Congress at this time also learned that a long planned invasion of Canada had failed. For Benedict Arnold, the weeks since his victory at Ticonderoga had been filled with humiliation and pain. In vain, he had pleaded with the Continental Congress to let him invade Canada, and to make things worse, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety turned over the command at Ticonderoga to another Connecticut colonel. Early in 1775, he learned that his wife Peggy had died, and though she had been less than affectionate and loving to him during the last years of her life, her death sent Arnold into a depression that was complicated by a siege of the gout.
Arnold’s one consolation was a meeting in Cambridge at which he was able to propose to General Washington his latest plan: he would lead an expedition through the wilderness and mountains of Maine, take Quebec by surprise and capture it for America. But once again other men had anticipated him. George Washington, though he was hampered by a lack of supplies and manpower, had already explored the idea of a diversion in Canada and had picked General Schuyler to lead it. Very well, said Arnold, he would take his men north to support Schuyler.
The expedition was a belated attempt to enlist Canadians in America’s revolution. The Quebec Act had alarmed American settlers who had already cast an eye on the Ohio wilderness, and it had outraged New England Protestants with its leniency toward the Roman Catholic Church. Patriots like Samuel Adams traded on the anti-Catholic sentiments as a tactic, but they also genuinely feared Rome’s power. Patriot speakers told their audiences that the Quebec Act would lead to a new Inquisition and the burning of heretics in Massachusetts and New York. Though the Continental Congress had denounced the Quebec Act, its members now assumed that the Canadians would fight with them against British tyranny, even though George III was granting them more liberties than France’s kings had ever done. With the invasion force Washington also sent a message to the people of Canada: “The Great American Congress has sent an army into your province under the command of General Schuyler, not to plunder but to protect you.”
The invasion of Canada was an ambitious enterprise, indeed. General Schuyler had ordered Brigadier General Richard Montgomery to leave Ticonderoga and march north, where Schuyler would join him at Crown Point. Together they would have 1,700 men. Washington now also authorized Benedict Arnold to lead another 1,100 soldiers along the Atlantic coast to the Kennebec River. According to the best information, the British had only one company at Quebec, and could draw no more than perhaps a thousand men, including Indians, from Montreal and other forts.
General Montgomery, who had served under James Wolfe during the successful assault on Quebec in 1759, was indignant at the low quality of his American troops. He said that the brazen Yankees were all generals and not one a soldier. New Yorkers were worse. Their lax morals shocked Montgomery, and he considered them “the sweepings of the streets.” Yet he forged ahead, and his troops were good enough to capture two small British outposts north of Lake Champlain.
