Volume I Part 13 (1/2)

”'Sposing he ain't e--lect--ed?'

”We came away.”

Verily, Monsieur De Tocqueville, you are in the right--democracy is an inherent principle.

But the train is progressing, and we are pa.s.sing Lundy's Lane, or, as the Americans call it, ”The Battle Ground,” where a b.l.o.o.d.y fight between Democracy and Monarchy took place some thirty years ago, and where

”The bones, unburied on the naked plain,”

still are picked up by the grubbers after curiosities, and the very trees have the b.a.l.l.s still sticking in them.

Here woman, that ministering angel in the hour of woe, performed a part in the drama which is worth relating, as the source from which I had the history is from the person who owed so much to her, and whose gallantry was so conspicuous.

Colonel Fitzgibbon, then in the 49th regiment, having inadvertently got into a position where his sword, peeping from under his great coat, immediately pointed him out as a British officer, was seized by two American soldiers, who had been drinking in the village public-house, and would either have been made prisoner or killed had not Mrs. Defield come to his rescue.

Mr. Fitzgibbon was a tall, powerful, muscular person, and his captors were a rifleman and an infantry soldier, each armed with the rifle and musket peculiar to their service. By a sudden effort, he seized the rifle of one and the musket of the other, and turned their muzzles from him; and so firm was his grasp, that, although unable to wrest the weapon from either of them, they could not change the position.

The rifleman, retaining his hold of his rifle with one hand, drew Mr.

Fitzgibbon's sword with the other, and attempted to stab him in the side. Whilst watching his uplifted arm, with the intent, if possible, of receiving the thrust in his own arm, Mr. Fitzgibbon perceived the two hands of a woman suddenly clasp the rifleman's wrist, and carry it behind his back, when she and her sister wrenched the sword from him, and ran and hid it in the cellar.

Mrs. Defield was the wife of the keeper of the tavern where this officer happened to have arrived; an old man, named Johnson, then came forward, and with his a.s.sistance Mr. Fitzgibbon took the two soldiers prisoners, and carried them to the nearest guard, although at that moment an American detachment of 150 men was within a hundred yards of the place, hidden however from view by a few young pine-trees.

I am sure it will please the British reader to learn that the government granted 400 acres of the best land in the Talbot settlement to Edward Defield, for his wife's and sister-in-law's heroic conduct.

Yet, such is the influence of example upon unreflecting minds dwelling on the frontiers of Upper Canada, that although in most instances the settlers are in possession of farms originally free gifts from the Crown, yet many of their sons were in arms against that Crown in 1837.

Among these misguided youths was a son of Defield's, who surrendered, with the brigands commanded by Von Schultz, in the windmill, near Prescott, in the winter of 1838. He had crossed over from Ogdensburgh, and was condemned to a traitor's death.

From Colonel Fitzgibbon's statement to the executive, this lad, in consideration of his mother's heroism, was pardoned. Mrs. Defield is still living.

The three horses _en licorne_ trot us on, and we pa.s.s Lundy's Lane, b.l.o.o.d.y Run, a little streamlet, whose waters were once dyed with gore, and so back to Niagara, where I shall take the liberty of saying a few words concerning the Welland Ca.n.a.l.

The Welland Ca.n.a.l, the most important in a commercial point of view of any on the American continent--until that of Tchuantessegue, in Mexico, which I was once, in 1825, deputed to survey and cut, is formed, or that other projected through San Juan de Nicaragua--was originally a mere job, or, as it was called, a job at both ends and a failure in the middle, until it pa.s.sed into the hands of the local government. If there has been any job since, it has not been made public, and it is now a most efficient and well conducted work, through which a very great portion of the western trade finds its way, in despite of that magnificent vision of De Witt Clinton's, the Erie Ca.n.a.l; and when the Welland is navigable for the schooners and steamers of the great lakes, it will absorb the transit trade, as its mouth in Lake Erie is free from ice several weeks sooner than the harbour of Buffalo.

The old miserable wooden locks and bargeway have been converted into splendid stone walls and a s.h.i.+p navigation; and, to give some idea of the rising importance of the Welland Ca.n.a.l, I shall briefly state that the tolls in 1832 amounted to 2,432, in 1841 had risen to 20,210, and in 1843 to 25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.: and when the works are fairly finished, which they nearly are, this will be trebled in the first year; for it has been carefully calculated that the gross amount which would have pa.s.sed of tonnage of large sailing craft only on the lakes, in 1844, was 26,400 tons, out of which only 7,000 had before been able to use the locks.

All the sailing vessels now, with the exception of three or four, can pa.s.s freely; and three large steam propellers were built in 1844, whose aggregate tonnage amounted to 1,900 tons; they have commenced their regular trips as freight-vessels, for which they were constructed, and have been followed by the almost incredible use of Ericson's propeller.

To show the British reader the importance of this work, connecting, as it does, with the St. Lawrence and Rideau Ca.n.a.ls, the Atlantic Ocean, and Lakes Superior and Michigan, I shall, although contrary to a determination made to give nothing in this work but the results of personal inspection or observation, use the scissors and paste for once, and thus place under view a table of all the articles which are carried through this main artery of Canada, by which both import and export trade may be viewed as in a mirror, and this too before the ca.n.a.l is fairly finished.

WELLAND Ca.n.a.l.

AMOUNT OF PROPERTY Pa.s.sED THROUGH, AND TOLLS COLLECTED. 1844.

Beef and pork barrels, 41,976-1/4 Flour do. 305,208-1/2 Ashes do. 3,412 Beer and cider do. 50 Salt do. 213,212 Whiskey do. 931 Plaster do. 2,068-1/2 Fruit and nuts do. 470 b.u.t.ter and lard do. 4,639-1/2 Seeds do. 1,429-1/2 Tallow do. 1,182 Water-lime do. 1,662 Pitch and tar do. 75 Fish do. 1,758-1/2 Oatmeal do. 132 Beeswax do. 36 Empty do. 3,044 Oil barrels, 96 Soap do. 13 Vinegar do. 24 Mola.s.ses do. 1 Caledonia water do. 10 Saw logs No. 10,411 Boards feet, 7,493,574 Square timber cubic feet, 490,525 Half flatted do. do. 13,922 Round do. do. 20,879 Staves, pipe do. 630,602 Do. W. I. do. 1,197,916 Do. flour barrel do. 130,500 s.h.i.+ngles do. 330,400 Rails do. 12,318 Racked hoops do. 59,300 Wheat bushels, 2,122,592 Corn do. 73,328 Barley do. 930 Rye do. 142 Oats do. 5,653 Potatoes do. 7,311 Peas do. 138 b.u.t.ter and lard kegs, 4,669 Merchandize tons, 11,318 16 Coal do. 1,689 7 Castings do. 211 6 Iron do. 1,748 10 Tobacco do. 140 7 Grindstones do. 151 14 Plaster do. 1,491 10 Hides do. 101 15 Bacon and Hams do. 307 0 Bran and shorts tons, 231 11 Water-lime do. 441 7 Rags do. 3 0 Hemp do. 500 11 Wool do. 15 9 Leather do. 9 17 Cheese do. 1 2 Marble do. 1 10 Stone cords, 738-1/2 Firewood do. 3,251 Tan bark do. 957 Cedar posts do. 69 Hoop timber do. 16 Knees do. 184 Small packages No. 459 Pumps do. 102 Pa.s.sengers do. 3,261-1/2 Sleighs do. 2 Waggons do. 177 Pails do. 136 Horses do. 2 Ploughs do. 25 Thras.h.i.+ng-machines do. 18 Cotton bales, 25 Fruit-trees bundles, 268 Sand cubic yards, 10,778 Schooners No. 2,121 Propellers do. 484 Scows do. 1,671 Boats do. 4 Rafts do. 118 Tonnage 327,570 Amount collected 25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.

CHAPTER IX.

The Great Fresh-water Seas of Canada.