Montgomery entered Montreal
and was in control of the St. Lawrence almost to the cliffs of Quebec.
Canada seemed indeed an easy conquest.

The adventurous Benedict Arnold went on an expedition more hazardous.
He had persuaded Washington of the impossible, that he could advance
through the wilderness from the seacoast of Maine and take Quebec by
surprise. News travels even by forest pathways. Arnold made a wonderful
effort. Chill autumn was upon him when, on the 25th of September, with
about a thousand picked men, he began to advance up the Kennebec River
and over the height of land to the upper waters of the Chaudiere, which
discharges into the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec. There were heavy
rains. Sometimes the men had to wade breast high in dragging heavy
and leaking boats over the difficult places. A good many men died of
starvation. Others deserted and turned back. The indomitable Arnold
pressed on, however, and on the 9th of November, a few days before
Montgomery occupied Montreal, he stood with some six hundred worn and
shivering men on the strand of the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec. He
had not surprised the city and it looked grim and inaccessible as he
surveyed it across the great river. In the autumn gales it was not easy
to carry over his little army in small boats. But this he accomplished
and then waited for Montgomery to join him.

By the 3d of December Montgomery was with Arnold before Quebec. They
had hardly more than a thousand effective troops, together with a few
hundred Canadians, upon whom no reliance could be placed. Carleton,
commanding at Quebec, sat tight and would hold no communication
with despised "rebels." "They all pretend to be gentlemen," said an
astonished British officer in Quebec, when he heard that among the
American officers now captured by the British there were a former
blacksmith, a butcher, a shoemaker, and an innkeeper. Montgomery was
stung to violent threats by Carleton's contempt, but never could he draw
from Carleton a reply. At last Montgomery tried, in the dark of early
morning of New Year's Day, 1776, to carry Quebec by storm. He was to
lead an attack on the Lower Town from the west side, while Arnold was to
enter from the opposite side. When they met in the center they were to
storm the citadel on the heights above. They counted on the help of the
French inhabitants, from whom Carleton said bitterly enough that he
had nothing to fear in prosperity and nothing to hope for