Recollections
of
The American War
First edition, 250 copies
Second edition, 750 copies
[Illustration: WILLIAM DUNLOP, M.D.
_From original painting in the possession of Mrs. Thos. McGaw._]
Recollections
of the
War of 1812
By
DR. WM. DUNLOP
With a Biographical Sketch of the Author by
A. H. U. Colquhoun, LL.D.
Deputy Minister of Education, Ontario
SECOND EDITION
[Illustration: U. E.
SERIES
No. 3]
TORONTO:
HISTORICAL PUBLISHING CO.
1908.
Entered according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the
year nineteen hundred and eight, by the Historical Publishing
Co., at the Department of Agriculture.
TORONTO:
THE BRYANT PRESS, LIMITED
Sketch of
Dr. William Dunlop
[Illustration]
This reprint of an entertaining little narrative of personal experiences
in the War of 1812-14 may be appropriately prefaced by a short account
of the author. Few of the pioneers of Upper Canada had careers as varied
and interesting as that of Dr. William Dunlop, and none possessed a
personality quite so striking and original as his. On the Saltfort road,
near Goderich, Canada, there is a cairn marking the burial place of two
notable worthies of the Huron Tract, and upon it is the following
inscription:
Here lies the body of
ROBERT GRAHAM DUNLOP, ESQ.
Commander Royal Navy, M.P.P.
Who after serving his King and country in
every quarter of the globe, dies at Gairbraid,
on the 28th Feby., 1841, in
the 51 year of his age.
Also to the memory of
DR. WILLIAM DUNLOP,
a man of surpassing talent, knowledge,
and benevolence, born in Scotland
in 1792.
He served in the army in Canada and in India
and thereafter distinguished himself
as an author and man of
letters.
He settled in Canada permanently in 1825 and
for more than 20 years was actively
engaged in public and philanthropic
affairs.
Succeeding his brother, Capt. Dunlop, as Member
of the Provincial Parliament and
taking successful interest in
the welfare of Canada,
and died lamented
by many
friends
1848.
The elder of these two brothers, William Dunlop, was born at Greenock,
Scotland, in 1792, and became, when a stripling of scarce 21 years of
age, a surgeon in the famous 88th, or, Connaught Rangers. Being ordered
to Canada, where the war with the United States was in progress, he made
his way to the fighting line in the Niagara Peninsula, and there,
serving first as surgeon and afterwards as a combatant, he gave
indubitable proofs of courage and capacity. When the "appalling
intelligence" of the peace concluded by the Treaty of Ghent reached him,
Dunlop embarked with his regiment for England, just missing by a few
days a share in the glorious action of Waterloo, and was ordered to
India. While there his restless activity occupied itself with his
medical and military duties, with the congenial task of editing a
newspaper, and with numerous tiger hunts. So successful was he as a
slayer of tigers that he earned the name of "Tiger" Dunlop, and in his
later Canadian days was familiarly known as "The Tiger." An attack of
jungle fever drove him back to England on half-pay, and settling in
London he lived for a few years what has been called a most
miscellaneous life. He wrote articles for the magazines. He edited for a
time a newspaper called the "British Press," until he quarrelled with
the publisher for dismissing contemptuously a political upheaval in
France in the following brief "leader": "We perceive that there is a
change of ministry in France;--we have heard of no earthquakes in
consequence!" He edited a work on medical jurisprudence. He started a
Sunday newspaper for Anglo-Indians called "The Telescope," the history
of which, declared one of his friends, was a comedy of the drollest
kind. He founded a club,--being of convivial tastes and a prince of boon
companions,--called The Pig and Whistle. Finally,--and this doubtless
led to his returning to Canada,--he became interested, as secretary, or,
director, in some industrial concerns, notably a salt works in Cheshire.
In London he made the acquaintance of Mr. John Galt, and accompanied him
to Canada in 1826. He received from the Canada Company the appointment
of Warden of the Forests, and for twenty years was a leading figure in
what we now call Western Ontario. If one wishes to know "The Tiger" in
this period, he must be sought in the charming pages of the Misses
Lizars' book "In the Days of the Canada Company." There, his rollicking
humour, his broad sympathies, his eccentric jests are excellently
depicted. Dunlop represented Huron in Parliament, where he was a
veritable "enfant terrible," speaking his mind in his slap dash way and
frequently convulsing the House with merriment. The story of his tossing
the coin with his brother to settle which of them should marry Lou
McColl, the Highland housekeeper and devoted friend, and the terms of
his extraordinary will and testament,--one clause of which (typical of
all) leaves some property to a sister "because she is married to a
minister whom (God help him) she henpecks",--are famous. Dunlop's
literary talents were considerable. He wearied of writing as he did of
most things that demanded continuous application. But he had an easy
style, much shrewd wit, and undoubted ability. These qualities he
displayed in his magazine articles, in his book "The Backwoodsman," and
in the "Recollections," which are here reprinted from "The Literary
Garland," the Montreal periodical of half a century or more ago. They
were penned long after the events concerned had occurred and it may be
supposed that he fell into some errors of fact. But as a picture of the
manner in which this haphazard war was conducted it is singularly vivid
and impressive. The unearthing of manuscripts and official documents
about this war will not throw into clearer relief than the following
pages do, the desperate circumstances under which a mere handful of
French Canadian and Loyalist colonists emerged from their primitive
villages and log cabins and with Spartan courage and hardihood drove
back the invader again and again and captured large areas of his
territory. There are several readable sketches of these campaigns, but
none with the freshness and spirit of Dunlop's. In this lies its value
and the justification for preserving it. Dunlop retired from Parliament
in 1846, and was appointed Superintendent of the Lachine Canal. He died
in the village of Lachine in the Autumn of 1848, and his body was
conveyed to its resting place at Goderich.
A. H. U. Colquhoun.
INTRODUCTION
The favourable reception of a small work on this colony has emboldened
me again to come before the public in the character of an author, and as
it is fifteen years since I last obtruded myself in that capacity, I
have at least to boast of the merit assumed to himself by the sailor in
his prayer, during a hurricane, "Thou knowest it is seldom that I
trouble thee," and I may hope on the same grounds to be listened to.
It is now upwards of thirty-three years since I became acquainted with
this country, of which I was eleven years absent. During that time I
visited the other quarters of the globe. My design in this work is to
shew the almost incredible improvement that has taken place during that
period. Notwithstanding all that has been written by tourists, &c., very
little indeed is known of the value and capabilities of Canada, as a
colony, by the people of Great Britain.
I have not arrived at anything like methodical arrangement further than
stating in their chronological order, events and scenes of which I was a
witness, with occasional anecdotes of parties therein concerned, so that
those who do not approve of such a desultory mode of composition, need
not, after this fore-warning, read any further. My intention, in fact,
is not exclusively either to instruct or amuse, but, if I possibly can
accomplish it, to do a little of both. I wish to give an account of the
effect of the changes that have taken place in my day in the colony, on
my own feelings, rather than to enter into any philosophical enquiry
into their causes; and if in this attempt I should sometimes degenerate
into what my late lamented friend, the Ettrick Shepherd, would have
denominated _havers_, I hope you will remember that this is an infirmity
to which even Homer (see Horace,) is liable; and if, like hereditary
disease, it is a proof of paternity, every author in verse or prose who
has written since his day, has ample grounds whereon to found its
pretensions to a most ancient and honourable descent.
[Illustration]
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
AMERICAN WAR
CHAPTER I.
"My native land, good night."--_Byron._
The end of March or the beginning of April, 1813, found me at the Army
Depôt in the Isle of Wight. Sir Walter Scott in his Surgeon's Daughter,
says that no one who has ever visited that delightful spot can ever
forget it, and I fully agree with him, but though perfectly susceptible
of the impressions which its numberless beauties leave on the mind, I
must confess that the view of a fleet of transports rounding St. Helens
to take us to our destination, would have been considered by myself and
my comrades, as a pleasanter prospect than all Hampshire could offer to
our admiration.
I shall not stay to describe the state of military society in those days
at the Army Depôt at Parkhurst barracks and the neighbouring town of
Newport. It has been much better done than I could expect to do, by
Major Spencer Muggridge, in Blackwood's Magazine; all I can do as a
subaltern, is fully to endorse the field officer's statement, and to
declare that it is a just, graphic and by no means over-charged
description.
I went once, and only once, to the Garrison Mess, in company with two or
three officers of my acquaintance, and saw among other novelties of a
mess table, one officer _shy_ a leg of mutton at another's head, from
one end of the table to the other. This we took as notice to quit; so we
made our retreat in good order, and never again returned, or associated
with a set of gentlemen who had such a vivacious mode of expressing a
difference of opinion.
The fact is, all the worse characters in the army were congregated at
the Isle of Wight; men who were afraid to join their regiments from the
indifferent estimation they were held in by their brother officers.
These stuck to the depôt, and the arrival of a fleet of transports at
Spithead or the Mother-bank, was a signal for a general sickness among
these worthies. And this was peculiarly the case with those who were
bound for Canada, for they knew full well if they could shirk past the
month of August, there was no chance of a call on their services until
the month of April following. And many scamps took advantage of this. I
know one fellow who managed to avoid joining his regiment abroad for no
less than three years.
I took my departure from this military paradise for the first time, for
this country, in the beginning of August, 1813, in a small, ill-found,
undermanned, over-crowded transport, as transports in those days were
very apt to be; and after a long, weary, and tempestuous voyage of three
months, was landed at Quebec in the beginning of the following November.
Next to the tedium of a sea voyage, nothing on earth can be so tiresome
as a description of it; the very incidents which a Journal of such a
pilgrimage commemorates shew the dreadful state of vacuum and ennui
which must have existed in the mind of the patient before such trifles
could become of interest sufficient to be thought worthy of notation. A
sail in sight,--a bunch of sea-weed floating past the ship,--a log of
wood covered with barnacles,--or, better still, one of the numerous
tribe of Medusa, with its snake-like feelers and changeable colours--a
gull, or a flock of Mother Carey's chickens, paddling in the wake,--are
occurrences of sufficient importance to call upon deck all the
passengers, even during dinner. Or if they are happy enough to fall in
with a shoal of porpoises or dolphins, a flock of flying fish, or a
whale blowing and spouting near the ship, such a wonder is quite
sufficient to furnish conversation for the happy beholders for the rest
of the voyage. For my own part, being familiar with, and also seasoned
to, all the wonders of the deep, I make a vow whenever I go on board,
that nothing inferior in rank and dignity to a sea-serpent shall ever
induce me to mount the companion ladder. On the whole, though it cannot
be considered as a very choice bit of reading, I look upon the log-book
as by far the best account of a voyage, for it accurately states all
that is worthy of note in the fewest possible words. It is the very
model of the terse didactic. Who can fail to admire the Caesar-like
brevity in an American captain's log: "At noon, light breezes and cloudy
weather, wind W.S.W., fell in with a phenomenon--caught a bucket full of
it." Under all these circumstances, I think it is highly probable that
my readers will readily pardon me for not giving my _experience_ on this
subject. I met with no seas "mountains high," as many who have gone down
unto the sea in ships have done. Indeed, though I have encountered gales
of wind in all the favorite playgrounds of Oeolus--the Bay of
Biscay--off the Cape of Good Hope--in the Bay of Bengal--the coast of
America, and the Gulph of St. Lawrence, yet I never saw a wave high
enough to becalm the main-top sail. So that I must suppose that the
original inventor of the phrase was a Cockney, who must have had Garlic
hill or Snow hill, or some of the other mountainous regions of the
metropolis in his mind's eye when he coined it.
Arrived at Quebec, we reported ourselves, as in duty bound, to the
General Commanding, and by his orders we left a subaltern to command the
recruits (most of whom, by the way, were mere boys,) and to strengthen
the Garrison of Quebec, and the venerable old colonel and myself made
all haste to join our regiment up the country. As my worthy old
commander was a character, some account of him may not be uninteresting.
Donald McB---- was born in the celebrated winter of 1745-46, while his
father, an Invernesshire gentleman, was _out_ with Prince Charles
Edward, who, on the unfortunate issue of that campaign for the Jacobite
interest, was fain to flee to France, where he joined his royal master,
and where, by the Prince's influence, he received a commission in the
Scotch Regiment of Guards, and in due time retired with a small pension
from the French King, to the town of Dunkirk, where with his family, he
remained the rest of his days.
Donald, meanwhile, was left with his kindred in the Highlands, where he
grew in all the stinted quantity of grace that is to be found in that
barren region, until his seventh year, when he was sent to join his
family in Dunkirk. Here he was educated, and as his father's military
experience had given him no great love for the profession of arms, he
was in due time bound apprentice to his brother-in-law, an eminent
surgeon of that town, and might have become a curer instead of inflicter
of broken heads, or at least murdered men more scientifically than with
the broadsword; but fate ordered it otherwise.
Donald had an objection as strong to the lancet as his father could
possibly have to the sword. Had the matter been coolly canvassed, it is
hard to say which mode of murder would have obtained the preference,
but, always hasty, he did not go philosophically to work, and an
accident decided his fate as it has done that of many greater men.
A young nun of great beauty, who had lately taken the veil, had the
misfortune to break her leg, and Donald's master, being medical man to
the convent, he very reasonably hoped that he would assist in the
setting of it--attending upon handsome young nuns might reconcile a man
even to being a surgeon of----; but his brother-in-law and the abbess
both entered their veto. Piqued at this disappointment, next morning saw
him on the tramp, and the next intelligence that was heard of him was
that he was serving His Most Christian Majesty in the capacity of a
Gentleman Sentinel, (as the Baron of Bradwardine hath it,) in a marching
regiment.
This settled the point. His father, seeing that his aversion to the
healing art was insuperable, procured a commission in the Regiment de
Dillon or Irish Brigade of the French Service.
In this he served for several years, until he had got pretty well up
among the lieutenants, and in due time might have figured among the
marshals of Napoleon; but the American Revolution breaking out, and it
being pretty apparent that France and Great Britain must come into
hostile collision, his father, though utterly abhorring the reigning
dynasty, could not bear the idea of a son of his fighting against his
country and clan, persuaded him to resign his commission in the French
Service, and sent him to Scotland with letters of recommendation to some
of his kindred and friends, officers in the newly raised Frazer
Highlanders (since the 71st,) whom he joined in Greenock in the year
1776, and soon after embarked with them for America in the capacity of a
gentleman volunteer, thus beginning the world once more at the age of
thirty.
After serving in this regiment till he obtained his ensigncy, he was
promoted to be lieutenant and adjutant in the Cavalry of Tarlton's
Legion, in which he served and was several times wounded, till the end
of the war, when he was disbanded with the rest of his regiment, and
placed on half pay. He exchanged into a regiment about to embark for the
West Indies, where in seven or eight years, the yellow fever standing
his friend by cutting off many of his brother officers, while it passed
over him, he in progress of seniority, tontined it up to nearly the head
of the lieutenants; the regiment was ordered home in 1790, and after a
short time, instead of his company, he received his half-pay as a
disbanded lieutenant.
He now, from motives of economy as well as to be near his surviving
relatives, retired to Dunkirk; but the approaching revolution soon
called him out again, and his promotion, which, though like that of
Dugald Dalgetty, it was "dooms slow at first," did come at last. Now
after thirty-seven years' hard service in the British Army, (to say
nothing of fourteen in the French) in North America, the West Indies,
South America, the Cape of Good Hope, Java and India, he found himself a
Lieutenant-Colonel of a second battalion serving in Canada. Such is a
brief memoir of my old commanding officer. He was a warm-hearted,
hot-tempered, jovial, gentlemanly old veteran, who enjoyed the present
and never repined at the past; so it may well be imagined that I was in
high good luck with such a _compagnon de voyage_.
Hearing that the American Army under General Wilkinson, was about to
make descent on Canada somewhere about the lower end of Lake Ontario, we
were determined to push on with all possible speed.
The roads, however, were declared impracticable, and the only steamboat
the Canadas then rejoiced in, though now they must possess nearly one
hundred, had sailed that day, and was not expected to return for nearly
a week; so it was determined we should try our luck in one of the
wretched river craft which in those days enjoyed the carrying trade
between Quebec and Montreal. Into the small cabin, therefore of one of
these schooners we stowed ourselves. Though the winds were light, we
managed to make some way as long as we could take advantage of the
flood-tide, and lay by during the ebb; but after this our progress was
slow indeed; not entirely from the want of a fair wind, but from the
cursed dilatory habits of Frenchmen and their Canadian descendants in
all matters connected with business. At every village (and in Lower
Canada there is a village at every three leagues along the banks of the
St. Lawrence) our captain had or made business--a cask of wine had to be
delivered to "_le digne Curé_" at one place; a box of goods to "_M. le
Gentilhomme de Magasin_" at another; the captain's "_parents_" lived
within a league, and he had not seen them for six weeks,--so off he must
go, and no prospect of seeing him any more for that day. The cottage of
the cabin boy's mother unluckily lay on the bank of the river, and we
must lay to till madame came off with confitures, cabbages and clean
shirts for his regalement; then the embracing, and kissing, and bowing,
and taking off red night caps to each other, and the telling the news
and hearing it, occupied ten times the space that the real business (if
any there was) could possibly require. And all this was gone through on
their part, as if it was the natural and necessary consequence of a
voyage up the River Saint Lawrence. Haste seemed to them quite out of
the question; and it is next to impossible to get into a passion and
swear at a Frenchman, as you would at a sulky John Bull, or a saucy
Yankee, under similar circumstances, for he is utterly unconscious all
the time that he is doing anything unworthy; he is so polite,
complaisant and good humoured withal, that it is next to impossible to
get yourself seriously angry with him. On the fifth day of this tedious
voyage, when we had arrived within about fifteen miles of Three Rivers,
which is midway between the two cities, we perceived the steamboat
passing upwards close under the opposite shore, and we resolved to land,
knowing that it was her custom to stop there all night, and proceed in
the morning; accordingly we did so, and in a short time were seated in a
caleche following at all the speed the roads would admit of--by dint of
hard travelling, bribing and coaxing, we managed to get to Three Rivers
by moonlight, about one in the morning. So far so good, thought we; but
unluckily the moonlight that served us, served the steamboat also, and
she had proceeded on her voyage before we came up. As we now, however,
had got quite enough of sailing, we determined to proceed by land to
Montreal.
The French, I suspect, have always been before us in Colonial policy. An
arbitrary government can do things which a free one may not have the
nerve to attempt, particularly among a people whose ignorance permits
them to see only one side of the question.
The system of land travelling in Lower Canada was better, when we became
master of it, than it is now in any part of the North American
Continent. At every three leagues there was a "_Maison de Poste_" kept
by a functionary who received his license from government, and
denominated a "_Maitre de Poste_." He was bound by his engagement to
find caleches and horses for all travellers, and he made engagements
with his neighbors to furnish them when his were employed. These were
called "_Aides de Poste_"; and they received the pay when they performed
the duty, deducting a small commission for the _Maitre_. They were bound
to travel when the roads admitted of it, at a rate not less than seven
miles an hour, and were not to exceed quarter of an hour in changing
horses; and to prevent imposition, in the parlour of each post house,
(which was also an inn,) was stuck up a printed paper, giving the
distance of each post from the next, and the sum to be charged for each
horse and caleche employed, as well as other regulations, with regard to
the establishment, which it was necessary for a traveller to know, and
any well substantiated charge against these people was sure to call down
summary punishment.
The roads not being, as already remarked, in the best order, we did not
arrive at Montreal till the end of the second day, when we were
congratulated by our more lucky companions who had left Quebec in the
steamboat three days later, and arrived at Montreal two days before us;
and we were tantalized by a description of all the luxuries of that then
little known conveyance, as contrasted with the fatigues and
_désagréments_ of our mode of progression. For the last fifty miles of
our route there was not to be seen throughout the country a single man
fit to carry arms occupied about his farm or workshop; women, children,
or men disabled by age or decrepitude were all that were to be met with.
The news had arrived that the long threatened invasion had at last taken
place, and every available man was hurrying to meet it. We came up with
several regiments of militia on their line of march. They had all a
serviceable effective appearance--had been pretty well drilled, and
their arms being direct from the tower, were in perfectly good order,
nor had they the mobbish appearance that such a levy in any other
country would have had. Their capots and trowsers of home-spun stuff,
and their blue _tuques_ (night caps) were all of the same cut and color,
which gave them an air of uniformity that added much to their military
look, for I have always remarked that a body of men's appearance in
battalion, depends much less on the fashion of their individual dress
and appointments, than on the whole being in strict uniformity.
They marched merrily along to the music of their voyageur songs, and as
they perceived our uniform as we came up, they set up the Indian
War-whoop, followed by a shout of _Vive le Roi_ along the whole line.
Such a body of men in such a temper, and with so perfect a use of their
arms as all of them possessed, if posted on such ground as would
preclude the possibility of regular troops out-manoeuvering them, (and
such positions are not hard to find in Canada,) must have been rather a
formidable body to have attacked. Finding that the enemy were between us
and our regiment, proceeding to join would have been out of the
question. The Colonel therefore requested that we might be attached to
the militia on the advance. The Commander-in-Chief finding that the old
gentleman had a perfect knowledge of the French language, (not by any
means so common an accomplishment in the army in those days as it is
now,) gave him command of a large brigade of militia, and, like other
men who rise to greatness, his friends and followers shared his good
fortune, for a subaltern of our regiment who had come out in another
ship and joined us at Montreal, was appointed as his Brigade Major; and
I was exalted to the dignity of Principal Medical Officer to his
command, and we proceeded to Lachine, the head-quarters of the advance,
and where it had been determined to make the stand, in order to cover
Montreal, the great commercial emporium of the Canadas, and which,
moreover, was the avowed object of the American attack.
Our force here presented rather a motley appearance; besides a small
number of the line consisting chiefly of detachments, there was a
considerable body of sailors and marines; the former made tolerable
Artillery men, and the latter had, I would say, even a more serviceable
appearance than an equal body of the line, average it throughout the
army.
The fact is that during the war the marines had the best recruits that
entered the army. The reason of this, as explained to me by an
intelligent non-commissioned officer of that corps, was, that whereas a
soldier of the line, returning on furlough to his native village, had
barely enough of money to pay his travelling expenses, and support him
while there, and even that with a strict attention to economy, the
marine, on the other hand, on returning from a three years' cruise, had
all the surplus pay and prize money of that period placed in his hands
before he started, and this, with his pay going on at the same rate as
that of the soldier of the line, enabled him to expend in a much more
gentlemanly style of profusion than the other.
The vulgar of all ranks are apt to form their opinions of things rather
from their results than the causes of them, and hence they jump to the
conclusion that the marine service must be just so much better than that
of the line, as the one has so much more money to spend on his return
home than the other. And hence, aspiring--or as our quarter master, Tom
Sheridan, used to say when recruiting sergeant, _perspiring_--young
heroes, who resolve to gain a field marshal's baton by commencing with a
musket, preferred the amphibious path of the jolly to the exclusively
terraqueous one of the flat-foot. Besides these and our friends the
country militia, there were two corps formed of the gentlemen of
Montreal, one of artillery and another of sharp-shooters. I think these
were in a perfect state of drill, and in their handsome new uniforms had
a most imposing appearance. But if their discipline was commendable,
their commissariat was beyond all praise. Long lines of carts were to be
seen bearing in casks and hampers of the choicest wines, to say nothing
of the venison, turkeys, hams, and all other esculents necessary to
recruit their strength under the fatigues of war. With them the Indian
found a profitable market for his game, and the fisherman for his fish.
There can be little doubt that a gourmand would greatly prefer the
comfort of dining with a mess of privates of these distinguished corps
to the honour and glory of being half starved (of which he ran no small
risk) at the table of the Governor General himself. Such a force opposed
to an equal number of regulars, it may be said, was no very hopeful
prospect for defending a country. But there are many things which, when
taken into consideration, will show that the balance was not so very
much against them as at first sight may appear. Men who are fighting for
their homes and friends, and almost in sight of their wives and
children, have an additional incentive over those who fight for pay and
glory. Again, the enemy to attack them had to land from a rapid, a thing
which precludes regularity under any circumstances, and they would not
be rendered more cool by a heavy fire of artillery while they were
yawning and whirling in the current. They must have landed in confusion,
and would be attacked before they could form, and should they get over
all this, there was a plateau of land in the rear ascended by a high
steep bank, which, in tolerable hands, could neither be carried nor
turned. Add to all this, that the American regulars, if equal, were not
superior to our troops in drill and discipline, the great majority of
them having been enlisted for a period too short to form a soldier,
under the most favorable circumstances. And much even of that short time
had been consumed in long and harassing marches through an unsettled
country that could not supply the commissariat, and exposed to fatigue
and privation that was rapidly spreading disease among them; dispirited
too by recent defeat, with a constantly increasing force hanging on
their rear. If they even had forced us at Lachine, they must have done
it at an enormous loss. In their advance also towards Montreal, they
must have fought every inch of the way, harrassed in front, flank and in
rear, and their army so diminished that they could not hold Montreal if
they had it. On the whole, therefore,--any reflections on the conduct of
General Wilkinson by those great military critics, the editors of
American newspapers, to the contrary notwithstanding,--every soldier
will admit, that in withdrawing with a comparatively unbroken army to
his intrenchment on Salmon River, the American commander did the very
wisest thing that under all the circumstances he could have done. What
the event of a battle might have been it is now impossible to say, for
on this ground it was fated we were to show our devotion to our king and
country at a cheaper rate, for the news of the battle of Chrysler's
Farm, and the subsequent retreat of the Americans across the river,
blighted all our hopes of laurels for this turn.
This was a very brilliant little affair. Colonel Morrison of the 89th
Regiment, was sent by General de Rotenburg, with a small corp amounting
in all to 820 men, Regulars, Militia and Indians, to watch the motions
of the American army, when it broke up from Grenadier Island, near
Kingston, and to hang on and harass their rear. This was done so
effectually that General Covington was detached with a body at least
three times our number to drive them back. Morrison retired till he came
to a spot he had selected on his downward march, and there gave them
battle. Luckily for us, the first volley we fired killed General
Covington, who must have been a brave fine fellow; the officer
succeeding him brought his undisciplined levies too near our
well-drilled troops before he deployed, and in attempting to do so, got
thrown into confusion, thus giving our artillery and gun-boats an
opportunity of committing dreadful slaughter among their confused and
huddled masses. They rallied, however, again, but were driven off by the
bayonet; but all this cost us dear, for we were too much weakened to
follow up our victory. They retired therefore in comparative safety to
about seven miles above the village of Cornwall, where they crossed the
river without loss, save from a body of Highland militia, from
Glengarry, who made a sudden attack on their cavalry while embarking,
and by firing into the boats by which they were swimming over their
horses, made them let go their bridles, and the animals swimming to the
shore, were seized upon by Donald, who thus came into action a foot
soldier, and went out of it a dragoon, no doubt, like his countryman,
sorely "_taight wi' ta peast_" on his journey home.[1] The enemy then
took up a position and fortified a camp, where they remained during the
winter, and when preparations were made to drive them out of it in the
spring, they suddenly abandoned their position, leaving behind them
their stores and baggage, and retreated, followed by our forces, as far
as the village of Malone, in the State of New York. Thus ended the
"_partumeius mons_" of the only efficient invasion of Canada during the
war. The fact is, the Americans were deceived in all their schemes of
conquest in Canada; the disaffected then as now were the loudest in
their clamour, and a belief obtained among the Americans that they had
only to display their colours to have the whole population flock to
them. But the reverse of this was the case. They found themselves in a
country so decidedly hostile, that their retreating ranks were thinned
by the peasantry firing on them from behind fences and stumps; and it
was evident that every man they met was an enemy. The militia at
Lachine, after being duly thanked for their services, were sent home,
and the regulars went into winter quarters; the sailors and marines to
Kingston--and we, having enjoyed our newly acquired dignities for a few
days, set off to join our regiment then quartered at Fort Wellington, a
clumsy, ill-constructed unflanked redoubt, close to which now stands the
large and populous village of Prescott, then consisting of five houses,
three of which were unfinished. The journey was a most wretched one. The
month of November being far advanced, rain and sleet poured down in
torrents--the roads at no season good, were now barely fordable, so that
we found it the easiest way to let our waggon go on with our baggage,
and walk through the fields, and that too, though at every two hundred
yards, or oftener, we had to scramble over a rail fence, six feet high;
sometimes we got a lift in a boat, sometimes we were dragged by main
force in a waggon through the deep mud, in which it was hard to say
whether the peril of upsetting or drowning was the most imminent.
Sometimes we marched; but all that could be said of any mode of travel
was, that it was but a variety of the disagreeable; so, as there was no
glory to be gained in such a service, I was anything but sorry when I
learned that I was to halt for some time at a snug, comfortable, warm,
cleanly, Dutch farm house, to take charge of the wounded who had
suffered in the action of Chrysler's Farm.
[1] The Highlander is no equestrian--he can trot on his feet
fifty or sixty miles a day, with much greater ease to
himself, and in a shorter space of time, than he could ride
the same distance. A gentleman once sent his Highland
servant a message on urgent business, and to enable him to
execute it sooner, gave him a horse. Donald did not return
at the time expected, nor for long after it; at last his
master, who was watching anxiously for him, discerned him at
a long distance on the road on foot, creeping at a snail's
pace, and _towing_ the reluctant quadruped by the bridle. On
being objurgated for his tardiness, he replied "he could
have been here twa three hours, but he has taight wi' ta
peast," _i.e._ delayed, or impeded by the horse.
Washington Irving is the only describer of your "American Teutonic
Race," and this, my debut in the New World, put me down in the midst of
that worthy people as unsophisticated as possible. It is _refreshing_,
as his little Lordship of Craigcrook used to say, in this land where
every man is a philosopher, and talks of government as if he had been
bred at the feet of Machiavel, to meet with a specimen of genuine
simplicity, perfectly aware of his own ignorance in matters which in no
way concern him. Your Dutchman is the most unchangeable of all human
beings, "_Caelum non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt_" applies
with peculiar force to the Batavian in every clime on the face of the
globe. In America, at the Cape of Good Hope, in the congenial marshes of
Java, in the West Indies, and at Chinsurhae on the banks of the Ganges,
the transmarine Hollander is always the same as in his own native mud of
the dams and dykes of Holland,--the same in his house, his dress, his
voracious and omniverous appetite, his thrift and his cleanliness.
Among these good, kind, simple people, I spent a month or six weeks very
pleasantly. Loyal and warmly attached to the British Crown, they
followed our standard in the Revolutionary War, and obtained from
government settlements in Canada when driven from their homes on the
banks of the Hudson. From what I could learn from them, the Americans
had persecuted them and their families with a rancour they displayed to
no other race of mankind. When prisoners were taken in action, while the
British were treated by them with respect, and even with kindness, the
Dutch were deliberately murdered in cold blood. Men without arms in
their hands, but suspected of favouring the British cause, were shot
before their own doors, or hanged on the apple trees of their own
orchards, in presence of their wives and families, who without regard to
age or sex, were turned from their homes without remorse or pity. And
one old dame told me that she was for six weeks in the woods between
Utica and Niagara, unaccompanied by any one but her two infant children,
looking for her husband, who she luckily found in the fort of the latter
place; at one time she and her poor babes must have perished from
hunger, but for some Mohawk Indians, who came up and delivered them, and
conducted them to the Fort. The Dutch themselves ascribe this very
different treatment of the two races to the fear of the Americans that
the British would retaliate in case they were ill used, while the Dutch
could not.
This, however, could not have been the case, for had the Americans
feared vengeance on the part of the British for the wrongs they
inflicted on their countrymen, they must have equally feared that they
would not quietly submit to injuries inflicted on men who were their
loyal and faithful fellow subjects. I therefore suspect, that, so far as
their statements were correct, and they must have been so in the main,
for I have the same stories from the Dutch of the Niagara District, who
had no communication whatever with their compatriots of Williamsburg,
and though we must allow great latitude for exaggeration in a people who
were, no doubt, deeply injured, and had been brooding over their wrongs
for a period of upwards of thirty years, during all which time their
wrath had gathered force as it went, and their stories having no one to
contradict them, must have increased with each subsequent narrator, till
they had obtained all the credence of time-honoured truth--allowing for
all this, but insisting that the stories had a strong foundation in
fact, the rigor of their persecution must be attributed to another
feeling, and must have, I should think, arisen from this, that the
Americans considered that a British subject born within the realm, and
fighting for what he believed to be the rights of his country, was only
doing what they themselves were doing; whereas, a North American born,
whatever his extraction, fighting against what they considered the
rights of the people of North America, was a traitor and an apostate, an
enemy to the cause of freedom from innate depravity, and therefore, like
a noxious animal, was lawfully to be destroyed, "_per fas et nefas_."
However this may be, I found their hatred to the Americans was deep
rooted and hearty, and their kindness to us and to our wounded, (for I
never trusted them near the American wounded,) in proportion strong and
unceasing; my only difficulty with them was to prevent them cramming my
patients with all manner of Dutch dainties, for their ideas of practice
being Batavian, they affirmed that there was infinitely greater danger
from inanition than repletion, and that strength must come from
nourishment. "Unless you give de wounded man plenty to eat and drink it
is quite certain he can never get through."
Killing with kindness is the commonest cause of death I am aware of, and
it is very remiss in the faculty, that it has never yet found a place in
the periodical mortuary reports which they publish in great cities in a
tabular form--this ought to be amended. _Au reste_--I was very
comfortable, for, while I remained under the hospitable roof of my
friend old Cobus, I had an upper room for my sleeping apartment, and the
show room of the establishment for my sitting parlor, an honour and
preferment which nobody of less rank them an actual line officer of the
"_riglars_" could have presumed to aspire to; to the rest of mankind it
was shut and sealed, saving on high days and holidays. This sacred
chamber was furnished and decorated in the purest and most classical
style of Dutch taste, the whole woodwork, and that included floor, walls
and ceiling, were sedulously washed once a week with hot water and soap,
vigorously applied with a scrubbing brush. The floor was nicely sanded,
and the walls decorated with a tapestry of innumerable home-spun
petticoats, evidently never applied to any other (I won't say meaner)
purpose, declaring at once the wealth and housewifery of the gude vrow.
On the shelf that ran round the whole room, were exhibited the holiday
crockery of the establishment, bright and shining, interspersed with
pewter spoons, which were easily mistaken for silver from the excessive
brightness of their polish. And to conclude the description of my
comforts, I had for breakfast and dinner a variety and profusion of
meat, fish, eggs, cakes and preserves, that might have satisfied the
grenadier company of the Regiment.
On the Saturday morning (for this was the grand cleansing day) I never
went forth to visit my hospital without taking my fowling piece in my
hand, and made a point of never returning until sunset, as during the
intervening period no animal not amphibious could possibly have existed
in the domicile; after leaving them I never passed their door on the
line of march without passing an hour or two with my old friends, and on
such occasions I used to be honoured with the chaste salute of the
worthy old dame, which was followed by my going through the same
ceremony, to a strapping beauty, her niece, who was "comely to be seen,"
and in stature rather exceeded myself, though I stand six feet in my
stocking soles. An irreverent Irish subaltern of ours impiously likened
the decorous and fraternal salute with which I greeted her, to the "slap
of a wet brogue against a barn door;" and the angel who in her innocence
bestowed that civility on me, was known by my brother officers, who had
no platonism in their souls, as "The Doctor's Sylph."
From the end of the first few weeks that I remained here my patients
gradually began to diminish,--some died, and these I buried,--some
recovered by the remedies employed, or spite of them, and these I
forwarded or carried with me to join the Regiment,--and others who from
loss of limbs or of the use of them, might be considered as permanently
rendered "_hors de combat_," I sent by easy stages to Montreal General
Hospital, thence in the spring to be removed to England as occasion
offered, thence to enjoy the honours and emoluments of a Chelsea
Pension. The few that remained unfit to be removed I committed to the
charge of an Hospital Mate, and proceeded with all convenient speed to
join the headquarters of my Regiment.
[Illustration]