e advancing column.

A quick movement--a flash--a dull boom--and the fearless leader of the
assault fell dead, with twelve others, including his secretary and
aide-de-camp--Arnold, his lieutenant, being wounded, and thus ended the
fifth and last siege of Quebec.

It was well for Quebec that her gates that night were not thrown open to
the sack of troops, among which was Aaron Burr, who had accompanied
Arnold's command. These two men were possessed of less moral character
than any who were connected with the Revolutionary struggle. Arnold was
a strange mixture of bravery and treachery, generosity and rapacity,
courage and petty spite. This arch-traitor subsequently offered to sell
West Point to the British for $30,000, then took service among his
country's foes, and returned to pillage and ravage his former comrades.
Aaron Burr, though descended from generations of clergymen, among whom
was the saintly and learned Jonathan Edwards, was guilty of murder,
treason, and every other vice by which a man could become notorious, his
whole career leaving dishonour, blasting, misery and death, like the
trail of a venomous serpent, behind him.

Governor Carleton, being desirous of ascertaining the certainty of
Montgomery's fate, sent an aide-de-camp to enquire if any of the
American prisoners would identify the body. A field officer, who had
commanded in Arnold's Division, consented to perform the sad office. He
followed the aide-de-camp to the Pres-de-Ville guard, and singled out
from among the other bodies his General's remains, by the side of which
lay his sword, at the same time pronouncing with the deepest emotion a
glowing eulogium of the worth and character of him who, frozen stiff
and cold, had been found half buried in his winding-sheet--a Canadian
snow-drift. Deeply impressed by the scene and circumstances, Sir Guy
Carleton ordered that his late enemy be interred in the foreign soil
with the glory of martial, burial honours. In the Chateau Museum may be
seen a sword which was picked up in the morning after Montgomery's
repulse. It is in a good state of preservation, much care evidently
having since been bestowed upon it.

[Illustration: SIR GUY CARLETON]

"Of these five sieges, in the years 1629, 1690, 1759, 1760 and 1775,
none were pushed with more spirit and apparent prospects of success than
this blockade of the city by the two armies sent by Congress in the
autumn of 1775, under the advice of the illustrious Gene