Part 23

Doctor Dunlop, “who commanded six hundred and fifty fine fellows at the front,” was much distressed at the lack of money to pay his men. He was advised that a line of express horses had been established between London and Sarnia, and he accordingly detailed Captain Kydd as messenger with a despatch to Colonel John Askin. Captain Kydd tried to evade the commission, as his regimentals were in no trim for appearance at headquarters. His brown moleskin shooting-jacket had seen three sousings in the Maitland, besides much other hard usage as pillow or blanket on mud floors; his Black Hawk cap was too small and sat awkwardly on his head, and the rest of his attire was in keeping. However, he went. After many adventures he reached a station where a retired naval officer and his young and pretty wife were domiciled in a log hut some eight feet high, which was roofed with bass-wood troughs and contained but one room. The kitchen was a bark shanty, a few feet away. There were no signs of cattle about, but the frequent ringing of a cow-bell gave the impression that one must be stabled in the kitchen. Not so, however. A rope connected the “parlour” with the second building, the bell in use being an old cow-bell, the ringing of which was the work of the pretty young wife, who in her own apartment tried, poor soul, to forget her surroundings by keeping up what semblance she could of her former state. The bush in those days was full of such anomalies. When the express equine was brought to the door he had neither saddle nor bridle, a hair halter, perhaps provided by his own tail, his only garnishing. Nothing but the bell-rope could be found to assist in improvising a harness. Captain Kydd had not the heart to deprive the lady of that, and he continued his journey caparisoned with hair halter alone. His tale of danger and discomfort, through what seemed an interminable swamp, can well be believed,--wet, cold and hungry, without sight of another soul until he reached the next station, where he was received and kindly treated by the women relatives of our own Edward Blake. These ladies looked at the half-drowned horse and mud-bespattered man; and full of pity for a supposed backwoodsman in dire distress, were ready to offer him their best hospitality. When he put into their hands his passport as “Captain Kydd of the First Hurons, abroad on special service,” they did not attempt to disguise their amusement, but laughed long and heartily. After a rest of an hour or two, a bath, a rubbing down which deprived him of his coat of mud, and a hearty appreciation from himself and his beast of the good fare set before them, he was ready to pursue his journey. At length London was reached, and the precious despatch put into Colonel Askin’s hands--but with no result, for there was neither official money nor credit. Instead of coin, Colonel Askin gave the messenger a packet addressed to Captain James Strachan, Military Secretary at Government House, Toronto. In vain did Kydd bring forward his coat and Black Hawk cap as sufficient reason for not undertaking a further trip; nor yet were his sufferings from hunger and fatigue on his recent journey allowed to stand in the way of his undergoing fresh distress. The best mode of conveyance obtainable was a common farm-waggon, in which he made his way at a foot pace. He met many people en route, most of them as shabby as himself, and all talking war to the knife. He arrived in Toronto late at night on the third day, but waited until morning to present his despatches at Government House. There the much befogged Secretary not unreasonably looked with disdain at the coat and cap of the special messenger; the despatch was taken within for Sir Francis’ perusal, with the result that another packet, of large size and said to contain the necessary money, was put into Captain Kydd’s hands, and an order given him to return to London by express. Express meant a dirty farm-sleigh with a torn canvas cover. His only travelling companion was a Brant Indian returning to the Reserve, an intelligent, well-educated man and a most pleasant companion. Together they were upset from the sleigh, and together they righted it and its sail-like cover, to resume the weary journey. Upon presentation to Colonel Askin, the important-looking packet was found to be worthless, for the document bore no signature. Captain Kydd was given his original Rosinante, with the same hair halter, and sent back to Sarnia, while another special messenger was despatched to Toronto for the necessary signatures.

The despatch and its bearer had variations. When Black Willie Wallace, of Dunlop’s Scouts, was sent with one from Clinton to Goderich it took nine days to travel the twelve miles and pass the various taverns on the way. The importance of the despatch entered even the childish mind, and one small daughter, whose father was a bearer, cried out as the latter rode up to the gate in full regimentals, “Here’s father with another dampatch.” Always warlike and politicians, these small babes sometimes dealt unpleasant truths to the untrue. One Tory atom when questioned “Where’s your father?” replied, “Father gone to fight the dirty rebels, and brother Dan’el gone to fight the dirty rebels, too.”

Colonel Dunlop swore not a little when Kydd reported himself empty-handed, but tried to keep up his own hopes as well as those of his men. Weeks and months went by, and no money came; privations were great, and the mental trial was added of the knowledge of farms at home going to ruin, families unprovided for, and no prospect for the future. In March the order for return came; but there was no word of any money. The companies were told off for the homeward trip, one day apart, and the record is of a terrible journey in the broken March weather, with roads at their very worst. Dunlop remained behind with others of the officers, for, as he wrote Government in terms not to be mistaken, he had become personally liable to the local stores for clothing and necessaries, and would not leave the place with such indebtedness unpaid.

“Glory is not a very productive appanage, it is true, but in the absence of everything else it is better than nothing”--but these impoverished lads had little or no glory, and they returned without having seen what was technically known as active service. Dunlop’s illustration of the _ne plus ultra_ of bad pay was Waterloo, where each private there performed the hardest day’s work ever done for a shilling. Now he thought the brave Hurons in a still worse plight. By the time pay day did arrive they were not few who expressed the opinion that the Canadian rebellion was due to the machinations of a “parcel of poor rogues and a few, a very few, rich fools, one party deserving accommodation in the penitentiary and the other lodgings in bedlam.” Dunlop did not allow himself such free speech in regard to the policy of the Colonial Office, which let numbers be brought to the scaffold or to the foot of it; but he used no circumspection in words when he dealt with local mismanagement.

“As syllabubs without a head, As jokes not laughed at when they’re said, As needles used without a thread, Such are Bachelors,”

says an old song. Now Tiger Dunlop might have said, “And when I fell into some fits of love I was soon cured.” But bachelor as he was, the well-springs of fraternal love were not dried up in him; nor were his syllabubs wont to be without a head, nor his jokes unlaughed at. When he spoke others listened, and his dissatisfaction ended in his resignation, upon which he addressed the following letter to his brave Hurons:

“COMRADES,--When I resigned the command of the St. Clair frontier in March last I endeavoured to express to you in my farewell Order my gratitude for the generous confidence you had reposed in me, and my thanks for the steady soldier-like conduct with which you had borne every privation and met every difficulty. I have now to explain to you the reason why I voluntarily abandoned a situation in every respect gratifying to my feelings as the honourable command I then held.

“From the day that I resigned the command to the present hour I have, at great expense and total neglect of my own personal affairs, been travelling from one commissariat station to another in order to get something like justice done you. To the superior military officers my best thanks are due--Sir John Colborne, Sir F. B. Head, and latterly Sir G. Arthur, Colonel Foster, and our immediate commanding officer, the Hon. Colonel Maitland, have treated me with the greatest kindness and you with the greatest consideration. From men of their rank we might possibly have submitted to a little hauteur; on the contrary we have met with the most courteous condescension. The Commissariat, on the other hand, men infinitely inferior to many of us in birth, rank, and education, have treated us with the most overweening arrogance and the most cruel neglect. They have never personally insulted me, for I am six feet high and proportionately broad across the shoulders; but the poor farmers have to a man complained to me of their treatment by these

_Very magnificent three-tailed Bashaws_

of Beef and Biscuit. I grudge none of the labour I have spent, nor any of the pecuniary sacrifices I have made in your service. My life and my property are my country’s, and I am willing cheerfully to lay either or both down when my Sovereign may require them, but my honour is unalienably my own, and I cannot submit to be made, as I lately unwittingly have been, the instrument of the most cruel and grinding oppression, to snatch, without remuneration, his pittance from the peasant or the bread from his children’s mouths. I have therefore submitted my resignation, but with no intention of leaving you; I shall stand with you in all danger, shoulder to shoulder, but it shall be in the ranks.

“I have to warn you not to judge of a government by the meanest of its servants, nor let the upstart insolence of a body so contemptible alienate your affections from your Queen and country; the people of England are both liberal and just, and were your case fairly represented to them there is not the slightest doubt immediate steps would be taken to redress your grievances. The Queen, like other people, has dirty work to do, and must have dirty fellows do it. The royal chimney-sweepers who exercise their professional functions in Buckingham Palace and St. James’s may be very pleasant fellows in their way, but I doubt much if they are the kind of people that either you or I would borrow money to drink with, as Shakespeare’s fat Knight says.

“Some little excuse must be had for the poor fellows after all. That the Commissariat are ‘saucy dogs’ we all must allow, have felt it; but that they are not too saucy to eat dirty puddings we know, for cursed dirty puddings they are obliged to bolt, without even daring to make a wry face at them. Witness the correspondence which the House of Assembly last winter elicited between the arrogant, insolent, empty-headed coxcomb at the head of that department and the Commissaries at Toronto and Penetanguishene. To this the poor devils are obliged to submit for their piece of silver or morsel of bread. It is natural, therefore, that the people who have studied so long in the school of arrogant ill-breeding should be anxious to exhibit the proficiency they have attained when their turn comes; and it is possible they may suppose that a Canadian yeoman, who is afraid of losing all that has been taken from him by offending their High Mightinesses, may for a time submit to it.

“A broken head or two might remove this delusion and convince them that _a man is still a man_ though clad in a homespun coat, and that to get rid of their redundant bile safely they must make it go as hereditary property does by law, downwards, and alight on the heads of clerks and issuers, who, living in the hope of one day having it in their power to abuse their inferiors, will probably submit with more equanimity.

“In applying to the British Parliament for redress, I give you warning that the Commissariat is the most powerful body you can well attack. The Duke of Wellington and Lord Grey, Lord Brougham and Lord Lyndhurst, Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Daniel O’Connell may talk, and all, when in their turn of power, have provided for the sons of faithful butlers and respectable valets in the Commissariat--a department particularly favourable for the offspring of the lower orders (the pay being good and the work little or nothing), the attainments necessary for its duties being easily acquired in any parish school, they being comprised in writing a legible hand and a tolerable acquaintance with the first four rules of arithmetic. The experiment, however, is well worth trying, and I trust will be successful.

“With best wishes for your prosperity and hope that you may henceforward, under the protecting arm of a just Government, cultivate your fields in peace, I subscribe myself, my comrades and fellow-soldiers,

“W. DUNLOP,

“_Your late Colonel, “Commanding the St. Clair Frontier_.”

This letter found its way into all the provincial journals, and made no little talk. The Kingston _Whig_ says, “Among many other endearing epithets he calls Mr. Commissary-General Routh an empty-headed, arrogant, insolent coxcomb. Now the gallant ex-Colonel, according to his own confession, stands six feet high and is proportionately broad across the shoulders, and Mr. Commissary is an aged and feeble man, altogether past the prime of life; would a duel therefore be fair between the parties? We think not; and yet according to the absurd notions of modern honour what else can Mr. Commissary do than fight, unless, indeed, one of his younger and subordinate officers equally insulted by the gallant ex-Colonel takes up the cudgels in his own and his chief’s behalf.” But there was no duel. Dunlop had a sovereign contempt for what he called a lobster-coated puppy, and took his grievances straight to Colonel Maitland, Commandant at London. There are always wheels within wheels. The Doctor’s requisitions for food and drink had been on a generous scale; an assistant commissary had peremptorily brought things under different conditions, with an amount of unnecessary red tape which aggravated the Doctor beyond endurance. A stop was put to the whiskey _in toto_, not on temperance but on military principles, and that he could not thole. He reached London at night. Next morning, instead of reporting himself in an ordinary way, he arrived at morning parade of the 32nd, and there accosted the Colonel on horseback. Dressed in his usual homespun shepherd’s plaid and blue bonnet, the Doctor is reported to have delivered himself thus:

“Good-mornin’ to ye, Maitland. Hoo air ye this mornin’?’

“Why, Dunlop, is this you?”

“Yes, ’tis I myself. I’ve just come over from Port Sarnia to lay a wee mather before ye. I was in command of the volunteers from my own neighbourhood, farmers and farmers’ sons, who are in the habit of being well fed and well found in their ain hames, and I generally supplied them in all they needed at Sarnia, and tried to make things comfortable for them by givin’ them plenty to eat and plenty to drink; when a Commissary fellow by the name of Robinson came there, took the mather in hand, cut off pairt o’ the supplies and disregarded my orders when I gave requisitions. Now, Maitland, I am here an old army officer, and I know what it is to feed men, and I’ve come to lay this mather before you that you may set it right, because I’ve never been in the habit, and I never will be subjected, to take my orders from a dom pork-barrel.” Upon which the Colonel nearly fell off his horse. He knew the Doctor, and enjoyed the originality of the whole complaint.

Why should the good Tiger’s memory be too heavily assailed for his fondness and capacity for liquids. Maréchal Saxe, in his hale youth, could toss off a gallon of wine at a draught; and when Wolfe’s men reached the crest of the hill he had grog served out to them, while he spoke kind and encouraging words after their terrible climb. Why should not Goderich and the Tiger appear in these tales oscillating between history and myth? It was called a Goderich custom to conceal the glass in the hand while the liquid was poured in; but Whiskey Read, teamster and trader, earned his sobriquet because his load to Goderich was so many barrels of the terrible liquid.

In time Dunlop was advised that ten thousand dollars lay to his credit at the Bank of Upper Canada in Amherstburg. Thus were unnecessary miles added to a journey already delayed and cruelly long. Doctor and aides made their way there--that place renowned for loyalty, rattle-snakes and turkeys--astonishing all Windsor on his way through it by the display of a half-crown piece which had turned out from some forgotten pocket corner. So much specie had not been seen there for a long time; they knew no money but the wild cat shin-plaster. From Windsor they proceeded by water; and after further adventures, immersions and escapes, there was the final discovery of Jamie Dougall in a little low-ceilinged shop, manager of the Bank of Upper Canada. But there was no money yet for Huron, and they must wait some days for its possible arrival. So, with as much patience as might be, they established themselves at Bullock’s Hotel, and after five days’ waiting the money did arrive. The Doctor in the meantime had intended to divert an hour by calling upon the officers at Fort Malden; but the dress suit of claret-coloured cloth, the coat tails lined with pink silk, with which he had provided himself, was now all too small, and when arrayed in it he looked and felt so much like the letter T, that he called lustily, “Kydd, Kydd, come and let me out.” In his dirty homespun and Tam the visit had to be made, and the straight-jacket was never seen again.

On leaving the village with their precious load a sudden panic took the person to whose special keeping the sum had been given, and at the moment of departure he could nowhere be found. The Doctor could only suppose that both man and money had been kidnapped, and, as consolation, had recourse to horns with every friend he met. And the Doctor’s friends were many, and the horns were potent. At length Doctor, money and aides were all got together and a start was made for Sarnia. Then followed further adventures, impassable roads, frequent halts and scanty fare. Just as they were watching the manœuvres of the migrating fish, and admiring the dexterous way in which they helped their passage by hugging the shore, they came upon an old walnut dug-out, abandoned on account of a crack in its side. The bullion convoy was at this time enjoying the hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, from whom they procured rags instead of oakum, and with pitch made a good job of the canoe. Mrs. Sutherland provided them with what she called a week’s supply of provisions, and following the example of the fish they began their coasting journey. The provisions turned out to be ample for double the time, fortunately for them, for it took them all of that to reach the brave Huron First, by then all at home and anxiously awaiting the pay so dearly earned on the frontier. At Sarnia the convoy debarked to pay outstanding dues. At Point Edward there was a further delay, where the rapids proved a barrier. Ben Young was left in the boat to fend it from the shore, while the Doctor, Captain Kydd and James Young, pulling on a stout rope, did tow work. No sooner were the rapids safely passed than an accumulation of half-rotten ice stopped the way, honeycombed and soft in the centre--“for all the world,” as the Doctor said, “like a woman’s baking of tea-tarts, with a spoonful of jelly in the middle.” They beached the boat as best they could, and soon had a roaring fire of drift-wood, the warmth of which made them forget many discomforts. This last delay was too much for the Doctor’s patience, and by morning it was found that he had struck off on his way home alone--no doubt feeling independent when on his feet in these pathless woods, even in the winter. James Young was sent after him, and the other three, with the money in their keeping, stuck by the canoe. Fresh accumulations of ice, storms, a rescue by a party of five or six men off Kettle Point, were next in the list of adventure, until, the water journey becoming impossible, they camped on shore and turned inland for help, the man with the money being left with the unhappy canoe and its load of their united belongings. A poor enough kit it was--dirty blankets and underwear. Mr. Sayers and his two sons entertained them with their best, and helped shoulder the load as far as Bayfield. There another stop was made; and the weary five, with their ten thousand dollars’ worth of pay money, reached Goderich the following night. The Companies’ pay-lists were then compared, checked off, and approved by the Commanding Officer, and many hearts were made glad after another fortnight had been spent in settling all matters of detail.

Such delays and martyrdoms to red-tapeism read not unlike the record of the Crimean campaign. It is not unnatural that Captain Strachan, the Military Secretary, should be spoken of with severity by such as remember those days and hand down the tale, as he was the middleman through whom much was suffered.

Meantime, although Goderich had been written of “as more completely out of the world than any spot which it has been attempted to settle,” it found it incompatible with dignity and safety to be without a Home Guard. In the townships there was another class of home guard; for the old men and the lame, or lads under sixteen, were left in charge to cut the wood, water cattle and attend to the women’s chores. This help, such as it was, had to be spread over a large area, one man, lame or not, having to attend to several farms.

The remembrance of the Home Guard’s duty is that it was a peaceful performance, a sinecure as far as aggression or resistance went. Although Goderich was credited by several governors and military commanders as being a capital natural vantage for defence, the fortification of the Baron’s Hill never went on, for it was estimated the point was too far removed from the rest of the world ever to be attacked.