year, having determined
that one more effort should be made, arrived at Sorel
with new battalions after innumerable difficulties by
the way. He was led to believe that Carleton's
reinforcements had come from Nova Scotia, not from England;
and this encouraged him to push on farther. He was
naturally of a very sanguine temper; and Thompson, his
second-in-command, heartily approved of the dash. The
new troops cheered up and thought of taking Quebec itself.
But, after getting misled by their guide, floundering
about in bottomless bogs, and losing a great deal of very
precious time, they found Three Rivers defended by
entrenchments, superior numbers, and the vanguard of the
British fleet. Nevertheless they attacked bravely on the
8th of June. But, taken in front and flank by well-drilled
regulars and well-handled men-of-war, they presently
broke and fled. Every avenue of escape was closed as they
wandered about the woods and bogs. But Carleton, who came
up from Quebec after the battle was all over, purposely
opened the way to Sorel. He had done his best to win the
hearts of his prisoners at Quebec and had succeeded so
well that when they returned to Crown Point they were
kept away from the rest of the American army lest their
account of his kindness should affect its anti-British
zeal. Now that he was in overwhelming force he thought
he saw an even better chance of earning gratitude from
rebels and winning converts to the loyal side by a still
greater act of clemency.

The battle of Three Rivers was the last action fought on
Canadian soil. The American army retreated to Sorel and
up the Richelieu to St Johns, where it was joined by
Arnold, who had just evacuated Montreal. Most of the
Friends of Liberty in Canada fled either with or before
their beaten forces. So, like the ebbing of a whole river
system, the main and tributary streams of fugitives drew
south towards Lake Champlain. The neutral French Canadians
turned against them at once; though not to the extent of
making an actual attack. The habitant cared nothing for
the incomprehensible constitutionalities over which
different kinds of British foreigners were fighting their
exasperating civil war. But he did know what the king's
big fleet and army meant. He did begin to feel that his
own ways of life were safer with the loyal than with the
rebel side. And he quite understood that he had been
forced to give a good deal for nothing ever since the
American commissi