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.Montgomery captured Montreal inNovember 1775, but by December, Continental troops had been decimatedby illness, lack of supplies, and desertion, and were unable to captureQuebec City.This painting, titled The Death of General Montgomery, depictsMontgomery s demise.began to fall, and Arnold took a serious bullet wound to the leg.Heavy street fighting ensued, and Montgomery was killed.Although the Americans were able to capture and occupyseveral houses in the town, the British launched a counter-attack, driving their opponents out during house-to-house 76 THE ST.LAWRENCE RIVERengagements.Perhaps as many as 400 Americans were killed orwounded during the night skirmish and another 400 takenprisoner.The Continentals who escaped from Quebec fled intothe face of an advancing snowstorm.The British did not evenpursue them.The American campaign into the St.Lawrence Valley was amiserable failure.Montgomery was dead, and Arnold s leg wasshattered, resulting in a lifelong limp.The few hundred menwho survived the assault sat out the winter in Canada (theBritish did not bother to drive them back to their colonies untilspring).Arnold s men experienced an excruciating winter,fighting both the cold and an outbreak of smallpox ten timesmore terrible than Britons, Canadians, and Indians together. 62The following spring, the Second Continental Congressdispatched another army, under the command of General JohnThomas, north.Soon after his arrival near Quebec, British shipsarrived with reinforcements.Thomas retreated to Montreal,but a new outbreak of smallpox killed many Americans,including Thomas.With Thomas failure and Arnold s ragtagarmy driven south by a British force under the command ofGeneral Gentleman John Burgoyne, the American campaignto take control of Canada appeared impossible.Before the endof spring 1776, General Washington finally informed theCongress that the campaign was almost over. 63The campaign to take control of Canada from the Britishwas not the last time the United States attempted to seize theregion of the St.Lawrence.During the War of 1812, whichbrought the new United States government and the British intoyet another New World conflict, a group of young Americancongressmen called the War Hawks spoke in support ofanother punitive campaign into Canadian soil.However, fight-ing never took place in Canada; the war ended with the Treatyof Ghent in 1815 and no land was exchanged.From that dateon, the governments of British Canada and the United States War along the River 77recognized that the wealth of the St.Lawrence River could betapped by both countries peacefully. 64 However, another gen-eration would pass before a joint British-American agreementclearly established the true border between the two countries.In1842, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty set the St.Lawrence Riveras a part of the border between the two nations.Over the yearsthat followed, the Americans and Canadians (Canada gained itsindependence from Great Britain in 1867) established friendlyrelations and cooperated extraordinarily over the two nationsuse of the St.Lawrence River. Recreating the River Recreating the River 79fter the American Revolution, the St.Lawrence RiverAregion experienced a new period of growth, development,and change.Significant numbers of people immigrated tothe St.Lawrence Valley.Between 1780 and 1800, 500,000new residents reached the river region.Many came from thenew United States as Loyalists who had not supported thepatriot cause during the Revolution and settled in modern-dayOntario.Even today, some Canadians who are descended fromthese Loyalists use the initials U.E.following their surnames;the letters stand for Unity of the Empire. The British government of Canada created new provincialdivisions as the eighteenth century drew to a close.BritishCanada was divided into Upper Canada (modern-day Ontario)and Lower Canada (modern-day Quebec) in 1791.Despitethe official presence of the British in formerly French Canada,French influences did not die out.Instead, two regionsdeveloped.Ontario was most affected by British laws, customs,traditions, and the English language, and Quebec remainedpredominantly French.The official language of Quebec todayis French, and three out of every four people living in Montrealspeak the language.Despite the permanent presence of French influences alongthe St.Lawrence, a new, British-influenced nation theConfederation of the Dominion of Canada was created in1867 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]