In loving communion the brother and sister sat, as Zenas told how he could not bear the struggle between his conscience and his stubborn will any longer. So, after doing his "chores" at the barn, he went on, he had climbed into the hay-loft, resolved not to leave it till the conflict was over and he had the consciousness of his acceptance with God and of the forgiveness of his sins. "I envied the very horses in the stalls," he said, in describing his emotions; "they were fulfilling their destiny; they had no burden of sin; while I was tortured with a damning sense of guilt. I flung myself on the straw," he went on; "and groaned in the bitterness of my spirit, 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death.' At that moment," he exclaimed, "I seemed to hear spoken in my ears, the exultant answer from the apostle: 'I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' I sprang up, and before I knew began to sing—
"''Tis done, the great transaction's done!
I am my God's and He is mine.'"
Kate took up the refrain, and brother and sister sang together the joyous song,—
"O happy day! O happy day!
When Jesus washed my sins away!"
We must turn now to the more stormy public events of the time. Preparations for the campaign of 1814 were made on both sides with unabated energy. The legislature of Lower Canada increased the issue of army bills to the amount of L1,500,000, and that of the upper province voted a liberal appropriation for military expenditure, and increased the efficiency of the militia system. Stores of every kind, and in vast quantities, were forwarded from Quebec and Montreal by brigades of sleighs to Kingston as a centre of distribution for western Canada. A deputation of Indian chiefs from the West was received at the castle of St. Louis, and sent home laden with presents and confirmed in their allegiance to the British.
Early in the year, the Emperor of Russia offered to mediate between the belligerents in the interests of peace. Great Britain declined his interference, but proposed direct negotiations with the United States. The commissioners appointed, however, did not meet till August, and, meanwhile, the war became more deadly and mutually destructive than ever.
The campaign opened in Lower Canada. General Wilkinson, who had removed his headquarters from Salmon River to Plattsburg, advanced with five thousand men from the latter place, crossed the Canadian frontier at Odelltown, and pushed on to Lacolle, about ten miles from the border. Here a large two-storey stone mill, with eighteen-inch walls, barricaded and loop-holed for musketry, was held by the British who numbered, in regulars and militia, about five hundred men, under the command of Major Handcock. Shortly after midday, on the 13th of March, General Wilkinson, with his entire force, surrounded the mill, being partially covered by neighbouring woods, with the design of taking it by assault. As they advanced with a cheer to the attack, they were met by such a hot and steady fire that they were obliged to fall back to the shelter of the woods. The guns were now brought up (an eighteen, a twelve, and a six-pounder), for the purpose of battering, at short range, a breach in the walls of the mill. Their fire, however, was singularly ineffective. The British sharpshooters picked off the gunners, so that it was exceedingly difficult to get the range or to fire the pieces. In a cannonade of two hours and a half, only four shots struck the mill. Major Handcock, however, determined to attempt the capture of the guns, and a detachment of regulars, supported by a company of voltigeurs and fencibles, was ordered to charge. In the face of desperate odds they twice advanced to the attack on the guns, but were repulsed by sheer weight of opposing numbers. The day wore on. The ammunition of the beleaguered garrison was almost exhausted. Yet no man spoke of surrender. For five hours this gallant band of five hundred men withstood an army of tenfold numbers. At length, incapable of forcing the British position, the enemy fell back, baffled and defeated, to Plattsburg, and for a time the tide of war ebbed away from the frontier of Lower Canada.
With the opening of navigation hostilities were resumed on Lake
Ontario. During the winter, two new vessels had been built at
Kingston.
Strengthened by the addition of these, the British fleet, under the command of Sir James Yeo, early in May, sailed for Oswego in order to destroy a large quantity of naval stores there collected. A military force of a thousand men, under General Drummond, accompanied the expedition. An assaulting party of three hundred and forty soldiers and sailors, in the face of a heavy fire of grape, stormed the strong and well-defended fort. In half an hour it was in their hands. The fort and barracks were destroyed, and some shipping, and an immense amount of stores were taken.
Sir James Yeo, now blockaded Chauncey's fleet in Sackett's Harbour. On the morning of the last day of May a flotilla of sixteen barges, laden with naval stores, was discovered seeking refuge amid the windings of Sandy Creek. A boat-party from the fleet, attempting pursuit, became entangled in the narrow creek, and was attacked by a strong force of the enemy, including two hundred Indians. After a desperate resistance, in which eighteen were killed and fifty wounded, the British force was overpowered, and a hundred and forty made prisoners. These were with difficulty saved from massacre by the enraged Iroquois, by the vigorous interposition of their generous captors.