NOTE 8, [page 75].
Doomed St. David's Mill.
Auchinleck says, "From the 8th of July" [Chippewa was fought on the 4th] "to the 23rd of the month, General Brown, with his enormous force, was content to remain without striking a blow, unless an occasional demonstration before Forts George and Mississaga, or the wanton conflagration of the village of St David's, be considered as such."
Of this atrocity an American officer, a Major McFarland, writes:—"The militia and Indians plundered and burnt every thing. The whole population is against us; not a foraging party but is fired on, and not infrequently returns with missing numbers. This state was to be anticipated The militia have burnt several private dwelling-houses, and, on the 19th instant, burnt the village of St. David's, consisting of about thirty or forty houses. This was done within three miles of camp, and my battalion was sent to cover the retreat, as they [the militia] had been sent to scour the country, and it [!-- Begin Page 195 --] was presumed they might be pursued. My God, what a service! I never witnessed such a scene, and had not the commanding officer of the party, Lieutenant-Colonel Stone, been disgraced" [he was dismissed the service by sentence of a court-martial for this deed] "and sent out of the army, I should have resigned my commission."
This disgust was not caused by any half-heartedness in the war on the part of Major McFarland, for he says in the same letter that "he desires no better fun than to fight the British troops."
NOTE 9, [page 80].
Oh, chief, indeed no spy am I.
So impossible did it appear to the Indian that a woman should be found traversing alone so strongly invested a section of the country, that it was with the greatest difficulty Mrs. Secord persuaded him of the truth of her story.
NOTE 10, [page 82].
| Nay, five and forty, one by one, Have borne her from the day. |