Note 78 — Chapter III · THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

Carleton’s account of the above, given in a letter to Dartmouth, dated Montreal, June 7, 1775, is that on May 19 he received news from Gage of the outbreak of hostilities, i.e. the fight at Lexington, coupled with a request that he would ‘send the 7th Regiment with some companies of Canadians and Indians to Crown Point, in order to make a diversion and favour his (Gage’s) operations’. The next morning news reached Quebec ‘that one, Benedict Arnold, said to be a native of Connecticut, and a horse jockey, landed a considerable number of armed men at St. John’s: distant from this town (Montreal) eight leagues, about eight in the morning of the 18th, surprised the detachment of the 26th doing duty there, consisting of a sergeant and ten men, and made them prisoners, seized upon the King’s sloop, batteaus, and every other military store, and a few hours after departed, carrying off the craft, prisoners, and stores they had seized. From this party we had the first information of the rebels being in arms upon the lakes, and of their having, under the command of said Arnold, surprised Ticonderoga, Crown Point, the detachment of the 26th doing duty at these two places, and all the craft employed upon those lakes’.... ‘The same evening another express brought an account of the rebels having landed at St. John’s a second time, in the night, between the 18th and 19th.’ Shortt and Doughty, pp. 453-5.