The bells were distinctly heard at Gallows Hill. An occasional shot, fired at random yet startling, pierced these impromptu chimes. The rumours of the streets condensed at rallying points, where people told of the rattle of Powell’s horse’s hoofs as he made his mad gallop from Mackenzie to Head; of how hundreds, soon thousands, were at Gallows Hill, ready to descend upon them; of how the city was defenceless, and would the speaker and his friend enrol for its defence or not; how the generally staid persons of the Chief-Justice and Judges Macaulay and McLean, unusually excited, were seen with muskets on their shoulders; how the third judge, Jonas Jones, was losing not a moment to get some thirty volunteers to remain on guard at the toll gate on Yonge Street for the night; how such young fellows as Henry Sherwood, James Strachan, John Beverley Robinson, jun., were galloping about as aides, appointed in a moment and eager in their master’s service; all were on the alert, keeping vigil to a day of uproar and excitement.
At the market-house the Governor found assembled the force on which he had to depend. It was not long before he was aware that one, at least, was armed. A ball whistled through the room where he was closeted in earnest talk with Judge Jones, and stuck in the wall close beside them. Men, brimful of loyalty and agitation, were seen parading hurriedly in front of the City Hall, a musket on either shoulder, hungering for an enemy and afraid that he might come.
At sunrise Colonel FitzGibbon rode out to reconnoitre the position of the invaders, and reported that they numbered some five hundred men, a half-armed rabble without competent leader or discipline—a fit sequel to that “volume of shreds and patches,” the grievance book; a set of stragglers in an unfortified position. At eight, Sir Francis and his comrades at the City Hall, after a nap taken on the floor, rose to inspect and to be inspected, a group almost as sorry in military appearance as the one reported on by FitzGibbon. The Governor had a short double-barrelled gun in his belt and another on his shoulder; as a kind of twin or complement to him, the Chief-Justice was armed with thirty rounds of ball cartridge. Sir Francis made a brief but animated address, to which the assemblage returned three cheers. A few days before he had “requested an officer” to strengthen the fort lying west of the city; accordingly, its earthworks were surrounded by a double line of palisades, the barracks were loopholed, the magazine stockaded, and a company of Toronto militia lodged there. But as “a commander without troops,” the market-house—full of men, with its two six-pounders “completely filled with grape shot,” furnished with four thousand stand of arms, bayonets, belts and ball cartridge, brought from the depot at Kingston shortly before—was more to Sir Francis’ mind than the empty fort would have been. Besides which, he states in his own account, in the moral combat in which he was about to engage, he would have been out of his proper element in a fort. “The truth is,” he concludes, after disposing of many ill-natured remarks made about him by persons unversed in even the rudiments of war, “if Mr. Mackenzie had conducted his gang within pistol-shot of the market-house, the whole of the surprise would have belonged to him.”
The “officer” who was “requested” to strengthen the fort was no doubt Colonel Foster, Assistant Adjutant-General and Commander of the Forces for some years before the Rebellion broke out. His name unaccountably has been omitted from many of the chronicles of those times. He began his military career in the 52nd Oxfordshire Regiment of Foot, and during his colonial service he enjoyed the confidence of Lord Dalhousie and Sir John Colborne. When the latter sent his celebrated request for troops, Foster remonstrated, as it was well known to him, at any rate, that a rebellion in Upper Canada was imminent. Foster was then left in command “of the sentries, sick soldiers, and women and children remaining in the fort.” A captain in the 96th at Lundy’s Lane, he was no novice in Canadian requirements, and the letter quoted from Sir John Colborne shows how he fulfilled his duty:
“Montreal, May 18, 1838.
“My Dear Colonel Foster,—I cannot quit Canada without bidding you adieu and requesting that you will accept my sincere thanks for your constant attention in the discharge of the duties of your Department during the seven years which you passed at my military right hand in Upper Canada. I assure you that the little trouble experienced by me in my military command I attribute to your arrangements and punctuality.
“With every wish for your happiness,
“Believe me, my dear Colonel Foster,
“Sincerely yours,
“J. Colborne.”
Colley Lyons Lucas Foster is described as a fine-looking man, of commanding presence and thoroughbred manner, a true gentleman and a thorough soldier of the Wellington type. His very cordial intercourse with his beau ideal of a general was attested by many letters to him in the Great Duke’s own handwriting.
But whatever Mackenzie’s wishes were, his “gang” had no notion of getting anywhere so uncomfortably near. Yet, if there was to be a fight, what was to be done; for it was hard indeed, after such preparation, if the enemy would not come. “I will not fight them on their ground,” said the Governor; “they must fight me on mine.” He would not even allow the picket guard, withdrawn by Judge Jones at daylight, to be replaced by Colonel FitzGibbon. “Do not send out a man—we have not men enough to defend the city. Let us defend our posts; and it is my positive order that you do not leave this building yourself.” Notwithstanding which a picket of twenty-seven, under the command of Sheriff Jarvis, was placed a short distance up Yonge Street. Prior to taking position there, it was suggested that a flag of truce should be sent—some accounts say from a humane desire on the part of the Governor to prevent the shedding of blood; others say to give time in which to allow answers to be returned to the expresses which he promptly had sent to MacNab in Hamilton and Bonnycastle in Kingston. In the faulty despatch sent to Glenelg relating the episode he represents himself by that white ensign as “parentally calling upon them to avoid the effusion of human blood,” having “the greatest possible reluctance at the idea of entering upon a civil war;” while in his after justification, “The Emigrant,” he says “The sun set without our receiving succour or any intimation of its approach.” He was no believer in “the fewer men the greater share of honour.”
The Sheriff had thought to ride out with the flag, but he had many sins laid against him in the rebel repository of grievance, such as standing at the polls, riding-whip in hand, to expedite the votes he approved and discountenance others, and it was thought imprudent to allow him to take the rôle of mediator. Mr. Robert Baldwin, not long returned from a prolonged visit to Great Britain, at all times above suspicion as to loyalty, a Reformer to the core, but as far removed from rebellion as the Chief-Justice himself, together with Dr. Rolph—about whom there were diverse opinions—were the final choice. Adjured by the Sheriff, in the name of God, to go out to try “to stop the proceedings of these men who are going to attack us,” the first man who was appealed to had refused; the act would lay him open to suspicion. Rolph considered that the Constitution was virtually suspended, and that Sir Francis had no authority to send out the flag. As soon as it became known that anything so novel was on the tapis excitement in the town merged into curiosity, and all, from the smallest urchin up, crowded to see the two start forth on their mission. A question which bids fair to remain as unsolved as “The Lady or the Tiger” now had its beginning. We can fancy the doctor pondering as he rode, “Am I politic? Am I subtle? Am I a Machiavel?” Rather should he have remembered the late counsel of the Keeper of the Great Seal, that the councillors should leave simulation and dissimulation at the porter’s lodge. The dying testimony of Lount, “He gave me a wink to walk on one side,” that the message should not be heeded, the counter testimony of others that this took place at the second visit of the bearers, have furnished theme for pages, the outcome of which is to mar or make whiter the character of one of the most prominent, certainly the ablest, of the dramatis personæ in that entr’acte of the rebellion, the Flag of Truce.