Robert Marsh claimed American citizenship, but the eventful year of 1837
found him on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. His brother was a
baker at Chippewa, and Robert drove a cart, laden with the bakery
products, back and forth between the neighboring villages. From St.
Catharines to Fort Erie he dispensed bread and crackers and the other
perhaps not wholly harmless ammunition that was moulded in that Chippewa
bakery; and he naturally absorbed the ideas and the sentiments of the
men he met. The Niagara district was at fever heat. Mackenzie had sown
his Patriot literature broadcast, and what with real and imaginary
wrongs the majority of the community sentiment seemed ripe for
rebellion.
It is easy enough now, as one reads the story of that uprising, to see
that the rebels never had a ghost of a chance. The grip of the
Government never was in real danger of being thrown off in the upper
province; but a very little rebellion looks great in the eyes of the
rebel who hazards his neck thereby; and it is no wonder that Robert
Marsh came to the conclusion that the colonial government of Canada was
about to be overthrown, or that he decided to cast in his lot with
those who should win glory in the cause of freedom. As an American
citizen he had a right to do this. History was full of high precedents.
Did not Byron espouse the cause of the Greeks? Did not Lafayette make
his name immortal in the ranks of American rebels? One part of America
had lately thrown off the hated yoke of Great Britain; why should not
another part? So our cracker peddler reasoned; and reasoning thus, began
the train of adventures for the narration of which I draw in brief upon
his own obscure narrative. It is a story that leads us over some strange
old trails, and its value lies chiefly in the fact that it illustrates,
by means of a personal experience, a well-defined period in the history
of the Niagara region. Robert Marsh is hardly an ideal hero, but he is a
fair type of a class who contrived greatly to delude themselves, and to
pay roundly for their experience. He thought as many others thought;
what he adventured was also adventured by many other men of spirit; and
what he endured before he got through with it was the unhappy lot of
many of his fellows.
It was a time of great discontent and discouragement on both sides of
the border. Throughout the Holland Purchase the difficulties over land
titles had reached a climax, and the sheriff and his deputies enforced
the law at the risk of their lives. This year of 1837 also brought the
financial panic which is still a high-water mark of hard times in our
history. Buffalo suffered keenly, and it is not strange that such of
her young men as had a drop of adventurous blood in their veins were
ready to turn "Patriot" for the time being; though as a matter of sober
fact it must be recorded that the enthusiasm of the majority did not
blind their judgment to the hopelessness of the rebellion. On the
Canadian side the case was different. Unlike their American brethren,
many of the residents there felt that they had not a representative
government. It is not necessary now, nor is it essential to our story,
to rehearse the grievances which the Canadian Patriots undertook to
correct by taking up arms against the established authority. They are
presented with great elaboration in many histories; they are detailed
with curious ardor in the Declaration of Rights, a document
ostentatiously patterned after the Declaration of Independence. William
Lyon Mackenzie was a long way from being a Thomas Jefferson; yet he and
his associates undertook a reform which--taking it at their
valuation--was as truly in behalf of liberty as was the work of the
Signers of the Declaration of Independence. They made the same appeal to
justice; argued from the same point of view for man's inalienable
rights; they were temperate, too, in their demands, and sought liberty
without bloodshed. Yet while the American patriots were enabled to
persist and win their cause, though after two bitter and exhausting
wars, their Canadian imitators were ignominiously obliterated in a few
weeks. In the one case the cause of Liberty won her brightest star. In
the other, there is complete defeat, without a monument save the
derision of posterity.
It was in November of this year of rebellion 1837 that Marsh, being at
Chippewa, decided to cast in his lot with the Patriots. "I began to
think," he says, "that I must soon become an actor on one side or the
other." He saw the Government troops patrolling every inch of the
Canadian bank of the Niagara, and concentrating in the vicinity of
Chippewa. "Boats of every description were brought from different parts;
at the same time they were mustering all their cannon and mortars
intending to drive them [the Patriots] off; one would think by their
talk, that they would not only kill them all, but with their cannon mow
down all the trees, and what the balls failed in hitting the trees would
fall upon, and thus demolish the whole Patriot army." Our hero's
observations have this peculiar value: they are on the common level. He
heard the boasts and braggadocio of the common soldier; the diplomatic
or guarded speech of officers and officials he did not record. He heard
all about the plot to seize the Caroline, and could not believe it at
first. But, he says, "when I beheld the men get in the boats and shove
off and the beacon lights kindled on the shore, that they might the more
safely find the way back, my eyes were on the stretch, towards where the
ill-fated boat lay." When he saw the party return and heard them boast
of what they had done, he thought it high time for him to leave the
place. "Judge my feelings," he says, "on beholding this boat on fire,
perhaps some on board, within two short miles of the Falls of Niagara,
going at the rate of twelve miles an hour."[47]
The Caroline was burned on the 29th of December. On the next day our
hero and a friend set out to join the Patriots. Let me quote in
condensed fashion from his narrative, which is a tolerably graphic
contribution to the history of this famous episode:
"We succeeded in reaching the river six miles above Chippewa about 11
o'clock in the evening, after a tedious and dangerous journey through an
extensive swamp. There is a small settlement in a part of this swamp
which has been called Sodom. There were many Indians prowling about. We
managed to evade them but with much difficulty. There were sentinels
every few rods along the line." A friendly woman at a farmhouse let them
take a boat. They offered her $5 for its use, but she declined; "she
said she would not take anything ... as she knew our situation and felt
anxious to do all in her power to help us across the river; she also
told us that her husband had taken Mackenzie across a few nights
previous. 'Leave the boat in the mouth of the creek,' said she,
pointing across the river towards Grand Island, ... 'there is a man
there that will fetch it back, you have only to fasten it, say nothing
and go your way.' We were convinced that we were not the only ones
assisted by this patriotic lady."
Marsh and his companion, whose surname was Thomas, launched the boat
with much difficulty, and with muffled oars they rowed across to Grand
Island. "It was about 1 o'clock in the morning and we had to go eight or
nine miles through the woods and no road. There had been a light fall of
snow, and in places [was] ice that would bear a man, but oftener would
not; once or twice in crossing streams the ice gave way and we found
ourselves nearly to the middle in water." Our patriot's path, the reader
will note, was hard from the outset, but he kept on, expecting to be
with his friends again in a few days, and little dreaming of what lay
ahead of him. "We at near daylight succeeded in reaching White Haven, a
small village, where we were hailed by one of our militia sentinels:
'Who comes there?' 'Friends.' 'Advance and give the countersign.' Of
course we advanced, but we could not give the countersign; a guard was
immediately dispatched with us to headquarters, where we underwent a
strict examination."
He was sent across to Tonawanda, where he took the cars for Schlosser.
There the blood-stains on the dock where Durfee had been killed sealed
his resolution; he crossed to Navy Island and presented himself at the
headquarters of William Lyon Mackenzie, the peppery little Scotchman
who was the prime organizer of the Provisional Government, and of
General Van Rensselaer, commander-in-chief of the Patriot Army. "The
General produced the list and asked me the length of time I wished to
enlist. I was so confident of success that I unhesitatingly replied,
'Seven years or during the war.' The General remarked, 'I wish I had
2,000 such men, we have about 1,000 already,[48] and I think this
Caroline affair will soon swell our force to 2,000, and then I shall
make an attack at some point where they least expect, ... and as you are
well acquainted there I want you to be by my side.'" Here was preferment
indeed, for Marsh believed that Van Rensselaer was brave and able;
history has a different verdict; but we must assume that our hero
entered upon the campaign with high hopes and who knows what visions of
glory.
Now, at the risk of tiresomeness, I venture to dwell a little longer on
this occupancy of Navy Island; I promise to get over ground faster
farther along in the story. It is assumed that the reader knows the
principal facts of this familiar episode; but in Marsh's journal I find
graphic details of the affair not elsewhere given, to my knowledge. Let
me quote from his obscure record:
After my informing the General of their preparations and intention
of attacking the Island, breastworks were hastily thrown up, and
all necessary arrangements made to give them a warm reception.
There were twenty-five cannon, mostly well mounted, which could
easily be concentrated at any point required; and manned by men
that knew how to handle them. Besides other preparations, tops of
trees and underbrush were thrown over the bank at different places
to prevent them landing. I know there were various opinions
respecting the strength of the Island, but from close observation,
during these days of my enlistment, it is my candid opinion that if
they had attacked the Island, as was expected, they would mostly or
all have found a watery grave. The tories were fearful of this, for
when the attempt was made men could not be found to hazard their
lives in so rash an attempt....
It was hoped and much regretted by all on the Island that the
attempt was not made; for if they had done so it would have thinned
their ranks and made it the more easy for us to have entered Canada
at that place. They finally concluded to bring all their artillery
to bear upon us, and thus exterminate all within their reach. They
were accordingly arranged in martial pomp, opposite the Island, the
distance of about three-quarters of a mile. Now the work of
destruction commences; the balls and bombs fly in all directions.
The tops of the trees appear to be a great eye-sore to them. I
suppose they thought by commencing an attack upon them, their
falling would aid materially in the destruction of lives below.
Robert, the reader will have observed, had a fine gift of sarcasm. The
thundering of artillery was heard, by times, he says, for twenty and
thirty miles around, for a week, "[the enemy] being obliged to cease
firing at times for her cannons to cool. They were very lavish with Her
Gracious Majesty's powder and balls." He continues:
I recollect a man standing behind the breastwork where were four of
us sitting as the balls were whistling through the trees. "Well,"
says he, "if this is the way to kill the timber on this island, it
certainly is a very expensive way as well as somewhat comical; I
should think it would be cheaper to come over with axes, and if
they are not in too big a hurry, girdle the trees and they will die
the sooner." I remarked: "They did not know how to use an axe, but
understood girdling in a different way." An old gentleman from
Canada taking the hint quickly responded, "Yes. Canada can testify
to the fact of their having other ways of girdling besides with the
axe, and unless there is a speedy stop put to it, there will not be
a green tree left." There was another gentleman about to say
something of their manner of swindling in other parts of the world,
he had just commenced about Ireland when I felt a sudden jar at my
back, and the other three that set near me did the same; we rose up
and discovered that a cannon ball had found its way through our
breastwork, but was kind enough to stop after just stirring the
dirt at our backs. I had only moved about an inch of dirt when I
picked up a six-pound ball.
As it happened, our gun was a six-pounder. We concluded, as that
was the only ball that had as yet been willing to pay us a visit,
we would send it back as quick as it come. We immediately put it
into our gun and wheeled around the corner of the breastwork.
"Hold," said I, "there is Queen Ann's Pocket Piece, as it is
called, it will soon be opposite, and then we'll show them what we
can do." It was not mounted, but swung under the ex [axle] of a
cart, such as are used for drawing saw-logs, with very large
wheels. I had seen it previous to my leaving Chippewa. I think
there was six horses attached to the cart, for it was very heavy,
it being a twenty-four-pounder. I suppose it was their intention to
split the Island in two with it, hoping by so doing it might loosen
at the roots and move off with the current and go over the falls,
and thus accomplish their great work of destruction at once. As
they were opposite, the words "ready, fire," were given; we had the
satisfaction of seeing the horses leave the battleground with all
possible speed. The gun was forsaken in no time, and in less than
five minutes there was scarcely a man to be seen. The ball had
gone about three feet further to the left than had been intended;
it was intended to lop the wheels, but it severed the tongue from
the ex and the horses took the liberty to move off as fast as
possible.
We were about to give them another shot, when the officer of the
day came up and told us the orders from headquarters were not to
fire unless it was absolutely necessary, that we must be saving of
our ammunition. I told him that it was their own ball that we had
just sent back. When he saw the execution it had done he smiled and
went on, remarking, "They begin to fire a little lower." "Yes,"
said I, "and as that was the first, we thought we would send it
back and let them know we did not want it, that we had balls of our
own."
This incident was the beginning of more active operations. For the next
nine days and nights there was a great deal of firing, with one killed
and three wounded. The Patriot army held on to its absurd stronghold for
four weeks, causing, as Marsh quaintly puts it, "much noise and
confusion on both sides"; and he at least was keenly disappointed when
it was evacuated, Jan. 12, 1838. The handful of Patriots scattered and
Chippewa composed herself to the repose which, but for one ripple of
disturbance in 1866, continues to the present day.
Up to the end of this abortive campaign Robert Marsh's chief
misadventure had been to cut himself off, practically, from a safe
return to the community where his best interests lay. But he had a stout
heart if a perverse head. "I was born of Patriot parentage," he boasted;
"I am not a Patriot today and tomorrow the reverse"; and being fairly
identified with the rebels, he determined to woo the fortunes of war
wherever opportunity offered. His ardor must have been considerable,
for he made his way in the dead of winter from Buffalo to Detroit; just
how I do not know; but he speaks of arriving at Sandusky "after a
tedious walk of five days." Here he joined a party for an attack on
Malden, but the Patriots were themselves attacked by some 300 Canadian
troops who came across the lake in sleighs; there was a lively fight on
the ice, with some loss of life, when each party was glad to retire.
Next he tried it with a band of rebels on Fighting Island, below
Detroit; treachery and "the power of British gold" seem to have kept
Canada from falling into their hands; and presently, "being sick of
island fighting," as he puts it, he made his way to Detroit, where, all
through that troubled summer of '38, he appears to have been one of the
most active and ardent of the plotters. Certain it is that he was
promptly to the front for the battle of Windsor, and was with the
invaders on Dec. 4, 1838, when a band of 164 misguided men crossed the
Detroit River to take Canada. He was "Lieutenant" Marsh on this
expedition, but it was the emptiest of honors. At four in the morning
they attacked the barracks on the river banks above Windsor, and, as
often happens with the most fatuous enterprises, met at the outset with
success. They burned the barracks and took thirty-eight prisoners (whom
they could not hold), looking meanwhile across the river for help which
never came. "We were about planting our standard," wrote Marsh
afterward; "the flag was a splendid one, with two stars for Upper and
Lower Canada. We had just succeeded in getting a long spar and was in
the act of raising it, as the cry was heard,--'There comes the
Red-coats! There are the dragoons!'" Our Patriot, it will be observed,
made no nice distinctions between British and Canadian troops; that
distinction will not fail to be made for him, in a province which has
always claimed the honor--to which it is fully entitled--of putting down
this troublesome uprising without having to call for help upon the
British regulars. But the invaders did not raise nice points then. They
hastily formed and withstood the attack for a little; but it was a
hopeless stand, for numbers and discipline were all on the other side.
According to Marsh, the regulars numbered 600. There was sharp firing,
eleven Patriots and forty-four Canadians were killed; and seeing this,
and learning, later than his friends across the river, that discretion
is the better part of valor, he did the only thing that remained to
do--he took to the woods.
The woods were full just then of discreet Patriots, and several of them
held a breathless council of war. Here is Marsh's account of it:
It was finally concluded for every man to do the best he could for
himself. We accordingly separated and I found myself pursued by a
man hollowing at the top of his voice, "Stop there, stop, you
damned rebel, or I'll shoot you! stop, stop!" I was near a fence at
that time crossing a field. I proceeded to the fence, dropped on
one knee, put my rifle through the fence, took deliberate aim. He
had a gun and was gaining on me. I had a cannister of powder, pouch
of balls, two pistols and an overcoat on, which prevented me from
attempting to run. I saw all hopes of escape was useless; I
discharged my rifle, but cannot say whether it hit the mark or not,
for I did not look, but immediately rose and walked off. At any
rate I heard no more "Stop there, you damned rebel."
Marsh's narrative is too diffuse, not to mention other faults, for me to
follow it _verbatim et (il-)literatim_. I give the events of the next
few days as simply as possible. After he fired his gun through the fence
at the red-coat who followed no more--his last shot, be it remarked, for
the relief of Canada--he found that he was very tired. It was late in
the day of the battle and he had eaten nothing for nearly forty-eight
hours. Pushing on through the woods he came to a barn, but had scarcely
entered when it was surrounded by ten or twelve "dragoons," as he calls
them. He scrambled up a ladder to the hay-mow, dug a hole in the hay,
crawled in and smoothed it over himself, and, he says, "had just got a
pistol in each hand as the door flew open; in they rushed, crying, 'Come
out, you damned rebel, we'll shoot you, we'll not take you before the
Colonel to be shot, come out, come out, we'll hang you.' Said another,
'We'll quarter you and feed you to the hogs as we've just served one!'
They thrust their swords into the hay, and threatened to burn the barn;
but as it belonged to one of their sort, they thought better of it and
went off. They soon came back, and saying they would place a sentry,
disappeared again." Marsh tore up certain papers which he feared would
be troublesome if found on him and then slept. It was dark when he
awoke. He crept out of the barn and wandered through the woods until
daylight, narrowly escaping some Indians. He applied at the house of a
French settler for something to eat; frankly admitting, what it
obviously was folly to deny, that he was a fugitive. Three "large bony
Frenchmen" came to the door, made him their prisoner and marched him off
through the woods to Sandwich, where he was stripped of his valuables
and locked up with several others, his captors cheerfully assuring them
that they would have a fine shooting-match tomorrow. Marsh stoutly
maintained that, as he owed the Queen no allegiance, he was not a rebel;
but his protests did him no good. He was not shot on the morrow,
although others of the captives were summarily executed, without a
pretext of trial or even a chance to say their prayers.
And now begins an imprisonment of ten months full of such distress and
atrocity that I should not please, however much I might edify, by its
recital. We read today of the horrors of Spanish and Turkish massacres
or of Siberian prisons, and every page of history has its record of
inhumanity--its Black Hole, its Dartmoor, its Andersonville. In this
dishonor roll of official outrages surely may be included the backwoods
prisons of Upper Canada in 1838 and '39. Our misadventurer was shifted
from one to another. At Fort Malden, on the shore of Lake Erie, he was
kept for seven weeks in a small room with twenty-eight other men. It was
the dead of winter, but they had no warmth save from their emaciated and
vermin-infested bodies. They were ironed two and two, day and night.
They were so crowded that there was not floor-room for all to sleep at
once. According to Marsh, who afterwards wrote a minute record of this
imprisonment, their feeding and care would have been fatal to a herd of
hogs. The acme of the miseries of the prison at Fort Malden I cannot
even hint at with propriety. When transferred from Sandwich to Malden,
and later from Malden to London, Marsh, like many of his fellow
sufferers, had his feet frozen; and when his limbs swelled so that life
itself was threatened, it was not the surgeon but a clumsy blacksmith
who cut off the irons and supplied new ones.
In London the treatment of Malden was repeated. Here the trials began.
The gallows was erected close to the jail wall; day by day the doomed
ones walked out of a door in the second story to the death platform; and
day by day Marsh and the other wretches in the cells heard the drop as
it swung, in falling, against the jail wall. Marsh lived in hourly
expectation of the summons, but before his turn came there was a stay in
the work which had been going on under the warrants signed by Sir George
Arthur--as great a tyrant, probably, as ever held power on the American
continent. A far more philosophic writer than Robert Marsh has called
him the Robespierre of Canada. Whatever may be held as to the illegality
of the trials which sent some twenty-five men to the gallows at this
time, certain it is that the hangings stopped before our hero's neck was
stretched. Fate still had her quiver full of evil days for him; and
fortune, like a gleam of sun between clouds, moved him on to the prison
at Toronto, where his mother came to see him.
It was in the early spring of 1839 that he was transferred to Toronto.
In June following, with a boatload of companions, he was shipped down to
Fort Henry at Kingston. Here, for three months, he was deluded with the
constant expectation of release; but he must have had some
foreshadowings of his fate when, after three months of wretched
existence at Fort Henry, he was again sent on, down the river to Quebec;
and there, on September 28, 1839, he and 137 companions in irons were
put aboard the British prison-ship Buffalo, commanded by Capt. Wood.
They were stowed on the third deck, below the water line; 140 sailors
were placed over them; and the Buffalo took her course down the widening
gulf. The dismal departure was lightened by a touch of human nature.
There were several of the convicts who, like Marsh, claimed American
citizenship, and American blood will show itself.[49] As the prisoners
were marched down with clanking chains from Fort Henry for the shipment
to Quebec, many of them thought that it was their last shift before
release. "There were three or four very good singers amongst us," says
Marsh, "which made the fort ring with the 'American Star,' 'Hunters of
Kentucky' and other similar songs, which caused many to flock to our
windows. Some of them remarked, 'You will not feel like singing in
Botany Bay.' 'Give us "Botany Bay,"' said one, and it was done in good
style."
If the reader will permit the digression, it may afford a little
entertainment to consider for a moment these old songs. The literature
of every war includes its patriotic songs--seldom the work of great
poets, and most popular when they appeal to the quick sympathies and
sense of humor of the common people. Every people has such songs,
sometimes cherished and sung for generations. England has them without
number, Canada has hers, the United States has hers; and among the most
popular for many years, strange as it now may seem, were "The American
Star" and "The Hunters of Kentucky," which were sung by these
none-too-worthy representatives of the United States, through Canadian
prison bars, this autumn morning sixty years ago. Both songs had their
origin, I believe, at the time of the War of 1812. That such barren and
bombastic lines as "The American Star" should have remained popular a
quarter of a century seems incredible, and appears to indicate that the
youth of the country were very hard up for patriotic songs worth
singing. Here follows "The American Star":
Come, strike the bold anthem, the war dogs are howling,
Already they eagerly snuff up their prey,
The red clouds of war o'er our forests are scowling,
Soft peace spreads her wings and flies weeping away;
The infants, affrighted, cling close to their mothers,
The youths grasp their swords, for the combat prepare,
While beauty weeps fathers, and lovers and brothers,
Who rush to display the American Star.
Come blow the shrill bugle, the loud drum awaken,
The dread rifle seize, let the cannon deep roar;
No heart with pale fear, or faint doubtings be shaken,
No slave's hostile foot leave a print on our shore.
Shall mothers, wives, daughters and sisters left weeping,
Insulted by ruffians, be dragged to despair!
Oh no! from her hills the proud eagle comes sweeping
And waves to the brave the American Star.
The spirits of Washington, Warren, Montgomery,
Look down from the clouds with bright aspect serene;
Come, soldiers, a tear and a toast to their memory,
Rejoicing they'll see us as they once have been.
To us the high boon by the gods has been granted,
To speed the glad tidings of liberty far;
Let millions invade us, we'll meet them undaunted,
And vanquish them by the American Star.
Your hands, then, dear comrades, round Liberty's altar,
United we swear by the souls of the brave
Not one from the strong resolution shall falter,
To live independent, or sink to the grave!
Then, freemen, fill up--Lo, the striped banner's flying,
The high bird of liberty screams through the air;
Beneath her oppression and tyranny dying--
Success to the beaming American Star.
Every one of its turgid and wordy lines bespeaks the struggling infancy
of a National literature. "The Hunters of Kentucky" is a little better,
because it has humor--though of the primitive backwoods type--in it. If
the reader has not heard it lately, perhaps he can stand a little of it.
It was inspired by the battle of New Orleans:
Ye gentlemen and ladies fair,
Who grace this famous city,
Just listen, if you've time to spare,
While I rehearse a ditty;
And for the opportunity
Conceive yourselves quite lucky,
For 'tis not often that you see
A hunter from Kentucky;
O! Kentucky,
The hunters of Kentucky.
We are a hardy free-born race,
Each man to fear a stranger;
Whate'er the game, we join in chase,
Despising toil and danger;
And if a daring foe annoys,
Whate'er his strength or force is,
We'll show him that Kentucky boys
Are alligators,--horses:
O! Kentucky, etc.
I s'pose you've read it in the prints,
How Packenham attempted
To make Old Hickory Jackson wince,
But soon his schemes repented;
For we, with rifles ready cock'd,
Thought such occasion lucky,
And soon around the general flock'd
The hunters of Kentucky:
O! Kentucky, etc.
I s'pose you've heard how New Orleans
Is famed for wealth and beauty;
There's gals of every hue, it seems,
From snowy white to sooty:
So, Packenham he made his brags
If he in fight was lucky,
He'd have their gals and cotton bags,
In spite of Old Kentucky:
O! Kentucky, etc.
But Jackson he was wide awake,
And wasn't scared at trifles,
For well he knew what aim we take
With our Kentucky rifles;
So, he led us down to Cypress Swamp,
The ground was low and mucky;
There stood John Bull in martial pomp--
But here was Old Kentucky:
O! Kentucky, etc.
We raised a bank to hide our breasts,
Not that we thought of dying,
But then we always like to rest,
Unless the game is flying;
Behind it stood our little force--
None wish'd it to be greater,
For every man was half a horse
And half an alligator:
O! Kentucky, etc.
They didn't let our patience tire
Before they show'd their faces;
We didn't choose to waste our fire,
But snugly kept our places;
And when so near we saw them wink,
We thought it time to stop 'em,
It would have done you good, I think,
To see Kentuckians drop 'em:
O! Kentucky, etc.
They found, at length, 'twas vain to fight,
When lead was all their booty,
And so, they wisely took to flight,
And left us all the beauty.
And now, if danger e'er annoys,
Remember what our trade is;
Just send for us Kentucky boys,
And we'll protect you, ladies:
O! Kentucky, etc.
At least it has a gallant ending, which was not altogether apposite to
the situation of Marsh and his fellow-prisoners at Kingston. "Botany
Bay" was more in their line just then; but, at any rate, it was just as
philosophic to go into exile singing as mourning or cursing.
Were I a Herman Melville or a Clark Russell I should be tempted to dwell
on this dreary voyage of the prison-ship Buffalo. Even Marsh's humble
chronicle of it is graphic with unstudied incidents. They ran into rough
weather at once; so that to the wretchedness of their imprisonment was
added the misery of seasickness. No one had told them of their
destination, and many of them, like Marsh, stoutly maintained from first
to last that they were transported without a sentence. Their daily life
in this dark and crowded 'tween-decks, practically the hold of a
staggering old sailer, could not be detailed without offense; and if it
could be, I have no desire to heap up the horrors. In mid-voyage there
was an attempted mutiny; the convicts tried to seize the ship; but the
only result was heavier irons, closer confinement, and a stricter
guard. After two months of the stormy Atlantic the Buffalo put into Rio
Janeiro, where she lay three tantalizing days. "It happened to be the
Emperor's birthday," says Marsh, "and although we were not allowed to go
on shore, we could discover through a skylight the flags on the
pinnacles of houses and hills apparently reaching to the clouds." A
little fruit was had aboard to allay the scurvy which was making havoc,
and the Buffalo lumbered away again and ran straight into a savage gale,
in which she sprung a bad leak. She was an old ship, and had formerly
been a man-of-war, but for some years now had been employed as a convict
transport between England and New South Wales. From Rio around the Cape
of Good Hope the log kept by Robert Marsh is a story of sickness and
death. Those who had had their limbs frozen in Canada now found the skin
and flesh coming away and the sea water on their bare feet gave them
excruciating agony. The shotted sack slid into the shark-patrolled
waters of the Indian Ocean, and the wretches who still lived were
envious of the dead. And on the 13th of February, 1840, four months and
a half from Quebec, the Buffalo anchored in Hobart Town harbor, Van
Dieman's Land.
And now a word about this antipodean land on which our unlucky hero
looked out from the prison-ship. We are wont to regard it, perhaps, as a
new and well-nigh unknown part of the world; possibly some of us would
have to think twice if asked off-hand, Where is Van Dieman's Land? Of
course we remember, when we glance at the map, that it is a good-sized
island just south of Australia. From extreme north to extreme south it
is about as far as from Buffalo to Philadelphia, and east and west not
quite so far as from Buffalo to Albany. And here is a coincidence:
Hobart Town, in the harbor of which the prison-ship Buffalo dropped
anchor with her load of misery, is exactly as far south of the equator
as Buffalo is north of it. Other parallel data may perhaps be helpful:
It was in 1642 that the navigator Tasman discovered the island, naming
it after his Dutch patron, Van Dieman. The explorer's name has now been
substituted, as it should be, and Tasmania, not Van Dieman's Land,
appears on modern maps. The history of that land dates from 1642. It was
in 1641 that those adventurous missioners, Brebeuf and Chaumonot, first
carried their portable altar across the Niagara; and from the Relations
of their order for that year the world gained the first actual glimpse
of the Niagara region. In the world's annals, therefore, this far-away
island and our own Niagara and lake region are of the same age. One
other parallel may be ventured. The first permanent settlement in Van
Dieman's Land was made in 1803. In 1804 Buffalo had fifteen actual
settlers and a few squatters. But here our parallels end, for when, on
that February morning of 1840, the unhappy Marsh was put ashore, he
found a community unlike any that has ever existed in this happier part
of the world. For over thirty years England had been sending thither her
worst criminals. Shipload after shipload, year after year, of the most
depraved and vicious of mankind, had been sent out. England had made of
it and of Botany Bay a dumping-ground for whatever manner of evil men
and women she could scrape from her London slums. There was some free
colonization, but it went on slowly. Honest men hesitated to go where
society was so handicapped. The treatment of the convicts varied
according to the Governors, but for years before Marsh arrived it seems
to have been as harsh and brutalizing as imperiousness and cruelty could
devise. In 1836 Sir John Franklin was sent out to the station. He was an
exceptionally humane and generous man, according to most accounts. Marsh
does not complain of any severity from him, but calls him an old granny,
a glutton and a temporizer in his promises to convicts. It is something
foreign to our purpose to dwell upon this point, nor is it a gracious
thing to seek any imputation against a character which history delights
to hold as the embodiment of the gallant and heroic. We must remember
that Robert Marsh's point of view was not likely to bring him to
favorable estimates of those in authority over him and through whom his
very real oppression came. Years after, when the great explorer's bones
lay whitening in the unknown North, this far-away colony raised to his
memory a noble bronze statue, which stands to-day in Franklin Square,
Hobart, not far from the old Government House, the scene of his
uncongenial administration.
And now behold our hero marched ashore with his fellows; reeling like a
drunken man, the strange effect of firm earth under foot after months
of heaving seaway; examined, ticketed and numbered, clad in Her
Majesty's livery, and sent to a near-by country station, where he is put
to work under savage overseers at carrying stone for road-building; and
thus began five years of unmitigated suffering for Robert Marsh in that
detestable land. There were about 43,000 convicts on the island at the
time, 25,000 of whom were driven to daily work in chain gangs, on the
roads, in the wet mines or the forest. The rest were ex-convicts; had
served their sentences and counted themselves among the free population,
which all told did not then exceed 60,000. Conceive of a free community,
nearly one half of whom, men and women, were former convicts, but not
regenerate. For years the brothels of London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, were
emptied into Van Dieman's Land. A reputable writer has said that at this
time female virtue was unknown in the island. The wealthy land-owners,
under government patronage, were autocrats in their own domain. The
whipping-post, the triangle--a refinement of cruelty--and the gallows
were familiar sights. The slightest failure at his daily task sent the
convict to the whipping-post or to solitary confinement.
Official iniquity flourished under Sir George Arthur's reign of eleven
years. He was Franklin's predecessor, and his minions were still in
control when Marsh came under their power. He was shifted from station
to station; fed like a dog, lodged in the meanest huts and worked well
nigh to death. The worst characters were his overseers, and the day
began with the lash. A convict's strength would give out under his load;
he would lag behind, or stop to rest. At once he would be taken to the
station, stripped to the waist--if he chanced to have anything
on--strung up to the post or triangle, and flogged. As an additional
measure of reform, brine was thrown into the gashes which the lash had
made. These were the milder forms of daily punishment. Sir George
Arthur's prouder record comes from the executions. Travelers to-day tell
us that Tasmania is really a second England; in its settled portions it
is a land of pleasant vales and gentle rivers, rich in harvests of the
temperate zone. "Appleland," some have called it, from its fruitful
orchards; but no tree transplanted from Merrie England ever flourished
more than the black stock from Tyburn Hill. Sir George hanged 1,500
during his stay. Marsh tells of a compassionate clergyman who was
watching with interest the erection of a gallows. "Yes," he said, "I
suppose it will do, but it is not as large as we need. I think ten will
hang comfortable, but twelve will be rather crowded."
It is small wonder that our hero tried to escape. He took to the
bush--which means the unexplored and inhospitable forest--with a band of
friends; was captured, punished, and thereafter dressed in
magpie--trousers and frock one half black, one half yellow; and in this
garb, which advertised to all that he had been a bush-ranger, he worked
on until the spring of 1842, when Sir John Franklin made him a
ticket-of-leave man. This relieved him from the overseers, and gave him
permission to work, for whatever wages he could get, in an assigned
district.
And now again, of this new phase of his misadventures, a long story
could be made. At that time the best circumstanced ticket-of-leave men
got about a shilling a day and boarded themselves. But there was little
work and many seekers. They roamed over the country, turned away from
plantation after plantation, and in many cases became the boldest of
outlaws. Escape from the island was well nigh impossible; but after many
hardships, utterly unable to get honest work, Marsh was one of a party
that determined to try it. Making their way eighty miles to the
seashore, they hid in the woods, where for a week or so they gathered
firewood, buried potatoes and snared kangaroo. One of their number
reached a settlement and returned with the word that an American whaler
was coming to take them off. After six days more of waiting the vessel
hove in sight. As she tried to draw near and send boats ashore a storm
came up and she narrowly escaped the breakers. At this critical moment a
British armed patrol schooner rounded a point down the coast and the
American made her escape with great difficulty, leaving the score of
runaway convicts at their precarious lookout, hopeless and despondent.
They were soon arrested, Marsh among them. He was tried for breaking his
patrol, and sent to an inland district, 100 miles through the bush and
swamps. "It was all punishment," he says pathetically, in describing
this journey on which he nearly perished. So down-hearted and distressed
were they, so appalled by the war of nature and man against them, that
one of Marsh's companions, with fagged-out brain, came to the conclusion
that they were really in hell and that the devil himself was in charge
of them. But there is always a turn to the tide. They trapped a kangaroo
and did not starve. Marsh reached his district and this time found work,
which had to be light, for he was weak, emaciated and troubled day and
night with a pain in his chest. And finally the glad word came that he
was gazetted for pardon and could go to Hobart. There, on January 27,
1845, after ten months in Canada prisons, four and a half months in a
transport ship, and five years in a convict colony, he went on board the
American whaler Steiglitz of Sag Harbor, Selah Young, master, a free
man.
The Steiglitz was bound out on a whaling voyage. No matter, she would
take Marsh away from that hell. She cruised for whale off New Zealand,
then made north, and in April anchored off Honolulu. King Hamehameha
III., on hearing the story of the convict Americans, welcomed them
ashore, and there Marsh stayed for four months, exploring the islands
and waiting for a chance to get home. At last it came in the welcome
shape of the whaler Samuel Robertson, Capt. Warner, bound for New
Bedford. She touched at the Society Islands and Pernambuco, and on March
13, 1846, after seven years four and a half months absence, Marsh
stepped ashore in his own country again. The people of New Bedford
helped him and a few others as far as Utica. There one of his comrades
in exile left him for his home in Watertown, and others went their
several ways. Marsh was helped as far as Canandaigua, where his brother
met him and took him to his home in Avon; and after a time of
recuperation there, they came on to Buffalo, where he met his father,
his mother and sister. He soon crossed the river, visited Toronto, and
probably looked over the scenes of his early cracker-peddling and
subsequent campaigning, up and down the Niagara. He had traveled 77,000
miles, but here his journey ended; and here the Patriot exile told his
story, which I have drawn on in an imperfect way, for this true
chronicle of old trails.
Underground Trails.