With my kindest love to the Tuppers, tell them that I often see Colonel Glegg, who was Sir Isaac Brock's aide-de-camp: he is now Lord Aylmer's civil secretary, and we meet very often. He speaks affectionately of his old patron, and has made many inquiries relative to the family: the tears come into his eyes when he talks to me of old times. He and George (Lieut.-Colonel Eliot) were a great deal together during the war in the Upper Province. The other day, at dinner at the château, he told me that he had had a visit from Sir Isaac's old housekeeper, who is still living here in a similar situation to the House of Assembly, and gets £50 a year salary. He knew her directly, and seemed quite affected when telling me that she had brought her credentials with her in case he had not recognized her, as many years had elapsed since they met; and she opened a pocket book carefully, which she had in her hand, and took a piece of a shirt with the initials of General Brock's name, which she said she had cut off when the body was brought in to be buried at Fort George, and preserved it as a relic of her dear master. This little, trifling, affectionate remembrance of the old creature, shews her real attachment. Colonel Glegg gave her a new snuff box, filled with snuff from Paris, and told her to come again to see him. Perhaps the Tuppers will be pleased to hear this little anecdote.
[Mrs. Eliot, whose maiden name was Jane M'Crea, is the daughter of an American loyalist and a gallant field officer, now deceased, and the niece and namesake of the unfortunate Jane M'Crea, whose tragical fate in the American revolutionary war excited so much commiseration, and gave rise to a correspondence between the American general. Gates, and General Burgoyne. The former wrote: "Miss M'Crea, a young lady, lovely to the sight, of virtuous character and amiable disposition, engaged to an officer of your army, was, with other women and children, taken out of a house near Fort Edward, carried into the woods, and there scalped and mangled in a most shocking manner.... The miserable fate of Miss M'Crea was particularly aggravated by being dressed to receive her promised husband, but met her murderer employed by you." The latter, in his reply, stated, that "two chiefs, who had brought her off for the purpose of security, not of violence to her person, disputed which should be her guard, and in a fit of savage passion in one, from whose hands she was snatched, the unhappy woman became the victim.">[
We have in a preceding chapter described the monument, on Queenstown Heights, to the memory of Sir Isaac Brock, a monument which "the popularity of the general had caused to be regarded with more affectionate veneration than any other structure in the province." On Good Friday, the 17th of April, 1840,[141] a miscreant of the name of Lett introduced a quantity of gunpowder into this monument with the fiendish purpose of destroying it; and the explosion, effected by a train, caused so much damage as to render the column altogether irreparable. Lett, who was by birth an Irishman and by settlement a Canadian, had been compelled to fly into the United States for his share in the recent rebellion; and "well knowing the feeling of attachment to the name and memory of General Brock, as pervading all classes of Canadians, he sought to gratify his own malicious and vindictive spirit, and at the same time to wound and insult the people of Upper Canada" by this demon's deed. The universal indignation of that people was aroused, and a public meeting was appointed to be held on Queenstown Heights, on the 30th of July following, for the purpose of adopting resolutions for the erection of another monument, the gallant Sir Allan Mac Nab especially making the most stirring exertions to promote this great object. The gathering, as it was called, was observed in Toronto (late York) as a solemn holiday; the public offices were closed, and all business was suspended; while thousands flocked from every part of the province to testify their affection for the memory of one who, nearly thirty years before, had fallen in its defence! History, indeed, affords few parallels of such long cherished public attachment. "Steam vessels, engaged for the occasion, left their respective ports of Kingston and Coburg, of Hamilton and Toronto, in time to arrive at the entrance of the Niagara river about ten o'clock in the forenoon. The whole of these, ten in number, then formed in line, and ascended the river abreast, with the government steamer, containing the lieutenant-governor, Sir George Arthur, and his staff, leading the way. The British shore was lined with thousands, and the fleet of steamers filled with hundreds, each shouting and responding to the cheers of welcome from ship to shore, and from shore to ship again. The landing being effected, the march to the ground was accompanied by military guards, and a fine military band. The public meeting was then held in the open air, near the foot of the monument, and Sir George Arthur was in the chair. The resolutions were moved, and speeches made, by some of the most eminent and most eloquent men, holding high official stations in the province;[142] and considering that amidst this grand and imposing assemblage, there were a great number of veteran officers of the Canada militia, who had fought and bled with the lamented chief, whose memory they were assembled to honor, and whose monument they had come to re-establish over his remains, the enthusiasm with which the whole mass was animated may readily be conceived; while the grand and picturesque combination of natural objects of scenery, beheld from the heights on which they were met, and the brightness of the day, added greatly to the effect of the whole." The gathering[143] was attended by about 8,000 persons, and the animation of the scene was increased by a detachment of royal artillery, who fired a salute; by a detachment of the 1st dragoon guards, with their bright helmets glittering in the sun; and by the 93d regiment, (Highlanders,) in full costume.
There were altogether eleven resolutions, of which the fifth was the following:
Resolved,—That we recall to mind, with admiration and gratitude, the perilous times in which Sir Isaac Brock led the small regular force, the loyal and gallant militia, and the brave and faithful Indian warriors, to oppose the invaders—when his fortitude inspired courage, and his sagacious policy gave confidence, in despite of a hostile force, apparently overwhelming.
We cannot refrain from transferring to these pages parts of the long and eloquent speech of the chief justice, Robinson, who, on advancing to the front of the hustings to move the sixth resolution, was received with the most enthusiastic cheers.
If it were intended by those who committed this shameful outrage, that the injury should be irreparable, the scene which is now before us, on these interesting heights, shews that they little understood the feelings of veneration for the memory of BROCK which still dwell in the hearts of the people of Upper Canada. No man ever established a better claim to the affections of a country; and, in recalling the recollections of eight and twenty years, there is no difficulty in accounting for the feeling which has brought us together on this occasion. Among the many who are assembled here from all parts of this province, I know there are some who saw, as I did, with grief, the body of the lamented general borne from the field on which he fell—and many who witnessed, with me, the melancholy scene of his interment in one of the bastions of Fort George.[144] They can never, I am sure, forget the countenances of the soldiers of that gallant regiment which he had long commanded, when they saw deposited in the earth the lamented officer who had for so many years been their pride; they can never forget the feelings displayed by the loyal militia of this province, when they were consigning to the grave the noble hero who had so lately achieved a glorious triumph in the defence of their country: they looked forward to a dark and perilous future, and they felt that the earth was closing upon him in whom, more than in all other human means of defence, their confidence had been reposed. Nor can they forget the countenances, oppressed with grief, of those brave and faithful Indian warriors, who admired and loved the gallant Brock, who had bravely shared with him the dangers of that period, and who had most honorably distinguished themselves in the field, where he closed his short but brilliant career.
It has, I know, Sir, in the many years that have elapsed, been sometimes objected, that General Brock's courage was greater than his prudence—that his attack of Fort Detroit, though it succeeded, was most likely to have, failed, and was therefore injudicious—and that a similar rashness and want of cool calculation were displayed in the manner of his death.
Those who lived in Upper Canada while these events were passing, can form a truer judgment; they know that what may to some seem rashness, was, in fact, prudence; unless, indeed, the defence of Canada was to be abandoned, in the almost desperate circumstances in which General Brock was placed. He had with him but a handful of men, who had never been used to military discipline—few, indeed, that had ever seen actual service in the field; and he knew it must be some months before any considerable reinforcement could be sent to him. He felt, therefore, that if he could not impress upon the enemy this truth, that—wherever a major-general of the British army, with but a few gallant soldiers of the line, and of the brave defenders of the soil, could be assembled against them—they must retire from the land which they had invaded, his cause was hopeless. If he had begun to compare numbers, and had reserved his small force in order to make a safer effort on a future day, then would thousands upon thousands of the people of the neighbouring States have been found pouring into the western portions of this province; and when at last our mother country could send, as it was certain she would, her armies to our assistance, they would have had to expend their courage and their strength in taking one strong position after another, that had been erected by the enemy within our own territory.