“True enough, General, I was brought up on the banks of the Hudson and would have been there yet but for the infernal Whigs, who robbed us first of our horses, then of our kewows, and last of all of our farms, and called their thievery patriotism. If we Tories hadn’t had so much property, there wouldn’t a ben so many George Washington-Tom Jefferson patriots. When we were hunted from our birthplace for the crime of being loyal to the good King we were born under, we found shelter and freedom in Canada, and, by God, sir, there ain’t a United Empire loyalist among us that wouldn’t fight and die for Canada.”
“You rude boor,” retorted Gen. Hampton hotly, “we have come to give liberty to Canada, and our armies will be welcomed by its down-trodden people as their deliverers. I have reports and letters to that effect from Montreal and, best of all, the personal report of one of my staff, now dead, sent on a special mission.”
“Don’t trust ’em, General. We who came from the States know what you mean by liberty—freedom to swallow Whigery and persecution if you refuse. The Old Countrymen are stiff as hickory against you, and the French—why, at heart, they are against both.”
“It is false, sir. I have filled up my regiments since I came to this frontier with French.”
“It wa’nt for love of you; it was for your $40 bounty.”
The General rose and throwing open the shutter, closed to exclude the sunshine, revealed the army in review; masses of infantry moving with passable precision, a long train of artillery, and a dashing corps of cavalry. Proudly turning to the farmer he said,
“What can stop the sweep of such an army? England may well halt in her guilty career at the sight of these embattled sons of liberty and loosen her bloody clutch upon this continent of the New World.”
Neither the sight of the army nor the pompous speech of the General appalled the stout farmer, who replied, “The red-coats will make short work of ’em, and if you don’t want to go to Halifax you’d better not cross the lines.”
General Hampton made no reply, his good-sense apparently checking his pride, by suggesting the folly of arguing with a backwoodsman, who had chanced to be taken prisoner in a foray. Summoning an orderly, he commanded that Manning be taken back to prison and not released until the army moved.
“And now, Lieutenant Morton, for so I understand you are named, you are the latest arrival from Canada; and what did they say of the Army of the North when you left?”