Page:Tupper family records - 1835.djvu/44

 26 MEMOIR OF SIR ISAAC BROCK.

decision, and it was ever under the guidance of a sound judgment. His strong attachment to the ser- vice, and particularly to his regiment, formed another distinguishing feature in his character. There was a correspondence of regard between him and his officers, and even the non-commissioned officers and privates, that produced the picture of a happy family. Those extremities of punishment, which the exactions of discipline will sometimes occasion, rarely reached his men. He governed them by that sentiment of esteem which he himself had created, and the consolation was given him to terminate a brief but brilliant course in the midst of his professional family. They per- formed his last obsequies, and those who knew the commander and his men will be convinced that on the day of his funeral there was an entire detachment in tears.

It deserves to be recorded, as an instance of good fortune, unprecedented perhaps in military annals, and especially in a country where the advantage and facility of escape were so great, that from the 5th of August, the day on which Major-General Brock left York for Detroit, to the period immediately preceding the battle of Queenston, the force under his personal command suffered no diminution in its numbers either by desertion, natural death, or the sword. This com- prehended a period of nearly ten weeks, during which an army was captured, and a journey of several hundred miles, by land and water, accomplished with extreme rapidity.

In conclusion it is due to the memory of this excel- lent man to declare that, eminent and undisputed as were his public virtues, he was no less estimable in private life. In his own family he was the object of

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