Part 14

The point of the question is not, _Did_ Dr. Rolph wink, but, _When_ did he wink. If after his ambassadorial function was over, the act, according to the rules which govern flags of truce, could not be taken exception to. If whilst an ambassador, the case becomes one not of ordinary manners and morals, but shows him as a double traitor.

Arrived at Gallows Hill--ominous title, a fitting one, thought the Loyalists--the three on horseback, “_in solid_ _phalanx_” Hugh Carmichael, the bearer, in the middle, Dr. Rolph, as spokesman, asked what the insurgents wanted, said the Governor deprecated the effusion of blood, and offered an amnesty if they would return to their homes. The result of the conference which ensued was that no reliance was to be felt in the bare word of Sir Francis; it must be in writing, that no act of hostility would be committed in the time allowed for an answer; that they demanded “independence and a convention to arrange details.” Moreover, he was given until two o’clock only to decide.

The answer of these “infatuated creatures” had a curious effect. For once Sir Francis declined to taunt with the license of ink. His nerves were much steadied by the report of undisciplined, unarmed hundreds, instead of thousands eager for carnage, brought back by the truce party; and letters stating that volunteers bound for his aid were on the way enabled him to disregard what in courtesy would be due to his agents. He curtly told them his refusal, and they made a third trip to report him to his enemy. Baldwin then returned to his wonted retirement, and Rolph busied himself in preparation for the result of his advice--“Wend your way into the city as soon as possible at my heels”--by at once seeing the Radicals in town and instructing them to arm themselves, as Mackenzie was on the road. “Why do you stand here with your hands in your breeches pockets? Go, arm yourselves how you can; Mackenzie will be in immediately!”--an event for which he did not wait. Some time before, Judge Jonas Jones had said that Dr. Rolph had a vile democratic heart, and ought to be sent out of the Province. Mr. Baldwin, riding away, heard cheers, but did not know the cause. Four weeks later, writing of the event, he says: “Whether under the circumstances I acted judiciously in undertaking the mission, I know not. One thing I know, that what I did I did for the best, and with the sincerest desire of preventing as far as possible the destruction of life and property.”

But Mackenzie was busy setting fire to Dr. Horne’s house. Its only guard was a very large and handsome Newfoundland dog which formerly had been patrol for Bonnycastle on the beach which skirted his isolated cottage on the bay, a beach much frequented by smugglers and other idlers. The brute valiantly defended his new beat, but without avail. After a series of capers which caused some of his followers to say that little Mac. was out of his head and unfit to be left at large, an end was made of the dog, and the fire was lighted.

A messenger was now sent after the dilatory general by Rolph, who, like the mother of Sisera, was sick at heart to know what hindered the wheels of his chariot. The messenger was a young fellow named Henry Hover Wright, one of Rolph’s students, just arrived from Niagara and full of wonder at being met on the wharf by armed men. The only guard he encountered on Yonge Street was one man--rebel--armed with a fusil. Wright passed him, asking why they did not come. The answer was, “We cannot go until General Mackenzie is ready.” The latter at that moment was busy ordering away a new-comer, saying, “I don’t know you, and there are too many friends,” and particularly busy in his endeavour to get dinner and supper for the men. Mounted on a small white horse, from which vantage he incessantly harangued his followers, he told them he would be commander-in-chief as Colonel Van Egmond had not arrived. Van Egmond did not arrive until the Thursday, when Mackenzie, after breakfasting with him, threatened to shoot him.

Expostulating with those who would not advance upon the city in daylight, and exhorting those who had equal objections to the dark, the leader has been variously described: “Storming and swearing like a lunatic, and many of us felt certain he was not in his right senses. He abused and insulted several of the men without any shadow of cause, and Lount had to go round and pacify them by telling them not to pay any attention to him”--(the commander-in-chief)--“as he was not responsible for his actions.” “If we had locked him up in a room at the tavern,” says the naïve chronicler, “and could then have induced Lount to lead us into the city, we should have overturned the government without any fighting worth talking about.” “Once or twice,” says another, “I thought he was going to have a fit.”

No help from outside had as yet arrived in Toronto. After refreshment to the inner rebel had been successfully accomplished by the united efforts of Lount and Mackenzie, the latter’s white mount was exchanged for a big horse taken from some loyalist prisoner. At that juncture had the movement been persevered in, with Lount prominently directing it, there is every reason to suppose that the arms, ammunition and money in the town would have been theirs--also that they would have captured Sir Francis himself, “unless,” indeed, as the _London and Westminster Review_ said, “he had run away.” “All who will reflect on the nature of civil war,” it said, “must see the fearful odds which a day’s success and the possession of the capital and its resources would have given the rebels. For their not obtaining it we have no reason to thank Sir Francis Head.”

“I told them,” (the men) says Mackenzie in his own account of his brief harangue, “that I was certain there could be no difficulty in taking Toronto, that both in town and country the people stood aloof from Sir Francis, that not one hundred men and boys could be got to defend him, that he was alarmed and had got his family on board a steamer, that six hundred Reformers were ready waiting to join us in the city, and that all we had to do was to be firm, and with the city would so at once go down every vestige of foreign government of Upper Canada.”

“If your honour will but give us arms,” cried a voice from the ranks before Sir Francis, “sure the rebels will find the legs.”

In the next hour both sides were to find they had their full complement of these useful limbs.

“To fight and to be beaten,” says Dafoe, “is a casualty common to all soldiers.... But to run away at the sight of an enemy, and neither strike nor be stricken, this is the very shame of the profession.” About sundown the rebels, between seven and eight hundred strong, began their march, half of them armed with green cudgels, cut on the way, the riflemen in the van followed by two hundred of the pikemen. A score or so had old and rusty muskets and shot-guns. Most of them wore a white badge on the sleeve. Three abreast they went, Lount at their head, “Mackenzie here, there and everywhere.” They moved steadily and without mishap, taking prisoner some chance wayfarers and an officer of loyalist artillery, until the head of the column neared a garden, where Sheriff Jarvis and his picket of twenty-seven lay in wait for them. The sheriff gave the word to fire. This his men remained to do, then speedily stood not upon the order of their going, but went at once in haste, and ran into the city. The sheriff called to them to stop, but they were beyond his voice and control; whereupon he probably thought “I’ faith, I’ll not stay a jot longer,” and followed them.

It was a random volley, but it spread consternation. Lount ordered it to be returned, which was done, but in such fear and trepidation that had the others waited to receive it they might have been still safe. Lount and the men in front fell flat on their faces to allow those behind them an opportunity to fire. But this the latter had no mind to do, thinking the fall due to the bullets of the picket. “We shall all be killed,” cried the Lloydtown pikemen, throwing down their rude weapons. In Mackenzie’s words, “They took to their heels with a speed and steadiness of purpose that would have baffled pursuit on foot.” In a short twenty minutes not one of either side was to be found within range of the toll-bar or of each other. The one man killed in the affair was a rebel, done to death from the rear by a nervous and too willing comrade. Mackenzie implored, he coaxed and he threatened, and in such strong language did he treat this retreat that one man from the north, provoked beyond endurance, raised his gun to shoot the commander-in-chief, when a third prevented him.

“I was enabled by strong pickets,” wrote Sir Francis after this, “to prevent Mr. Mackenzie from carrying into effect his diabolical intention to burn the city.”

It was now time to look for some support in answer to the appeals for help sent by special messengers on the Monday evening. One messenger went by land; while another, to make certain, took the water route.

Bonnycastle, indiscriminately dubbed captain or major, was sitting quietly in his home in Kingston, tired after an afternoon spent at the new fort in providing against fire or surprise, when some one, in a state of great excitement, ran into his study to say the steamboat _Traveller_ had arrived from Toronto with Sir Francis Head and all who had been able to escape from that city on board; Toronto was taken by Mackenzie and burnt. Bonnycastle says he “buckled on his armour” and went to consult the commandant of their little garrison--eleven or twelve artillerymen--as to what was best to be done in such a dreadful emergency. Not two steps on his way he was met by a second breathless messenger, followed by a crowd of eager neighbours, who took advantage of the open hall door to come in to hear the news. This second express was to say that the only cargo on board was a letter for Bonnycastle, but that a serious outbreak had occurred. The letter was an order to send stores to Toronto, to arm all loyal persons in Kingston, and to preserve intact the depot and fortress--a work which he did so well that it earned him his knighthood.

The bearer of the duplicate despatch by land had a more difficult journey. He was narrowly searched and examined by the rebels en route, but while his companion was being taken prisoner he sewed his despatch in his sleeve, and by his activity arrived at his destination the same night as, but later than, the _Traveller_. It was two o’clock on the Monday when Colonel MacNab, in Hamilton, received Sir Francis’ statement, that he, with a few followers, was in the market place of his capital, threatened by Mackenzie and his band of rebels. MacNab lost no time in answering this appeal for help in a way quite consistent with every other detail of that gentleman’s life given to the public. He mounted his horse, rode to the wharf, seized the first steamer he found lying there, put a guard on board her, sent messengers off to the farmers and yeomen on whom he felt he could rely, and by five o’clock was sailing with his sixty men of Gore; a thousand of them had but lately gathered before Sir John Colborne to testify to their sentiments on Mr. Hume’s baneful domination letter. That letter, calculated to further excite those already discontented, was a blessing in disguise, since it had stirred into active life half dormant sentiments of loyalty, and made brighter those already bright.

But of the thousands then preparing for a tramp to converge at Toronto, through dark forest and over corduroy and half frozen swale, the market-place and Sir Francis himself were not, as his writings assert, the objective points. Many who left wives, families and farms and who found themselves in the loyalist ranks at Gallows Hill, had no such loyal intention when they left home.

Sir Francis, sitting forlorn enough in his market-place, was with his admirers discussing the situation by the light of a tallow candle,--a Rembrandt picture, from the shadows of which stand forth many familiar faces, when, as with Bonnycastle and King Richard III., two or three breathless messengers burst in upon them to announce the men of Gore. Steamers and schooners--containing not only the young and venturesome, but the advanced in years, as the Honourable William Dickson, then in his sixty-eighth year--now began to arrive, and the city, in spite of the motley appearance of some cargoes, seemed transformed at a stroke from an excited and frightened community into a vast barrack or camp. Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, there was no longer need into a thousand parts to divide one man and make imaginary puissance, for by that time they were so increased that it became imperative to make an attack. Their number embarrassed those in command, and it was difficult to find accommodation for them. At midnight Sir Francis put MacNab in charge; by the following sunset more than twelve hundred armed men were at his service. A council was held at Archdeacon Strachan’s, at which it was resolved to attack the rebels on Thursday morning. Evidently with changed circumstances and advisers Sir Francis had changed his mind; he was no longer averse to seeking his enemy on the latter’s ground. Four days before this, Attorney-General Hagerman had declared his belief that not fifty men in the province would attack the Government; now he announced that everything depended on the Government’s power of attack.

But the council was not held without its own storm. FitzGibbon, much MacNab’s superior in military knowledge and experience, his senior in every way, heard, for the first time, of the other gentleman’s midnight promotion, and advanced his own superior claims with no uncertain voice. MacNab wanted to make the attack at three in the morning; FitzGibbon contended it was impossible “to organize the confused mass of human beings then congregated in the city during night-time,” that such an attempt would ruin them, for the “many rebels then in the city (were) only waiting the turn of affairs to declare themselves.” The meeting over, another and semi-secret conclave arranged that MacNab should be relieved and that FitzGibbon should take his place. “It was now broad daylight, and I had to commence an organization of the most difficult nature I had ever known. I had to ride to the Town Hall and to the garrison and back again, repeatedly; I found few of the officers present who were wanted for the attack. Vast numbers of volunteers were constantly coming in from the country without arms or appointments of any kind, who were crowding in all directions in my way. My mind was burning with indignation at the idea of Colonel MacNab, or any other militia officer, being thought of by his Excellency for the command, after all I had hitherto done for him. My difficulties multiplied upon me. Time, of all things the most precious, was wasting for want of officers, and for the want of most of my men from the Town Hall, whose commander was yet absent, till at length the organization appeared impossible. I became overwhelmed with the intensity and contrariety of my feelings. I walked to and fro without object until I found the eyes of many fixed upon me, when I fled to my room and locked my door, exclaiming audibly that the province was lost and that I was ruined, fallen. For let it not be forgotten that it was admitted at the conference at the Archdeacon’s the evening before that if the attack of the next day should fail the province would be lost. This, however, was not then my opinion, but I thought of my present failure after the efforts I had made to obtain the command, and the evil consequences likely to flow from that failure; and I did then despair. In this extremity I fell upon my knees and earnestly and vehemently prayed to the Almighty for strength to sustain me through the trial before me. I arose and hurried to the multitude, and finding one company formed, as I then thought providentially, I ordered it to be marched to the road in front of the Archdeacon’s house, where I had previously intended to arrange the force to be employed. Having once begun, I sent company after company, and gun after gun, until the whole stood in order.”

The Governor moved his headquarters from the market-place to the Parliament buildings, and issued his orders from there. Colonel MacNab, in recompense for his withdrawal, was given command of the main body.

The force, drawn up “in order of battle” on the street and esplanade by the Archdeacon’s house, only numbered some eleven hundred men, and those whom they were about to attack were considerably less. But the interests at stake, the results involved, their historical significance, remove from the affair that ludicrous view attached to it by unthinking persons as a kind of mimic battle, in keeping with “the mimic king,” the Governor, and “the mimic Privy Council,” the Executive.

About eleven o’clock, his Excellency, surrounded by his staff, galloped up, and was received with three hearty British cheers. Immovable in his saddle, he looked with pride, not unmixed with relief, at the picture before him, wondering why, now they were so well got together, they did not proceed, when an officer galloped up and said it was the wish of the militia that the Governor himself should give the word of command. He did so, and in the bright summer-like sunshine, not a cloud in the blue sky above them, the two bands playing, arms and accoutrements flashing unpleasant signals to those awaiting them on Gallows Hills, people in windows and on housetops cheering them and waving small flags and those not in sympathy remaining discreetly silent, they went off at his bidding.

“This,” says Colonel FitzGibbon, “was the only command he (Sir Francis) gave till the action was over.”

By now the name rebel was almost as odious as some others, very high in dignity, had recently been. There is not a doubt that much of the cheering came from that ignorance of the point at issue which made Solicitor-General Blake in after years say, “I confess I have no sympathy with the would-be loyalty ... which, while it at all times affects peculiar zeal for the prerogative of the Crown, is ever ready to sacrifice the liberty of the subject. That is not British loyalty. It is the spurious loyalty which at all periods of the world’s history has lashed humanity into rebellion.”

The curious, and those who were anxious to see the result of the fight as the turning point to decide which side of their coat of two colours should be displayed, followed, like the tail of a comet, the vanishing point of splendour. One militia colonel came prepared to contribute two fat oxen to the rebel cause; they made equally good beef for the loyalists. Another colonel presented the patriots with a sword, pistol and ammunition--a much worse kind of soldier than the man who wears a uniform and will not fight. There were the actively loyal, the actively rebellious, and the connecting link of such as were passively either or both.

All went merry as a marriage bell, and indeed the chronicle says one might fancy they were all bound for a wedding. To what Sir Francis calls “this universal grin” was added the solemn face of many a minister of religion, headed by the Archdeacon himself, a man as well fitted by nature to wear the sword as the mitre.

“Our men are with thee,” said the Reverend Egerton Ryerson; “the prayers of our women attend thee.” The clergymen withdrew at the first exchange of shots. “They would willingly have continued their course, but with becoming dignity they deemed it their duty to refrain.”

This was all very real, very serious to us. Yet a Scottish paper said that Canada was still more wonderful than the Roman state; that the latter was saved by the cackling of a flock of geese, the former by the cackling of one. Who that one was it were unkind to say. The anger of the Scotch editor is divided between Head, MacNab and FitzGibbon. “Men eaten up of vanity are they all,” he finishes.

At the rebel camp the morning had been frittered away like the preceding day--desertions, hopes of reinforcements disappointed, Mackenzie’s plans called stark madness by Van Egmond, Van Egmond threatened to be shot by Mackenzie, the Tories reported by friends from town as ensconced behind feather beds from behind which they would fire and make terrible slaughter if the Reformers once got into the streets, new officers appointed--one of whom was to leave his post the moment he caught sight of the enemy--false alarms brought in by scouts, until at last Silas Fletcher rushed up to say that the cry of “wolf” had ceased, and the wolf had arrived.

“Seize your arms, men! The enemy’s coming, and no mistake! No false alarm this time!” Van Egmond and Mackenzie mounted their chargers, and soon saw what seemed an overwhelming force passing the brow of Gallows Hill. The strains of “Rule Britannia” and “The British Grenadiers” came wafted in unpleasant bursts of melody.

The bell had rung and the curtain was about to go up.

The most formidable part of the army consisted of the two cannon in charge of Major Carfrae of the militia artillery. At St. Eustache the French had thought “Le bon Dieu est toujours pour les gros bataillons;” here, also, the God of battles, to whose care “the bold diocesan” commended them, was on the side of those who had most artillery. The day before, a party of rebels on warfare bent had encountered a stranded load of firewood, which imagination and the uncertain light turned into a gun loaded to the muzzle with grape or canister. The sight of it caused them to skip fences, like squirrels, to right and left, a dispersion which no effort of their officers could withstand. Now the real thing began to play, and the woods rang to its reverberations. The fringe of pine trees on the western side of the road suffered if nothing else did; huge splinters were torn from them and hurled here and there, as destructive as any missile. The hidden men were protected by bushes and brush heaps, but the rushing of balls and crashing of trees made enough uproar to cause death by fright. The cannon were then moved farther up the roadway, their muzzles directed to the inn; two round shot, and like bees from a hive the rebels came pouring out, “flying in all directions into the deep, welcome recesses of the forest.” Their prisoners, until then kept in the inn, fortunately had been conducted out by the back door some moments before and given their liberty. It now became a question to preserve their own.

The right wing of the loyalist force, under command of Colonel S. P. Jarvis, had meanwhile been moving by by-ways and fields half a mile eastward, the left, under Colonel Chisholm, Judge McLean and Colonel O’Hara, moving westward to converge at Montgomery’s.