Sutherland spotted seven men at work digging across the lake at Crown Point. Earlier, the lake had been open water and these fellows, thinking they were secure, had left their arms at Chimney Point; however, the ice now proved strong enough for the loyalists to cross and the workers were easily taken. They reported that two sleds loaded with scrap iron had already been sent into Vermont and that about thirty gun carriages had been dug up and were ready to be taken across the lake when the ice firmed up. They claimed that parties as large as twenty-one men had been digging ever since St. Leger retired from the lake, but, more important, they confidently reported that Cornwallis had been taken.
Stevens recognized a “friend to government” named Ailsworth amongst the captives and persuaded Sutherland to allow him to join his party, saying he could get all the intelligence needed, as well as supplies of provisions. Accordingly, Sutherland swore the man and sent him off with Stevens.
At Schroon Lake, Sutherland’s party shot a moose and a bear, which provided a large supply of meat. Walter sent four men back to Fort St. John’s with the six remaining prisoners and an interim report. As to completing the rest of his mission, he anticipated “a troublesome and tedious journey as there is no possibility as yet of leaving the lake, the snow being as soft as when it fell.”
Sutherland had just left Stevens when Ailsworth announced that a party would arrive at Crown Point that very night. A large group had been earlier spotted at Chimney Point attempting to set fire to a hut (perhaps St. Leger’s so-called “house”), so Stevens had hopes of a large haul. After re-crossing the lake, he and his men hid about twenty yards from the hut. At 5:00 p.m. a rebel appeared; however, when one of the loyalists ran to secure him, the fellow took off, shedding his hat, coat, pack, and blanket to make better speed, and ran to a convoy of five sleighs that was just arriving to collect the iron. In a flurry of shouts, the sleighs hurriedly turned about and escaped.
True to his word, over the ensuing days, Ailsworth visited contacts in the country and secured information and food. Stevens returned to St. John’s on January 31.11
While these scouts and agents were on the frontiers, there was much end-of-campaign tidying up in the Canadian Department. On January 7, the deputy adjutant general issued a General Order that the British regiments and loyalist corps were to send in a state of their arms, noting all deficiencies and when each occurred.
Loyalist Christian Wehr wrote to Captain Mathews to complain that, despite Major Jessup’s promise of a captaincy, he now found himself on the pensioners’ list without rank and wished to be transferred to 2KRR with the men he had recruited at such effort and expense. Wehr had an interesting history. He had been a KLA captain in 1777, but rather than command a company, had served as a blacksmith during Burgoyne’s expedition, yet he was listed as a captain on the KLA’s 1778 roll. By June 1779, he held the same rank in the “Loyal Volunteers,” but when Leake’s Independent Company was formed, Wehr was not one of the chosen officers and, when the Loyal Rangers was created, he was again not selected for command. Wehr got his wish and was ranked as a 2KRR second lieutenant backdated to December 11, 1781. Obviously, this lower rank was preferred to being on the pensioners’ list.12
Captain Robert Leake wrote to Mathews on January 10 in his role as paymaster to advise that 2KRR’s non-commissioned officers had only been paid as privates since the battalion first formed in 1780 and requested permission to make up the difference.13
The Loyal Rangers’ Regimental Orders of January 12 directed the officers commanding companies to immediately submit an exact return of their non-commissioned officers, drummers, and private men to the acting adjutant so that clothing could be issued. Men employed at work or absent from the corps, or who had received clothing since last June, were not to be included. This same day, Mathews wrote to Jessup to confirm that the uniform kits had been ordered for the corps, but there was no mention of a supply of additional green cloth to change the facings.14
Riedesel noted that the issuing of rum at Sorel district’s advance posts was unevenly applied, and provided a set of regulations that exempted the Secret Service scouts who performed hazardous duty. A few days later, Deputy Adjutant General Lernoult withdrew the rum allowance for artificers and workmen of all branches in the lower province, replacing it with a three-pence allowance per diem.
On January 13, Captain William Fraser reported to Major-General Riedesel from Yamaska Blockhouse that Colonel St. Leger was supplying snowshoes and a guide to lead the “Grand Scout.” The Rangers at the post had made all their clothes and were ready for service, and Lieutenant Israel Ferguson, KR, who was well acquainted with Hazen’s Road, was to command the scout and was waiting for Riedesel’s final orders and the arrival of the native guide. The “Grand Scout” departed on January 19 for the Loyal Blockhouse. A native sent to guide a second scout leaving from the lower blockhouse to the St. Francis River arrived on January 24, and this second party set out with sixteen days’ provisions.15
Lieutenant-Colonel Claus reported from Montreal on January 14 that four of his men who had been with Sutherland had brought in six Vermont prisoners. Under careful interrogation, the captives confirmed Cornwallis’s defeat, although it was said that the local loyalists considered it a “framed story.” They told about Chittenden sending a body of five hundred troops into New York three weeks previously “to drive off a parcell of tax Collectors and others from New York State.” Families from the White Creek area (in the Western Union) and New Hampshire were daily arriving in Vermont, which might “occasion a dispute & rupture between those respective States.”
Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Claus, 1727–1787. Claus served in lower Quebec as the senior deputy agent of the Six Nations’ Indian Department.
Three days later, Mathews informed Claus that the governor wished him to send the prisoners to Sherwood for additional interrogation, as, with his New Hampshire Grants’ background, he might be able to uncover more information. In addition, Haldimand wished to dispatch an “Extraordinary Scout” to gather intelligence, and Claus was to send Sherwood a native guide and two of his rangers. Did the governor still doubt Cornwallis’s defeat or simply its extent?16
The trial of the lieutenant of militia, Pierre Charlebois, who had been charged with assaulting John Thompson, 1KRR, sentenced him to pay a fine of twenty shillings and the costs of the prosecution. All of the Crown’s witnesses were allowed forty shillings for their expenses. Considering the unprovoked brutality of the beating and Charlebois’s reputation as a vicious bully, this was a mild penalty indeed and reflected the administration’s sensitivity over the general temper of the Canadiens. For Thompson, who had earlier suffered fourteen months of malignant imprisonment by the rebels, the finding was hardly just.17
Major Gray wrote to Mathews with a melancholy summation of Charlebois’s bad behaviour.
I have transmitted some time ago a Charge Against the Lieutenant of Militia of Point Clair, for Beating a Soldier in Our Regiment, which he has done some others of the Soldiers before, but rather than Encourage any disputes betwixt the men and the Inhabitants, I over looked it[. A]t this time I could not[,] so I entered a process against him[. T]he determination of the Court, I here enclose[.] I am sorry to inform you, that the men meet with many Insults from the Inhabitants, which they are obliged to Bear with, from the strick orders Given to keep clear