Part 18

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:

“They say he murdered one Durfee, In December, ’39, sir; And stole some candles and old boots, And burnt the _Caroline_, sir.”

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.