"How strange and unaccountable are the feelings induced by war! Here were men of two nations, but of a common origin, speaking the same language, of the same creed, intent on mutual destruction, rejoicing with fiendish pleasure at their address in perpetrating murder by wholesale, shouting for joy as disasters propagated by the chance of war hurled death and agonizing wounds into the ranks of their opponents! And yet the very same men, when chance gave them the opportunity, would readily exchange, in their own peculiar way, all the amenities of social life, extending to one another a draw of the pipe, a quid or glass; obtaining and exchanging information from one and the other of their respective services, as to pay, rations, etc., the victors with delicacy abstaining from any mention of the victorious day. Though the vanquished would allude to their disaster, the victors never named their triumphs.
"Such is the character of acts and words between British and American soldiers, which I have witnessed, as officer commanding a guard over American prisoners.
"JAMES DRISCOLL,
"Of the 100th Regiment."
APPENDIX NO. 3.
[Lieutenant-Colonel Bishopp was a son of Sir Cecil Bishopp, Bart., afterwards Lord de la Zouche. He was an accomplished gentleman. He had served in the Guards. Had represented Newport, in the Isle of Wight, in Parliament. Had been attached to a Russian embassy. Had served with distinction in Flanders, in Spain, in Portugal and died full of hope and promise in Canada, gallantly "doing his duty," and not without avail, for his example still lives.]
"At two a.m. on the morning of the 11th July, 1813, accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Clark, and Lieutenant James Cummings (both of the Lincoln Militia), backed by about 240 men—200 being regulars, and forty of the 2nd and 3rd Lincoln Militia, Bishopp swooped down upon Black Rock, the American naval depot on the River Niagara.
"The assault was a success; the work of destruction of the naval stores, chiefly by sinking them in the river, was complete. But Porter's force was aroused, and a speedy retreat on the part of Bishopp necessary. The men re-embarked unmolested, and Bishopp was the last to retire. Scarcely had they left the bank when the Indians who had crawled to the top commenced to fire. Part of Bishopp's men were landed and drove the enemy back into the woods.... Bishopp was everywhere commanding, directing, getting his men off. In the confusion of the moment some of the oars of his own boat were lost, and she drifted helplessly down stream exposed to an ever-increasing fire. Here Bishopp received his death-wound. He was borne back to his quarters, where, in a few days he expired at the early age of twenty-seven. 'Never was any officer, save always the lamented Brock, regretted more than he was.' His remains lie beneath a modest monument erected to his memory by the pious care of his sisters, the Baroness de la Zouche and Mrs. Pechall, in the churchyard at Lundy's Lane."—Coffin's Chronicles.
A tablet to his memory is also to be seen at the family burial-place, Parham, Sussex, England, with the following epitaph:—
| "His pillow—not of sturdy oak; His shroud—a simple soldier's cloak; His dirge will sound till Time's no more— Niagara's loud and solemn roar. There Cecil lies—say where the grave More worthy of a Briton brave?" |