The Story of Isaac Brock Part 5

"I must," he told him, "leave the country in the best state of security I can; your presence is needed here. I am sending you as a mark of my sincere regard my favourite horse, Alfred." This was a high-bred animal, and our hero's charger in the war that followed.

It was not, however, until war was regarded as unavoidable, and not until after he was promoted to be a major-general and appointed President and Administrator of Upper Canada, as successor to Governor Gore, that Isaac Brock became reconciled to life in Canada, and with set purpose a.s.sumed the duties of his high calling.

Our hero had pa.s.sed his _third_ milestone.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] Miss Carnochan, as the Curator of the Niagara Historical Society the custodian of many relics of the war of 1812, has in her keeping this identical c.o.c.ked hat. It arrived "shortly after Brock's death, and was given by his nephew to Mr. George Ball, near whose residence the 49th was stationed. The hat measures twenty-four inches inside, and was used at the funeral obsequies of 1824 and 1853, when many old soldiers requested, and were permitted, to try it on." The usage that the c.o.c.ked hat then received has not improved its appearance.

CHAPTER XII.

MAJOR-GENERAL BROCK, GOVERNOR OF UPPER CANADA.

The appointment of Brock--with his exceptional military attainments--to the chief command in Upper Canada, at the point of greatest danger, was a rare piece of good fortune for the colony. Of the American military leaders, Generals Howe, Dearborn and Wadsworth were all examples of a common standard; even Sir George Prevost, the new Governor-General of Canada and Commander-in-Chief, was tuned in a minor key.

Isaac Brock was the man of the hour. His star was in the ascendant.

Queen Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent, was anxious to meet the soldier whose despatches had stirred the War Office. The Duke of York was ready to give him a brigade under Wellington, while the Governor of Jamaica, the Duke of Manchester, then touring Canada, begged Brock, whom he looked upon as a "universal provider," to equip him with canoes and guides for a western pilgrimage. If Brock's promotion brought him distinction it also brought him work--Executive Councils, court-martials, reorganization of militia, reconstruction of the ruined forts on the Niagara frontier, the building of gunboats, the making of roads. Never idle. To-day he was inspecting a camp of the 49th at Three Rivers, near Montreal; next week at Fort Erie. Ever busy, ever buoyant.

Whether perusing doc.u.ments, scouring the muddy roads at Queenston, surveying the boundaries of the dreaded Black Swamp, or visiting the points between Fort George and Vrooman's battery on his slas.h.i.+ng gray charger, he had a smile and cheery word for everyone. As for Dobson, his profound awe at his master's progress was only equalled by his devotion, that increased with the illness that threatened his life; while the faithful sergeant-major, now Captain FitzGibbon, in command of a company of the 49th, was reflecting great credit on his patron. But no matter what the tax on his time, Isaac never neglected the "beloved brothers."

In New York there had been financial failures. Brock predicted a dreadful crash, and had so written to his brother Irving, who with William had a bank in London. He hoped they "had withheld their confidence in public stocks." Providence ruled otherwise. While Isaac in the solitude of his quarters was writing this warning, the banking house in London, whose vessels in the Baltic Sea had been seized by Bonaparte's privateers, closed its doors. The news reached him on his birthday. He learned that a private advance made to him by William for the purchase of his commissions had been entered in the bank's books by mistake. He was a debtor to the extent of 3,000.

Brock rose to the occasion. He proved himself not only a soldier but, best of all, a just man with the highest sense of personal honour. His distress was all for his brothers. He would sell his commission, turn over his income as governor and surrender everything, if by doing so he could save the fortunes of his family. Anything that not only the law but the right might demand. This failure impaired the former good fellows.h.i.+p between William and Irving Brock. Isaac wrote Irving, beseeching him to repair the breach. "Hang the world," said he; "it is not worth a thought. Be generous, and find silent comfort in being so.

Oh, my dear brother, forget the past and let us all unite in soothing the grief of one of the best hearts that heaven ever formed, whose wish was to place us all in affluence. Could tears restore him he would be happy."

But Isaac was not permitted to know that reconciliation followed his prayers. While William and Irving were shaking hands, but before they had even heard of the capture of Detroit, Isaac, unknown to them, was at that moment lying cold in death within the cavalier bastion at Fort George.

Little York was now Brock's headquarters. He built dockyards to shelter His Majesty's navy, which consisted of two small vessels! He planned new Parliament Buildings and an a.r.s.enal, prepared towns.h.i.+p maps showing roads and trails, fords and bridges, all of which latter were in a shocking condition. At York the timber and brushwood was so dense that travel between the garrison and town was actually by water. His mind made up that war with the United States was inevitable, he was confronted with crucial questions demanding instant solution. Chief of these was the defence of the frontier, 1,300 miles in length, which entailed repairs of the boundary forts, the raising of a reliable militia, the increase of the regular troops, the building of more gunboats, and the solving of the Indian problem.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUTLER'S BARRACKS (OFFICERS' QUARTERS), NIAGARA COMMON]

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WAR CLOUD.

A President of the United States had breezily declared that the conquest of Canada would be "a mere matter of marching." The final expulsion of England from the American continent he regarded as a matter of course.

Cabinet ministers at Was.h.i.+ngton and rabid politicians looked upon the forcible annexation of Canada as a foregone conclusion.

One Ma.s.sachusetts general officer, a professional fire-eater, said he "would capture Canada by contract, raise a company of soldiers and take it in six weeks." Henry Clay, another statesman, "verily believed that the militia of Kentucky alone were competent to place Upper Canada at the feet of the Americans." Calhoun, also a "war-hawk," had said that "in four weeks from the time of the declaration of war the whole of Upper and part of Lower Canada would be in possession of the United States." All of this was only the spread-eagle bombast of amateur filibusters, as events proved, but good cause for Brock, who had been appointed janitor of Canada and been given the keys of the country, to ponder deeply.

Canada's entire population was nearly 320,000--about the same as that of Toronto to-day--that of the United States was 8,000,000! To defend her broken frontier Canada had only 1,450 British soldiers and a militia--at that moment--chiefly on paper. If the Indians in the West were to be impressed with British supremacy--for they were making a stand against 2,000 American soldiers on the banks of the Wabash, in Ohio, where eighteen years before they had been beaten by General Wayne at Miami--then Amherstburg must be greatly strengthened and the Americans deterred from attack. How was Brock to obtain troops, and how were they to be equipped? The stores at Fort York were empty, provisions costly, and no specie to be had. All the frontier posts needed heavier batteries. On Lake Erie the fleet consisted of the _Queen Charlotte_ and the small schooner _Hunter_. As to the militia, he had been advised that it would not be prudent to arm more than 4,000 of the 11,000 in all Canada prepared to bear arms.

To Brock's citation of thirty pressing wants Sir George Prevost wrote him, "You must not be led into any measure bearing the character of _offence_, even should war be declared." Prevost had a fluid backbone, while Brock's was of finely tempered steel.

While affairs were in this precarious state His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, Major-General Brock, opened the Legislature at York. With what pride the news was received by the good people at St.

Peter's Port can be imagined. To think that this great man, gorgeous in a purple Windsor uniform and slender court sword, with gleaming silk hose and hair aglitter with silver powder, was none other than "Master Isaac," whom the humblest Guernsey fisherman claimed as comrade, seemed past belief! To think that this important gentleman, with frilled waistcoat and cuffs of delicate lace--actually the King's Deputy--before whom, as "Your Excellency," Indian and paleface, gentle and simple, bowed low, was the small boy who used to play "uprooting the gorse"

with the Guernsey fisher-lads--was beyond comprehension. Probably the one least affected by these honours was our hero himself. While it gratified his honest pride, it did not in the least cloud his vision.

His speech from the throne proves this.

"It is a glorious contest in which the Empire is engaged," he said, "to secure the independence of Europe, but what can we think of the American Government, which is trying to impede her effort.... The s.h.i.+ps of England," he continued, "had been refused shelter in United States harbours, while refuge had been extended to the s.h.i.+ps of our inveterate enemies." He reminded the colonists that "insulting threats had been offered to the flag and hostile preparations made." He praised the militia, and, while wis.h.i.+ng for peace, declared that "Canada must prepare for war, relying on England's support in her hour of peril." He asked the Legislature to a.s.sent to three things of vital importance--the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the pa.s.sage of a law to regulate the privileges of aliens, and an Act providing for rewards to be paid to the captors of deserters.

It was a house divided against itself, and it turned a deaf ear to Brock's appeal. "To the great influence of _American settlers_ over the members of the Lower House," he attributed this defeat. A court-martial revealed the fact that one of the best known militia regiments was composed almost entirely of native Americans! The United Empire Loyalists thronged to his banner.

Undaunted by the cheap prudence of Prevost, a hostile Legislature, and the difficulties that beset him, Brock took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and all but single-handed--"off his own bat," as Dobson explained it to an admiring crowd in the barrack-room--wrought like the hero that he was for the salvation of his country. He became a machine, a machine working at high pressure eighteen hours out of twenty-four. He had developed into a very demon for work.

With an empty treasury and no hope of reinforcements--every soldier England could spare was fighting in Spain--he raised flank companies of militia to be attached to the regular regiments. The Glengarry sharpshooters, four hundred strong, were enlisted in three weeks. A new schooner was placed on the stocks. He formed a car-brigade of the young volunteer farmers of York and removed incompetent officers.

Fort George, constructed of earthen ramparts, with honeycombed cedar palisades which a lighted candle could set fire to, with no tower or block-house, and mounting only nine-pound guns, he knew was incapable of resistance. It invited destruction from any battery that might be erected at Youngstown on the American side, while confronting it was Fort Niagara, built of stone, mounting over twenty heavy guns, containing a furnace for heating shot, and formidable with bastions, palisades, pickets and dry ditch. The tension at Niagara was trying. Two officers of the 41st were expelled for killing dull care by dissipation.

A Canadian merchant schooner was boarded in mid-lake by an American brig, taken to Sackett's Harbour and stripped. The Americans were pouring rations and munitions of war into Detroit. If Brock's hands were shackled, he knew the art of sitting tight. He made another flying trip to Amherstburg, taking one hundred men of the 41st, in the face of Prevost's standing orders to "exercise the strictest economy."

Handicapped on every side, doing his best and preparing for the worst, he wrote Prevost that his "situation was critical," but he "hoped to avert dire calamity."

The river bank between Fort George and Queenston for seven miles was patrolled night and day. A watch was placed on Mississaga lighthouse from daylight to dusk, and beacon masts, supporting iron baskets filled with birchbark and pitch, were erected on the heights to announce, in event of hostilities, the call to arms.

At this time one of Brock's most intimate friends--his chosen adviser--was Mr. Justice William Dummer Powell, later Chief Justice of Upper Canada, and former Speaker of the House. At the judge's house and at Tordarroch, the log mansion of General aeneas Shaw--another intimate, and Adjutant-General of Militia--Brock was wont to repair for a few hours' rest from official cares. It was at Tordarroch (Oak Hall), on the outskirts of York, that the great Duke of Kent had been a guest. When at Fort George our hero usually lived with Colonel Murray, of the 100th, and "charming Mrs. Murray," as he was fond of calling her, in their "pretty cottage," and if not there he was a constant visitor at the house of Captain John Powell, a son of the judge and son-in-law of General Shaw, between whose daughter, Sophia Shaw, and Isaac Brock there had developed a deep attachment. Here he whiled away spare moments with whist and cribbage, "diversions," he said, "that sharpened a man's wits." He would shoot wild pigeons and spruce partridges in the adjacent bush, or take long gallops, frequently alone, over the plains beyond the Heights of Queenston, ever on the lookout for new bridle-paths and point-to-point trails.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DECLARES WAR.

It came at last! On June 18th, 1812, after weeks of preparation, placing an embargo on s.h.i.+pping, putting 100,000 militia on a war footing on the pretence of hostilities among the Indians, calling out the volunteers and raising a special public fund, Congress under President Madison declared war against Great Britain.

This did not end Brock's suspense. Not until five weeks later did he receive official notice from Prevost. Despite opposition from many states, which declared their detestation of an alliance with Bonaparte, after a stormy debate behind closed doors at Was.h.i.+ngton, Congress voted for war against England, with Canada as the point of attack. The United States placed itself on record as approving of "forcible invasion of a neighbouring peaceful country and its rights, and of taking property on which it had no shadow of claim."

The offensive "right of search" of American s.h.i.+ps by British wars.h.i.+ps for deserters was, of course, given as the excuse for war. The United States Government contended that a nation's flag protected the cargoes of the vessels of that nation. To search for contraband or for deserters on such s.h.i.+ps, President Madison declared, was a violation of international law. In direct violation of the United States' own interpretation of this decree, her war-frigate _President_ blew the British gunboat _Little Belt_, half her own size, almost out of the water because of the refusal of her commander to allow such search.

It is interesting to remember that while the United States contended that Britain had no right to search the s.h.i.+ps of other nations, she actually allowed her own officials, in the case of an American sailor who had become a citizen of France and an officer in the French navy, to search the foreign vessel upon which he served and arrest him as a deserter. A more flagrant violation of the principles she professed is difficult to imagine. She insisted that this officer was still a citizen of the United States, for he could not become a citizen of another country without the consent of the government of his native country. So, when it suited her purpose, and in direct defiance of her own proclamation, she did not hesitate to accept England's contention and adopt the "obnoxious doctrine"--thus practising the identical principle against which she had declared war. Truly glaring inconsistency.

While these were the chief of the alleged reasons for war, the whole world knew that the real cause was the jealousy and hatred felt for England by a certain cla.s.s of United States citizens who "were bound to pick a quarrel with John Bull, excuse or no excuse." That there were many and irritating faults on the part of England cannot be denied. In the light of subsequent events it is not difficult to realize that both governments were in the wrong. The wisdom born of bitter experience and the sincere friends.h.i.+p of the two nations to-day, sensibly founded on mutual respect, happily renders a repet.i.tion of such regrettable scenes outside the pale of possibility.

Strange to say, England had revoked the objectionable Order-in-Council authorizing right of search of American s.h.i.+ps for deserters by British men-of-war the very day _before_ war was declared by the United States.

There was no ocean cable in those days. Had there been, this story might never have been written. The removal, however, of this one reason for _war_ was not--when letters duly arrived from England announcing the fact--accepted by the United States as a reason for an immediate declaration of _peace_. This proves that the reasons advanced by the United States for going to war were from first to last not genuine, but mere excuses. Canada was as Naboth's vineyard, and Ahab, in the person of the United States, coveted it. England hesitated to draw the sword on a people "speaking a common tongue, with inst.i.tutions based upon her own," but she could not always be expected to "turn the other cheek to the smiter."

The United States called out an army of 15,000 men for purposes of attack on the Niagara frontier, and commanded General Wadsworth--of course, on paper--"to feed and cherish them." How well he executed this command remains to be seen.

What of Canada? Her yeomen forsook ploughshare and broadaxe, seized sword and musket, and rallied to the standard of Brock. In Upper Canada there was an active force of 950 regulars and marines and 550 militia.