[Frontispiece: General Brock]
[Illustration: Title page]
_THE MAKERS OF CANADA_
GENERAL
BROCK
BY
LADY (Matilda Ridout) EDGAR
_EDITION DE LUXE_
TORONTO
MORANG & CO., LIMITED
1904
_Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada
in the year 1904, by Morang & Co., Limited, in the
Department of Agriculture_
PREFACE
Among the men of action who are entitled to be called makers of
Canada, Sir Isaac Brock may well take a prominent place. He came to
Canada in 1802, and gave ten years of his life to the country in
which he was called to serve. Both in a civil and a military
capacity he filled a post requiring unique qualities of head and
heart. That the distinction he won was not ephemeral is proved by
the honour in which his name is still held, although nearly a century
has passed since he laid down his life on Queenston Heights.
England has been served well by her soldiers in many lands, and is
not ungrateful to those who have built up her empire. At critical
times in her history the right man has appeared on the scene
possessing the force of character needed for special work. Such a
man was Isaac Brock. He entered the English army at the close of the
eighteenth century, when the service was at its lowest ebb. Fortune
placed him under the command of such enlightened men as Sir Ralph
Abercromby and General Stewart, and the lessons he learned from them
he afterwards put to good use. When, in 1812, the long-smouldering
enmity between the United States and England burst into the flame of
war, and Canada was the battleground, he entered upon the defence of
the country entrusted to his charge with an indomitable spirit. With
very inefficient means at his disposal, he used effectively what came
to his hand. He took the untrained militia of Upper Canada and made
of them a disciplined soldiery. He taught the youth of the country a
lesson in courage and patriotism, and with infinite patience, tact,
and judgment, he led them through their first days of trial. By his
contemporaries Sir Isaac Brock was looked upon as the saviour of
Canada, and time has not tarnished the lustre of his fame.
CONTENTS
_CHAPTER I_
HIS BIRTHPLACE
_CHAPTER II_
SERVICE ABROAD--HOLLAND
_CHAPTER III_
SERVICE ABROAD--THE BALTIC
_CHAPTER IV_
IN CANADA
_CHAPTER V_
UPPER AND LOWER CANADA--1802
_CHAPTER VI_
MILITARY POSTS
_CHAPTER VII_
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR
_CHAPTER VIII_
OLD QUEBEC
_CHAPTER IX_
AFFAIRS IN EUROPE, 1808
_CHAPTER X_
POLITICS IN QUEBEC
_CHAPTER XI_
QUEBEC AND NIAGARA
_CHAPTER XII_
1811 IN CANADA AND EUROPE
_CHAPTER XIII_
THE NEW GOVERNOR
_CHAPTER XIV_
GATHERING CLOUDS
_CHAPTER XV_
CANADA'S DEFENCE
_CHAPTER XVI_
ON THE FRONTIER
CHAPTER XVII
A VIGOROUS COMMANDER
CHAPTER XVIII
BROWNSTOWN AND MAGUAGA
CHAPTER XIX
DETROIT
CHAPTER XX
THE ARMISTICE
CHAPTER XXI
CONSEQUENCES OF ARMISTICE
CHAPTER XXII
QUEENSTON HEIGHTS
INDEX
_MAP OF THE NIAGARA FRONTIER_
_MAP OF THE DETROIT FRONTIER_
{1}
CHAPTER I
HIS BIRTHPLACE
"Thou Guernsey! bravely crowned
With rough embattled rocks ...."
--_Drayton._
"Sévère et douce."--_Victor Hugo._
"In that corner of the old Norman land where live the little people
of the sea, in that island of Guernsey, stern yet mild," Isaac Brock
was born.
It was a rough cradle, yet not an unkind one. Though for countless
ages its shores have been beaten about and broken by its relentless
enemy the ocean, yet behind that bold and serried front lie peaceful
glens and valleys carpeted with heather and gorse, and fair fields
full of lovely ferns. Cruel reefs lie around the island--the terror
of sailors, and out from the sea fog that hovers over them loom giant
rocks, strange and grotesque shapes, into which the sea has hollowed
many a cavern, haunted, as old legends tell, by the evil spirits of
the deep.
Guarded by those granite cliffs, apart from the world--for in the
eighteenth century there was but little communication with either
England or France--the simple folk of the island lived. The women
were famed for their beauty, blue-eyed and {2} rosy-cheeked, a
combination of Saxon fairness and Norman freshness; the men were
hardy, bold and daring, as became those who gained their living in
such a precarious way as sailors and fishermen and smugglers of the
Channel Islands
In addition to the fishermen and the sailors there were the country
people who lived on and cultivated their own estates, the largest of
which did not exceed seventy-five English acres. Wheat was the
principal crop, and dairy products the chief source of profit.
Beside the country people there lived in or near St. Peter's Port,
the capital, another distinct set of inhabitants, who may be called
the upper or governing class. To this class the family of Brock
belonged.
Guernsey contains about twenty-five square miles. Its shape is that
of a right-angled triangle. The sides face the south, the east, and
the north-west, and are respectively about six and one-half, six, and
nine miles long. The only town of importance and the seat of
government is St. Peter's Port, situated on the slope of a hill about
the middle of the more sheltered eastern coast. South of the town
rise the cliffs crowned by a strong fortress. At the entrance of the
harbour is Castle Cornet, once a detached island fort, dating from
Plantaganet days, afterwards the residence of the governors and also
a prison.[1] The appearance of the town on approaching {3} it by sea
is imposing, but the streets are narrow, steep and crooked, and the
houses, although substantial, are dusky looking and old. The harbour
of St. Peter's Port was begun by order of Edward I., and was in
course of construction for two centuries. St. Peter's Church, a fine
building of the fourteenth century, was consecrated in 1312. It was
not until the sixth century that Christianity was introduced into the
island by Sampson, Archbishop of St. David's, whose memory the small
town of St. Sampson on the east coast still keeps green. Previous to
this Druidism had been the religion, and cromlechs and relics of that
old system still remain.
[Sidenote: The Channel Islands]
The Channel Islands were once included in the "Duchy of Normandie,"
and are the only parts of that duchy which remain to the English
Crown. Again and again Guernsey has been unsuccessfully attacked by
the French, who, from the days of Edward I. to those of Edward VI.,
strove to subdue its Anglo-Norman inhabitants. Through the centuries
they retained their northern love of independence, and Guernsey is
still governed by its own laws and ancient institutions. It is
divided into ten parishes, whose rectors, appointed by the Crown, sit
in the elective states. The chief court of justice in the island is
the royal court, whose {4} power is very extensive and rather
undefined. It consists of the bailiff, appointed by the Crown, who
presides, and twelve jurats appointed by the islanders through their
delegates to the elective states. There is an appeal in certain
cases to the king in council. The French language is used in the
courts and on public occasions. The dialect of the people in the
eighteenth century was still the pure Norman of many centuries
before. Each parish had a school, but the principal one was
Elizabeth College, originally a grammar school founded by Queen
Elizabeth, where Hebrew, Greek and Latin, French, German, Spanish,
Italian, drawing, music, fencing, and drilling were taught for the
modest sum of twelve pounds a year.
Although wealth and luxury were almost unknown among them, the
governing class in St. Peter's Port formed an extremely aristocratic
and exclusive set, vying in dress, manners, and language with society
of the same rank in England. Their children were frequently sent
there to school, and as their sons grew up, commissions in the
English army and navy were eagerly sought, and in many a hard-fought
battle on land and sea, the men of Guernsey have won renown. It was
not the gentler born alone that were trained to arms. By the law of
the island, every male inhabitant between the age of sixteen and
thirty-three was bound to render "man service to the Crown," and in
the stormy days of the latter half of the eighteenth century {5} and
the beginning of the nineteenth, they were often called on to take
their share in the king's wars.
[Sidenote: The Brocks of Guernsey]
For generations the Brocks had lived in St. Peter's Port, and as
Guernsey chronicles go back to legendary times, the story that they
were descended from one Sir Hugh Brock who came there in the
fourteenth century is perhaps a true one.
It seems that in the reign of Edward III. an English knight of that
name was keeper of the castle of Derval, in Brittany. When the
French overran that country this castle was besieged by the Duke of
Bourbon, the Earls of Alençon and Perche, and a gallant array of the
chivalry of France. Now Sir Hugh Brock's cousin, Sir Robert Knolles,
who was governor of the duchy of Brittany, was also at that time
besieged in Brest by the famous Bertrand du Guesclin. He succeeded
in driving off his assailants, and then marched to the relief of his
cousin, Sir Hugh, who was on the point of surrendering when the
timely succour arrived. The English were, however, soon after driven
out of France by the valiant du Guesclin, and as Guernsey lies
directly between the coast of Brittany and England it is not
improbable that this same Sir Hugh or some of his family settled
there.
Towards the close of the seventeenth century, one William Brock, of
St. Peter's Port, had three sons and one daughter. The eldest son,
William, married Judith de Beauvoir, also of an ancient Guernsey
family. The third son, Henry, married {6} Susan Saumarez, the sister
of that valiant sailor, afterwards the celebrated Admiral Lord de
Saumarez. The second son, John, born on January 24th, 1729, married
in 1758 Elizabeth de Lisle,[2] daughter of the bailiff of the island,
whose ancestor, Sir John de Lisle, had been governor of Guernsey in
the reign of Henry IV. By her he had fourteen children, of whom ten
lived to maturity. Isaac was the eighth son, and was born on October
6th, 1769,[3] the year that also saw the birth of Wellington and
Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1777 the family was deprived of a father's
care, for Mr. John Brock, formerly a midshipman in His Majesty's
navy, died at Dinan in that year at the early age of forty-eight.
His two eldest sons had already entered the army, John as an ensign
in the 8th (King's), Ferdinand in the 60th, that famous regiment once
known as the Royal Americans, which was raised in the colonies in the
time of the struggle with France, and which afterwards did such good
service in the American war. These were strenuous times, and England
was fighting in all parts of the world.
[Sidenote: The young ensign]
In 1779, just two years after his father's death, {7} Ferdinand, a
youth of nineteen, was killed at the defence of Bâton Rouge, on the
Mississippi. Isaac was then ten years old, a strong and lusty youth.
At that age he was sent to school, for a short time to Southampton,
and afterwards under the care of a French pastor in Rotterdam. While
in Guernsey he attended Queen Elizabeth's school, where the Rev. C.
Crispin was headmaster. But school life and academical distinction
were not to be his portion. At the early age of fifteen he followed
the example of his brothers, and on March 2nd, 1785, he obtained a
commission, by purchase, in the 8th Regiment, in which his eldest
brother had just purchased a captaincy, after ten years' service in
America. Though young in years he even then showed proofs of that
indomitable will which so distinguished him in after life. Feeling
the defects of his education he determined to devote his leisure to
study, and often the young ensign would, in spite of jeers, turn from
his gay comrades to pass his time among his books, with his door
locked to prevent intrusion. Not that he was by any means a prig,
for, trained to athletic sports from his earliest years, Isaac Brock
had the reputation of being the best boxer and the boldest swimmer
among his competitors at school and on the island.
When he entered the army it was at a time of peace, when England was
recovering from her long and disastrous American war, and the French
Revolution with all its horrors had not yet convulsed {8} Europe. It
was well for the young soldier that peaceful garrison duty at home
was his lot for a few years. There was plenty of work in store for
him abroad. In 1790 he purchased his lieutenancy and for a time was
quartered in Guernsey and the neighbouring island of Jersey.
At the same time, though not in the same regiment, there was
quartered with him Mr. Francis Gore, exactly of his own age, who had
entered the army about the same time, and who was destined in after
years to be associated with him in Canada.
In 1791, having raised an independent company, Isaac Brock was
gazetted as captain and exchanged into the 49th, then ordered on
foreign service in the West Indies. He was now no longer a stripling
but a man of twenty-two, of commanding stature, very erect, of a
strong athletic build, with a frank open countenance and very winning
manners. Though of a very gentle disposition he yet possessed that
quickness of decision and firmness in peril which on many trying
occasions during his military career proved most useful qualities.
From 1791 to 1793 he was quartered in Barbadoes and Jamaica.
During those years, though still at peace, England had spent three
millions in increasing her navy, and was, therefore, well prepared to
hold her supremacy on the sea.
In 1793 the war that the great minister, Pitt, had vainly tried to
avert, broke out, and from that {9} time until the peace of Amiens in
1801, England was engaged in a desperate struggle with her hereditary
foe led by the consummate genius of Napoleon.[4] On December 1st,
1793, the French Convention declared war on Great Britain and
Holland. Pitt thought that the war would be brief, but he had
miscalculated the power and resources of the enemy, and for more than
seven years it raged without intermission.
[Sidenote: Service in West Indies]
Service in the West Indies had proved disastrous to Brock, for he
fell ill of a fever there which nearly cost him his life, and to
which his young cousin succumbed. Through this illness Brock was
most tenderly and skilfully nursed by his servant Dobson, who
followed his fortunes and was his faithful friend throughout his
life. On his recovery, Captain Brock was ordered home on sick leave,
and the healing salt breezes of his native island soon restored him
to health. In September, 1794, it was the intention of the royal
court of Guernsey to raise a local regiment for the defence of the
island and the majority in it was offered to Captain Brock, then on
leave. He accepted conditionally, but the appointment which would
have changed his whole career fell {10} through, as the intention of
the government was not carried out.
He was then employed in the recruiting service in England, and on
June 24th, 1795, he purchased a majority in his own regiment. That
year his mother died. Two years later, at the early age of
twenty-eight, he became senior lieutenant-colonel of the 49th. His
predecessor had been obliged to sell out on account of some
mismanagement, and had left the regiment in a most disorganized state
requiring a firm hand to bring it under control.
The year 1797 was one of the most disastrous that England had ever
experienced. Although in 1795 the Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon had
been added to the English Crown, the powers of Europe were now
combining against her. Prussia, Sweden, and Spain had come to terms
with the republic of France. Bonaparte had overrun the north of
Italy, and in October, 1796, Spain had been forced to declare war
against England. The Dutch, French and Spanish fleets formed a
powerful armada for the invasion of England, while in Ireland the
black flag of rebellion had been raised. There was dearth and famine
and discontent at home, while generals and armies were uniformly
unsuccessful abroad.
Once again, though, as of old, the wooden walls of England proved her
salvation. By a brilliant victory off Cape St. Vincent on February
14th, 1797, Jervis and Nelson crushed the Spanish fleet and put a
stop to the meditated invasion. Worse than {11} attacks from the
enemy abroad was the discontent that had crept into both the army and
navy of England, and which broke out into open mutiny during this
year. There were grievances, no doubt, for soldiers and sailors at
that time were treated with the greatest severity. Recruited as the
service was by means of the press gang, it was impossible to expect a
high standard of conduct from those who were pressed from the prisons
and the slums. It is rather to be wondered at that with such
material England's navy did so well.
[Sidenote: Mutiny in the navy]
It was in the month of April, 1797, that the crews of the Channel
fleet rose in rebellion, and the disaffection spread with
extraordinary rapidity all over the world. At the Cape of Good Hope
the squadron stationed there rose in revolt. In the West Indies, off
Porto Rico, the crew of the _Hermione_, infuriated by the cruelty of
their captain, killed all their officers and delivered the ship over
to the Spaniards. At the mouth of the Texel, Admiral Duncan, who was
blockading the coast of Holland, was deserted by all of his ships
save two, and only by skilful manoeuvring succeeded in keeping the
enemy in ignorance of his perilous position.
The mutiny came at a time when England was pressed on all sides, and
had the state of affairs been known by the French and the Dutch,
irredeemable disaster would probably have resulted. Even the army
was affected. At Woolwich the artillerymen were insubordinate, and
it was believed {12} that secret agents of the French were at work
corrupting the army.
The 49th at that time was quartered on the banks of the Thames. As
the privates of the regiment evidently sympathized with the
mutineers, Brock kept a strict watch over the regiment, seldom going
to bed before daylight, and always sleeping with loaded pistols
beside him. During the day he frequently visited the barrack rooms
to tear down or erase such inscriptions as, "The Navy Forever."
Fortunately for England, the blaze that threatened to break out in
both services, died out in a few weeks. The courage, good sense and
intrepidity of the officers in command soon restored order, and the
glorious victory of Camperdown in October, when Admiral Duncan
destroyed the Dutch fleet showed that the "mariners of England" had
once more returned to duty.
The young colonel of the 49th now devoted himself to getting his
unruly regiment into a good state of discipline. He proved most
successful in the management of his men. "_Sévère et douce_" his
stern yet mild rule won the commendation of the commander-in-chief,
who declared that Lieutenant-Colonel Brock, from one of the worst,
had made the 49th one of the best regiments in the service.
[1] Sir John de Lisle was appointed warden of Guernsey in 1405. He
writes in 1406 from Castle Cornet, and says the castle is on the
point of falling, and ruinous through default of the timber, and asks
permission to take the timber from a house called, "The Priory of the
Vale," to assist in repairing the castle, as he could procure no
timber either from Normandy or Brittany, or any other port, on
account of the war.
[2] Her mother was Rebecca Carey.
[3] The house where the family lived and in which Isaac was probably
born and certainly brought up, is a very fine granite one, which
still remains, in the centre of the town of St. Peter's Port. It was
bought by his father, John Brock, on July 29th, 1769, possession to
be had at the ensuing Michaelmas Day, which fell a week before
Isaac's birth.--From information given by Miss Henrietta Tupper.
[4] It is reported in the "New Annual Register" of 1794 that Sheridan
complained in the House of Commons of the manipulation in England of
forged assignats, evidently done with the connivance of the
government in order to embarrass the Directory, which had issued
assignats to an enormous amount. These notes were sent to Guernsey,
and forwarded gradually to Normandy and Brittany, where they were
strewed on the shore and picked up as treasure trove by the peasantry.
{13}