From Haldimand’s pre-war experience in Canada, he was entirely aware of Sorel’s critical strategic location and, soon after his arrival in 1778, he had informed Germain that, due to the vulnerability of Isle aux Noix, St. John’s, and Montreal, he intended to move a large proportion of his stores there. In preparation, he improved the fortifications and had fifty barracks and warehouses constructed. Over the next several years, Sorel became headquarters for several British and German regiments and the remnants of Burgoyne’s loyalist corps and, in the fall of 1781, came under Riedesel’s command.2
Undoubtedly, similar instructions and codes were issued to scouts from Lachine, Kanehsatake, Oswegatchie, Carleton Island, and Fort Niagara. No doubt, these cryptic messages caused unrest when discovered by rebel patrols.
On October 19, Riedesel reported to the governor regarding arrangements he had made for the employment of two detachments over the winter. Three officers and twenty-four men from the King’s Rangers and Fraser’s Independent Company had been chosen for the duty. Two of the officers and sixteen men would be posted at the Upper Yamaska Blockhouse on the river of the same name and a third officer and eight men would operate from the Loyal Blockhouse at Dutchman’s Point at Longe Isle on Lake Champlain. An officer and eight men would patrol south from Yamaska to the Bayley-Hazen Road, and another party would cover ground from the Loyal Blockhouse eastward along the Missisquoi River. They were “to observe very carefully all Tracks as well as those which go out of the Province as those which come in to it, and when they find any fresh to follow them; they are not always to take the same route, but they must strike some part of Hazen’s Road, and they are to make particular marks at certain distances for which the Officers commanding at each Post have rec’d instructions.”3
John Stuart, the Anglican priest who had been the missionary to the Fort Hunter Mohawk castle and its nearby European community, had been one of Haldimand’s most useful spies. When the priest realized he was in imminent danger of exposure, he obtained permission from New York’s governor, George Clinton, to remove his family to Canada and, after enduring an arduous journey, the Stuarts arrived in Montreal on October 13. The priest wrote of his experiences to his superiors at the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, reporting that the rebels had first set up a tavern in his church and dispensed liquor from its reading desk. Next, they converted the building into a stable and, in 1781, into a fort, “to protect a Set of as great Villains as ever disgraced Humanity.” As Stuart had been forced to come away without the protection of a flag of truce, he had left behind the mission’s books and its silver plate with a trusted friend in Schenectady.
After Burgoyne’s defeat, his Mohawk congregation relocated at Lachine, seven miles from Montreal, and, when Stuart arrived in the city, they enthusiastically greeted him and requested that he reside with them at their new settlement. But, Stuart had a family to support and his personal property had been so thoroughly looted that he was without resources and was therefore compelled to take employment as chaplain of the second battalion, King’s Royal Regiment of New York (2KRR).4
The same day that Stuart wrote to the SPG, Montreal district’s commander, Brigadier Ernst de Speth, former commander of Riedesel’s Musketeer regiment, reported a revolt of the rebel prisoners at Coteau-du-Lac where an offshore island prison held the most intransigent captives. He had immediately reinforced the garrison with a detachment of Sir John’s first battalion (1KRR). Complicating this affair was a collection of forty-seven new prisoners that was to be sent to the island from Fort St. John’s in the next few days.5
A week later, Royal Yorker major, James Gray, wrote that the report of a revolt had been groundless and described his battalion’s garrison at the post; on the island he had a subaltern and thirty men and, on the mainland, a captain, subaltern, and fifty men.
Another week passed and the post’s commandant, Captain Joseph Anderson, apprised Gray about a fire in the Prison Island’s joiner’s shop and the prisoners’ barracks. He did not say if the prisoners had had a hand in the incident, but to judge from earlier strife, the blaze was likely set as cover for another escape attempt. It seems that Gray had been indulging in another cover-up to protect the reputation of his captain and battalion. Earlier in the year, a similar “game” had infuriated the district’s previous brigadier, Allan Maclean, RHE.6
Captain Georg Pausch of the Hesse-Hanau artillery, who had seen praiseworthy service under Burgoyne in 1777, had returned to Quebec with Riedesel. He wrote to his Crown Prince on October 16 reporting that the Hanau Jägers were on an expedition under St. Leger, “which supposedly is to cross Lakes Champlain and Ontario, in the region of Niagara and Detroit.” For someone who had earlier been in Canada for well over a year, Pausch had as little understanding of the country’s geography as his fellow Hessian, Lieutenant-Colonel von Kreutzbourg, revealed in his personal journals.
The captain described the material state of his artillery company, noting that, in obedience to the prince’s orders, the men were without firelocks. They had bayonets with sheaths mounted on their cartridge pouch straps, but why they had either item of equipment without the requisite long arms is a matter of conjecture. With some difficulty, he had purchased a small wooden drum similar to that used by the English on which his newly recruited black drummers could practice. He praised the new powder flasks and slings supplied by the prince as being beautifully decorated, but again, of what use were these without muskets? He had unsuccessfully requested hangers from Lieutenant-Colonel Macbean, the British artillery commander. The few he had were without sheaths or scabbards, so he had the latter made locally and employed surplus flask slings for carriages, assuring the prince that they would be kept whole so they might be returned to their original purpose. He had brought new, plain uniforms from New York and had gold lace mounted. Further, he had purchased new stockings and shoes and had short, black woollen gaiters made.7
On October 20, Haldimand sent dispatch No. 94 to Lord George Germain to advise that Major-General Alured Clarke had arrived with his family. Clarke had been sent to Canada in response to the governor’s request for a Briton to outrank his German senior officers in whom he had so little confidence, but Riedesel’s surprising arrival had altered the situation. The governor enclosed a copy of a letter, in which the baron wrote of his disappointment at finding himself ranked junior to Clarke, noting that the Briton had been serving as a colonel long after his own appointment to major-general. Haldimand was concerned for Riedesel, as his claim was valid and his military talents unquestioned. To avoid giving offence, he had posted the two generals “as distant from one another as possible;” Riedesel at Sorel, where he had particular knowledge of the town and the adjacent frontiers, and Clarke at headquarters in Quebec City.8
Arent Schuyler DePeyster, 1736– 1832. Born in New York, DePeyster joined