The advice of Sir Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, who succeeded General Murray as Governor-General, had much to do with the liberality of the "Quebec Act" towards the French Canadians. He crossed the Atlantic in 1769 and remained absent from Canada for four years. He returned to carry out the "Quebec Act," which was the foundation of the large political and religious liberties which French Canada has ever since enjoyed. The "Act" aroused the indignation of the older American colonies, and had considerable influence in directing the early course of the Revolution which ended in the establishment of a federal republic. To it the Declaration of Independence refers as follows: "Abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in other colonies." During the Revolution the Continental Congress attempted to secure the active alliance of Canada, and to that end sent a commission made up of Franklin, Chase, Charles Carroll, and John Carroll to Quebec; but the province remained loyal throughout. It will be noticed in another chapter that General Brock, in answering the "Proclamation" issued by Hull in 1812, voiced the belief that Canada was the price the American Colonies had promised to pay France in return for her valuable aid in the Revolution!
[Illustration: Pfister's Sketch of Fort Niagara and the "Communication," Two Years before the Outbreak of the Revolutionary War.]
It is not necessary to dwell here on the events of a war the history of which is so familiar to every one.[28] When the first Continental Congress met at Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, the colonies were on the eve of independence as a result of the coercive measures forced on Parliament by the King's pliable ministers led by Lord North. The "Declaration," however, was not finally proclaimed until nearly two years later, on July 4, 1776, when the Thirteen Colonies declared themselves "free and independent States," absolved of their allegiance to the British Crown. But many months before this great epoch-making event, war had actually commenced on Lake Champlain. On an April day, in the now memorable year 1775, the "embattled farmers" had fired at Concord and Lexington, the shots "heard round the world," and a few weeks later the forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, then defended by very feeble garrisons, were in the possession of colonial troops, led by Ethan Allen and Seth Warner, the two "Green Mountain Boys" who organised this expedition. Canada was at this time in a very defenceless condition. Burgoyne was defeated at Saratoga, and his army, from which so much was expected, made prisoners of war. This great misfortune of the British cause was followed by the alliance of France with the States. French money, men, and ships eventually assured the independence of the Republic, whose fortunes were very low at times despite the victory at Saratoga. England was not well served in this American war; she had no Washington to direct her campaign, and Gage, Burgoyne, and Cornwallis were not equal to the responsibilities thrown upon them. Cornwallis's defeat at Yorktown, October 19, 1781, was the death blow to the hopes of England in North America.