St Johns and Chambly part 4 (Quebec 1775)

Back at St Johns, Montgomery had been delayed further by bad weather and by Preston's gunners, who had cleared a field of fire by leveling the buildings outside the fort. On 22 September, work began on the first battery, but with the besiegers outgunned by the defenders and by the vessels on the river, progress was slow. The American blockade was also extremely lax - Preston communicated regularly with Carleton and on 4 October, two Canadian officers rounded up eight cattle from nearby fields and brought them into the fort. However, matters changed when heavier guns arrived from Fort Ticonderoga, including a large mortar immediately christened "the sow". By 15 October, the two buildings inside the fort were in ruins and, though casualties were negligible, the defenders were forced to sleep in the cellars. More worrying for Preston was a second American battery on the east bank, directly opposite the fort, which not only closed the route in for messengers and supplies, but also threatened the vessels moored there. Preston sent one of the row galleys, armed with a 24-pdr, to destroy the work, but after severe casualties on both sides it was forced to withdraw. The senior naval officer, Lieutenant William Hunter, now recommended that all three vessels be beached between the redoubts and their guns and stores removed. Before this task was completed, however, Royal Savage was holed by heated shot and sank with its ordnance still aboard, so infuriating Preston that Hunter had to defend his reputation in writing. On 18 October, Preston suffered an even greater blow: Stopford surrendered the fort at Chambly, along with its garrison and valuable supplies of powder and shot. Brown and Livingston had surrounded the post with 400 men (half of them Canadian recruits) and had been joined later by Montgomery's two row galleys, which Duggan had slipped past St Johns at night.