among the dearest, though most mournful recollections of his country, and that country would have been spared the single traitorous blot that dims the bright page of its revolutionary history."
Arnold being wounded, Captain Morgan immediately took the command. Urging forward his men, Morgan carried the first barrier, and pushed on to the second, which was also, after an obstinate fight, carried by the Americans; but Montgomery being dead, Carleton sent a detachment upon Morgan's rear; they were surrounded, and finally, to the number of four hundred and twenty-six, obliged to surrender. Neither of the parties thus reached the main point of attack at Prescott Gate, where the Governor was stationed, with the determination to maintain it to the last extremity.
The British were not yet aware of all the results of the contest. As soon as the retreat of the first party was ascertained, they went out and collected, from under the snow which had already covered them, thirteen bodies. The surmise soon arose, that one of them was that of the commander; yet some hours elapsed before an officer of Arnold's division identified him, with the deepest expressions of admiration and regret. Montgomery, a gentleman of good family in the north of Ireland, had served under Wolfe, but having afterwards formed a matrimonial connection in America, he had adopted with enthusiasm the cause of his adopted country. His military character, joined to his private virtues, inspired general esteem, and has secured to him a place on the roll of noble and gallant chiefs who fell beneath the walls of Quebec.[1]
Arnold succeeded to the command, and attempted still to maintain his ground; but the dispirited state of his men, still more than his actual loss, rendered him unable to keep up more than an imperfect blockade, at the distance of three miles. In April, 1776, his place was taken by General Wooster, who brought a reinforcement, and made some fresh attempts, but without success. Early in May, several vessels arrived from England, with troops and supplies, on which the Americans raised the siege, and fell back upon Montreal.[2] Thence they were driven from post to post, by a superior British force, "disgraced, defeated, discontented, dispirited, diseased, undisciplined, eaten up with vermin, no clothes, beds, blankets, nor medicines, and no victuals but salt pork and flour;" and on the 18th of June, they finally evacuated the province. General Gates received the retreating
- ↑ All enmity to Montgomery ceased with his life. He was honorably buried by order of General Carleton, and even in Parliament his eulogy was pronounced by men like Chatham, Burke, and Barré. His remains were, in 1818, removed to New York. Congress directed a monument to be erected to his memory, with an inscription expressive of their veneration for his character, and of their deep sense of his "many signal and important services; and to transmit to future ages, as examples truly worthy of imitation, his patriotism, conduct, boldness of enterprise, insuperable perseverance, and contempt of danger and death." A monument of white marble, with emblematic devices, has accordingly been erected to his memory, in front of St. Paul's chapel, in the city of New York. May his name never be forgotten!
- ↑ See Murray's "History of British America," vol. i., p. 181.
