"The Event Which We Intend Commemorating This Evening, Is One At
Peculiar Interest To Us As Canadians, And More Especially So To Us As
Quebecers, The Narrow, I May Say, The Providential Escape Of The Whole
Province From Foreign Subjugation One Century Ago.
It is less a
chapter of Canadian annals I purpose to read to you this night, than
some minute
Details little known, and gleaned from the journals left
by eye witnesses of the thrilling hand to hand fight which took place
a few hundred yards from where you sit, under our walls, on the 31st
December, 1775, between Col. Arnold's New England soldiery and our own
garrison.
Possibly, you may not all realize the critical position of the city on
that memorable morning. Next day, a Sunday, ushered in the new year.
Think you there was much "visiting," much festivity, on that new
year's day? alas! though victory crowned our banner, there was
mourning in too many Canadian homes; we, too, had to bury our dead.
Let us take a rapid glimpse of what had proceeded the assault.
Two formidable parties, under experienced leaders, in execution of the
campaign planned by George Washington and our former Deputy Post
Master General, the able Benjamin Franklin, had united under the walls
of Quebec. Both leaders intimately knew its highways and by-ways.
Brigadier General Richard Montgomery, before settling near New York,
had held a lieutenant's commission in His Britannic Majesty's 17th
Foot, had taken part in the war of the conquest, in 1759, and had
visited Quebec.
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