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military career. Montgomery, Barré, and Burke also were fellow alumni. All three received a liberal education at Trinity College in Dublin, although Barré and Burke had graduated some years before Montgomery. All these factors served to strengthen the intellectual bond among these individuals. They spent many hours together discussing politics while Montgomery was stationed in England. However, Montgomery’s association with Barré, Burke, and Fox garnered him little favor with the politicians who dominated the British government.³⁹

      So, Montgomery concluded his remarkable military service in the Seven Years’ War—and beyond. Yet, he remained concerned about his future in the British army and began to question the validity of governmental political policies. This period of fallow service, based on stagnation in rank, would position the unfulfilled, restless war veteran at the crossroads of a major life change.

      When a chance to purchase a major’s commission presented itself in 1771, Montgomery eagerly lodged his money. However, a political favorite of Lord North’s ministry procured the majority to which Montgomery felt his services entitled him. Because of his lack of influential political patronage, Montgomery found himself shut out from continued advancement in the British military establishment. On April 6, 1772, the disappointed captain sold his own commission in revulsion to what he regarded as the deprivation of his rightful military promotion.⁴⁰

      Now, Montgomery had resentfully quit the British army that he faithfully and ably served for so long. Still a relatively young man at the age of thirty-three, he began looking for new horizons where he could find the opportunities that had eluded him since the end of the Seven Years’ War.

      CHAPTER FOUR

       Decision for the Patriot Cause

      In this most eligible of all situations,

      the life of a country gentleman . . .

      he devoted his time to sweet domestic intercourse .

      Nor from that happy spot did he wish to stray . . .

      But when the hand of power was stretched forth

      against the land of his residence,

      he had a heart too noble not to sympathize

      in its distress . . .

      Although his liberal spirit placed him

      above local prejudices,

      and he considered himself as a member

      of the empire at large;

      yet America, struggling in the cause of Liberty,

      henceforth became his peculiar country,

      and that country took full possession of his soul,

      lifting him above this earthy dross, and every

      private affection . . . ¹

      In late 1772 or early 1773, Richard Montgomery migrated to America. Before making this major change in his life, he explained his reasons for leaving England in a letter to his cousin, John Montgomery: “As a man with little money cuts but a bad figure in this country among peers, nabobs, etc., I have cast my eye on America, where my pride and poverty will be much more at their ease.” Montgomery obviously understated his financial situation. Although lacking a title or influential patronage, he was far from impoverishment. He received a middling inheritance when his father’s will divided the family resources among him and two other siblings. Proceeds from the sale of his captain’s commission further augmented his total assets.²

      Because of his disappointment in promotion and future advancement possibilities in the British army, Montgomery became disgusted with military service. He decided upon a course of retreat and solitude removed from the vexations of politics and public service, vowing never to marry or take up arms again. Montgomery sought solace and a new beginning in the colonies, where both of his vows would be relinquished within three years. As a repose from his previous turbulent military career, he intended to establish an idyllic lifestyle for himself as a gentleman-farmer. During Montgomery’s wartime service in America, the vastness of the country and the unlimited opportunities it offered impressed him. An enterprising gentleman of modest means, he reasoned, could readily accumulate land and eventually amass an estate. Shortly after his arrival, Montgomery bought a sixty-seven-acre farmstead at King’s Bridge, located in the out ward, some thirteen miles north of New York City.³

      While Montgomery settled into his new surroundings during the first winter and spring, he became reacquainted with Janet Livingston. They had met eight years before when he was an ambitious young officer in the British 17th Foot and she was passing into womanhood. During the French and Indian War, Montgomery’s unit traversed up the Hudson River en route to its station at Michilimackinac in Michigan territory. When the soldiers disembarked from their boats near Clermont, the grand Livingston manor, Janet’s father graciously invited the officers to visit. Richard and Janet experienced their first meeting during this occasion. It probably amounted to no more than a formal introduction and polite discourse, and left little impression on either.⁴

      By the time of their second encounter, thirty-year-old Janet had developed into a most eligible lady for courtship and marriage. The eldest daughter in the large family of Judge Robert R. Livingston, one of the most affluent and influential men in New York, she personified a privileged, accomplished, and attractive woman of the time. Montgomery must have been immediately taken with her, as he wasted no time in vying for her affections. Since Janet held the social status of a Livingston, the selection process for her husband was deliberate and discriminating. In her memoirs, she claimed a long succession of suitors before Montgomery, but none had been successful in winning her hand. She rejected the advances of those who displeased her for one reason or another. Janet also wrote of a romantic notion that portended doom for men who sought her affection: “There was a fatality attending most of those who offered themselves.” She related how two suitors broke their necks after falling from their horses and another was lost at sea after establishing a romantic relationship with her.⁵

      Janet’s family withheld approval of other suitors whom they deemed socially unacceptable: “I nearly fell in love with an officer who had only his beauty and his regimentals to boast of—he had neither education nor talents. I saw these defects and yet in despite of all gave him a preference. I would have been his wife could my parents have consented. They detested redcoats and had my happiness too much at heart.” The Livingstons’ estimation of the British soldiers obviously had deteriorated from the French and Indian War, when they cordially welcomed them into their home.⁶

      During that war, colonists generally appreciated the security benefits that British troops brought by pushing French authority out of North America and subduing the Indians. After the conflict, however, numerous colonists came to resent a continued large British military presence. They suspected that the soldiers were an instrument of the ministerial government for coercing provincial submission to increasingly stringent imperial political measures. By the time of Janet’s courtship, many colonists regarded so-called “redcoats,” “lobsterbacks,” or “bloodybacks” with disdain. This dramatic transformation of the Livingston family attitudes toward British troops in the colonies was indicative of the evolution of patriot attitudes concerning British authority in America.

      During their unusually brief engagement, Janet still retained her anxiety over foreboding misfortune that she felt could befall a potential husband. Richard lightly dismissed her fears, however, and her sisters offered supportive counsel. After receiving favorable consideration from Janet, Richard followed convention by formally requesting permission for marriage from the parents of the intended bride. In late May 1773, Montgomery wrote to Judge Livingston: “I have been extremely anxious to solicit your approbation, together with Mrs. Livingston’s, in an affair which nearly concerns my happiness and no less affects your daughter. . . . I have ventured at last to request, sir, that you and Mrs. Livingston will consent to a union which to me has the most promising appearance of happiness, from the lady’s uncommon merit and amiable worth.” He concluded with a polite compliment regarding how he would be honored to join the Livingston family:

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