Canada Under Attack by Jennifer Crump Read Free Book Online Page A

was considered the ideal prize. The hated Quebec Act had greatly enlarged Quebec’s borders and the colony encased the entire Ohio Valley, among other choice territories. The Americans labelled the act one of the Intolerable Acts and called for its immediate revocation by the British. The territorial slights were bad enough but the Canadians were also denied habeas corpus , trial by jury, and representative government under the act. Surely, the Americans reasoned, despite the grants of land, the French Canadians were as outraged by that as they were. It did not occur to the Americans that the French Canadians would not embrace the idea of ridding themselves of the British yoke. The Quebec Act had also guaranteed the French Canadians lan guage and religious freedoms. That alarmed the American leaders, though it must have reassured the Canadians.
    The delegates to the Congress drafted a letter and had it translated into French. Two thousand copies were printed and delivered to Canada. In the open letter to the citizens of Quebec, distributed on October 26, 1774, the Americans urged the Canadians to join their cause and become the 14th colony.
    Seize the opportunity presented to you by Providence itself. You have been conquered into liberty, if you act as you ought. This work is not of man. You are a small people, compared to those who with open arms invite you into a fellowship. A moment’s reflection should convince you which will be most for your interest and happiness, to have all the rest of North-America your unalterable friends, or your inveterate enemies. The injuries of Boston have roused and associated every colony, from Nova-Scotia to Georgia. Your province is the only link wanting, to compleat the bright and strong chain of union. Nature has joined your country to theirs. Do you join your political interests. For their own sakes, they never will desert or betray you. Be assured, that the happiness of a people inevitably depends on their liberty, and their spirit to assert it. The value and extent of the advantages tendered to you are immense.
    The colonies’ arguments seemed, to them at least, to be perfectly sound and logical. Quebec was joined to the American colonies by geography; it only made sense that the colonies forge political ties as well. To add more punch to their argument they pointed out that Quebec was much smaller and less populous than the rest of the colonies and therefore it would be in Quebeckers best interest to count the Americans as friends rather than enemies. What the Americans did not include in the letter was that they were equally perturbed by the clauses in the Act that ensured the preservation of the French language and gifted numerous rights to French Catholics and perks to the French Catholic clergy. A young Alexander Hamilton, who would later earn fame as one of the founding fathers of the United States, even penned a pamphlet in which he warned that another Inquisition was imminent and American heretics would soon be burning at the stake.
    When their first letter was ignored, the Americans sent another on May 29, 1775. That time they entreated the Canadians to join the cause, arguing quite eloquently that they considered the Canadians friends and disliked the idea of being forced to consider them enemies.
    In Canada, unsettled by events in the south, the British governor, Sir Guy Carleton, called up the local militia. But having lent two regiments of regulars to the defence of Boston, he had just 800 men at his disposal to protect all of Quebec. He needed the militia but no one wanted to join. The habitants were annoyed that the power to tithe had been restored to the Catholic Church and the Seigneuries, and they were not about to risk their lives to protect them. They were also tired of war and of their farms and fields serving as battlegrounds for foreign troops. Both the British and the Americans had drastically misjudged the Canadians. They were not willing to join the