On this statement, Dr. Carroll thus comments:
"Mr. Case says the Canadian prisoners 'were militia in arms,' but Mr. Lawrence was an exception. The reader will remember that he was one of the Methodist Palatine stock, and brother of John Lawrence, the second husband of Mrs. Philip Embury. In the war- time he was so advanced in years as to be exempt from militia duty, although his sons bore arms, and one of them was wounded the day his father was taken prisoner. Mr. Lawrence, senior, kept about the peaceful avocations of his farm, and continued to meet his little class in his own house in those stormy times. He was made a prisoner at his own door at Cross-Roads. [Footnote: About four miles west of Niagara.] The writer, though only a child of four years, was there, and remembers well his arrest, as he does, all events consecutively since the battle of Niagara. The Americans were then in the occupancy of Fort George, and a portion of the British army were entrenched at the Cross-Roads, about half a mile from Mr. Lawrence's residence. A general skirmish Lad taken place all that morning between the pickets and advanced guards of the two armies. A body of only ten American Indians, or white men disguised like Indians, advanced toward Mr. Lawrence's, where an officer's mess was kept and a guard of thirty soldiers posted.
"The cowardly officer of the guard, one McLeod (let his name go down to posterity), threatened to 'cut off the first man's head who fired a shot;' and they fled to the camp, leaving the women and children to the mercy of the savages. These latter, when they came up, shot a corporal of the Glengaries, a Mr. Smith, who chanced to be there, and who boldly stood on his defence. Mr. Lawrence thinking the matter some emeute between the soldiers and our own Indians, passed through the front gate into the road and gave one of the savages his hand, who took and held it, while another came up with an angry countenance and grasped the old gentleman by the neck-cloth, and made him a prisoner. He and poor Smith, whom only the courage of a woman, Mrs. Cassaily, kept the savages from killing outright in the house, whither he had crawled, were led; away from our sight. Smith died on the road. The alarm was given before any one had broken last. We all fled. The writer's mother and her four youngest children, passing the camp, found the army preparing for march, and an elder son and brother just mounting his horse with a view to coming to our rescue. We followed the retreating army through the Black Swamp road all that weary day, and broke a twenty-four hours' fast at sunset. We had the supreme felicity of extending the hospitalities of our humble house in York to Mr. Lawrence, whom we all revered and loved as a father, towards the close of the war, on his way back from captivity." [Footnote: Case and his Cotemporaries. pp. 320-22.]
We return from this digression to the group at the fire-side of the Holms.
"How did you get away?" asked Zenas.
"Tam here gied 'em French leave," replied Sandy, "He just droppit oot o' a port-hole into the water after the guard made his rounds and got awa in the mirk; I wonner he was na droonded."
"So I wuz e'en a'most. But wuss still was that villian of a sentry blazing away at me. It's lucky the night wuz so dark. But I thought I'd have to give up afore I got to land. I had to lie on the beach panting like a dying mackerel. Well, I walked all night to Cape Vincent, and at daybreak I just borrowed one of Uncle Sam's boats and paddled across to Wolfe's Island, and soon after got to Kingston."
"How much longer did you stay, Sandy?" asked the squire, who said the story reminded him of the adventures of the Yankee prisoners in the Jersey hulk during the old war.
"Weel Tam here helped me tae win oot, as I may say," replied Sandy. "He hadna eneuch of fechtin', sae he mun join thae yoemanry corps that followed Wilkinson's army doun the St Lawrence, and took part in the battle o' Windmill Point. They took a hantle o' preesoners there, and sune cam a' cartel' they ca' it, offering an exchange. We did garrison duty at Fort Henry awhile, and learned the big gun drill; it may come in useful yet."
"How got you here?" asked the squire. "you never marched from
Kingston at this time of year, surely."