ACROSS THE WIDE ATLANTIC--A STRANGE PARADE--THE
BAREFOOT SQUAD--SHIPWRECK--A FEARFUL FIGHT.
It is quite early on the morning of a bright and lovely summer's day.
On board the brave old transport _Salamanca_ seven bells have only
just been struck. The officers are briskly walking about the
quarter-deck, up and down, up and down, in that eager and hungry
expectancy with which Britons, be they soldiers or sailors, await a
summons to breakfast.
The sea is almost calm now. Only a gentle breeze ruffles its waters,
and the sunshine is sparkling on every wave.
But only yesterday, and down to yester eve, it blew so fiercely that
the good ship was scudding along almost under bare poles, and rolling
and plunging enough--the seamen said--to drag the masts out of her
and haul them overboard. There was one consolation, however, even
when the gale was at its worst. The _Salamanca_ had plenty of
sea-room, for she is crossing the wide Atlantic with troops to assist
in the American war, in Canada.
Far too much elated at the success of the first great War of
Independence, the Americans had gone to war with us again, and would
not be content, so they vowed, until they had captured Canada, and
thus "cabbaged," as they termed it, "the whole boundless continent."
Pity indeed that two nations such as America and Britain, speaking
the same language, holding fast by the same religion, brothers in
every sense of the beautiful word, should ever long to imbrue their
hands in each others blood.
The _Salamanca_ is under easy sail this morning, for she is a fast
ship of her kind, and the captain judged, rightly too, that she must
be far ahead of the other transports, and of the line-of-battle ship
the _Warrior_, which was acting as their convoy.
But hark! there is a hail from the main-top-mast cross-trees.
"Sail in sight!"
"Can you make her out?"
There is a long pause, while the out-look scans her. And there is
anxiety visible enough on every countenance; for the vessel is
three-quarters of the way across, and this sail may be a Yankee
cruiser.
"_Can't_ you make her out?" was shouted a second time.
One moment.
"Yes, sir; it is the _Warrior_."
A cheer rises from the deck fore and aft, then the steward's bell
rings, and the officers go tumbling down to breakfast.
A little child, three years of age--a sailor's pet she is, if ever
sailors had a pet--is perched high up on the shoulders of sturdy,
giant McLeod. In fact, she has a little leg, with well-bronzed knee,
over each shoulder, as if she were a kind of top-gallant bulwark to
the bold doctor.
The doctor has been her horse for the last half-hour, and she has
been riding him up and down the deck.
But now her excitement knows no bounds, and she clutches the doctor
by the hair with one hand, while with the other she waves on high a
little flag that one of the men made for her.
"Hillo! the _Walliol_," she cries.
But now Dr. McLeod lowers her from her perch, for she, too, is ready
for breakfast.
"Good-morning, Sergeant," he says, as he meets my grandfather. "Here
is your little daughter. We have been having such glorious fun, but
if it continues like this every morning, I won't have a hair on my
head! How do you get on with the women, Sergeant?" continued the
doctor. "Better, I trust. Have you got them to wash their faces
every morning yet?"
He referred to the soldiers' wives.
"Just hold on half a minute," said grandfather, laughing, "and you'll
see the strangest parade, perhaps, you ever clapped eyes on. You
see," he explained, "I have ordered every woman on board to appear on
deck for inspection, bareheaded, with bare necks and naked feet."
The latter would be called "Trilbies" nowadays.
"And to show there is no unfairness," he continued, "I have put my
own wife at the head of them."
Next minute about thirty soldiers' wives appeared on deck just as my
grand-dad described, and at their head, in the same strange
_deshabille_, my grandmother.
They were drawn up like so many Amazons, their own husbands laughing
and chaffing a little.
"Chin up, Maria!" cried one soldier.
"Attention! Jeannie, my lass!" came from another.
"Dress, Betsy," said a third.
"Dress, indeed!" answered Betsy with a saucy toss of her head. "I
wish we could."
"Silence! Attention!"
That was my grand-dad's voice.
"Now, Mrs. Robertson," he said, "do your duty!"
Armed with a sergeant's pike, my grandmother commenced the
inspection, and, stopping for a few seconds in front of every woman,
carefully scrutinised her, literally from top to toe.
Had any one of them appeared even with unclean hands, either she
herself would have been punished by being kept below, or punished by
proxy--namely, by the stopping of her husband's grog.
When Dr. McLeod went below and reported what he had seen, there was a
good deal of laughing.
The adjutant, however, approved of the plan, and complimented
grandfather on his originality.
It certainly was successful, for the women after this took much more
interest in their personal appearance. But the "barefoot squad," as
Jack Tar called them, was drilled just the same all throughout the
voyage.
* * * * *
In those days there were no ocean greyhounds, as our fleetest
Atlantic liners are now called. The voyage across the sea was
therefore a long and a weary one.
The _Salamanca_, however, did not get out without adventure, for in
the gulf of the St. Lawrence she was separated from the other
transports in a dense fog, and for many a week saw no more of the
_Warrior_ or any other ship.
Finally, in the darkness of a wild and stormy night, they ran on the
rocks off the island of Anticosti.
Daylight revealed the peril of their situation, for both wind and
waves were high, and there was every sign that the vessel would soon
break up. It was a terrible time and a trying.
At last a boat was lowered and manned by bold British bluejackets,
who pulled shorewards and round a little cape to seek for a
landing-place.
How long the time seemed! Hours and hours passed by, and yet there
were no signs of their return. The soldiers and their wives were
huddled together under the lee of the bulwarks forward, and the
children crouched beneath their shawls and plaids.
At long last there was a cheer. The boat could be seen coming round
the point.
Luckily their report was a good one. They had found a spot where a
landing could be effected.
The women and children were sent off first, then the soldiers, then
stores, and last of all, just as the vessel was slipping off the
rock, the sailors left her.
Far over the wooded western shore the sun was setting and daylight
would soon be at an end.
The last boat was not sixty yards away from the vessel when she
slipped back. For a moment or two her jib-boom was stretched high in
the air like the naked arm of a drowning man extended in agony, then
she went down with a sullen boom like the roar of a distant gun.
"How, brothers, row; the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight is past."
The stream did run high, or rather the tide, and although there were
no rapids, there were rushing waves, and breakers too.
The last boat rounded the point safely, however, and presently they
could see the lights waving on shore to guide them on.
And never, perhaps, were tired sailors more glad to get on shore, and
seat themselves around a cheerful campfire.
I cannot remember how many days or weeks these shipwrecked men and
women remained here, but it was a dismal time, for the fogs closed
around them again and buried all the distant shores.
Moreover, the bears were in scores, and the poor children were nearly
frightened to death; for so bold did the brutes become that they made
dashes at night, and carried away provisions in the very glare of the
campfires.
They were rescued at last, however, and taken on board another
transport.
Then they were hurried on up into the interior, where fighting was
going on, and where their services were very much needed indeed.
* * * * * *
Although geography ought to be studied from globes, still maps are
very useful, although at times puzzling, as they very often give
wrong impressions of the lay of the land and the bearings of one
country to another. I should always take the part of that boy or
girl who hated geography or history, for this reason: it is
taught--if teaching one can call it--from a wrong basis at our
schools and seminaries. It is rendered neither pleasant nor
interesting, but, on the contrary, hateful. I should just as soon
expect a youngster to get by heart the first chapter of the Book of
Numbers, and feel interested in that, as in the geography and history
as taught in schools.
I will tell you, however, where a map becomes a comfort and a
necessity, and that is when a war is on. Indeed, I believe that war
teaches most people about all they know about any place.
I have mentioned the river St. Lawrence. Now although some little
boys may imagine that the St. Lawrence is somewhere down in Surrey or
up Yorkshire way, I can assure them it is in no such place.
Just for once in a way take a glance at your map. What a mighty
ocean that is which stretches right away, without bounds or limits or
even an island to break its monotony, from the south of England to
Newfoundland. Some idiots call it the herring-pond, in an off-hand
kind of way as if such an ocean were a mere mill-dam compared to the
seas they have crossed. Such people have probably never been a mile
from a cow's tail in all their low little lives.
The Atlantic is a mighty and wonderful expanse of water, and although
crossed by thousands of ships, I have sailed in a bee-line on this
great world of waters for a whole week without seeing a craft of
anything.
Only the dark heaving waves, only the boundless horizon, only the
sky. Its very lonesomeness has made me feel eerie.
O, if that ocean had a voice other than that of its booming billows,
what a story it could tell! What sufferings it has seen, what
founderings, what battles, what agonies! And what strange mysteries!
So pray do not talk of it slightingly, if you wish to lay claim to
having more brains than could be held in a walnut-shell. But when
going to the St. Lawrence you sail on and on till at long last you
round the great Bank of Newfoundland, then bear north and west, till
you skirt the huge island itself, which is as large as the whole of
Ireland itself.
When past this you are in the Gulf, and so you sail on and past
Anticosti, where my grandfather, grandmother, and my three-year-old
mammy were wrecked. You are in the river now, but still a mighty
long way from Quebec itself. But, if you clap your eagle eye on the
map, you may be surprised to know that the distance from Toronto to
the mouth of the St. Lawrence is nearly as far as from Cork to the
middle of the Atlantic, and Lake Erie farther still. You will note
also that New York itself is far nearer to Toronto than Quebec itself.
Well, the United States had been casting sheep's-eyes at our big
sister Canada. But Canada is our love, not theirs. She belongs to
this other boy--to John, and not to Jonathan--and if John catches
Jonathan making love to his sister Canada, O my! won't Jonathan catch
it, that is all! The boundary-line of the United States is a
perfectly straight one from the shores of the Pacific to the Lake of
the Woods in Upper Canada. Well, all Jonathan wanted was to extend
that line on the straight to the Atlantic Ocean.
But Sister Canada wouldn't have it.
"If you come a step nearer, Mr. Jonathan," she says, "I'll scream,
and wild cats won't be in it."
You see, reader, it is not a very difficult thing to make a map on
paper with pen and ink. But when the same job is attempted on _terra
firma_, with a sword for a pen and blood instead of ink, why the case
is considerably altered.
Such a map, however, the Americans determined to make, a year before
my grandfather's battalion crossed the ocean.
At this time, instead of having ships on the great lakes and soldiers
on shore, we had neither to speak of.
So, in the early part of 1813, General Dearborn, who commanded the
American forces, had set the ball in motion. He advanced upon
York--a town and stronghold on Lake Ontario.
We had barely a thousand men there, and, as the Yankee was supported
by a flotilla of gunboats, the Canadians decamped, leaving their
military stores for Dearborn.
"That is a good beginning," he said to himself. So, in his flotilla,
he loaded up those stores, and with artillery, cavalry, and
infantry--about seven thousand all told--he set sail for Niagara,
and, after some hard fighting, captured Fort George. General
Vincent, of the British or Canadian side, had only a handful of
troops, so could not well oppose Dearborn. But Vincent, after
clearing out of Fort George, collected all the troops he could find,
to the number of about eighteen hundred, and determined to make a
stand fifty miles up the strait at Burlington Bay.
This was another chance for Dearborn to annihilate a few more
Britishers; so he marched to attack brave Vincent with nine guns and
three thousand men. But Vincent himself did the attacking this time;
and Colonel Harvey, of ours, was chosen to lead a midnight bayonet
charge on Dearborn's camp. It was an awful fight, but it did not
last long. Harvey was victorious; though he had only seven hundred
men, he scattered the enemy in all directions, littered the ground
with their dead and wounded, and took four guns and over one hundred
prisoners.
This, then, was the beginning of this new American war; and, though
it must be admitted the Yankees fought bravely at times and met with
many successes, they really had reckoned without their host. That
host was Canada; and so pluckily did she fight that they were utterly
beaten.
They had run up a heavy bill which it would take a long time for
their country to clear; they had lost in all over fifty thousand men,
and last, but not least, they had earned for themselves the hatred of
every man and woman in Canada, and that hatred, I fear, is a fire
that is smouldering till this very day, as the extraordinary activity
of the Canadians and their splendid rush to arms during the-war scare
in January, 1896, fully prove.
The word "never" is a long one, for neither men nor nations know what
may be in store for them in the future, or how near to them the
future that shall work such changes may be; but it is the general
opinion, both here and in Canada, that America will never be able to
conquer Canada. She will never be a great naval Power either. She
certainly will not be if she crosses arms with Britain. It will add
to her wealth, as well as her power, to keep the peace with her old
mother, Britain.
And now, my intelligent reader, I consider that there has been blood
enough spilt in these pages of mine to satisfy any gore-loving lad
that ever sat by a cosy fire on a winter's evening.
But I must give you a sketch of just one fight that occurred on the
Canadian frontier, and, after you have read it, I wish you to ask
yourself the question: Ought two nations, who can fight so terribly
as this, to be other than friendly?
The fight was about a battery that the British had erected on a
commanding hill at the battle of Chippewa. "The action," says
Alison, quoting from General Drummond's official account, "began
about six in the evening, and the whole line was soon warmly engaged,
but the weight of the conflict fell upon the British centre and left."
Notwithstanding the utmost efforts, the latter was forced back, and
our General Riell was severely wounded and made prisoner. The 89th,
Royals, and King's regiments opposed a determined resistance, and the
guns on the hill, which were worked with prodigious rapidity,
occasioned so great a loss to the attacking columns, that General
Brown (American) soon saw that there was no chance of success until
that battery was carried; and a desperate effort was resolved on to
obtain the mastery of it.
The Americans, under General Millar, advanced with the utmost
resolution, and with such vigour that five of the British cannon at
first fell into their hands.
So desperate was the onset, so strenuous the resistance, that the
British artillerymen were bayoneted by the enemy in the act of
loading, and the muzzles of their guns were advanced to within a few
yards of the English battery.
This dreadful conflict continued till after dark, with alternate
success, in the course of which the combatants fought hand to hand,
by the light of the discharges of the guns, and the artillery on both
sides was repeatedly taken and retaken.
At length the combatants sank to rest, from pure mutual exhaustion,
within a few yards of each other, and so intermingled that two of the
American guns were finally mastered by the British, and one of the
British by the Americans.
During the period of repose the loud roar of the battle was succeeded
by a silence so profound, that the dull roar of the Falls of Niagara,
interrupted at intervals by the groans of the wounded, was distinctly
heard.
Over the scene of this desperate strife the moon threw an uncertain
light, which yielded occasionally to the bright flashes of musketry
and cannon when the combat was partially renewed.
But British Drummond took advantage of the lull in the awful storm to
bring up his right, so as to support the centre.
The American general now saw that all his efforts were in vain, and
at midnight the bugles sounded the retreat; the blood-red hill and
their guns were left to the British who had so manfully defended them.
I think you will agree with me that the answer to the question I
requested you to put to yourself must be: "No--_No_--No."
"I re-echo," said a well-known man on January 25th, 1896 (Burns'
birthday), "I re-echo and I reciprocate, from the bottom of my heart,
the noble words which were spoken by the American Senator Walcott,
amidst uwonted applause, in the hall of the Capitol at Washington,
when he said: 'Blood is thicker than water, and until a just quarrel
divides us, which Heaven forbid, may these two great nations, of the
same speech, lineage, and traditions, stand as brothers shoulder to
shoulder in the interests of humanity by a union compelling peace.'
That always has been, that always will be, the wish of every Briton.
The two nations are allied, and more closely allied in sentiment and
in interest than any other two nations on the earth. While I should
look with horror upon, anything in the nature of a fratricidal
strife, I should look forward with pleasure to the possibility of the
Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack floating together in defence of
a common cause sanctioned by humanity and by justice."
In God's name, then, let us have peace with our brother Jonathan, and
heartily shake
HANDS ACROSS THE WATER.