Volume 2 / Part 2 — CHAPTER LI.
Reading edition
First American Invasion of Upper Canada by General Hull, from Detroit, whose Proclamation "To the Inhabitants of Canada" is given entire, and General Brock's Noble Answer to it, in an Address to the People of Upper Canada.
In the meantime Canada, in its western extremity, had been invaded. The American Government had been for several months collecting an army of some 3,000 or 4,000 regular troops and militia, around and west of Detroit, in order to strike a blow upon Canada the moment war should be declared. General Hull was the Governor of the territory of Michigan, and Commander-in-Chief of the "Grand Army of the West." On the 12th of July he crossed the River Detroit with a force of 2,500 of the above troops, and a strong park of artillery, and planted the American standard on the shores of Canada, at Sandwich. He forthwith issued a pretentious, inflated, cajoling, patronising, threatening proclamation to the inhabitants of Canada, and pronouncing instant death to any one who should be fighting in company with the Indians, while at the same time the Americans were employing in their army all the Indians they could induce to join them. The American democratic party which ruled at Washington had persecuted and driven the fathers of Canada from their homes in the United States, and had always been the enemies of their peace and prosperity in Canada; yet they were under the strange delusion that the people of Canada must be still as much in love with them as they were with themselves, and that the magnetism of their star-spangled banner planted in Canada would draw all Canadians to it; that an address from their commanding general would supply the place of armies, and that taking Canada would be but a holiday march, in which, as their language of the time was, they would "breakfast at Sandwich, take dinner at York (Toronto), and sup at Montreal." It was in this spirit of vanity and delusion that General Hull issued his famous proclamation, on his landing at Sandwich, and which I give entire in a note.[194]
In a noble address to the people of Upper Canada, General Brock answered the proclamation of General Hull, repelling and exposing with overwhelming power his misstatements, and answering with withering sarcasm General Hull's attack upon the Indians, and the "barbarous and savage policy of Great Britain" in recognizing the Indians as allies and fellow-subjects, and their right to defend their homes and liberties against American invasion and rapine. We present the reader with the following extracts of this masterly address, transcribed from the manuscripts of the Dominion Library at Ottawa.
In the course of his Address to the People of Canada, General Brock says:
"The unprovoked declaration of war by the United States of America against Great Britain and Ireland and its dependencies, has been followed by the actual invasion of this Province, in a remote frontier of the Western District, by a detachment of the armed force of the United States.
"The officer commanding that detachment [General Hull] has thought proper to invite his Majesty's subjects not merely to a quiet and unresisting submission, but insults them by offering with a call to seek the protection of his Government.
"Without condescending to notice the epithets bestowed, in this appeal of the American commander to the people of Upper Canada, on the administration of his Majesty, every inhabitant of the Province is desired to seek the confutation of such indecent slander in the review of his own particular circumstances.
"Where is the Canadian subject who can truly affirm to himself that he has been injured by the Government in his person, his property, or his liberty?
"Where is to be found in any part of the world a growth so rapid in prosperity and wealth as this colony exhibits? Settled not thirty years, by a band of veterans exiled from their former possessions on account of their loyalty, not a descendant of these brave people is to be found who has not, under the fostering care of their Sovereign, acquired a property and means of enjoyment superior to what were possessed by their ancestors.
"This unequalled prosperity would not have been attained by the utmost liberality of the Government or the persevering industry of the people, had not the maritime power of the mother country secured to the colonists a safe access to every market where the produce of their labour was in request. * *
"The restitution of Canada to the empire of France was the stipulated reward for the aid afforded to the revolted colonies, now the United States. The debt is still due; and there can be no doubt but that the pledge has been renewed as a consideration for commercial advantages, or rather for an expected relaxation in the tyranny of France over the commercial world.
"Are you prepared, inhabitants of Canada, to become willing subjects, or slaves, to the Despot who rules the nations of continental Europe with a rod of iron?
"If not, arise in a body; exert your energies; co-operate cordially with the King's regular forces to repel the invader, and do not give cause to your children, when groaning under the oppression of a Foreign Master, to reproach you with having so easily parted with the richest inheritance of this earth—a participation in the name, character, and freedom of Britons. * *
"Be not dismayed at the unjustifiable threat of the commander of the enemy's forces, to refuse quarter should an Indian appear in the ranks.
"The brave bands of aborigines which inhabit this colony were, like his Majesty's other subjects, punished for their zeal and fidelity by the loss of their possessions in the late colonies, and rewarded by his Majesty with lands of superior value in this Province.
"The faith of the British Government has never been violated. The Indians feel that the soil they inherit is to them and their posterity protected from the base arts so frequently devised to overreach their simplicity.
"By what principle are they to be prohibited from defending their property? If their warfare, from being different to that of other people, be more terrific to the enemy, let him retrace his steps; they seek him not—and cannot expect to find women and children in an invading army.
"But they are men, and have equal rights with all other men to defend themselves and their property when invaded, more especially when they find in the enemy's camp a ferocious and mortal enemy, using the same warfare which the American commander affects to reprobate.
"This inconsistent and unjustifiable threat of refusing quarter, for such a cause as being found in arms with a brother sufferer, in defence of invaded rights, must be exercised with the certain assurance of retaliation, not only in the limited operations of war in this part of the King's dominions, but in every quarter of the globe; for the national character of Britain is not less distinguished for humanity than strict retributive justice, which will consider the execution of this inhuman threat as deliberate murder, for which every subject of the offending power must make expiation.
(Signed) "Isaac Brock, "Major-General and President.
"Headquarters,
"Fort George, July 22nd, 1812."
"By order of his Honour the President,
(Signed) "J.B. Glegg, A.D.C.,
General."