“Nor is His Royal Highness insensible to the merits of the inhabitants of Upper Canada, or to the great assistance which the Militia of the Province afforded during the whole of the war. His Royal Highness trusts that you will express to them in adequate terms, the high sense which he entertains of their services, as having mainly contributed to the immediate preservation of the Province, and its future security.” N. Coffin, Adjutant General of Militia.
In 1815 the Legislature granted £6,000, stg. £5,883 6s. 8d. to be applied as follows:—To the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates of the incorporated militia, six months’ pay, £4,594 15s. 2d. To the officers and non-commissioned officers of the line attached to the incorporated militia, the well pay of their respective ranks in the said corps, £1,000. To the officers and non-commissioned officers, and privates of the incorporated militia artillery, six months’ pay, £288 11s. 6d. To the speaker of the House of Assembly, to purchase a sword to be presented to Colonel Robinson, late of the incorporated militia, 100 guineas.
CHAPTER LXIV.
Contents—The Six Nations in 1812—American Animus—“Manifest Destiny”—Mohawk Indians—A right to defend their homes—Inconsistency—American Savages—Extract from Playter—Brock’s proclamation—Indian character, conduct, eloquence—Deserters in 1812—Few of them—Court-martials—The attempts at conquest by the Americans—The numbers—Result of war—Canadians saved the country—And can do so—Fraternal kindness.
THE SIX NATIONS AS CANADIANS IN 1812.
Maintaining their wonted hostile attitude to the Mohawks, and continuing to charge, upon the British and Canadian Governments, an uncivilized procedure, the Americans have attempted to create a belief that we waged not a warfare according to civilized ideas. Civilization consists, in the minds of Americans, in just those views, theories, beliefs, and proceedings, which belong to the Great United States, and nothing can emanate from their government that is not in strict accordance with civilization,—their civilization. It so happens that one of their beliefs is that destiny manifestly intends that they shall possess all of North America. In 1812, a pretext was formed under the question of the right to search American vessels for deserters from British service, to declare war against England. This was regarded by Madison and the Government at Washington, a fitting opportunity to make the already cherished attempt to obtain the British Provinces. It was not in accordance with their ideas of liberty and civilization, to give the slightest heed to the wishes of the loyalists whom they had, years before, forced away, and who had already done much to convert the wilderness into a noble Province; the British subjects who had emigrated to America, and preferred the yet infant colony of Canada, to the more advanced, but distasteful, United States. And still more, the Mohawk Indians, whom they had so cruelly treated, who had found homes under a benign and fatherly government, were not only disregarded, but their very right to defend their homes was denied by the very civilized government which longed to get Canada. And hence we find attempts made to cast obloquy, upon the Canadians, in connection with the war of 1812. The people who strove, but vainly, to enlist the Mohawks in their service in 1776, with wonderful inconsistency, in 1812, issue proclamations that no quarter will be given to Indians, nor the Canadians who were found fighting side by side. Yet, in the same war they had all the Indians they could get to assist in their invasion of a peaceful Province, who actually assisted in the hellish work of plunder in the Niagara region. The Senecas took sides with them. The Indians who had found a home in Canada, had a right to defend their country, and willingly did they march to the field. They rendered important service at Detroit when the immortal Brock hurled back the braggart foe, took General Hull and his army prisoners, and conquered the territory of Michigan. They likewise did good service at Queenston Heights.
A few instances occurred where individual Indians did lapse into the warfare nature had implanted into their breasts. But let it be distinctly and emphatically stated that they were exceptions. “But the savage conduct of the white United States troops, was worse than the employment of savages. In civilized wars, or the wars of Christian people with each other, (alas! that Christians and war should be associated!) the usual rule is to harm only those who aim to harm, and to pass by the peaceable and unarmed. Considering, too, that the Canadian people were not enemies, but had always friendly dispositions towards the United States, that the war was merely for remote and abstract questions, that the British Canadians never set the example, that marauding was not the rule of the British officers and armies (as evinced before the world in the wars with Bonaparte),—the United States Government selecting the province as a battle field, should have treated the inhabitants without arms as mere spectators of the conflict. Shame on President Madison, and his cabinet of Christian “(?)” gentlemen, for ordering their General, McClure (under the name and seal of John Armstrong, Secretary of War), to burn up the Town of Niagara, and turn 400 women and children into the snow and icy streets, on a December day of a rigid Canadian winter! Had the cruelty been accomplished by a tribe of Indians, no astonishment would have been felt; but for Christians thus to treat Christians, and for people of the same ancestry, to show such barbarity, shows that the bad passions of the human heart are the same in the civilized as in the savage. The war might have been carried on, so that friendship might soon be resumed; but the dreadful aggravation, left in the bosoms of the Canadian settlers, such hatred as remains to the present day. The writer has even heard women say, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, that if the Americans ever invaded Canada again, they would shoulder muskets with their husbands. The democracy of the United States, like the democracy of the French Revolution, proffered liberty with the left hand, and scattered the fire-brands of savage war with the right.”—(Playtor.)
The invading general having issued a proclamation, declaring that Canadians found fighting beside the Indians should have no quarter. Major-General Brock, in an address, issued to the Canadians at Fort George, July 22nd, 1812, referring to this matter, says:—
“Be not dismayed at the unjustifiable threat of the Commander of the enemy’s forces to refuse quarter, should an Indian appear in the ranks.
“The brave bands of the Aborigines which inhabit this colony were like His Majesty’s other subjects punished for their zeal and fidelity, by the loss of their possessions in the late colonies, and rewarded by His Majesty with lands of superior value in the Province. The faith of the British Government has never yet been violated by the Indians, who feel that the soil they inherit is to them and their prosperity, protected from the base arts so frequently devised to over-reach their simplicity.