Part 9 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXII.

PREVOST'S ARMISTICE.

The armistice paralyzed Brock's movements. All the moral influence and material advantage gained by the captures of Mackinaw and Detroit were nullified by this incredible blunder, for which no reason, military or civil, has ever been a.s.signed. The loyal volunteers were released from duty. Brock's Indian allies returned to their villages. Prevost's policy of peace had become a mental malady. In spite of our hero's pleadings, and though Prevost actually knew, before the fall of Detroit, that President Madison would not extend the two weeks' armistice, the Governor-General forbade Brock attacking either Sackett's Harbour, the key to American supremacy on the lakes, or Fort Niagara.

”War,” wrote Prevost, ”has never yet been declared by England. Peace is possible.”

Brock, smarting under restraint and handcuffed by red tape, was compelled to look on while the enemy brought up reinforcements, powder, shot, provisions and other munitions of war, by water to Lewiston.

General Van Rensselaer, in command of the American forces at Lewiston, wrote to the President stating that by ”keeping up a bold front he had succeeded in getting from General Sheaffe at Fort George the uninterrupted use of the lakes and rivers.” The strategic advantage to the enemy of this cessation of hostilities and the privileges conceded was enormous. Prevost realized his error too late. The following year, conceiving it then to be his special mission to borrow our dead hero's policy, he attacked Sackett's Harbour, but his ”cautious calculation”

was, of course, rewarded by ign.o.ble defeat, and ultimately, after the Plattsburg fiasco, by a court-martial. In his civil administration of Canada Sir George Prevost may have been a success; as a soldier he was a sad failure.

Isaac was daily proving the truth of the precept, recognized by all men sooner or later, that life's values lie not so much in its victories as in its strife.

Though Brock awoke after Detroit to find himself famous, and a hero whose prowess far exceeded that of his ancestor, the Jurat of the Royal Court of Guernsey, over whose exploits he used to ponder seated on the Lion's Rock at Cobo, he was still the same ”Master Isaac,” still the ”beloved brother.” Separation from his kinsmen only served to draw him closer.

Crossing Lake Ontario gave him the opportunity he longed for. He wrote to his brothers collectively, telling them the sundry details of his success, ”which was beyond his expectation.” He hoped the affair would meet with recognition at the War Office. Though admitting it was a desperate measure, he told them ”it proceeded from a cool calculation of the _pros_ and _cons_,” and as Colonel Procter had opposed it, he was not surprised that envy now induced that officer ”to attribute to good fortune what in reality was the result of my own knowledge and discernment.” But praise and honours, though sweet to our hero, who after all was only mortal, were secondary to the fact that he would be in a position to contribute something to the comfort and happiness of his brothers. The value of the ”treasure” captured at Detroit was placed at 40,000. Brock's share of this was a substantial sum.

”When I returned heaven thanks,” he wrote, ”for my amazing success, I thought of you all, your late sorrows forgotten, and I felt that the many benefits which for a series of years I received from you were not unworthily bestowed.” But the hope that they were reunited was always the dominant note. ”Let me know, my dearest brothers,” he pleaded, ”that you are all again united.” Then, out of his own knowledge, wrought of deep experience in the world's wide field, he proceeded: ”The want of union was nearly losing this province, without even a struggle; rest a.s.sured, it operates in the same degree in regard to families.”

Brock's despatches, with the story of the capture of Detroit and the colours of the 4th Regiment, United States Army, the oriflamme of the ”heroes of Tippecanoe,” reached London the morning of October 6th, the anniversary of his birth. His brother William resided close to the city.

A tumultuous clangour of bells and booming of guns from St. James' Park and the Tower of London rent the air. When asked by his wife the reason for the jubilation he jokingly replied, ”Why, for Isaac, of course. You surely have not forgotten this is his birthday.” But William, on reaching the city, learned to his amazement that his jesting words were true. The salvoes of artillery and peals of bells were indeed in honour of General Brock's victory in far-off Michigan.

Neither King nor Imperial Government was slow to recognize our hero's achievements. The Prince Regent, who expressed his appreciation of Brock's ”able, judicious and decisive conduct,” bestowed upon him an _extra_ knighthood of the Order of the Bath, in consideration, so ran the doc.u.ment, ”of all the difficulties with which he was surrounded during the invasion of the Province, and the singular judgment, firmness, skill and courage with which he surmounted them so effectually.”

When the glittering insignia of his new rank reached Canada, Sir Isaac Brock's eyes were closed in death. His inanimate body, from which one of the n.o.blest souls of the century had fled, lay rigid in its winding-sheet at Fort George.

To Major Glegg, who bore the General's despatches from Canada, the Prince Regent remarked that ”General Brock had done more in an hour than could have been done in six months by negotiation.” The fulfilment of Isaac's favourite maxim, ”Say and do,” was being demonstrated in a most remarkable manner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”PORTRAIT OF MAJOR-GENERAL BROCK, 18 X 6”]

CHAPTER XXIII.

”HERO, DEFENDER, SAVIOUR.”

General Sheaffe, the only field officer available, and junior colonel of the 49th, of whom the reader has already heard, had been brought from the East to take command at Niagara in Brock's absence. Like Prevost, he was born in Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1763, a son of the deputy collector of that port. There the two had been school-fellows, and both found it difficult to engage in vigorous diplomatic or military conflict with the Americans. To Sheaffe's credit, it should be said that he applied for another station.

It was Sheaffe, however, who acceded to General Dearborn's specious demand that the _freedom of the lakes and rivers_ be extended to the United States Government during the armistice. This was done while Brock was in the West. Sheaffe it also was who, with hat in hand and strange alacrity, later agreed, despite his first terrible blunder, to repeat the offence. On the very afternoon that the British defeated the Americans at Queenston, and when the moral effect of that victory, followed up by vigorous attack, would have saved Canada from a continuance of the war, and deplorable loss of life and trade, Sheaffe actually agreed to another armistice. For this _second_ truce, like his first, ”no valid reason, military or civil, has ever been a.s.signed.” As far as the British were concerned, neither of these two was necessary, but, on the contrary, directly to their disadvantage. Isaac Brock, alas! was not made in duplicate.

Our hero remained but a few hours in Kingston. He was needed in Niagara.

The enemy was burning to avenge Detroit. The sight of Hull's ragged legions pa.s.sing as prisoners of war along the Canadian bank of the river, bound for Montreal, did not tend to soften the hearts of the Americans. Stores and ordnance continued to pour into Lewiston. Brock needed 1,000 additional regulars. He might as well have asked for the moon. Early in September he stated that if he could maintain his position six weeks longer ”the campaign would end in a manner little expected in the States.” Scores of American marines and seamen were marking time, waiting for the launching of the vessels which Captain Chauncey had been given free license to build to ensure United States supremacy of the lakes. Prevost's eyes were still bandaged. Brock warned his grenadiers of the 49th to be ready for trouble. He foresaw that the Niagara river would be crossed, but at what point was uncertain. Stray musket-b.a.l.l.s whistled across at night as thick as whip-poor-wills in summer. This firing was ”the unauthorized warfare between sentinels.”

The peaceful citizens of Newark, returning from dance or card-party--even the imminence of war did not wholly stifle their desire for innocent revelry--found it embarra.s.sing.