Autocrats All. “It is in me and shall out.”

At about this period of her history Canada threatened to become that against which Washington had warned his countrymen, a slave to inveterate antipathies. The mass of the people were violently for or against each person, cause or abstract question, in turn; and naturally, the times being critical, weak men went to the wall and those who were by nature autocrats came to the front, and in their way did the best of work. Sir John Colborne, St. Eustache notwithstanding, was the right man in the right place; his severe acts were not committed either thoughtlessly or wantonly. Each was useful in his own way as circumstances and a narrow orbit permitted. After Sir John came Prince, MacNab and Drew. None of them hated in a small, toothy way; there was nothing of the schemer about any one of them. It was a word and a blow. And although at one time it seemed as if the most prominent of them, Prince and MacNab, had given force to the saying that the man who commits a crime gives strength to the enemy, the two events in which they figured—as criminals or heroes according to prejudice—and which nearly caused a great war, were the means of putting down the rebellion. The Caroline, and the prisoners who were “shot accordingly,” showed that the iron heel could stamp, that the iron hand was better without the glove.

Following closely upon Gallows Hill came the occupation of Navy Island and the burning of the Caroline.

“What,” asked Canada, “is meant by Neutrality?” and Jonathan, smoothing the rough edges of his meaning in poesie, replied: “Excite fresh men t’invade that monarch’s shore, And fill a loyal country with alarms, And give them men, with warlike stores and arms, Encourage brigands and all aid supply; I guess that’s strict, downright Neutral-i-ty!”

At the foot of the terrible three hundred and thirty-four feet of water-leaps taken in the last thirty-six miles of the river-bed of the Niagara, lay Navy Island, only a mile and a half above the cauldron, and within three-quarters of a mile of the worst of the mysterious strugglings and throes of the rapids. This, with several other small islands, forms a strait and two channels, and lies within a half-mile row of the Canadian shore. The Canadian boatman, intrepid as he is, knows the meaning of that sound, which is ocean at its maddest—a rolling sea heralding a coming storm that is born in the countless million tons of clear, deep green water and milk-white bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, which leap into the appalling confusion below.

Here, on December 13th, was run up the patriot flag, with its twin stars supposed to represent “the Canadas—two pretty provinces, like two pretty daughters kept in durance vile by an old and surly father; they will either soon elope, or be carried off nolens volens.”

The Provisional Government, set up on this Juan Fernandez, where Mackenzie hoped soon to be monarch of all he surveyed, had also its seal, which showed, besides the twin stars, a new moon breaking through the surrounding darkness—the Egyptian night of Canadian thraldom—with the legend, “Liberty—Equality.” Luckily, the third word from their French model was missing, for they did fall out and scratch and fight in a way to serve any local Watts with themes. At Gallows Hill nothing would satisfy Mackenzie but the Governor’s head. So now there was an issue of money, and a proclamation, the latter offering five hundred pounds for the apprehension of Sir Francis Bond Head, “so that he may be dealt with as appertains to justice.” “Would you as it were dethrone him and bring him to the block,” had queried Rolph some time before, in his well-known and clever serio-comic supposititious trial of that dignitary. The commissions issued were embellished with an eagle and other insignia of patriotism, the eagle lifting a lion in his claws and evidently about to fly away with him, the legend “Liberty or Death.”

It looked as if the would-be Cromwell, after he had “Come in with a rout, kicked Parliament out, Would finish by wearing the Crown.”

His coadjutor from the United States was Rensselaer van Rensselaer. Together, they were dubbed Tom Thumb and Jack-the-Giant-Killer. Van Rensselaer, a naturally handsome man, under thirty, looked much older from dissipation, “A lean and bloated dram-drinker, a spectacle his nose,” called by his countrymen Rip van Winkle the Second, who spent his time on Navy Island in the double occupation of drinking brandy, of which he always had a bottle under his head at night, and writing love-letters. By his own account he spent his days plodding “four weary miles through mud and water” round their little republic to dispose of recruits and to erect defences; was prostrate, haggard and careworn, and, when about to partake of a much-needed meal, would be called away to receive a boat-load of visitors and leave it untouched. By the account of others, he bade fair, like Lord Holland in his epitaph, to be drowned sitting in his elbow-chair, or properly speaking camp-stool, for furnishings were meagre on Navy Island. The New York Courier and Enquirer had the honesty, in the recapitulatory articles which all border events called out, to say, “It is idle in this matter to affect concealment of the fact that the present Canadian rebellion receives its chief impulse and encouragement from the United States.” No wonder then that a Canadian sheet should say: “Marshals, governors and generals were on the look-out for patriots; but one such in charge met a number of the last en route to Navy Island hauling a piece of ordnance. ‘Where are you bound for?’ said the gentle general. ‘Oh, we are only going to shoot ducks,’ said they, and they were allowed to proceed.”

The Attorney-General said that the wording of Marcy’s and other messages deprecated the invasion of Canada in an “Oh-now-don’t” kind of appeal, which, read between the lines, meant “Go on like good fellows—do just as you like.”

“The doors were opened,” writes a patriot, “and the patriots told to help themselves.” Ten pieces of State artillery were given up on the strength of the following note, a fine compliment to General Winfield Scott’s literary reputation—than whom no finer military man in any service ever stepped:

“Buffalo Head Qr., Jan. 18, 1838.

“Col. H. B. Ransom, Commander-in-chief, Tonawanda.

“Pleas sen on those pieces of Canon which are at your place; let the same teams come on with them.

“Your in hase, “W Scott Commander in Chief on the “Frontier of Niagara.”

There was no forgery, for the patriot guard was W. Scott, afterwards, by the way, a candidate for presidential honours.

New York papers could not see any similarity between the Rebellion and the Revolution; and as to comparing leaders, “why, it was likening barn door fowls to soaring eagles.” But in case of the pother ending in war, a correspondent of the Toronto Palladium says, “There would not be a house left to smoke, nor a cock to crow day, within ten miles of the shore on the banks of navigable rivers—and a finger-post might be set up, ‘Here the United States was.’”

As for volunteers, they were as plentiful as United States arms, and comprised all sorts and conditions of man and boy. Two thirty-six pounders, one eighteen-pounder, two thousand stand of arms, one hundred cannon balls, five hundred musket cartridges, is the enumeration of one contribution; and only the state of the roads prevents one contributor setting out with a six-pound brass cannon. An old gun is actually sent with the message, “If you want cannon we are ready to cast them for you.” An ex-member of the New York Legislature, with two certified captains, goes with a letter to Van Rensselaer, to talk over what measures sentries, presumably of an arsenal, might take to furnish material without infringing the law; and D. M’Leod writes, “Arms in abundance can be had for the asking.” Another friend sends blankets and arms; one old man, a follower of Murat, asks a cavalry commission for his son, a lad of nineteen, adding pathetically, “I am now old and poor, but if you will grant my request I will send you my son, the last descendant of a noble line of warlike commanders of France.”

A blacksmith in Buffalo had an order for nine hundred creepers, other artisans were busy at daggers and bowie knives, and a Mr. Wilkinson furnished five hundred pounds of boiler cuttings as a substitute for grape-shot. Canadians were used to this kind of ammunition. Away back in 1758 the Highlanders wounded at Carillon had died of cankered wounds from the broken glass and jagged metal used instead of “honest shot.”

“An empty hand, a stout heart, and a fair knowledge of military tactics,” blankets, boots and shoes, one hundred and seventeen loaves of bread, eight tons of grape-shot, two loads of beef, pork, and bread, together with “some gentlemen well equipped for fight,” one hundred muskets, four loads of volunteers, swell the original twenty-six men who accompanied Mackenzie and Van Rensselaer at first, when the frame of a cannon, upon which Mackenzie had sunk inert and spirit-broken till aroused by some false alarm, is the only defence mentioned. But, undaunted, “Push off!” had been the cry of this handful. A proclamation was issued, drawing attention to the country in front which was languishing under the blighting influence of military despots, strangers from Europe; an end forever was promised to the wearisome prayers, supplications and mockeries attendant upon our connection with the lordlings of the Colonial office, Downing Street, London; the time was favourable, owing to the absence of the “hired” red-coats of Europe; and ten millions of acres of fair and fertile lands were at the disposal of the Provisional Government, to be divided into portions of three hundred acres, which, added to one hundred dollars in silver, would be the reward of those who would bring this glorious struggle to a conclusion.

Besides Van Rensselaer, the aid was announced of Colonel Sutherland and Colonel Van Egmond. Alas, the latter, a good and true man, who was worthy of a better fate than the one he earned by meddling in misunderstood politics of a foreign country, was by then suffering agonies in Toronto gaol; and Sutherland—as true-bred coward as ever turned back—was destined for the tender touch of Colonel Prince a little later. When proposal was subsequently made to exchange Sutherland for Mackenzie, it drew the following query from an American paper, “What should they do with him if they had him, and why not give up Mackenzie to the Canadians in payment for the custody of Sutherland?” Clearly the possession of Sutherland was a poor boast; he was a mark for his countrymen’s contempt from the time he paraded the streets of Buffalo, preceded by a fife and drum, enlisting volunteers, until he disappears from the scene. The Buffalonian, when giving a detailed account of thefts committed by the patriots, from cannon to cabbages, says: “The patriot army have also robbed an uncommon quantity of hen-roosts. In these exploits Brigadier-General Sutherland is chiefly conspicuous for his gallantry in the attack and skill and expedition in retreating.”

Robert Gourlay, then at Cleveland, Ohio, wrote his opinion of the fatuity of this course direct to Van Rensselaer. Several of his letters are condensed into, “Never was hallucination more blinding than yours. At a moment of profound peace, putting on armour, and led by the little editor of a blackguard newspaper, entering the lists of civil broil, and erecting your standard on Navy Island to defy the armies of Britain! David before Goliath seemed little, but God was with him. What are you in the limbo of vanity, with no stay but the devil? Mr. Hume is a little man, and you less.” He adds, alluding to the famous letter, “That his four years of residence in the United States had let him see things far worse than European domination. You call yourself a patriot, and fly from home to enlist scoundrels for the conquest of your country. This is patriotism with a vengeance.”

Mackenzie, like Gourlay, had a great aptitude in calculating the difficulties they were powerful enough to create. But neither of them, in his own case, counted on possible consequences.

At the finish of his proclamation Mackenzie has a prophecy: “We were also among the deliverers of our country.” But he further says, “Militiamen of 1812, will ye rally round the standard of our tyrants? I can scarce believe it possible.”

Already that standard was floating before his eyes from one of the tallest pines, and around it were gathered MacNab, Drew, and a host of others whose own arms or their fathers’ had been borne in 1812,—two thousand five hundred Canadian farmers, most of them delaying, when called, for nothing but the clothing in which they now stood. Bayonets glittered in the sun, and, on horseback as usual, Sir Francis trotted up and down, reviewing with pardonable pride the troops, white, red, and black, which had rallied round that flag. “Canadians, rally round your Head, Nor to these base insurgents yield,” had been the cry of a Tory paper. “I wonder how that rebel crew Could clap their wings and craw, man,” says another. But Sir Francis had one discomforting answer to his appeal for aid against Navy Island. Mr. Absalom Shade, of Galt, replied that not a few there declined to enter into any such frontier service; while many in the Paisley Block, though not allying themselves with Mackenzie, would have seen “Governor and Governor’s party drowned in the depths of the sea and not a solitary cry of regret for them.”

But Sir Francis had his friends. (Toast): Sir Francis Bond Head—the noble champion of our rights—distinguished alike for every virtue which constitutes the gentleman and the scholar, whose name adorns a bright page in the History of Upper Canada. (Tune: “Britons Strike Home”).

Gallows Hill over, the Canadian muse took her lyre in hand and sang, with a Scotch accent forbye: “Oh, did ye hear the news of late, Which through the Province rang, man, And warned our men to try the game They played at Waterloo, man. All destitute of dread or fears, Militia men and volunteers Like lightning flew, for to subdue The rebel loons and crack their croons, And pook their lugs and a’, man. Lang life to Queen Victoria, Our Governor and a’, man! We’ll rally round Britannia’s flag, And fecht like Britons a’, man.”

Sir Francis, in the account he has given us, seems to have been so taken up with the moral lesson of the panorama before him, making a book out of the running brook of Niagara and a moral out of everything, showing his chemical analysis of the comparative advantages of monarchical and republican institutions, speculating on the mutating effect of hard shot on the latter and the thickness of the hide of the American conscience and the thinness of skin which covered American vanity, that he forgot to fight. “Waiting calmly on the defensive,” he called it, emulating a commander at Fontenoy, nicknamed The Confectioner, who, when asked why he did not move to the front, replied, “I am preserving my men.” The usually alert and active Canadian volunteer was occasionally balanced by one more likely to damage himself or his comrades than the enemy. A young clergyman, newly ordained, arrived in Canada about the time of the Rebellion. As he had as yet no charge he thought it only proper to take part in the fray, of course on the loyalist side. A musket was placed in his hands, but he had to apply to someone wiser than himself to know what should go in first. He was stationed on the Niagara frontier in mid-winter, where the beauties of nature made him forgetful of all else. Instead of keeping “eyes front” he used them in star-gazing, fell into the hands of the rebels, and narrowly escaped being shot as a spy. He escaped by the intervention of a person who happened to know him.

A central blockhouse, several batteries, and most imposing earthworks could be seen through the telescope; but as the island was for the most part covered with wood it was hard to approximate its strength. The main camp of huts was on the other side and on Grand Island—a large island some ten miles long, belonging to the United States, and on which a certain Major Noah, of New York, years before had laid the foundations of the city of Ararat, intending to raise there an altar. Across the channel was a portion of the army of sympathisers and the general hospital, the latter transformed into an ark of refuge. From this island, United States property, the loyalist reconnoitering parties sent out in small boats were fired upon, as minutely recorded by Lieutenant Elmsley, who also states, “On our coming abreast of Fort Schlosser I distinctly saw two discharges of heavy ordnance from a point on the main shore on the American side, not far from that fort. As soon as our boats had passed the firing ceased.” The two vantage points of the lesser island and Canadian mainland were near enough for threat or challenge to be thrown across, and from the Battle Ground Inn, just opposite Navy Island, such encouraging sentences as “We’ll be over at you one of these days,” were wafted over. An idle threat so far. Chases after the balls of the enemy as they bounded along, laughter and cheers, made the place more like a playground than a battle-field, a state of inaction which continued for a fortnight.

Part of Sir Francis’ “moral” inward conflict was through the very evident desire on the part of his black militia, many of them scarred and mutilated from their slave-life, to be up and doing on the land from which they had made their escape. They were a formidable looking set of men, powerful, athletic; and as they stood about him, yellow eyes, red gums and clenched ivory teeth making a fine combination of colour, terrible possibilities seem to have crossed his mind. So also with the Indian contingent. They did not like the Long Knives across the water—a name not originally Kentuckian, but straight from the time of good King Arthur. But there was what Sir Francis calls an unwholesome opinion in Downing Street that it would be barbarous to use them as allies against American citizens. It had been said that Canadians were only a trifle less handy at scalping than the allies were, and there were still tales extant of scalping scenes at the time of the Conquest, and later. He managed to satisfy the Indians, however. The honest red countenances glowed, the feathers on their heads gently waved, as they communed among themselves, and presently a disconcerting warwhoop arose, at first like the single yelp of a wolf, but gathering in volume until every scalp upon the island must have quivered.

The following extracts from letters sent from Chippewa by Captain Battersby to his home show how slowly matters progressed:

“Pavilion Hotel, 26th December, 1837.—MacNab arrived yesterday with a large accession of force. Boats have been brought up from Niagara and preparations are making for an attack, which if made at all will, I think, take place in a day or two....

“Chippewa, 28th December.—No attack has yet been made, but the preparations are going on. We are procuring boats from Dunnville, St. Catharines and Niagara, forty or fifty seamen have arrived, and there are two captains in the navy and four lieutenants, ... so that you see our means are augmenting fast. We are most deficient in artillery, but I believe some heavy guns are on their way. There was some firing yesterday from the island, but no effect except wounding a horse. It is said that the Governor has sent up orders not to attack the island by boats, but to dislodge the enemy by artillery and bombardment. At any rate I am glad to see that our leaders are going on cautiously and do not intend making an attack until they have sufficient force. A part of the 24th Regiment is said to be on its way here, and I shall be very glad to see them—they will be invaluable as a support and rallying point to our raw militia.... I will write again when I can, but such is the hurry and confusion that it is difficult to find time and place.

“30th December, 9 p.m.—You will hear before this reaches you of the burning of the steamboat on the American side of the river. It took place about midnight, and was a very gallant enterprise, as those who achieved it were mostly young, inexperienced lads, gentlemen volunteers from the militia; very few of them could even row decently, and many of the small boats employed had not even rudders.... I was in one of the boats, but owing to not having men who could row, and the boat being heavy, I lost sight of the others in the dark ... and obliged to return. I have no doubt that this affair will make a great noise in the United States; in fact I know it already has at Buffalo.... I don’t think that an immediate attack is contemplated, though we are going on with our preparations and shall have boats enough fitted and ready in two or three days. One company of the 24th Regiment came in on the morning of the day I last wrote you.... To give you an idea of the way we go on, yesterday night when the boats were manning for the attack a whole squad of people I knew nothing about came down armed to the teeth, and I really thought at first they would have attempted to take possession of my boat by force that they might go themselves.

“January 4, 1838.—The Lieut.-Governor is here and preparations are still going on for the attack. I have now, however, no fear for the result, as several heavy guns have been brought up, two mortars and a large quantity of Congreve rockets. Our boat force is also increasing rapidly and will soon be equal to whatever is required.... I believe two or three companies of the 32nd will take part in the attack whenever it is made. We are going to move to-night with the boats two or three miles above the island, for the purpose of dropping down with the current when the attack is made.

“January 8th.—The time of attack is as doubtful as ever. We are going on still with our preparations, but owing to the paucity of materials and the terrible state of confusion in which we are, our progress is very slow. There has been a constant thaw here and some rain for the last fourteen days, and the roads are in a state absolutely indescribable. I can safely say that I am floundering in six inches of mud and water from morning till night. I cannot ask for leave of absence for a day, for numbers of the seamen are already discontented and would willingly seize such a pretext for leaving us. We are living in the utmost filth and discomfort.

“January 11th.—Here we are still in the same degree of uncertainty as when I last wrote.... More artillery and troops are expected.... I think myself that no attack will take place for two or three weeks, but it is very likely that we shall endeavour to check their communications with the United States, by means of armed boats, in which case my services would be as necessary as if the island were attacked.... It is now more than a fortnight since I have had my clothes off, night or day. More or less firing takes place between our batteries and those of the enemy every day, and though there are always crowds of gazers on our side, yet to my astonishment only two men have as yet been hurt, although the shot fall a good quarter of a mile past our batteries. I think the commanding officer very much to blame for allowing such crowds to put themselves in danger merely to gratify an idle curiosity. The Buffalo papers state the loss on the island to have been eleven men since the batteries first opened. Great numbers of the militia have left and are leaving this place, at which I am not sorry, as they are entirely undisciplined and many of them disorderly.”

But Sir John Colborne to the rescue. His artillery, officers, guns, mortars, Congreve rockets and stores arrived, and a great stir went through the dissatisfied lines.

The guard standing at Black Creek bridge had a very bad toothache the night of December 29th, so bad that he thankfully retired to the barracks at Chippewa, an old, evacuated tavern, whose big cavernous fire-place, well filled with blazing logs, gave much comfort to his aching jaw. The men were lying about on straw, two and two under a blanket, when in came Nick Thorne to ask if any one of them would help him load up wood from the barrack yard. Some great doings were on hand; he had the countersign; the wood loads were to be used for a beacon light. Reed, whose father, a U. E. Loyalist of 1796, had followed Brock at Queenston, forgot his toothache.

The Caroline was a copper-bottomed craft, originally constructed by the man known afterwards as Commodore Vanderbilt, was intended to sail in the waters off South Carolina, and her timbers were of live oak from that State. She was converted into a steamer and brought up the canals to Lake Ontario, had been used as a ferry at Ogdensburg, and was then taken through the Welland Canal for similar ferry purposes at Buffalo. She was hired by the patriots on Navy Island to convey stores to them from Fort Schlosser, an old military position of French times, where neither fort nor village remained; there was nothing but a tavern, which was the rendezvous of the “pirate force” in coming and going. “Where are you going?” queried someone similar to the gentle general.

“To Dunkirk,” answered the Caroline’s master, Appleby.

“You mean eastward to Navy Island?” But this skipper answered never a word, and a scornful laugh laughed he.

The three lake schooners, each fitted with a gun and intended to carry troops to the island when the long deferred attack should be made, were still inactive. A loyalist reconnoitering party was sent out to report upon what proved to be the Caroline’s last trip. She had landed a cannon and several armed men, and had dropped her anchor east of the island. Expecting to find her still there it was decided to “cut her out” that night. The process technically known as cutting out is a naval one, conducted with great secrecy and muffled oars, men and cutlasses, pistols and boarding pikes, black night and plenty of blood, after the manner of Marryat; always a dangerous business, but in these circumstances, where their chart reported irresistible currents and not half a mile above the Falls, a most perilous enterprise. Luckily there was the right kind of material at hand and to spare for it. They had but a few small boats of about twelve feet in length, each pulling four oars; it would be necessary to keep uncomfortably close to the rapids in order to avoid observation from Navy Island; the difficulties, did the men once quail, were so great that the shortest way was to put them out of mind. At four o’clock that afternoon Colonel MacNab and Capt. Drew, R.N., stood on the lookout discussing the situation. They saw the Caroline performing her duty of conveyance, the telescope revealing the field-pieces and men.

“This won’t do,” said MacNab. “I say, Drew, do you think you can cut that vessel out!”

“Oh, yes,” was the ready answer; “nothing easier. But it must be done at night.”

“Well, then,” was the laconic order, “go and do it.” That order “nearly fired the continent as well as the Caroline.”

To quote the patriot chronicle, it was now that “an insult, the most reckless, cowardly, and unwarranted that was ever offered to a sovereign people, was given.”

Captain Drew was a commander on half pay, “elderly, shortish, and stout,” who had settled in Woodstock in 1834 upon a beautiful farm, where he fondly hoped to end his days in peaceful occupations of wheat-growing and tree-planting. The Duke of Northumberland, who visited him there, thought it the prettiest place he had seen in Canada; and indeed Captain Drew and Major James Barwick may be termed the pioneers of those—the Vansittarts, Lights, De Blaquières, Deedes and others—who formed the far-known aristocratic settlement of Oxford. The midlands of England held nothing lovelier than these homes scattered along the Thames, farms separated by beautiful ravines, studded and fringed with elms and noble maples, well built picturesque houses, wherein the owners entertained after the manner of their class and kind and spent much money. The stress of war in very few years was to wipe out this community of blood, manners and culture; but Captain Drew’s tenure, owing to the cutting out of the Caroline, was to be shorter still.

The first thing to be done was to call for volunteers. “Here we are, sir,” cried a hundred voices, “what are we to do?” some of them from the contingent in the Methodist chapel at Chippewa. “Follow me,” was the only answer, for it was of first importance that no word could possibly be conveyed to the island, and Drew says the men did not know their errand until seated in the boats and off from shore, taking their way via the little canal just above the rapids. Rumours of any kind were quickly transmitted to either side; one of the most ludicrous which had recently come to the ears of the troops was that Mackenzie’s people said the Tories of Toronto had managed to smuggle a black cook into the patriot stronghold opposite, and that presently all patriots would therefore die of poison.

Each man of the boats’ crews had to be able to pull a good oar, a condition not strictly carried out, as we see from Captain Battersby’s letters, but there were some experts, such as young Mewburn, who writes that he was doubly manning a bow oar. Each man was furnished with a cutlass and pistol. Most of them were young fellows, some from that corps organized in King Street in Hamilton by MacNab and called by him his “Elegant Extracts.” One, young Woods, a curly-headed laddie, U.E.L. to the heart’s core, good-naturedly gave up his seat to a friend, Dr. Askin, and then found himself likely to be left on shore. He appealed to his chief. “Why, you d—d young scamp, if you want to be shot give my compliments to Captain Beer and tell him to take you in.” More easily said than done; but through influence, and by being able to hide under a seat, he got into a boat and lay on a pile of wet sand, with knees up to his chin, palpitating with excitement, until the final moment of departure. For time dragged tediously; they had to give the Caroline an hour or two to settle herself for the night, and they heartily wished that the moon would do the same. “Hadn’t you better give me another,” said our curly-headed laddie, referring to his pistol. “When you have used that, you will find that you won’t want another,” said his officer.

MacNab wished the Caroline to be brought to Chippewa; Drew wanted her burnt and done for. By half after eleven they had started, sent off with three hearty cheers from those left behind, Thorne, Reed and the others ready to light the fire which was to answer to the blaze they intended to make, and, unnecessary precaution, which would also serve as beacon to guide them back. Once out, the men were told the service they were bent on and offered the chance to return, the danger not being burked. But no one took advantage of the offer. Some, however, nearly had their course altered in spite of themselves: “Robert Sullivan, one of the crew, called out, ‘Stop rowing, boys, for God’s sake—do you see where we are—we are going straight over the Falls!’ ‘Silence!’ responded Lieutenant Graham, ‘or I will blow your brains out. It is for me, not you, to give orders.’ ‘Oh, very well,’ replied Sullivan, drawing his oar into the boat, ‘if I am to go over the Falls, I may as well go without brains as with them.’ Here we all joined in, and after hurriedly representing to Graham the danger of our position we began to pull up stream. A little longer and it would have been too late.” The roar of the mighty cataract, which awed and somewhat terrified them, had been previously described by a patriot writer as the peal of the funeral dirge of royalty in Canada.

Shots from Navy Island made the heart beat; and do their best they were forced to cross the river diagonally. “We are going astern, sir; we shall be over the Falls;” but reassured by the light from the doomed steamer, by which they could determine the drop down stream, they at length all got together. The moon was yet too bright, and they rested on their oars, dipping them enough to stem the current. At last it was dark enough, and they were alongside. “Boat, ahoy! boat, ahoy!—give us the countersign!” “Silence!” said Drew, in a confidential tone, “silence! don’t make a noise, and we’ll give you the countersign when we get on board.” Once on deck, he drew his sword, saying to the three men who were lounging on the starboard gangway, “I want this vessel, and you must go ashore at once.” Thinking he was alone they took up their arms and fired at him, not a yard off. A swing and a cut of the sword, and one patriot dropped at the captain’s feet. Another trigger was pulled, the only result a flash in the pan; there was a sabre-cut dealt on the inside of the man’s arm, and the pistol fell. The captain confesses to expediting this man and another over the boat’s side with an inch of the point of his weapon.

Meantime, three of the boats had boarded forward, and a good deal of firing followed, the latter checked at once by the captain, as he feared that in the dark friend might be mistaken for foe, a fear soon realized. Returning, he thought it wise to reconnoitre about the gangway between the bulwark and the raised cabin. Here he was met by a man who aimed at him a slashing cut, which he parried and successfully pinned the cutlass against the cabin bulk-head. “Holloa, Zealand,” said he, recognizing one of his own men, a fine specimen of an old British tar, “what are you about?” “Oh, I beg pardon, sir, I didn’t know it was you!” said the zealous sailor, who, released, went to seek legitimate prey. There was a good deal of cursing, clashing of swords and shouting, and (it is said) a cry of “Show the rebels no quarter.” On the contrary, as the men fussed over the lamp, the window sashes and the forgotten “carcass,” trying to coax a fire, one American heard them say of himself, “What shall we do with this fellow?” “Kill him!” suggested one; “No, take him prisoner!” said a third; but their officer’s decision was that they did not want prisoners, and the man was to be put ashore. And the only person killed in the whole affair, Durfee, lay on the dock, shot by a bullet which came from the land side. Wells, the owner of the vessel, finding himself on solid ground, made some good running, in spite of his assertion that he was almost cut to pieces.

One tale of the day has it that another life was lost; a volunteer was fired at by a patriot, and in retaliation beat his assailant’s brains out; his own condition and that of the butt of his pistol corroborated his story on his return to the Canadian side. The matter for the extraordinarily sensational accounts given by the American press was chiefly furnished by Mackenzie.

Lieutenant Elmsley officered a guard on shore while the vessel was cut from her moorings—not an easy thing to accomplish, as she was made fast by chains frozen in the ice; but a young fellow named Sullivan seized an axe, cleared the chains, and set her free. This, Commander Drew’s own story, is denied by a survivor, one of his lieutenants. A lamp was placed in a basket used for carrying Indian corn, cross-bars from the windows were torn off and added to it, and the vessel was set alight in four different places. The material especially brought for this purpose, and known as a carcass, was at first quite forgotten. Care had been taken to rouse all sleepers, had any been able to sleep through such a scene; the invaders were ordered to their boats; the flames shot out fore and aft; and by this time Captain Drew found his stand on the paddle-box too uncomfortable, as those driven ashore had recovered from their surprise and the discharge of their muskets was disagreeably close. It was equally uncomfortably hot, and his gallant wish to be the last on board nearly left him there as she drifted down the current. He found a companion in a man emerging from below who declared it too hot to live in there, and together they got into the boat sent back for them, Drew’s shouts fortunately having risen above the din. So far there was no need for the beacon from the opposite shore; the Caroline herself, like a great torch, glided beside them, or rather they kept in the wake of her gold-dust covered ripples, a fine target for the island guns; but the days of bull’s-eyes were not yet. In spite of wounds the men rose superior to fear of shot, content with the result of their mission, and anxious to rejoin the cheering multitude that waited for them on the Canadian shore. The illumination made by burning vessel and beacon light threw every pebble on the shore-line into bright relief. Drew’s account states that no human ingenuity could have accomplished what the Caroline so easily did for herself. When free from the wharf at Fort Schlosser her natural course would have been to follow the stream, which would have taken her along the American shore and over the American Fall; but she behaved as if aware she had changed owners and navigated herself across the river, clearing the rapids above Goat Island; she went fairly over the British Fall of Niagara.4

An extract from one of the songs sung by the Canadian volunteers will give an idea of the sentiments of the singers:

The Lewiston Telegraph on Saturday set this in type at 6 a.m.:

“Horrible! Most Horrible!!

“We stop the press to announce the following horrible intelligence which has just been communicated by two gentlemen direct from the bloody scene:

“The steamer Caroline, which was lying at the landing at Porter’s storehouse, was boarded this morning between the hours of twelve and one by about eighty men, who came in boats from the Canada side. The Caroline had on board from fifteen to twenty of our sleeping and defenceless citizens, who had lodgings on board. They are believed to have been mostly citizens of Buffalo, who came as lookers-on, with the expectation of witnessing the attack upon the island. Every individual was butchered except four, and three of these severely wounded. The engineer, who was thrust through and put on shore, says that after the bloody work was executed a small boy was found in a closet, who begged for mercy but found none. The Caroline was then towed out into the stream and sent over Niagara Falls. Three cheers were given, and at the same time beacon lights were raised at Chippewa. Our informant saw the lifeless body of one person who was shot upon the shore.”

For five years the question hung upon a thread whether England and the United States should go to war or not. It is always fair to give two sides of a question, but in the one given by Clio and Melpomene it will be seen their poetic license degenerates into something more than the flowery taradiddle of the average verse-maker:

A careful computation from pages of prose, almost as flowery as the foregoing lines and oftentimes breaking into rhyme from a very luxuriousness of idea and rhythm, puts the lives aboard the Caroline at about ninety-nine in number. Thirty-three were killed and missing; thirty-three were towed into the middle of the stream when the boat was fired, and with her went over the ledge; there were also thrilling cries from “the living souls” on board, plus “wails of the dying,” presumably thirty-three cries and thirty-three wails, all gliding down the resistless rapids to perish by “the double horror of a fate inevitable.”

On the day following the cutting out five hundred men were told off to complete the work by driving the filibusters off the island, the three schooners, with boats and barges, being sufficient transport. “But what shall we do if a shot strikes our boat—we must either drown or go over the Falls,” was a query which sent Captain Drew off on another hazard. He pulled up stream in a four-oared gig, within pistol shot of the island, to see if the enemy’s field-piece was equal to hitting a boat which moved fast through the water. So far the casualties from the red-hot shot sent skipping along the Canadian shore were the death of young Smith of Hamilton, who, lying in a barn on some hay, had part of his thigh carried away and some ribs broken, and an old sailor named Millar who served Captain Luard’s guns, and had his leg taken off. Millar asked to see his leg, gave three cheers for the Queen, and died.

A twenty-four pounder, mounted on a scow, battered the point where the guns of Van Rensselaer were most active. Drew’s expedition brought upon themselves both musketry and field-pieces, at first innocent of all aim, but suddenly so improved that one shot made ducks and drakes on the water, just clearing the gunwale, and passing between Drew and his strokesman. This was from no amateur, but owed its precision to the hand of a young West Pointer—possibly of the “empty hand, stout heart, of fair military tactics” letter. Van Rensselaer has left it on record that the only moments of excitement to him in this episode were when the first gun was fired from the island, and when this boat’s crew, at early dawn, made its way in safety round them; so that Drew’s temerity was not without reward. These patriots had “kissed their rusty muskets” and vowed they would never lay them down until “the redemption of Canada was accomplished.” A “sympathetic” account tells us that the men so determined to do or die, in order to protect themselves from temptation had taken the pins out of the screws of the scows and burned their oars, resolved,

The outcome was a hurried departure by night after they heard of the arrival of the 24th Regiment. The brisk cannonade of about four hundred rounds from heavy guns and mortars, and the armed schooners which effectually kept them within their breastworks, were almost enough without the rumour of the 24th.

When the Canadian force landed not a soul was to be seen, and what had appeared formidable defence dwindled. Apparently a second Gibraltar, it was found in military parlance to be a bug-bear than which a greater never existed, a conglomeration of batteries and hovels masked with wood, a sickening spectacle of “looped and windowed” wretchedness. The vaunted blockhouse citadel, the barracks and the batteries, were but huts of trees and sods and ill-constructed embankments; the only reward for industry was an abattis of brushwood to prevent boat invasion.

A man concealed in the woods now came out, white flag in hand, and from him and two women found in a hut did the Canadians get an account of life on “the fatal isle” during the biting storms and pitiless rain of December, ’37, and January, ’38. “Peas and beans dank as a dog,” varied by feasts, the bones of which lay about with remains of bread and barrels of beans yet untouched, had been their food; the bushes about were eloquent, with bits of rag sticking to them, of the quality of clothing; these patriots, herded together like swine and sheep, left behind them evidences of some stores, boots and shoes, plenty of reading matter of the most virulent kind, all mixed up with burst shells, splintered wood and dirty straw. Some boots had the legs cut open, apparently to strip wounded limbs, some were stained with blood; and “a huge pile of unpicked bones, ... on a rough board used as a table,” and the remains of beds made of pine branches, gave further evidence.

Sir Francis paid the site a visit on the 17th, a wild and boisterous day. He had the body of one man exhumed—shot by a rifle, but his arms were pinioned. He had been suspected as a spy. The susceptible Sir Francis, light as his heart generally was, saddened at the sight of him.

Songs abounded for every part of the event, dates sometimes making way for rhyme:

On the night of evacuation the soi-disant patriot army surrendered their arms to the United States authorities and disbanded their forces. The cannon belonging to the State were returned in a scow to Fort Schlosser, and in transit with the men on board came near following the fate of the Caroline. The scow had fallen far down the current and the men had given up their case as hopeless, when a gale from the north-west sprang up, and, aided by their blankets extemporized into sails, they were wafted ashore.

A month before, when they had received these ill-gotten guns, they slaughtered the oxen which drew them, and paid for the beef and work by a due-bill on the future Canadian Republic.

“No sooner was the Caroline in flames than a sudden excitement prevailed; but it was the excitement of fear. The women fled from the villages on the coast, people who had fancied themselves bedridden decamped, and the citizens of Buffalo evinced the greatest possible consternation for the safety of their town.”

Captain Drew almost distanced Sir Francis in unpopularity in certain quarters; but like him, among his own was at once a hero. At St. George’s Day dinner in Toronto, Captain Marryat, an old comrade of Drew’s, gave the toast: “Captain Drew and his brave comrades who cut out the Caroline.” The day after the cutting-out, Drew, with MacNab, was burnt in effigy on the ice at Detroit, and he saw himself advertised for in a Buffalo newspaper at a reward of $500. He was hanged in effigy—a compliment kept up on the anniversary for several years; active attempts were made to assassinate him, of so determined a nature that in the end the pleasant Woodstock home was forsaken, and heroism was forgotten when, forced to leave the country to preserve life to wife and family, he found himself in England, where the preservation of Canada was of interest on a large scale but the reward of her preservers a matter of no moment. Captain Marryat’s toast brought upon him, too, attentions similar to those bestowed upon the subject of it. He was burned in effigy in every town in the United States through which his journey took him; his writings were made into a bonfire in Lewiston, and in St. Louis his effigy was decorated with a halter round the neck. Cincinnati was the first place which dared to assert a difference. The captain, whose mother was an American, had so far looked on at his own cremation and at that of his child-literary with calmness, smoking a cigar the while; but in Cincinnati, at the dinner tendered him, he spoke out like a man, a gentleman, and a person of force and humour, giving his reasons for his opinions and actions and ashamed of neither. He said that his motive in refusing private hospitality was that he might leave himself freedom of speech; and he finishes his deliverance, “If we are to burn all those who differ with us in opinion, consider, gentlemen, what a glorious bonfire would be made of the whole United States.”

What touched him most deeply was part of his mail matter,—five hundred anonymous letters which cost him on an average fifty cents each to redeem from the post, and of which he makes bitter though humorous complaint in a long, published letter, supposed to answer his five hundred correspondents in one coup-de-main and also his well-wishers, whose missives followed him so persistently from place to place, that he began to think it a combined attack upon his purse from Van Buren and the Postmaster-General.

The destruction of the Caroline surprised everyone, Americans, Canadians, even the chief actors; it let loose the tongues of ministers and diplomats, and it gave a great impulse to the outside movement of sympathisers or patriots. The success of Drew’s action made the last wary; but the howl of indignation, which for a time was allowed to have some show of reason, served as a cloak under which to add retaliation to what before had been dubbed patriotism alone. Sugar Island, Bois Blanc, and the schooner Anne followed in quick succession; but the most direct outrage as result of it was that against the Sir Robert Peel under the management of an autocrat on the other side of the warfare, handsome and distinguished looking as MacNab himself, determined as Drew, uncompromising as Prince, with an air and halo of romance over all his actions arising partly from his personality, partly from the romantic beauty of his surroundings—the redoubtable Bill Johnston, king of the Thousand Islands.

General Van Rensselaer, in sash and epaulets, with his encampment on Navy Island, backed by two or three hundred vagabonds, making war upon Great Britain, was a ridiculous person. But Bill Johnston, the buccaneer, armed to the teeth, actuated by revenge for real injuries, carrying out his threat to be a thorn in Great Britain’s side, flying from island to island, a price set upon his head, determined to sell his life at desperate cost, devoted to his daughter and adored by his children, has a touch of poetry about him which almost justified what he devoutly believed himself—that it was a glorious thing to be a pirate king. It is a come-down to have to admit that one of his occupations was robbing the Canadian mails, when he would take the clothes off the occupants of the coach and beat whoever refused him, tie the coachman to a tree—as he did between Gananoque and Kingston—and leave the man there. He once captured a dragoon carrying despatches, took the man and his horse to the lake shore, shot the horse, put the despatch-bag in his boat, and let the man find his way on foot to report himself to his captain.

This was the personage concerning whom Silas Fletcher, one of the refugees from Gallows Hill, wrote from Watertown to Navy Island, that he was a man in whom it was perfectly safe to confide, “a gentleman of intelligence, equal to fifty ordinary men,” recommended for a commission because he could “greatly annoy the Kingstonians,” his influence so great that he could raise two hundred as bold volunteers as ever drew trigger. Some of the sympathizers had a faculty for arousing admiration; for about this time a lady in Rochester, who kept a private school where some Toronto girls were sent, allowed her pupils to work a silken flag to be presented to the pirate force.

Johnston and his followers had many disguises. In their attacks on isolated farm-houses it was their pleasure to adopt the dress of ordinary sailors, and in their expedition to the island of Tanti—a Canadian possession of Lord Mountcashel, from which they took much plunder, and where they left one farmer with three fingers and part of a hand shot off—the whole mise-en-scène is absurdly like “H. M. S. Pinafore.” From island to island, from rock to the hidden fastness, keeping in the narrower channels where inclined planes were cleverly constructed by which to draw up their fast boats, the only clue to their haunts was a surprise shot from some ambush or the expiring embers of a lately deserted bivouac fire, or perhaps a couple of barrels moored in the narrowest part of Fiddler’s Elbow, innocent-looking infernal machines left ready for the unwary.

French Creek—A-ten-ha-ra-kweh-ta-re, the place where the wall fell down—Abel’s Island and some other points, were his favourites; but Fort Wallace, a small islet at the head of Wells’ Island, was his fastness, where, with a dozen men, he boasted he could withstand two hundred. The number of boats scattered up and down the islands was popularly supposed to be one hundred, and the population of this world of islets some thousand souls, all under the sway of Johnston. Rinaldo, Robert Kidd and Robert le Diable seemed centred in him. He could land at Queenston unarmed and get the guard tipsy, and with a few companions take off seventy stand of arms. But his experience as smuggler and trader, and his exploits when in the employment of the American Government during the war of 1812, when he roamed all the lakes and rivers, intercepting despatches, and when, his boat driven in by a gale on the Canadian shore and his crew captured, he could cross Ontario—at that point thirty-six miles wide—in a bark canoe after a fortnight’s dodging of British vessels, made such affairs as came to his hand in ’37 seem bagatelles. In the early days he had at his command a six-oared barge; now he and his four sons, the latter all partaking of his own nature, powers and daring, did their work in four row-boats of extraordinary speed, each boat with a crew of eight or ten men and all armed to the teeth. The boat used by Johnston himself was twelve-oared, the swiftest of the fleet, twenty-eight feet by four and a half, clinker-built and gay with paint. Black bottom, white above, with a yellow streak six inches wide below the gunwale, inside red, so light in weight that two men could carry her with ease, but capable of accommodating twenty armed men, this gay-looking craft flew his own colours.

But for special use in deceiving British vessels a Stars and Stripes lay ready to hand. Not that he was under the protection of the latter; he was harried equally by United States authorities and Canadian, his capture being finally made by the former. The most interesting member of his domestic group was his daughter, whom his ambition was to make Queen of the Thousand Isles, a handsome girl of nineteen, possessed of courage enough to manage her boat alone, armed like her brothers, and skilful enough to keep her father supplied with provisions on those exciting occasions when he had to hide.

Bill Johnston and his followers were of more consequence than all the men, Provisional Government, generals and staff, on Navy Island; in the words of an American newspaper, “This chap seems now to be conducting war on his own hook.” Wells’ Island was the scene of his reprisal for the burning of the Caroline; for all his own grievance, such as the confiscation of his property on the British side in 1812, he felt himself more than avenged. The island, part of Jefferson county, had not more than an acre of cleared land upon it, with a wharf used for wooding the vessels which called there for fuel; the sole building was one log shanty. When the Sir Robert Peel drew in on the evening so important to her, May 29th, 1838, the woodman warned the captain that suspicious-looking characters were inland. But the warning was made light of, and the usual fueling programme followed. All on board went to bed, and about ten o’clock thirteen of the erstwhile sailors of the island of Tanti appeared in their new scene as Indians, looking the part to perfection in black, red and yellow paint. Their number had been twenty-eight, but they had dropped down the river from their camp on Abel’s Island, on the opposite side to the wood station, and in crossing fifteen of the band had been temporarily lost in a swamp. The debate whether this left too small a number for the attack led to delay, but Johnston decided that a baker’s dozen was a lucky number, and that if this opportunity were lost another as favourable might not offer itself. So the warwhoop, as good an imitation as their painted semi-nudeness, was raised. One discrepancy was the absence of tomahawks, replaced by guns, and bayonets. The woods re-echoed to their howls, and it was not long until captain, crew and passengers were on deck.

Colonel Fraser, Mr. Holditch of Port Robinson, and several others, had enjoyed their evening; they took wine together, and then went to bed, their berths in a row. Soon they heard a noise which they imagined to be a scuffle among the crew; but in a twinkling five men stood by the berths where they still lay, four armed with bayonets and muskets and the fifth with a sword. At the command to get up at once Mr. Holditch laid his hand upon Colonel Fraser’s military coat, and the ruffian with the sword, seeing the colour, called out, “He is a British officer—run him through!” A general disowning of Her Majesty’s uniform ensued, but a lively fight took place for possession of the pocket-book, which contained a large sum of money. After much kicking and knocking down most of the men were forced into a small cabin, lighted by a skylight through which muskets were pointed at them, keeping them quiet until a panel was broken out of the door and one by one they were allowed to leave. The women were all driven on deck in their night-clothes; their cries were distressing, but Captain Bullock, formerly of the St. George, and the stewardess, contrived to mitigate circumstances for them. The dramatic Sea-King was not going to allow such an opportunity for the tragic to escape him. As he knocked at the ladies’ cabin door a courageous female tried to stop his further entrance, begging time to dress. “Come with me,” said Bombastes, “come with me and I will save you—THE NATIONS ARE AT WAR.”

It was a most inclement night, and they took refuge in the shanty. There one of the brigands remarked that the occupants of the Peel had got their deserts, whereupon Captain Bullock knocked him down and dragged him out by the throat. The amount of booty was not inconsiderable, and as soon as the vessel was rifled of it she was set on fire and allowed to drift. The mate must have been a sound sleeper, as he knew none of the happenings until rescue was nearly past. His shrieks for help came after the pirates had departed and the passengers dispersed, but some of the latter managed to reach him in a skiff. They were barely in time, for he had to jump into the water so badly burned that he had to be tended by the half-dressed passengers all night.

It was supposed to be the intention to thus serve all British steamers, so that Johnston’s whaleboats should have no interference in St. Lawrence waters thereabouts in piracy and invasion. In this particular instance, one of the passengers, an Irishman, vigorously protested from the island:

“The divil saze the likes of ye, ye’re worse than the Connaught Rangers, wid yer injun naygur faces.”

“Remember the Caroline, Pat,” retorted a pirate.

“Is it Caroline Mahoney, ye mane?—sure it’s not at the likes of you she’d be after lookin’.”

They essayed to get Pat on board, telling him to “come and get his duds.” “Do ye think I’ll go aboard and see myself kilt?” he asked. They then tried to get near him, but with “Bad luck to ye, there’s two can play at that, me darlin’,” he sped into the woods. One of the party was a prisoner from Abel’s Island, and he was left to look after Scanlan, one of the crew, who had been badly wounded in the scuffle. By sunrise, while the Robert Peel still burned, the pirates were back at Abel’s Island, washed and clothed. The passengers were taken off Wells’ Island by the U. S. steamer Oneida and left at Kingston. After this the pirate boats were mounted with two and three-pounders, while Johnston and his followers played hide-and-seek with his pursuers, managing to elude two steamboats, one schooner and a number of gunboats which were doubling and cross-cutting in his wake.

When Governor Marcy, of New York, received information of this act, which Johnston himself allowed to be piracy, he went to the frontier and took active measures to guard his own border from the retaliation which he dreaded, and also to combine with the Canadians in offering a reward for Johnston’s arrest. Such banditti, like the cowboys of the Revolution, argued that it mattered not who was plundered, provided there was booty to be found. In the grandiloquent words of their own chronicle, the Sir Robert Peel was “a burnt-offering to the shades of the Caroline.” As to Canadian reprisals, there was much talk of firing upon United States vessels wherever found, an unjust opinion existing that they were at one with “Admiral” Johnston’s crafts. But better sense prevailed, and as one newspaper says, “Let their steamboats depart from our shores in peace.” Such a Nunc Dimittis, opening with an exhortation to high-mindedness, “Men of Chatham! the eyes of Europe are upon you!” was penned at Chatham, where the burning of an American vessel was insisted upon as retaliation for a local act of outrage.

The action taken by Sir George Arthur concerning the indictment of similar outlaws elsewhere after they were caught, treating them as prisoners of war, exasperated the Loyalists; they claimed it was establishing a precedent for all the Bill Johnstons and marauders, who were either rebels in their own country or filibusters from the one opposite: “This is, in fact, a bounty upon invasion, and taken in connection with Mackenzie’s reward of 300 acres of land, made it easy for a man to hedge with tolerable assurance of not coming to grief either way.” “These be indeed Liberal times.” What Bill Johnston thought of it all may be seen from his proclamation, issued immediately, after he had first openly paraded the streets of Ogdensburg with his belt stuck full of pistols, dirks and bowie knives:

“To all whom it may concern:

“I, William Johnston, a native-born citizen of Upper Canada, certify that I hold a commission in the Patriot service of Upper Canada as commander-in-chief of the naval forces and flotilla. I commanded the expedition that captured and destroyed the steamer Sir Robert Peel. The men under my command in that expedition were nearly all natural-born English subjects; the exceptions were volunteers for the expedition. My head-quarters was on an island in the St. Lawrence, without the jurisdiction of the United States, at a place named by me Fort Wallace. I am well acquainted with the boundary line, and know which of the islands do and do not belong to the United States; and in the selection of the island I wished to be positive, and not locate within the jurisdiction of the United States, and had reference to the decision of the Commissioners under the sixth article of the Treaty of Ghent, done at Utica, in the State of New York, 13th June, 1822. I know the number of the island, and by that decision it was British territory. I yet hold possession of that station, and we also occupy a station some twenty or more miles from the boundary line of the United States, in what was Her Majesty’s dominions until it was occupied by us. I act under orders. The object of my movement is the independence of Canada. I am not at war with the commerce or property of the people of the United States.

“Signed, this tenth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight.

“William Johnston.”

The result of the proclamation, which was published in the American newspapers, was a reward offered by Governor Marcy of $500 for the author’s arrest, $250 each for that of D. M’Leod and two others, and $100 each for the rest. The Canadian Government offered £1000 for the conviction of any of them.

But it is a long lane that has no turning. The defeat at Prescott once more sent the Johnstons and their followers to the same retreats of the river intricacies. An old soldier of the 79th was given the hazardous mission to search them out; but the only result was a shot or two from an unseen and vanishing enemy, and a specimen of the finest tourmalin to add to his geological cabinet. Bonnycastle put some of his staff with a band on board a small steamer, ostensibly to visit the militia garrisons of Gananoque, Brockville and Prescott, returning by night in the hope that Johnston would attack them. With excellent steering they escaped the infernal machines moored for them, but saw naught of the enemy.

Sir John Colborne, with his one notion of government, had a large body of sailors and marines forwarded from Quebec harbour, then full of men-of-war, steamboats and merchantmen drawn there by the arrival of Lord Durham. A company of the 1st Frontenac Militia went to the island of Tanti, and the border-town garrisons were strongly reinforced with picked men. But Johnston only laughed at them all, and scudded along in his mysterious boat. About eight feet of the after-part of this craft was decked, and on this he sat while he steered with an oar, a red carpet-bag for his cushion seat. In the sight of one party of pursuers from the steamboat Oswego they openly pulled for the wreck of the Sir Robert Peel; when the pursuers were within fifteen rods a white handkerchief was waved and Johnston majestically rose from his carpet-bag, drew from it the colours of the Sir Robert Peel, which he let wave in the breeze and then gravely returned to the bag. Another craft, evidently one of the fleet, darted up a bay; the dark blue boat was made fast, and in a moment the crew could be seen walking through the bushes, Indian file, each with a large pistol in his right hand. In an interview held at a few boat’s lengths with a deputation of two, who were old acquaintances of his, Johnston said there was one thing of which they might rest assured—he would never be taken alive; that he was a fair mark to shoot at, but not to dangle in the air. He might have quoted, “To die for treason is a common evil, But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.”

He announced that at that moment he had two other boats well manned and armed within signal view; that he sat upon the colours of the Sir Robert Peel, and that he meant to continue sitting on them “till they rotted.” The interviewers could see for themselves that his boat was well stored with muskets and small arms. When told that his son’s wharf at French Creek was then patronized for wood by one of the steamers, “he seemed much affected,” replying, “I am glad to hear of it, or of anything else that can benefit my family.”

At this time Johnston appeared a robust, athletic man, absolutely fearless, about sixty years of age, a gray-headed, hardy veteran, “a good friend and a terror to his enemies.” He stated that whoever attacked him must bring his own coffin, as he himself had no leisure for cabinet-making.

A simultaneous movement was made on him by a party of British soldiers, and some of the 1st Regiment of American Infantry under Captain Gwynn of the American army. The men were conveyed in two steamboats, the Experiment and the Telegraph, and in a gunboat under Lieutenant Leary, R.N., the Bullfrog. They found two of the bandits fast asleep in the cave, but on account of the roughness of the surrounding country the attack was not well concerted, and the rest of the band, including Johnston, escaped. A quantity of arms and ammunition was found in the cave, but a thorough search by the soldiers, eighty in number and cutlasses in hand, revealed no trace of them.

At another time, General MacNab with some fifty United States soldiers, cruising about in search of this will-o’-the-wisp, found the home but its occupant gone. It proved to be a spacious cavern, into which they penetrated about thirty feet, part natural cavity, part excavated by labour, fit for dwelling-place for a large body of men, and in the several rooms which it contained there were signs of recent occupation.

Mr. James, an artillery officer of Ogdensburg, had met with the loss of a brass six-pounder, pressed into the patriot service during the excitement of the battle of the Windmill. At the end of that affair, so disastrous to the sympathisers, Bill Johnston suddenly disappeared from the streets of Ogdensburg. Not long after this Mr. James’ wife was doing her marketing as usual, being one of the few ladies who were not intimidated by the scare at the waterfront. While chatting with friends whom she met in the course of her morning’s walk, one said, “If you knew where your husband is you would not be so full of laughter.” Word had been brought into town that Bill Johnston was in hiding in the woods near by, and two parties, hurriedly got together, had gone off in search. One party was composed of Charles T. Burwell and James, on horseback, the other of United States soldiers who were to meet the first at a given rendezvous. On arriving at the place the two horsemen found young Johnston sitting by the shore waiting for his father. After some resistance young Johnston was taken, his boat seized and the oars hidden. The capture of the father was not so easy. When he caught sight of the three he rushed to where he expected to find the boat, warning the townsmen to keep off. Had he thought of it in time it would have been like him to exclaim, “A boat! a boat! my kingdom for a boat!” He had a pistol in each hand, but demurred to use them, as his pursuers were “fellow-Americans.” After considerable parley, when he realized that the second party, momentarily expected by boat, would put him beyond hope, he surrendered. But he stipulated that his son should receive his arms, he himself to retain only four small pistols and his bowie knife; he then quietly fell in with James and Burwell for the return to Ogdensburg. A very short walk brought them to the other party just arrived, United States soldiers, a sheriff and deputy marshall, to whom Bill Johnston was delivered. In spite of the large sums offered as reward for his capture, the testimony is that James’ share no more than reimbursed the latter for the loss of the brass six-pounder, for the safe custody of which he had been responsible. They placed Johnston on a steamboat in government employ under Colonel Worth, and so he disappears.

It was an epoch in the history of the peninsula of Essex and Kent when Mr. Prince arrived in Canada. Formerly these counties, “together with as much of this province as is not included within any other district,” extended northward to the boundary line of Hudson Bay. Neighbourhoods were not then congested. Prince was the first man of fortune who came to the district, which he did in ’33, accompanied by wife, family and servants. A man of fine presence and most genial manners, an eloquent speaker, a sportsman and lover of agriculture, he took to farming like the average Englishman, full of good intentions and enthusiasm. He imported thoroughbred stock and kept the finest of dogs. Although much opposed to the stringent game laws of England he introduced a bill for the preservation of game; it passed, but came back amended, one of the additions being that at no time should any animal be killed on the Lord’s Day. Later, alluding to the discussions induced by his summary proceedings with rebels and the hot debates on the battle of Windsor, he never doubted but that the shooting of such rancorous animals as wolves and Yankee pirates on the Lord’s Day could be justified; whereat there was laughter. For Sabbath-keeping in those exciting times was more after the manner of Gwirzi, whose allowance was a male and female daily, but who on Saturday night killed two of each so that he might not profane the Sabbath.

Prince had the true patriarchal spirit; was born to be a leader of men, if withal, like Bottom, he could say, “My chief humour is for a tyrant.” It was a time when a tyrant or two did not come amiss on the Canadian border, however unworthily at the metropolis th’ oppressor ruled tyrannic when he durst. Prince came not long after the time when the Western District gave sentence for manslaughter, “to be burned in the hand and accordingly put in execution before the court.” If this was justice in times of peace there was not much room for the animadversions with which he was covered—but not overwhelmed—when, the Constitution suspended, revolutionary crimes could scarce be put down save by revolutionary methods. “MacNab and Drew, Arthur, Prince, Hagerman and Robinson, are still alive,” said the press; each one of them agreed with Blackstone that obedience is an empty word if every man may decide how far he shall obey. There is no doubt that the Sandwich-Windsor locality was in ’37-38 a seething caldron of unrest, distrust and dissatisfaction; but above it all rides this overpowering personality: “For the brave Prince still lives, and so do his men, Who triumphed before and can do it again.” “(Toast) ‘That brave, intrepid officer whose promptitude of action turned the revelry of Yankee pirates in the western frontier into a post mortem examination. May the sad lesson prove a caution to the followers of Blue Beard.’ (Tune—‘The Brave Old English Gentleman’).”

“Of politics,” said he himself in one of the hundreds of speeches which did much towards making his fame, “of politics I shall say but little here. Mine have been before you and the people of Upper Canada for the last five sessions. I am in the true sense of the word a Constitutional Reformer.” How far Brougham and others of his old country critics agreed with him shall be seen hereafter. His record in the Canadian House shows that he was never amenable to party discipline himself, was classed as “doubtful” by both parties, had hot fits of Liberalism and Conservatism by turns; like a stiff old Englishman, said he was prepared, as the barons at Runnymede, to maintain his rights at all risks; with John Henry Boulton came out as Independent, was a veritable Thorough in his opposition to the Rebellion Losses Bill, and capped the climax of his many-sided character by printing a petition signed by “many respectable Canadians” to move an address to Her Majesty praying that Canada might be relieved from her “dependent state and allowed to become an independent sovereignty.” By the time the last transpired it behooved Robert Baldwin to stigmatize the petition borne by the hero of ’37 as “quasi treasonable.”

In the neighbourhood of his home, the Park Farm, lay, for some thirty or forty miles, the French village form of settlement—the decent church, the pious priest, the civil habitant; the French windmill, where habitant and U. E. Loyalist took their grist in amity, still stood; the river road had on its fringed border the pear trees of the Jesuit fathers, standing like sentinels, to remind of Hennepin and La Salle, and to keep alive the first explorer’s saying, “Those who in the future will have the good fortune to own this lovely and fruitful strait will feel very thankful to those who have shown them the way.”

Every one knows how a carpenter, with foot each side of a log, brings his adze down, first on one side with an emphatic “Hah!” then on the other, with a second emphasis, each stroke on alternate sides getting the same syllabic ejaculation. In Lower Canada, tight in a box, most precious of relics, some of the habitants—it is said—had this most emphemeral of saintly leavings. Whether the habitant of the Detroit and St. Clair brought with him from the St. Lawrence the Hah of St. Joseph we do not know; but he did bring with him most of the attributes which make him the pleasant, interesting fellow he is, on each river; good Catholic, good friend; true to his title, for he came “habiter le pays,” no transient dweller he. Nor does the spirit of “noblesse oblige” ever die. Long after ’37 a court dignitary found himself in a remote St. Clair neighbourhood where tavern accommodation was not; his host for the night was advised of the arrival, and the dignitary drew up at the door of an unpretending house whose owner was apparently a small farmer of simple habit. The hall-door, opened wide in welcome, disclosed an old man in antique jacket, small clothes and buckles, whose fine white hair, lying on his collar, was stirred by the night breeze. The dark hall-way made a fading background for the old man and his ancient silver candlesticks, as, with a light in either hand, he bowed profoundly, walking backwards as his guest entered. The latter remonstrated at the attention so shown him, but the courteously spoken answer, in refined French, was, “Sir, I but follow the custom of my fathers.”

Can the people in any part of Canada object to those who remind them that this country has a history. Mr. Prince was one of those who thanked Providence the land was large enough for both. Almost without exception the St. Clair French were Loyalist, and as sign of their good faith were upholders of him. “What will the Government think of us,” says Baptiste, in a skit issued during an election contest, when Prince, an English Protestant, was opposed by a Canadian Catholic, “when it will be known in Toronto that we preferred any to Prince!!! We shall all be looked upon as asses, who have selected one of their own species in preference to any other.” When he voted for Cuvillier as Speaker of the House, Prince trusted the members of Lower Canada to hold out the hand of friendship; and in perusing the records of many years’ proceedings one finds continually that he seconds or is seconded by the French members. He had a firm hold on the affections of the people, the pleasant voice, smooth accent and manly, handsome presence of more weight as an opponent than any uniqueness in principle; his speeches owed as much to their melody as to their matter.

He was a law unto himself when he came to be a constitutional Reformer in military tactics—not unlike a Lower Canadian legal contemporary who, told by the presiding judge to refer to Pigéon, returned, “I do not need to refer to Pigéon, Perrault” (himself) “is worth Pigéon any day.” Perhaps, to take even higher comparisons, Prince had a touch of Durham, and more than a touch of Colborne, in him.

In the little town of Sandwich, since fitly named by a local Rip Van Winkle the “City of the Dead,” an oldest inhabitant will point out an unpretentious flat stone raised from the ground by a few bricks. Underneath it lie the mangled remains of the man over whose death and the avenging of it a stir only second to the Caroline was made.

“Sacred to the memory,” says the stone, “of Jno. James Hume, Esq., staff assistant surgeon, who was inhumanly murdered and his body afterwards brutally mangled by a gang of armed ruffians from the United States, styling themselves Patriots, who committed this cowardly and shameful outrage on the morning of the 4th December, 1838, having intercepted the deceased while proceeding to render professional assistance to Her Majesty’s gallant militia engaged at Windsor, U.C., in repelling the invasions of this rebel crew more properly styled Pirates.”

During the first year of the rebellion the dwellers on the St. Clair frontier felt themselves aggrieved, as not of sufficient interest at military headquarters. They were particularly open to attacks from those who were called pirates, brigands, outlaws and robbers, from across the border, while singularly free from “rebels” among themselves. They were so convinced that the punishments meted out to offenders were not heavy or frequent enough that they emphasized the opinion in meetings called for the purpose of recording them, en passant displaying a rich sense of their own heavy sufferings “both by day and night, which can scarcely be described and perhaps never be surpassed,” and they were incensed at the respite accorded Theller and Sutherland, the two aggressors at whose hands they had suffered most. They were not to be conciliated by Sir George Arthur’s answer, giving legal reasons for the kind of justice dealt to such prisoners. That Lord Glenelg cautioned that every precaution should be taken against any semblance of retaliation upon the people who by their deeds were brought within the operation of martial law; that in courts-martial regular and not militia officers should preside; and that great circumspection be exercised in regard to capital punishment, had no weight with them. They deemed their own “the circumstances of peculiar and pressing urgency” which alone justified extreme measures, in Lord Glenelg’s opinion, and differed from him heartily in “the extent of punishment to which it may be necessary to subject them, will be more safely estimated at a distance from the scene of action.” They did entirely concur with him in that “it was impossible for him at that distance to give specific instructions.” Nor could they agree with Sir George Arthur, that in spite of prearranged plunder, and spontaneous outrages committed, the rebellion had political motives only for its raison d’être. Those who had been the plundered and were victims of outrage were for shooting first and trying after; and at a public meeting called to denounce past action of the patriots and lay down rules for the future it was decided that all invaders—ruffians who had not even the alleged right of being Canadians who were rebelling for what seemed to them good reason, but who came to murder, pillage and burn, under pretence of “liberating” a country unwilling to be liberated—should be treated as pirates; no quarter should be given, and any commander who found himself in such a position would be more than justified in acting on the publicly expressed opinion of that meeting. When occasion occurred and the right man for such work was on the spot a certain portion of those who previously represented public opinion found they could not endorse their own words. Attorney-General Hagerman approved; but then Lord Brougham said that although he might be a good soldier the Attorney-General could not have been much of a lawyer, or he never would have dared to say so.

The truly patriotic citizens of Windsor and Sandwich recognized that God helps those who help themselves. When Sir Francis sent all the forces out of the country they began a good local militia organization, in which Col. Prince took the lead. No portion of country could have been more self-helpful and more patriotic than this section found itself throughout. At the first meeting of magistrates called, Mr. William Anderton, Collector of Customs, was appointed commissary, and to James Dougall was assigned the supervision of ferries. For arms and stores there were no public moneys, but Mr. Dougall providentially had a large sum put by in the Bank of Michigan to make English purchase of goods for his next year’s trade. This he freely placed at the public disposal, and flour and pork, and all the arms available from Detroit friends, were brought across, as secretly as might be, but the transport was discovered just in time to allow Theller and one hundred followers to see the boats move off. Cordwood sticks were the only weapons available, and these were thrown freely after the boats, which, however, they failed to strike.

By December 3rd, ’38, the people on the Canadian side had been for many nights in constant fear of another invasion; horses were kept harnessed and saddled, arms lay conveniently near those who dared go to bed, and some prepared to turn night into day and made it their most watchful time. The attitude of the whole place was that of a modern fire-station, alert, ready, apprehensive. The place was full of the usual internecine squabbles and jealousies, only kept down by sense of a common danger; Colonel Airey had been applied to for a company of regulars, Major Reid of the 32nd had been sent to London, and Colonel Prince in command, while on the alert himself, thought that too many applications for assistance savoured of cowardice, and contented himself with night patrols and sentinels. The watch-fires of the patriots could be seen at the bivouacs on the farms below Detroit; friends, two of whom were to be among the killed, came across to warn them, and watchfulness was redoubled.

That night was cold and dark, no moon, the very time for the enemy’s purpose, and word was passed from tavern to tavern on the American side to rendezvous at the wharf—with arms and ammunition, “but to take no heed to provisions.” They expected to find food in plenty. The captain and crew of the Champlain did not care to violate the neutrality laws, and kept out of the way; so a crew selected from the patriots took the vessel across the river, through many patches of drift ice, to a point about four miles above Windsor. The command on landing was that no noise should be made, the farmers were not to be wakened, and to make for the barracks, which were guarded by only a small force. Patriotic Mr. Dougall, bank manager as well as trader, writes that he was roused from his not too sound sleep by the sound of shots, saw the flames of already burning barracks, hurried his wife and family to a place of safety, and made his way to the safe, where $20,000 was locked up. The old-fashioned receptacle bristled with knobs, three of which had to be shoved aside before the keyhole could be uncovered. He shoved every knob on its entire surface and the keyhole was lost; but eventually he got the money, secured it about him, seized his gun, and went off towards Sandwich. Those who were the dupes among the invaders believed that once the protection of their presence was announced the people would rise up to meet their deliverers half-way in the effort to overthrow an obnoxious form of government. The first man they saw in the early morning light was hastening towards the barracks, evidently someone from Detroit who had rowed over to give the alarm. They fired and he fell, but the shot alarmed the sleeping town, and there was an end to the intended surprise. After that the old nine-pounder in the barrack square, opposite St. John’s Church, gave a resounding alarm, and as usual shattered the glass in the church and Court House windows. In a short time a gallant resistance had been made, and ammunition had given out; burning brands were thrust inside the torn siding of the wooden barracks by the brigands, who served themselves materially by getting under the eaves of the building and so out of range from the guns at the loopholes. Many within made escape by a door at the back unknown to the invaders, and those whom the heat forced to the other entrance sold their lives dearly; some, shot or wounded, were thrust back into the fire—in all a work of carnage and atrocity. Four brigands were told off to take burning brands from the barracks to set fire to the steamboat Thames, which lay at the wharf. They did so, to the slogan of “Remember the Caroline.” Never was there so much trouble in lighting a fire. She was more obstinate than the Caroline herself, but from bow to stern the flames shot up, and the four incendiaries ran back to the barracks to take their stand in the line, which prepared to place itself in an orchard hard by, under Captains Putnam and Harvell. Putnam, six feet four and hailing from Middlesex, was said to be a grandson of the old general, Israel Putnam; Harvell was known as the Big Kentuckian, a man six feet two in height, weighing over two hundred pounds, and with hair long on his collar; he was a remarkable figure as he bore an enormous flag adorned with “a large white star in a blue field—the lone star of Canada.” The “lone star” is evidently poetic license; the flag bore the ordinary two stars and crescent, as described by those of each side. Those who had chief honour in routing this band were Captain Sparkes and his company, who, uniformed in scarlet, were little inferior to regulars. The patriots aimed at the bits of bright colour, but in their trepidation fired too high, and the balls went whistling overhead; in a moment their own ranks were broken, and the hundred under the pear trees dispersed in disorder, as Captain Sparkes and his men came over an intervening fence to let them taste the bayonet. The huge figure of the lone star standard-bearer made surprising time considering his own weight and the cumbersome colours, which trailed behind him on the ground. “A hundred dollars to whoever shoots the standard-bearer,” shouted Mr. Jimmy Dougall in great excitement, and more than one bullet tried for the reward.

Nothing but the gift of second sight can let one account for the difference between the patriots’ tale of the Windsor affair and the somewhat less hysterical loyalist one. The latter chronicle says Harvell died at once, as indeed he had every right to do; the former, which credits him with being a veritable Davy Crockett, brave, honest, impulsive and kind-hearted—very probably all true—says that he dropped on one knee and fired at his pursuers; that the fire was not returned, as no doubt they were anxious to secure alive so handsome and formidable a foe. When his ammunition was exhausted he drew a bowie knife, “or more properly speaking, tremendous butcher cleaver,” from his collar, which he brandished menacingly. This act brought the order to fire; he was far too formidable in appearance to be allowed to live, and he fell retaining his hold on his staff. The enemy approached, says the patriot historian, and demanded surrender. “Never!” said this modern Fitz-James; “I have sworn never to fly mine enemy, and never to surrender my neck to be broke upon the scaffold. Come on—come one, come all!” At any rate, to Ensign Rankin belonged the honour of capturing the flag; that seems the one point upon which there is unanimity of opinion. Many of the actors in this tragicomedy of invasion and war shed their stage properties as they fled, parting company with arms, accoutrements, ammunition, even clothing.

Colonel Prince, who had been on the watch at the Park Farm, passing an anxious night with a terrified and ailing wife, had by now got word of what was happening. He made his appearance in fustian shooting-jacket and wolf-skin cap, no bad dress for the work before him, as he had not time to assume his ordinary uniform. He at once ordered the pursuit discontinued, upon which one shamming dead man got up and ran into the woods. Some stragglers in the militia fired at and killed him, and one of them, a negro of a thrifty turn like the Scotchman in Galt, pulled off the brigand’s boots and slung them over his gun; the negro, in his turn, was to be taken by straggling pirates, and again rescued. The retreat did not stop until the place where the Champlain had been left was reached; she had disappeared, and the heroes of the orchard were constrained to drift about in canoes without paddles like so many Mrs. Aleshines. They used the stocks of their guns to sweep themselves ashore on Hog Island. But the river was full of drifting ice, and Lieutenant Airey and Captain Broderick, who had arrived from Amherstburg with some of the 34th, a field-piece and twenty mounted Indians from the Reserve, soon had the gun trained on the canoes. Airey himself took aim; the first ball plunged at the stern of a canoe, the second took off a man’s arm, and the arm could be seen spinning over the water. One patriot was killed outright; his comrades threw themselves flat, with the exception of the steersman, who, bending as low as he could, poled the unlucky canoe to shore. They imagined that the third shot shattered the last canoe, but its load was destined to illustrate the value of a neutrality law. The men in it were captured by the Brady Guards; were hailed, fired at and surrounded, in due order; dropped their guns overboard and were found unarmed; were taken on board the Guards’ vessel, dried themselves, and were questioned by the officer as to what they did in Canada, who set fire to the Thames—questions easily evaded; went through the farce of a second interrogation, were threatened with confinement, were called some hard names, answered boldly, were cheered by the onlookers; in a stern tone were ordered ashore, where they were met by “amazingly cordial” shouts; were escorted to public places of refreshment by an ex-Senator, and, in a word, received the freedom of the city of Detroit. Happy men to be there; for there was a terrible retribution going on while their exciting canoe race and triumphant entry were transpiring.