The quest for Canada

He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada
by Madelaine Drohan

Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2025
$27.99 / 9781459754188

Reviewed by Steven Brown

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Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790). Printer. Publisher. Author. Journalist. Inventor. Pamphleteer. Politician. Diplomat. Postmaster. Signatory to the American Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Scads of books have been written about Franklin’s life and achievements and most of these books touch only briefly or not at all on the one other interesting thing about him as stated in the introduction to this fine work of history—the place Canada long held in Franklin’s imagination. His plans for Canada aren’t part of his mythic status as an American giant, one of the fathers of his country, likely because they were a failure. He believed Canada should join the thirteen American colonies, whether by force or diplomacy. He returned to the subject repeatedly throughout his career.

“Canada” before the 1759 French defeat on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec city meant the northern regions of New France including the southern portion of present day Quebec and the northern half of Newfoundland, some of present day southern Ontario, portions of present day New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island then called St. John’s Island, and, until 1745 when the British took it, the fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton island known to the French as Isle Royale. Canada at that time was composed almost entirely of French immigrants and people born to French immigrants. There were few English. The populace was Catholic. The colonies to the south were not Catholic. They were puritan or presbyterian or protestant. Franklin had long viewed the French to the north and their native allies coupled with “the superstitions of the Church of Rome” as a threat to the thirteen colonies. Raiding parties into the colonies from the north were not unknown, settlements burned, colonists killed.

Meanwhile borders between Canada and the American colonies weren’t set. It depended on who you talked to. The British had their own ideas about where the borders were, the French theirs. The borders of the thirteen colonies weren’t set neither were the colonies a cohesive group. They were independent of each other, each had aspirations and ideas of how things should be. Some colonists shared Franklin’s designs on Canada but it wasn’t first on anyone else’s agenda. It was in the mix but the main task would be succeeding in the brewing revolution and securing recognition by both Britain and France of American independence.

Until an American revolution looked inevitable Franklin was staunchly a Briton. He was born in Boston in what was then called the Province of Massachusetts and was successful as a printer and newspaper publisher in Philadelphia. He travelled to London, England as an eighteen-year-old to learn more about the printing trade and found work with London printers. Printing presses, ink, and paper in the American colonies came from England. He had later stays in London that were much longer and later still a years-long sojourn in Paris. Most of what is known of his early life is from his autobiography which remained unfinished at his death and that he only started writing when he was sixty-five.

He became a strong supporter of the idea that the British drive the French out of North America completely. The population of the thirteen colonies was expanding rapidly. With the French out the colonies could expand into vast Canada. Franklin wasn’t interested in the French Canadians. They could leave or assimilate. It was about the land. The idea was simplistic. He was pleased with the British defeat of the French and the expulsion of French rule by 1760 but was later dismayed when he learned of the generous terms given by the British to the French population of New France finalized by the Quebec Act of 1774. The French populace of Canada carried on as they always had, continued with French civil law but with British criminal law under British rule and were free to practice the Catholic religion.

The American colonies didn’t like the Quebec Act. Punitive measures in the accompanying Quebec Revenue Act exacerbated what were already hard feelings over taxes imposed on paper, glass, lead, and tea. The British felt they could do what they wanted with their colonies while for the American colonies “no taxation without representation” became a rallying cry. In 1773, the Tea Act led to what became famous as the Boston Tea Party when colonists, disguised as natives, dumped hundred of cases of tea into Boston harbour.

With the Quebec Act duties on imports to Canada from the colonies became greater than imports to the colonies from Britain. There was scorn in the British Parliament for the colonies. As Franklin noted the colonies were, “put on the footing of foreigners in trade.” As the author notes the Quebec Act laid the groundwork for Canada to become a separate and distinct society from the American colonies. It was the end of Franklin’s support for Britain and a ramp up of a general desire in the colonies for a complete break with Britain. The first continental congress of the colonies was initiated in Philadelphia in 1774. In June 1775, a rebel army was worked up led by George Washington who had been a lieutenant colonel in the Virginia militia. Rebel militias had already traded fire with the British at the Battles of Lexington and Concord followed soon after by a major engagement at the Battle of Bunker Hill. That was a victory for the British but they had more killed and wounded than the colonists.

Next came a bold idea to attack Canada, but it didn’t come from any delegate to the continental congress. The congress knew nothing about it. In May 1775, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys subdued Fort Ticonderoga without a fight. Crown Point followed. Allen commandeered a British sloop, some smaller boats, military stores, and provisions at Fort St. Jean at the north end of Lake Champlain then retreated south when British reinforcements arrived. Fort St. Jean was in what was considered Canadian territory.

All these forts had been built by the French but were in British hands. This foray presented a problem. It was an act of aggression while the continental congress delegates were claiming British aggression towards the colonies as their motivation for rebellion. The solution was very modern. Actions against Canada by the American colonies were to be deemed self-defence. Washington worked up a new two-pronged attack northwards. The colonists assured themselves of victory and naively assumed the Canadians, the seigneurs and habitants, would join them.

A force led by Robert Montgomery proceeded from Fort Ticonderoga and was successful at taking Montreal. British governor Guy Carleton had withdrawn safely to Quebec city. A force from Boston on the east coast led by Benjamin Arnold aimed straight for Quebec city, hacking through the dense forests of northern Maine. The combined forces weren’t what they should have been. They were undermanned, short of food and ammunition, and desertions had piled up. Spoiler alert. The American invaders were repulsed at Quebec on December 31, 1775. Montgomery was killed and Arnold badly wounded. The congress delegates, high on thoughts of victory and the glorious rightness of taking over Canada, only learned of this on January 17, 1776. The remainder of the American force at Quebec continued to lay siege.

The Americans still thought Canada could be persuaded to join them. Franklin was sent to Montreal in the spring as part of a commission to convince the northerners. British ships carrying reinforcements arrived on the St. Lawrence River at Quebec not long after he and the rest of the commission arrived in Montreal. This spelled doom for the invasion and the commission. The Americans outside the walls of Quebec city fled immediately. By July 1 all the invaders had left Canada. On July 4, the Americans declared independence but the struggle with the British was far from over.

There was no peace until the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Independence for the American colonies was a close-run thing for a long time. The British eventually came to realize they couldn’t defeat the Americans and as with their victory over the French very good terms were offered to the Americans, but that didn’t include what Franklin suggested at one point, that the British “throw in” Canada as a peaceable act of generosity and goodwill. He’d been sent to France later in 1776 to work up French support including military support and financial support. He didn’t return home until 1785. Nearing eighty years of age and in poor health his quest for Canada was over. It seems the last thing Franklin and his congressional confrères might have imagined is that “Canada” would go on to become a sovereign country of its own, the thing the Americans were aiming for, exclusive of the shiny new USA.

Madelaine Drohan has done an excellent job shining a light on a very interesting and complicated corner of Canadian history and on the history of Canada / US relations. There are some interesting parallels between the present day and 250 years ago, particularly the apparent belief among some contemporary Americans starting at the top that they could just roll into Canada and that would be it. A certain naiveté persists to this day.

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“Books have ruined my life,” jokes Steven Brown. A professional in the book trade for decades he’s managed to hang on to a lively interest in good books that began in his preschool years and has never quit. His reviews of fiction, non-fiction and poetry have appeared in newspapers, literary journals and he has donated reviews to worthy causes. [Editor’s note: Steven has reviewed books by Geoff Mynett, Merlin Bunt, Derek Hayes, John Horgan with Rod Mickleburgh, Robert J. Muckle, and Peter Smith, for The British Columbia Review.]

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