matter of honour and called on him to draw. Colonel Easton pacifically refused, though he had a hanger and a case of pistols on him; so Colonel Arnold kicked his posterior tarnal heartily, which Colonel Easton could not forgive him.’
‘You don’t like gentlemen, then, in New England?’
‘Law for me, no! They are Tories and enemies of Liberty. But a few are well disposed to us and have military talents, so we employ them. General Montgomery was one such, and a good man in his way. General Philip Schuyler is another, but he gives himself aristocratic airs and was once mighty surly to an honest blacksmith who came uninvited to visit him in his mansion at Stillwater. But General George Washington is a nation worse than all, and if he had his will would put only gentlemen in command of us; we hold him in great suspicion. He is tarnal friendly with Colonel Arnold.’
‘I am informed that Colonel Arnold is a druggist and bookseller. How comes he then to rank as a gentleman?’
‘Why, he married the High Sheriff’s daughter in his town, commanded two companies of the Governor’s Guards, and is a pretty considerable merchant. He boasts of his descent from a former Governor of Rhode Island, and he dresses tarnal proud. Well, he took a pet against Colonel Easton, as I have said; and he quarrelled with Colonel Enos, whose three companies later hooked it off from us at the Kennebec River; and with Major Brown, whom he named a damned thief for taking more than his share of the plunder captured at Sorel; and with Colonel Campbell, whom he accused of cowardice; and with Captain Handchett, whom he threatened to arrest for the same thing. Now, I hear he has retired to Montreal because General Wooster, who came up with the reinforcements in April, would not consult his advice.’
‘Tell me,’ said I. ‘Who appoints your officers? Is it General Washington?’
He spat upon the ground. ‘Law for me – no, no! We would accept none of his appointment. We want safe men, not men of quality, nary one of ’em.’
I could not resist interjecting sarcastically that quality was sometimes no bad thing, especially when compared with mere quantity. But he did not heed me and continued
: ‘The Continental Congress appoints generals and colonels and such, and we appoint the rest, from captains down.’
‘Whom do you intend by “we”?’ I asked in some bewilderment.
‘The soldiers who are to serve under him. Our captains and lieutenants are voted for by a show of hands. They are pretty respectable tradesmen – such as hatters, butchers, tanners, shoemakers – and many of them worth several thousand dollars. But, let me tell you, that for all they are very warm men, they resemble our ministers in this – if they do not please us we do not obey, but we bid them hook it off in nation quick time.’
This raised such a ludicrous picture in my mind that I heartily laughed, which offended him. He told me: ‘Scoffers will also have their portion in the hell that is prepared for the unrighteous.’
‘Who told you that?’ I asked, still laughing a little.
‘The same preacher of whom I spoke – the Reverend John Martin was his name.’
‘The Devil!’ I exclaimed involuntarily, at the coincidence of two Irish priests of the name of John Martin, both with sallow faces and a black fore-lock, the one a Papist and the other a shouting Methodist. With that I dismissed the American; but before the Guard was relieved and we returned to the Friendship I gave him an old shirt and a pair of stockings, for which he wrung my hand gratefully.
General Carleton came to inspect us that same afternoon and complimented Lieutenant Kemmis upon our appearance and bearing, which gave us no little satisfaction. Let me describe this famous man who saved Canada for the Crown – not only by his activity and gallantry in this war but by his considerate framing of the Quebec Act mentioned above, which consolidated the loyalty of the French. He was tall, raw-faced, with a very large nose and a great diffidence in conversation; the best military instructor of his day and the most generous man alive. General Carleton had a quaint humour: when, two months before Quebec was relieved, the Americans had sent him a message warning him that the townspeople would revolt unless he surrendered, he gave no reply, but ordered a great wooden horse to be placed upon the walls, close to this Gate of St John. This was to signify that the treachery of the wooden horse of Troy would not be repeated by American emissaries in Quebec. When his staff reproached him for ‘shooting too high for the Americans’, who were not well read in classical legends and would be nonplussed by the horse, ‘O, by God,’ he said, ‘I’ll soon remedy that. Put a bundle of hay before the beast and write in bold letters on the wall, using tar: “When this horse has ate his hay, we surrender.”’
After the relief of the city his good nature was such that he issued the following proclamation:
Whereas I am informed that many of His Majesty’s deluded subjects, of the neighbouring provinces, labouring under wounds and divers disorders, are dispersed in the adjacent woods and parishes and in great danger of perishing for want of proper assistance, all captains and other officers of militia are hereby commanded to make diligent search for all such distressed persons, and afford them all necessary relief, and convey them to the general hospital, where proper care shall be taken of them: all reasonable expenses which may be incurred in complying with this order shall be paid by the Receiver-General.
And lest a consciousness of past offences should deter such miserable wretches from receiving that assistance which their distressed situation may require: I hereby make known to them that as soon as their health is restored they shall have free liberty to return to their respective provinces.
General Carleton also fed and clothed the sick whom the Americans, when they broke the siege, had abandoned in their hospitals. I heard from one of our men who happened to remain in Quebec during the week following our departure, that General Carleton visited the prison and spoke to the captives there in a very affable and familiar tone.
He asked: ‘My lads, why did you come to disturb an honest man in his government, that never did any harm to you in his life? I never invaded your property, nor sent a single soldier to distress you. Come, my boys, you are in a very distressing situation, I see, and not able to go home with any comfort. I must provide you with shoes, stockings, and good warm waistcoats. I must give you some good victuals to carry you home. Take care, my lads, that you do not come here again, lest I should not treat you so kindly.’
He was as good as his word, though owing to the war, and one thing and another, James Melville and his comrades did not sail home until August; they had all voluntarily signed papers promising on their honour never to take up arms again against His Majesty. They sailed in five transports, and the General presented to the officers of each transport a cask of wine and five sheep as ship’s stores. Mgr Briand, the Bishop of Quebec shamed them with a gift of two casks of wine, eight sugar-loaves and a number of pounds of green tea. The tea offended their political consciences and they respectfully refused it; then the good Bishop, to prove that he had not acted with malice, gave them an equal amount of the best coffee in exchange. This set animosity against tea was most violent in the early years of the war. The same James Melville, or Mellon, informed me that his comrade Sergeant Dixon, who lost a leg below the knee with a thirty-six-pounder ball before Quebec, was advised by a surgeon, who had amputated the limb, to drink some tea in default of brandy: for this would stimulate the desired reaction. The lady of the house where he had been brought made a dish of the beverage, which Dixon put away from him with detestation exclaiming: ‘No, madam: it is the ruin of my country.’ Nor could he be prevailed upon to forgo his resolution and touch this ‘nauseous draught of slavery’; but, lock-jaw ensuing, he died.
The Reverend Samuel Seabury, who was to become the first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, had recently written a humorous refutation of Congress’s commercial policy: they recommended, in retaliation of the tea duty, an agreement against exporting all goods to Great Britain and Ireland. He was a farmer of his own glebe land in Westchester County, near New York, and did not wish to lose his Northern Irish market for flax-seed, of which he had in the previous year threshed and cleaned eleven bushels. He put it thus:
The common price now is at least ten shillings. My seed, then, will fetch me five pounds ten shillings. But I will throw in the ten shillings for expenses. There remain five pounds. In five pounds are four hundred three-pences. Four hundred three-pences, currency, will pay the duty upon two hundred pounds of tea – even reckoning the exchange with London at two hundred per centum. I use in my family about six pounds of tea. Few farmers in my neighbourhood use so much; but I hate to stint my wife and daughters, or my friendly neighbours when they come to see me. Besides, I like a dish of tea too, especially after a little more than ordinary fatigue in hot weather. Now, two hundred pounds of tea, at six pounds a year, will just last thirty-three years and four months; so that, in order to pay this monstrous duty on tea, which has raised all this confounded combustion in the country, I have only to sell the produce of a bushel of flax-seed once in thirty-three years.
But the Reverend Samuel Seabury, as a minister of religion, should have known better than to play the rationalist, confusing substance with symbol. As the elements of the Lord’s Supper are held to suffer a divine transformation in the hands of the priest: so Pekoe and Hyson were believed by the Americans to suffer a diabolical transformation when handled by the excise-man.
Chapter XII
WE SAILED up the St Lawrence on the first day of June, our destination being Three Rivers, a village which lay about half-way between Quebec and Montreal and some ninety miles from each; it was so named from the three rivers which joined their current close above it and then fell as one into the St Lawrence. Here we expected that the enemy would make a stand.
In our passage we were entertained by many beautiful landscapes, the banks being in many places very bold and steep and shaded with lofty trees, now in young leaf. What particularly struck our attention was the beautiful disposition of the towns and villages we passed. Nearly all the settlements in Canada were situated upon the banks of rivers; which was
by no means the case in other parts of America, as I afterwards found. The churches appeared frequently and seemed kept in the neatest repair, most of them showing bright spires of tin. It puzzled me why these spires did not rust; but I later discovered that it was from the dryness of the air and from a method they have of nailing on the squares of tin diagonally, the corners folded over the heads of the nails, so as to keep moisture from intruding. The houses were of logs, but much more compact and better built than those which I was to see in the rest of America: the logs were more closely joined and, instead of being left rough and uneven on the outside, were trimmed with the adze, and whitewashed. It was pleasing beyond description to double a tree-covered headland in the evening and perceive one of these villages opening to view, its houses close upon the river, rosy with the setting sun, and the spire of its church twinkling bright through the leafy trees.
The air became so mild and temperate that we imagined ourselves transported into another climate; yet I noticed that hardly a house on the whole river had its windows thrown open; for the French-Canadians loved a close, stifling heat as dearly as they loved the tobacco-pipes which gurgled constantly in their mouths – I once saw a boy of three years puffing away at one.