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"If your neighbor is more ignorant than what you are, partic'larly if he's as ignorant as Cooper's cow, you'd ought, as a Kennebec man an' a Christian, to set him on the right track, though it's always a turrible risky thing to do."
They had a notion that it was or would be submerged somewhere among the cascades of the Kennebec, or, at least, that it would never succeed in penetrating so far as the frontier at Sertigan.
An army was to enter Canada by the way of the Kennebec and Chaudière rivers; there to unite forces with Montgomery, who had started from Ticonderoga; and then, if possible, to surprise Quebec. The patriot army of some eighteen thousand men was at this time engaged in the siege of Boston. During the first week in September, orders came to draft men for Quebec.
But the person who most distinguished himself in this unfortunate expedition was Colonel Benedict Arnold, who, with a detachment of one thousand men, penetrated through the forests, swamps, and mountains of Maine, beyond the sources of the Kennebec and, in six weeks from his departure at Boston, arrived on the plains of Canada, opposite Quebec.
But nothing came of their purchase except an unfortunate controversy with Plymouth colony over trading boundaries on the Kennebec. The men established on this northern frontier were often lawless and difficult to control, of loose habits and morals, and intent on their own profit; and the region itself was inhospitable to organized and settled government.
And later on, when Arnold's men came up the Kennebec, it was satisfactorily explained to most of the habitants that it was no good resisting dead-shot riflemen who were bullet-proof themselves. Carleton issued proclamations. The seigneurs waved their swords. The clergy thundered from their pulpits. But all in vain.
Working their way up the river, they came to anchor at what is now the city of Gardiner. Near this place, the two hundred bateaux had been hastily built of green pine. The little army now advanced six miles up the river to Fort Western, opposite the present city of Augusta. Here they rested for three days, and made ready for the ascent of the Kennebec.
North of Boston there are a few towns; but beyond the little town of Falmouth, the English settlements are all called Fort this and Fort that. Up the valley of the Kennebec is the mark of a road to Quebec; and about half way, at the head waters of the Kennebec, a point is marked on the map with these words: "Indian and French rendezvous.
The war-whoop must sound simultaneously, from the Kennebec to the mouth of the Connecticut, or our labor will be worse than lost. Meanwhile, a great advantage has been gained. A gulf is now between the proud Englishman and the Taranteen, over which neither will pass. Your report, then, to them who sent you will be peace. Blessed be she among women!"
Accordingly he claimed for his royal master the country north of the Bay of Fundy and west to the Kennebec, and his officers established fortified posts on the River St. John and at the Isthmus of Chignecto.
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