the blanketing, and left us. What should the donation be, but twenty-four coppers, equal at that time to two shillings of our money. The latter circumstance added much to the humour, and extreme merriment of the trans. action. This money was solely appropriated for powder.

The following particulars with regard to the death of Montgomery, will be found interesting:

General Montgomery had marched at the precise time stipulated, and had arrived at his destined place of attack, nearly about the time we attacked the first barrier. He was not one that would loiter. Colonel Campbell,* of the Newyork troops, a large, good-looking man, who was second in command of that party, and was deemed a veteran, accompanied the army to the assault, his station was rearward; general Montgomery, with his aids, were at the point of the column.

It is impossible to give you a fair and complete idea, of the nature and situation, of the place solely with the pen-the pencil is required. As by the special permission of government, obtained by the good offices of captain Prentis, in the summer following, Boyd, a few others, and myself, reviewed the causes of our disaster; it is therefore in my power, so far as my abilities will permit, to give you a tolerable notion of the spot. Cape Diamond nearly resembles the great jutting rock, which is in the narrows of Hunter's falls, on the Susquehanna. The rock, at the latter place, shoots out as steeply as that at Quebec, but by no means forms so great an angle, on the margin of the river; but is more craggy. There is a stronger and more obvious diffe. rence in the comparison. When you surmount the hill at St. Charles, or the St. Lawrence side, which, to the eye are equally high and steep, you find yourself on Abraham's Plains, and upon an extensive champaign country. The birdseye view round Quebec, bears a striking conformity to the sites of Northum berland and Pittsburg, in Pennsylvania; but the former is on a more gigantic scale, and each of the latter wants the steepness and cragginess of the back ground, and a depth of rivers. This detail, is to instruct you in the geogra phical situation of Quebec, and for the sole purpose of explaining the manner of general Montgomery's death, and the reasons of our failure. From Wolf's cove, there is a good beach, down to, and around "Cape Diamond.” The bulwarks of the city, came to the edge of the hill, above that place. Thence down the side of the precipice, slantingly to the brink of the river, there was a stockade of strong posts, fifteeen or twenty feet high, knit together by a stout railing, at bottom and top with pins. This was no mean defence, and was at the distance of one hundred yards, from the point of the

* This was not my friend Col. Thomas Campbell of York, (Penn.) He was fighting the battles of our country at Boston.

rock. Within this palisade, and at a few yards from the very point itself, there was a like palisade, though it did not run so high up the hill. Again, within Cape Diamond, and probably at a distance of fifty yards, there stood a block-house, which seemed to take up the space, between the foot of the hill, and the precipitous bank of the river, leaving a cart way, or passage on each side of it. When heights and distances are spoken of, you must recollect, that the description of Cape Diamond and its vicinity, is merely that of the eye, made as it were running, under the inspection of an officer. The review of the ground, our army had acted upon, was accorded us, as a particular favour. Even to have stepped the spaces in a formal manner, would have been dishonourable, if not a species of treason. A block-house, if well constructed, is an admirable method of defence, which in the process of the war, to our cost, was fully experienced. In the instance now before us (though the house was not built upon the most approved principles) yet it was a formidable object. It was a square of perhaps forty or fifty feet. The large logs neatly squared, were tightly bound together, by dove-tail work. If I am not much mistaken, the lower story contained loop-holes for musketry, so narrow, that those within, could not be harmed from without. The upper story had four or more port holes, for cannon of a large callibre. These guns were charged with grape or cannister shot, and were pointed with exactness towards the avenue, at Cape Diamond. The hero Montgomery came. The drowsy or drunken guard, did not hear the sawing of the posts of the first palisade. Here, if not very erroneous, four posts were sawed and thrown aside, so as to admit four men abreast. The column entered with a manly fortitude. Montgomery, accompanied by his aids, M'Pherson and Cheeseman, advanced in front. Arriving at the second palisade, the general, with his own hands, sawed down two of the pickets, in such a manner, as to admit two men abreast. These sawed pickets, were close under the hill, and but a few yards from the very point of the rock, out of the view and fire of the enemy, from the block. house. Until our troops advanced to the point, no harm could ensue, but by stones thrown from above. Even now, there had been but an imperfect discovery of the advancing of an enemy, and that only by the intoxicated guard. The guard fled, the general advanced a few paces. A drunken sailor returned to his gun, swearing he would not forsake it while undischarged. This fact is related from the testimony of the guard on the morning of our capture, some of those sailors being our guard. Applying the match, this single discharge, deprived us of our excellent commander.

Examining the spot, the officer who escorted us, professing to be one of those, who first came to the place, after the death of the general, showed the position in which the general's body was found. It lay two paces from the brink of the river, on the back, the arms extended--Cheeseman lay on the left, and McPherson on the right, in a triangular position. Two other brave men lay near them. The ground above described, was visited by an inquisi

tive eye, so that you may rely with some implicitness, on the truth of the picture. As all danger from without had vanished, the government had not only permitted the mutilated palisades to remain, without renewing the en closure, but the very sticks, sawed by the hand of our commander, still lay strewed about the spot.

Colonel Campbell, appalled by the death of the general, retreated a little way from Cape Diamond, out of the reach of the cannon of the blockhouse, and pretendedly called a council of officers, who, it was said, justified his receding from the attack. If rushing on, as military duty required, and a brave man would have done, the block-house might have been occupied by From a small number, and was unassailable from without, but by cannon. the block-house, to the centre of the lower town, where we were, there was no obstacle to impede a force so powerful, as that under colonel Campbell.

Cowardice, or a want of good will towards our cause, left us to our miserable fate. A junction, though we might not conquer the fortress, would en. able us to make an honourable retreat, though with the loss of many valua. ble lives. Campbell, who was ever after considered as a poltroon in grain, retreated, leaving the bodies of the general, M'Pherson and Cheeseman, to be devoured by the dogs. The disgust caused among us, as to Campbell, was so great as to create the unchristian wish, that he might be hanged. In that desultory period, though he was tried, he was acquitted; that was also There never the case of colonel Enos, who deserted us on the Kennebec. were two men more worthy of punishment of the most exemplary kind.

It was on this day, that my heart was ready to burst with grief, at view. ing the funeral of our beloved general. Carleton had, in our former wars with the French, been the friend and fellow-soldier of Montgomery. Though political opinion, perhaps ambition or interest, had thrown these worthies, on different sides of the great question, yet the former could not but honour the remains of his quondam friend. About noon, the procession passed our quarters. It was most solemn. The coffin covered with a pall, surmounted by transverse swords-was borne by men. The regular troops, particularly that fine body of men, the seventh regiment, with reversed arms, and scarfs on the left elbow, accompanied the corpse to the grave. The funerals of the other officers, both friends and enemies, were performed this day. From many of us, it drew tears of affection for the defunct, and speaking for myself, tears of greeting and thankfulness, towards general Carleton. The soldiery and inhabitants, appeared affected by the loss of this invaluable man, though he was their enemy. If such men as Washington, Carleton, and Montgomery, had had the entire direction of the adverse war, the contention, in the event, might have happily terminated to the advantage of both sections of the nation. M'Pherson, Cheeseman, Hendricks, Humphreys, were all dignified by the manner of the burial

On the same, or the following day, we were compelled (if we would look) to a more disgusting and torturing sight. Many carioles, repeatedly one after the other, passed our dwelling loaded with the dead, whether of the assailants or of the garrison, to a place emphatically called the "dead-house." Here the bodies were heaped in monstrous piles. The horror of the sight, to us southern men, principally consisted in seeing our companions borne to interment uncoffined, and in the very clothes they had worn in battle; their limbs distorted in various directions, such as would ensue in the moment of death. Many of our friends and acquaintances were apparent. Poor Nelson lay on the top of half a dozen other bodies-his arms extended beyond his head, as if in the act of prayer, and one knee crooked and raised, seemingly, when he last gasped in the agonies of death. Curse on these civil wars. which extinguish the sociabilities of mankind, and annihilate the strength of nations. A flood of tears was consequent. Though Montgomery was belov ed, because, of his manliness of soul, heroic bravery, and suavity of manners; Hendricks and Humphreys, for the same admirable qualities, and especially for the endurances we underwent in conjunction, which enforced many a tear: still my unhappy and lost brethren, though in humble station, with whom that dreadful wild was penetrated, and from whom came many attentions towards me, forced melancholy sensations. From what is said relative to the "dead-house," you might conclude that general Carleton was inhumane or heard-hearted. No such thing. In this northern latitude, at this season of the year, according to my feelings (we had no thermometer) the weather was so cold, as usually to be many degrees below 0. A wound, if mortal, or even otherwise, casts the party wounded into the snow; if death should follow, it throws the sufferer into various attitudes, which are assumed in the extreme pain accompanying death. The moment death takes place, the frost fixes the limbs in whatever situation they may then happen to be, and which cannot be reduced to decent order, until they are thawed. In this state the bodies of the slain are deposited in the "dead-house," hard as ice. At this season of the year, the earth is frozen from two to five feet deep, impenetrable to the best pick-axe, in the hands of the stoutest man. Hence you may perceive a justification of the" dead-house." It is no new abservation, that "climates form the manners and habitudes of the people."

We shall close by inserting the following extracts:

of the treatment of Ethan Allen, at the time spoken of, we knew nothing but from report, which we then thought well grounded, and the truth of which, at this day, there is no reason to doubt. He was a man of much peculiarity of character. Large, powerful of body, a most ferocious temper, fearing neither God nor man, of a most daring courage, and a pertinacity of disposition, which was unconquerable, and very astonishing in all his under

takings: withal he had the art of making himself beloved and revered by all his followers. When he was taken in the isle of Montreal, in 1775, the go. vernment found it necessary to confine him in a cage, as one would a wild beast, and thus aboard ship he was transported to Quebec. What his treatment was during his voyage to England is unknown to me.

This, however, is known, that for many years, he was a prisoner in England. Returning from his captivity to America, he brought with him a manuscript, which he afterwards entitled "The Oracle of Reason." My beloved children, it is the furthest from my thought to confine your knowledge to narrow bounds; when you dip into scriptural history, dip deep; do not skim the surface of the subject, as many fools have done of late days. Upon a thorough inquiry your hearts will be animated by a conviction that there came a Saviour to redeem you from eternal perdition, and to provide for you an eternal salvation and state of happiness.

That book was most certainly the composition of Ethan Allen. He was very illiterate; he did not know the orthography of our language. The extent of his learning probably bounded by some historic chronicles, and a few other books of little account, did not go beyond the scriptures. The gentle. man who gave me the above information was an elegant scholar bred at Harvard college. Going to Newyork in the summer of 1786, a friend, from mere curiosity, requested me to purchase the book for him. Being de tained at Newyork six weeks by business, I frequently looked into the detestable volume. The argument, if so diabolic a work can be said to contain argument, was in general arranged and conducted in the same manner as the "Age of Reason;" but in a coarser, and yet a more energetic language than that of the latter work. On my return to Philadelphia, in a conversation with the Vermontese gentleman, who was still there, "Ethan Allen's bible" became a topic of discourse. He gave me this curious anecdote, which he averred upon his honour to be true. A young gentleman, either a scholar of Harvard or Yale college, had come into Vermont, and there taught a school. Allen laboured under the want of an amanuensis and transcriber, of knowledge and learning. The scholar, to increase his emoluments, became such. Allen attended him daily, standing, staff in hand, at the back of the young man's chair. "Sir," he would say to Allen, "this word is misspelled." "Amend it." Again" this word is misplaced; the sense is incorrect," &c Allen, who was most profane, would swear, sometimes raising his staff, "By G** sir, you shall insert it; you shall not alter it." Thus the "Oracle of Reason" came into the world, which of all books is the most bluntly vicious, as regards the well being of society, the salvation of souls, and the happiness of those who have faith in the redemption by the blood of our Saviour. But that which is very remarkable is, that long after the publication of Allen's book, which had fallen into oblivion; even with its readers, that vile reprobate, Thomas Paine, loaded with every crime which stains and dishonors the