Defence of Canada Carleton received notice of the start of the rebellion in May 1775, soon followed by the news of the rebel
capture of Fort Ticonderoga and
Fort Crown Point, and the raid on
Fort Saint-Jean. As he had previously sent two of his regiments to Boston, he had only about 800 regular soldiers left in Quebec. His attempts to raise a
militia met with limited success at first, as neither the ethnic French nor the English residents were willing to join. The area's Natives were willing to fight on the British side, and the Crown wanted them to do so, but Carleton turned their offer down because he feared the Natives might attack non-combatants. For the same reason, he limited
Guy Johnson and his
Iroquois allies, who had come to Quebec from
New York, to operating only in Quebec. During the summer of 1775, Carleton directed the preparation of provincial defences, which were focused on Fort Saint-Jean. In September, the
Continental Army began its invasion and
besieged the fort. When it fell in November, Carleton was forced to flee from Montreal to
Quebec City, escaping capture by disguising himself as a
commoner. In December 1775 he directed the city's defences in the
Battle of Quebec and the ensuing siege, which was broken by the arrival of British troops in May 1776 under command of
John Burgoyne, who was appointed second-in-command. Carleton's younger brother
Thomas was part of the relief effort. Guy Carleton launched a counteroffensive against the rebels, which included repelling an attempted attack on
Trois-Rivières. In June 1776, he was appointed a
Knight Companion of the Bath. He was promoted to the rank of a
general for America only on 26 March 1776. The next month Carleton commanded British naval forces on the
Richelieu River, culminating in the
Battle of Valcour Island on
Lake Champlain in October 1776 against a rebel fleet led by General
Benedict Arnold. The British, with a significantly superior fleet, won a decisive victory, destroying or capturing most of the rebel fleet, but the delay prevented Carleton from continuing on to capture
Fort Ticonderoga that year. His brother Thomas and nephew
Christopher both served on his staff during the campaign. The morning following the battle, a small island in Lake Champlain was named
Carleton's Prize, perhaps to Carleton's embarrassment at the time. He was promoted to
lieutenant general on 6 September 1777. In 1777, command of the major northern expedition to divide the rebel colonies was given to General Burgoyne. Upset that he had not been given its command, Carleton asked to be recalled. He was replaced as governor and military commander of Quebec in 1778 by
Frederick Haldimand, and returned to Britain. In 1780 he was appointed by Prime Minister
Lord North to a commission investigating public finances. This post he held until 1782, when General Sir
Henry Clinton was recalled in the aftermath of the 1781
surrender at Yorktown. Carleton was appointed to replace Clinton as
Commander-in-Chief, America, in May 1782. His headquarters in New York City were located at Number One Broadway.
Evacuation of New York In August 1783, Carleton was informed that Great Britain would grant the United States its independence. With his exit from New York imminent, Carleton asked to be relieved of his command. After this news,
Loyalists began an exodus from the Thirteen Colonies and Carleton did his best to have them resettled outside the United States. In May he had met
George Washington, amongst others, to arrange for the implementation of those parts of the
Treaty of Paris relating to the evacuation of New York City, then commanded by Carleton and still occupied by the British Army, many Loyalists and former
slaves. Carleton had refused to deliver over the human property to the Americans at the time of the British evacuation. Instead, he proposed a registry so that "the owners might eventually be paid for the slaves who were entitled to their freedom by British Proclamation and promises." Sir Guy noted that nothing could be changed in any Articles that were inconsistent with prior policies or National Honour. He added that the only mode was to pay for the Negroes, in which case justice was done to all, the former slaves and the owners. Carleton said that it would be a breach of faith not to honour the British policy of liberty to the Negro and declared that if removing them proved to be an infraction of the treaty, then compensation would have to be paid by the British government. To provide for such a contingency, he had a register kept of all Negroes who left, called the
Book of Negroes, entering their names, ages, occupations, and names of their former masters. The Americans agreed to this but the Crown never paid compensation. The Loyalist Claims Commission, using the logic of the Somerset Case and the Philipsburg Proclamation, determined that people could not be claimed as property, and only property could be a matter of compensation. The British transported about 3,000 freedmen and other Black Loyalists to Nova Scotia, The Bahamas, and as far away as Germany for resettlement in the evacuation of New York City in November 1783 alone. Thousands more, under the same agreement, were evacuated from Charleston, Savannah, and St. Augustine. All told, historians estimate that between 50,000 and 80,000 enslaved people were freed as the result of Carleton's final enforcement of British proclamations, leading to, as historian Cassandra Pybus has described it, the "single greatest act of abolition in early American history." Washington, who worked to re-enslave free Black Loyalists (which included former slaves at Mount Vernon), strenuously disagreed with Sir Guy's actions and wrote: "…the measure is totally different from the letter and spirit of the Treaty but waiving the specialty of the point, leaving this decision to our respective Sovereigns I find it my duty to signify my readiness in conjunction with you to enter into agreements, or take any measures which may be deemed expedient to prevent the future carrying away any Negroes or other property of the American people." On 28 November the evacuation was finished, and on 5 December Carleton departed from
Staten Island to return to Great Britain.
John Campbell of Strachur succeeded him as Commander-in-Chief, North America, although the post was then much reduced in scope. == Post-war years and death ==