Chapter IV: Part 4

In 1837 people did not do things by halves. _De mortuis nil nisi bonum_ doubled its meaning from the fervour of the abuse and obloquy cast upon the subject of it during life. William IV. found even his Queen--to whom, by the way, though she was jostled on the edge of accession by Mrs. Jordan and others, he seems to have been devoted--satirized, lampooned, vilified, by press and tongues alike. No sooner is he himself dead than his demise becomes “mournful intelligence,” “melancholy event,” “affecting news,” “distressing circumstance of the death of our beloved monarch.”

Out of the chaos left behind him steps a girlish figure, not unlike, in her bare feet and streaming hair, to some picture of early Italy, a Stella Matutina.

Her head and hands are touched with the holy Chrism; Melbourne redeems the sword of state with a hundred shillings; two archbishops and some peers lift the tiny figure into the throne; no champion throws the glove; the acclamations of thousands proclaim her crowned, peers and peeresses put on their coronets; trumpets blare above the boom of cannon; the heads of a nation are bowed in the silence of prayer; “Stand firm and hold fast,” adjures His Grace; the old do homage and become her liege men of life and limb and of earthly worship, and of faith and truth which they will bear unto her, to live and die against all manner of folk. All the romance of the Middle Ages seems crowded round that small figure in St. Edward’s chair, and Stella Matutina becomes Queen Regnant.

When she opened her first Parliament the Repeal Cry and disturbed Canada were vexing elements in discussion; but the young sovereign placed her trust “upon the love and affection of my people;” and that trust, as we see, was not misplaced.

The Far West was long in hearing of her accession. “There was a deep slumberous calm all around, as if Nature had not yet awoke from her night’s rest; then the atmosphere began to kindle with gradual light; it grew brighter and brighter; towards the east the sky and water intermingled in radiance and flowed and glowed together in a bath of fire. Against it rose the black hull of a large vessel, with masts and spars rising against the sky. One man stood in the bows, with an immense oar which he slowly pulled, walking backwards and forwards; but vain seemed all his toil with the heavy black craft, for it was much against both wind and current and it lay like a black log and moved not. We rowed up to the side and hailed him, ‘What news?’ What news indeed, to these people weeks away from civilization, newspapers and letters. ‘William Fourth was dead, and Queen Victoria reigned in his stead.’”

“Canada will never cost English ministers another thought or care if they will but leave her entirely alone, to govern herself as she thinks fit.” Then came the division of opinion as to what was fit, to be followed later by the opinions of Lords Durham and Sydenham upon the dominant party, to be in the meantime fought for by all. Some held it wisdom to say that a despotic government was the best safeguard of the poorer classes. A certain gentleman aired this idea in Canada, saying a governor and council was the only thing for that country. His Canadian listener looked at him fixedly for a moment, asking again if that were really his opinion,--“Then, sir, I pity your intellects.”

There was an ominous smoke from the fire in Canadian hearts over this question of class prejudices. Those were the days when a barrister would not shake hands with a solicitor, nor would a “dissenting” minister be allowed within the pale of society. Governor Maitland had been particularly hard upon this latter so-called shady lot of people. A store-keeping militia officer refused a challenge because the second who brought it was a saddler. The honourable profession of teaching was looked at so askance that to become a teacher was an avowal of poverty and hopelessness. Yet joined to this Old World nonsense, transplanted to a world so new that the crops sprung out of untilled ground, was the fact that many of the noblesse, indigenous as the burdock and thistle, drew their rent rolls from the village stores, and with the rearing of the head of what was called “the hydra-headed democracy,” Froissart’s fear was shared “that all gentility was about to perish.”

Under these circumstances military life naturally gave scope for much originality in uniform, accoutrement, and deportment. At one drill three or four hundred men were marshalled, or rather scattered in a picturesque fashion hither and thither. A few well-mounted ones, dressed as lancers, in uniforms which were anything but uniform, flourished back and forth over the greensward to the great peril of spectators, they and their horses equally wild, disorderly, spirited and undisciplined. Occasionally a carving or butcher knife lashed to the end of a fishing pole did good duty for lance,--not a whit more astounding in appearance and use than the concert of marrow-bones and cleavers which some years before had nearly frightened the Duchess of York to death on her arrival in England.

But the lancers were perfection compared with the infantry. Here there was no attempt at uniformity of dress, appearance or movement; a few had coats, others jackets; a greater number had neither coats nor jackets, but appeared in shirt-sleeves, white or checked, clean or dirty, in edifying variety. Some wore hats, some caps; some had their own shaggy heads of hair. Some had fire-locks, some had old swords suspended in belts or stuck in waistbands; but the greater number shouldered sticks. An occasional umbrella was to be seen, but umbrellas were too precious to allow of liberties; some said, “But for these vile guns I myself would have been a soldier;” some were willing to enlist for gardin’, but not for shootin’. The word of command was thus given:--“Gentlemen with the umbrellas, take ground to the right; gentlemen with the walking-sticks, take ground to the left.” They ran after each other, elbowed and kicked, stooped, chattered; and if the commanding officer turned his back for a moment, very easily sat down. One officer made himself hoarse shouting out orders which no one thought of obeying with the exception of two or three men in front. But the lancers flourished their lances, galloped, and capered, curvetted (and tripped) to the admiration of all. The captain of the lancers was the proprietor of the village store, and shortly after the military display might have been seen, plumed helmet in hand, vaulting over his counter to serve one customer a pennyworth of tobacco and another a yard of check. The parade day ended in a riot, in which the colonel was knocked down and one or two others seriously, if not fatally, injured. “Most elegantly drunk,” “superbly corned,” the gallant lancers, for want of an enemy, fought with one another. One invention of ’37 was a fuddleometer, an instrument designed to warn a man when he had taken his innermost utmost. But it does not seem to have been adopted at the War Office. Be that as it may, “these were the men who were out in ’37, and they did good work too.”

A glance at the method of preparation at times employed by their enemies shows a uniformity in style. One captain, in calling his company together, enumerating “You gentlemen with the guns, ramrods, horsewhips, walking-canes and umbrellas, and them that hasn’t _any_,” could not get his men together, because at the time most of them happened to be engaged either as players in, or spectators of, a most interesting game of fives. The captain consulted his hand-book of instructions to see what was proper to do in such circumstances, and exhorted them persuasively and politely:

“Now, gentlemen, I am going to carry you through the revolutions of the manual exercise, and I hope, gentlemen, you will have a little patience. I’ll be as short as possible; and I hope, gentlemen, if I should be going wrong, one of you gentlemen will be good enough to put me right again, for I mean all for the best. _Take aim! Ram down cartridge_--no, no, _fire_--I remember now, firing comes next after taking aim; but with your permission, gentlemen, I’ll _read_ the words of command.”

“Oh, yes, read it, Captain, read it, that will save time.”

“_’Tention_, the whole then. Please to observe, gentlemen, that at the word ‘fire,’ you _must_ fire, that is if any of your guns are loaded; and all you gentlemen fellow-soldiers, who’s armed with nothing but sticks and riding switches and cornstalks, needn’t go through the firings, but stand as you are and keep yourselves to yourselves.... _Handle cartridge!_ Pretty well, considering you done it wrong end foremost.... _Draw rammer!_ Those who have no rammers to their guns need not draw.... Handsomely done, and all together too, except that a few of you were a little too soon and some a little too late.... _Charge bagonet!_”

(Some of the men) “That can’t be right, Captain. How can we charge bagonets without our guns?”

“I don’t know as to that, but I know I’m right, for here it is printed, if I know how to read--it’s as plain as the nose on your--faith, I’m wrong! I’ve turned over two leaves at once. I beg your pardon, gentlemen,--we’ll not stay out long, and we’ll have something to drink as soon as we’ve done. Come, boys, get off the stumps.... _Advance arms!_ Very well done; turn stocks of your guns in front, gentlemen, and that will bring the barrels behind; and hold them straight up and down please.... Very well done, gentlemen, you have improved vastly. What a thing it is to see men under good discipline. Now, gentlemen, we come to the revolutions--but Lord, men, how _did_ you get into such a higglety-pigglety?”

The fact was, the sun had come round and roasted the right wing of the veterans, and, as they were poorly provided with umbrellas, they found it convenient to follow the shade. In a vain attempt to go to war under the shadow of their own muskets, and huddling round to the left, they had changed their crescent to a pair of pothooks. The men objected to the captain’s demand for further “revolutions,” as they had already been on the ground for three-quarters of an hour, and they reminded him frequently of his promise to be as quick as he could. He might fine them if he chose, but they were thirsty and they would not go without a drink to please any captain. The dispute waxed hotter, until he settled it by sending for some grog, and the fifteen guns, ten ramrods, twelve gun-locks, three rifle-pouches and twenty-two horse-whips, walking-canes and umbrellas, fortified themselves for further exertions. The result of the next order or two was doubly groggy.

“’Tention to the whole. To the left, no--that is the left--I mean the right--left wheel--march.” He was strictly obeyed, some wheeling to the right, others left, and some both ways.

“Halt--let’s try again! I could not just tell my right hand from my left--long as I have served, I find something new to learn every day--now gentlemen, do that motion once more.” By the help of a non-commissioned officer in front of each platoon they succeeded in wheeling this time with some regularity.

“’Tention the whole--_by divisions--to the right, wheel--march!_”

They did wheel and they did march, and it seemed as if Bedlam had broken loose; every man took the command:

“Not so fast on the right!”

“Haul down those umbrellas!”

“Faster on the left--keep back in the middle!”

“Don’t crowd so!”

“I’ve lost my shoe!” And by this time confusion was so many times confounded that the narrative had to cease perforce.

There is a Sherlock Holmes-like story told of a deserter from the British army who tried to enlist in Buffalo. His good manner and address were noticeable, and he was supposed to be no common recruit. A surgeon who suspected him suddenly called out “Attention!” and as the man’s hands dropped by his side he stood confessed a soldier.

At Fort Brady, with its whitewashed palisades and little mushroom towers, was a castle, unrivalled in modern architecture. On the greensward in front were drilled an awkward squad of matchless awkwardness, in that way the superiors of any Canadians whom they might propose to attack. On occasion one would give his front file a punch in the small of the back to speed his movements, another would aim a kick for the same purpose; each had a humour to knock his neighbour indifferently well. The sentinels, in flannel jackets, were lounging up and down, looking like ploughboys ready to shoot sparrows, quite in keeping with their surroundings. But on the Canadian side there were not even these vivid demonstrations of power. Enthusiasm, however, made up for many shortcomings.

In all the newspapers of the two provinces such productions as that shown in reduced fac-simile on the opposite page might be seen; age has robbed the original, now lying before us, of a few words, but the lettering and alignment are unaltered.

The chronicler has it that Brockville’s corps began with twenty-three inoffensive and respectable men of small merchandise, who essayed to hearten themselves and terrify the French by adopting the name Invincibles. This amused Kingston, and a corps was accordingly turned out from there, called the Unconquerables, in order not to be behind “the paltry little village down the river,” and in a bogus notice from one “Captain Focus, commanding,” there was an N.B.: “No Unconquerable permitted to attend muster without his shoes well blacked and his breeches well mended.”

One colonel issued instructions that above all things solid form must be preserved,--should a man fall, close and cover the vacancy. An Irishman with a bass voice and sepulchral delivery gravely asked, “And would your honour have us step on a did man?”

The word “halt” had little power to make some militia corps stationary; it rather accelerated their speed. “Halt--halt--halt!” cried a perspiring officer as he chased his men, and as near explosion point as his own gun; “if you don’t halt I’ll walk you five miles!” The threat prevailed, and they halted. But they were peremptory enough when individually they had to give the same order. Both sides, loyalist and patriot, saw an enemy in every bush and were always ready for a spy. Excitement was running high in a Yonge Street village one day, when a lad, young Jakeway, hearing an unusual noise in the street, walked out to see what it was. One of a number of armed men before the village inn called to him to halt, taking him for a spy. But the lad turned away and did not hear. The man, upon no further provocation, raised his gun to shoot, but another, less ardent, knocked the weapon up and contented himself with Jakeway’s arrest. The leader recognized him as an inoffensive onlooker, and dismissed him with an apology. No one was to pass certain outposts out of Kingston without passport, the parole and countersign. The Montreal mail with four horses dashed to the bridge at Kingston Mills as the militia sentry’s _halt_ rang out. But the coachman, as fit as himself, paid no heed; so the sentry’s bayonet pierced the breast of one of the leaders. Complaint was made to the Postmaster-General, but the sentry was promoted and Government would afford no redress. It knew a good man. That same night brought commanding officer and men, clothed and armed, to parade. By lantern light they were made load and told “_the time was come_.” On the principle of first fire, then enquire, a man in the front rank--of course an Irishman--discharged his musket in his officer’s face. “Be jabers,” said he, when asked for explanation and congratulated on the harmlessness of his aim, “Colonel, I wuz that full of fight I cuddn’t help it.”

But at the grand inspection in and about Kingston, which took place chiefly before St. George’s church, with the same hearty bluff Englishman, Colonel Bonnycastle, in command, the troops, six hundred and fifty in number, newly clothed and equipped, made a handsome showing, and considering their rawness performed their evolutions creditably and without damage to themselves or him.

“Are these British soldiers?” asked an onlooker who was shrewdly guessed to be a military spy from the other side.

“Oh, no, not at all, only the Frontenac militia.”

“Then if they are militia,” returned the American, “all I can say is they must be _regular_ militia.”

Old Peninsula officers, remnants of Brock’s army, veterans from everywhere British, helped from Quebec to Sarnia to leaven this mass of raw colonial fighting material, and they developed it into something very ugly to tackle.

But even veterans want substantial recompense for service, and in ’37 Sir Francis received a strong appeal from one of them:

“_May it please your Honor and Glory, for iver more,
Amen._

“I, ---- ----, formly belonging to the 49th Regt of Foot was sent to this country in 1817 by his Majesty George the Forth to git land for myself and boys; but my boys was to small, but Plase your Honor now the Can work, so I hope your honor wold be so good to a low them Land, because the are Intitle to it by Lord Bathus. I was spaking to His Lord Ship in his one office in Downing Street, London, and he tould me to beshure I wold Git land for my boys. Plase your Honor, I was spaking to Lord Almor before he went home about the land for my boys, and he sed to beshure I was Intitle to it. Lord Almor was Captain in the one Regt that is the Old 49th Regt foot. Plase your honor I hope you will doe a old Solder Justis. God bless you and your family.

“Your most humble Sarvint

“---- ----

“N.B. Plase your Honor I hope you will excuse my Vulgar way of writing to you, but these is hard times Governor so I hope you will send me an answer.”

* * * * *

Not one of them was too far off to hear the despatchmen as they rode along the half-made roads, with bugles blowing the call to arms. Spear in boot, sword clanking by his side, the despatchman was an impressive figure which still lives in the memory of some of those who in their youth answered to his call. No one disputed his word; at his behest the farmer had to go, and the farmer’s horses had to be harnessed to furnish transport for recruits. “Four of us were out, ’cause why, we had to. Two of us were stacking cornstalks, one was at the creek with the horses, and I was mending the fence. It was a beautiful day, and the air was clear enough to hear anything, let alone that bugle. The tooting was followed by the appearance of a lot of men, and we were ordered to fall in. It took me only a minute to run into the house for some things; none of us had a gun, and on the way we cut ourselves cudgels. There was not any volunteering about it, for it was a regular press. I was the youngest, and mother she did cry like sixty.”

Everywhere the rigours of barrack life, drill, and life generally were lightened by practical jokes and bogus challenges. John Strachan, junior, once gravely challenged a cow, gave her one more chance to answer, and then, in defence of his country, took her life. What is more, he had to pay for her.

In Quebec the volunteer days of ’37-38 were festive times. With population that followed a thin line of river border and condensed at the two cities, and with superior means of equipment and drill, the period of formation was not so lengthy as in Upper Canada. Lieutenant-Colonel the Honourable James Hope was chosen by Lord Gosford as commander of the volunteer force. In December, ’37, the garrison at Quebec was reduced to one company of Royal Artillery. No greater compliment could be paid Major Sewell, late of the 49th, Brock’s own--with his regiment in uniforms of “blue coat and buff breeches, white blanket coat and green facings, blue cap and light band”--than to put him in charge of that important post. He had some veterans among them, Henry Lemesurier, a captain minus his right arm, which had been carried away by a round-shot at the battle of Salamanca when bearing the colours of his regiment--the 74th--for one. The militia force in the beginning of the year was incomplete and inefficient, looking formidable with its list of every officer from colonel to corporal, but with many, officers and men alike, who had never handled a musket. But they were to get used to the smell of powder. “Lord love your honour, the smell of gunpowder, did you say? Divil a bit do we care for it--it’s the balls we do be moindin’.” And well he might say so, for not even H. M. Regular Rocket troop was to be entirely trusted. At St. Eustache, under the impression that rockets like wine improve with age, one, a relic of the Peninsula, was fired. It was a mellow old fellow, slow in making up its mind. Instead of rising it fell, failed to clear the unaccustomed snake fence which lay in the track, broke off its tail and sent its huge head whirling and whizzing, twirling and sizzling, over a ploughed field, with Head-quarter staff, Rocket troop and all before it in mad flight to escape. It seized upon one volunteer to play particular pranks with, and chased him round and round the field, until, exhausted, he fell between the furrows, and the rocket, balked of its prey, went out with a final bang. Convinced that his enemy was defunct the man got somehow to his feet, and never drew breath--so the story goes--until Montreal was reached.

The first paid corps raised at Quebec was named the Porkeaters, a regiment some six hundred strong, able-bodied, resolute fellows, mostly Irish labourers, mechanics and tradesmen, who did no discredit to their supposed diet. These bacon-fed knaves began by looking the awkward squad; but drill by the non-coms, of the regulars, aided by strict discipline, soon made them perform their evolutions with the regularity and precision of their instructors. It is easy to fancy this regiment going into action under Colonel Rasher, with the wholesome advice, _Salvum Larder_, floating to the breeze in the hands of Ensign Flitch--“Charge, Sausage, charge; On, Bacons, on,” the last words of some local Marmion.

A fine cavalry corps, well-mounted, muscular fellows, under Major Burnet, did good work; yet temperate withal, not like Strange’s troop in Kingston. The latter had been in semi-activity since ’34--that is to say, they were drilled on foot, with sticks for sabres. The consequence was that when they were furnished with arms and mounted on steeds of many sizes, difficulties ensued. Calm Sergeant Nobbs, sword in hand, all his neighbours equally hard at work mastering horse and weapon, unfortunately drew the curb at an inopportune moment as he was demonstrating his mode of parrying. Up came the horse’s head, and off went its ears.

Also at Quebec were the Queen’s Pets, composed of seafaring men, under Captain Rayside, a veteran naval officer, in long blue pea-jackets, blue breeches, round fur caps with long ears, and red woollen cravats--evidently the young Queen was supposed to be fond of novelty--their arms, horse pistols, broad cutlasses and carronade. Companies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 in this regiment had blue loose coats with red collars, blue breeches, and high fur caps with long ears; the Highland company had Rob Roy tartan trews, Scotch bonnets and dark frock coats.

The Fauch-a-Ballaughs were gayer still, in white blanket coat, red sash, green buttons, green facings and green seams, high cap with green top falling over--an old hat and the humour of forty fancies pricked int’ it for a feather--and blue breeches with a red stripe.

One corps had a euphonious and suggestive Dahomean title from corporations gained in forty years of piping peace and good dinners. They were chiefly Lower Town merchants, veterans in business if not in war, who soon brought their cognomens under the discipline of black leather belts, cartouche box and twenty rounds of ball cartridge; good Brown Besses rested on the shelves provided by a kindly Mother Nature; and with much puffing and blowing, their eyes fronted and righted until a permanent cast was threatened.

All corps dined much, whether they were to fight or not. Military dinners were frequent, and always went off with great _éclat_, the local excitement lending “go” to them all. Even in that time of ferment there were, as there had been since the Conquest, sensible men, French and English, of the better classes who had made the fact of a common enemy--the American assault of Quebec--a ground for a common patriotism. History has handed down a glowing account of one St. Andrew’s dinner given in ’37, in Quebec, and Mr. Archibald Campbell’s lines, sung by himself in a clear and mellow voice, are worth reproduction as indicative of the Scottish spirit:

“Men of Scotia’s blood or land,
No longer let us idly stand
Our ‘origin’ which traitors brand
As ‘foreign’ here.

By gallant hearts those rights were gained,
By gallant hearts shall be maintained,
E’en tho’ our dearest blood be drained
Those rights to keep.

On the crest of Abram’s heights,
Victorious in a thousand fights,
The Scottish broadsword won our rights,
Wi’ fatal sweep.

Then when the Gaul shall ask again
_Who_ called us here across the Main,
Each Scot shall answer, bold and plain,
‘Wolfe sent me here.’

Be men like those the hero brought,
With their best blood the land was bought,
And, fighting as your fathers fought,
Keep it or die.”

There were men then in Quebec whose denunciations of British rule were given with a vim not exceeded by Papineau himself, who were destined, fermentation over, to be like the wine kept for the end of the feast. It so happened that Sir E. P. Taché, aide-de-camp to the Queen in after years, was then Patriote--to be spelled in capitals and rolled with the reverberation of the Parisian R. He was subjected to an unexpected domiciliary visit, as a cannon was supposed to be hidden under his winter supply of provisions. The searchers were rewarded by a pair of duelling pistols, then a part of every gentleman’s outfit, and a veritable Mons Meg, six inches long, which belonged to a small boy of the same number of years.

As history counts, it was not long before Etienne Taché, in the fold and one of our Queen’s knights good and true, declared “the last gun fired for British supremacy in America would be fired by a French-Canadian.”

From survivors, and from a few printed memorials, one finds that what was known as Training Day seems to have been a great farce in Upper Canada. The 4th of June, King George’s birthday, was its date. Descriptions of it take one back to the Duke of Brunswick’s lament over his army--that if it had been generaled by shoemakers and tailors it could not have been worse, for the Duke’s general marched with his division like cabbages and turnips in defile. Here there was no likeness to anything so formal; the army manœuvres partook of the wild luxuriance of native growths. If twelve were the hour for muster on the common at Fort George, it was sure to be after one before the arduous work of falling in began. “The men answered to their names, as the rolls of the various companies were called, with a readiness and distinctness of tone which showed that, in spite of the weather, they were wide-awake,” says the chronicle. Once they became more active a scene ensued which could not fail to gladden the eyes of the onlookers. In time, either slow or quick, the men did not seem to be guided by any rule of book, but exemplified home-made tactics, presenting lines for which mathematicians have yet furnished no name, putting out flanking parties at either end, and as nearly squaring a circle and circling a square as possible. “Though many jokes were passed, fewer sods were thrown than usual.” Even later than ’37, once men had been out and had come home veterans their services were in demand by officers newly appointed. As in the days of the good Duke of York, ignorance was an officer’s perquisite; then some intelligent sergeant whispered the word of command which his officer was ashamed to know; here, the poor officer was willing, but perhaps had a sergeant as ignorant as himself. However, he was not too haughty to search for some private to help him. “Say, they tell me you were out,” said one of these officers to a private; “I suppose you know something of military training. Now, I am a captain and don’t know anything, and I believe I’ll appoint you my sergeant.” The scene of initiation was by the Little Thames, on what was later to be a Court House site, thenceforward to be known as Stratford. The captain wore the battered remains of a tall silk hat, a black tailed coat, white linen trousers about six inches too short, and hose a world too wide for his shrunk shanks. The hastily-made sergeant, Tom Stoney, a blue-eyed young Irishman with a spice of fun but kind at heart, armed his superior officer with his own cavalry sword, and taking him into his small saddler-shop made himself military tailor as well. The captain never would have rested without spurs had he known that the late King on his first appearance in military uniform, although unmounted, wore a pair of gold ones that reached halfway up his legs like a gamecock. Stoney drew down the white pantaloons as far and as tight as possible, sewed on buttons, and cut and sewed two leather straps to aid in keeping the captain together. The men were got into line; the captain meekly took his place among them. “Right face!” cried the sergeant, and off flew a button, up went the trouser-leg to the knee--“pursued my humour, not pursuing his”--rejoicing in regained freedom, relented and came down again. Clump-clamp went the leather strap with every step. The sergeant’s commands came quicker than ever, the captain perspired, and toiling behind his men removed his silk hat to wipe his streaming face. Then he ventured his first “command”: “I think we have had enough drill; we’ll march down to the distillery, boys, if you like.” And they did.

In the Talbot District, Training Day since 1812 had been kept up with constancy. In spite of that, the inhabitants were somewhat unprepared when ’37 came. But the gathering of the Loyalists, however isolated they were from one another, was willing and surprisingly quick. Old officers of the army sought for and gathered up volunteers; they had neither drum nor fife, but there was a ready response from willing hearts, and from hands equally willing, however uncouth and unused to arms. The most embarrassing hindrances, sometimes, to everything like organization and drill and obedience to orders were those same old soldiers when, as was generally the case, they knew more than their officers. They stood in the ranks, and at the same time found fault with every word of command, so that they demoralized that which they had brought together. No set of volunteers was more difficult to handle than the old soldiers who had settled in Adelaide. Captain Pegley, although himself a retired regular officer, found them almost unmanageable when mixed with the more docile farmers and farmers’ sons. After much adjuration he at length broke out into exclamations which, on the whole, suited his mixed audience better than set military phrase. “Haw, man! gee, man!” cried he, a startling contrast to the studied politeness of some of the subs, who, with nothing whatever of the drill-sergeant tone, whenever the openings in the ranks were too wide, would say, “Won’t you be kind enough to step nearer this way; now, you men, be good enough to keep your places.” The sharpest order delivered by these subs was, “Halt! and let the others come up, can’t you!” Wheeling into line disclosed a line looking like the snake fence surrounding the stubble field which contained the wheel.

Marching in quick time with one bagpipe and a fiddle, or with a single drum and fife, was not antidote enough to the stubble as they passed the gallant Lieutenant-Colonel in blue frock coat, white trousers shoved up from his boots, a round hat above his fat face, seated in unostentatious dignity on his venerable white mare, whose sides were blown out with grass and her neck adorned with a rope halter. “Now, men, _won’t_ you fall in,” he would pathetically inquire, while they showed every disposition to fall out. For, instead of the drum boy, in the centre of the parade-ground was a keg containing that liquid which in Lower Canada, when carried in a seal-skin covered bottle, was known as _Lac dulce_, or sometimes as old man’s milk. Then would Captain Rappelje command to drink the Sovereign’s health, which was done _con amore_; trials of strength, boxing and wrestling, would follow, when “Abe would knock Jehial as straight as a loon’s foot.”

What would men not do to keep these kegs full. Once Colonel Bostwick and Captain Neville were temporarily absent at the same time, while certain points on the river were guarded against surprise; the rebels were hourly expected, but failed to appear. Advantage was taken of the officers’ absence to cross at one of these points, to replenish the canteen. The boat, showing lights, returned before the expected time. Those on the pier bethought them of a Yankee boast to come across and eat the small village before breakfast. They prepared to fire into the boat, but changed their minds, and rushed to where their Captain and a companion were soundly sleeping. The pile of discarded clothing by the couch had been rather mixed, and the Captain measured six foot odd; his companion’s valour was contained in few inches.

“Come, come quick, quick, the rebels are upon us!” brought them to their feet, the big Captain thrusting himself as far as he could, and farther than the garments bargained for, into the unmentionables of the smaller man. They refused to cover below the calf; he tried to withdraw, they were obdurate, and in an agony of thought the enemy’s knock was heard. The small man had meanwhile decamped with a train at either heel. The Captain seized a jacket which matched the rest of his suit; in desperation he took the quilt, and in toga arrayed, like “that hook-nosed fellow of Rome,” reached the wharf in time to receive the whiskey kegs, where he delivered a lecture on breach of discipline and ordered the men to the guard-house. This Captain was a formidable figure out of his quilt, in his own red uniform with white facings and girt with a sword whose hilt of ivory and brass was further decorated with two beavers conventionalized beyond even the requirements of modern art. The sash, of double twisted silk, strange to say had been the property of John Rolph, who, during his life in Middlesex, had made his home in Captain Neville’s house--a queer foregathering, for we all know the one, and the latter was after the pattern of the U. E. Loyalist definition in 1777:

“By Tory now is understood
A man who seeks his country’s good.”

Captain Neville and Colonel Mahlon Burwell had a friendly rivalry as to who would furnish the country to which they were both so devoted with the most warlike sons. Leonidas, Blucher, Hannibal, Napoleon and Brock, did they call their unprotesting infants, until a mother rose to the assertion of her prerogative when Wolfe was suggested for one of her babies. The most warlike of this cream of heroism weighed but two pounds when he came into the world, and was put in his father’s carpet slipper to be weighed. Great, then, was the consternation when at the outbreak the following regimental order was issued, embracing fathers and sons:

“You are hereby ordered and required to warn all the men from sixteen to sixty, within limits of the late Captain David Rappelje’s company, to meet at St. Thomas, 13th inst., on Wednesday, with arms and ammunition, of whom I will take command.” The same village walls held another order from Sir Francis Bond Head. The result was more men brought together than ever before in the history of the settlement. The Mansion House was the great rallying point, and here, after the Scotch fashion, business was discussed, the suspected ones talked over by the extra loyal, and toasts and maledictions drunk according to the politics of the thirsty. That part of the country was one of the most disaffected sections, and neighbour looked upon neighbour with suspicion.

Some time before this, roused out of his retirement by the tales of agitation which he heard, Colonel Talbot attended the only political meeting of his Canadian life. On St. George’s Day of the year when Sir John Colborne, one of his nearest friends, took such a conspicuous part in the provincial elections, a large party of his people went out to meet the Colonel on the way from his Canadian Malahide castle. They found him on the top of Drake’s Hill, from which a beautiful view was afforded of the pleasant valley they were ready to defend. He entered the town, surrounded by waving flags bearing “The Hon. Thomas Talbot, Founder of the Talbot Settlement,” and other descriptive legends. The venerable figure of the eccentric lord of the manor, Executive Councillor, friend and fellow-officer of Wellington, stood there surveying his flock, the majority cheering him to the echo; but knots here and there bestowed unfavourable glances on them and him. His address was full of wit and sage advice. Some of the veterans, clad like himself in home-spun, who had toiled under his eye and by his aid had emerged from poverty to wealth, stood, with hands in their capacious pockets, looking up at him as if they “could fairly swallow his words.” When he referred to the pains he had taken to preserve loyalty among them, “That’s true, Colonel,” came as involuntary response. “But,” said he, “in spite of all my efforts, some black sheep have got into the flock--aye, and they have got the r-r-rot-t-t, too!”

His well-known aversion to altercation or controversy resulted in his being the only speaker. A loyal address was dictated by him extolling the blessings of government as then enjoyed and resting the blame of disaffection on the religious teaching of a certain lot of immigrants who had come to the Talbot Settlement in time to enjoy its prosperity, and then, not having the devotion bred by being first-comers, found it easy to pick flaws. The year ’37 brought to them a mysterious individual mounted on a cream-coloured horse which ambled him along the lanes and roads of Yarmouth. Like the clock peddler, the stranger wore deep green glasses in his spectacles. After his labours of disseminating dissension were over he managed to make his escape, but the cream-coloured nag figured as an officer’s charger on the Loyalist side--according to his late owner’s opinion, much after the manner of the unmounted Glengarries whose humour it was to steal at a moment’s rest--“convey, the wise it call”--but from the opposite point of view was _pressed_ into government service. It was an animal of no prejudices, for with its rider it was always in the van.

Of those whose looks burned as they listened to the Colonel, and who would not subscribe to the address, some were yet to stand upon the drop to die for treason--a dignified name with which Colonel Talbot, in common with Drew, Prince and others, would have had little patience. These disaffected were chiefly influenced by an Englishman, George Lawton, who, like a good many of the demagogues of that day, had been a factious pate elsewhere. Concerned in the Bristol Riots, he was well up in the catch-words which thrilled the crowds there, and he used his strong mind and nimble tongue upon Canadian complications. He had to escape, somehow, from the consequences of his acts at home; so a sham illness and a sham death, a stuffed coffin and a funeral, and a voyage of the supposed deceased brought George Lawton to the Talbot District to sow those “seed-grains” of revolutionary doctrine which were to make him a second time an outcast. One of the first persons he met in this country was a chief mourner who had followed his coffin to the grave.

As early as ’33, Colonel Talbot writes to a friend: “My rebels endeavoured to hold a meeting at St. Thomas on the 17th, Dr. Franklin’s birthday as I am informed, but in which they were frustrated by my Royal Guards, who routed the rascals at all points and drove them out of the village like sheep, numbers with broken heads leaving their hats behind them--the glorious work of old Colonel Hickory. In short, it was a most splendid victory. Mr. Fraser, the Wesleyan minister, behaved admirably on the occasion, and I scarcely think they will venture to call another meeting in St. Thomas. Their object was to form a political union, the articles of which were to elect the Legislative Council and magistrates.”

At all periods of the Rebellion Talbot’s District provided much “sympathy.” Several men from Port Stanley set out to join the sympathisers who were making ready at Detroit. Their small vessel was provided with boiler and machinery, and they made fair headway until off a spot near the Lake Road, when the rudder gave way. In a frenzy of conscience the boat made for her own shore and stuck in the sand-bank. Just at that point there happened to be a small company of dragoons, who, when they saw the boat coming towards them, with armed men in it, divided into two parties and galloped off in opposite directions. The officer of the company, in two minds to go both ways at once, solved his difficulty by popping under an upturned canoe. The would-be saviours of their country in the rebel boat got clear of the sand-bank and made off, upon which the dragoons galloped back to look after their captain. After a careful search, for he was very coy, they found him under his canoe canopy, not a bad makeshift where umbrellas were not procurable.

* * * * *

There was scarcely a locality which did not give evidence that the rebel spirit had a lodgment not far off. But also in each there were martial spirits eager and willing to lead or be one of loyalist troops. Some of them tell their own stories so well that it would be a pity to garble or curtail them. One man describes how he gave up his professional work, as the winter and the Rebellion were coming on together. “... The political horizon at that time looked rather squally. The Rads. were holding frequent meetings in different parts of the country, at which loud and long speeches were made to the ignorant and wicked, until it broke out in a general rising among the disaffected portion--which was the largest portion of the County of York. In Simcoe the Rads. were fully half the population; but they did not turn out for fear of the other half, among whom were many fiery Orangemen. And to this Order I attribute the safety of our country, although many loyal men, not Orangemen, turned out in behalf of the Government. Without these men we should have failed, as, before troops could arrive from England, the Yankees would have flooded the country.

“The Home District appeared to be the stronghold of the disaffected in Upper Canada. On the 4th of December, as I was going towards Queensville, I met five or six men with rifles, whom I knew to be fond of hunting deer. We talked about hunting and I went on my way, when I met sixty or seventy more, straggling along, some with guns, some with swords, and others unarmed. They had several waggons with them, which appeared loaded, but were covered up. I began to suspect their object, but could get no satisfaction to my questions. Then I met a young fellow whom I followed into his father’s house, and saw his father give him a pair of boots and some money. That convinced me. I then turned back and followed the party, when I met a man who told me my suspicions were correct, and that they were going to take Toronto. I advised him to go home, but he said he dare not; so then I told him he had better go to the States. He said he would, and I afterwards learned that he took my advice. On my way south I went into the tavern on Tory Hill, and asked the landlady if she understood the movement, to which she replied that they were going to take Toronto, and she had known it for several days. Her husband and several others had gone there three days before, and I may say here that when I went to the city I found him there as a volunteer--either that or go to prison. I next saw Mr. Samuel Sweasey, and asked him if he understood the movement. ‘Yes, they are going to take Toronto, rob the Bank, hang the Governor, and when they come back they will hang _you_,’ When I asked him where his sons were, he said he had sent them to the woods to get rid of them, as the rebels were after them.” Between this narrator and his friends the news was soon pretty well spread in the neighbourhood of the Landing, Bond Head, Bradford and Newmarket as to what he had seen and heard. “Farther on I met several men, too great cowards to turn out with the rebels, but mean enough to give me great abuse on account of my principles.” He and various other officers met at Newmarket, and agreed to do all possible to raise quickly what force they could in their respective neighbourhoods, the narrator being assisted by one of his sons, who was a sergeant. “Two men had been sent from Newmarket to inform the Governor that there were a number up here he could depend on. These men were taken prisoners by Mackenzie’s party.... We felt much the want of arms. Orders were given to search for and seize all the arms that could be found; but we had poor success, as most of them were in the hands of the rebels and the rest were hidden away to prevent our getting them. About the 9th we heard that John Powell had shot Anderson,” followed by the rest of the doings after Montgomery’s. News reached the men of the north slowly, and for many reasons their march to the assistance of the city was delayed. “At McLeod’s inn, on Yonge Street, a most cowardly affair occurred. Some twenty-five or thirty of the Scotch and a few others, on hearing that a body of men under Lount was stationed in the Ridges, whom we might have to fight, turned tail and went home. Their minister did all he could to dissuade them; but home they would go. When he found persuasion useless, he mounted his horse and called for volunteers. A few fell in with him, and he and they were with us when we took up our march for the city.

“A certain officer had assumed the command, and was mounted on a horse that had been taken from a Lloydtown man as he was trying to get home after Montgomery’s. When we got down as far as Willis’s farm, at the entrance to the Ridges, a halt was called and a council held, and, as it was yet feared by some that there was a strong force of rebels in the Ridges, it was decided that a few of us, about eight, and mounted, should form an advance guard to reconnoitre. A man from the Landing had gone into Willis’s and got a gun, which when the colonel saw he called to the man to let him have. The other objected, whereupon the colonel went up to him and, in the presence of us all, wrenched it out of his hands. We were then ordered, the disarmed man one of us, to advance, which we did. The eight of us had two guns, three swords, one club, and this little party went through the Ridges while the colonel and his reserve waited for about half an hour. Hearing nothing from us in the shape of a skirmish they ventured through. When we got to Bond’s Lake I got a pitchfork for the man from whom the colonel had taken the gun.” At Thornhill they learned that the rebels were completely dispersed, and many were for returning home; but it was decided to continue the march and tender their services to the Government. “By this time we mustered pretty strong, as several had joined us during the night and morning, many of whom I presume would have joined the other party had they been able to reach the city and make a stand there. We had now some twenty-five or thirty prisoners that we had picked up as we came. These we tied and placed in two strings, somewhat in the form of Ʌ.” Arrived in the city the volunteers were inspected by the Governor, and thanked by him in Her Majesty’s name for the tender of their services. “When they came opposite to where I was sitting on my horse, Colonel Carthew said, ‘A more loyal man does not live,’ and upon this the Governor bowed twice and passed on.” Some ten or twelve of them did not accept their billet upon the people, but went to a tavern and paid their own way. “I was officer of the guard on the night that Peter Matthews was brought into the Parliament House (used as head-quarters and prison) a prisoner. On the next night I went with Mr. Robinson, Dr. King and Sheriff Jarvis to the hospital, where Edgar Stiles, Kavanagh, and Latra were lying, to take their depositions.” On the next night he was sent “with a strong party to Sharon, where we captured some thirty or forty and sent them to Toronto. For three or four days I was at Newmarket attending to the guards, as we had a number of prisoners in the Baptist meeting-house.... I was ordered to where Collingwood now stands to look for Lount, who was said to be there at a lonely house of one John Brasier. When we had got as far as Bradford a man was sent after us with a report that Lount had been taken somewhere below Toronto. When I went to Newmarket again I found that in my absence several gentlemen who had been nowhere at the first had come in, had got commissions and my men.... After this, some eighteen or twenty of us about the Landing and Sharon joined and formed a company for our mutual defence, armed with muskets. For a while we met for drill weekly, then monthly, and soon not at all.”

Lloydtown, although the seat of disaffection, had its loyalists, too; but as they were in the face of such odds they had to temper the exhibition of their loyalty with discretion. One of themselves says that when the call came for their aid they made a prompt response, but took the precaution to leave the village in small parties.

But loyalty was a term on a sliding scale, and a Scotchman whose vote was Reform was every whit as loyal as his Tory acquaintance who “suspicioned” him.