Mr. James, an artillery officer of Ogdensburg, had met with the loss of a brass six-pounder, pressed into the patriot service during the excitement of the battle of the Windmill. At the end of that affair, so disastrous to the sympathisers, Bill Johnston suddenly disappeared from the streets of Ogdensburg. Not long after this Mr. James’ wife was doing her marketing as usual, being one of the few ladies who were not intimidated by the scare at the waterfront. While chatting with friends whom she met in the course of her morning’s walk, one said, “If you knew where your husband is you would not be so full of laughter.” Word had been brought into town that Bill Johnston was in hiding in the woods near by, and two parties, hurriedly got together, had gone off in search. One party was composed of Charles T. Burwell and James, on horseback, the other of United States soldiers who were to meet the first at a given rendezvous. On arriving at the place the two horsemen found young Johnston sitting by the shore waiting for his father. After some resistance young Johnston was taken, his boat seized and the oars hidden. The capture of the father was not so easy. When he caught sight of the three he rushed to where he expected to find the boat, warning the townsmen to keep off. Had he thought of it in time it would have been like him to exclaim, “A boat! a boat! my kingdom for a boat!” He had a pistol in each hand, but demurred to use them, as his pursuers were “fellow-Americans.” After considerable parley, when he realized that the second party, momentarily expected by boat, would put him beyond hope, he surrendered. But he stipulated that his son should receive his arms, he himself to retain only four small pistols and his bowie knife; he then quietly fell in with James and Burwell for the return to Ogdensburg. A very short walk brought them to the other party just arrived, United States soldiers, a sheriff and deputy marshall, to whom Bill Johnston was delivered. In spite of the large sums offered as reward for his capture, the testimony is that James’ share no more than reimbursed the latter for the loss of the brass six-pounder, for the safe custody of which he had been responsible. They placed Johnston on a steamboat in government employ under Colonel Worth, and so he disappears.
It was an epoch in the history of the peninsula of Essex and Kent when Mr. Prince arrived in Canada. Formerly these counties, “together with as much of this province as is not included within any other district,” extended northward to the boundary line of Hudson Bay. Neighbourhoods were not then congested. Prince was the first man of fortune who came to the district, which he did in ’33, accompanied by wife, family and servants. A man of fine presence and most genial manners, an eloquent speaker, a sportsman and lover of agriculture, he took to farming like the average Englishman, full of good intentions and enthusiasm. He imported thoroughbred stock and kept the finest of dogs. Although much opposed to the stringent game laws of England he introduced a bill for the preservation of game; it passed, but came back amended, one of the additions being that at no time should any animal be killed on the Lord’s Day. Later, alluding to the discussions induced by his summary proceedings with rebels and the hot debates on the battle of Windsor, he never doubted but that the shooting of such rancorous animals as wolves and Yankee pirates on the Lord’s Day could be justified; whereat there was laughter. For Sabbath-keeping in those exciting times was more after the manner of Gwirzi, whose allowance was a male and female daily, but who on Saturday night killed two of each so that he might not profane the Sabbath.
Prince had the true patriarchal spirit; was born to be a leader of men, if withal, like Bottom, he could say, “My chief humour is for a tyrant.” It was a time when a tyrant or two did not come amiss on the Canadian border, however unworthily at the metropolis th’ oppressor ruled tyrannic when he durst. Prince came not long after the time when the Western District gave sentence for manslaughter, “to be burned in the hand and accordingly put in execution before the court.” If this was justice in times of peace there was not much room for the animadversions with which he was covered—but not overwhelmed—when, the Constitution suspended, revolutionary crimes could scarce be put down save by revolutionary methods. “MacNab and Drew, Arthur, Prince, Hagerman and Robinson, are still alive,” said the press; each one of them agreed with Blackstone that obedience is an empty word if every man may decide how far he shall obey. There is no doubt that the Sandwich-Windsor locality was in ’37-38 a seething caldron of unrest, distrust and dissatisfaction; but above it all rides this overpowering personality: “For the brave Prince still lives, and so do his men,
Who triumphed before and can do it again.”
“(Toast) ‘That brave, intrepid officer whose promptitude of action turned the revelry of Yankee pirates in the western frontier into a post mortem examination. May the sad lesson prove a caution to the followers of Blue Beard.’ (Tune—‘The Brave Old English Gentleman’).”
“Of politics,” said he himself in one of the hundreds of speeches which did much towards making his fame, “of politics I shall say but little here. Mine have been before you and the people of Upper Canada for the last five sessions. I am in the true sense of the word a Constitutional Reformer.” How far Brougham and others of his old country critics agreed with him shall be seen hereafter. His record in the Canadian House shows that he was never amenable to party discipline himself, was classed as “doubtful” by both parties, had hot fits of Liberalism and Conservatism by turns; like a stiff old Englishman, said he was prepared, as the barons at Runnymede, to maintain his rights at all risks; with John Henry Boulton came out as Independent, was a veritable Thorough in his opposition to the Rebellion Losses Bill, and capped the climax of his many-sided character by printing a petition signed by “many respectable Canadians” to move an address to Her Majesty praying that Canada might be relieved from her “dependent state and allowed to become an independent sovereignty.” By the time the last transpired it behooved Robert Baldwin to stigmatize the petition borne by the hero of ’37 as “quasi treasonable.”
In the neighbourhood of his home, the Park Farm, lay, for some thirty or forty miles, the French village form of settlement—the decent church, the pious priest, the civil habitant; the French windmill, where habitant and U. E. Loyalist took their grist in amity, still stood; the river road had on its fringed border the pear trees of the Jesuit fathers, standing like sentinels, to remind of Hennepin and La Salle, and to keep alive the first explorer’s saying, “Those who in the future will have the good fortune to own this lovely and fruitful strait will feel very thankful to those who have shown them the way.”
Every one knows how a carpenter, with foot each side of a log, brings his adze down, first on one side with an emphatic “Hah!” then on the other, with a second emphasis, each stroke on alternate sides getting the same syllabic ejaculation. In Lower Canada, tight in a box, most precious of relics, some of the habitants—it is said—had this most emphemeral of saintly leavings. Whether the habitant of the Detroit and St. Clair brought with him from the St. Lawrence the Hah of St. Joseph we do not know; but he did bring with him most of the attributes which make him the pleasant, interesting fellow he is, on each river; good Catholic, good friend; true to his title, for he came “habiter le pays,” no transient dweller he. Nor does the spirit of “noblesse oblige” ever die. Long after ’37 a court dignitary found himself in a remote St. Clair neighbourhood where tavern accommodation was not; his host for the night was advised of the arrival, and the dignitary drew up at the door of an unpretending house whose owner was apparently a small farmer of simple habit. The hall-door, opened wide in welcome, disclosed an old man in antique jacket, small clothes and buckles, whose fine white hair, lying on his collar, was stirred by the night breeze. The dark hall-way made a fading background for the old man and his ancient silver candlesticks, as, with a light in either hand, he bowed profoundly, walking backwards as his guest entered. The latter remonstrated at the attention so shown him, but the courteously spoken answer, in refined French, was, “Sir, I but follow the custom of my fathers.”
Can the people in any part of Canada object to those who remind them that this country has a history. Mr. Prince was one of those who thanked Providence the land was large enough for both. Almost without exception the St. Clair French were Loyalist, and as sign of their good faith were upholders of him. “What will the Government think of us,” says Baptiste, in a skit issued during an election contest, when Prince, an English Protestant, was opposed by a Canadian Catholic, “when it will be known in Toronto that we preferred any to Prince!!! We shall all be looked upon as asses, who have selected one of their own species in preference to any other.” When he voted for Cuvillier as Speaker of the House, Prince trusted the members of Lower Canada to hold out the hand of friendship; and in perusing the records of many years’ proceedings one finds continually that he seconds or is seconded by the French members. He had a firm hold on the affections of the people, the pleasant voice, smooth accent and manly, handsome presence of more weight as an opponent than any uniqueness in principle; his speeches owed as much to their melody as to their matter.
He was a law unto himself when he came to be a constitutional Reformer in military tactics—not unlike a Lower Canadian legal contemporary who, told by the presiding judge to refer to Pigéon, returned, “I do not need to refer to Pigéon, Perrault” (himself) “is worth Pigéon any day.” Perhaps, to take even higher comparisons, Prince had a touch of Durham, and more than a touch of Colborne, in him.
In the little town of Sandwich, since fitly named by a local Rip Van Winkle the “City of the Dead,” an oldest inhabitant will point out an unpretentious flat stone raised from the ground by a few bricks. Underneath it lie the mangled remains of the man over whose death and the avenging of it a stir only second to the Caroline was made.