mere adventurers who were carrying on a secret correspondence with the leaders of the American Revolution, and even went so far as to attempt to create discontent among the French Canadians by making them believe that their liberties were in jeopardy, and that they would have to submit to forced military service, and all those exactions which had so grievously burdened them in the days of the French dominion. The _habitants_, ignorant and credulous, however, remained generally inert during the events which threatened the security of Canada. It was left to a few enlightened men, chiefly priests and officers of the old French service, to understand the exact nature of the emergency, and to show their appreciation of what England had done for them since the cession. 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," {283} 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 of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, then defended by very feeble garrisons, were in the possession of Colonial troops led by Ethan Allen and Seth Warner, two of the "Green Mountain Boys," who organised this expedition. Canada was at this time in a very defenceless condition. Only eight hundred regular troops altogether were in the colony, very many of the English residents of Montreal and Quebec were of doubtful loyalty, the majority of the French Canadians were indifferent, and could not be induced to rally in any numbers to the defence of the province. Happily for the best interests of Canada at this crisis there was at the head of the administration one of the ablest men who have ever been sent to Canada--a governor-general who may well be compared with Frontenac as a soldier and Lord Elgin as a statesman--and that was Sir Guy Carleton, the friend of Wolfe, with whom he had served at Quebec. His conciliatory attitude towards the French Canadian population, and his influence in moulding the Quebec Act, gave him great weight with the bishop and clergy of the Roman Catholic {284} faith and leading men of the majority. The British Government, with culpable neglect of his warnings and appeals, left him unsupported until the very last moment, when the fate of Canada was literally trembling in the balance. In the autumn of 1775 General Montgomery, at the head of a considerable force of congress troops, captured the forts of Chambly and St.