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250 Years Ago … Slaves in the Revolutionary War

In the 15th century, Portugal became the first European nation to take significant part in African slave trading.  By the 1480s, Portuguese ships were already transporting Africans for use as slaves on the sugar plantations in the Cape Verde and Madeira islands in the eastern Atlantic.  (Britannica)

By the 16th century, the Portuguese dominated the early trans-Atlantic slave trade on the African coast.  As a result, other European nations first gained access to enslaved Africans through privateering during wars with the Portuguese, rather than through direct trade.

When English, Dutch or French privateers captured Portuguese ships during Atlantic maritime conflicts, they often found enslaved Africans on these ships, as well as Atlantic trade goods, and they sent these captives to work in their own colonies. (LDHI, College of Charleston)

When Portuguese, and later their European competitors, found that peaceful commercial relations alone did not generate enough enslaved Africans to fill the growing demands of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, they formed military alliances with certain African groups against their enemies. This encouraged more extensive warfare to produce captives for trading.  (LDHI, College of Charleston)

The Portuguese developed a trading relationship with the Kingdom of Kongo, which existed from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries in what is now Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Civil War within Kongo during the trans-Atlantic slave trade would lead to many of its subjects becoming captives traded to the Portuguese. (LDHI, College of Charleston)

The first Africans in Virginia in the 17th century came from the Kongo/Angola regions of West Central Africa. They were part of a large system established by the Portuguese in Africa to capture and supply slaves to the Spanish colonies in Central and South America.  (Marks)

The first Africans in English North America were those pirated in 1619 by the White Lion and the Treasurer from the Spanish frigate San Juan Bautista in July, and delivered to Jamestown six weeks later at the latter end of August.

American Revolution

Slave resistance escalated along with colonial struggles for liberty.

In Georgia, a group of enslaved men, women and children took advantage of the confusion created by the Stamp Act by fleeing into the swamps and managed to elude capture for four years – prompting the Georgia assembly to send a detachment of militia after them.  (PBS)

By 1775 more than a half-million African Americans, most of them enslaved, were living in the 13 colonies.  Both the British and the colonists believed that slaves could serve an important role during the revolution.

African American soldiers served with valor at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill.

In April 1775, Lord Dunmore (1732-1809), the royal governor of Virginia, threatened that he would proclaim liberty to the slaves and reduce Williamsburg to ashes if the colonists resorted to force against British authority.

In November, he promised freedom to all slaves belonging to rebels who would join “His Majesty’s Troops … for the more speedily reducing the Colony to a proper sense of their duty….”

Some eight hundred slaves joined British forces, some wearing the emblem “Liberty to the Slaves.”  (University of Houston)

In November 1775, the American Congress decided to exclude blacks from future enlistment out of a sensitivity to the opinion of southern slave holders.  But Lord Dunmore’s promise of freedom to slaves who enlisted in the British army led Congress reluctantly to reverse its decision, fearful that black soldiers might join the redcoats.  (University of Houston)

When the Declaration of Independence was written in 1776, people of African descent made up approximately one-fifth of the population of the new United States of America.

The vast majority of them were enslaved, many by Revolutionaries. Other Revolutionaries, while not holding people as property themselves, profited indirectly from the system.  (Museum of the American Revolution)

African Americans played an important role in the revolution. They fought at Fort Ticonderoga and the Battle of Bunker Hill.

A slave helped row Washington across the Delaware.

Altogether, some 5,000 free blacks and slaves served in the Continental army during the Revolution. By 1778, many states, including Virginia, granted freedom to slaves who served in the Revolutionary war. (University of Houston)

Most black soldiers were scattered throughout the Continental Army in integrated infantry regiments, where they were often assigned to support roles as wagoners, cooks, waiters or artisans. Several all-black units, commanded by white officers, also were formed and saw action against the British. (Jamestown)

Unlike the Continental Army, the Navy recruited both free and enslaved blacks from the very start of the Revolutionary War – partly out of desperation for seamen of any color, and partly because many blacks were already experienced sailors, having served in British and state navies, as well as on merchant vessels in the North and the South.

Although Black seamen performed a range of duties, usually the most menial ones, they were particularly valued as pilots.  Others served as shipyard carpenters and laborers.

Both Maryland’s and Virginia’s navies made extensive use of blacks, even purchasing slaves specifically for wartime naval service. Virginia’s state commissioner noted that it was cheaper to hire blacks than whites, and that whites could get exemption from military service by substituting a slave.

Many royal naval vessels were piloted by blacks – some of them runaways, other enslaved to loyalist masters, and still others pressed into service.

During the Revolutionary War, most enslaved Africans believed that a British victory would bring them freedom.  An estimated 100,000 took advantage of the disruption caused by the war and escaped from bondage, many of them making their way to the British forces. Others fled to Canada, Florida, or Indian lands. Thomas Jefferson believed that Virginia lost 30,000 slaves in one year alone. (PBS)

Possibly a quarter of the slaves who escaped to the British made their way onto ships, some signing onto the ships’ crews or joining marauding expeditions of bandits commonly referred to as “Banditti.”  (PBS)

Others ran away to join the patriot militias or Continental army. Washington and other military officers received numerous requests to recover runways who had enlisted.

The American Revolution had profound effects on the institution of slavery.

Several thousand slaves won their freedom by serving on either side of the War of Independence. As a result of the Revolution, a surprising number of slaves were released from slavery, while thousands of others freed themselves by running away.

In the late 1770s, dwindling manpower forced George Washington to reconsider his original decision to ban Black people from the Continental Army. So in 1778, a Rhode Island legislature declared that both free and enslaved Black people could serve. To attract the latter, the Patriots promised freedom at the end of service.  (history-com)

In October 1781, as Patriot and French ground forces and the French fleet surrounded Cornwallis’ men at Yorktown, Virginia, the British sent their black allies to face death between the battle lines.

In November 1782, Britain and America signed a provisional treaty granting the former colonies their independence.

Although the rise of the free black population is one of the most notable achievements of the Revolutionary Era, it is important to note that the overall impact of the Revolution on slavery had negative consequences.

In rice-growing regions of South Carolina and Georgia, the patriot victory confirmed the power of the master class. Doubts about slavery and legal modifications that occurred in the North and Upper South never took serious hold among whites in the Lower South. Even in Virginia, the move toward freeing some slaves was made more difficult by new legal restrictions in 1792.

In the North, where slavery was on its way out, racism still persisted, as in a Massachusetts law of 1786 that prohibited whites from legally marrying African Americans, Indians, or people of mixed race.

The Revolution clearly had a mixed impact on slavery and contradictory meanings for African Americans.   It failed to reconcile slavery with these new egalitarian republican societies, a tension that eventually boiled over in the 1830s and 1840s and effectively tore the nation in two in the 1850s and 1860s. (Lumen Learning)

Click the following link to a general summary about Slaves in the Revolutionary War:

Click to access Slaves-in-the-Revolutionary-War-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Slaves-in-the-Revolutionary-War.pdf

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

About 250 Years Ago … Committee of Correspondence

Until late 1772, political control of Massachusetts remained in the hands of the merchants, who as a class were largely satisfied with the state of relations with the mother country, and were most reluctant to jeopardize peace and prosperity for the sake of an abstract political principle.

As long as the radicals such as Samuel Adams tried to work within the normal political channels, the moderate Whigs were able to restrain them.

The British government provided the radicals with the issue they needed, but it proved to be one which only a separate radical organization could exploit effectively.

In the spring of 1772 rumors began to circulate in Boston to the effect that Great Britain was going to assume responsibility for the salaries of the Superior Court judges, thus making them independent of the people of Massachusetts.

The radicals were concerned about the issue, however, and expressed that concern when a town-meeting of May 14, 1772, chose a committee to prepare Instructions for the newly elected representatives.

The committee consisted of nine men: Joseph Warren, Benjamin Church, Josiah Quincy, William Mollineux, William Dennie, William and Joseph Greenleaf, and Thomas and Richard Oil Gray.

The failure of the committee to agree on any instructions raises interesting question. John Cary, in his biography of Joseph Warren, concludes that “Warren and the other radicals on the committee seem to have been outnumbered”, and that in the future “Warren and Samuel Adams avoided the mistake of allowing moderates to ruin their plans”.  (McBride)

At the October 28 town meeting, after some debate, the attendees decided “by a vast majority” “that a decent and respectful Application … be made to his excellency the Governor … whether his excellency had received any advice. relative to this matter….” The meeting voted to petition the governor to permit the General Assembly to convene, so that “that Constitutional Body” might deliberate on the matter.

In order to bypass the moderates who were blocking his program, Adams created a separate radical organization based upon the radical control over the Boston town-meeting.  Ultimately, the Committee of Correspondence, was formed. The purpose of the committee, according to the motion which created it, was,

“to state the Rights of the Colonists …; to communicate and publish the same to the several Towns in this Province and to the World as the sense of this Town, with the Infringements and Violations thereof that have been, or from time to time may be made — Also requesting of each Town a free communication of their Sentiments on this Subject….”

The committee thus had very flexible instructions; it was not restricted to dealing with any particular issue but was a standing committee which could communicate with anyone about practically anything, past, present , or future.  (McBride)

With the participation of Samuel Adams and others, among them James Otis, Josiah Quincy, Joseph Warren, Thomas Young and Benjamin Church, the first action of the committee was the preparation of a “Statement of the Rights of the Colonists,” a list of infringements of those rights by Great Britain, and a covering letter to the other towns of Massachusetts.

The “statement of rights” was an effective and well-written piece of radical propaganda – it complained of infringements of liberties that many Massachusetts farmers had never before heard of – but the heart of the radical program lay in the covering letter.

In it the Boston town-meeting requested of the other towns “a free communication of your sentiments” and suggested that if the rights of the colonists were felt to have been stated properly, the towns should instruct their Representatives to support Boston.

By mid-February, 1773, seventy-eight out of approximately 240 Massachusetts towns, including most of the principal ones, had replied favorably.

Many of the remaining communities were actually not towns but groups of scattered farmers who for sound reasons of economy and convenience were delaying action on the Boston circular until their regular spring business-meeting. (McBride)

In response to what became known as the Boston Pamphlet, similar committees formed in towns across Massachusetts and in other American colonies, helping to create a network of colonial communication ultimately leading to independence from Great Britain.  (NY Library Archives)

Towns, counties, and colonies from Nova Scotia to Georgia had their own committees of correspondence.  (Battlefields)  Men on these committees wrote to each other to express ideas, to confirm mutual assistance, and to debate and coordinate resistance to British imperial policy.

Committees of Correspondence were longstanding institutions that became a key communications system during the early years of the American Revolution (1772-1776).  (Battlefields)

When the tea crisis developed on December 16, 1773, the system only functioned in the port-towns and around Boston. The appearance of strength which the system gave the radicals was sufficient, however, that they were able to direct events which resulted in a direct challenge to British rule.  (McBride)

Once the Tea Party led to the Coercive Acts, the committee system quickly spread into most of the towns.  (McBride)

The Committees were a way for colonial legislatures to communicate with their agents in London. In the 1760s, the Sons of Liberty used committees of correspondence to organize resistance between cities. The most famous and influential committees of correspondence, however, operated in the 1770s.  (Battlefields)

Under a growing system of mutual advisement, the Committee informed towns and other colonies of British actions in Boston, notably the arrival of East India Company tea shipments in Boston in 1773 and the impact of Britain’s punitive Coercive Acts in 1774, especially the closing of the Boston’s harbor.

The Committee also sought ways to relieve Boston’s poor. As military action seemed increasingly likely, the Committee tried to prevent colonists from aiding the British army with their labor, skills or supplies, and asked nearby towns to monitor British military maneuvers, while local militias prepared to be called.  (NY Library Archives)

In the late summer and autumn of 1774, the colonies, especially Massachusetts, became politically active on a very wide scale and at all political levels, from town-meetings and county conventions to a series of provincial and continental congresses.

Simultaneously, and on an equally wide scale, the colonists began active military preparations.

At this point the revolutionary movement unquestionably had the support of a large majority of the people of Massachusetts.

The Continental Congress established the Committee of Secret Correspondence to communicate with sympathetic Britons and other Europeans early in the American Revolution. The committee coordinated diplomatic functions for the Continental Congress and directed transatlantic communication and public relations.  (State Department)

With the gradual establishment of self-government and the evacuation of the British from Boston in March 1776, the Committee of Correspondence attended to public safety activities in the Boston area until the end of the Revolutionary War.

The Committee monitored the actions of Loyalists and others, while continuing its communication with other towns to strengthen American interests. Now known as the Committee of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety, its meetings during this period were usually chaired by Nathaniel Barber. William Cooper, Town Clerk of Boston, was clerk of the Committee throughout its existence. (NY Library, Archives)

In the 1770s there were three consecutive systems of committees of correspondence:

  • The Boston-Massachusetts system
  • The Inter-colonial system
  • The post-Coercive Acts system

Click the following links to general summaries about the Committee of Correspondence:

Click to access Committee-of-Correspondence-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Committee-of-Correspondence.pdf

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

250 Years Ago … Continental Navy

At the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, the British navy was the largest and most experienced navy in the world, and it was essential to the survival of the British empire.

The Royal Navy numbered over 250 vessels of all sizes. These ranged from massive ships-of-the-line to tiny sloops and coastal vessels. By the end of the war that number would nearly double as the navy expanded to meet the threat posed by other European powers fighting alongside the Americans.

By the eve of the American Revolution, maritime commerce had become a major factor in the economic, social, political, and cultural development of the American colonies.

During the American Revolution, the British Navy played a critical role in supporting its Army’s attempts to crush the American rebellion, allowing the army to strike anywhere along the coast.

Formation of Continental Navy

In an October 5, 1775 letter, read to Congress on October 13, 1775, General Washington stated, in part, “I shall now beg leave to request the determination of Congress as to the property and disposal of such vessels and cargoes as are designed for the supply of the enemy, and may fall into our hands. …”

“As there are many unfortunate individuals whose property has been confiscated by the enemy, I would humbly suggest to the consideration of Congress the humanity of applying, in part or in the whole, such captures to the relief of those sufferers, after compensating any expense of the captors, and for their activity and spirit.”

“I am the more induced to request this determination may be speedy, as I have directed three vessels to be equipped, in order to cut off the supplies; and, from the number of vessels hourly arriving, it may become an object of some importance.”

“In the disposal of these captures, for the encouragement of the officers and men, I have allowed them one-third of the cargoes, except military stores, which, with the vessels, are to be reserved for the publick use. I hope my plan, as well as the execution, will be favoured with the approbation of Congress.”

Within a few days of Washington’s letter, the first legislation of the Continental Congress in regard to an American Navy directed the equipment of one vessel of 10 guns and another of 14 guns as national cruisers.

At the same time, an act was passed establishing a ‘Marine Committee,’ consisting of John Adams, John Langdon and Silas Deane, which was chosen by Congress from among its own members, and was to be in complete control of naval affairs.

Washington chartered the fishing schooner Hannah to raid British shipping of valuable military supplies. Though Washington had no intention of establishing an American navy, the Hannah became the first of eleven vessels chartered to aid the revolutionary cause.

 The initial fleet included the brigantine Washington and seven schooners, the Hannah, Lynch, Franklin, Lee, Warren, Harrison and the Hancock. But these were army vessels under the command of General Washington.

On November 25, 1775, Congress authorized the capture and confiscation of all British armed vessels, transports and supply ships, and directed the issuing of commissions to captains of cruisers and privateers.

The Marine Committee was given full powers in the direction of the fleet under Commodore Esek Hopkins, on January 25, 1776.

The committee also drafted subsequent naval legislation and prepared rules and regulations to govern the organization. The first American squadron was launched on February 18, 1776. The size of the Continental navy peaked in 1777 with a total of 31 ships.

American naval forces in the War for Independence took many forms, most of them designed to meet a specific need at a particular moment.  The early Continental Navy was designed to work with privateers to wage tactical raids against the transports that supplied British forces in North America.

The Continental Congress purchased, converted and constructed a fleet of small ships to accomplish this mission. These navy ships sailed independently or in pairs, hunting British commerce ships and transports.

Over the six months of the American siege of Boston, “Washington’s Navy” captured some fifty-five prizes, provided much-needed supplies to the troops, and boosted the efforts of naval-minded members of Congress who sought to create a national naval force.

Over the course of the War of Independence, the Continental Navy sent to sea more than fifty armed vessels of various types. The navy’s squadrons and cruisers seized enemy supplies and carried correspondence and diplomats to Europe, returning with needed munitions.

They took nearly 200 British vessels as prizes, some off the British Isles themselves, contributing to the demoralization of the enemy and forcing the British to divert warships to protect convoys and trade routes. In addition, the navy provoked diplomatic crises that helped bring France into the war against Great Britain.

The French and Spanish Navies Support the American Effort

The naval war changed drastically in 1778 when the French joined the war on the side of the Americans.  Faced with a foe with a comparably large navy, the British now had to prepare for large-scale fleet actions.

Even worse was the threat of invasion and the loss of colonies in the West Indies and Asia, which were far more profitable to Britain than the 13 colonies in North America. British fears increased in 1779, when the Spanish joined the war, and the threat of a combined Franco-Spanish invasion of Britain became a very real possibility.

The commitment to supporting the army, protecting trade, and defending the home islands and colonies spread the Royal Navy thin by 1780, allowing the French to send increasing numbers of arms and men to America.

The Future United States Navy

In 1785, two years after the end of the war, the money-poor Congress sold off the last ship of the Continental Navy.  But with the expansion of trade and shipping in the 1790s, the possibility of attacks by European powers and pirates increased

In early March 1794, news arrived that attacks on American ships were increasing. In addition to the merchant ships Thomas, Hope, Dispatch, George, Olive Branch, Jane, President, Polly, and Minerva having been taken by Barbary pirates in late 1793, still more American vessels were now falling victim to privateers and ships of war ─ both British and French ─ much closer to home.

On March 27, 1794, President Washington signed the “Act to provide a Naval Armament.” It authorized the President to acquire six frigates, four of 44 guns each and two of 36 guns each, by purchase or otherwise. In addition, it specified how many crew members would be necessary and what their pay and daily rations would be. It launched the new US Navy.

Click the following link to a general summary about the Continental Navy:

Click to access Continental-Navy-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Continental-Navy.pdf

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

About 250 Years Ago … Battles of Saratoga

The failure of the American invasion of Canada in 1775–76 left a large surplus of British troops along the St. Lawrence River. In 1777 these troops were to move south for an attack on Albany, New York.

In 1777, British strategy called for a three-pronged attack seeking to gain military control of the strategically important Hudson River Valley, with three separate groups converging near Albany.

By August, British General John Burgoyne had captured Fort Ticonderoga, defeated fleeing American troops at Hubbardton (Vermont) and occupied Fort Edward, on the edge of the Hudson River. After a contingent of Burgoyne’s troops was defeated in the Battle of Bennington, his reduced forces marched south toward Saratoga in early September.

To disrupt the British advance south, Gates had his troops erect defenses on the crest of Bemis Heights, a series of bluffs from which both the Hudson River and the road can be seen. From there, American artillery had the range to hit both the river and the road.

The Americans also erected a fortified wall a little less than a mile from Bemis Heights. The wall extended about three-quarters of a mile, creating a line shaped like a large “L”. Twenty-two cannons were placed behind this defense, providing the Americans with artillery cover.

The two armies engaged in combat at Freeman’s Farm on September 19. While the British held off the Americans, their losses were great. Burgoyne’s battered forces dug trenches and waited for reinforcements, but none came.

Following intense fighting with the Continental Army in September, at Freeman’s Farm, the British Army fortified themselves behind two defensive redoubts (protective barriers) – the larger, better-defended Balcarres Redoubt and the weaker Breymann Redoubt. American forces, led by General Benedict Arnold, managed to take the Breymann Redoubt, which gave them a strong position behind the British lines.

Benedict Arnold galloped into the fray and rallied the Americans in the attack on the Breymann Redoubt. A fellow officer in the Continental Line said that Arnold “behaved more like a madman than a cool and discreet officer.” During this engagement, he sustained a serious wound in his left leg.

By early evening, the Americans secured possession of the Breymann Redoubt and gained a tactical advantage, as it was the far right flank of the British lines.

From here the Americans could easily get behind British lines. Realizing their plight, the British pulled back into their Great Redoubt near the river and held out for several weeks. (Battlefields)

On October 7, Burgoyne launched a second, unsuccessful attack on the Americans at Bemis Heights.  On the morning of October 8, General John Burgoyne’s army attempted to escape north, but a cold, hard rain forced them to stop and encamp near the town of Saratoga. Cold, hungry and weary, they dug in and prepared to defend themselves, but within two days the Americans had them surrounded.

With no means of escape, Burgoyne eventually surrendered to Gates on October 17. (Battlefields)

Why was it important?

American troops battled and beat a British invasion force, marking the first time in world history that a British Army ever surrendered. (NPS)  It was one of the most decisive American battles of the Revolutionary War.

Saratoga was unquestionably the greatest victory yet won by the Continental Army in terms of prisoners and captured arms and equipment. Nearly 6,000 enemy soldiers were taken, along with 42 cannon and massive quantities of stores. (Army-mil)

Following the American victory, morale among American troops was high. With Burgoyne’s surrender of his entire army to Gates, the Americans scored a decisive victory that finally persuaded the French to sign a treaty allying with the United States against Britain, France’s traditional enemy.

The entrance of France into the war, along with its financial and military support, in particular its navy, was in the end crucial to Washington’s victory at the Battle of Yorktown in October 1781, which effectively ended the war.

But the French were not alone in supporting the Americans following the Battle of Saratoga. The Spanish and later the Dutch provided support as well, eager to seize the opportunity to weaken their British rival.

It also had a direct impact on the career of General George Washington.  Without the victory at Saratoga, American forces would likely not have received critical assistance from the French, and faith in the war effort would have been weakened.

On a personal side note, I am a descendant of Israel Moseley (he is my 4th Great Grandfather).  Israel Moseley was a Patriot who fought in the American Revolution.  Born in 1743, Israel graduated from Yale in 1766.

He served as a private in Captain Daniel Sacket’s company, Colonel Woodbridge’s regiment from August 20 to October 23, 1777 in the Northern department.  He fought in the Battles of Saratoga.

Click the following links to general summaries about the Battles of Saratoga:

Click to access Battles-of-Saratoga-1777-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Battles-of-Saratoga.pdf

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

250 Years Ago – George Washington Address to the Inhabitants of Canada

After Great Britain emerged victorious in the French and Indian War, a clash with France over territory in North America, in 1763, it faced a difficult task: managing Quebec, a sprawling former French colony where the Catholic majority had little in common with their new Protestant rulers.

To heal the wounds of the war and streamline governance, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act in 1774. The legislation’s compromises were significant. The criminal law code became British, while civil and property law in the province continued to follow the French model.

The act largely preserved Quebec’s feudal land distribution system, and it allowed residents the right to freely practice “the religion of the Church of Rome,” so long as they stayed loyal foremost to Britain’s king, George III.

The act’s most controversial reform, however, was expanding the official boundary of Quebec to the Ohio River Valley, which conflicted with prominent American colonists’ property interests and their hopes of expanding on the Western frontier.

Many residents of the lower Thirteen Colonies took the Quebec Act as yet another instance of “ministerial tyranny” akin to the Coercive Acts, which were passed that same year to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party and other incidents of unrest in the city.

The delegates of the First Continental Congress wholeheartedly condemned the Quebec Act—and Quebec itself—in September 1774 as “dangerous in an extreme degree to the Protestant religion and to the civil rights and liberties of all America.” (Wizevich, Smithsonian)

On about September 14,  1775. George Wasington delivered an address “To the Inhabitants of Canada”.

“Friends and Brethren,”

“The unnatural Contest between the English Colonies and Great-Britain, has now risen to such a Heighth, that Arms alone must decide it. The Colonies, confiding in the Justice of their Cause, and the Purity of their Intentions, have reluctantly appealed to that Being, in whose Hands are all human Events.”

“He has hitherto smiled upon their virtuous Efforts—The Hand of Tyranny has been arrested in its Ravages, and the British Arms which have shone with so much Splendor in every Part of the Globe, are now tarnished with Disgrace and Disappointment.—”

“Generals of approved Experience, who boasted of subduing this great Continent, find themselves circumscribed within the Limits of a single City and its Suburbs, suffering all the Shame and Distress of a Siege.”

“While the trueborn Sons of America, animated by the genuine Principles of Liberty and Love of their Country, with increasing Union, Firmness and Discipline repel every Attack, and despise every Danger.”

“Above all, we rejoice, that our Enemies have been deceived with Regard to you—They have perswaded themselves, they have even dared to say, that the Canadians were not capable of distinguishing between the Blessings of Liberty, and the Wretchedness of Slavery; that gratifying the Vanity of a little Circle of Nobility—would blind the Eyes of the People of Canada.—”

“By such Artifices they hoped to bend you to their Views, but they have been deceived, instead of finding in you that Poverty of Soul, and Baseness of Spirit, they see with a Chagrin equal to our Joy, that you are enlightned, generous, and virtuous—that you will not renounce your own Rights, or serve as Instruments to deprive your Fellow Subjects of theirs.—”

“Come then, my Brethren, unite with us in an indissoluble Union, let us run together to the same Goal.—We have taken up Arms in Defence of our Liberty, our Property, our Wives, and our Children, we are determined to preserve them, or die.”

“We look forward with Pleasure to that Day not far remote (we hope) when the Inhabitants of America shall have one Sentiment, and the full Enjoyment of the Blessings of a free Government.”

“Incited by these Motives, and encouraged by the Advice of many Friends of Liberty among you, the Grand American Congress have sent an Army into your Province, under the Command of General Schuyler; not to plunder, but to protect you; to animate, and bring forth into Action those Sentiments of Freedom you have disclosed, and which the Tools of Despotism would extinguish through the whole Creation.—”

“To co-operate with this Design, and to frustrate those cruel and perfidious Schemes, which would deluge our Frontiers with the Blood of Women and Children; I have detached Colonel Arnold into your Country, with a Part of the Army under my Command—”

“I have enjoined upon him, and I am certain that he will consider himself, and act as in the Country of his Patrons, and best Friends. Necessaries and Accommodations of every Kind which you may furnish, he will thankfully receive, and render the full Value.—”

“I invite you therefore as Friends and Brethren, to provide him with such Supplies as your Country affords; and I pledge myself not only for your Safety and Security, but for ample Compensation. Let no Man desert his Habitation—Let no one flee as before an Enemy.”

“The Cause of America, and of Liberty, is the Cause of every virtuous American Citizen; whatever may be his Religion or his Descent, the United Colonies know no Distinction but such as Slavery, Corruption and arbitrary Domination may create.”

“Come then, ye generous Citizens, range yourselves under the Standard of general Liberty—against which all the Force and Artifice of Tyranny will never be able to prevail. G. Washington.” (National Archives)

On New Year’s Eve, 1775, Colonists stormed Quebec City.  Of the roughly 500 soldiers in the contingent, 35 were killed, 33 were wounded and 372 were captured in the failed assault. (Wizevich, Smithsonian)

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