The Father of British Canada: a Chronicle of CarletonWood, William
History
The Father of British Canada: a Chronicle of Carleton
Wood, William
Canada -- History -- 1763-1867; Canada -- History -- 1775-1783; Dorchester, Guy Carleton, Baron, 1724-1808
Anderson of the Navy headed his thirty-five merchant
mates and skippers in a rush along Sault-au-Matelot
Street. But his effort was premature. Morgan shot him
dead, and Morgan's Virginians drove the seamen back inside
the barricade.
Carleton had of course kept in perfect touch with every
phase of the attack and defence; and now, fearing no
surprise against the walls in the growing daylight, had
decided on taking Arnold's men in rear. To do this he
sent Captain Lawes of the Royal Engineers and Captain
McDougall of the Royal Emigrants with a hundred and twenty
men out through Palace Gate. This detachment had hardly
reached the advanced barricade before they fell in with
the enemy's rearguard, which they took by complete surprise
and captured to a man. Leaving McDougall to secure these
prisoners before following on, Lawes pushed eagerly
forward, round the corner of the Sault-au-Matelot cliff,
and, running in among the Americans facing the main
barricade, called out, 'You are all my prisoners!' 'No,
we're not; you're ours!' they answered. 'No, no,' replied
Lawes, as coolly as if on parade 'don't mistake yourselves,
I vow to God you're mine!' 'But where are your men?'
asked the astonished Americans; and then Lawes suddenly
found that he was utterly alone! The roar of the storm
and the work of securing the prisoners on the far side
of the advanced barricade had prevented the men who should
have followed him from understanding that only a few were
needed with McDougall. But Lawes put a bold face on it
and answered, 'O, Ho, make yourselves easy! My men are
all round here and they'll be with you in a twinkling.'
He was then seized and disarmed. Some of the Americans
called out, 'Kill him! Kill him!' But a Major Meigs
protected him. The whole parley had lasted about ten
minutes when McDougall came running up with the missing
men, released Lawes, and made prisoners of the nearest
Americans. Lawes at once stepped forward and called on the
rest to surrender. Morgan was for cutting his way through.
A few men ran round by the wharf and escaped on the tidal
flats of the St Charles. But, after a hurried consultation,
the main body, including Morgan, laid down their arms. This
was decisive. The British had won the fight.
The complete British loss in killed and wounded was
wonderfully small, only thirty, just one-tenth of the
corresponding American loss, which was large out of all
proportion. Nearly half of the fifteen hundred Americans
had gone--over four hundred prisoners and about three
hundred killed and wounded. Nor were the mere numbers
the most telling point about it; for the worse half
escaped--Livingston's Montreal 'patriots,' many of whom
had done very little fighting, Montgomery's time-expired
New Yorkers, most of whom wanted to go home, and Jerry
Duggan's miscellaneous rabble, all of whom wanted a
maximum of plunder with a minimum of war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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