[LE moine] ASbAULT ON QUEBEC IN 1775 465 



the 30th August, 1830, who left a diary which he dictated to his son^ 

 James Thompson, Jr., on the 31st July, 1828, two years before his death, 

 can scarcely be accepted as a sufficient authority ; the memory of nona- 

 genarians attaining 96 years being liable to become faulty. This supposi- 

 tion becomes a certainty on referring to another passage in his diary, 

 dictated also on the Slst July, 1828, wherein it is said that "on the 31st 

 December, before daylight, General Montgomery made an attempt at 

 assault by Près-de-Ville and Sault-au- Matelot," etc., " where he and two 

 of his officers and a sergeant were shot dead by a single discharge," etc. 



Guy Carleton, commander-in-chief, in a letter to General Howe, 

 Quebec, 12th January, 1776, relates the attack as being made on the 31st 

 December, 1775. 



The evidence of Henry, a volunteer in the troops of Congress, taken 

 prisoner on the 31st December, 1775, quoted by Kingsford, is open to 

 suspicion, as his presumed diary or memoir, instead of being in his hand- 

 writing, was dictated to his daughter thirty-seven years later, viz., in 

 1812, as appears by the following : " The campaign against Quebec was 

 " dictated to his daughter Ann Mary, the mother of the writer, with the 

 " aid of casual notes and memoranda, from his (Henry's) bed of sick- 

 " ness — his latest years. The manuscript received no revision at his 

 " hands, for he was called away shortly after the pages were written. 

 " His Avidow gave it to the press in 1812, and it was printed without 

 " even a correction of verbal or typographical errors." ("Account of 

 Arnold's Campaign against Quebec," published by Maunsell, Albany^ 

 1817.) 



Sanguinet, a member of the Montreal Bar, who left what has ever 

 been held a copious and reliable journal of the siege operations of 1775, 

 and who places the assault on the morning of the 31st December, visited 

 Quebec in May, 1776, when the particulars of the attack were fresh in 

 everyone's mind. According to Dr. Kingsford he cannot be accepted as 

 an authority for what took place during the siege, on account of his 

 absence ! 



The doctor, however, accepts the version of the journal attributed to 

 Eadeaux, a Three Elvers notary, though Badeaux no more than San- 

 guinet was present at Quebec on the day of the engagement. The 

 doctor, however, in Badeaux's case forgot, or did not choose to add, that 

 on the margin of Badeaux's manuscript, in Badeaux's own handwriting, 

 occurs the correction " 31 décembre, 1775," and that the learned Jacques 

 Tiger, the antiquary, who owned Badeaux's manuscript journal, inscribed 

 under the correction the words "Et c'est vrai. (J. V.)," his initials. 



Another work highly prized for its historic value, Hawkins' "Picture 

 of Quebec," published in 1834, with the joint collaboration of the scholai ly 

 Dr. John Charlton Fisher, of the learned Andrew Stuart, Q.C., and the 

 late Judge Adam Tom, fixes the date of Montgomery and Arnold's assault 

 on Quebec on the 31st December, 1775. 



