What they failed to win by force of arms, the Americans claimed by sheer effrontery: rumors spread that Americans held the Lower Town, the bishop’s house, and British powder magazines; that six hundred defenders had been killed; that Montgomery had merely gone to fetch twenty thousand Bostonnais reinforcements; and that Carleton had hanged sixty Canadians for treason. Arnold knew better. To Washington he wrote that “upwards of one hundred officers and soldiers instantly set off for Montreal” after the failed assault; since most enlistments had now expired, “it was with the greatest difficulty
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