 Did Clement Gosselin deserve to be
excommunicated? |
| Clement Gosselin was sitting in the 4th pew of
Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière Church in Canada when his pastor addressed
him from the pulpit: |
| "Our Bishop is warning you, and other
rebels like you, that you must cease your seditious and mutinous behavior at
once! If you join the American effort to try to expel our British conquerors
from this land, you will be excommunicated! If you are mortally wounded in
combat, you will be denied the last rites of the Church. No priest will hear
your confession. And you will not be buried in sacred ground! Your very soul is
imperiled! And so are the souls of the innocent men whom you are attempting to
recruit! Give that serious thought, Clement Gosselin!" |
|
 |
| Despite his pastor's warning, Clement continued
to recruit other French Canadians to support the American assault on Quebec,
Dec. 31, 1775. He went on to serve as a spy in Canada for General George
Washington. And at Yorktown, Virginia, he was wounded while commanding an
artillery unit less than 300 yards from the British in the final battle of the
American Revolution. He was given 1,000 acres of land on the west bank of Lake
Champlain in upstate New York by a grateful Congress. But his heart was always
in the land of his birth - the Isle of Orleans in Quebec. |
George Washington's
French Canadian SPY
is a historical novel based on Clement
Gosselin's 15-year odyssey as an excommunicated 'rebel'.
|
|
|
|
|
