Chapter 21

In 1813 the campaign commenced with a signal victory by General Procter, who was in command at Detroit, over a considerable American force at Frenchtown, on the Raisin River, under the command of Brigadier Winchester. Then came a successful attack by Colonel McDonnell on Ogdensburgh (La Présentation of the French régime), in retaliation for raids on Gananoque and Elizabethtown, subsequently named Brockville--now a beautiful city near the Thousand Isles--in honour of the gallant soldier who perished on the heights of Queenston. Commodore Chauncey, in command of a small American fleet organised at Sackett's Harbour, an important base of naval and military operations for the Americans, attacked the little capital of York, now Toronto, which was evacuated by General Sheaffe, then administrator of the government, who retired to Kingston, the strongest position {325} to the west of Montreal. The invaders burnt the legislative and other public buildings. The small library and public records were not even spared by the pillaging troops. No precautions had been taken by Sheaffe to improve defences which at the best were of little strength. During the summer, the American army was so much superior to the English forces that they were able to occupy the whole Niagara frontier from Fort Erie to Fort George, both of which were captured by General Dearborn. Major-General Vincent, the English commander, was compelled to retire to Burlington Heights, overlooking the present city of Hamilton. Sir George Prevost, who proved himself a most irresolute and incapable commander-in-chief, retreated ignominiously from Sackett's Harbour, although Commodore Chauncey and his fleet were absent and the post was defended by only a small garrison. This discreditable failure, which cannot be in any way excused, was soon forgotten when the news came of the success of Colonel Harvey, afterwards a lieutenant-governor of the maritime provinces, at Stoney Creek, quite close to Burlington Bay. With an insignificant detachment from Vincent's main body, Harvey succeeded in surprising at night a large American force, commanded by Brigadiers Chandler and Winder, both of whom, as well as one hundred officers and men, were taken prisoners. This serious disaster and the approach of Admiral Yeo's fleet from the eastward forced the invading army to retire to Fort George, where they concentrated their strength, after abandoning Fort {326} Erie and other posts on the frontier. It was during the campaign of this year that Laura Secord, the courageous daughter of a sturdy loyalist stock which has given the name of Ingersoll to a Canadian town, afforded a memorable example of the devotion which animated Canadian women in these years of trial. General Dearborn had ordered Colonel Boerstler to surprise and attack the Canadian outposts at Twelve Mile Creek, now St. Catharine's, and at De Ceu's farm, close to the present town of Thorold. Lieutenant Fitzgibbon, with a picket of thirty men, was stationed at De Ceu's. A Canadian militiaman, James Secord, who lived at Queenston, heard of the proposed attack, but as he had been severely wounded in the attack on Queenston Heights in the previous October, he was unable to warn Fitzgibbon. His wife, a woman of nearly forty years, volunteered for the hazardous duty, and started at dawn for a journey of twenty miles, through dense woods, where the paths were few and had to be avoided for fear of meeting American marauders or suspicious Indians who might take her for a spy. It took her all day to reach her destination, where she first disturbed an encampment of Indians who received her with yells, which dismayed her for the moment. However, she was taken to the commanding officer, who made his arrangements immediately to surprise Boerstler, who soon made his appearance with five hundred men at least. The Americans were forced to surrender to what they believed was a vastly superior force, so cleverly had Fitzgibbon succeeded in deceiving them. In fact, he had only at first {327} thirty soldiers, and two hundred and forty Indians, and when a captain and twenty troopers of the Chippewa cavalry came up Boerstler was quite ready to surrender.

All the successes in the west, however, were now rendered worthless by the unfortunate defeat at Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie of the English flotilla under Captain Barclay, by Commodore Perry, who had command of a large number of vessels, with a superior armament and equipment. The result of this victory was to give the control of Lake Erie and of the State of Michigan to the Americans. Procter retreated from Detroit, and was defeated near Moraviantown, an Indian village, about sixty miles from Sandwich, by General Harrison, who had defeated Tecumseh in the northwest, and now added to his growing fame by his victory over the English army, who were badly generalled on this occasion. Tecumseh, the faithful ally of the Canadians, fell in the battle, and his body was treated with every indignity, his skin, according to report, having been carried off to Kentucky as a trophy. Procter fell into disgrace, and was subsequently replaced by Colonel de Rottenburg. On his return to England, Procter was tried, by court-martial, suspended from his rank for six months, and censured by the commander-in-chief.

Passing by such relatively unimportant affairs as a successful attack on Black Rock, near Buffalo, by Colonel Bisshopp, and a second attack on York by Chauncey, who took some prisoners and a quantity of stores, we have now to state other facts in the {328} history of the campaign of 1813 which compensated Canada for Procter's disasters in the west. The Americans had decided to make an attack on Montreal by two forces--one coming by the St. Lawrence and the other by Lake Champlain--which were to form a junction at Châteauguay on Lake St. Louis. General Wilkinson, with eight thousand men, descended the river from Sackett's Harbour, landed below Prescott, and then proceeded towards Cornwall. Some two thousand five hundred men, under Colonel Boyd, protected the rear of the main body, and was compelled to fight a much inferior force, under Colonel Morrison, on Chrystler's farm, near what is now known as Cook's Point on the north bank of the St. Lawrence. The Americans gave way in all directions, and sustained a heavy loss. Boyd rejoined Wilkinson at the foot of the Long Sault rapids, in the neighbourhood of the present town of Cornwall, and here the news arrived that General Hampton had received a serious repulse. Hampton, leading an army of probably seven thousand men, had been routed near the junction of the Châteauguay and Outarde rivers by an insignificant force of Canadian Fencibles and Voltigeurs under Colonel de Salaberry, a French Canadian in the English military service, with the aid of Colonel McDonnell, in command of seven companies of Lower Canadian militia. These combined forces did not exceed nine hundred men, all French Canadians, with the exception of Colonel McDonnell and several other officers. Three hundred French Canadian Voltigeurs and Fencibles formed the front {329} of the line, and when the former gave way to the onslaught of the four thousand men who advanced against them Salaberry held his ground with a bugler, a mere lad, and made him sound lustily. Colonel McDonnell, with a remarkably keen understanding of the situation, immediately ordered his buglers to play, and to continue doing so while they scattered in the woods. As the woods echoed {330} to the call of the bugles, to the shouts of the soldiers, and to the yells of the Indians, the American force halted as if they were paralysed. Then, believing from the noises that filled the forest in every direction that they were to be attacked in front and rear by an overwhelming force, they broke and fled tumultuously. Salaberry and the Canadians had won a victory that has only a few parallels in warlike annals. Hampton retreated as rapidly as possible to Plattsburg, while Wilkinson found his way to Salmon River. These two victories of Chrystler's farm and Châteauguay were won almost entirely by Canadian prowess and skill, and must be always mentioned among the glorious episodes of Canadian history.

Before the end of the year, General McClure, in command of the American troops on the Niagara frontier, evacuated Fort George, when he heard of the advance of the English forces under General Murray. McClure committed the cowardly outrage of destroying the town of Newark. All the houses except one were burned, and no pity was shown even to the weak and helpless women, all of whom were driven from their comfortable houses and forced to stand on the snow-clad earth, while they saw the flames ascend from their homes and household treasures. As an act of retribution the British troops destroyed all the posts and settlements from Fort Niagara to Buffalo. When the campaign of 1813 closed, Lake Erie was still in the possession of the Americans, but the Niagara district on both sides of the river had been freed from the American {331} forces, and not an inch of Canadian territory except Amherstburg was in possession of the enemy.

In the following year the campaign commenced by the advance of a large force of American troops under General Wilkinson into Lower Canada, but they did not get beyond Lacolle Mill, not far from Isle aux Noix on the Richelieu, where they met with a most determined resistance from the little garrison under Colonel Handcock. Wilkinson retreated to Plattsburg, and did not again venture upon Canadian territory. Sir Gordon Drummond took Oswego, and succeeded in destroying a large amount of public property, including the barracks. The greatest success of the year was won in the Niagara country, where the English troops under Drummond and Riall had been concentrated with the view of opposing the advance of an American army into Upper Canada. The Americans occupied Fort Erie, and Riall sustained a repulse at Street's Creek--now known as Usher's--near Chippewa, although General Brown, who was in command of a much superior force, did not attempt to follow up his advantage, but allowed the English to retreat to Fort George. Then followed, on the 25th of July, the famous battle of Lundy's Lane, where the English regulars and Canadian militia, led by General Drummond, fought from six in the evening until midnight, a formidable force of American troops, commanded by General Brown and Brigadiers Ripley, Porter, and Scott--the latter the future hero of the Mexican war. The darkness through this hotly contested engagement was intense, and the English {332} more than once seemed on the point of yielding to sheer exhaustion as they contested every foot of ground against overpowering numbers of well handled troops. The undaunted courage and persistence of the British and Canadian soldiery won the battle, as the Americans retired from the field, though with a remarkable perversion of the facts this memorable event is even claimed by some American writers as a success on their side. This was the last great fight of the war, and will be always cited by Canadians as illustrating the mettle of their own militia in old times.

Drummond did not win other successes, and even failed to capture Fort Erie. The American army, however, did not make another advance into the country while he kept it so well guarded. Erie was eventually evacuated, while the Americans concentrated their strength at Buffalo. Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi was captured in this same summer by the English, and the Americans were repulsed in an attempt to seize the fort at Michillimackinac. In eastern Canada there was no such record of victory to show as Drummond and his officers had made in the west. Prevost again gave a signal proof of his incapacity. His fleet sustained a complete defeat on Lake Champlain, and so great was his dismay that he ordered the retreat to Montreal of a splendid force of over ten thousand troops, largely composed of peninsula veterans, though Plattsburg and its garrison must have fallen easily into his hands had he been possessed of the most ordinary resolution. This retreat was confessedly a disgrace to the {334} English army, which Canadian and English writers must always record with a feeling of contempt for Prevost.

It is not necessary to dwell at any length on other features of this war. The American navy, small though it was, won several successes mainly through the superiority of their vessels in tonnage, crew, and armament. The memorable fight between the British frigate _Shannon_, under Captain Broke, and the United States frigate _Chesapeake_, under Captain Lawrence, off Massachusetts Bay, illustrates equally the courage of British and American sailors--of men belonging to the same great stock which has won so many victories on the sea. The two ships were equally matched, and after a sharp contest of a quarter of an hour the _Chesapeake_ was beaten, but not until Captain Lawrence was fatally wounded and his victorious adversary also severely injured. During the war Nova Scotia and the other maritime provinces were somewhat harassed at times by American privateers, but the presence of a large fleet constantly on their coasts--Halifax being the rendezvous of the British navy in American waters--and the hostility of New England to the war saved these sections of British America from invasion. On the other hand, all the important positions on the coast of Maine from the Penobscot to the St. Croix, were attacked and occupied by the English. The whole American coast during the last year of the war was blockaded by the English fleet with the exception of New England ports, which were open to neutral vessels. The public buildings of Washington, {335} the federal capital, were destroyed by an English army, in retaliation for the burning of York, Newark, and Moraviantown. The attempt to take Baltimore failed, and a bold man from Tennessee, Andrew Jackson--in later years President--drove Pakenham from New Orleans. The taking of Mobile by British ships was the closing incident of the war on the Atlantic coast. In fact peace was happily declared by the Treaty of Ghent on the 24th December, 1814, or a fortnight before the defeat of the English at New Orleans. The two nations gladly came to terms. It is questionable if the heart of either was ever deeply enlisted in this unhappy war which should never have been fought between peoples so closely connected by language and race. It was mainly a war of Western and Southern politicians, and when it ended New England, whose interests had been so seriously affected, was showing signs of serious restlessness which had broken out in the Hartford convention, and might have even threatened the integrity of the Union.

Although the war ended without any definite decision on the questions at issue between the United States and Great Britain, the privileges of neutrals were practically admitted, and the extreme pretensions of Great Britain as to the right of search can never again be asserted. One important result of the war, as respects the interests of Canada, was the re-opening of the question of the British American fisheries. Certain privileges extended by the Treaty of 1783 to American fishermen on the coasts of British North America were not again conceded, {336} and the convention of 1818, which followed the peace of 1815, is the basis of the rights which Canadians have always maintained in disputes between themselves and the United States as to the fisheries on their coasts. Looking, however, to its general results, the war gave no special advantages to the Canadian people. When peace was proclaimed not an inch of Canadian territory, except the village of Amherstburg, was held by the American forces. On the other hand, Great Britain occupied the greater part of the sea-board of Maine, and her flag flew over Michillimackinac, the key to the Northwest. Had British statesmen seized this opportunity of settling finally the western boundary of New Brunswick, Canada would have obtained a territory most useful to the commercial development of the present Dominion. England, however, was very desirous of ending the war--perhaps the humiliating affair at Plattsburg had some effect on the peace--and it was fortunate for the provinces that they were allowed in the end to control their most valuable fisheries.

The people of Canada will always hold in grateful recollection the names of those men who did such good service for their country during these momentous years from 1812 to 1815. Brock, Tecumseh, Morrison, Salaberry, McDonnell, Fitzgibbon, and Drummond are among the most honourable names in Canadian history. Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, Canadians, Indians, were equally conspicuous in brilliant achievement. A stately monument overlooks the noble river of the Niagara, and recalls {337} the services of the gallant soldiers, Brock and McDonell, whose remains rest beneath. A beautiful village, beyond which stretches historic Lundy's Lane, recalls the name and deeds of Drummond. As the steamers pass up and down the St. Lawrence they see on the northern bank the obelisk which the Canadian Government has raised on the site of the battlefield where Morrison defeated Boyd. On the meadows of Châteauguay, another monument has been erected by the same national spirit in honour of the victory won by a famous representative of the French Canadian race, who proved how courageously French Canadians could fight for the new régime under which they were then, as now, so happy and prosperous.

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XXIV.

POLITICAL STRIFE AND REBELLION.

(1815-1840.)

The history of the twenty-five years between the peace of 1815 and the union of the Canadas in 1840, illustrates the folly and misery of faction, when intensified by racial antagonisms. In Lower Canada the difficulties arising from a constant contest for the supremacy between the executive and legislative authorities were aggravated by the fact that the French Canadian majority dominated the popular house, and the English-speaking minority controlled the government. "I found," wrote Lord Durham, in 1839, "two nations warring in the bosom of a single state; I found a struggle not of principles but of races." It is true that some Englishmen were found fighting for popular liberties on the side of the French Canadian majority. Mr. John Neilson, who was for years editor of the _Quebec Gazette_, was a friend of the French Canadians, and in close sympathy with the movement for the extension of public rights, but he was never prepared to go beyond {339} the legitimate limits of constitutional agitation and threaten British connexion. On the other hand, Dr. Wolfred Nelson, descended from a loyalist stock, was one of the leaders of the majority that controlled the assembly of Lower Canada, and did not hesitate to join in the rebellion to which his rash and impetuous chief, Louis Joseph Papineau, led him at last. But while undoubtedly there were many persons among the British people, who were disgusted with the arrogance of some of the governing class, and discontented with the methods of government, they were gradually alienated by the demagogism of the French Canadian majority, who did not hesitate to profess their desire to make French Canada exclusively a French dominion. The tyranny of the majority was exhibited in the assembly by the attempt to impeach Chief Justices Sewell and Monk, on charges which had no justification in law or justice. Mr. Robert Christie, the member for Gaspé, who subsequently wrote a useful history of Lower Canada, was expelled several times because he was believed to have procured the dismissal from the magistracy of some members of the assembly who were inimical to the executive government. On the other hand, Lord Dalhousie, the governor-general, in 1827, refused to approve of the election of Mr. Papineau as speaker of the assembly, because he had reflected in strong terms in a manifesto on the public conduct of the former. Mr. Louis J. Papineau, the future leader of the rebellion in 1837, was a man of fine presence, gifted with remarkable powers of rhetoric and persuasion, but {340} he was entirely wanting in discretion, and in the qualities which make a great statesman. When the assembly refused to reconsider its action and elect another speaker, Lord Dalhousie prorogued the legislature, which did not again meet until he was recalled and sent to India as commander-in-chief. Like other governors, Lord Dalhousie attempted to govern to the best of his ability, and what mistakes he committed arose from the contradictory and perplexing instructions he received from the officials in Downing Street, who were quite incapable at times of understanding the real condition of affairs in the province.