[113] This column cost nearly £3,000.
[114] For the details of the re-interment, see Appendix A, Section 1, No. 10.
[115] It was a Tuscan column on a rustic pedestal, with a pedestal for a statue; the diameter of the base of the column was seventeen feet six inches, and the abacus of the capital was surrounded with an iron railing. The centre shaft, containing the spiral wooden staircase, was ten feet in diameter.
[116] We speak in the past tense, because the column, as will be seen in the sequel, was so much injured in 1840 as to require its reconstruction.
[117] Howison's Sketches of Upper Canada. London, 1821.
CHAPTER XV.
Sir Isaac Brock was succeeded in his civil and military commands in Upper Canada by Major-General Sheaffe, who was created a baronet for the dearly bought victory of Queenstown. After the battle, he paroled General Wadsworth and some of the principal American officers, the remainder proceeding to Quebec. Among the prisoners, 23 were found to be deserters from English regiments, and British born subjects; and they were sent to England for trial as traitors. This caused a retaliation upon British prisoners in the United States, and an equal number were put by the American government into close confinement as hostages for the security of the traitors.
On the 18th of October, General Smyth assumed the command at Niagara, and applied to the British general for an armistice; and notwithstanding the well-known prejudicial effect of the former one proposed by Sir George Prevost, it was agreed to by Major-General Sheaffe![118] This unaccountable proceeding, as might easily have been foreseen, proved of material detriment to the British on Lake Erie, as the Americans availed themselves of so favorable an occasion to forward their naval stores unmolested from Black Rock to Presqu'île by water, which they could not otherwise have effected, but with immense trouble and expense by land, and equipped at leisure the fleet which afterwards wrested from us the command of that lake. When the enemy was prepared for a third invasion of Upper Canada, General Smyth did not fail to give the thirty hours notice required for the cessation of the armistice, which terminated on the 20th of November.
"After the surrender of Detroit," said the inhabitants of Niagara in their spirited letter to Sir George Prevost, already quoted (page [279]), "the enemy were suffered unmolested to concentrate a large force on the Niagara, at Sackett's Harbour on Lake Ontario, and at Ogdensburg on the St. Lawrence; they were not interrupted in bringing forward to these places a large quantity of field and heavy artillery, with the requisite supplies of ammunition, and in equipping a flotilla, to dispute with us the superiority of the lakes. When their preparations were complete—when our regular and militia forces were nearly exhausted with incessant watching and fatigue, occasioned by the movements of the enemy, which kept them constantly on the alert by uncertainty as to the point of attack—they at length, on the 13th of October, attacked our line at Queenstown. The behaviour of both regulars and militia on that memorable occasion is well known to your excellency, and added another wreath to the laurels they had gained at Detroit: the glories of that day were, however, obscured by the death of our beloved and now lamented chief, whose exertions had prepared the means of achieving this great victory. This was another triumph for the militia; they had fairly measured their strength with the enemy, and derived additional confidence from the glorious result. Here was another opportunity that slipped away without being improved: Fort Niagara was abandoned by the enemy, and might have been with the greatest ease destroyed, and its guns brought away by a trifling force. It is neither necessary, nor do we feel inclined to enter into the causes why it was not done; we have, however, the strongest reason to believe that, had General Brock survived, it would have been attempted. In addition to this (as we consider it) capital error, Major Mullaney, and other natural born subjects of his majesty, actually taken in arms as commissioned officers in the service of the United States, were released and allowed to return on parole to that country; and a partial armistice was agreed to, liable to be broken off at thirty hours notice, which could be productive of no real advantage to us, nor give any repose to our harassed and suffering militia, though it enabled the enemy to recruit his strength and organize at will the means of attacking us anew. He was observed busily and actively employed, throughout a great part of the month of November, collecting boats on the Fort Erie end of the line; and when his preparations were complete, he gave notice of the termination of the armistice on the 20th."