Life of Frederick Marryat

by David Hannay

At Toronto he was naturally asked to a public dinner, and also naturally requested to speak. In the course of his speech he, again very naturally, took occasion to mention, in a laudatory manner, the cutting out of the Caroline, by Lieutenant Drew. This feat had then made some noise in the world. Canada was in a disturbed condition, and the confusion had been fomented by filibustering from the United States territory. The Caroline had been fitted out to help the rebels, and had been “cut out” in gallant style from under the guns of Fort Schlosser on the American side of the river, after sharp fighting by a Lieutenant Drew and a body of Canadian volunteers. After capturing the vessel and removing her crew, the Canadians had sent her down over the falls of Niagara. The incident was one of which the loyalists were with good reason proud. As an Englishman, as a naval officer, and as a speaker at a public dinner, Marryat was triply justified in praising “Captain Drew (as he styled him), and his brave comrades who cut out the Caroline.” Nothing ought to have been a more complete matter of course than that he should propose their health. But Americans were then in a particularly thin-skinned state, even for them. They chose to be very angry with him for doing what any American officer would have done under similar circumstances, at least as loudly. What may be called the spirit of Hannibal Chollop awoke within them, and a chorus of denunciation was begun at once, in the most loud-mouthed and abusive style of American journalism. Paragraphs headed “More Insolence,” and so forth, appeared in abundance. Marryat’s books and his effigy were publicly burnt. When he returned from Canada to the States, deputations waited on him, much in the frame of mind of the enlightened citizens who were so indignant when Martin Chuzzlewit offended a free people by coming back from Eden. As a matter of course, any stick was good enough to serve the turn of American journalism. He was accused, among other things, of having “insulted and contradicted, and refused to drink wine” with Henry Clay. The story was, it is needless to say, only a piece of Yankee smartness, but Marryat drought it necessary to appeal to that distinguished politician for a certificate of character, and obtained from him an assurance that their meeting had afforded mutual satisfaction. In short, the whole business was one of those displays of noisy gregarious folly of which our American cousins are occasionally guilty. It was rather more absurd than a recent incident of the same sort, because Marryat was merely a traveller, and was speaking on British territory when he gave the toast which Yankee journalism chose to think offensive. But the old colonial hatred of England (not yet perhaps so entirely dead as after-dinner orators are accustomed to assert) was then full of vigorous life. Americans were wavering between reluctance to plunge into war, and desire to do the old country a damage by helping the rebellious French Canadians. In this divided state of mind they relieved their feelings by howling at Marryat, because he had not “cracked them up accordingly.”

Marryat extricated himself from this pass with commendable nerve and dexterity. He faced and soft-sawdered the deputations. He took the burning of his books very coolly, went about as before, and finally had it out with his hosts at a dinner given him at Cincinnati. The speech, which is far too long to quote, is full of the manly good sense which the American, when not acting in the characters of raving journalist or anxious candidate, will commonly listen to. Marryat reminded his hearers that he had spoken in British territory to his countrymen, and that their own patriotic orators were not averse to waving the banner habitually, or restrained from doing so by the knowledge that an Englishman was present. His hosts being simply American gentlemen, sitting in their right senses, agreed with him. A somewhat dramatic finish was given to this stage of the incident by Captain J. Pierce, who had been captain of the American privateer Ida when she was taken by the Newcastle, of which Marryat was then second lieutenant. Captain Pierce got on his legs to thank Marryat for the courtesy and good nature he had shown to himself and other prisoners. “The Wizard of the Sea,” as the American newspapers loved to call him when they were not in a flaming rage, might consider that, as far as his hosts at Cincinnati could answer for it, he was cleared of the charge of insulting the great American people. Their opinion, like that of the “respectable American,” in so many other matters, did not avail to stop all annoyance. Marryat continued to be pestered by abuse, frequently conveyed in unpaid letters. At last, and somewhat weakly, in October of 1838, he published a general protest in the form of a letter to the editors of the Louisville Journal, wherein he denied with much detail that he intended to spy out the barrenness of the land. He was, of course, answered as offensively as might be.

Marryat had perhaps begun by this time to discover that it was not so easy to write of America in a philosophic spirit as he had once thought. To be sure he had laid himself open to annoyance by going to the States at all, and still more by going there with the intention of writing a book.

The Canadian troubles were destined to break into his tour again. In the autumn of 1838 the French population rose in open rebellion, and, as is commonly the fate of insurgents, gained some preliminary successes, which made their final punishment all the more severe. Marryat remembering that he was an English naval officer still on the active list, gave up philosophic inquiry, hurried back to Canada, and volunteered for service under Sir John Colborne. This officer, a veteran of the Great War, and one who had had a distinguished share in winning the battle of Waterloo, made short work of the rising. Marryat saw some fighting once more in his life, and described it briefly in another of his capital letters to his mother.

“Montreal, Dec. 18, 1838.

“My Dearest Mother,—Except one letter from B—— B——, it is now nearly four months since I have heard either from England or the Continent; the latter I can in some way account for, at least in my own opinion—still I wish to hear how my little girls are.

“I was going South when I heard of the defeat of St. Denis, and the dangerous position of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada; and I considered it my duty as an officer to come up and offer my services as a volunteer. I have been with Sir John Colborne, the Commander-in-Chief, ever since, and have just now returned from an expedition of five days against St. Eustache and Grand Brulé, which has ended in the total discomfiture of the rebels, and, I may add, the putting down of the insurrection in both provinces. I little thought when I wrote last that I should have had the bullets whizzing about my ears again so soon. It has been a sad scene of sacrilege, murder, burning, and destroying. All the fights have been in the churches, and they are now burnt to the ground, and strewed with the wasted bodies of the insurgents. War is bad enough, but civil war is dreadful. Thank God, it is all over.

“The winter has just set in; we have been fighting in the deep snow, and crossing rivers with ice thick enough to bear the artillery; we have been always in extremes—at one time our ears and noses frost-bitten by the extreme cold, at others roasting amidst the flames of hundreds of houses. I came out of Grand Brulé after it was all over. I had the greatest difficulty in getting through the fire. I had a sleigh with two grey horses driven tandem (as it was too cold to ride the horse the general had offered me), and before I escaped, one side of each of the horses was burnt brown and yellow before we could force them through; however, the poor animals were more frightened than hurt.

“As I can be of no further use now, I shall return to America in a few days. I really wish I could receive a letter from England. I feel very much about having no intelligence. It will be too late to go South now, and I think I shall winter quietly at New York, and proceed to Washington early in the year.