CHAPTER V.
BROCK IN CANADA.
Isaac Brock received with regret his orders to proceed with the 49th to Canada. Europe was still in the clutches of war. Great opportunities awaited the soldier of fortune in the struggle waging in the Peninsula. The prospect for military advancement in Canada was not encouraging. America was at peace. Canada was but slowly developing. While her exports of lumber and fish attracted the attention of the British merchant, her great resources were unknown except to the fur trader and the few United States speculators whose cupidity kept pace with their knowledge. Though the known sympathy of the United States for France was regarded as a possible excuse for hostility towards England, as yet this sympathy had found no official utterance, hence the outlook from a soldier's standpoint was far from desirable. Brock's life in the West Indies had created a distaste for garrison duty. While a past master in the details of barrack life, his career under arms had created an aversion for the grind of drill and parade.
Life in the high latitudes of Canada would present a clean-cut contrast to tropical Barbadoes, but it was out of harmony with his ambition, and, judging by his spirits, he might have been embarking for penal servitude at Botany Bay rather than for the land which was to bring him lasting fame. Even the attentions of the devoted Dobson, who had just filled his pipe, did not serve to arouse him. Brock's depression was short-lived. His optimism and faith banished gloomy thoughts. The ship had hardly dropped the last headland of the Irish coast when the winds bred in Labrador awoke the Viking strain in him and filled his soul with hope. The swinging seas of this northern ocean revived thoughts of the long-ago exploits of Sebastian Cabot, the discoverer of Newfoundland, and of his own sea-dog ancestors, those rough-riders of the sea who had defied the banks of Sable Island and returned to St. Peter's Port with their rich cargoes of contraband, looking innocent as kittens, while the ship was bursting with fur, fin and feather. So, pipe in mouth, with the frigate close-hauled, watching her bows splintering the sea into a million jewels, he left care behind, and thenceforward his busy brain was forming plans that would soften his exile in that land of chilling promise he was approaching.
He had been told to expect magnificent scenery, but was quite unprepared for the picture that the Gulf of St. Lawrence unfolded. The Straits of Belle Isle, the Magdalen Islands, the brazen bosom of the Bay of Chaleur that had allured Jacques Cartier 265 years before, the might of the noble river and the glorious vista of the citadel and frowning heights of Quebec, where Wolfe and Montcalm fell—the ancient Stadacona framed in the sunset—amazed him. A presage of coming conflict crowded his brain.
"Manfully tell me the truth."