Part 16 (2/2)
With this detachment, an additional supply of ordnance stores and camp equipage for 500 men will be forwarded for Upper Canada; and as soon as a sufficiency of bateaux can again be collected at La Chine, Colonel Vincent is under orders to proceed to Kingston with the remainder of the 49th regiment, and a subaltern of the royal artillery and ten gunners, with two 3-pounders.
When these reinforcements reach you, they will, I trust, enable you successfully to resist the internal, as well as external, enemies opposed to you, and materially aid the able measures you have adopted for the defence of Upper Canada.
With regard to the queries you have submitted to me on the subject of martial law, I have to observe, that it has not fallen within my experience to see martial law proclaimed, except in those places where it has been declared under the authority of a provincial legislature, which of course regulated the mode in which it was to be executed. As the martial law which you purpose declaring is founded on the king's commission, and upon the extreme case of invasion alluded to in it, I am inclined to think that whatever power is necessary for carrying the measure into effect, must have been intended to be given you by the commission, and consequently, that the power of a.s.sembling courts martial and of carrying their sentence into execution, is included in the authority for declaring martial law. The officers of militia becoming themselves subject to martial law when it is declared, I conceive they may sit upon courts martial with officers of his majesty's regular forces; but upon both these points I desire not to be understood as speaking decisively--extreme cases must be met by measures which, on ordinary occasions, would not perhaps be justified. Your situation is such as to warrant your resorting to any step which, in your judgment, the public safety may require. I should therefore think, that after taking the best opinions you can obtain from the first law characters you have about you respecting the doubts you entertain on this subject, you need not hesitate to determine upon that line of conduct which you shall think will best promote the good of the service, trusting, if you do err, to the absolute necessity of the measures you may adopt, as your justification for them to his majesty's government.
Your letters of the 26th, 28th and 29th July, with the several enclosures and papers accompanying them, were received by me shortly previous to my leaving Quebec; the last containing Captain Roberts' official account of the capture of Fort Michilimakinack. Great credit is certainly due to that officer for the zeal and prompt.i.tude with which he has performed this service; at the same time I must confess, my mind has been very much relieved by finding that the capture took place at a period subsequent to Brigadier-General Hull's invasion of the province, as, had it been prior to it, it would not only have been in violation of Captain Roberts'
orders, but have afforded a just ground for the subsequent conduct of the enemy, which, I now plainly perceive, no forbearance on your part would have prevented. The capture of this place will, I hope, enable the Indian tribes in that quarter to co-operate with you in your present movements against the enemy, by threatening his flanks, a diversion which would greatly alarm him, and probably have the effect of compelling him to retreat across the river.
I send you enclosed a copy of the official repeal of the orders in council, which I received last night by express from Quebec. Although I much doubt whether this step on the part of our government will have any effect upon that of the United States, the circulation of the paper evincing their conciliatory disposition may tend to increase and strengthen the divisions which subsist amongst the people upon the subject of the war. I therefore recommend to you to have a number of copies struck off and distributed.
Colonel Baynes is still absent upon his mission to the enemy's camp. Your letter to him of the 29th ultimo was received at the same time with those I have last acknowledged. Colonel Lethbridge I have directed to return to Montreal.
The issue of army bills has taken place at Quebec, and I hope to be able shortly to send you a supply of them.
We have previously alluded (page 206) to that part of the preceding letter which relates to the capture of Michilimakinack. This capture appears to have been effected _contrary_ to Sir George Prevost's orders, as Fort St. Joseph being nearly 350 miles from Detroit and Sandwich, and as the expedition left the fort only four days after Hull's invasion, it was scarcely possible that Captain Roberts was then aware of that circ.u.mstance. Neither in his letter to the adjutant-general, announcing the capture, does he excuse himself by stating that he had heard of the invasion. In his dispatch to Earl Bathurst, written exactly a fortnight after the preceding letter, and dated Montreal, August 26, Sir George Prevost, in communicating the surrender of Detroit, expressed himself in very altered language, as he said:
”In these measures he[60] was most opportunely aided by the fortunate surrender of Fort Michilimakinack, which, giving spirit and confidence to the Indian tribes in its neighbourhood, part of whom a.s.sisted in its capture, determined them to advance upon the rear and flanks of the American army, as soon as they heard that it had entered the province.”
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 58: This order strikes us as an unmilitary interference on the part of Sir George Prevost with Major-General Brock's authority, Captain Roberts being under the immediate command of the latter general.]
[Footnote 59: See Captain Roberts' Dispatch, Appendix A, Sec. 1, No. 2.]
[Footnote 60: Major-General Brock.]
CHAPTER XI.
Whilst Major-General Brock impatiently lingered on the Niagara frontier, so as to give time to the legislature to a.s.semble at York, he dispatched Colonel Proctor, of the 41st regiment, with such reinforcements as could be spared, to a.s.sume the command at Amherstburg. General Hull, after crossing to Sandwich, remained for some time inactive, under pretext of making preparations for the reduction of Amherstburg, or Malden, as the Americans called it, which lay but eighteen miles below him, and was not in a condition to withstand a regular siege. During the delay, three detachments of his army were on three successive days beaten back by a small number of the 41st regiment and a few Indians. Michilimakinack had fallen since the invasion, and the Indians from that quarter were flocking to the British standard. Our naval force being superior on the lake, Colonel Proctor pushed over to Brownstown, an American village, about 25 miles from Detroit, and nearly opposite to Amherstburg, a small detachment of the 41st regiment, and some Indians under the celebrated Tec.u.mseh, who, with 70 of the latter, awaited in ambush near that village a party of 200 Americans, under Major Van Home, on their march[61] from Detroit to the River Raisin, (40 miles south of Detroit,) to meet a detachment of volunteers from Ohio, with a convoy of provisions for Hull's army. The Indians, firing suddenly, killed 20, including 5 officers, and wounded about the same number of the Americans, who hastily retreated, and were pursued seven miles by the warriors alone, not a British soldier being engaged. In this affair, General Hull's dispatches and the correspondence of his troops fell into the hands of Tec.u.mseh, and it was partly the desponding nature of their contents which afterwards induced Major-General Brock to attempt the capture of the American army. Foiled in the reduction of Fort Amherstburg; disappointed in his hope of a general insurrection of the Canadians; and, ”above all, dismayed at the report of General Brock's resolution to advance against him,”[62] Hull's schemes of conquest vanished; and he who, less than a month before, had landed in Canada boastful of his strength and with threats of extermination, now saw no other alternative than a hasty return to Detroit, under the pretence of concentrating his forces; and after re-opening his communication with the rivers Raisin and Miami, through which he received his supplies, of resuming offensive operations. Accordingly, on the 7th and 8th of August the American army re-crossed the river, with the exception of a garrison of 250 men left in charge of a small fortification they had thrown up on the British side, a little below Detroit, and which they evacuated and destroyed before the arrival of Major-General Brock.[63] On the 9th of August, a body of 600 Americans, sent to dislodge the British from Brownstown and to open a communication with the Rivers Raisin and Miami, was met by the white troops and Indians under Captain Muir, of the 41st, at Maguaga, between Brownstown and Detroit, but, after a severe conflict, Captain Muir was compelled to retreat.
From the moment that Major-General Brock heard of the invasion of the western district, he determined on proceeding thither in person after he had met the legislature and dispatched the public business. Having expressed a wish of being accompanied by such of the militia as might voluntarily offer their services, 500, princ.i.p.ally the sons of veteran soldiers who had settled in the province, cheerfully came forward for that purpose. The threatening att.i.tude, however, of the enemy on the Niagara frontier, obliged the general to content himself with half this number; and he left York on the 6th of August for Burlington Bay, whence he proceeded by land for Long Point, on Lake Erie. In pa.s.sing the Mohawks' village, on the Grand River, or Ouse, he desired the Indians there to tell him who were, and who were not, his friends; and at a council held on the 7th of August, they promised that about 60 of their number should follow him on the ensuing Monday, the 10th. At Long Point, a few regulars and nearly 300 militia embarked with him on the 8th of the same month in boats of every description, collected among the neighbouring farmers, who usually employed them for transporting their corn and flour. The distance from Long Point to Amherstburg is about 200 miles along the sh.o.r.e, which in many parts is a high precipitous bank of red clay, with scarcely a creek for shelter. The little flotilla encountered heavy rain and tempestuous weather, but nothing could for a moment r.e.t.a.r.d its progress, or diminish the confidence of the men in their indefatigable leader. Among his general orders from the commencement of hostilities, the only one relating to this voyage is the following, which, from the singularity of the circ.u.mstances attending it, is thought worthy of being preserved:
G.O. Head Quarters, Pointe au Prince, Aug. 12, 1812.
It is Major-General Brock's intention, should the wind continue fair, to proceed during the night; officers commanding boats will therefore pay attention to the order of sailing, as directed yesterday; the greatest care and attention will be required to prevent the boats from separating or falling behind. A great part of the banks of the lake, where the boats will this day pa.s.s, is much more dangerous and difficult of access than any we have pa.s.sed; the boats will, therefore, not land except in the most extreme necessity, and then great care must be taken to choose the best place for beaching.
The troops being now in the neighbourhood of the enemy, every precaution must be taken to guard against surprise. By Order.
J.B. GLEGG, Aide-de-Camp.
After five days and nights of incessant exertion, the little squadron reached Amherstburg[64] shortly before midnight on the 13th, and in a rough sketch in the handwriting of Major-General Brock, he observed: ”In no instance have I seen troops who would have endured the fatigues of a long journey in boats, during extremely bad weather, with greater cheerfulness and constancy; and it is but justice to this little band to add, that their conduct throughout excited my admiration.”
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