The Story of Isaac Brock: Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada/11

In common with most great men, Brock found distraction in trifles. For weeks prior to leaving Quebec all kinds of gayety prevailed. A visit from Governor Gore of Upper Canada, and the arrival of the fleet from Guernsey and two frigates from Portsmouth, gave a fillip to society. Races, water-parties and country picnics were the order of the day. Our hero's contribution consisted of a banquet and grand ball. He had his own troubles, however, that even the versatile Dobson could not overcome, and he roundly scolded his brother Irving for not sending him a new cocked hat.[2]

"That cocked hat," he said, "has not been received; a most distressing circumstance, as from the enormity of my head I find the utmost difficulty in getting a substitute."

His departure for York weighed upon him. In Quebec he had the most "delightful garden imaginable, with abundance of melons and other good things"—these,[Pg 65] together with his new bastions and forts, he had to desert. Being somewhat of a philosopher, he said that since fate decreed the best portion of his life was to be wasted in inaction, and as President Jefferson, though he wanted war, was afraid to declare it, he supposed he should have to be pleased with the prospect of moving upwards.

Brock had been but a few weeks at Fort George—a "most lonesome place," as compared with Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, or even Little York, from which latter place he was cut off by forty miles of lake, or more than a hundred miles of dense forest and bridgeless streams—when he decided upon a flying trip to Detroit, where, during the French régime, the adventurous Cadillac had landed in 1701. He would inspect the western limit of the frontier now under his care and obtain at first hand a knowledge of the peninsula. "For," as he remarked to Glegg, his aide, "if I can read the signs aright, the two nations are rushing headlong into a military conflict."

Two routes were open to him, one overland, the other land and water. He chose the latter. A vast quantity of freight now reached Queenston from Kingston. Vessels of over fifty tons sailed up the river, bearing merchandise for the North-West Company. Salt pork from Ireland and flour from London, Britain being the real base of supply—the remote North-West looking to Niagara for food and clothing—the return cargoes being furs and grain. To portage these goods around Niagara Falls kept fifty or more farmers' waggons busy every day during the summer. A team of horses or oxen could haul twenty "pieces," of one hundred weight each, for a load. The entire length of the portage from Lake Ontario to[Pg 66] Lake Erie was practically a street, full of all the bustle and activity that a scattered country population of 12,000 conferred upon it. Two churches, twenty stores, a printing house, six taverns and a scholastic academy supplied the varied wants of Niagara's 500 citizens who overfilled its one hundred dwellings.

From Lake Ontario, Newark, as it had been called, presented an inviting appearance. The brick-and-stone court-house and jail and brightly painted Indian council-house and cottages rose in strong contrast against the green forest. On the river bank was Navy Hall, a log retreat for seamen, and on Mississaga (Black Snake) Point a stone lighthouse flashed its red signal of hope to belated mariners. Nearer the lake shore, in isolated dignity across a mile of common, stood Fort George, a dilapidated structure with wooden palisades and bastions. Half-acre lots in the village were given gratis by the Government to anyone who would build, and eight acres outside for inclosures, besides a large "commonty" for the use of the people. A quite pretentious wharf lined the river, and from this, on any summer afternoon, a string of soldiers and idle citizens might be seen—among whom was Dobson—casting hook and troll for bass, trout, pickerel and herring, with which the river swarmed. On one occasion Brock helped to haul up a seine net in which were counted 1,008 whitefish of an average weight of two pounds, 6,000 being netted in one day.

Side-wheel ferries, driven by horse-power, plied between the river's mouth and the Queenston landing. The paddle-wheels of these were open double-spoke affairs, without any circular rim. A stage-coach also ran between Queens[Pg 67]ton and Fort Erie, the first in Upper Canada. For one dollar the passenger could travel twenty-five miles.

At Fort Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, Brock embarked in mid-August in a government schooner. He wished to familiarize himself with the upper water-ways. He made the long trip from Quebec to York, and thence to Niagara, Amherstburg, Detroit, Sandwich and return overland to Fort George, within two months—record time. Dobson accompanied his master. Brock was silent as to his impressions, but admitted he was convinced that the water route for a military expedition was the only practical one, and that Mackinaw, held by the United States, was the portal and key to the western frontier in case of invasion. He crossed overland through the "bad woods" and open plains to the Point of Pines, where batteaux and canoes awaited him. From thence he proceeded along the north shore of Lake Erie until abreast of the Miami, a confluent of the Ohio River, on the south shore, then turned northward up the Detroit River, twenty-five miles farther, reaching Amherstburg—called Malden by the Americans—250 miles from Fort Erie. Here, after consulting with Colonel St. George, he inspected the battery at Sandwich, and with little ceremony visited Detroit—the old military post of Pontchartrain—on the opposite side of the river, later notorious as an emporium for "rum, tomahawks and gunpowder." From Amherstburg, a small village with an uncompleted fort and shipyard, he sent messengers to the remote post of St. Joseph, an island, fifty-five miles from Mackinaw, below Sault Ste. Marie, and started homewards overland.

In returning, he skirted the great tributary marshes,[Pg 68] alive with water-fowl of every description, whose gabble and flapping wings could be heard at a long distance. He camped in the vast hardwood forests that covered the western point of the peninsula that extends west from Lake Ontario to the river connecting Lake Huron with Lake Erie. He shot big bustards and wild turkeys in the bush, where wolves and deer were as thick as rabbits in a warren, and tramped the uplands, teeming with quail and prairie chicken. Continuing by Delaware and the Government road at Oxford on the Thames, and by the "Long Woods" over the Burford Plains to Brant's Ford, he reached the Grand River, and then by Ancaster and the head of the lake to Burlington, when he followed the Lake Ontario southern shore road to Niagara.

Many of the settlers whom he met were from the Eastern States. These were the original Loyalists or their descendants, patriots to the core. Other more recent arrivals—perhaps two-thirds of the whole—came from Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, attracted by the fertility of the soil and freedom from taxation, or to escape militia service. These latter he quickly realized were not the class to rely upon in event of war, but he gave no public sign of distrust. It was from the pick of the first-mentioned stalwarts that Brock formed his loyal Canadian militia, his gallant supporters in the war of 1812, who made a reputation at Detroit and Queenston that will never die.

He was more than ever sensible of the resources of the country. This glimpse of the west enamoured him. To his "beloved brothers"—our hero always thus addressed them—he described it as a "delightful country, far exceed[Pg 69]ing anything I have seen on this continent." The extent of the Great Lakes amazed him, as did their fish. From these deep cisterns he had seen the Indian fishermen take whitefish, the ahtikameg (deer-of-the-water), twenty pounds in weight; maskinonge—matchi-kenonje, the great pike—more than twice that size, and sturgeon that weighed two hundred pounds and over, and in such quantities that he hesitated to tell his experiences on his return.

Henry's stories of five hundred whitefish taken with a scoop net at the rapids of Sault Ste. Marie in two hours were no longer questioned. The size of the red-fleshed land-locked trout (the quail-of-the-water), of pickerel and bass, astounded him. His travels had broadened his views. The chatter of his Iroquois and Algonquin friends was now easier of interpretation. The riddles of the wilderness were more easily read. He now realized how possible it was, in this continent of unsurveyed immensity, to journey for weeks, after leaving the white man's domain hundreds of miles behind, and then reach only the rim of another kingdom of even far greater fertility. He also realized that beyond these laughing lands lay a rugged world of desolation, bounded in turn by the rasping ice-floes of the Arctic.

If Brock's mind had expanded, so had his body. He was, as he expressed it, as "hard as nails." The close of 1811 found "Master Isaac" a grand specimen of manhood. Inclined to be a little portly, he was still athletic. His face, though a trifle stern, had grown more attractive, because of the benevolent look now stamped upon it. He was still fair and florid, with a broad forehead, and eyes though somewhat small, yet full and of a grayish blue,[Pg 70] a charming smile and splendid white teeth. Always the same kindly gentleman and always a soldier. His life at Fort George had been one of great loneliness. He read much and rapidly, and would memorize passages from the books that had left the deepest impression. History, civil and military, especially ancient authors, was his choice, and maps his weakness. Over these, with his devoted aides, he would pore late into the night, until he knew the country almost as well as his friend the Surveyor-General. For variety he feasted upon the robust beauties of Pope's "Homer," ever regretting he never had a master "to guide and encourage him in his tastes."

With Lieutenant-Governor Gore, formerly a soldier in Guernsey, our hero was on intimate terms. When the grind of duty let him, he would travel "the worst road in the country—fit only for an Indian mail-carrier—in order to mix in the society of York." He periodically returned these hospitalities by a grand ball at Niagara—always the event of the season. Brock, while fond of women's society, preferred brain to beauty. Had his old Guernsey friends been present on these occasions they would not have recognized in the soldier, resplendent in a general's uniform, now dancing a mazurka, the handsome stripling who only a few years since had waltzed his way into the hearts of all the women of St. Peter's Port.

The unrest of the Indians at Amherstburg troubled him. He had seen over eight hundred in camp there, receiving rations for a month while waiting presents of blankets, powder and shot from King George. They asked British support if they took the warpath against the Americans—the Long-knives—Gitchi-mokohmahn, their sworn enemies.[Pg 71] Tecumseh, a Shawanese chief, had demanded from the United States the restoration of violated rights. This demand had not been complied with. The position was critical. Great tact was required to retain the friendship of the Indians, while not complying with their request.

In Lower Canada there was still discord among the French Canadians. The Governor, Sir James Craig, in a dying condition, relinquished office. In answer to Brock's application for leave, still hoping for a staff appointment in Portugal, the Governor-General implored him to remain.

"I must," he told him, "leave the country in the best state of security I can; your presence is needed here. I am sending you as a mark of my sincere regard my favourite horse, Alfred." This was a high-bred animal, and our hero's charger in the war that followed.

It was not, however, until war was regarded as unavoidable, and not until after he was promoted to be a major-general and appointed President and Administrator of Upper Canada, as successor to Governor Gore, that Isaac Brock became reconciled to life in Canada, and with set purpose assumed the duties of his high calling.

Our hero had passed his third milestone.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] Miss Carnochan, as the Curator of the Niagara Historical Society the custodian of many relics of the war of 1812, has in her keeping this identical cocked hat. It arrived "shortly after Brock's death, and was given by his nephew to Mr. George Ball, near whose residence the 49th was stationed. The hat measures twenty-four inches inside, and was used at the funeral obsequies of 1824 and 1853, when many old soldiers requested, and were permitted, to try it on." The usage that the cocked hat then received has not improved its appearance.