And now begins an imprisonment of ten months full of such distress and atrocity that I should not please, however much I might edify, by its recital. We read today of the horrors of Spanish and Turkish massacres or of Siberian prisons, and every page of history has its record of inhumanity—its Black Hole, its Dartmoor, its Andersonville. In this dishonor roll of official outrages surely may be included the backwoods prisons of Upper Canada in 1838 and '39. Our misadventurer was shifted from one to another. At Fort Malden, on the shore of Lake Erie, he was kept for seven weeks in a small room with twenty-eight other men. It was the dead of winter, but they had no warmth save from their emaciated and vermin-infested bodies. They were ironed two and two, day and night. They were so crowded that there was not floor-room for all to sleep at once. According to Marsh, who afterwards wrote a minute record of this imprisonment, their feeding and care would have been fatal to a herd of hogs. The acme of the miseries of the prison at Fort Malden I cannot even hint at with propriety. When transferred from Sandwich to Malden, and later from Malden to London, Marsh, like many of his fellow sufferers, had his feet frozen; and when his limbs swelled so that life itself was threatened, it was not the surgeon but a clumsy blacksmith who cut off the irons and supplied new ones.
In London the treatment of Malden was repeated. Here the trials began. The gallows was erected close to the jail wall; day by day the doomed ones walked out of a door in the second story to the death platform; and day by day Marsh and the other wretches in the cells heard the drop as it swung, in falling, against the jail wall. Marsh lived in hourly expectation of the summons, but before his turn came there was a stay in the work which had been going on under the warrants signed by Sir George Arthur—as great a tyrant, probably, as ever held power on the American continent. A far more philosophic writer than Robert Marsh has called him the Robespierre of Canada. Whatever may be held as to the illegality of the trials which sent some twenty-five men to the gallows at this time, certain it is that the hangings stopped before our hero's neck was stretched. Fate still had her quiver full of evil days for him; and fortune, like a gleam of sun between clouds, moved him on to the prison at Toronto, where his mother came to see him.
It was in the early spring of 1839 that he was transferred to Toronto. In June following, with a boatload of companions, he was shipped down to Fort Henry at Kingston. Here, for three months, he was deluded with the constant expectation of release; but he must have had some foreshadowings of his fate when, after three months of wretched existence at Fort Henry, he was again sent on, down the river to Quebec; and there, on September 28, 1839, he and 137 companions in irons were put aboard the British prison-ship Buffalo, commanded by Capt. Wood. They were stowed on the third deck, below the water line; 140 sailors were placed over them; and the Buffalo took her course down the widening gulf. The dismal departure was lightened by a touch of human nature. There were several of the convicts who, like Marsh, claimed American citizenship, and American blood will show itself.[49] As the prisoners were marched down with clanking chains from Fort Henry for the shipment to Quebec, many of them thought that it was their last shift before release. "There were three or four very good singers amongst us," says Marsh, "which made the fort ring with the 'American Star,' 'Hunters of Kentucky' and other similar songs, which caused many to flock to our windows. Some of them remarked, 'You will not feel like singing in Botany Bay.' 'Give us "Botany Bay,"' said one, and it was done in good style."
If the reader will permit the digression, it may afford a little entertainment to consider for a moment these old songs. The literature of every war includes its patriotic songs—seldom the work of great poets, and most popular when they appeal to the quick sympathies and sense of humor of the common people. Every people has such songs, sometimes cherished and sung for generations. England has them without number, Canada has hers, the United States has hers; and among the most popular for many years, strange as it now may seem, were "The American Star" and "The Hunters of Kentucky," which were sung by these none-too-worthy representatives of the United States, through Canadian prison bars, this autumn morning sixty years ago. Both songs had their origin, I believe, at the time of the War of 1812. That such barren and bombastic lines as "The American Star" should have remained popular a quarter of a century seems incredible, and appears to indicate that the youth of the country were very hard up for patriotic songs worth singing. Here follows "The American Star":
Come, strike the bold anthem, the war dogs are howling,
Already they eagerly snuff up their prey,
The red clouds of war o'er our forests are scowling,
Soft peace spreads her wings and flies weeping away;
The infants, affrighted, cling close to their mothers,
The youths grasp their swords, for the combat prepare,
While beauty weeps fathers, and lovers and brothers,
Who rush to display the American Star.
Come blow the shrill bugle, the loud drum awaken,
The dread rifle seize, let the cannon deep roar;
No heart with pale fear, or faint doubtings be shaken,
No slave's hostile foot leave a print on our shore.
Shall mothers, wives, daughters and sisters left weeping,
Insulted by ruffians, be dragged to despair!
Oh no! from her hills the proud eagle comes sweeping
And waves to the brave the American Star.
The spirits of Washington, Warren, Montgomery,
Look down from the clouds with bright aspect serene;
Come, soldiers, a tear and a toast to their memory,
Rejoicing they'll see us as they once have been.
To us the high boon by the gods has been granted,
To speed the glad tidings of liberty far;
Let millions invade us, we'll meet them undaunted,
And vanquish them by the American Star.
Your hands, then, dear comrades, round Liberty's altar,
United we swear by the souls of the brave
Not one from the strong resolution shall falter,
To live independent, or sink to the grave!
Then, freemen, fill up—Lo, the striped banner's flying,
The high bird of liberty screams through the air;
Beneath her oppression and tyranny dying—
Success to the beaming American Star.
Every one of its turgid and wordy lines bespeaks the struggling infancy of a National literature. "The Hunters of Kentucky" is a little better, because it has humor—though of the primitive backwoods type—in it. If the reader has not heard it lately, perhaps he can stand a little of it. It was inspired by the battle of New Orleans:
Ye gentlemen and ladies fair,
Who grace this famous city,
Just listen, if you've time to spare,
While I rehearse a ditty;
And for the opportunity
Conceive yourselves quite lucky,
For 'tis not often that you see
A hunter from Kentucky;
O! Kentucky,
The hunters of Kentucky.