Congress Writes to the Canadians
When American troops captured Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point and gained control of Lake Champlain, they basically gained control of the main gateway to Canada. The Canadians could understandably be nervous that the Americans would invade — and then, who knew what would happen? To try and calm their fears, keep them friendly, and encourage them to join the American cause, the Continental Congress wrote an official letter “To the oppressed Inhabitants of Canada”:
FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN,
Alarmed by the designs of an arbitrary Ministry, to extirpate the Rights and liberties of all America, a sense of common danger conspired with the dictates of humanity, in urging us to call your attention, by our late address, to this very important object.
Since the conclusion of the late war [the French and Indian War], we have been happy in considering you as fellow-subjects, and from the commencement of the present plan for subjugating the continent, we have viewed you as fellow-sufferers with us. As we were both entitled by the bounty of an indulgent creator to freedom, and being both devoted by the cruel edicts of a despotic administration, to common ruin, we perceived the fate of the protestant and catholic colonies to be strongly linked together, and therefore invited you to join with us in resolving to be free, and in rejecting, with disdain, the fetters of slavery, however artfully polished….
By the introduction of your present form of government, or rather present form of tyranny, you and your wives and your children are made slaves….it is impossible to conceive to what variety and to what extremes of wretchedness you may, under the present establishment, be reduced….
We, for our parts, are determined to live free, or not at all; and are resolved, that posterity shall never reproach us with having brought slaves into the world.
Permit us again to repeat that we are your friends, not your enemies, and be not imposed upon by those who may endeavour to create animosities. The taking the fort and military stores at Ticonderoga and Crown-Point, and the armed vessels on the lake, was dictated by the great law of self-preservation….you may rely on our assurances, that these colonies will pursue no measures whatever, but such as friendship and a regard for our mutual safety and interest may suggest….
We yet entertain hopes of your uniting with us in the defence of our common liberty….
Journals of the Continental Congress, 2:68-70
Congress ordered that the letter be translated into French, and that 1,000 copies be printed and sent to Canada.
To say that the Canadians had been made slaves was rather an exaggeration. Congress was trying whatever way they could to get the Canadians to join with them, or at least not to fight against them. They could definitely use the Canadians as allies, and they certainly didn’t want them as enemies.