The force, drawn up “in order of battle” on the street and esplanade by the Archdeacon’s house, only numbered some eleven hundred men, and those whom they were about to attack were considerably less. But the interests at stake, the results involved, their historical significance, remove from the affair that ludicrous view attached to it by unthinking persons as a kind of mimic battle, in keeping with “the mimic king,” the Governor, and “the mimic Privy Council,” the Executive.
About eleven o’clock, his Excellency, surrounded by his staff, galloped up, and was received with three hearty British cheers. Immovable in his saddle, he looked with pride, not unmixed with relief, at the picture before him, wondering why, now they were so well got together, they did not proceed, when an officer galloped up and said it was the wish of the militia that the Governor himself should give the word of command. He did so, and in the bright summer-like sunshine, not a cloud in the blue sky above them, the two bands playing, arms and accoutrements flashing unpleasant signals to those awaiting them on Gallows Hills, people in windows and on housetops cheering them and waving small flags and those not in sympathy remaining discreetly silent, they went off at his bidding.
“This,” says Colonel FitzGibbon, “was the only command he (Sir Francis) gave till the action was over.”
By now the name rebel was almost as odious as some others, very high in dignity, had recently been. There is not a doubt that much of the cheering came from that ignorance of the point at issue which made Solicitor-General Blake in after years say, “I confess I have no sympathy with the would-be loyalty ... which, while it at all times affects peculiar zeal for the prerogative of the Crown, is ever ready to sacrifice the liberty of the subject. That is not British loyalty. It is the spurious loyalty which at all periods of the world’s history has lashed humanity into rebellion.”
The curious, and those who were anxious to see the result of the fight as the turning point to decide which side of their coat of two colours should be displayed, followed, like the tail of a comet, the vanishing point of splendour. One militia colonel came prepared to contribute two fat oxen to the rebel cause; they made equally good beef for the loyalists. Another colonel presented the patriots with a sword, pistol and ammunition—a much worse kind of soldier than the man who wears a uniform and will not fight. There were the actively loyal, the actively rebellious, and the connecting link of such as were passively either or both.
All went merry as a marriage bell, and indeed the chronicle says one might fancy they were all bound for a wedding. To what Sir Francis calls “this universal grin” was added the solemn face of many a minister of religion, headed by the Archdeacon himself, a man as well fitted by nature to wear the sword as the mitre.
“Our men are with thee,” said the Reverend Egerton Ryerson; “the prayers of our women attend thee.” The clergymen withdrew at the first exchange of shots. “They would willingly have continued their course, but with becoming dignity they deemed it their duty to refrain.”
This was all very real, very serious to us. Yet a Scottish paper said that Canada was still more wonderful than the Roman state; that the latter was saved by the cackling of a flock of geese, the former by the cackling of one. Who that one was it were unkind to say. The anger of the Scotch editor is divided between Head, MacNab and FitzGibbon. “Men eaten up of vanity are they all,” he finishes.
At the rebel camp the morning had been frittered away like the preceding day—desertions, hopes of reinforcements disappointed, Mackenzie’s plans called stark madness by Van Egmond, Van Egmond threatened to be shot by Mackenzie, the Tories reported by friends from town as ensconced behind feather beds from behind which they would fire and make terrible slaughter if the Reformers once got into the streets, new officers appointed—one of whom was to leave his post the moment he caught sight of the enemy—false alarms brought in by scouts, until at last Silas Fletcher rushed up to say that the cry of “wolf” had ceased, and the wolf had arrived.
“Seize your arms, men! The enemy’s coming, and no mistake! No false alarm this time!” Van Egmond and Mackenzie mounted their chargers, and soon saw what seemed an overwhelming force passing the brow of Gallows Hill. The strains of “Rule Britannia” and “The British Grenadiers” came wafted in unpleasant bursts of melody.