A Voyage to Canada in 1812.
The Isle of Wight with its white chalk cliffs, and the semi-tropical
vegetation of its valleys, is a paradise among islands; though in
August, 1812, when Ned landed there and was met by Ferguson, the
babel of screams and howled curses he heard made him think of an
inferno.
Ned had parted with his grandfather at Southampton, where the
Surgeon, Dr. Tam, a bluff Scot, looked him over, and told him shortly
that he was to go out, forward, on the troop ship "Lightfoot", with
eight hundred men, which was all that England could spare to send
Canada--and General Brock had said that ten thousand was the smallest
number with which he could possibly defend the brave colony.
Ned was too delighted that Ferguson was one of the eight hundred to
mind anything else, but he looked at his friend startled, as they
came into the deep water harbor of Ryde, and heard the sound of women
shrieking as if death itself had gripped them. Ferguson's face
paled, "God pity them," he said. "Only a few women can go with the
regiment to Canada. They have been chosen by lot--my wife by the
good providence of God drawing a full number--and you can hear the
ones who drew blanks."
They went on board H.M.S. "Lightfoot", a fine bit of the "wooden
walls of old England." There, all seemed confusion. The Irish
womens' screams were heart-rending as they were, as gently as
possible, forced back on shore. Ned was glad to follow Ferguson
below, first to the cramped "married quarters", where he was
introduced to a neat, quiet little woman with a baby--Mrs. Ferguson.
Opening off this smaller cabin was a wide space "between decks",
where the men's hammocks were hung so close, that a man who left one
when they were all slung would have to perform an acrobatic feat to
get out, and dress on his knees on the floor under them.
As Ferguson showed Ned how to sling his hammock, and told him what he
would have to do, rough voices round them called mockingly on the
"Swaddler". Ferguson took no notice until big, brown-faced Dr. Tam,
in his uniform, appeared beside him. He nodded curtly to Ned, and
said gruffly to Ferguson--"Ye'll have to keep your Swaddling talk to
yourself this trip, man. We are going to have some trouble with this
crowd--they're Papists, too, and we can't have any religious fights.
So you see you keep your mouth shut. Our new colonel hasn't any use
for preaching soldiers."
Ned was too bewildered by the astounding unexpectedness of his new
surroundings to be able to think clearly for the moment, but Dr. Tam
shrugged his shoulders as he went aft to his quarters; Edgar was his
friend, and Edgar had insisted that Ned should be sent out with the
men of this regiment. "The best of them," growled Dr. Tam to
himself, "are Irish rebels whom England doesn't dare to send to the
Continent, for fear they might go over to the French. As to the
worst of them, the regiments that threw them out weren't saints, but
there are a few things that a man can't stand, and keep the least
scrap of decency. And to think of that boy, who is as innocent as a
girl, being compelled to live among them for a month! But it's his
own father's doing, and I suppose it was the only thing to do."
Dr. Tam was a friend of Edgar's, and like him believed that a man
whose religion condemned war must be a coward; and when he also held
remarkable views on the equality of women, it showed he was
effeminate. It was to cure Ned of his supposed weaknesses in one
rough lesson, that he was reconciled to his making the voyage as he
did.
Ned, who had the cheerful temper that goes with perfect health,
decided that his new companions would probably improve when he got to
know them better, and in any case he had a good comrade in Ferguson,
so he stayed on deck, enjoying the novelty of everything.
By now everything was in perfect order. Screaming women and howling
men had been put out of hearing and sight before the captain and the
officers' ladies who were cabin passengers, came on board. Ned saw
Chloe's broad black face, a good foil for the patrician loveliness of
Betty beside her; Bee was with them, and Ned thought--"Vere's as ass
to call her ugly, or even plain; she's not a beauty like Mrs. Haslem,
but she's sparkling, and radiant. When she's grown up no one will
call her plain."
Then Ned saw some one in whom he was more interested than in any
girl--Vere, with whom he still corresponded, and whom he still liked;
for all that was good in Vere showed itself when he wrote to or met
Ned; he valued Ned's good opinion more than any one's, and if any
influence could ever save Vere, from himself, it would be the quiet
strength of young Ned Edgar.
Vere saw Ned at last, and went to him amazed--"What on earth are you
doing here?" he exclaimed.
Ned explained, and though the sudden coldness with which Vere turned
away hurt him a little, he was not surprised, nor much disappointed
in his friend, for he understood that now less than ever, among his
present companions, would Vere be able to meet him openly as a friend.
* * *
They were off now. At a word, sail after sail had unfurled, and
beautiful under her enormous spread of white canvas, the "Lightfoot"
"trod the waters like a thing of life." Ned was fascinated at this
manifestation of drilled power. Every man on the ship had moved as a
part of one great machine, and his imagination took fire. It seemed
audacious that men should show such strength.
Ferguson seemed to have guessed his thoughts, for later when the
shores of England were fading from view, he said--"Look ahead now,
Ned."
Behind them the sun was shining, but before them the Atlantic rolled,
a mighty heaving waste of gray waves, under a heavy sky piled with
lowering storm clouds. A heaved-up ridge of water caught the
"Lightfoot", she rose on its height, and slid down as it passed--a
plaything of the sullen sea. Suddenly she seemed small to Ned, a
winged insect fluttering in the grasp of the terrible ocean.
"The sea is His, He made it," cried Ferguson in mingled awe and
exaltation, "I am afraid when I think of His infinite power, yet this
awful God is mine--my Lord and my Lover," and his voice sank to a
thrilling softness as he said the last word.
By night Ned had forgotten Ferguson and everything. With most of the
unhappy soldiers he was horribly seasick, faintly wishing that some
enemy might in charity sink the "Lightfoot" with all on board her.
Even this, however, finally passed. He felt an interest in living
once more and even in eating again. A few men, Ferguson among them,
remained sick and stayed so all the voyage, crawling shakily about
when the sea was very smooth, and collapsing at a hint of rough
weather.
Every morning each man received his rations for the day, cooked
meat--salt beef or pork--pease-pudding, some rice or porridge, sea
biscuits, a little sugar and butter, a pint of hot cocoa, some rum,
and three quarts of drinking water. The fare was coarse, but it was
wholesome and abundant, and Ned enjoyed it.
Sells, a ruffianly looking man whose hammock hung next to his, swore
at everything.
"Dog's food, that's what it is," he growled, "And do you know what
they're eating aft? Every morning there's a dish of chocolate or
coffee, with cakes and biscuits, and all the butter they like. Then
biscuit and cheese at noon, and a high class dinner at night with
fresh fowls and meat--they've live sheep, and pigs, and chickens on
board for themselves--and potatoes, and pickles, and plum-pudding,
with porter and wine. Then they have a supper of coffee and cake,
and preserves, and more wine. Curses on all rich, I say."
He closed with a stream of profanity which brought Ferguson, pale and
shaken, to his feet with a stern--"Thou shalt not take the Name of
the Lord thy God in vain."
With an ugly oath Sells knocked him down, and Ned sprang to his
assistance, for mal-de-mer had left Ferguson too weak to defend
himself, and Sells was beating him savagely. The crowding men round
them, cursing all "Swaddling interferers", struck at the two
Methodists, yelling the war cries of persecuted, bitter, Papist
Ireland. Ferguson and Ned were only saved from serious injury by the
prompt interference of the sergeants, who, however, told Ferguson
that the next time he "preached" and caused a riot they would report
him.
His bruises, and anxiety as to Ferguson, kept the boy awake for some
time that night. When he slept, at last, he was almost immediately
awakened by a confusion of frightful sounds. The shriek of the winds
and the pounding of the sea showed that "no small tempest was upon
them." Frantic voices cried that a mast, or spar, had fallen, that
the captain was killed, the boats were all swept away, and that the
ship was sinking. Eight hundred fear-crazed men, with a score of
women, all penned in the pitchy dark, under fastened hatches,
screamed, cursed, and called on the saints, while the ship seemed to
roll nearly over, and Ned shuddered as he clung to his hammock and
tried to pray. Then through a lull in the tumult he heard a woman
singing--
"Jesus, Lover of my soul, let me to Thy
bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll, whilst the
tempest still is high."
"It's the Swaddler's wife," Ned heard Tim Kelly, an ignorant Irish
giant, groan, "Sure, it's hitting him has brought this on us. A man
that hits a woman or a priest never has no luck. Mary! save us all,
we're going now. Boys, ask the Swaddler to pray. Sure, a heretic
priest, if he's a good living man, is better than none, when it comes
to dying."
A hundred voices called to Ferguson, and men were silent, while
between the roars of the wind the Methodist spoke, the perfect
calmness of his voice reassuring the terrified people. Bit by bit he
shouted the story of the Man who walked on the sea of Galilee, and
who slept in its wildest storm, only waking at the prayer of His
frightened companions, to still winds and waves with a word.
"The "Lightfoot" weathered the storm--thanks to Ferguson's prayers,
Kelly and his mates believed, and they treated him with the rough
respect which the south Irishman, lovable and unreasonable,
superstitious and chivalrous, gives to his women and priests. They
tried not to swear in his presence, and took his reproofs meekly when
they forgot themselves. Sells and the few like him who were really
thorough blackguards dared not say a word.
"You see, Ned," said Ferguson, "how God can change the lion into a
lamb, and cause enemies to become friends."
Ned smiled, thinking--"The old Greeks were right when they said the
gods help those who help themselves."
There was now a dead calm. For several days the "Lightfoot" lay idle
on the sea. The soldiers' rations were reduced, and as the calm
continued, reduced again. The drinking water became unspeakably
foul. It was a time of considerable anxiety for the officers--eight
hundred men, illiterate and coarse-minded, the class that thinks most
of what it eats, were now only half fed. Every hour they looked for
trouble, ready to meet it with the utmost severity--yet it did not
come.
"I don't understand," said the colonel over his wine after dinner.
"Here's a mob of Irish recruits who are probably all rebels in their
hearts, and a few score English blackguards. What's making them
behave?"
"A Swaddler named Ferguson from Ulster, I think, sir," said Dr. Tam.
"In some utterly incomprehensible way he has managed to mesmerize a
crowd of south Irish into imagining he is a priest. He is suffering
still with sea-sickness, and he lives on air and saying prayers, but
he is always cheerful, makes jokes on his own privations, and is so
tactful with his religious talk, that the men are ashamed to complain
before him."
"Hum, I don't believe in Methodists and these preaching soldiers, but
this seems to be an exceptional case. But why isn't he in hospital
having proper food, if he is as sick as you say?"
"I wanted him to go, sir, but he didn't."
"Are you in the habit, Doctor, of letting your patients decide
whether they shall obey your orders or not?"
"As you said, sir, Ferguson is an exceptional case. Under the
circumstances I thought it best to let him have his way."
"Hum, yes, but we can't have a man like him sacrificed to keep a
rabble in order. I'll go and see him myself."
So the colonel stood with Percy and Dr. Tam by the Methodist's
hammock. Ferguson was too weak to rise, but he answered the
colonel's inquiries very cheerfully--"Thank you, sir, but I have
everything I need and more. I don't have to depend on food to
sustain me while I have the Book which says 'man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from God'."
"Er, that is, of course the Bible is a very good book," blurted the
Colonel, somewhat at a loss, "but if you require anything, mind and
let the doctor know."
As they returned to the deck he said abruptly--"What's that man's
record before he joined us? What's he doing in the ranks after three
years service?"
"His record's all right, sir," answered Percy, "but he is a Methodist
first and a soldier afterwards. He has spent the bulk of his time as
an officer's servant, preferring that to being a sergeant, as it
gives him more liberty and more time, to go out and preach."
"And suppose I object to this regiment being made a convenience for
the Methodist itinerancy?"
"Seeing the Methodist itinerancy in the shape of Ferguson is being a
great convenience to us, sir, I don't see the reason for your
objection."
"Well, well, we will see. Doctor, don't let that man starve himself
outright, while he is shaming the others into not complaining."
Then the welcome wind came, rations were increased, and on September
17, Ned saw Canada--Halifax, with the deep green of the all-embracing
forest round her, and the vivid scarlet of the British flag still
above her forts.
The regiment with its officers, and the soldiers' wives were packed
on the "Herald", a little 70-gun warship. They sailed up a mile-wide
river, Ned straining his eyes to see a line of distant hills clothed
with the same unbroken forest. Then the hills were blotted out by
dark driving clouds, and sheets of rain. The waves rose, and the
"Herald" plunged through a night of storm and great discomfort to all
on board. Sunshine came with the morning, but the ship stopped off a
rocky mountainous spot, with no sign of human habitation. Orders
were given, the men took their arms and knapsacks, the women their
children, and all were landed with much difficulty.
There was no sign of a road anywhere. They climbed a rugged slope
only to descend on its further side, and find another and steeper one
before them, many of the men having to get up the worst places on
their hands and knees. Mrs. Ferguson was being helped by Dr. Tam,
and Ned took her child on his back as they scrambled up the second
hill and slipped down it into a wide deep bog.
"Sure, and I don't see why we don't present this country to the
Yankees as a gift," grumbled Tim Kelly. "It's not fit for a decent
Christian to live in. I don't wonder it hasn't any people. Murder!
there's my shoe gone, and I daren't swear with the little Swaddler so
near."
"Forward," said a voice, and with demoralized ranks the regiment
crawled out of the mud, leaving many more shoes behind it. Night
came, but there was no halt till it seemed to Ned that he had spent
weeks falling over bushes and into creeks. At last, however, the
worn-out men were allowed to rest, and soon forgot their fatigues as
they ate their suppers round huge fires of logs, and then bivouaced
by them.
"I wonder where we are, and if the enemy is anywhere near?" said Ned
as he lay down by Ferguson, "I guess you are pretty done up."
"I certainly feel the need of being under the grace of God," said the
Methodist, "to lay the rough path of my peevish nature even, and open
in my heart a constant Heaven."
The next day they marched back to the ship, and soon reached Quebec,
the excursion being an official idea to "break-in" fresh troops to
campaigning in Canada. The fortress city on the cliff with the many
priests in her streets, and French spoken everywhere, seemed very
foreign to Ned.
"I thought Canada was English," Ferguson said to him as they went out
together.
"And so she is, stranger," said a fine looking man, who after
watching them closely, stepped up beside them. His speech and
manners showed education, though he wore a hunting shirt of buckskin,
and blue cloth trousers with fringes on the seams. A skin cap,
beaded moccasins, and a silver-handled hunting knife in his belt
completed his costume. He went on talking in the same frankly
friendly manner, telling of the first invasion of Canada, across the
Detroit River, by General Hull, with twenty-five hundred American
troops.
"He sent us a proclamation--'To the People of Canada'--telling them
to choose between the 'peace, liberty, and security' he'd give them
if they'd hurry in and be annexed, and the 'war, slavery, and
destruction' they'd get if they didn't.' Canada didn't seem to want
his 'peace and liberty', especially after he had given us a sample of
them by raiding on the Canadian side. Then Brock left York with
three hundred regulars, four hundred militia, and five guns, and near
Detroit he met Tecumseh with seven hundred Shawanese."
"Excuse me," said Ned, "but we don't know who these people are."
"The Ohio river Indians--they've been scrapping with the Yankees all
along, and Tecumseh, their chief, thought if we were fighting them
too they might as well join hands with us."
"I've heard of the Ojibways and Mohawks," said Ned. "My father is a
trader in York, and he wrote me that Upper Canada would raise six
thousand militia, and her Indians could send in four thousand men as
well."
"Canadian Indians are all right," said their friend. "They're under
our government and laws, but Indians don't fight like white men, and
as the Shawanese are only our allies, we mayn't always be able to
control them. But it will be all right as long as Brock's at the
head of things. On August 15, with only fourteen hundred men, half
of them Indians, he moved to attack Detroit, and Hull with
twenty-five hundred in a strong fort, capitulated."
"He was a coward," exclaimed Ned.
"Not so fast, son. He had Detroit with its women and children to
think of. He knew what it would mean if it was stormed by Indians.
In his place I'd have surrendered to any decent white man."
"Well, that's one victory for us," said Ned.
"We would have had more, but Sir George Prevost, the
Governor-General, made an armistice with the Yankees. He hoped to
make peace, but they wouldn't meet him, and only used the time to arm
their ships on the lakes. And now, I suppose I may introduce myself,
I'm James Edgar, of York, and I'm down here to meet Ned, my son."
* * *
After a joyous greeting, Ned was hurried off by Edgar to the little
steamer "Accommodation", the first of her kind on Canadian waters.
For nineteen shillings she took them to Montreal, giving them food,
and letting them "berth" with their blankets among her piles of
freight. At Montreal a score of bateaux--broad, heavily-built
boats--were waiting, and Ned was surprised to find his father in
command of the Indians and white men in buckskin shirts who manned
them. They were loaded with ammunition, and meant to run the
gauntlet of the guard the Americans kept on the river between
Montreal and Kingston, blockading Upper Canada--now Ontario.