Canadian Hospitality--Muffins--Departure for the States--Desertions
--Montreal again--Southerners in Montreal--Drill and Snow
Shoes--Winter Campaigning--Snow Drifts--Military Discontent.
Although my residence in Quebec was very short, I left the city
with regret. Compared with the cities of the States, its antiquity
is venerable and its ways are peace; but from what I heard of
public amusement in summer time I should say that life here would
be found dull, as compared with existence in a European capital, or
in a city so vainly gay and profitably festive as New York. There
is no great wealth among the people, but a moderate competency
is largely enjoyed, and neither wealth nor poverty attains undue
dimensions.
I found at Quebec a very agreeable society, the tone of feeling
which prevails in a capital, the utmost hospitality. Had I had a
hundred mouths they would here all have been kept busy. Invitations
came in scores, and were to be resisted with difficulty. Knowing
all this I am the more astonished at the recent statements which I
have heard, that the Canadians have not extended any civilities to
our officers. If so, a great change must have taken place. I am not
now talking of sleighing parties, but of the hospitality of the
inner house. The fair Canadians may have been too kind in accepting
the name and position of “muffins” from the young Britishry; but
the latter cannot say they have suffered much in consequence. A
muffin is simply a lady who sits beside the male occupant of the
sleigh--_Sola cum solo_, “and all the rest is leather and prunella.”
The social system is intended rather for the comfort of the inner
life, and for the development of domestic happiness, than for such
external glare and glitter as Broadway delights in, or for such
unsound social relations as mark the America of hotels. The great
artists who adorn the drama or the lyric stage can rarely be bribed
sufficiently high to visit these northern regions; but I doubt
whether there is not a better taste in art among the people of
Quebec than there is to be found in most cities of the same size in
the United States.
On a gloomy winter evening I was once more battling with the ice on
the St. Lawrence; and, after a long passage, left Point Levi for
Montreal.
A weary life-long night it seemed, and a still wearier day in the
train. It was close upon twenty-one hours of stuffy, foodless
travel, ere we arrived at Montreal. Nor can I remember anything
worth recording of all that linked weariness, long drawn out,
except that, halting at a roadside station in the night, I came on
a detachment of the Scots Fusilier Guards, who had come up from
Rivière du Loup, after their passage in sleighs over the snows of
New Brunswick, and were in high spirits, looking very red in the
face, and bulky in comparison with the lean habitans. “Misthress,”
quoth one of them to the woman at the bar, “wad ye gi’e me a
dhrap av whuskie?” The Hebe complied with this request, and for
some very small pecuniary consideration filled him out nearly a
tumblerful of the dreadful preparation known in the States as
“Fortyrod.” The soldier tasted it, blinked his eyes, squeezed them
close, pursed up his lips, smacked them, gave a short watery cough,
smelt the mixture, and, looking at his comrades, exclaimed, “My
Gude! Hech! I’d jist as soon face a charge of baynets.” After that
proem I was prepared to see the hardy warrior eject the fluid, but
he proceeded to a most inconsequent act: for, nodding his head, he
said, “Sae, here’s t’ye, my lads,” and tossed down the fire-water
incontinent.
There were several companies of H.M.’s 63rd Regiment in the train,
also going up to Montreal. It did not escape me that at the station
pickets were looking sharply out for intending deserters, who might
have cut away in the darkness; and I was told, and felt inclined
to believe it might be worth their while, that there were Yankee
crimps lying in wait at all the stations to help the deserters
across the frontier, if they could induce them to leave their
colours. The anxiety and annoyance caused by desertion, and by the
chance of it, add to the dissatisfaction which is now expressed in
our army in Canada; but I must say I cannot quite sympathise with
the violence and exaggeration in which that dislike finds vent.
Captains of companies suffer losses, but in many instances they
have only themselves to blame. The men, seduced by high pay, either
in the States or as farm-labourers in Canada, are seized with an
irresistible desire to quit the service abruptly, “without leave,”
and resort to ingenious artifices to escape. Sometimes a whole
guard will march off bodily, non-commissioned officers and all;
occasionally one of the number will submit to be handcuffed, and
will be marched by his comrades through the post as a deserter,
or a man will put on a sergeant’s jacket or sew chevrons on his
coat sleeve, and march off his party as if they were going out on
picket or patrol duty. Such artifices cannot always be successfully
encountered, but they are to be met to some extent by increased
vigilance.
I need not say that it was with satisfaction I exchanged my railway
van for a comfortable room in the house of Mr. Rose at Montreal.
The news of an immediate advance of the army of the Potomac which
had been received from New York turned out to be untrue; no
immediate hurry was there need for to go down to the seat of war. I
dined at the club, where we had a very agreeable party, enlivened
by the fervent conversation of some Southern gentlemen of the
little colony of refugees which finds shelter in Montreal under
the British flag. There is some work of Nemesis in the condition
of these gentlemen. Here are Charleston people, who claimed the
right to imprison British subjects because they had dark skins, now
taking refuge under the British flag, from the exercise of the very
power which enabled them to maintain their claim, and apologising
to Englishmen for the peculiar institution on the ground that they
treated their niggers better than the Yankees do.
The snow again falling, and the day cold. On the Sunday after my
arrival, I walked into town in moccasins, and attended service
in Christchurch, where the ritual was in close imitation of the
cathedral formula at home. I saw a party of the Guards marched
to church, who had an air of profound discontent on their manly
features. Some Canadians near me evidently regarded them as
hardened heretics going to a place of punishment, and at the
same time deserving it as foreign mercenaries; but the Guards
certainly did not seem to care one farthing for their opinion,
if they understood the expression of it. The building is very
handsome; but, in spite of the cold outside, I found the atmosphere
unbearable, owing to the stoves, iron pipes, or some other
undesirable calorific apparatus. The sermon was respectable and
frigid.
I spent the next day visiting the remarkable places and persons
passed over in Montreal on my last brief visit. In the evening I
dined with Colonel Kelly and H.M.’s 47th Regiment, who entertained
Sir Fenwick Williams and the officers of the Guards then in
garrison, and on the following morning at 9 o’clock I drove over
to the Barracks to see a drill of the regiment on the St. Lawrence
in snow-shoes. Sir Fenwick Williams and some staff officers were
on the ground. The regiment was admirably handled by Colonel
Kelly, and the scene was very novel and amusing. The regiment
was in excellent condition: the men seemed rather to like the
fun with the snow-shoes, and when skirmishers were thrown out or
called in at the double, there was certainty of a fall or two from
unlucky privates tripping up in their shoes and tumbling in the
snow, which flew like puffs of musketry. Fresh from parades of
volunteers I felt the force of Lord Clyde’s maxim--“The first duty
of a soldier is to obey”--as I looked at the measured tread even at
the quickest, and the alert, agile formations of the men to whom
discipline was the whole scope of military intellect. There was,
I thought, in that complex machine of many parts, but of only one
animating, moving power, what would be cheaply bought by the United
States by many hundreds of thousands of dollars for the purposes
of war, though man to man one of their regiments might be more
intelligent, and quite as capable of deeds of valour as the old
47th, of whom indeed not many had the Crimean medal, though the
campaign is now but a few years old.
In the evening I dined with the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Fenwick
Williams, and met Mr. Cartier, Mr. Galt, and Mr. Rose.
The letters from England which came by every mail showed that the
position was not much understood, as it was believed there would be
a speedy movement of the army of the Potomac, which I knew to be
buried in mud. The American papers of course deluded their readers
by constant assurances that McClellan was about to move next week.
It would seem, after all, that in new countries the practice of
going into winter quarters, which prevailed among sixteenth and
seventeenth century generals, was founded on good reason; but that
as the land became better drained, and the roads were improved
by civilisation and populations, the necessity for inaction was
diminished. Napoleon astonished Europe by some wonderful escapades
in the field; but even in the Peninsula the British suffered
greatly in winter movements. In the old French war, operations in
Canada were usually over in August or early in September; but the
Americans, in their bold and skilful campaign of 1775, commenced
their invasion or dash late in the year--managed so well that they
broke in almost simultaneously at Montreal and Quebec, on the
British, who had only one regular regiment in the Provinces, in
November--and it was on the last day of the year that Montgomery
and Arnold made their brilliant and unsuccessful attempt to carry
the citadel by escalade.
Again, in 1812, it was as late as October before the Americans
opened their campaign on the Niagara frontier; and it was about
the middle of November when they directed their ill-managed and
abortive demonstration against Montreal. They again moved in
January, 1813, and several actions took place in the early months
of the year, nor did the approach of winter drive the contending
parties from the field; and a good deal of sharp fighting took
place in December. In the following year the Americans began the
offensive at a later period, though the corps intended to operate
against the Montreal district was in motion in the first week of
March. Our defeat at Plattsburgh occurred on September 11th. The
Americans make much of it--with great justice. They defeated the
best regiments of an army which had proved itself, in face of the
picked troops of Napoleon, the first in Europe. When winter is well
established in these high latitudes, perhaps it is, under ordinary
circumstances, more favourable to military operations than it is
in lower latitudes, where tremendous rains alternate with heavy
snow-storms, which do not form permanent deposits over which to
move men or guns.
On the following day I dined with Mr. Chamberlain, of the
“Montreal Gazette,” Mr. Rose, Mr. Ryland, Major Penn, and a
number of gentlemen connected with the Canadian press, at a
famous old-fashioned English tavern, kept by an old-fashioned
John Bull cook, who would have fainted outright at the sight
of a _vol-au-vent_ and died of an _omelette glacée_, where we
had much old-fashioned English talk. On our issuing into the
outer world there was a snow-fall going on, the like of which I,
unaccustomed, had never seen before; and my voyage out to Mr.
Rose’s was diversified by attempts of the sleigh-driver to get
over boundary-walls and into gardens, till we came to a dead stop
just as the fall cleared off a little, and permitted us to get a
glimpse of the moon. But the moon gave no assistance, for its rays
only lighted up great snow-mounds and a universal whiteness, and
the road seemed as doubtful as ever. As I was deliberating what was
best to be done, a sleigh-bell was heard jingling in the distance,
and the vehicle gradually approached us. We hailed the occupant,
and I heard a well-known voice in answer: it was that of Colonel
Lysons, an inmate of the same hospitable abode as that I occupied.
Our united efforts at last discovered the mansion.
The snow-storm continued next day: the fall was so great that
Lysons, who was bound to Quebec on duty connected with the Militia
Bill, and started early, was compelled to return _re infecta_ in
the morning. Towards the afternoon the storm ceased, and left a
thick outer garment over the body of the country. The younger
people of the house considered the occasion favourable for
snow-balling, and I was included in some diffusive arrangements,
very unfavourable to literary composition, for the spread of the
white artillery, directed by willing hands and unrelenting aim at
short range. I dined with the artillery mess--went afterwards to a
ball given by H.M.’s 16th Regiment at the Donegana, which is the
headquarters of Secessiondom--and finished the evening by a visit
to the house of Mr. Judah, who gave a dance which was attended
by Lord F. Paulet and a number of soldiers, and, above all, by a
lovely American, who created a strong current in favour of the
Union, of which she was a staunch advocate.
As already hinted, I have heard of complaints from officers of the
Guards and other regiments that the Canadians during the period in
question did not treat them with the hospitality for which they
were once celebrated. Of that point I am not well able to judge;
but I must say, that during the whole period of my stay in Canada,
I never was in any society in which I did not see British officers,
and never knew of their having had reason to complain of neglect
till lately. If there was any want of hospitable civility, I must
think the officers were in some measure to blame for it: for among
those stationed any length of time in Canada, or who knew the
country in former years, I always heard unreserved praise of those
Canadians who had the means of entertaining visitors. It must be
remembered that there are few Canadians who are wealthy enough to
give set dinners, and that the reserve which guards the family
of the Frenchman existed in the times from which his descendants
in Canada take their traditions and manners. Many people in
Montreal, well inclined to show every attention in their power
to the officers quartered among them, were deterred by the very
prestige of the Guards’ social position from offering them ordinary
civility; and by degrees in many cases an estrangement grew up.
I saw nothing to account for the discontent of officers who were
quartered at Montreal, save and except the fact that they were
on foreign service, that they were not in England or London among
their friends, and that they did not like the people,--all grounds
which they might unfortunately allege against any other part of the
world in which the British army is forced to serve. The subject is
only important, in so far as it exercises an influence over the
relations of the two countries; a common expression of dislike
on the part of men who exercise a great influence among the most
powerful classes in this country must increase any tendency to
regard with indifference the possession of the great territory
which it is my belief we should seek to attach to the Crown by
every possible legitimate means, Professor Goldwin Smith and the
political economists of his school notwithstanding.
After a stay of some days in Montreal, I received intelligence
which rendered it necessary for me to depart at once for the United
States, and I returned to New York by Rouse’s Point, travelling
night and day. I had seen enough of Canada to inspire me with a
real regard for the people, and a sincere interest in the fortunes
of such a magnificent dependency of the Crown, and I resolved, as
far as in me lay, to attract the attention of the home country
to a region which offers so many advantages to her children, and
promises one day to be the seat of flourishing communities, if not
of a vast and independent empire.