itary expediency required liberal treatment and wide consideration
for seventy thousand subjects speaking an alien tongue, if the fruits
of the Seven Years' War were not to be heedlessly thrown away. The
solution of the language problem lies in the peaceful assimilation
which time and growing population alone can bring. Almost a thousand
years ago a Norman race was grafted upon a Saxon stock, and the
blending of these elements has produced Great Britain, the strongest
nation of the modern world. In Canada religious, industrial, and
social conditions have as yet prevented definite fusion of the two
races; but the march of events and the pressure of common interests
must secure it in good time.

CHAPTER XVII

THE FIFTH SIEGE

Besides Sir Guy Carleton, Wolfe's army of 1759 contained other
officers who were destined to reappear in the history of the city. One
of these was Richard Montgomery, then a lieutenant in the Seventeenth
Foot, but now, after a lapse of sixteen years, a brigadier-general,
and charged with a far different commission. Moses Hazen and Donald
Campbell, two officers who figured prominently in the battle of Ste.
Foye, were likewise returning in different guise to the scene of their
former exploits; and Benedict Arnold, no stranger in Quebec, came
there once more. All of these had made merry at Freemasons' Hall, the
festive hostelry at the top of Mountain Hill, which had been a jovial
rendezvous in the days of military rule. Here they had toasted and
sung, little dreaming that one day they would assail that fort they
had so dearly won, and face in battle their former messmates. Yet fate
had so ordained; and when the thirteen revolting colonies determined
to strike the mother-country by an attack on Canada, it was to
Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold that Congress gave the command
of the two invading armies. The former was despatched against
Montreal, the latter was sent to take Quebec.

[Illustration: General Sir James Henry Craig, K.C.B.
Governor General of Canada 1807-1811.]

Down the Richelieu came Montgomery, and the forts of Ticonderoga,
Crown Point, St. John, and Chambly fell before him. Sir Guy Carleton
hurried to Montreal, but as he was unable to rally the citizens to
their own defence, the town soon fell into the hands of the impetuous
invader. General Carleton escaped in the guise of a peasant through
the provincial lines, and paddled to Quebec in a canoe. There his
first step w