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Read Ebook: Brock Centenary 1812-1912 by Carstairs John Stewart Author Of Introduction Etc Fraser Alexander Editor
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Ebook has 384 lines and 30177 words, and 8 pages
PAGE
Prefatory Note 3
Introduction--J. Stewart Carstairs, B.A. 9
Preliminary Steps 21
General Committee Formed 25
Programme Adopted 26
Reports of Committees 29
Celebrating the Day 32
At Queenston Heights-- Representatives Present 34 Floral Decorations 40 A Unique Scene 42 Historic Flags and Relics 43 Letters of Regret for Absence 44
The Speeches-- Colonel G. Sterling Ryerson 45 Mr. Angus Claude Macdonell, M.P. 50 Hon. Dr. R. A. Pyne, M.P.P. 55 Colonel George T. Denison 58 Mr. J. A. Macdonell, K.C. 61 Dr. James L. Hughes 67 Chief A. G. Smith 71 Warrior F. Onondeyoh Loft 74 Mr. Charles R. McCullough 75
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Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonell, Provincial Aide-de-Camp to Major-General Sir Isaac Brock 5
Executive Committee 28
First Monument to General Brock at Queenston Heights 33
Brock's Monument 34
Central section of a panoramic picture of the gathering at Queenston Heights 36
Floral Tribute placed on Cenotaph, where Brock fell, by the Guernsey Society, Toronto 38
Brock Centenary Celebration at Queenston Heights 38
Memorial Wreaths placed on the Tombs, at Queenston Heights, of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, Kt., and Colonel John Macdonell, P.A.D.C., Attorney-General of Upper Canada 41
Wreath placed on Brock's Monument in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, Eng., by the Government of Canada 42
Wreath placed on Brock's Monument, Queenston Heights, by the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire 42
Conferring Tribal Membership on Miss Helen M. Merrill 43
Six Nation Indians celebrating Brock's Centenary at Queenston Heights 44
Colonel George Sterling Ryerson, Chairman of Committee 45
Angus Claude Macdonell, K.C., M.P., addressing the gathering 51
Hon. R. A. Pyne, M.D., M.P.P., Minister of Education of Ontario 58
James L. Hughes, LL.D., Chief Inspector of Schools, Toronto 58
Colonel George T. Denison, Toronto 58
J. A. Macdonell, K.C., Glengarry, addressing the gathering 61
Chief A. G. Smith, Six Nation Indians, Grand River Reserve 71
Captain Charles R. McCullough, Hamilton, Ont. 71
Warrior F. Onondeyoh Loft, Six Nation Indians, Toronto 71
Members of Committee at Queenston Heights 77
Group of Indians celebrating Brock's Centenary at Queenston Heights 88
Captain Joseph Birnie 93
INTRODUCTION
BROCK AND QUEENSTON
Brock's fame and Brock's name will never die in our history. The past one hundred years have settled that. And in this glory the craggy heights of Queenston, where in their splendid mausoleum Brock and Macdonell sleep side by side their last sleep, will always have its share. Strangely enough, who ever associates Brock's name with Detroit? Yet, here was a marvellous achievement: the left wing of the enemy's army annihilated, its eloquent and grandiose leader captured and two thousand five hundred men and abundant military stores, with the State of Michigan thrown in!
But Britain in those days was so busy doing things that we a hundred years later can scarcely realize them. However, so much of our historic perspective has been settled during the past hundred years. Perhaps in another hundred years, when other generations come together to commemorate the efforts of these men that with Brock and Macdonell strove to seek and find and do and not to yield, the skirmish at Queenston may be viewed in a different light.
Perhaps then the British Constitution will have bridged the oceans and the "Seven Seas"; perhaps then Canada will be more British than Britain itself--the very core, the centre, the heart of the Empire in territory and population, in wealth and in influence, in spirit and in vital activities. Then Queenston Heights may be regarded not merely as a victory that encouraged Canadians to fight for their homes but as a far-reaching world-event.
But ever since Jefferson had purchased Louisiana from Napoleon the United States had found she was less dependent on Britain. Accordingly, Jefferson grew more and more unfriendly. And now in 1812, the world campaign of Napoleon had spread to America. He had hoped for this, but on different lines. He had planned for it, but those plans had failed.
"The War of 1812-14," as we call it, was merely a phase, a section, of the greatest struggle in the history of mankind--the struggle of Britain against the aggrandisement and cheap ambition of Napoleon to become the Dictator of Europe and the civilized world. Brock, though invited to take a share in the long drawn out contest in Spain, decided--fortunately for us--to remain in Canada.
The year 1812 was the climax of the war with Napoleon--the most splendid, as we have said, of all years in British military annals. Since 1808, the British forces had been striving to drive the French from Spain. First under Sir John Moore, later under Wellington, inch by inch, year by year, they had beaten them back toward the Pyrenees. Then on July 22, 1812, just as Brock was struggling with all his difficulties here in Canada, there came Wellington's first decisive victory at Salamanca. The news reached Brock in October and a day or two before he died he sent the tidings forward to Proctor--Proctor then struggling with his Forty-first Regiment to do as much damage as he could to the enemy hundreds of miles out from Windsor and Detroit, Proctor who was to be eternally much abused for faults he never was guilty of, and to be blamed for Tecumseh's death next year. With the news of Salamanca went Brock's prophetic comment: "I think the game nearly up in Spain"; and within a year the game, Napoleon's game, was up, not only in Spain but in all Europe. Within a year Leipsic had been fought and won and Napoleon was a wanderer on the face of the earth, to be gathered in and lodged on Elba.
Meanwhile other great events were shaping. Just a month before Salamanca--in fact, four days before the United States declared war--Napoleon had set out on his fatal expedition against Russia. Two days later he crossed the Niemen. More than a million Frenchmen were now in arms in Europe; and Britain was the only active enemy in the field.
What wonder then that Brock, as the civil and military head of the Government of Upper Canada, should view with extreme anxiety the situation in the Province? He had been in Canada for ten years. He knew that the Motherland could not furnish any more men. There were fifteen hundred regular troops in Upper, and two thousand in Lower Canada. Forty years before there had not been a single settlement in what is now Ontario from the Detroit to the Ottawa, from Lake Ontario to Sault Ste. Marie. Now there were seventy-five thousand inhabitants; and under a wise Militia Act they had imposed yearly military service on themselves; every male inhabitant had to furnish his own gun and appear on parade or be heavily fined. Thus there was a volunteer force more or less trained amounting to about ten thousand men--a militia that under Brock rendered splendid service.
In front of Brock was a nation of eight or nine millions, a nation that believed they could "take the Canadas without soldiers;" as the United States Secretary of War said--"we have only to send officers into the Province and the people, disaffected towards their own Government, will rally round our standard." Yet they placed, during the three years of the war, 527,000 men in the field and were defeated in thirty-two engagements. The odds were twenty-six to one against us. That was Brock's grand bequest to this land--the spirit to fight against odds that were at first sight positively overwhelming.
For years sedition and disloyalty had been gaining ground in Upper Canada. In 1802, Colonel Talbot classified the inhabitants of the western part of the Province as those enticed hither by the free land grants; those that had fled from the United States for crime; Republicans anticipating that the colony would shake off its allegiance to Britain. Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Cruikshank, who is justly regarded as the most eminent authority on the War of 1812-14, believes that in a large portion of the Province "the recent immigrants from the United States outnumbered all the other inhabitants at least two to one. Two-thirds of the members of the Assembly and one-third of the magistrates were natives of the United States."
The very next day he wrote in much the same spirit to Colonel Baynes: "The population, believe me, is essentially bad--a full belief possesses them all that this Province must inevitably succumb. This prepossession is fatal to every exertion. Legislators, magistrates, militia officers, all have imbibed the idea, and are so sluggish and indifferent in their respective offices that the artful and active scoundrel is allowed to parade the country without interruption and commit all imaginable mischief. . . . Most of the people have lost all confidence. I, however, speak loud and look big."
On the same day, moreover, he reported: "The militia stationed here volunteered their services to any part of the Province without the least hesitation."
Day after day his Legislature wasted their time. For eight days they discussed a mere party question of changing a clause in the School Bill. Brock prorogued Parliament and took the reins in his own hands. He declared martial law, and soon after three members of the Legislature, Willcocks, Markle, and Mallory, deserted and joined the United States forces.
At once he set out on his expedition to Detroit. Through the wilds of Upper Canada, by lake and field, he led his small band of men two hundred miles. In nineteen days he was back again in his capital. He had annihilated the left wing of the enemy's army; he had captured two thousand five hundred men, thirty-seven cannon and immense military stores. The State of Michigan practically remained in our possession till the close of the war.
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