Transcriber's Note
When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has
been surrounded by _underscores_.
CANADIAN MEN OF ACTION
SIR ISAAC BROCK
------------------------------------
SIR ISAAC BROCK
BY
HUGH S. EAYRS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO : : : : : MCMXVIII
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1918,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
OF CANADA, LTD.
To
My Father,
George Eayrs, F.R. Hist. S.,
Whose passion for and services in the name of history are at once my
inspiration and my pride.
PREFACE
AS THIS book is published, Canada is celebrating her fiftieth birthday.
The thoughts of all of us travel back along the line of those fifty
years since Confederation swept away all divisions and made the people
of what is now Canada one in name, that they might become one in
purpose, ideal, and spirit. We see our country served by a succession of
great men. Their greatness consisted in trying to weld Canada into this
oneness and in trying to develop our illimitable resources. For this
fifty years and for the fifty before it, Canada had no war to engage her
attention until, in 1914, she joined with Great Britain in the Great War
that the world might be “made safe for democracy.”
While we look with pride at the progress our country has made during
this time of peace, we may well go further back and see some of the
ultimate contributory factors. And as we do this we shall see that in
those troublous days as in the calmer that succeeded them, the history
of Canada gathers itself round two or three men. One of these is
Major-General Sir Isaac Brock.
Brock is called “The hero of Upper Canada.” That he undoubtedly was, but
he was more. He was the hero of Canada, for while his efforts both as
soldier and statesman were peculiarly for one province, their effect was
felt by Canadians of later days from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Indeed
it is not too much to say that Brock’s part in the War of 1812-14 made
fast and sure what is now the Dominion of Canada for the British Empire.
This makes him at once the primal hero of Canada. We have our other
heroes. The names of Frontenac, Wolfe, Montcalm, Carleton, and others
stand out from Canada’s “storied page” and deservedly so, but not one of
them served our country in a way eventually so signal as did Brock.
Wolfe conquered the French; Carleton defended Canada against invasion in
1776; but their work had not the crucial quality of Brock’s.
He was certainly a man of action, and his biography is fittingly the
first title in a series of _Canadian Men of Action_. The older nations
of the world have their great ones. France has its Joan of Arc, Italy
its Garibaldi, Russia its Peter, and Britain its Arthur and its Alfred.
In ten short years in Canada, Brock accomplished much, for while he lost
his life but four months after war was declared, it was his action and,
after, his spirit which animated the defence of his adopted country
against invasion. In considering him and the noble part he played we may
well contrast this man of action with another, who drew his sword three
years ago not that he might help to establish peace, but for his own
selfish end of vainglory. Brock, like thousands of Canadians to-day,
fought for honor and that his country might be free. The spirit of Brock
animates Canada to-day, and “the brave live on.”
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
EARLY YEARS 1
CHAPTER II
EGMONT-OP-ZEE AND COPENHAGEN 12
CHAPTER III
CANADA: MUTINY IN THE 49TH 21
CHAPTER IV
RUMORS OF WAR 32
CHAPTER V
MOVED TO UPPER CANADA 44
CHAPTER VI
A FOOLISH BOAST 54
CHAPTER VII
DETROIT TAKEN 65
CHAPTER VIII
HIS HANDS ARE TIED 74
CHAPTER IX
QUEENSTON HEIGHTS 87
CHAPTER X
CONCLUSION 99
APPENDIX 103
GENERAL HULL’S PROCLAMATION 103
BROCK’S PROCLAMATION 105
SIR ISAAC BROCK
CHAPTER I
EARLY YEARS
THE year 1769 was an important one for Europe. In it were born two men
who were destined between them to change the face of that continent.
These were Wellington and Napoleon. There was another man who first saw
the light in that year. His name was Isaac Brock, and while his life and
work were hardly comparable in their effect and result to those of the
two great Europeans, they were nevertheless an important factor in
shaping the destiny of Canada. It may, perhaps, be laying undue stress
on the work he did to call General Brock the Wellington of Canada.
Necessarily he left less mark on the times in which he lived than did
the Iron Duke, for his task was less monumental and his sphere less
wide. Yet, in relative degree, Brock’s work was immensely important. We
are beginning to realize, a hundred years after his death, just how
directly he affected Canada and indirectly Europe. It would be
interesting, however, to speculate on just what would have been the
result had he remained in Europe. It might,—who knows?—have been his as
much as Wellington’s to save the world from the ambitious schemes of
Napoleon, but in the part he played, Brock admittedly did a very great
deal to make the bounds of Empire “wide and wider yet.”
Isaac was born on October 6th, 1769, and was the eighth son of John
Brock. Of his father we know little. He was a sailor, had been a
midshipman in the navy, and his duty had carried him far afield, to
India and other outposts. Isaac’s birthplace was Guernsey, an island in
the English Channel, which is one of the beauty spots of the world.
There could have been no more fitting cradle for a child who was to
become indeed a man of action than this rugged little island, with its
rocky weather-beaten coast, stern and bold in outline. The heavy seas of
the Channel beat upon it in vain, and it is possible that in after-life,
when he was buffeted by circumstances, his thoughts may have gone back
to his island home, a small but hardy defence against thundering waves
and shrill winds and raging tempest.
He had good blood in his veins, for, far back, there was a Sir Hugh
Brock, a valiant knight of Edward III. Sir Hugh lived in Brittany, just
across the Channel from England and at that time an English duchy. The
French, however, bitterly mindful of Crecy and Poitiers, bided their
time, and when Edward was old and enfeebled, rose and drove the English
out of Northern France. Brittany again became French, and, when the
English were expelled, it is thought that Sir Hugh’s family came to the
Channel Islands, which was like a half-way house between France and
Britain, and there settled.
There were other Brocks in nearer relationship who had won their spurs
both in battle by land and sea and in journeyings afar. As has been
said, Isaac’s father, John Brock, was a midshipman and had travelled to
India, in those days a great distance away. Another relative was the
famous Lord de Saumarez, also a Guernsey man, who had distinguished
himself at St. Vincent and at the Nile. Brock’s mother was Elizabeth de
Lisle, daughter of the lieutenant-bailiff of Guernsey, a position which
corresponded to that now held by our lieutenant-governors, an office the
duties of which, as we shall see, Isaac Brock himself, in later years,
discharged in Upper Canada.
It was not, however, in family tradition and example alone that young
Brock found inspiration for heroic and valorous deeds. He could not but
be imbued with love of adventure. This island home of crag and headland
was the vault of many a memory of heroic deeds, the past scene of many a
stirring exploit of the hardy seafaring folk who had been its dwellers
as long as ever dwellers had been there. Young Brock learned numberless
stories
“Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach.”
Long, long years before, the Druids had their caves and catacombs tucked
away in quaint hiding-places, and to the young adventurer these haunts
and the tales told of them furnished idea and scope for many an
escapade. Stories of Cromwellian and Stuart days, when Cavalier and
Roundhead in turn found refuge in this land of his birth, and evidences
of the resolute defence which the Islanders had offered to the
maraudings and attackings of the French, fostered in Brock an ambition
to emulate the Guernsey folk who were dead and gone.
So, in boyhood days, he played for a while with the things of nature. He
became strong and robust. He was, like his seven brothers, tall and
manly, a precocious boy, a better boxer, a stronger and bolder swimmer
than any of his companions. He would scale jagged headland, or sighting
Castle Cornet, a landmark half a mile from the shore, would brest the
swiftly-running tide, meeting and overcoming
“ every wave with dimpled face
That leaped upon the air.”
He did not entirely neglect his studies, but gave some time to reading,
particularly along historical lines. There seems to be no doubt,
however, that, like many another boy, his prowess in games was gained at
the expense of his education. At the age of ten he was sent to school at
Southampton, and later was at Rotterdam, where his tutor was a French
pastor. Neither his parents nor himself would be aware, at that time, of
the use that the knowledge of French he there acquired would be to him
when he came to Canada later on.
He chose his profession early in life. For him there could be only two
careers, the navy or the army. Guernsey men, from time immemorial, had
favored the services as a means of earning their living, for the love of
adventure was ingrained in the people. Besides, Brock had two brothers
in the army.
One brother, Ferdinand, had been in the 60th Regiment, and when Isaac
was a lad of ten, had given his life at the defence of Baton Rouge, on
the Mississippi, fighting against the colonial revolutionists. The
other, John Brock, was a captain in the 8th, known as the King’s
Regiment, and probably with the idea of being near his brother, Isaac in
1785 purchased a commission as ensign in the 8th. Thus he had in John a
hand and mind steadied and practised by reason of ten years’ service to
guide and help him in the career he had chosen.
Isaac was keenly enthusiastic about this new life, and his brother’s
example spurred in him the ambition to be a distinguished soldier. His
love for history and his liking for serious reading stood him in good
stead. He had had, perhaps, too much sport and too little study in those
Guernsey days. He allotted his time differently now, and sedulously
spent some hours each day locked in with his books. He was wise enough
to know that he was not too well-equipped for his work. These were the
years when his mind was receptive and plastic, and he used them well. He
served five years and purchased his lieutenancy in 1790, when he was
twenty-one. These were uneventful and quiet days, but they were days of
preparation. Barrack-room and camp taught him the essential elements of
soldierliness. He returned to Guernsey, for he had been quartered in
England, and raised an independent company. This he commanded with the
rank of captain, being placed on half-pay. The quietness and sameness of
soldiering in England palled on him, however, and in the next year he
arranged a transfer to the 49th Regiment, then quartered in the
Barbadoes. These were the men whom he was to learn to love, and many of
whom fought with him when, some years later, he received his death
wound.
Joining his regiment in Barbadoes, he served there and later in Jamaica.
There is a story told of him at this time which shows that the courage
of the boy who had been the hero of a hundred daring escapades was his
distinguishing mark in young manhood. A captain in the 49th, who was a
crack shot, was the bully of the mess. Brock, who treated him with
indifference, was singled out as a mark for his insult and was involved
in a duel. The braggart was a little man, but Brock was six feet two—not
a difficult target. Brock had the right, as he had been challenged, to
name the conditions of the duel. When the party reached the grounds
where the duel was to take place, Brock drew out his handkerchief and
insisted that he and his opponent should fight their duel across it.
This would minimize the disadvantage of his own great height. The bully,
recognizing that for once he was fighting with equal chance to kill or
be killed, refused the condition and fled. His brother officers declared
that Brock had won a moral if not an actual victory, and they and he
compelled the expulsion of the bully from the regiment.
Shortly after this incident the 49th moved to Jamaica. Though he enjoyed
the more eventful life there, Brock was a product of a hardier clime and
could not stand the enervating air of the tropics. He fell a victim to
fever and indeed nearly died of it. His man, Dobson, tended and restored
him, and Brock, big-hearted and kindly then as later, never forgot what
he owed to his trusty servant. Dobson remained with him till his death,
which took place a short time before Brock set out on the expedition
against Detroit.
In 1793 Brock returned to England on sick leave and re-visited his old
home, there to regain his health and strength. Subsequently, until the
return of his regiment from Jamaica, he was engaged in the recruiting
service. While employed in this most important work he kept up his hours
of study, fitting himself for the greater things to come.
In 1795, he purchased his majority, and in 1797, at the age of
twenty-eight and after only twelve years service, was gazetted
lieutenant-colonel of his regiment, soon afterwards becoming the senior
officer.
As commander of the 49th he had no easy position. The _morale_ of his
men on their return from abroad was bad. The former commander was a poor
disciplinarian, and his men had been allowed to get out of hand.
These were queer days in the services. The men in the navy were in a
perpetual state of mutiny. There had been cases where the seamen had
risen and murdered their officers. There had been a lack of actual naval
fighting for some time, and the consequent dullness, added to the poor
pay, made the navy a somewhat ragged and discontented unit. The seamen
usually took the lead in revolt, and the soldiers sympathized with them.
In the army there was additional reason. The officers were often
bullies. Different ideas of discipline were held from those we know
to-day. The average British officer terrorized over his men. He punished
them heavily for the slightest offence. It was considered the proper
thing to give a man fifty lashes or so for a mild misdemeanor, such as
having dirty boots on parade, and on that scale the punishment was
allowed to over-fit the crime. Bad barrack-room conditions and little
leave were other reasons for growing discontent which smouldered, and
then broke out in mutiny.
So far as his own regiment was concerned, Brock showed his ability to
solve this problem of lax discipline. He was indefatigable in his
efforts to familiarize himself with what was wrong, and unwearying in
the task of setting it right. As we have already seen, he was thorough
in whatever he did. It was so now. He never relaxed vigilance and rested
little either day or night. When he slept, it was with pistols ready to
his hand. Daily he would make the round of the barracks. Whatever
displeased him he ordered changed and frequently he would tear down
insurgent notices from the walls with his own hand. He tempered justice
with kindliness. He was aware that former regimental rulers had tried
the patience of the men a good deal, and he made generous allowance for
this in his own treatment. By so doing he won them over to himself, and
they learned to respect and love him. The men knew that he would insist
on rigid discipline and orderliness, but they knew too that on their
side they might count on justice, not unmixed with generosity and
affectionate regard. Brock made a great change in the temper and
behavior of the 49th. When the Duke of York inspected the regiment,
therefore, he put himself on record that the 49th, under Brock’s
direction, had become instead of one of the worst regiments in the
service, one of the best.