THE DOGS OF WAR
As the autumn of 1837 wore on, the situation in Lower Canada began to
assume an aspect more and more threatening. In spite of a proclamation
from the governor forbidding such meetings, the _Patriotes_ continued
to gather for military drill and musketry exercises. Armed bands went
about the countryside, in many places intimidating the loyalists and
forcing loyal magistrates and militia officers to send in their
resignations to the governor. As early as July some of the Scottish
settlers at Cote St Joseph, near St Eustache, had fled from their
homes, leaving their property to its fate. Several houses at Cote St
Mary had been fired upon or broken into. A letter of Sir John
Colborne, the commander of the forces in British North America, written
on October 6, shows what the state of affairs was at that time:
In my correspondence with Col. Eden I have had occasion to refer to the
facts {70} and reports that establish the decided character which the
agitators have lately assumed. The people have elected the dismissed
officers of the militia to command them. At St Ours a pole has been
erected in favour of a dismissed captain with this inscription on it,
'Elu par le peuple.' At St Hyacinthe the tri-coloured flag was
displayed for several days. Two families have quitted the town in
consequence of the annoyance they received from the patriots. Wolfred
Nelson warned the patriots at a public meeting to be ready to arm. The
tri-coloured flag is to be seen at two taverns between St Denis and St
Charles. Many of the tavern-keepers have discontinued their signs and
substituted for them an eagle. The bank notes or promissory notes
issued at Yamaska have also the same emblem marked on them. Mr
Papineau was escorted from Yamaska to St Denis by a numerous retinue,
and it is said that 200 or 300 carriages accompanied him on his route.
He has attended five public meetings lately; and at one of them La
Valtrie, a priest, was insulted in his presence. The occurrence at St
Denis was certainly {71} a political affair, a family at St Antoine
opposed to the proceedings of W. Nelson, having been annoyed by the
same mob that destroyed the house of Madame St Jacques a few hours
before the shot was fired from her window.
Special animosity was shown toward the Chouayens, those French
Canadians who had refused to follow Papineau's lead. P. D. Debartzch,
a legislative councillor and a former supporter of Papineau, who had
withdrawn his support after the passing of the Ninety-Two Resolutions,
was obliged to flee from his home at St Charles; and Dr Quesnel, one of
the magistrates of L'Acadie, had his house broken into by a mob that
demanded his resignation as magistrate.
On November 6 rioting broke out in Montreal. The Doric Club, an
organization of the young men of English blood in the city, came into
conflict with the French-Canadian _Fils de la Liberte_. Which side
provoked the hostilities, it is now difficult to say. Certainly, both
sides were to blame for their behaviour during the day. The sons of
liberty broke the windows of prominent loyalists; and the members of
the Doric Club completely wrecked {72} the office of the _Vindicator_
newspaper. It was only when the Riot Act was read, and the troops were
called out, that the rioting ceased.
Up to this point the _Patriotes_ had not indulged in any overt acts of
armed rebellion. Some of their leaders, it is true, had been laying
plans for a revolt. So much is known from the correspondence which
passed between the leading _Patriotes_ in Lower Canada and William Lyon
Mackenzie, the leader of the rebellion in Upper Canada. Thomas Storrow
Brown, one of Papineau's lieutenants, wrote to Mackenzie asking him to
start the ball rolling in Upper Canada first, in order to draw off some
of the troops which Sir John Colborne had massed in Lower Canada. But
all calculations were now upset by events which rapidly precipitated
the crisis in the lower province.
Soon after the fracas in the streets of Montreal between the Doric Club
and the _Fils de la Liberte_, a priest named Quibilier waited on
Papineau, and advised him, since his presence in Montreal had become a
source of disturbance, to leave the city. Whether he came as an
emissary from the ecclesiastical authorities or merely as a friend is
not clear. At any rate, Papineau accepted his advice, {73} and
immediately set out for St Hyacinthe. The result was most unfortunate.
The government, thinking that Papineau had left the city for the
purpose of stirring up trouble in the Richelieu district, promptly
issued warrants for the arrest of Papineau and some of his chief
lieutenants, Dr Wolfred Nelson, Thomas Storrow Brown, Edmund Bailey
O'Callaghan, and several others.
Meanwhile, on the day that these warrants for arrest were being issued
(November 16), a skirmish took place between a small party of British
troopers and a band of _Patriotes_ on the road between Chambly and
Longueuil--a skirmish which may be described as the Lexington of the
Lower Canada rebellion. The troopers, under Lieutenant Ermatinger, had
been sent to St Johns to arrest two French Canadians, named Demaray and
Davignon, who had been intimidating the magistrates. The arrest had
been effected, and the party were on their way back to Montreal, when
they were confronted by an armed company of _Patriotes_, under the
command of Bonaventure Viger, who demanded the release of the
prisoners. A brisk skirmish ensued, in which several on both sides
were wounded. The troopers, outnumbered by at least five {74} to one,
and having nothing but pistols with which to reply to the fire of
muskets and fowling-pieces, were easily routed; and the two prisoners
were liberated.
The news of this affair spread rapidly through the parishes, and
greatly encouraged the _Patriotes_ to resist the arrest of Papineau and
his lieutenants. Papineau, Nelson, Brown, and O'Callaghan had all
evaded the sheriff's officer, and had taken refuge in the country about
the Richelieu, the heart of the revolutionary district. In a day or
two word came to Montreal that considerable numbers of armed habitants
had gathered at the villages of St Denis and St Charles, evidently with
the intention of preventing the arrest of their leaders. The force at
St Denis was under the command of Wolfred Nelson, and that at St
Charles was under the command of Thomas Storrow Brown. How these
self-styled 'generals' came to be appointed is somewhat of a mystery.
Brown, at any rate, seems to have been chosen for the position on the
spur of the moment. 'A mere accident took me to St Charles,' he wrote
afterwards, 'and put me at the head of a revolting force.'
Sir John Colborne, who was in command of the British military forces,
immediately {75} determined to disperse these gatherings by force and
to arrest their leaders. His plan of campaign was as follows. A force
consisting of one regiment of infantry, a troop of the Montreal
Volunteer Cavalry, and two light field-guns, under the command of
Lieutenant-Colonel Wetherall, had already been dispatched to Chambly by
way of the road on which the rescue of Demaray and Davignon had taken
place. This force would advance on St Charles. Another force,
consisting of five companies of the 24th regiment, with a
twelve-pounder, under Colonel Charles Gore, a Waterloo veteran, would
proceed by boat to Sorel. There it was to be joined by one company of
the 66th regiment, then in garrison at Sorel, and the combined force
would march on St Denis. After having dispersed the rebels at St
Denis, which was thought not to be strongly held, the little army was
to proceed to St Charles, where it would be joined by the force under
Wetherall.
At eight o'clock on the evening of November 22, Colonel Gore set out
with his men from the barrack-square at Sorel for St Denis. The
journey was one of eighteen miles; and in order to avoid St Ours, which
was held by the _Patriotes_, Gore turned away from the main {76} road
along the Richelieu to make a detour. This led his troops over very
bad roads. The night was dark and rain poured down in torrents. 'I
got a lantern,' wrote one of Gore's aides-de-camp afterwards, 'fastened
it to the top of a pole, and had it carried in front of the column; but
what with horses and men sinking in the mud, harness breaking, wading
through water and winding through woods, the little force soon got
separated, those in the rear lost sight of the light, and great delays
and difficulties were experienced. Towards morning the rain changed to
snow, it became very cold, and daybreak found the unfortunate column
still floundering in the half-frozen mud four miles from St Denis.'
Meanwhile word had reached the rebels of the coming of the soldiers.
At daybreak Dr Wolfred Nelson had ridden out to reconnoitre, and had
succeeded in destroying several bridges. As the soldiers approached St
Denis they heard the church bells ringing the alarm; and it was not
long before they found that the village was strongly defended. After
capturing some of the houses on the outskirts of the village, they were
halted by a stockade built across the road covered by a large brick
house, well fortified on all sides. The commander of {77} the troops
brought reinforcements up to the firing line, and the twelve-pounder
came into action. But the assailants made very little impression on
the defence. Although the engagement lasted for more than five hours,
the troops succeeded in capturing nothing more than one of the flanking
houses. The ammunition of the British was running low, and the numbers
of the insurgents seemed to be increasing. Colonel Gore therefore
deemed it advisable to retire. By some strange oversight the British
were without any ambulance or transport of any kind; and they were
compelled to leave their dead and wounded behind them. Their
casualties were six killed and eighteen wounded. The wounded, it is a
pleasure to be able to say, were well looked after by the victorious
_Patriotes_.
The British effected their retreat with great steadiness, despite the
fact that the men had had no food since the previous day and had been
marching all night. They were compelled to abandon their
twelve-pounder in the mud; but they reached St Ours that night without
further loss. The next day they were back at Sorel.
The number of the insurgents at St Denis has never been accurately
ascertained; {78} probably they were considerably in excess of the
troops. Their position was one of great strength, and good judgment
had been shown in fortifying it. On the other hand, with the exception
of a few veterans of Major de Salaberry's Voltigeurs, they were
untrained in war; and their muskets and fowling-pieces were much
inferior to the rifles of the regulars. Their victory, it must be
said, reflected great credit upon them; although their losses had been
twice as great as those of the soldiers,[1] these peasants in homespun
had stood their ground with a courage and steadiness which would have
honoured old campaigners. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said
about some of their leaders. Papineau and O'Callaghan were present in
St Denis when the attack began; but before the morning was well
advanced, they had departed for St Hyacinthe, whence they later fled to
the United States. Papineau always declared that he had taken this
action at the {79} solicitation of Wolfred Nelson, who had said to him:
'Do not expose yourself uselessly: you will be of more service to us
after the fight than here.' In later days, however, when political
differences had arisen between the two men, Nelson denied having given
Papineau any such advice. It is very difficult to know the truth. But
even if Nelson did advise Papineau to leave, it cannot be said that
Papineau consulted his own reputation in accepting the advice. He was
not a person without military experience: he had been a major in the
militia, and was probably superior in rank to any one in the village.
His place was with the brave farmers who had taken up arms on his
behalf.
An episode in connection with the attack on St Denis left a dark stain
on the _Patriote_ escutcheon and embittered greatly the relations
between the two races in Canada. This was the murder, on the morning
of the fight, of Lieutenant Weir, a subaltern in the 32nd regiment, who
had been sent with dispatches to Sorel by land. He had reached Sorel
half an hour after Colonel Gore and his men had departed for St Denis.
In attempting to catch up with Gore's column he had taken the direct
road to St Denis and had arrived there {80} in advance of the British
troops. On approaching the village he was arrested, and by Wolfred
Nelson's orders placed in detention. As the British attack developed,
it was thought better by those who had him in charge to remove him to
St Charles. They bound him tightly and placed him in a wagon. Hardly
had they started when he made an attempt to escape. In this emergency
his warders seem to have lost their heads. In spite of the fact that
Weir was tightly bound and could do no harm, they fell upon him with
swords and pistols, and in a short time dispatched him. Then, appalled
at what they had done, they attempted to hide the body. When the
British troops entered St Denis a week later, they found the body
lying, weighted down with stones, in the Richelieu river under about
two feet of water. The autopsy disclosed the brutality with which Weir
had been murdered; and the sight of the body so infuriated the soldiers
that they gave the greater part of the village of St Denis to the
flames. In the later phases of the rebellion the slogan of the British
soldiers was, 'Remember Jack Weir.'
Another atrocious murder even more unpardonable than that of Weir was
perpetrated {81} a few days later. On November 28 some _Patriotes_
near St Johns captured a man by the name of Chartrand, who was enlisted
in a loyal volunteer corps of the district. After a mock trial
Chartrand was tied to a tree and shot by his own countrymen.
[1] According to a report twelve _Patriotes_ lost their lives during
the engagement. Among them was Charles Ovide Perrault, member of the
Assembly for Vaudreuil, a young barrister of considerable promise. He
seems to have been Papineau's closest follower and confidant During the
last sessions of the Lower Canada legislature Perrault contributed many
letters to _La Minerve_.
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