This Day In Founding Fathers History – 6 December 2012

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This Day In Founding Fathers History – 6 December 2012

On this day in 1775, American General Montgomery wrote to British General Carleton: “I am at the head of troops accustomed to success, confident of the righteous cause they are engaged in, inured to danger and fatigue, and so highly incensed at your inhumanity, illiberal abuse, and the ungenerous means employed to prejudice them in the minds of the Canadians, that it is with difficulty I restrain them till my batteries are ready, from insulting your works, which would afford them the fair opportunity of ample vengeance and just retaliation. Firing upon a flag of truce, hitherto unprecedented, even among savages, prevents my following the ordinary mode of conveying my sentiments; however I will at any rate acquit my conscience: should you persist in an unwarrantable defence, the consequence be upon your own head. Beware of destroying stores of any sort, public or private, as you did at Montreal or in the river: if you do, by heavens, there will be no mercy shewn.” ₁

In 1779 on this day, Congress resolved to send a letter to “the several States in the Union by the President.” While Congress congratulate you on the happy issue of the last campaign and your preservation from the open or insidious attempts of a remorseless enemy, they cannot conceal from you the difficulties and embarrassments into which the depreciation of the currency and their attempt to restore its credit by a strict adherence to their resolution of the day offor putting a stop to further emissions have involved them. The quantity of money in circulation renders the expenditures of the army enormously large; but these expenditures are considerably encreased by a general diminution of confidence in the currency…” ₂

_{1 “General Montgomery’s last letter to general Carleton,” History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution vol. 1, Mercy Otis Warren
2 Journals of the Continental Congress, Monday, December 6, 1779}

 

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