ABSTRACT
In an outline plan sent to General Philip Schuyler in Albany on 20 August 1775, Washington pointed out that the success of any American invasion of Canada would, in large measure, depend upon the active collaboration of the Canadians themselves. In Montreal he put himself in touch with Thomas Walker and other discontented Anglo-American merchants, persuaded them to form a Committee of Safety to correspond with Massachusetts, and then returned to Boston, thoroughly convinced that the time was ripe for revolt in Canada. Ticonderoga was in a weak state, and although Washington appointed a new general, Horatio Gates, whose powers were such that he was named 'dictator in Canada for six months', it would obviously take time to restore both the numbers and the morale of the defeated army. The events on the banks of the Richelieu and the Saint Lawrence in 1775 and 1776 may appear to be of small moment in the general history of military operations.
