Colonel Fraser, Mr. Holditch of Port Robinson, and several others, had enjoyed their evening; they took wine together, and then went to bed, their berths in a row. Soon they heard a noise which they imagined to be a scuffle among the crew; but in a twinkling five men stood by the berths where they still lay, four armed with bayonets and muskets and the fifth with a sword. At the command to get up at once Mr. Holditch laid his hand upon Colonel Fraser’s military coat, and the ruffian with the sword, seeing the colour, called out, “He is a British officer—run him through!” A general disowning of Her Majesty’s uniform ensued, but a lively fight took place for possession of the pocket-book, which contained a large sum of money. After much kicking and knocking down most of the men were forced into a small cabin, lighted by a skylight through which muskets were pointed at them, keeping them quiet until a panel was broken out of the door and one by one they were allowed to leave. The women were all driven on deck in their night-clothes; their cries were distressing, but Captain Bullock, formerly of the St. George, and the stewardess, contrived to mitigate circumstances for them. The dramatic Sea-King was not going to allow such an opportunity for the tragic to escape him. As he knocked at the ladies’ cabin door a courageous female tried to stop his further entrance, begging time to dress. “Come with me,” said Bombastes, “come with me and I will save you—THE NATIONS ARE AT WAR.”
It was a most inclement night, and they took refuge in the shanty. There one of the brigands remarked that the occupants of the Peel had got their deserts, whereupon Captain Bullock knocked him down and dragged him out by the throat. The amount of booty was not inconsiderable, and as soon as the vessel was rifled of it she was set on fire and allowed to drift. The mate must have been a sound sleeper, as he knew none of the happenings until rescue was nearly past. His shrieks for help came after the pirates had departed and the passengers dispersed, but some of the latter managed to reach him in a skiff. They were barely in time, for he had to jump into the water so badly burned that he had to be tended by the half-dressed passengers all night.
It was supposed to be the intention to thus serve all British steamers, so that Johnston’s whaleboats should have no interference in St. Lawrence waters thereabouts in piracy and invasion. In this particular instance, one of the passengers, an Irishman, vigorously protested from the island:
“The divil saze the likes of ye, ye’re worse than the Connaught Rangers, wid yer injun naygur faces.”
“Remember the Caroline, Pat,” retorted a pirate.
“Is it Caroline Mahoney, ye mane?—sure it’s not at the likes of you she’d be after lookin’.”
They essayed to get Pat on board, telling him to “come and get his duds.” “Do ye think I’ll go aboard and see myself kilt?” he asked. They then tried to get near him, but with “Bad luck to ye, there’s two can play at that, me darlin’,” he sped into the woods. One of the party was a prisoner from Abel’s Island, and he was left to look after Scanlan, one of the crew, who had been badly wounded in the scuffle. By sunrise, while the Robert Peel still burned, the pirates were back at Abel’s Island, washed and clothed. The passengers were taken off Wells’ Island by the U. S. steamer Oneida and left at Kingston. After this the pirate boats were mounted with two and three-pounders, while Johnston and his followers played hide-and-seek with his pursuers, managing to elude two steamboats, one schooner and a number of gunboats which were doubling and cross-cutting in his wake.
When Governor Marcy, of New York, received information of this act, which Johnston himself allowed to be piracy, he went to the frontier and took active measures to guard his own border from the retaliation which he dreaded, and also to combine with the Canadians in offering a reward for Johnston’s arrest. Such banditti, like the cowboys of the Revolution, argued that it mattered not who was plundered, provided there was booty to be found. In the grandiloquent words of their own chronicle, the Sir Robert Peel was “a burnt-offering to the shades of the Caroline.” As to Canadian reprisals, there was much talk of firing upon United States vessels wherever found, an unjust opinion existing that they were at one with “Admiral” Johnston’s crafts. But better sense prevailed, and as one newspaper says, “Let their steamboats depart from our shores in peace.” Such a Nunc Dimittis, opening with an exhortation to high-mindedness, “Men of Chatham! the eyes of Europe are upon you!” was penned at Chatham, where the burning of an American vessel was insisted upon as retaliation for a local act of outrage.
The action taken by Sir George Arthur concerning the indictment of similar outlaws elsewhere after they were caught, treating them as prisoners of war, exasperated the Loyalists; they claimed it was establishing a precedent for all the Bill Johnstons and marauders, who were either rebels in their own country or filibusters from the one opposite: “This is, in fact, a bounty upon invasion, and taken in connection with Mackenzie’s reward of 300 acres of land, made it easy for a man to hedge with tolerable assurance of not coming to grief either way.” “These be indeed Liberal times.” What Bill Johnston thought of it all may be seen from his proclamation, issued immediately, after he had first openly paraded the streets of Ogdensburg with his belt stuck full of pistols, dirks and bowie knives:
“To all whom it may concern: