Huron’s Age Heroic.
“Huron, distinguished by its lake,
Where Manitoulin’s spirits wake,”
before ’37 had but one central point, which, to use a Paddyism, was on the very confines of the still primeval forest. The mysterious wilderness had a few spots between Goderich and the other limit of the Canada Company, Guelph, in which woodmen, thinking solely of the grain and roots to be grown in the cleared spaces, were unconsciously ameliorating the climate of their continent by the patches of sunlight their axes were letting in through the green gothic above.
At the one end Galt, “churning an inarticulate melody,” with shoulders straight and upright, caught his foot in a tree root. Pryor, his right-hand man, said, “Look after your feet, man, and keep your head out of the stars.” In a moment Pryor hit his head against a branch. “Man, keep your eyes frae your feet,” rejoined Galt, “or else you’ll damage all the brains you’ve got.”
They jested; but they made the way of the pioneer. And the pioneer is the Canadian man of destiny. He is in a thousand valleys and on a thousand hillsides, sometimes cold and hungry, but he swims on the crest of the wave, and sees the beginning of a new thing. The spirit of adventure which bore Columbus, Cabot, Cartier, and Champlain into untrodden paths, sustains him and makes him brother to them, even if his scope is but the patch cleared by his own axe.
The British distinction between Whig and Tory, like the London fog, was supposed not to cross the ocean with these pioneers. But in the wilderness of Huron they throve by ’37 with a vigour derived from transplanting. After the Gourlay affair men learned to put bridles on their tongues; but if, as in Governor Maitland’s opinion, all Reformers were deluded, unprincipled and designing, there were men in Dumfries, Guelph, and from the Wilmot Line westward, who could differ from that opinion and yet sing, “Far from our Fatherland,
Nobly we’ll fall or stand,
For England’s Queen.
In town and forest free,
Britons unconquered, we
Sing with true loyalty,
God save the Queen.”
Dumfries and all about Galt was largely settled by shepherds from the neighbourhood of the Ettrick Shepherd, Galashiels, Abbotsford, and thereabouts. If any of the good Tory sentiments recorded at Ambrose’s are to be believed, the Ettrick Shepherd would have been dismayed had he known what manner of opinion some of his fellow-shepherds held in Canada. Walter Cowan, bailiff to Sir Walter, told his master he wanted to emigrate. “Well, Walter, if you think it best to go,” said his genial employer, “I’ll assist you; but if you ever need to give it up, let me know, and I’ll help bring you back to Scotland.”
But did any ever wish to return? “I have never been home again,” says one, “although I have often wished to see the place, and I don’t think my sons or other Canadians appreciate it half enough; but I never heard of any emigrant wanting to go back to live. If you have thriven here, you are too high to have aught to do with them you left; and those above you, no matter how you have thriven, are too high to have aught to do with you.”
“I was born at Yarrow,” continues a mellow old Radical, bedridden, but bright as the proverbial shilling, “and I was naught but a poor shepherd lad; now, at ninety-three, I am one of the most fortunate men alive. I am sinking down to the grave, bedridden, but I have all my faculties, and I do not use spectacles by day or night. I came out in ’34, and that journey across the Atlantic was my wedding jaunt, for I was married on my way to the ship, sixty-three years ago the 26th of May it was; and there at the foot of my bed they have put the picture of my good lady, where I can see it all day long. In ’35 I felt I must have books, so I said, ‘Is there anyone in this place will help me get some together?’ Then three men, all cobblers, came forward, and among us we started what is now the Mechanics’ Institute—three cobblers and a former shepherd lad; and that was the first public work I put my hand to here. When I was naught but a callant at home I mind how my heart nearly broke because there were no shillings to buy the books I longed for, and when Mr. Chambers brought out that journal for the people and we could buy it for three baubees, I thocht he was the noblest man that ever lived. On the way out there was a lady who listened to our talk, and I said I should never be content without a volume of Pollok, on which I had set all my desires. So when we came through Rochester she bought the book for a shilling, and made me a present of what I had so long wanted; and I thought this must be a fine country where books could be got for a shilling!”
After the arrival of Sir Francis, Judge Jones and Colonel FitzGibbon had their conversation about the bags of pikes and pike-handles and signs of their immediate use. Said the Judge, “You do not mean to say these people are going to rebel?” The Colonel was no Thomas; he firmly did believe. “Pooh-pooh,” said Jones, turning to Sir Francis, who wearied for his pillow. So Sir Francis, humane man, addressed by what he called “the industrious classes,” expressed himself in “plain and homely language,” with as much care as if intended for “either branches of the Legislature:” “The grievances of this Province must be corrected; impartial justice must be administered. The people have asked for it; their Sovereign has ordained it; I am here to execute his gracious commands.” Nor did these industrious classes, one time shepherd laddies and the like, feel more than the Governor himself allowed.
“I was a Scotch Radical, and would have helped Mackenzie all I could—until he drew the sword. That proved to me he was not constitutional, and I wouldna any such doings. I do know that if by my own puny arm, young and without influence as I was, I could have got rid of the Family Compact, I would have done it right willingly. A few days before the outbreak a neighbour told me of the great doings likely to be in Toronto, and I joked wi’ him. But he said, ‘Mind, man, it’s no joking matter, and it’s sure ye’ll see Mackenzie’s men through this way;’ and as I was a Scotch Radical he seemed to think it would be short whiles before I was in gaol. So I laughed, and said, ‘Well, if Mackenzie comes this way I’ll treat him well, for I have eight hogs hung in a row, and he shall have the best.’ I would have fed him and his people, for I would have rid the country of the Family Compact; but he didna mend matters to draw the sword.” Even such meritorious work must not be done in opposition to the Queen and country.
“I count only the hours that are serene,” is the motto on an old Venetian sun-dial. All the Canadian clocks must have stopped and the sun hasted not for a space of years in these exciting days when Canadians, but one remove in complexion from aborigines, allowed not toil, heat, sun, nor isolation to abate the vigour, ingenuity and resolution born of circumstances.
“William Lyon Mackenzie, hot-tempered and impulsive,” says another old Reformer, “had a keen eye for detection of a flaw in an argument; he lived by complaining, and had no thought beyond formulating and promoting grievances. So many years of such a tone of mind totally unfitted him for political life. When a practical question was put before him for a practical answer, the man was utterly at sea; his faculty of constructiveness was obliterated.”
Evidently, he who cannot live happily anywhere will live happily nowhere, and Mackenzie, “yellow and somewhat dwarfish,” bore out the supposed likeness to the Yellow Dwarf, a violent weekly journal published in London by an ultra Radical in 1819 and afterwards. Its editor, Wooler, set it up without copy, mind and composing-stick working together.
The Colonial Advocate and Mackenzie’s pamphlets did their work in the country side. Lords Brougham, Melbourne and Glenelg were gibbeted in Toronto and afterwards burnt on the night of October 22nd, ’37, and the Advocate informed them of it. It also kept up excitement about the “Kentish drillmaster,” corporals MacNab and Robinson, and the general system of rack rent; it stated that a pound loaf was at a shilling Halifax; that woe and wailing, pauperism and crime, were rife in a land never meant for the first three; that many in the new settlements seldom tasted a morsel of bread, and were glad to gnaw the bark off the trees. “But why are want and misery come among us? Ah, ye rebels to Christianity, ye detest the truth, ye shut your ears against that which is right. Your country is taxed, priest-ridden, sold to strangers and ruined ... Like the Iazzaroni of Italy, ye delight in cruelty and distress, and lamentation and woe.” He apostrophized the ruling Pact as false Canadians, Tories, pensioners, profligates, Orangemen, church-men, spies, informers, brokers, gamblers, parasites, knaves of every caste and description. It would be wonderful if each man’s grievance could not find an outlet with such a number and variety of scapegoats. “Never was a vagabond race more prosperous,” he writes, “never did successful villainy rejoice in brighter visions of the future. Ye may plunder, rob with impunity, your feet are on the people’s necks, they are transformed into tame, crouching slaves, ready to be trampled on. Erect your Juggernaut—the people are ready to be sacrificed under the wheel of the idol.” It is strange that he did not quote Culpepper: “They dip in our dish, they sit by our fire; we find them in the dye-fat, the wash-bowls and the powdering tub. They share with the cutler in his box; they have marked and sealed us from head to foot.”
When Mackenzie made his appearance in Galt in ’33 a very partial local critic calls him somewhat of a political firebrand; he certainly was full of what in Lower Canada just then was called “fusées de la rhétorique.” He spoke from the south window of the village inn, with the usual results. One “Whose rhetoric could rouse the Olympian host,
And scare into fits poor Demosthenes’ ghost,”
was no commonplace figure. Set on steel springs, the hands opening and shutting, the light-blue eyes sending keen and piercing glances through the ranks of “these people” before him, who were already in the best of training from the local agitator Mr. Bennett, the master of Liberty Cottage, “this fellow” spoke in a way direct and easy to understand. His writing was sometimes verbose, unequal and amateurish; but in speech “the superlative littleness of the man” was lightened by gleams of humour, facial expression and gesture which would not commit themselves to paper, nor did they hinder the deadly earnestness that carried conviction to any wavering mind. Now as he spoke a great clatter arose from an incoming crowd which bore a blackened, bedizened and hideous effigy of himself; the likeness was so good that the sight of it provoked a smile from the original. He paused in his speech and looked on in silent and grim amusement. Had he but known it, the lay figure held almost an allegory of the real. It was stuffed with gunpowder and other combustibles, and, as its original was destined to do, went off prematurely; it knocked down a man or two, but did no great harm. The figure wore a pair of very good boots, which someone in the crowd, not so well furnished, begrudged. The man worked his way through, seized the burnt brogues, and made off with them as fast as his legs could carry him.
It is marvellous the bandit was not arrested as a suspect; it took very small evidence to make a case. One Irish Loyalist, John McCrea, was sent a summons to join the company then forming in Guelph for the front; he considered his farm and home duties of more importance, and was at once reported as “disaffected.” Shortly afterwards he went to the general store kept by Captain Lamphrey, a retired English officer, and was asked, as was the usual custom, into the parlour for a glass of wine. To his surprise he there found three others, a bench of magistrates, who without further ado began to try him. Why had he not responded to the command to join the corps? Because he had private and important domestic concerns on hand. He asked for the name of his accuser and the specific accusation, but in reply was told he must give a bond for his good behaviour. This was surely the Star Chamber, Scroggs and Jeffreys, the secret-service principle of Mackenzie’s written and spoken diatribes, and Mr. McCrea’s justified Irish obstinacy rose as a wall against the combination. One of the trio offered to become the bondsman, but the accused contended its acceptance would be an admission of guilt. Mr. McCrea insisted upon knowing their authority; they could not furnish it, and there was an end of the matter.
Captain Lamphrey’s treats were full of unexpected results. One of the loyal, who carried despatches to Hamilton, went to him one early morning with signs of too many glasses already apparent and asked for more. The captain could not refuse, knew the despatch must go, and saw its safety was already endangered. He took H. M.’s special messenger to the cellar and drew a glass of vinegar. “Drink it, man; down with it! down with it!” which was done, and the lately demoralized special messenger was “as sober as a clock.”
It was a joke to the Wellington neighbourhood that one company should be headed by a Captain Poore and another by a Captain Rich. A brusque Yorkshireman, William Day, volunteered in Poore’s company. The roads were very bad, food was scarce, and as Day got hungry his loyalty waned. At last he demanded something to eat. This was flat rebellion; Poore called it insubordination, and said that instead of comforts Day should have night guard, and stand upon his feet until the small hours lengthened.
“So you won’t give me anything to eat?”
“No.”
“Then I know where I can get it, and that’s at Guelph. And I’d like to see the man that’d stand between me and that door.”
No one offered to do so, and he walked back twenty-six miles, “got his victuals,” and so ended his active military service.
Captain Poore had been endeavouring for two or three years to form a volunteer rifle company. There was little time, and less inclination, to play at soldiering; but by ’35, when agitation among the progressive begot anxiety in the less progressive, he succeeded in forming a company sixty strong, which drilled every Saturday in a corner of his own farm. Many of the settlers were not gushing in their loyalty to the powers that were, and, while not allying themselves with Mackenzie, “had the governing party been drowned in the depths of the sea not a solitary cry would have gone up for them.” Even the schoolboys were keen politicians, and regarded those who dwelt in the shadow of the Pact as very poor types of humanity. Those who were of the required age and ordered to meet for drill every two weeks at the cross-roads, but who had not sufficient courage of their convictions to refuse service, performed it in a half-hearted manner. The most regular attendants were the schoolboys. They snowballed the men and snowballed the captain, made game of the execution of the various military movements and of Mr. Hiscock. The latter was the drill-instructor, an old soldier, who dressed partly in military uniform and carried a cane. Pompously he walked back and forth, contemptuous of the roll-call. One little Englishman, when going through the required answers, was asked, “Married or single?” “Single, sir, but under promise,” was the reply.
Great, then, was the excitement when the news came that “Toronto had fallen.” On the day of the engagement at Montgomery’s Captain Poore and his men left Guelph, and Lamphrey, by now a colonel, with Colonel Young was left in charge of the portion which was to protect Guelph. The knowledge that Galt and Eramosa were strongly disaffected did not tend to reassure the home-guard. It was feared that Guelph, too, might “fall.” For days men busied themselves running bullets, and it was soothing to know that a quantity of powder lay in the octagon house should they keep possession of it—such stores, no doubt, would be seized by the rebelliously inclined once they were in action. In the town of Guelph itself it was proudly claimed that only one man was disloyal, and that he, poor fellow, was only driven so by too long and silent study of grievances, “an honest, decent man otherwise.” As the chief evidence against him was that he went through Preston and other outlying hamlets to buy up all the lead he could find, it seems rather hard that when this was reported he should be apprehended, taken to Hamilton, and lie there in gaol for six or eight months without trial. Mr. James Peters, maliciously termed Captain Peters and said to be at the head of fifty men who were on their way to burn Guelph, was awakened before daylight on the morning of December 13th by the entry of sixteen armed men; the leader drew his glittering sword by Mr. Peters’ bedside and ordered him to get at once into one of the sleighs waiting at the door. After leaving the Peters’ farm these valiant special constables stopped at the house of a farmer magistrate, who not only bade them welcome, put up their horses, and gave the entire party a good breakfast, but delivered an encouraging homily to the magistrate in charge—an officiously zealous Irishman—saying he was glad to see the latter perform his duty so faithfully. When they were well refreshed and ready for the balance of the journey they took their departure, after arresting the host’s son. After that this farmer was not quite so loyal, nor had he such exalted views of a magistrate’s duty; moreover, he wished that he had saved that breakfast. The document upon which the arrests were founded set forth: “That (those enumerated) not having the fear of God in their hearts, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, and entirely withdrawing the love, and true and due obedience, which every subject of our said lady the Queen should, and of right ought to, bear towards our said present lady the Queen, and wickedly devising and intending to disturb the peace and public tranquillity of this Province ... on divers other days and times, with force and arms at the township of Eramosa, in the said district, unlawfully, maliciously and traitorously, did compass, imagine, and intend to bring and put our said lady the Queen to death.” In spite of efforts of judge and Crown, a jury took eight minutes to return a verdict of “Not guilty.” But in the meantime the building in which the prisoners were confined at Hamilton had been used by Government to store fifty kegs of gunpowder, protected by sand. Early in the morning the seven men, asleep in their two narrow cells, were roused to the fact that the tinder-wood building was on fire. They shouted until they were hoarse, pounded with all their strength, but failed to wake the sleeping guards. Exhausted, they threw themselves on the floor to await the horrible fate which seemed inevitable. But an alarm from without at last roused the guards, who at once set about saving the gunpowder, and gave no thought to the anxiety and terror of those within the cells. For long there was a popular idea that the fire was malicious incendiarism, but there appears to be no definite ground for such a belief.
To ensure safety, a night-watch was set on the Eramosa bridge, as well as at one other point. One night a son of the too well-fed Irish magistrate was on duty. It so happened that at the witching hour a Scotch miller came across the bridge with a wee drap in his ’ee—a strong, muscular fellow, and muscular in his language. His answer to whither was he going and what his errand, was, without preliminary words, to seize the guard by his coat collar and a convenient handful of his trousers, remove him from his path, and, with some oaths, declare that if interfered with he would pitch him into the river.
It did not take much to frighten either guard or pedestrian at such times. Not far from the Galt bridge an old Highlander, who was a bit of a character, successfully tried for a few “treats” from the regulars whom he saw one night in the cosy brightness of the village inn. He also made away with a regular’s red coat. Some of the home corps were on guard that night, and as in the clear atmosphere they saw him coming toward the bridge they guessed his double sin. They demanded his business and the countersign, and fired into the air. He fell flat, vowing he was killed, and never afterwards had he peace in the streets of Galt.
There are some ludicrous magistrate stories in all districts. As in the first days of Franco-Anglo-Canada it had not been thought requisite that officials should know both languages, so in these early provincial days it was not a sine qua non that magistrates should read and write. A “dockyment” was brought before one, a blacksmith by trade. He sat down on his anvil to “execute,” looking ineffably wise while he held the paper head down. “But, your worship, the document is upside down,” said the humble bailiff. “By the virtue of my office, I hold it whichever way I d—- please,” said his worship, stamping his foot, and convinced he was as well in his wits as any man in Middlesex. On the other hand, one western bailiff never lost a chance to display his knowledge of whatever language, dead or living, he might opportunely happen to think. When questioned by his magistrate as to the non-appearance of an expected prisoner, the bailiff proudly replied, “Non est comeatibus, c’est in an awful mess, parceque cum swampibus.”
In Huron proper, while the people were devising means to secure recognition of what they deemed their rights locally, not one man rebel to his country was to be found; indeed, no one who knew his circumstances will apply that term even to the unfortunate Van Egmond. “Blame Van Egmond? I blame the Family Compact a devilish sight more than I blame him,” says one. Sir Francis Bond Head ought to be considered an authority, and he affirms the Queen to be the head of this Family. “And what are we going to fight for?” asked one western man, with his draft-slip in his hand. “Against Mackenzie? Never!—the only man who dared to speak for us—never!” These true reformers considered that they were most loyal to their Queen when loyal to her and themselves too, and the remembrance of the day which called them to arms carries with it a regretful thought for Van Egmond.
In Goderich the arms consisted mainly of pitchforks, scythes and pikes, the latter made for the occasion by George Vivian, of that place. Each had a cruel crosspiece, with all points sharpened, to be used either as bayonet or battle-axe. A few lucky warriors had flintlocks.
One great source of complaint was the class of firearms supplied. Some relics of one lot of “useless lumber” sent up under the charge of the present Mr. Justice Robertson’s father are still about the Goderich gaol, and the specimens extant show the complaint to have been a just one.
There was also “a plentiful crop of captains and colonels.” Drill was held in the large room at Read’s hotel, and the boys who looked on were much edified by such display of valour and clanking of metal. This regiment has been handed down to local fame as “The Invincibles,” “Huron’s True Blues,” “The Huron Braves” and “The Bloody Useless.” When the call to arms came all turned out with good-will, and the fact that lone fishermen, pigs and ponies proved to be their only visible enemies can cast no discredit on the valour of their intention. Their hardships were many, and the complaints heard few.
Somewhere on the lake border, where the juniper and tamarack made the best undergrowth, wandered Ryan, a fugitive from Gallows Hill, the man made famous by the death of Colonel Moodie. Many miseries were his until the opening of navigation, and by the time he was taken off by a friendly American schooner he was reduced to a skeleton.
It was on Christmas Day, in the rain, that Captain Hyndman and his followers set out for Walpole Island, a journey which meant the extreme of roughing it. Captain Gooding and his Rifles left on the 7th of January, and were fortunate in being able to return all together when their service was over; but those who were with Captain Luard at Navy Island had to get back just as their strength would allow. Captain Lizars and Lieutenant Bescoby took their men to Rattenbury’s Corners, where they spent most of the winter, thus being saved many hardships suffered by their townsmen. Edouard Van Egmond was a most unwilling volunteer, for his ill-advised father, brave soldier and good pioneer as he had been proved, was by that time with Mackenzie in Toronto. Edouard resisted the press; but his horses were pressed into service, and their young owner said that wherever they were he must follow. The Invincibles were evidently at liberty to display individual taste in uniform, and Major Pryor took his way to the frontier picturesque in blanket-coat, sugar-loaf toque and sword; nor was the line drawn at the combination of blanket-coat, epaulets and spurs. The regulars among them did not disdain to be gorgeous, too, and one tall, handsome Irishman looked particularly magnificent in a uniform specially procured from England. He was a truly warlike and awe-inspiring sight, and having served through the Spanish campaign, and at Waterloo, had the usual regular’s contempt for militia. His charge was the commissariat from Niagara to Hamilton and London, and on one occasion, at a certain point on the Governor’s Road, was challenged by a guard, Private McFadden. His Magnificence merely vouchsafed, “Get out of my way, you young whippersnapper!” disgust and indignation making a strong brogue stronger. McFadden lifted his musket and was just about to fire, when a mutual acquaintance opportunely arrived to save the regular from the volunteer.
Some of the distressing events which centred in the Windsor neighbourhood had a direct or indirect connection with Huron names. Peter Green, of Goderich, the garrison tailor, who lived in a house almost adjoining the barracks, with his family was shut up in it by the patriots, who intended to roast them to death. Green, a staunch Mason, but who nevertheless had given up his Goderich lodge through his distaste towards a brother Mason (Thomas Mercer Jones, the Huron exponent of the Family Compact), put his trust in Providence, and thrusting out his hand made a Masonic sign. He was understood by one of the enemy and allowed to leave his burning house. As he went he was carrying his youngest child; in spite of masonry a stab was made at his burden, which Green warded off at the expense of his own hand. Bad as matters were, his membership saved him and his from death. Ronald MacGregor and his family, who had moved from Goderich to Windsor in ’36, were burned out at the same time, escaping in their night-clothes.
When the Bloody Useless were at the front they saw no active service; but their sufferings were not inconsiderable. Some of them had quarters in a church, where the narrowness of the pews and benches and the scantiness of the blankets led to much discomfort. But the real hardship fell to those whose lot took them to some deserted Indian shanties where filth of all kinds and melted snow on a clay floor were poor inducements to rest. The snow shovelled out to the depth of a foot still left enough behind to be melted by the warmth of the wearied bodies, which, stretched side by side, were by morning held fast by the snow-water again frozen. The hearty, cheery spirit of Dunlop, who doubled the rations, was better than medicine, or even than his liberal allowance of grog. When they moped he would order them out for a march, leading them in his homespun checkered dress and Tam o’ Shanter, closely followed by the Fords (“the sons of Anak,” because they were all six feet six), the Youngs, the Annands, and other stalwart township pioneers, not forgetting some sailors who had been pressed into the service, each man shouldering a pike ten feet in length. “Ah me, what perils do environ the man that meddles with cold iron,” quoted the Doctor; “in the British army it was understood that the only use of a musket was supposed to be that it could carry a bayonet at the end of it.” But his own armament was chiefly that supplied by George Vivian. The Doctor’s hardy frame knew nothing of the sufferings of his men. On one occasion when he took a company of sixty from Bayfield, he expected to make Brewster’s Mills easily; but the men were half tired, and he appropriated for their rest two shanties by the way. Next day they went on to the Sable, but the men were completely done by the time Kettle Point (Ipperwash) was reached. Get on they must, as many as might; so the Doctor proposed, “All of you as are fit, come with me.” Of the sixty, twenty-six went on with him, and one survivor tells that that march was the hardest work he ever did; “but the Doctor stood it finely.” About the same time Dunlop and his men found themselves dependent for shelter on two women who had no comforts to offer such a company. Some of the men grumbled, but the Doctor asked for whiskey. The women showed him a barrel newly opened; whereupon he put a man in charge, and ordered horns all round. The hostesses were anxious to give a bed to the Doctor, but he would have nothing that his men had not. Calling to Jim Young to bring him a beech log, he disposed himself in his blanket on the floor; when the log came he put one end of his blanket over it for a pillow and slept soundly until morning. “Our fathers ... have lain full oft ... with a good round under their heads instead of a pillow. Pillows, said they, were thought meet only for women.”
The hopes and the fears, the occasional feasts and many involuntary fasts, hardened all consciences when a search for supplies was on hand. In these times even the future first sheriff of Huron did not consider house-breaking criminal nor a raid upon a potato-pit larceny. Once Colonel Hyndman and some others had three-weeks’ leave and started on their homeward trip by the lake-shore, some seventy-five miles at the least, and unnecessarily added to by a false calculation which caused them to retrace their steps and increase their already long walk by ten miles. Sergeant Healy was twice nearly lost on the way; first by falling in a creek, and afterwards through exposure to cold—for their tramp led them through a country covered with two feet of snow. Healy begged them to leave him to his fate, saying that although he was an old soldier, and had served his sovereign in all parts of the world for twenty-one years, he had never suffered as he was suffering then. Needless to say they did not desert him, and they got him to Goderich as best they could; but he served no more on the Canadian frontier.
The men were much interested in the droves of half-wild cattle and horses to be seen on both sides of the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers. The horses were so numerous that it is said strings of them could be seen each way as far as the eye could reach, and as late as ’46 fifty dollars would buy a good one. In various “Legends of the Detroit” many interesting stories are told of these hardy, clever little animals, the direct descendants of one of the most celebrated of the stock of 1665—the French horses called by the Indians the Moose Deer of Europe. The French river settlers cut their fodder in the summer, stacked it, and turned it over to the ponies in the winter for them to feed from at will. Water-holes in the ice were made for the wise little animals, and beyond these two items they received little attention from their owners. One of the Invincibles thus describes a raid on our men by the enemy:
“Skimmings, of Goderich, was on guard, and reported that he heard the rebels galloping through the bush. Young told him that that was an impossibility, as they would have to come from the opposite direction. Skimmings was sure he heard the tread and gallop, and was loaded to the muzzle to receive them. Presently a drove of ponies appeared, making for their water-holes—and there was another scare over, and Skimmings never heard the last of it.”
At Colonel Hyndman’s quarters on Walpole Island a challenge was given to three of these inoffensive Indian ponies, by a sentry who had an infirmity of stuttering. Fearing that he had not been understood, he repeated his challenge; and still once again, unwilling that any should perish through his poor speech. Determined to be merciful in spite of this contemptuous silence he called out the guard, who were some time in arriving at a knowledge of the matter, for between the sentry’s fright and his stutter he was unintelligible. The lanterns of the guard revealed the homeless trio, supplementing their scanty supper by picking up stray bits of fodder which lay about the camp.
Of the practical jokes most of them were played on officers, either by their subordinates or brother officers. Major Pryor was at Sarnia with Colonel Hyndman, and the latter was very anxious indeed to break the monotony of the times. His chance came one evening when there was exchange of sentries, and Pryor had gone off to spend a convivial hour. Hyndman gave very strict orders as to the enforcing of the password, and then waited results. Major Pryor staggered back to the line, very drunk indeed. When challenged he stuttered that he was the f-f-fellow’s major.
“I don’t care who you are—what’s the password?”
“Don’t know, b-b-but I’m your Major!”
“Into the guardhouse with you then, if you don’t know the pass,” and the major was ignominiously hurried off. When he got there he was clear enough to see that the men knew him.
“Very well, then,” said one; “if you give us an order on the Commissary for a gallon of grog we’ll let you go.”
“Give me a p-p-pen then,” said Pryor, “and you can have your g-g-grog.”
He duly wrote the order, which one of the men altered from one to two gallons, and was thereupon set at liberty.
There was little ceremony spent on the furnishing of the commissariat. When a beast was noticed by an officer it was decided that that animal must at once be annexed; but as far as can be learned now there was always a fair remuneration made to the owner. It was claimed by the rival messes that equal fairness was not observed in the distribution of a suddenly acquired dainty. Dunlop had become possessed of a sheep, and great was the rage of Pryor when it was found that the former had requisitioned for the whole animal, for they had all been living on pork for weeks. The Doctor could not resist such opportunity for jokes, and mutton versus pork caused Pryor many an irritation. Nicknames, too, grew from the work and doings of ’37 as easily as they were coined by Dunlop at other times. “Toddy Tam” was the head of the Commissariat, and Robert Young, of Glasgow, who was butcher to the Huron militia, was in consequence called Killit-and-Curit. Thereafter he was best known as Killie Young.
A grand dinner had been the cause of Major Pryor’s guard-house experience. A baker and a butcher had been sent to ransack the countryside for provisions for it, and extraordinary success had crowned their efforts. Colonel Hyndman asked “Toddy Tam” not to serve the major with any of the new-gotten delicacies until he, Hyndman, had entertained his fellow-officers at a dinner. And such a dinner, to men who had been half starved! Mutton and turkey boiled and roast, fowls, and pastry of all sorts and descriptions. “Good God, Hyndman!” exclaimed Pryor, “where did you get all that?”
Hyndman gravely replied that these were his rations. Toddy Tam arrived at the head of the stairway just in time to hear Pryor heaping abuse upon him, saying that “that d—— fellow, the Commissary, had served him with nothing but salt pork ever since he came to Sarnia.” The irate major just then caught sight of the offender, and would have thrown him down the stairway but for the interference of Captains Gooding and Lizars. Careful management and pre-arrangement on the part of his tormentors lodged the gallant and stuttering major in guard-house.
On another occasion, when Hyndman was in advance of Pryor by a day’s march, the former halted his men for rest at Mrs. Westlake’s, where comforts and food were in plenty. Reckoning on the major’s usual blustering manner to bear him out, Colonel Hyndman advised Mrs. Westlake that Major Pryor would arrive next day, and that she had best be on her guard. When Pryor and his men arrived he at once ordered this and shouted for that, desiring the household to bring him every thing at once. To his amazement in marched Mrs. Westlake, a huge pistol in her hand, who without more ado began the work of converting a bully into the most civil and astonished of officers. But with all his faults of manner Pryor had his good points, and only two days previous to this had sent home his man-servant and horses, determined to march with his men and share their hardships.
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.
A Detroit newspaper of June 30th, ’38, tells how “on the night of Tuesday last some thirty of these heroes (patriots) stole a sloop and cruised to Goderich, in Canada. There they plundered the stores of everything valuable and came off. The steamboat Patriot was immediately manned and sent in pursuit of them, and after a long chase found them in our waters. The persons on board the sloop were all armed, but being—as they are—a miserable lot of cowards, they ran the sloop on to the land, and everyone on board, with the exception of one man, made their escape. The sloop was captured and brought down in tow to this place.” Luckily, by July 12th the Detroit paper can say further, “The steamboat Governor Marcy, under command of Captain Jephson, has succeeded in capturing eight of the pirates who robbed the storehouses at Goderich, U. C. They were brought down from the St. Clair a week since, and on their arrival were taken before the U. S. judge. Four were discharged for want of sufficient evidence...; two were held to bail.... Since that time three others have been brought down ... and convicted. From the present appearance in this quarter, I am now of the opinion that the enlightened portion of the citizens of this section of the country have seen the error of their ways, and are now determined to set their faces against the Patriots. They find that the ‘Patriots’ are an unspeakable set of vagabonds, and that no dependence can be placed in them—a very wise conclusion, for I assure you that a more miserable set of beings never existed in any country. The commander-in-chief of the force in this section of the frontier I have been shown; and met him in a public bar-room. He stands five feet four inches in his shoes—that is, when he is fortunate enough to have a pair that can be so called—not lacking in impudence by any means, and a miserable, drunken vagabond, as his appearance plainly indicates.” This was Vreeland, who bore the unsavoury reputation of being “a Judas and a traitor.” He was found guilty of violation of the neutrality laws, and was sentenced by Judge Wilkins to one year’s imprisonment and a fine of $1,000.
Of his companion, Dr. McKinley, an unflattering silhouette is given by the Detroit editor, “The complete wreck of all that once constituted a man.” Also, “The Patriot force does not amount to anything like that number (one thousand), besides which they have not courage enough to cross the line.” The Indians took not a little pleasure in keeping these marauders on their own shore, and one of the former gives a spirited account of how “the savages drove the unfortunate fellows over again” from the St. Clair mission; he said they had to watch all night and sleep all day, wear feathers and tomahawks, “and if the pirates do not soon mend their ways the red-men will have to dress themselves so that the invaders will fall dead with fright, even before hearing the war-whoop and yells. We are in fear we shall get as savage as our fathers were in all the wars under the British flag.” Changed times these from those of the Indian proverb, “We will try the hatchet of our forefathers on the English, to see if it cuts well.”