_FORCE MAJEURE_
The check administered to Colonel Gore's column at St Denis, in the
first engagement of the rebellion, was the only victory which fell to
the rebel forces. In the meantime Lieutenant-Colonel Wetherall, with
several companies of infantry, a troop of volunteer cavalry, and two
field-guns, was marching on St Charles. On the evening of November 22
Major Gugy, the leader of the English party in the Assembly, had
brought to Wetherall at Chambly instructions to advance down the
Richelieu and attack the rebel position at St Charles in the morning.
He set out accordingly at about the hour when Gore headed his forces up
the river from Sorel. But, while Gore carried out his orders to the
letter and reached St Denis on the morning of the 23rd, Wetherall
allowed himself some latitude in interpreting his instructions. This
was largely due to the advice of Gugy, if we are to believe {83} the
account which Gugy has left us. 'In the first place,' it runs, 'not
one of the force knew anything of the roads or people, nor do I believe
that more than one spoke French.... The storm raged so fearfully, the
rain poured in such torrents, and the frost set in afterwards so
intensely, that ... men and horses were equally fatigued ... all so
exhausted as to be unable to cope, on broken or woody ground,
successfully with any resolute enemy.... I learned that we had marched
without a dollar, without a loaf of bread, without a commissary, and
without a spare cartridge--a pretty predicament in an enemy's country,
surrounded by thousands of armed men.' It was apparent to Gugy that
Sir John Colborne, in issuing his orders, had greatly underestimated
the difficulty of the task he was setting for the troops. After
crossing the river above the Chambly Basin, Gugy therefore induced
Wetherall to halt until daylight; and, turning himself into a
commissary, he billeted the men and horses in the neighbouring houses
and stables.
The next day about noon the column reached St Hilaire, some seven miles
from St Charles. Here Wetherall obtained information which led him to
fear that Gore {84} had met with some kind of check; and he was
persuaded to send back to Chambly for a reinforcement of one company
which had been left in garrison there. His messenger reached Chambly
at four o'clock on the morning of the 24th. Major Warde, the
commandant at Chambly, at once embarked his company on a scow and
dropped down the river to St Hilaire; but he arrived too late to allow
of any further action that day, and it was not until the morning of the
25th that the column moved on St Charles.
Meanwhile, the rebels had been making preparations for defence. They
had fortified the manor-house of Debartzch, who had fled to Montreal,
and built round it a rampart of earth and tree-trunks--a rampart which,
for some mysterious reason, was never completed. They appointed as
commander Thomas Storrow Brown, a Montreal iron-merchant, for whose
arrest a warrant had been issued and who had fled to St Charles with
two or three other _Patriote_ politicians. But Brown had no military
experience, and was still suffering so severely from injuries received
in the rioting in Montreal that his proper place was a home for
convalescents rather than a field of battle. His appointment can only
be {85} explained by the non-appearance of the local _Patriote_
leaders. 'The chief men,' Brown testified afterwards, 'were, with two
or three exceptions, absent or hiding.' It is evident that the British
authorities expected to meet with the strongest opposition at St
Charles, since that place had been the scene of the great demonstration
earlier in the year. But, as a matter of fact, the rebel forces at St
Charles were much less formidable than those at St Denis. Not only
were they lacking in proper military leadership; they were also fewer
in number and were, moreover, very inadequately armed. If Brown's
statements are to be relied upon, there were not in the rebel camp two
hundred men. 'Of ammunition,' wrote Brown, 'we had some half dozen
kegs of gunpowder and a little lead, which was cast into bullets; but
as the fire-arms were of every calibre, the cartridges made were too
large for many, which were consequently useless. We had two small
rusty field-pieces, but with neither carriages nor appointments they
were as useless as two logs. There was one old musket, but not a
bayonet. The fire-arms were common flintlocks, in all conditions of
dilapidation, some tied together with string, and very many with {86}
lock-springs so worn out that they could not be discharged.'
On the 24th Brown made a reconnaissance in the direction of St Hilaire.
He destroyed a bridge over a ravine some distance to the south of St
Charles, and placed above it an outpost with orders to prevent a
reconstruction of the bridge. But when the British troops appeared on
the morning of the 25th, this and other outlying pickets fell back
without making any resistance. They probably saw that they were so
outnumbered that resistance would be hopeless. On the approach of the
troops Brown at first assumed an attitude of confidence. A messenger
came from Wetherall, 'a respectable old habitant,' to tell the rebels
that if they dispersed quietly, they would not be molested. Brown
treated the message as a confession of weakness. 'I at once supposed,'
he said, 'that, followed in the rear by our friends from above, they
were seeking a free passage to Sorel, and determined to send a message,
that _if they would lay down their arms, they should pass unmolested_.'
This message does not seem to have reached its destination. And hardly
had the engagement opened when Brown quickly changed his tune. 'To go
forward {87} was useless, as I could order nothing but a
retreat--without it the people commenced retiring. I tried to rally
the little squads, my only hope being in keeping together the
fowling-pieces we had collected, but finding, after a long trial, my
strength and authority insufficient, I considered my command gone,
turned my horse, and rode to ... St Denis (seven or eight miles), where
... I arrived about nightfall.'
The engagement lasted less than an hour. The rebels, or at any rate
those of them who were armed, seem to have been outnumbered by the
soldiers, of whom there were between three and four hundred. But the
fighting was apparently brisk while it lasted. The British lost three
killed and eighteen wounded. The _Patriote_ losses are not known. The
local tradition is that forty-two were killed and many more wounded.
We know that thirty were taken prisoners on the field.
The defeat of the rebels at St Charles really terminated the rebellion
in the country about the Richelieu. When news of the defeat spread
over the countryside, the _Patriote_ forces immediately disbanded, and
their leaders sought safety in flight. Papineau and O'Callaghan, who
had been at St Hyacinthe, {88} succeeded in getting across the Vermont
border; but Wolfred Nelson was not so fortunate. After suffering great
privations he was captured by some loyalist militia not far from the
frontier, taken to Montreal, and there lodged in prison.
For some reason which it is difficult to discern, Wetherall did not
march on from St Charles to effect a pacification of St Denis. On
December 1, however, Colonel Gore once more set out from Sorel, and
entered St Denis the same day. He found everything quiet. He
recovered the howitzer and five of the wounded men he had left behind.
In spite of the absence of opposition, his men took advantage of the
occasion to wreak an unfair and un-British vengeance on the helpless
victors of yesterday. Goaded to fury by the sight of young Weir's
mangled body, they set fire to a large part of the village. Colonel
Gore afterwards repudiated the charge that he had ordered the burning
of the houses of the insurgents; but that defence does not absolve him
from blame. It is obvious, at any rate, that he did not take adequate
measures to prevent such excesses; nor was any punishment ever
administered to those who applied the torch.
{89}
But the end of rebellion was not yet in sight. Two more encounters
remain to be described. The first of these occurred at a place known
as Moore's Corners, near the Vermont border. After the collapse at St
Charles a number of _Patriote_ refugees had gathered at the small town
of Swanton, a few miles south of Missisquoi Bay, on the American side
of the boundary-line. Among them were Dr Cyrile Cote and Edouard
Rodier, both members of the Lower Canada Assembly; Ludger Duvernay, a
member of the Assembly and editor of _La Minerve_; Dr Kimber, one of
the ringleaders in the rescue of Demaray and Davignon; and Robert Shore
Milnes Bouchette, the descendant of a French-Canadian family long
conspicuous for its loyalty and its services to the state. Bouchette's
grandfather had been instrumental in effecting the escape of Sir Guy
Carleton from Montreal in 1775, when that place was threatened by the
forces of Montgomery. The grandson's social tastes and affiliations
might have led one to expect that he would have been found in the ranks
of the loyalists; but the arbitrary policy of the Russell Resolutions
had driven him into the arms of the extreme _Patriotes_. Arrested for
disloyalty at the outbreak of {90} the rebellion, he had been admitted
to bail and had escaped. These men, under the belief that the
habitants would rise and join them, determined upon an armed invasion
of Canada. Possibly they believed also that Wolfred Nelson was still
holding out. Papineau, it was said, had reported that 'the victor of
St Denis' was entrenched with a considerable force at St Cesaire on the
Yamaska. They therefore collected arms and ammunition, sent emissaries
through the parishes to the north to rouse the _Patriotes_, and on
December 6, flying some colours which had been worked for them by the
enthusiastic ladies of Swanton, they crossed the Canadian border, about
two hundred strong. They had two field-pieces and a supply of muskets
and ammunition for those whom they expected to join the party on
Canadian soil.
Hardly had the invaders crossed the border when they encountered at
Moore's Corners a body of the Missisquoi Volunteers, under the command
of Captain Kemp, who were acting as escort to a convoy of arms and
ammunition. Having received warning of the coming of the insurgents,
Kemp had sent out messengers through the countryside to rouse the
loyalist {91} population. To these as they arrived he served out the
muskets in his wagons. And when the rebels appeared, about eight
o'clock at night, he had a force at his disposal of at least three
hundred men, all well armed.
There is reason for believing that Kemp might have succeeded in
ambushing the advancing force, had not some of his men, untrained
volunteers with muskets in their hands for the first time, opened fire
prematurely. The rebels returned the fire, and a fusillade continued
for ten or fifteen minutes. But the rebels, on perceiving that they
had met a superior force, retired in great haste, leaving behind them
one dead and two wounded. One of the wounded was Bouchette, who had
been in command of the advance-guard. The rebels abandoned also their
two field-pieces, about forty stand of arms, five kegs of gunpowder,
and six boxes of ball-cartridge, as well as two standards. Among the
loyalists there were no casualties whatever. Only three of the rebels
were taken prisoner besides the two wounded, a fact which Kemp
explained by several factors--the undisciplined state of the loyalists,
the darkness of the night, the vicinity of woods, and the proximity of
the boundary-line, {92} beyond which he did not allow the pursuit to
go. The 'battle' of Moore's Corners was in truth an excellent farce;
but there is no doubt that it prevented what might have been a more
serious encounter had the rebel column reached the neighbourhood of St
Johns, where many of the _Patriotes_ were in readiness to join them.
A few days later, in a part of the province some distance removed from
the Richelieu river and the Vermont border, there occurred another
collision, perhaps the most formidable of the whole rebellion. This
was at the village of St Eustache, in the county of Two Mountains,
about eighteen miles north-west of Montreal. The county of Two
Mountains had long been known as a stronghold of the extreme
_Patriotes_. The local member, W. H. Scott, was a supporter of
Papineau, and had a large and enthusiastic following. He was not,
however, a leader in the troubles that ensued. The chief organizer of
revolt in St Eustache and the surrounding country was a mysterious
adventurer named Amury Girod, who arrived in St Eustache toward the end
of November with credentials, it would seem from Papineau, assigning to
him the task of superintending the _Patriote_ cause {93} in the north.
About Girod very little is known. He is variously described as having
been a Swiss, an Alsatian, and a native of Louisiana. According to his
own statement, he had been at one time a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry
in Mexico. He was well educated, could speak fluently several
languages, had a bold and plausible manner, and succeeded in imposing,
not only upon the _Patriote_ leaders, but upon the people of St
Eustache. He found a capable and dauntless supporter in Dr J. O.
Chenier, the young physician of the village. Chenier was one of the
few leaders of the revolt whose courage challenges admiration; and it
is fitting that to-day a monument, bearing the simple inscription
CHENIER, should stand in the Place Viger in Montreal, among the people
for whom, though misguidedly and recklessly, he laid down his life.
To St Eustache, on Sunday, November 26, came the news of Wolfred
Nelson's victory at St Denis. On Monday and Tuesday bands of
_Patriotes_ went about the countryside, terrorizing and disarming the
loyalists and compelling the faint-hearted to join in the rising. On
Wednesday night the rebels gathered to the number of about four hundred
{94} in St Eustache, and got noisily drunk (_s'y enivrerent
bruyamment_). They then proceeded, under the command of Girod and
Chenier, to the Indian mission settlement at the Lake of Two Mountains.
Here they broke into the government stores and possessed themselves of
some guns and ammunition. They next made themselves unwelcome to the
superior of the mission, the Abbe Dufresne, and, in spite of his
protestations, carried off from the mission-house a three-pounder gun.
On their return to St Eustache they forcibly entered the convent which
had been lately completed, though it was not yet occupied, and camped
there.
The loyalists who were forced to flee from the village carried the news
of these proceedings to Montreal; but Sir John Colborne was unwilling
to take any steps to subdue the _Patriotes_ of St Eustache until the
insurrection on the Richelieu had been thoroughly crushed. All he did
was to send a detachment of volunteers to guard the Bord a Plouffe
bridge at the northern end of the island of Montreal.
On Sunday, December 3, word reached St Eustache of the defeat of the
insurgents at St Charles. This had a moderating influence on many of
the _Patriotes_. All week the Abbe {95} Paquin, parish priest of St
Eustache, had been urging the insurgents to go back quietly to their
homes. He now renewed his exhortations. He begged Chenier to cease
his revolutionary conduct. Chenier, however, was immovable. He
refused to believe that the rebels at St Charles had been dispersed,
and announced his determination to die with arms in his hands rather
than surrender. 'You might as well try to seize the moon with your
teeth,' he exclaimed, 'as to try to shake my resolve.'
The events of the days that followed cannot be chronicled in detail.
When the Abbe Paquin and his vicar Deseves sought to leave the parish,
Girod and Chenier virtually placed them under arrest. The abbe did not
mince matters with Chenier. 'I accuse you before God and man,' he
said, 'of being the author of these misfortunes.' When some of the
habitants came to him complaining that they had been forced against
their will to join the rebels, he reminded them of the English proverb:
'You may lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink.'
Unfortunately, the Abbe Paquin's good influence was counteracted by
that of the Abbe Chartier, the cure of the neighbouring village of St
{96} Benoit, a rare case of an ecclesiastic lending his support to the
rebel movement, in direct contravention of the orders of his superiors.
On several occasions the Abbe Chartier came over to St Eustache and
delivered inflammatory addresses to the rebel levies.
The vicar Deseves has left us a vivid picture of the life which the
rebels led. No attempt was made to drill them or to exercise
discipline. Time hung heavy on their hands. He continually saw them,
he says, passing through the village in knots of five or six, carrying
rusty guns out of order, smoking short black pipes, and wearing blue
_tuques_ which hung half-way down their backs, clothes of _etoffe du
pays_, and leather mittens. They helped themselves to all the strong
drink they could lay their hands on, and their gait showed the
influence of their potations. Their chief aim in life seemed to be to
steal, to drink, to eat, to dance, and to quarrel. With regard to the
morrow, they lived in a fool's paradise. They seem to have believed
that the troops would not dare to come out to meet them, and that when
their leaders should give the word they would advance on Montreal and
take it without difficulty. Their numbers during this period showed a
good deal of {97} fluctuation. Ultimately Girod succeeded in gathering
about him nearly a thousand men. Not all these, however, were armed;
according to Deseves a great many of them had no weapons but sticks and
stones.
By December 13 Sir John Colborne was ready to move. He had provided
himself with a force strong enough to crush an enemy several times more
numerous than the insurgents led by Girod and Chenier. His column was
composed of the 1st Royals, the 32nd regiment, the 83rd regiment, the
Montreal Volunteer Rifles, Globensky and Leclerc's Volunteers, a strong
force of cavalry--in all, over two thousand men, supported by eight
pieces of field artillery and well supplied with provision and
ammunition transport.
The troops bivouacked for the night at St Martin, and advanced on the
morning of the 14th. The main body crossed the Mille Isles river on
the ice about four miles to the east of St Eustache, and then moved
westward along the St Rose road. A detachment of Globensky's
Volunteers, however, followed the direct road to St Eustache, and came
out on the south side of the river opposite the village, in full view
of the rebels. Chenier, at the head of a hundred and fifty men,
crossed the {98} ice, and was on the point of coming to close quarters
with the volunteers when the main body of the loyalists appeared to the
east. Thereupon Chenier and his men beat a hasty retreat, and made
hurried preparations for defending the village. The church, the
convent, the presbytery, and the house of the member of the Assembly,
Scott, were all occupied and barricaded. It was about the church that
the fiercest fighting took place. The artillery was brought to bear on
the building; but the stout masonry resisted the battering of the
cannon balls, and is still standing, dinted and scarred. Some of the
Royals then got into the presbytery and set fire to it. Under cover of
the smoke the rest of the regiment then doubled up the street to the
church door. Gaining access through the sacristy, they lit a fire
behind the altar. 'The firing from the church windows then ceased,'
wrote one of the officers afterwards, 'and the rebels began running out
from some low windows, apparently of a crypt or cellar. Our men formed
up on one side of the church, and the 32nd and 83rd on the other. Some
of the rebels ran out and fired at the troops, then threw down their
arms and begged for quarter. Our officers tried to save the {99}
Canadians, but the men shouted "Remember Jack Weir," and numbers of
these poor deluded fellows were shot down.'
One of those shot down was Chenier. He had jumped from a window of the
Blessed Virgin's chapel and was making for the cemetery. How many fell
with him it is difficult to say. It was said that seventy rebels were
killed, and a number of charred bodies were found afterwards in the
ruins of the church. The casualties among the troops were slight, one
killed and nine wounded. One of the wounded was Major Gugy, who here
distinguished himself by his bravery and kind-heartedness, as he had
done in the St Charles expedition. Many of the rebels escaped. A good
many, indeed, had fled from the village on the first appearance of the
troops. Among these were some who had played a conspicuous part in
fomenting trouble. The Abbe Chartier of St Benoit, instead of waiting
to administer the last rites to the dying, beat a feverish retreat and
eventually escaped to the United States. The Church placed on him its
interdict, and he never again set foot on Canadian soil. The behaviour
of the adventurer Girod, the 'general' of the rebel force, was
especially {100} reprehensible. When he had posted his men in the
church and the surrounding buildings, he mounted a horse and fled
toward St Benoit. At a tavern where he stopped to get a stiff draught
of spirits he announced that the rebels had been victorious and that he
was seeking reinforcements with which to crush the troops completely.
For four days he evaded capture. Then, finding that the cordon was
tightening around him, he blew out his brains with a revolver. Thus
ended a life which was not without its share of romance and mystery.
On the night of the 14th the troops encamped near the desolate village
of St Eustache, a large part of which had unfortunately been given over
to the flames during the engagement. In the morning the column set out
for St Benoit. Sir John Colborne had threatened that if a single shot
were fired from St Benoit the village would be given over to fire and
pillage. But when the troops arrived there they found awaiting them
about two hundred and fifty men bearing white flags. All the villagers
laid down their arms and made an unqualified submission. And it is a
matter for profound regret that, notwithstanding this, the greater part
of the village {101} was burned to the ground. Sir John Colborne has
been severely censured for this occurrence, and not without reason.
Nothing is more certain, of course, than that he did not order it. It
seems to have been the work of the loyalist volunteers, who had without
doubt suffered much at the hands of the rebels. 'The irregular troops
employed,' wrote one of the British officers, 'were not to be
controlled, and were in every case, I believe, the instrument of the
infliction.' Far too much burning and pillaging went on, indeed, in
the wake of the rebellion. 'You know,' wrote an inhabitant of St
Benoit to a friend in Montreal, 'where the younger Arnoldi got his
supply of butter, or where another got the guitar he carried back with
him from the expedition about the neck.' And it is probable that the
British officers, and perhaps Sir John Colborne himself, winked at some
things which they could not officially recognize. At any rate, it is
impossible to acquit Colborne of all responsibility for the unsoldierly
conduct of the men under his command.
It is usual to regard the rebellion of 1837 in Lower Canada as no less
a fiasco than its counterpart in Upper Canada. There is no doubt that
it was hopeless from the outset. {102} It was an impromptu movement,
based upon a sudden resolution rather than on a well-reasoned plan of
action. Most of the leaders--Wolfred Nelson, Thomas Storrow Brown,
Robert Bouchette, and Amury Girod--were strangers to the men under
their command; and none of them, save Chenier, seemed disposed to fight
to the last ditch. The movement at its inception fell under the
official ban of the Church; and only two priests, the cures of St
Charles and St Benoit, showed it any encouragement. The actual
rebellion was confined to the county of Two Mountains and the valley of
the Richelieu. The districts of Quebec and Three Rivers were quiet as
the grave--with the exception, perhaps, of an occasional village like
Montmagny, where Etienne P. Tache, afterwards a colleague of Sir John
Macdonald and prime minister of Canada, was the centre of a local
agitation. Yet it is easy to see that the rebellion might have been
much more serious. But for the loyal attitude of the ecclesiastical
authorities, and the efforts of many clear-headed parish priests like
the Abbe Paquin of St Eustache, the revolutionary leaders might have
been able to consummate their plans, and Sir John Colborne, with the
small number of troops at {103} his disposal, might have found it
difficult to keep the flag flying. The rebellion was easily snuffed
out because the majority of the French-Canadian people, in obedience to
the voice of their Church, set their faces against it.
{104}