ever. So Allen
and Brown were left to their own disunited devices.
Montreal seemed an easy prey. It had plenty of rebel
sympathizers. Nearly all the surrounding habitants were
either neutrals or inclined to side with the Americans,
though not as fighting men. Carleton's order to bring in
all the ladders, so as to prevent an escalade of the
walls, had met with general opposition and evasion.
Nothing seemed wanting but a good working plan.

Brown, or possibly Allen himself, then hit upon the idea
of treating Montreal very much as Allen had treated
Ticonderoga. In any case Allen jumped at it. He jumped
so far, indeed, that he forestalled Brown, who failed to
appear at the critical moment. Thus, on the 24th of
September, Allen found himself alone at Long Point with
a hundred and twenty men in face of three times as many
under the redoubtable Major Carden, a skilled veteran
who had won Wolfe's admiration years before. Carden's
force included thirty regulars, two hundred and forty
militiamen, and some Indians, probably not over a hundred
strong. The militia were mostly of the seigneurial class
with a following of habitants and townsmen of both French
and British blood. Carden broke Allen's flanks rounded
up his centre, and won the little action easily, though
at the expense of his own most useful life. Allen was
very indignant at being handcuffed and marched off like
a common prisoner after having made himself a colonel
twice over. But Carleton had no respect for
self-commissioned officers and had no soldiers to spare
for guarding dangerous rebels. So he shipped Allen off
to England, where that eccentric warrior was confined in
Pendennis Castle near Falmouth in Cornwall.

This affair, small as it was, revived British hopes in
Montreal and induced a few more militiamen and Indians
to come forward. But within a month more was lost at
Chambly than had been gained at Montreal. On the 18th of
October a small American detachment attacked Chambly with
two little field-guns and induced it to surrender on the
20th. If ever an officer deserved to be shot it was Major
Stopford, who tamely surrendered his well-armed and
well-provided fort to an insignificant force, after a
flimsy resistance of only thirty-six hours, without even
taking the trouble to throw his stores into the river
that flowed beside his strong stone walls. The news of
this disgraceful surrender, diligently spread by rebel
sympathizers, frightened the Indians a