Francis and to reduce Montreal and the posts on Lake Champlain, while a fifth should guard against troops from Quebec.

Thus far America could proceed unaided by her ally. But Upper Canada being reduced another campaign would still be necessary for the reduction of Quebec. This circumstance would require that the army should pass the winter in Canada, and in the meantime the garrison of Quebec might be largely reinforced. It was therefore essential to the complete success of the enterprise that France should be induced to take a part in it.

The conquest of Quebec and of Halifax was supposed to be an object of so much importance to France as well as to the United States that her aid might be confidently expected.

It was proposed to request the King of France to furnish four or five thousand troops, to sail from Brest the beginning of May under convoy of four ships of the line and four frigates, the troops to be clad as if for service in the West Indies and thick clothes to be sent after them in August. A large American detachment was to act with this French army and it was supposed that Quebec and Halifax might be reduced by the beginning or middle of October. The army might then either proceed immediately against New Foundland or remain in garrison until the spring when the conquest of that place might be accomplished.

It had been supposed probable that England would abandon the further prosecution of the war on the continent of North America, in which case the government would have a respectable force at its disposal, the advantageous employment of which had engaged in part the attention of Washington. He had contemplated an expedition against the British posts in Upper Canada as a measure which

might be eventually eligible and which might employ the arms of the United States to advantage if their troops might safely be withdrawn from the sea-board. He had, however, considered every object of this sort as contingent. Having estimated the difficulties to be encountered in such an enterprise he had found them so considerable as to hesitate on the extent which might safely be given to the expedition admitting the United States to be evacuated by the British armies.

In this state of mind Washington received the magnificent plan already prepared by Congress. He was forcibly struck with the impracticability of executing that part of it which was to be undertaken by the United States should the British armies continue in the country and with the serious mischief which would result to the common cause as well as from diverting so considerable a part of the French force from other objects to one which was, in his opinion, so unpromising as from the ill impression which would be made on the court and nation by the total failure of the Amercan government to execute its part of a plan originating with itself a failure would most probably sacrifice the troops and ships employed by France.

On comparing the naval force of England with that of France in different parts of the world, the former appeared to Washington to maintain a decided superiority and consequently to possess the power of shutting up the ships of the latter which might be trusted into the St. Lawrence. To suppose that the British government would not avail itself of this superiority on such an occasion would be to impute to it a blind infatuation or ignorance of the plans of its adversary, which could not be safely assumed in calculations of such serious import.

A plan, too, consisting of so many parts to be prose

cuted both from Europe and America by land and by water which, to be successful, required such an harmonious co-operation of the whole, such a perfect coincidence of events appeared to him to be exposed to too many accidents to risk upon it interests of such high value. In a long and serious letter to Congress he apologized for not obeying their orders to deliver the plan with his observations upon it to Lafayette, and entering into a full investigation of all its parts demonstrated the mischiefs and the dangers with which it was replete. This letter was referred to a committee whose report admits the force of the reasons urged by Washington against the expedition and their own conviction that nothing important could be attempted unless the British armies should be withdrawn from the United States and that even in that event the present plan was far too complex.

Men, however, recede slowly and reluctantly from favorite and flattering projects on which they have long meditated, and the committee in their report proceeded to state the opinion that the posts held by the British in the United States would probably be evacuated before the active part of the ensuing campaign, and that, therefore, eventual measures for the expedition ought to be taken.

This report concludes with recommending, “that the general should be directed to write to the Marquis de Lafayette on that subject, and also write to the minister of these States at the court of Versailles very fully, to the end that eventual measures may be taken in case an armament should be sent from France to Quebec for co-operating therewith to the utmost degree which the finances and resources of these States will admit."

This report also was approved by Congress and transmitted to Washington who felt himself greatly embarrassed