CONCLUSION
IF Brock’s prowess at Detroit called forth universal admiration, his
death was the occasion of a wonderful outpouring of affectionate regard
and regret. When the news reached England Earl Bathurst wrote to Sir
George Prevost: “His Majesty has lost in him not only an able and
meritorious officer, but one who displayed qualities admirably adapted
to dismay the disloyal, to reconcile the wavering, and to animate the
great mass of the inhabitants against successive attempts of the enemy
to invade the province.” Nor was British gratitude a matter of words
only. On July 20th, 1813, the House of Commons voted a monument to Brock
in appreciation of what he had done. The monument, at a cost of £1,575,
was erected in St. Paul’s cathedral. Each of Brock’s four brothers was
granted twelve thousand acres of land in Upper Canada, and a pension of
£200 a year for life. A memorial coin was struck in Brock’s honor. Thus
Great Britain tried to show how much she thought of the man who had held
his life so lightly beside the safety and honor of the Empire.
In Canada the sorrow was just as great and more immediate. Colonel
Nichol, Brock’s militia quarter-master, wrote of his death: “Our
situation has materially changed for the worse. Confidence seems to have
vanished, and gloom and despondency seem to have taken its place.” “His
moderation and impartiality had united all parties in pronouncing him
the only man worthy to be at the head of affairs” was the tribute of
Lieutenant Ridout, who himself fought bravely at Queenston Heights. The
newspapers of Canada were genuinely sorrowful, and the Quebec _Gazette_
declared his death was received as “a public calamity.”
A lasting mark of Canada’s esteem was to be found in a fine monument
erected on Queenston Heights. This column which was 135 feet high, and
stood 485 feet above the river, covered a vault to which, on October
13th, 1824—just twelve years after his death—Brock’s remains and those
of his gallant aide were removed. On the occasion of this transference,
a great crowd, in which were almost as many Americans as Canadians,
gathered to honor the memory of Canada’s great general.
This monument unhappily was entirely ruined through the agency of a man
named Lett who, on April 17th, 1840, exploded gunpowder under it. This
man was one of the rebels of 1837 who fled to the United States when his
sedition was discovered. The motives that animated him were petty and
spiteful, but if he thought that by destroying the outward and visible
sign of Brock’s wonderful work, he was besmirching the memory of a great
man, he was very wrong. Canadians flocked to Queenston, and at a public
meeting there it was decided to build a monument even more imposing than
the one so meanly destroyed. The foundation stone for this new monument
was laid in 1853 and it was completed three years later. The formal
inauguration took place on October 13th, 1859. From its base to its
summit, a splendid image of Brock, the monument is 190 feet in height.
So this man of action has been honored, but the greatest monument to his
deed and his memory is in the hearts of the Canadian people. Canada may
well be proud of him, for he saved our country in a very real and vital
sense. He managed to crowd the few short years he was in Canada full of
earnest and devoted service to the country he had adopted and had come
to love. The splendor of his achievement shines out as a beacon, at once
drawing attention to itself as a proof that Canada had its great ones a
hundred years ago, and imposing on all Canadians the same high privilege
of doing something to make glorious and keep stainless the fair name of
their country.
Reuben Butchart, a Canadian poet of power, has written a sonnet in
commemoration of Brock, and this little book could not leave a better
message with its readers than the beautiful words and even more
beautiful thoughts that this poet gives us:
On Queenston’s hill we reared thy lofty shrine,
Where sleeps thy fiery heart, our gallant Brock.
Our many-voiced acclaim shall here unlock
Time’s chest of honors, proffering what is thine.
Thy name is with the glorious names that shine
O’er War’s red flood, a beacon on a rock.
Thy soul, which bore its hour’s consummate shock.
All valorous thou did’st to fame consign.
Sheathed be the blade, nor seek through blood a name
Our foes are of our household; mingled rife
Through hourly needs there rings the vital strife
With doubt and sin, the lust of honor, shame:
O soul, live greatly; thy self-conquering life
Shall breathe an inextinguishable flame.
APPENDIX
GENERAL HULL’S PROCLAMATION
“Inhabitants of Canada! After thirty years of peace and prosperity, the
United States have been driven to arms. The injuries and aggressions,
the insults and indignities of Great Britain, have once more left them
no alternative but manly resistance or unconditional submission.
“The army under my command has invaded your country, and the standard of
Union now waves over the territory of Canada. To the peaceable,
unoffending inhabitant it brings neither danger nor difficulty. I come
to _find_ enemies, not to _make_ them. I come to protect, not to injure
you.
“Separated by an immense ocean and an extensive wilderness from Great
Britain, you have no participation in her councils, no interest in her
conduct. You have felt her tyranny, you have seen her injustice, but I
do not ask you to avenge the one or redress the other. The United States
are sufficiently powerful to afford you every security consistent with
their rights and your expectations. I tender you the invaluable
blessings of civil, political, and religious liberty, and their
necessary result, individual and general prosperity—that liberty which
gave decision to our councils and energy to our struggle for
independence, and which conducted us safely and triumphantly through the
stormy period of the revolution; that liberty which has raised us to an
elevated rank among the nations of the world, and which has afforded us
a greater measure of peace and security, of wealth and improvement, than
ever yet fell to the lot of any people.
“In the name of my country, and by the authority of my government, I
promise protection to your persons, property, and rights. Remain at
your homes, pursue your peaceful and customary avocations, raise not
your hands against your brethren. Many of your fathers fought for the
freedom and independence which we now enjoy. Being children, therefore,
of the same family with us, and heirs to the same heritage, the arrival
of an army of friends must be hailed by you with a cordial welcome.
You will be emancipated from tyranny and oppression and restored to
the dignified station of freemen. Had I any doubt of eventual success
I might ask your assistance, but I do not. I come prepared for every
contingency. I have a force which will look down all opposition, and
that force is but the vanguard of a much greater. If, contrary to your
own interests and the just expectation of my country, you should take
part in the approaching contest, you will be considered and treated
as enemies, and the horrors and calamities of war will stalk before
you. If the barbarous and savage policy of Great Britain be pursued,
and the savages be let loose to murder our citizens and butcher our
women and children, this war will be a war of extermination. The first
stroke of the tomahawk, the first attempt with the scalping-knife, will
be the signal of one indiscriminate scene of desolation. No white man
found fighting by the side of an Indian will be taken prisoner; instant
destruction will be his lot. If the dictates of reason, duty, justice,
and humanity cannot prevent the employment of a force which respects
no rights and knows no wrong, it will be prevented by a severe and
relentless system of retaliation.
“I doubt not your courage and firmness. I will not doubt your attachment
to liberty. If you tender your services voluntarily, they will be
accepted readily. The United States offer you peace, liberty, and
security. Your choice lies between these and war, slavery, and
destruction. Choose then, but choose wisely, and may He who knows the
justice of our cause, and who holds in His hands the fate of nations
guide you to a result the most compatible with your rights and
interests, your peace and prosperity.
“By the General,
“W. HULL,
“A. F. HULL,
“Captain 13th Regiment U.S. Infantry and Aide-de-Camp.”
“Headquarters, Sandwich, 12th July, 1812.”
BROCK’S PROCLAMATION
“The unprovoked declaration of war by the United States of America
against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and its
dependencies has been followed by the actual invasion of this province,
in a remote frontier of the western district, by a detachment of the
armed force of the United States.
“The officer commanding that detachment has thought proper to invite His
Majesty’s subjects, not merely to a quiet and unresisting submission,
but insults them with a call to seek voluntarily the protection of his
government.
“Without condescending to repeat the illiberal epithets bestowed in this
appeal of the American commander to the people of Upper Canada, on the
administration of His Majesty, every honest inhabitant of the province
is desired to seek the confutation of such indecent slander in the
review of his own particular circumstances. Where is the Canadian
subject who can truly affirm to himself that he has been injured by the
government in his person, his property, or his liberty? Where is to be
found, in any part of the world, a growth so rapid in prosperity and
wealth as this colony exhibits? Settled not thirty years by a band of
veterans exiled from their former possessions on account of their
loyalty, not a descendant of these brave people is to be found who,
under the fostering liberality of their sovereign, has not acquired a
property and means of enjoyment superior to what were possessed by their
ancestors. This unequalled prosperity would not have been attained by
the utmost liberality of the government, or the persevering industry of
the people, had not the maritime power of the mother country secured to
its colonists a safe access to every market where the produce of their
labor was in request. The unavoidable and immediate consequences of a
separation from Great Britain must be the loss of this inestimable
advantage; and what is offered you in exchange? To become a territory of
the United States, and share with them that exclusion from the ocean
which the policy of their government enforces; you are not even
flattered with a participation of their boasted independence, and it is
but too obvious that, once estranged from the powerful protection of the
United Kingdom, you must be re-annexed to the dominion of France, from
which the provinces of Canada were wrested by the arms of Great Britain,
at a vast expense of blood and treasure, from no other motive than to
relieve her ungrateful children from the oppression of a cruel neighbor.
This restitution of Canada to the empire of France was the stipulated
reward for the aid afforded to the revolted colonies, now the United
States. The debt is still due, and there can be no doubt that the pledge
has been renewed as a consideration for commercial advantages, or rather
for an expected relaxation of the tyranny of France over the commercial
world. Are you prepared, inhabitants of Canada, to become willing
subjects—or rather slaves—to the despot who rules the nations of
continental Europe with a rod of iron? If not, arise in a body, exert
your energies, co-operate cordially with the king’s regular forces to
repel the invader, and do not give cause to your children, when groaning
under the oppression of a foreign master, to reproach you with having so
easily parted with the richest inheritance of this earth—a participation
in the name, character, and freedom of Britons.
“The same spirit of justice, which will make every reasonable allowance
for the unsuccessful efforts of zeal and loyalty, will not fail to
punish the defalcation of principle. Every Canadian freeholder is, by
deliberate choice, bound by the most solemn oaths to defend the monarchy
as well as his own property. To shrink from that engagement is a treason
not to be forgiven. Let no man suppose that if, in this unexpected
struggle, His Majesty’s arms should be compelled to yield to an
overwhelming force, the province will be eventually abandoned; the
endeared relation of its first settlers, the intrinsic value of its
commerce, and the pretension of its powerful rival to repossess the
Canadas, are pledges that no peace will be established between the
United States and Great Britain and Ireland, of which the restoration of
these provinces does not make the most prominent condition. Be not
dismayed at the unjustifiable threat of the commander of the enemy’s
forces to refuse quarter should an Indian appear in the ranks. The brave
band of aborigines who inhabit this colony were, like His Majesty’s
other subjects, punished for their zeal and fidelity by the loss of
their possessions in the late colonies, and rewarded by His Majesty with
lands of superior value in this province. The faith of the British
government has never yet been violated; the Indians feel that the soil
they inherit is to them and their posterity protected from the base arts
so frequently devised to over-reach their simplicity. By what new
principle are they to be prohibited from defending their property? If
their warfare, from being different to that of the white people, be more
terrific to the enemy, let him retrace his steps. They seek him not, and
he cannot expect to find women and children in an invading army. But
they are men, and have equal rights with all other men to defend
themselves and their property when invaded, more especially when they
find in the enemy’s camp a ferocious and mortal foe using the same
warfare which the American commander affects to reprobate. The
inconsistent and unjustifiable threat of refusing quarter, for such a
cause as being found in arms with a brother sufferer in defence of
invaded rights, must be exercised with the certain assurance of
retaliation, not only in the limited operations of war in this part of
the king’s dominions, but in every quarter of the globe; for the
national character of Britain is not less distinguished for humanity
than strict retributive justice, which will consider the execution of
this inhuman threat as deliberate murder, for which every subject of the
offending power must make expiation.”
T. H. BEST PRINTING CO. LIMITED. TORONTO
Transcriber's Note
The following changes have been made to the original text:
p. 18 senority -> seniority
p. 19 monchalant -> nonchalant
p. 29 Clark -> Clarke
p. 36 Britan -> Britain
p. 38 to to be -> to be
p. 75 therefor -> therefore