Brock, who with a part of his regiment had his station on the Ganges, had instructions to lead in the storming of the Trekoner batteries. The attack, however, did not take place. The Danes offered such a spirited resistance that the British infantry never got a chance to do their part. In fact, they remained inactive through the engagement. They could only wait and watch, quartered for the moment on the decks of British vessels, and suffer heavy fusillade from the Danish batteries and ships. The Danes pounded the British squadron hard. Brock, on the deck, had several narrow escapes, while his brother Savery, again to be found where the bullets were thickest, was firing a gun. Savery was momentarily stunned by grape shot, and Isaac rushing to him, cried: “Ah, poor Savery is dead.” But Savery was far from dead and proved it by leaping to his feet with his usual nonchalant smile, and continued behind his gun.
Towards the end of the battle, Brock, accompanied Captain Freemantle of the Ganges to the Elephant, Nelson’s flagship. He saw Nelson write his celebrated message to the Crown Prince of Denmark, which ran, “Lord Nelson has directions to spare Denmark, when no longer resisting; but if the firing is continued on the part of Denmark, Lord Nelson will be obliged to set on fire the floating batteries he has taken, without having the power to save the brave Danes who have defended them.” The Danes were compelled to bow to Nelson’s ultimatum, and surrender. Thus the courage of Nelson had saved Britain from attack. The defeat of the Danes, followed as it was by the death of the Czar of Russia, broke up the coalition. Britain was no longer in danger.
Brock himself learned much from the Battle of the Baltic. He took heed of Nelson’s wise and bold action in continuing the engagement in the face of definite orders from Sir Hyde Parker to retire, and pigeon-holed the occurrence in his mind. Eleven years later he himself was to take a similarly bold and strong course when he sent his message to General Hull commanding the American forces at Detroit, even though his commander-in-chief had instructed him not to attack the enemy. But Brock, after Copenhagen, knew that it sometimes paid to risk all and say: “What men dare, I dare!”
CHAPTER III
Canada: Mutiny in the 49th
Brock collected his men and returned to England. At Copenhagen it will be remembered that he had part of the regiment with him on the Ganges, but others had been on different vessels. In August of 1801 he reviewed the 49th at Colchester, to which place they were ordered. They were now experienced, in some sort, in battle and had shown themselves to be brave soldiers. Brock could look with pride on the men he had trained.
In the spring of the next year the 49th Regiment was ordered to Canada. Probably Brock received his orders regretfully. It meant leaving Europe when in England war was daily imminent, and Brock, as a man of action, loved action. So did his men. America, at this time, was peaceable enough, and even had Canada been attractive in other ways, the commander and men of the 49th would rather have stayed where there was a prospect of fighting. Moreover, Canada was deemed, at that time, a land of hard weather and few attractions. It was little known and supposed to be even less livable. The journey over the Atlantic was feared by some, far more than the fire of the enemy in battle. The 49th had no very pleasant memories of garrison duty, and this was all there was to look forward to.
We can imagine a not very cheerful regiment crossing the uncertain and treacherous ocean under conditions much less agreeable than exist to-day.
One wonders what must have been Brock’s thoughts when he first saw the St. Lawrence. He was seaborn, and the salt and the breeze were his inheritance. He must have been greatly impressed as the ship sailed up the stately river, its shores heavily wooded and all the wonder of its rolling might stretched out in front of him. He came in time to Quebec, and no doubt as his eyes rested on those defences which had withstood siege after siege, his thoughts often turned to Wolfe and Montcalm and how, within this area on which he now gazed, they had made history. He was by now a man of grave and serious character and, as many another in lowlier state has done since, he may have asked himself what this vast unknown country held for him. It was to hold much, and he for it.
We may try and think, for a moment, what the Canada of those early years looked like to this new-comer from the Mother country. There were not more than three hundred thousand people in this country of ours whose people now number over eight million. More than half were in Lower Canada. Brock was a military man and he early noticed how badly protected were the supposedly fortified posts. York, the capital of Upper Canada, had no defences. Montreal, the greatest city then as now, had little to repel attack. Kingston had fairly good fortifications, and Quebec was in a position stubbornly to resist an enemy. These things Brock came soon to see.
Perhaps even more portentous to Brock was the state of mind of the average soldier in Canada. These men had come from Britain where the garrison life was pleasant and full of incident and where the cities offered excitement and amusement. Canada was a great contrast. It was sparsely populated. There were no cities, as these British soldiers understood the term, and the sameness of the life aroused unrest and discontent. The United States offered an easy refuge for deserters. There was to be had across the border the daily eventfulness and excitement which soldiers wanted. Desertions were frequent, and becoming more so, and Brock saw the danger for his men of the 49th. He did all he could to make their lot, under not very accommodating circumstances, a happy one, but the spirit of the regiment was not the cheerful one it had been a year or so before.