Eayrs Hugh Sterling
Sir Isaac Brock
The British took nearly a thousand prisoners, among whom was General Wadsworth and about seventy other officers. The British on their side had lost eleven killed and something like sixty wounded. The Indians, no less gallant, had losses of five killed and nine wounded. History differs as to the American casualties. There were probably nearly a hundred killed and about two hundred wounded. So the inextinguishable flame of Brock’s spirit had blazed the way to victory, for Queenston Heights was a great victory. Canada, however, grieved so much at the death of Brock, that not even the feat of arms of his successor mitigated her sorrow.
To the Americans the death of Brock was “equivalent to a victory.” President Madison, in his next message to Congress, said: “Our loss at Queenston has been considerable and is to be deeply lamented. The enemy’s loss, less ascertained, will be the more felt for it includes among the killed their commanding general.”
After the battle Brock’s body was taken from Queenston to Fort George. It was buried under one of the bastions of the fort, and beside it was laid the body of Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonell. During the burial of Canada’s great general, Lieutenant-Colonel Winfield Scott, now a prisoner, sent a request to the officer commanding the United States troops that the flag at Fort Niagara be flown at half-mast as was the Canadian flag at Fort George, and when the Canadian guns boomed out their respect for the dead general the American guns responded.
CHAPTER X
Conclusion
If Brock’s prowess at Detroit called forth universal admiration, his death was the occasion of a wonderful outpouring of affectionate regard and regret. When the news reached England Earl Bathurst wrote to Sir George Prevost: “His Majesty has lost in him not only an able and meritorious officer, but one who displayed qualities admirably adapted to dismay the disloyal, to reconcile the wavering, and to animate the great mass of the inhabitants against successive attempts of the enemy to invade the province.” Nor was British gratitude a matter of words only. On July 20th, 1813, the House of Commons voted a monument to Brock in appreciation of what he had done. The monument, at a cost of £1,575, was erected in St. Paul’s cathedral. Each of Brock’s four brothers was granted twelve thousand acres of land in Upper Canada, and a pension of £200 a year for life. A memorial coin was struck in Brock’s honor. Thus Great Britain tried to show how much she thought of the man who had held his life so lightly beside the safety and honor of the Empire.
In Canada the sorrow was just as great and more immediate. Colonel Nichol, Brock’s militia quarter-master, wrote of his death: “Our situation has materially changed for the worse. Confidence seems to have vanished, and gloom and despondency seem to have taken its place.” “His moderation and impartiality had united all parties in pronouncing him the only man worthy to be at the head of affairs” was the tribute of Lieutenant Ridout, who himself fought bravely at Queenston Heights. The newspapers of Canada were genuinely sorrowful, and the Quebec Gazette declared his death was received as “a public calamity.”
A lasting mark of Canada’s esteem was to be found in a fine monument erected on Queenston Heights. This column which was 135 feet high, and stood 485 feet above the river, covered a vault to which, on October 13th, 1824 – just twelve years after his death – Brock’s remains and those of his gallant aide were removed. On the occasion of this transference, a great crowd, in which were almost as many Americans as Canadians, gathered to honor the memory of Canada’s great general.
This monument unhappily was entirely ruined through the agency of a man named Lett who, on April 17th, 1840, exploded gunpowder under it. This man was one of the rebels of 1837 who fled to the United States when his sedition was discovered. The motives that animated him were petty and spiteful, but if he thought that by destroying the outward and visible sign of Brock’s wonderful work, he was besmirching the memory of a great man, he was very wrong. Canadians flocked to Queenston, and at a public meeting there it was decided to build a monument even more imposing than the one so meanly destroyed. The foundation stone for this new monument was laid in 1853 and it was completed three years later. The formal inauguration took place on October 13th, 1859. From its base to its summit, a splendid image of Brock, the monument is 190 feet in height.
So this man of action has been honored, but the greatest monument to his deed and his memory is in the hearts of the Canadian people. Canada may well be proud of him, for he saved our country in a very real and vital sense. He managed to crowd the few short years he was in Canada full of earnest and devoted service to the country he had adopted and had come to love. The splendor of his achievement shines out as a beacon, at once drawing attention to itself as a proof that Canada had its great ones a hundred years ago, and imposing on all Canadians the same high privilege of doing something to make glorious and keep stainless the fair name of their country.
Reuben Butchart, a Canadian poet of power, has written a sonnet in commemoration of Brock, and this little book could not leave a better message with its readers than the beautiful words and even more beautiful thoughts that this poet gives us:
On Queenston’s hill we reared thy lofty shrine,
Where sleeps thy fiery heart, our gallant Brock.
Our many-voiced acclaim shall here unlock
Time’s chest of honors, proffering what is thine.
Thy name is with the glorious names that shine
O’er War’s red flood, a beacon on a rock.
Thy soul, which bore its hour’s consummate shock.
All valorous thou did’st to fame consign.
Sheathed be the blade, nor seek through blood a name
Our foes are of our household; mingled rife
Through hourly needs there rings the vital strife
With doubt and sin, the lust of honor, shame:
O soul, live greatly; thy self-conquering life
Shall breathe an inextinguishable flame.
APPENDIX
GENERAL HULL’S PROCLAMATION
“Inhabitants of Canada! After thirty years of peace and prosperity, the United States have been driven to arms. The injuries and aggressions, the insults and indignities of Great Britain, have once more left them no alternative but manly resistance or unconditional submission.
“The army under my command has invaded your country, and the standard of Union now waves over the territory of Canada. To the peaceable, unoffending inhabitant it brings neither danger nor difficulty. I come to find enemies, not to make them. I come to protect, not to injure you.
“Separated by an immense ocean and an extensive wilderness from Great Britain, you have no participation in her councils, no interest in her conduct. You have felt her tyranny, you have seen her injustice, but I do not ask you to avenge the one or redress the other. The United States are sufficiently powerful to afford you every security consistent with their rights and your expectations. I tender you the invaluable blessings of civil, political, and religious liberty, and their necessary result, individual and general prosperity – that liberty which gave decision to our councils and energy to our struggle for independence, and which conducted us safely and triumphantly through the stormy period of the revolution; that liberty which has raised us to an elevated rank among the nations of the world, and which has afforded us a greater measure of peace and security, of wealth and improvement, than ever yet fell to the lot of any people.
“In the name of my country, and by the authority of my government, I promise protection to your persons, property, and rights. Remain at your homes, pursue your peaceful and customary avocations, raise not your hands against your brethren. Many of your fathers fought for the freedom and independence which we now enjoy. Being children, therefore, of the same family with us, and heirs to the same heritage, the arrival of an army of friends must be hailed by you with a cordial welcome. You will be emancipated from tyranny and oppression and restored to the dignified station of freemen. Had I any doubt of eventual success I might ask your assistance, but I do not. I come prepared for every contingency. I have a force which will look down all opposition, and that force is but the vanguard of a much greater. If, contrary to your own interests and the just expectation of my country, you should take part in the approaching contest, you will be considered and treated as enemies, and the horrors and calamities of war will stalk before you. If the barbarous and savage policy of Great Britain be pursued, and the savages be let loose to murder our citizens and butcher our women and children, this war will be a war of extermination. The first stroke of the tomahawk, the first attempt with the scalping-knife, will be the signal of one indiscriminate scene of desolation. No white man found fighting by the side of an Indian will be taken prisoner; instant destruction will be his lot. If the dictates of reason, duty, justice, and humanity cannot prevent the employment of a force which respects no rights and knows no wrong, it will be prevented by a severe and relentless system of retaliation.
“I doubt not your courage and firmness. I will not doubt your attachment to liberty. If you tender your services voluntarily, they will be accepted readily. The United States offer you peace, liberty, and security. Your choice lies between these and war, slavery, and destruction. Choose then, but choose wisely, and may He who knows the justice of our cause, and who holds in His hands the fate of nations guide you to a result the most compatible with your rights and interests, your peace and prosperity.
“By the General,
“W. HULL,
“A. F. HULL,
“Captain 13th Regiment U.S. Infantry and Aide-de-Camp.”
“Headquarters, Sandwich, 12th July, 1812.”
BROCK’S PROCLAMATION
“The unprovoked declaration of war by the United States of America against the United Kingdom of 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 has thought proper to invite His Majesty’s subjects, not merely to a quiet and unresisting submission, but insults them with a call to seek voluntarily the protection of his government.
“Without condescending to repeat the illiberal epithets bestowed in this appeal of the American commander to the people of Upper Canada, on the administration of His Majesty, every honest 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, under the fostering liberality of their sovereign, has not 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 its colonists a safe access to every market where the produce of their labor was in request. The unavoidable and immediate consequences of a separation from Great Britain must be the loss of this inestimable advantage; and what is offered you in exchange? To become a territory of the United States, and share with them that exclusion from the ocean which the policy of their government enforces; you are not even flattered with a participation of their boasted independence, and it is but too obvious that, once estranged from the powerful protection of the United Kingdom, you must be re-annexed to the dominion of France, from which the provinces of Canada were wrested by the arms of Great Britain, at a vast expense of blood and treasure, from no other motive than to relieve her ungrateful children from the oppression of a cruel neighbor. This 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 that the pledge has been renewed as a consideration for commercial advantages, or rather for an expected relaxation of the tyranny of France over the commercial world. Are you prepared, inhabitants of Canada, to become willing subjects – or rather 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.
“The same spirit of justice, which will make every reasonable allowance for the unsuccessful efforts of zeal and loyalty, will not fail to punish the defalcation of principle. Every Canadian freeholder is, by deliberate choice, bound by the most solemn oaths to defend the monarchy as well as his own property. To shrink from that engagement is a treason not to be forgiven. Let no man suppose that if, in this unexpected struggle, His Majesty’s arms should be compelled to yield to an overwhelming force, the province will be eventually abandoned; the endeared relation of its first settlers, the intrinsic value of its commerce, and the pretension of its powerful rival to repossess the Canadas, are pledges that no peace will be established between the United States and Great Britain and Ireland, of which the restoration of these provinces does not make the most prominent condition. 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 band of aborigines who 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 yet 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 over-reach their simplicity. By what new principle are they to be prohibited from defending their property? If their warfare, from being different to that of the white people, be more terrific to the enemy, let him retrace his steps. They seek him not, and he 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 foe using the same warfare which the American commander affects to reprobate. The 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.”