The British lay still till Washington came, and gave him the rest of the year, and all the winter till spring returned, in which to get his rude army into fighting shape,—why, no one could tell, not even their friends and spokesmen in Parliament. The Americans swarmed busy on every hand. It proved infinitely difficult for them to get supplies, particularly arms and ammunition; but slowly, very slowly, they came in. General Washington was but forty-three, and had an energy which was both imperative and infectious. His urgent, explicit, businesslike letters found their way to every man of influence and to every colonial committee or assembly from whom aid could come. Cannon were dragged all the way from Ticonderoga for his use. The hardy, danger-loving seamen of the coasts about him took very cheerfully to privateering; intercepted supply ships and even transports bound for Boston; brought English merchantmen into port as prizes; cut ships out from under the very guns of a British man-of-war here and there in quiet harbors. Food and munitions intended for the British regiments at Boston frequently found their way to General Washington’s camps instead, notwithstanding Boston harbor was often full of armed vessels which might have swept the coasts. The commanders in Boston felt beset, isolated, and uneasy, and hesitated painfully what to do. The country at large was open to the insurgent forces, to move in as they pleased. In the autumn Colonel Montgomery, the gallant young Irish soldier who had served under Wolfe at Quebec, led a continental force northward through the wilderness; took the forts which guarded the northern approaches to Lake Champlain; and occupied Montreal, intercepting and taking the little garrison which left the place in boats to make its way down the river. Meanwhile Colonel Benedict Arnold was at the gates of Quebec, and Montgomery pushed forward to join him. Colonel Arnold had forced his way in from the coast through the thick forests of Maine, along the icy streams of the Kennebec and the Chaudière. The bitter journey had cost him quite a third of the little force with which Washington had sent him forth. He had but seven hundred men with whom to take the all but impregnable place, and Montgomery brought but a scant five hundred to assist him. But the two young commanders were not to be daunted. They loved daring, and touched all who followed them with their own indomitable spirit. In the black darkness of the night which preceded the last day of the year (December 31, 1775), amidst a blinding storm of snow, they threw themselves upon the defences of the place, and would have taken it had not Montgomery lost his life ere his men gained their final foothold within the walls. The Congress at Philadelphia had at least the satisfaction of receiving the colors of the Seventh Regiment of his Majesty’s regulars, taken at Fort Chambly, as a visible token of Montgomery’s exploits at the northern outlet of Champlain; and every