Page:Brock centenary 2nd ed. 1913.djvu/99

 THE SPEECHES

He lived only long enough to request that his fall might not be noticed, or prevent the advance of his brave troops. The lifeless body was immediately conveyed into a house at Queenston, where it remained until the afternoon, unperceived of the enemy. His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant-Colonel Mac- donell, Attorney-General of Upper Canada — a fine, promising young man — was mortally wounded soon after his chief, and died the next day, at the early age of twenty-seven years. Although one bullet had passed through his body, and he was wounded in four places, yet he survived twenty hours, and during a period of excruciating agony his thoughts and words were constantly occupied in lamenta- tions for his deceased commander and friend. He fell while gallantly charging, with the hereditary courage of his race, up the hill with 190 men, chiefly of the York Volunteers, by which charge the enemy was compelled to spike the eighteen- pounders in the battery there ; and his memory will be cherished as long as courage and devotion are reverenced in the Province."

General Sheaffe, who succeeded General Brock upon the death of the latter, in his despatch announcing the victory which eventually crowned our arms, thus couples their names : " . . . No officer was killed besides Major-General Brock, one of the most gallant and zealous officers in His Maj- esty's service, whose loss cannot be too much deplored, and Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonell, Pro- vincial Aide-de-Camp, whose gallantry and merit rendered him worthy of his chief."

The Prince Kegent thus acknowledged the communication through the Governor-General, by whom it had been forwarded : " His Royal High- ness, the Prince Regent, is fully aware of the severe loss which His Majesty's service has experienced in the death of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock. This would have been sufficient to have clouded a victory of much greater importance. His Majesty

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