Brock Centenary, 1812-1912

by Unknown

We are assembled here to-day to commemorate the Centennial Anniversary of the death of Sir Isaac Brock, to give evidence that we Canadians hold in grateful remembrance the inestimable services which he rendered to our country, and to record it as our firm and solemn conviction that it is to that illustrious man of glorious memory we owe the preservation of this country, our connection with the Motherland and those British institutions which it is our happiness now to enjoy.

It was indeed a privilege for any man to have served under Sir Isaac Brock, to have been in any way associated with him, and more especially to have been placed in a position whereby he was enabled to second his indomitable efforts. It was the good fortune of Attorney-General Macdonell to have been associated with him in a threefold capacity. First he was connected with him by the most intimate ties of private friendship, for there existed between them the most perfect confidence and a mutual regard, amounting, as is frequently the case with men of generous impulse, to personal affection. Then as Attorney-General of the Province and chief law adviser of the Crown, he was the trusted legal adviser of General Brock in his capacity of President of the Council of the Province, and although but a young man he was equal to the exigencies of that critical period.

Upon the declaration of war, the House of Assembly was hastily convened in extra session on the 27th July, when General Brock, in the Speech from the Throne, made use of those ever-memorable words: "We are engaged in an awful and eventful contest. By unanimity and despatch in our councils and by vigour in our operations we will teach the enemy this lesson: that a country defended by free men, enthusiastically devoted to the cause of their King and Constitution, can never be conquered." But the House proved recalcitrant, and refused to comply with Brock's request to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. It was the Attorney-General who solved the difficulty by giving it as his legal opinion that Major-General Brock, as Administrator of the Province, under the authority of his Commission from the King, had the power to dissolve the House and proclaim martial law, and that under the circumstances it was his duty to do so. This opinion was concurred in by his colleagues in the Government, and, accordingly, the Government as such tendered it as their unanimous advice to the Administrator, who immediately acted upon it, and thereby saved the country.

As a consequence of this drastic measure, the three leaders of the Opposition in the Legislature—Joseph Willcocks, Benjamin Mallory and Abraham Markle—who had been chiefly instrumental up to this time in thwarting all Brock's efforts, immediately fled to the United States, with which they had long been in traitorous intercourse, and where all their sympathies lay, Willcocks being eventually killed at the battle of Fort Erie, in 1814, in command of an American regiment, and Mallory serving throughout the war as a major in the same corps.

This measure enabled Brock also to deal summarily with their disloyal partisans and followers, much more numerous and infinitely more dangerous than is now generally supposed. He immediately issued a proclamation ordering all persons suspected of conniving with the enemy to be apprehended, and treated according to law. Those who had not taken the oath of allegiance were ordered to do so or leave the Province; many were sent out of the country; large numbers left of their own accord; those who refused to take the oath or to take up arms to defend the country, and remained in the Province after a given date, were declared to be enemies and spies, and were treated accordingly; a large number of this disloyal element were arrested and imprisoned early in the war, as on the day of the Battle of Queenston Heights the jail and Court House at Niagara as well as the blockhouse at Fort George were filled with political prisoners, over three hundred aliens and traitors being in custody, some of whom were tried and sentenced to death, while others were sent to Quebec for imprisonment.

This pressing and important business having been accomplished, General Brock entered actively upon his campaign, and determined upon offensive measures by an assault upon Detroit. Colonel Macdonell accompanied him as his military secretary and aide-de-camp. When the American, General Hull, in command of a greatly superior force and in possession of a strongly fortified position, on the 16th August proposed a cessation of hostilities with a view to his surrender, it was Colonel Macdonell whom General Brock entrusted with the delicate and important task of preparing the terms of capitulation. He returned within an hour with the conditions, which were immediately confirmed by General Brock, whereby Fort Detroit with 59,700 square miles of American territory—the whole State of Michigan—was surrendered. 2,500 officers and men became prisoners of war, and 2,500 stand of arms, thirty-three pieces of cannon, the Adams brig-of-war, and stores and munitions of war to the value of £40,000, all so sorely needed by the Canadian militia, were handed over to the British Commander.

General Brock in his despatch to the Home Government announcing the capture of Detroit, and which was published in a Gazette Extraordinary in London on the 6th October, with characteristic generosity bore testimony to the services of his friend in the following terms: "In the attainment of this important point gentlemen of the first character and influence showed an example highly creditable to them, and I cannot on this occasion avoid mentioning the essential assistance I derived from John Macdonell, Esquire, His Majesty's Attorney-General, who from the beginning of the war has honoured me with his services as my Provincial Aide-de-Camp."

Brock's biographer and nephew, Mr. Ferdinand Brock Tupper, graphically tells the end of them both, almost upon the spot upon which we now stand. After mention of the hasty gallop from Fort George, at dawn on the 13th October, when it was found that the Americans had during the night passed over the Niagara River and succeeded in gaining the crest of the heights in rear of the battery, and Brock's desperate effort to dislodge them, he goes on to say: "The Americans now opened a heavy fire of musketry, and, conspicuous from his dress, his height, and the enthusiasm with which he animated his little band, the British commander was soon singled out, and he fell about an hour after his arrival, the fatal bullet entering his right breast and passing through his left side. He lived only long enough to request that his fall might not be noticed, or prevent the advance of his brave troops. The lifeless body was immediately conveyed into a house at Queenston, where it remained until the afternoon, unperceived of the enemy. His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonell, Attorney-General of Upper Canada—a fine, promising young man—was mortally wounded soon after his chief, and died the next day, at the early age of twenty-seven years. Although one bullet had passed through his body, and he was wounded in four places, yet he survived twenty hours, and during a period of excruciating agony his thoughts and words were constantly occupied in lamentations for his deceased commander and friend. He fell while gallantly charging, with the hereditary courage of his race, up the hill with 190 men, chiefly of the York Volunteers, by which charge the enemy was compelled to spike the eighteen-pounders in the battery there; and his memory will be cherished as long as courage and devotion are reverenced in the Province."

General Sheaffe, who succeeded General Brock upon the death of the latter, in his despatch announcing the victory which eventually crowned our arms, thus couples their names: " . . . . No officer was killed besides Major-General Brock, one of the most gallant and zealous officers in His Majesty's service, whose loss cannot be too much deplored, and Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonell, Provincial Aide-de-Camp, whose gallantry and merit rendered him worthy of his chief."

The Prince Regent thus acknowledged the communication through the Governor-General, by whom it had been forwarded: "His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, is fully aware of the severe loss which His Majesty's service has experienced in the death of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock. This would have been sufficient to have clouded a victory of much greater importance. His Majesty has lost in him not only an able and meritorious officer, but one who, in the exercise of his functions of Provisional Lieutenant-Governor of the Province, displayed qualities admirably adapted to awe the disloyal, to reconcile the wavering, and to animate the great mass of the inhabitants against successive attempts of the enemy to invade the Province, in the last of which he unhappily fell, too prodigal of that life of which his eminent services had taught us to understand the value. His Royal Highness has also been pleased to express his regret at the loss which the Province must experience in the death of the Attorney-General, Mr. Macdonell, whose zealous co-operation with Sir Isaac Brock will reflect lasting honour on his memory." In communicating the above to the father of the Attorney-General, Lieutenant-Colonel Coffin, P.A.D.C., under date York, March 20th, 1813, stated by command of His Honour the President that "it would doubtless afford some satisfaction to all the members of the family to which the late Attorney-General was so great an ornament to learn that his merit has been recognized even by the Royal Personage who wields the sceptre of the British Empire, and on which His Honour commands me to declare his personal gratification."