The chronicler has it that Brockville’s corps began with twenty-three inoffensive and respectable men of small merchandise, who essayed to hearten themselves and terrify the French by adopting the name Invincibles. This amused Kingston, and a corps was accordingly turned out from there, called the Unconquerables, in order not to be behind “the paltry little village down the river,” and in a bogus notice from one “Captain Focus, commanding,” there was an N.B.: “No Unconquerable permitted to attend muster without his shoes well blacked and his breeches well mended.”
One colonel issued instructions that above all things solid form must be preserved,—should a man fall, close and cover the vacancy. An Irishman with a bass voice and sepulchral delivery gravely asked, “And would your honour have us step on a did man?”
The word “halt” had little power to make some militia corps stationary; it rather accelerated their speed. “Halt—halt—halt!” cried a perspiring officer as he chased his men, and as near explosion point as his own gun; “if you don’t halt I’ll walk you five miles!” The threat prevailed, and they halted. But they were peremptory enough when individually they had to give the same order. Both sides, loyalist and patriot, saw an enemy in every bush and were always ready for a spy. Excitement was running high in a Yonge Street village one day, when a lad, young Jakeway, hearing an unusual noise in the street, walked out to see what it was. One of a number of armed men before the village inn called to him to halt, taking him for a spy. But the lad turned away and did not hear. The man, upon no further provocation, raised his gun to shoot, but another, less ardent, knocked the weapon up and contented himself with Jakeway’s arrest. The leader recognized him as an inoffensive onlooker, and dismissed him with an apology. No one was to pass certain outposts out of Kingston without passport, the parole and countersign. The Montreal mail with four horses dashed to the bridge at Kingston Mills as the militia sentry’s halt rang out. But the coachman, as fit as himself, paid no heed; so the sentry’s bayonet pierced the breast of one of the leaders. Complaint was made to the Postmaster-General, but the sentry was promoted and Government would afford no redress. It knew a good man. That same night brought commanding officer and men, clothed and armed, to parade. By lantern light they were made load and told “the time was come.” On the principle of first fire, then enquire, a man in the front rank—of course an Irishman—discharged his musket in his officer’s face. “Be jabers,” said he, when asked for explanation and congratulated on the harmlessness of his aim, “Colonel, I wuz that full of fight I cuddn’t help it.”
But at the grand inspection in and about Kingston, which took place chiefly before St. George’s church, with the same hearty bluff Englishman, Colonel Bonnycastle, in command, the troops, six hundred and fifty in number, newly clothed and equipped, made a handsome showing, and considering their rawness performed their evolutions creditably and without damage to themselves or him.
“Are these British soldiers?” asked an onlooker who was shrewdly guessed to be a military spy from the other side.
“Oh, no, not at all, only the Frontenac militia.”
“Then if they are militia,” returned the American, “all I can say is they must be regular militia.”
Old Peninsula officers, remnants of Brock’s army, veterans from everywhere British, helped from Quebec to Sarnia to leaven this mass of raw colonial fighting material, and they developed it into something very ugly to tackle.
But even veterans want substantial recompense for service, and in ’37 Sir Francis received a strong appeal from one of them: “May it please your Honor and Glory, for iver more,
Amen.