“I, William Johnston, a native-born citizen of Upper Canada, certify that I hold a commission in the Patriot service of Upper Canada as commander-in-chief of the naval forces and flotilla. I commanded the expedition that captured and destroyed the steamer Sir Robert Peel. The men under my command in that expedition were nearly all natural-born English subjects; the exceptions were volunteers for the expedition. My head-quarters was on an island in the St. Lawrence, without the jurisdiction of the United States, at a place named by me Fort Wallace. I am well acquainted with the boundary line, and know which of the islands do and do not belong to the United States; and in the selection of the island I wished to be positive, and not locate within the jurisdiction of the United States, and had reference to the decision of the Commissioners under the sixth article of the Treaty of Ghent, done at Utica, in the State of New York, 13th June, 1822. I know the number of the island, and by that decision it was British territory. I yet hold possession of that station, and we also occupy a station some twenty or more miles from the boundary line of the United States, in what was Her Majesty’s dominions until it was occupied by us. I act under orders. The object of my movement is the independence of Canada. I am not at war with the commerce or property of the people of the United States.
“Signed, this tenth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight.
“William Johnston.”
The result of the proclamation, which was published in the American newspapers, was a reward offered by Governor Marcy of $500 for the author’s arrest, $250 each for that of D. M’Leod and two others, and $100 each for the rest. The Canadian Government offered £1000 for the conviction of any of them.
But it is a long lane that has no turning. The defeat at Prescott once more sent the Johnstons and their followers to the same retreats of the river intricacies. An old soldier of the 79th was given the hazardous mission to search them out; but the only result was a shot or two from an unseen and vanishing enemy, and a specimen of the finest tourmalin to add to his geological cabinet. Bonnycastle put some of his staff with a band on board a small steamer, ostensibly to visit the militia garrisons of Gananoque, Brockville and Prescott, returning by night in the hope that Johnston would attack them. With excellent steering they escaped the infernal machines moored for them, but saw naught of the enemy.
Sir John Colborne, with his one notion of government, had a large body of sailors and marines forwarded from Quebec harbour, then full of men-of-war, steamboats and merchantmen drawn there by the arrival of Lord Durham. A company of the 1st Frontenac Militia went to the island of Tanti, and the border-town garrisons were strongly reinforced with picked men. But Johnston only laughed at them all, and scudded along in his mysterious boat. About eight feet of the after-part of this craft was decked, and on this he sat while he steered with an oar, a red carpet-bag for his cushion seat. In the sight of one party of pursuers from the steamboat Oswego they openly pulled for the wreck of the Sir Robert Peel; when the pursuers were within fifteen rods a white handkerchief was waved and Johnston majestically rose from his carpet-bag, drew from it the colours of the Sir Robert Peel, which he let wave in the breeze and then gravely returned to the bag. Another craft, evidently one of the fleet, darted up a bay; the dark blue boat was made fast, and in a moment the crew could be seen walking through the bushes, Indian file, each with a large pistol in his right hand. In an interview held at a few boat’s lengths with a deputation of two, who were old acquaintances of his, Johnston said there was one thing of which they might rest assured—he would never be taken alive; that he was a fair mark to shoot at, but not to dangle in the air. He might have quoted, “To die for treason is a common evil,
But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.”
He announced that at that moment he had two other boats well manned and armed within signal view; that he sat upon the colours of the Sir Robert Peel, and that he meant to continue sitting on them “till they rotted.” The interviewers could see for themselves that his boat was well stored with muskets and small arms. When told that his son’s wharf at French Creek was then patronized for wood by one of the steamers, “he seemed much affected,” replying, “I am glad to hear of it, or of anything else that can benefit my family.”
At this time Johnston appeared a robust, athletic man, absolutely fearless, about sixty years of age, a gray-headed, hardy veteran, “a good friend and a terror to his enemies.” He stated that whoever attacked him must bring his own coffin, as he himself had no leisure for cabinet-making.
A simultaneous movement was made on him by a party of British soldiers, and some of the 1st Regiment of American Infantry under Captain Gwynn of the American army. The men were conveyed in two steamboats, the Experiment and the Telegraph, and in a gunboat under Lieutenant Leary, R.N., the Bullfrog. They found two of the bandits fast asleep in the cave, but on account of the roughness of the surrounding country the attack was not well concerted, and the rest of the band, including Johnston, escaped. A quantity of arms and ammunition was found in the cave, but a thorough search by the soldiers, eighty in number and cutlasses in hand, revealed no trace of them.
At another time, General MacNab with some fifty United States soldiers, cruising about in search of this will-o’-the-wisp, found the home but its occupant gone. It proved to be a spacious cavern, into which they penetrated about thirty feet, part natural cavity, part excavated by labour, fit for dwelling-place for a large body of men, and in the several rooms which it contained there were signs of recent occupation.