inoffensive and respectable men of small merchandise, who essayed
to hearten themselves and terrify the French by adopting the name
Invincibles. This amused Kingston, and a corps was accordingly turned
out from there, called the Unconquerables, in order not to be behind
“the paltry little village down the river,” and in a bogus notice from
one “Captain Focus, commanding,” there was an N.B.: “No Unconquerable
permitted to attend muster without his shoes well blacked and his
breeches well mended.”
[Illustration]
One colonel issued instructions that above all things solid form must
be preserved,--should a man fall, close and cover the vacancy. An
Irishman with a bass voice and sepulchral delivery gravely asked, “And
would your honour have us step on a did man?”
The word “halt” had little power to make some militia corps stationary;
it rather accelerated their speed. “Halt--halt--halt!” cried a
perspiring officer as he chased his men, and as near explosion point
as his own gun; “if you don’t halt I’ll walk you five miles!” The
threat prevailed, and they halted. But they were peremptory enough when
individually they had to give the same order. Both sides, loyalist and
patriot, saw an enemy in every bush and were always ready for a spy.
Excitement was running high in a Yonge Street village one day, when a
lad, young Jakeway, hearing an unusual noise in the street, walked out
to see what it was. One of a number of armed men before the village
inn called to him to halt, taking him for a spy. But the lad turned
away and did not hear. The man, upon no further provocation, raised
his gun to shoot, but another, less ardent, knocked the weapon up and
contented himself with Jakeway’s arrest. The leader recognized him as
an inoffensive onlooker, and dismissed him with an apology. No one
was to pass certain outposts out of Kingston without passport, the
parole and countersign. The Montreal mail with four horses dashed to
the bridge at Kingston Mills as the militia sentry’s _halt_ rang out.
But the coachman, as fit as himself, paid no heed; so the sentry’s
bayonet pierced the breast of one of the leaders. Complaint was made
to the Postmaster-General, but the sentry was promoted and Government
would afford no redress. It knew a good man. That same night brought
commanding officer and men, clothed and armed, to parade. By lantern
light they were made load and told “_the time was come_.” On the
principle of first fire, then enquire, a man in the front rank--of
course an Irishman--discharged his musket in his officer’s face. “Be
jabers,” said he, when asked for explanation and congratulated on the
harmlessness of his aim, “Colonel, I wuz that full of fight I cuddn’t
help it.”
But at the grand inspection in and about Kingston, which took place
chiefly before St. George’s church, with the same hearty bluff
Englishman, Colonel Bonnycastle, in command, the troops, six hundred
and fifty in number, newly clothed and equipped, made a handsome
showing, and considering their rawness performed their evolutions
creditably and without damage to themselves or him.
“Are these British soldiers?” asked an onlooker who was shrewdly
guessed to be a military spy from the other side.
“Oh, no, not at all, only the Frontenac militia.”
“Then if they are militia,” returned the American, “all I can say is
they must be _regular_ militia.”
Old Peninsula officers, remnants of Brock’s army, veterans from
everywhere British, helped from Quebec to Sarnia to leaven this mass of
raw colonial fighting material, and they developed it into something
very ugly to tackle.
But even veterans want substantial recompense for service, and in ’37
Sir Francis received a strong appeal from one of them:
“_May it please your Honor and Glory, for iver more,
Amen._
“I, ---- ----, formly belonging to the 49th Regt of Foot was sent to
this country in 1817 by his Majesty George the Forth to git land for
myself and boys; but my boys was to small, but Plase your Honor now
the Can work, so I hope your honor wold be so good to a low them Land,
because the are Intitle to it by Lord Bathus. I was spaking to His Lord
Ship in his one office in Downing Street, London, and he tould me to
beshure I wold Git land for my boys. Plase your Honor, I was spaking to
Lord Almor before he went home about the land for my boys, and he sed
to beshure I was Intitle to it. Lord Almor was Captain in the one Regt
that is the Old 49th Regt foot. Plase your honor I hope you will doe a
old Solder Justis. God bless you and your family.
“Your most humble Sarvint
“---- ----
“N.B. Plase your Honor I hope you will excuse my Vulgar way of writing
to you, but these is hard times Governor so I hope you will send me an
answer.”
* * * * *
Not one of them was too far off to hear the despatchmen as they rode
along the half-made roads, with bugles blowing the call to arms. Spear
in boot, sword clanking by his side, the despatchman was an impressive
figure which still lives in the memory of some of those who in their
youth answered to his call. No one disputed his word; at his behest
the farmer had to go, and the farmer’s horses had to be harnessed to
furnish transport for recruits. “Four of us were out, ’cause why, we
had to. Two of us were stacking cornstalks, one was at the creek with
the horses, and I was mending the fence. It was a beautiful day, and
the air was clear enough to hear anything, let alone that bugle. The
tooting was followed by the appearance of a lot of men, and we were
ordered to fall in. It took me only a minute to run into the house for
some things; none of us had a gun, and on the way we cut ourselves
cudgels. There was not any volunteering about it, for it was a regular
press. I was the youngest, and mother she did cry like sixty.”
Everywhere the rigours of barrack life, drill, and life generally were
lightened by practical jokes and bogus challenges. John Strachan,
junior, once gravely challenged a cow, gave her one more chance to
answer, and then, in defence of his country, took her life. What is
more, he had to pay for her.
In Quebec the volunteer days of ’37-38 were festive times. With
population that followed a thin line of river border and condensed
at the two cities, and with superior means of equipment and drill,
the period of formation was not so lengthy as in Upper Canada.
Lieutenant-Colonel the Honourable James Hope was chosen by Lord Gosford
as commander of the volunteer force. In December, ’37, the garrison
at Quebec was reduced to one company of Royal Artillery. No greater
compliment could be paid Major Sewell, late of the 49th, Brock’s
own--with his regiment in uniforms of “blue coat and buff breeches,
white blanket coat and green facings, blue cap and light band”--than to
put him in charge of that important post. He had some veterans among
them, Henry Lemesurier, a captain minus his right arm, which had been
carried away by a round-shot at the battle of Salamanca when bearing
the colours of his regiment--the 74th--for one. The militia force in
the beginning of the year was incomplete and inefficient, looking
formidable with its list of every officer from colonel to corporal,
but with many, officers and men alike, who had never handled a musket.
But they were to get used to the smell of powder. “Lord love your
honour, the smell of gunpowder, did you say? Divil a bit do we care
for it--it’s the balls we do be moindin’.” And well he might say so,
for not even H. M. Regular Rocket troop was to be entirely trusted.
At St. Eustache, under the impression that rockets like wine improve
with age, one, a relic of the Peninsula, was fired. It was a mellow old
fellow, slow in making up its mind. Instead of rising it fell, failed
to clear the unaccustomed snake fence which lay in the track, broke
off its tail and sent its huge head whirling and whizzing, twirling
and sizzling, over a ploughed field, with Head-quarter staff, Rocket
troop and all before it in mad flight to escape. It seized upon one
volunteer to play particular pranks with, and chased him round and
round the field, until, exhausted, he fell between the furrows, and the
rocket, balked of its prey, went out with a final bang. Convinced that
his enemy was defunct the man got somehow to his feet, and never drew
breath--so the story goes--until Montreal was reached.
The first paid corps raised at Quebec was named the Porkeaters, a
regiment some six hundred strong, able-bodied, resolute fellows,
mostly Irish labourers, mechanics and tradesmen, who did no discredit
to their supposed diet. These bacon-fed knaves began by looking the
awkward squad; but drill by the non-coms, of the regulars, aided by
strict discipline, soon made them perform their evolutions with the
regularity and precision of their instructors. It is easy to fancy this
regiment going into action under Colonel Rasher, with the wholesome
advice, _Salvum Larder_, floating to the breeze in the hands of Ensign
Flitch--“Charge, Sausage, charge; On, Bacons, on,” the last words of
some local Marmion.
A fine cavalry corps, well-mounted, muscular fellows, under Major
Burnet, did good work; yet temperate withal, not like Strange’s troop
in Kingston. The latter had been in semi-activity since ’34--that
is to say, they were drilled on foot, with sticks for sabres. The
consequence was that when they were furnished with arms and mounted on
steeds of many sizes, difficulties ensued. Calm Sergeant Nobbs, sword
in hand, all his neighbours equally hard at work mastering horse and
weapon, unfortunately drew the curb at an inopportune moment as he was
demonstrating his mode of parrying. Up came the horse’s head, and off
went its ears.
Also at Quebec were the Queen’s Pets, composed of seafaring men,
under Captain Rayside, a veteran naval officer, in long blue
pea-jackets, blue breeches, round fur caps with long ears, and red
woollen cravats--evidently the young Queen was supposed to be fond of
novelty--their arms, horse pistols, broad cutlasses and carronade.
Companies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 in this regiment had blue loose coats
with red collars, blue breeches, and high fur caps with long ears; the
Highland company had Rob Roy tartan trews, Scotch bonnets and dark
frock coats.
The Fauch-a-Ballaughs were gayer still, in white blanket coat, red
sash, green buttons, green facings and green seams, high cap with green
top falling over--an old hat and the humour of forty fancies pricked
int’ it for a feather--and blue breeches with a red stripe.
One corps had a euphonious and suggestive Dahomean title from
corporations gained in forty years of piping peace and good dinners.
They were chiefly Lower Town merchants, veterans in business if not in
war, who soon brought their cognomens under the discipline of black
leather belts, cartouche box and twenty rounds of ball cartridge; good
Brown Besses rested on the shelves provided by a kindly Mother Nature;
and with much puffing and blowing, their eyes fronted and righted until
a permanent cast was threatened.
All corps dined much, whether they were to fight or not. Military
dinners were frequent, and always went off with great _éclat_, the
local excitement lending “go” to them all. Even in that time of
ferment there were, as there had been since the Conquest, sensible
men, French and English, of the better classes who had made the fact
of a common enemy--the American assault of Quebec--a ground for
a common patriotism. History has handed down a glowing account of
one St. Andrew’s dinner given in ’37, in Quebec, and Mr. Archibald
Campbell’s lines, sung by himself in a clear and mellow voice, are
worth reproduction as indicative of the Scottish spirit:
“Men of Scotia’s blood or land,
No longer let us idly stand
Our ‘origin’ which traitors brand
As ‘foreign’ here.
By gallant hearts those rights were gained,
By gallant hearts shall be maintained,
E’en tho’ our dearest blood be drained
Those rights to keep.
On the crest of Abram’s heights,
Victorious in a thousand fights,
The Scottish broadsword won our rights,
Wi’ fatal sweep.
Then when the Gaul shall ask again
_Who_ called us here across the Main,
Each Scot shall answer, bold and plain,
‘Wolfe sent me here.’
Be men like those the hero brought,
With their best blood the land was bought,
And, fighting as your fathers fought,
Keep it or die.”
There were men then in Quebec whose denunciations of British rule were
given with a vim not exceeded by Papineau himself, who were destined,
fermentation over, to be like the wine kept for the end of the feast.
It so happened that Sir E. P. Taché, aide-de-camp to the Queen in after
years, was then Patriote--to be spelled in capitals and rolled with
the reverberation of the Parisian R. He was subjected to an unexpected
domiciliary visit, as a cannon was supposed to be hidden under his
winter supply of provisions. The searchers were rewarded by a pair
of duelling pistols, then a part of every gentleman’s outfit, and a
veritable Mons Meg, six inches long, which belonged to a small boy of
the same number of years.
As history counts, it was not long before Etienne Taché, in the
fold and one of our Queen’s knights good and true, declared “the
last gun fired for British supremacy in America would be fired by a
French-Canadian.”
From survivors, and from a few printed memorials, one finds that
what was known as Training Day seems to have been a great farce in
Upper Canada. The 4th of June, King George’s birthday, was its date.
Descriptions of it take one back to the Duke of Brunswick’s lament
over his army--that if it had been generaled by shoemakers and tailors
it could not have been worse, for the Duke’s general marched with
his division like cabbages and turnips in defile. Here there was no
likeness to anything so formal; the army manœuvres partook of the
wild luxuriance of native growths. If twelve were the hour for muster
on the common at Fort George, it was sure to be after one before the
arduous work of falling in began. “The men answered to their names, as
the rolls of the various companies were called, with a readiness and
distinctness of tone which showed that, in spite of the weather, they
were wide-awake,” says the chronicle. Once they became more active a
scene ensued which could not fail to gladden the eyes of the onlookers.
In time, either slow or quick, the men did not seem to be guided by any
rule of book, but exemplified home-made tactics, presenting lines for
which mathematicians have yet furnished no name, putting out flanking
parties at either end, and as nearly squaring a circle and circling a
square as possible. “Though many jokes were passed, fewer sods were
thrown than usual.” Even later than ’37, once men had been out and had
come home veterans their services were in demand by officers newly
appointed. As in the days of the good Duke of York, ignorance was an
officer’s perquisite; then some intelligent sergeant whispered the
word of command which his officer was ashamed to know; here, the poor
officer was willing, but perhaps had a sergeant as ignorant as himself.
However, he was not too haughty to search for some private to help
him. “Say, they tell me you were out,” said one of these officers to
a private; “I suppose you know something of military training. Now, I
am a captain and don’t know anything, and I believe I’ll appoint you
my sergeant.” The scene of initiation was by the Little Thames, on
what was later to be a Court House site, thenceforward to be known as
Stratford. The captain wore the battered remains of a tall silk hat, a
black tailed coat, white linen trousers about six inches too short, and
hose a world too wide for his shrunk shanks. The hastily-made sergeant,
Tom Stoney, a blue-eyed young Irishman with a spice of fun but kind
at heart, armed his superior officer with his own cavalry sword, and
taking him into his small saddler-shop made himself military tailor
as well. The captain never would have rested without spurs had he
known that the late King on his first appearance in military uniform,
although unmounted, wore a pair of gold ones that reached halfway up
his legs like a gamecock. Stoney drew down the white pantaloons as
far and as tight as possible, sewed on buttons, and cut and sewed two
leather straps to aid in keeping the captain together. The men were got
into line; the captain meekly took his place among them. “Right face!”
cried the sergeant, and off flew a button, up went the trouser-leg to
the knee--“pursued my humour, not pursuing his”--rejoicing in regained
freedom, relented and came down again. Clump-clamp went the leather
strap with every step. The sergeant’s commands came quicker than ever,
the captain perspired, and toiling behind his men removed his silk hat
to wipe his streaming face. Then he ventured his first “command”: “I
think we have had enough drill; we’ll march down to the distillery,
boys, if you like.” And they did.
In the Talbot District, Training Day since 1812 had been kept up with
constancy. In spite of that, the inhabitants were somewhat unprepared
when ’37 came. But the gathering of the Loyalists, however isolated
they were from one another, was willing and surprisingly quick. Old
officers of the army sought for and gathered up volunteers; they had
neither drum nor fife, but there was a ready response from willing
hearts, and from hands equally willing, however uncouth and unused
to arms. The most embarrassing hindrances, sometimes, to everything
like organization and drill and obedience to orders were those same
old soldiers when, as was generally the case, they knew more than
their officers. They stood in the ranks, and at the same time found
fault with every word of command, so that they demoralized that which
they had brought together. No set of volunteers was more difficult
to handle than the old soldiers who had settled in Adelaide. Captain
Pegley, although himself a retired regular officer, found them almost
unmanageable when mixed with the more docile farmers and farmers’ sons.
After much adjuration he at length broke out into exclamations which,
on the whole, suited his mixed audience better than set military
phrase. “Haw, man! gee, man!” cried he, a startling contrast to the
studied politeness of some of the subs, who, with nothing whatever of
the drill-sergeant tone, whenever the openings in the ranks were too
wide, would say, “Won’t you be kind enough to step nearer this way;
now, you men, be good enough to keep your places.” The sharpest order
delivered by these subs was, “Halt! and let the others come up, can’t
you!” Wheeling into line disclosed a line looking like the snake fence
surrounding the stubble field which contained the wheel.
Marching in quick time with one bagpipe and a fiddle, or with a single
drum and fife, was not antidote enough to the stubble as they passed
the gallant Lieutenant-Colonel in blue frock coat, white trousers
shoved up from his boots, a round hat above his fat face, seated in
unostentatious dignity on his venerable white mare, whose sides were
blown out with grass and her neck adorned with a rope halter. “Now,
men, _won’t_ you fall in,” he would pathetically inquire, while they
showed every disposition to fall out. For, instead of the drum boy, in
the centre of the parade-ground was a keg containing that liquid which
in Lower Canada, when carried in a seal-skin covered bottle, was known
as _Lac dulce_, or sometimes as old man’s milk. Then would Captain
Rappelje command to drink the Sovereign’s health, which was done _con
amore_; trials of strength, boxing and wrestling, would follow, when
“Abe would knock Jehial as straight as a loon’s foot.”
What would men not do to keep these kegs full. Once Colonel Bostwick
and Captain Neville were temporarily absent at the same time, while
certain points on the river were guarded against surprise; the rebels
were hourly expected, but failed to appear. Advantage was taken of the
officers’ absence to cross at one of these points, to replenish the
canteen. The boat, showing lights, returned before the expected time.
Those on the pier bethought them of a Yankee boast to come across and
eat the small village before breakfast. They prepared to fire into the
boat, but changed their minds, and rushed to where their Captain and a
companion were soundly sleeping. The pile of discarded clothing by the
couch had been rather mixed, and the Captain measured six foot odd; his
companion’s valour was contained in few inches.
“Come, come quick, quick, the rebels are upon us!” brought them to
their feet, the big Captain thrusting himself as far as he could, and
farther than the garments bargained for, into the unmentionables of
the smaller man. They refused to cover below the calf; he tried to
withdraw, they were obdurate, and in an agony of thought the enemy’s
knock was heard. The small man had meanwhile decamped with a train at
either heel. The Captain seized a jacket which matched the rest of
his suit; in desperation he took the quilt, and in toga arrayed, like
“that hook-nosed fellow of Rome,” reached the wharf in time to receive
the whiskey kegs, where he delivered a lecture on breach of discipline
and ordered the men to the guard-house. This Captain was a formidable
figure out of his quilt, in his own red uniform with white facings and
girt with a sword whose hilt of ivory and brass was further decorated
with two beavers conventionalized beyond even the requirements of
modern art. The sash, of double twisted silk, strange to say had been
the property of John Rolph, who, during his life in Middlesex, had
made his home in Captain Neville’s house--a queer foregathering, for
we all know the one, and the latter was after the pattern of the U. E.
Loyalist definition in 1777:
“By Tory now is understood
A man who seeks his country’s good.”
Captain Neville and Colonel Mahlon Burwell had a friendly rivalry as
to who would furnish the country to which they were both so devoted
with the most warlike sons. Leonidas, Blucher, Hannibal, Napoleon and
Brock, did they call their unprotesting infants, until a mother rose to
the assertion of her prerogative when Wolfe was suggested for one of
her babies. The most warlike of this cream of heroism weighed but two
pounds when he came into the world, and was put in his father’s carpet
slipper to be weighed. Great, then, was the consternation when at the
outbreak the following regimental order was issued, embracing fathers
and sons:
“You are hereby ordered and required to warn all the men from sixteen
to sixty, within limits of the late Captain David Rappelje’s company,
to meet at St. Thomas, 13th inst., on Wednesday, with arms and
ammunition, of whom I will take command.” The same village walls held
another order from Sir Francis Bond Head. The result was more men
brought together than ever before in the history of the settlement.
The Mansion House was the great rallying point, and here, after the
Scotch fashion, business was discussed, the suspected ones talked over
by the extra loyal, and toasts and maledictions drunk according to
the politics of the thirsty. That part of the country was one of the
most disaffected sections, and neighbour looked upon neighbour with
suspicion.