Hugh S. Eayrs

“ Isaac was born on October 6th, 1769, and was the eighth son of John Brock. Of his father we know little. He was a sailor, had been a midshipman in the navy, and his duty had carried him far afield, to India and other outposts. Isaac’s birthplace was Guernsey, an island in the English Channel, which is one of the beauty spots of the world. There could have been no more fitting cradle for a child who was to become indeed a man of action than this rugged little island, with its rocky weather-beaten coast, stern and bold in outline. ”

“ APPENDIX GENERAL HULL’S PROCLAMATION “Inhabitants of Canada! After thirty years of peace and prosperity, the United States have been driven to arms. The injuries and aggressions, the insults and indignities of Great Britain, have once more left them no alternative but manly resistance or unconditional submission.
“The army under my command has invaded your country, and the standard of Union now waves over the territory of Canada. To the peaceable, unoffending inhabitant it brings neither danger nor difficulty. I come to find enemies, not to make them. I come to protect, not to injure you. ”

“ I tender you the invaluable blessings of civil, political, and religious liberty, and their necessary result, individual and general prosperity—that liberty which gave decision to our councils and energy to our struggle for independence, and which conducted us safely and triumphantly through the stormy period of the revolution; that liberty which has raised us to an elevated rank among the nations of the world, and which has afforded us a greater measure of peace and security, of wealth and improvement, than ever yet fell to the lot of any people. ”

“ I have a force which will look down all opposition, and that force is but the vanguard of a much greater. If, contrary to your own interests and the just expectation of my country, you should take part in the approaching contest, you will be considered and treated as enemies, and the horrors and calamities of war will stalk before you. If the barbarous and savage policy of Great Britain be pursued, and the savages be let loose to murder our citizens and butcher our women and children, this war will be a war of extermination. ”

“ They had many dead and dying already, and the rest turned tail and ran to the edge of the precipice. Half crazed, many threw themselves over. The rest made for the river bank, but there were no boats, and their only way of escape was by way of swimming. Few were able to breast the current, and many perished in the cruel stream. The Americans were badly beaten, and Scott, having made a brave fight, surrendered all his men then on the Canadian side to General Sheaffe. It is ten thousand pities that the gallant Brock was not there to see the result of the work of his hands. ”

“ Separated by an immense ocean and an extensive wilderness from Great Britain, you have no participation in her councils, no interest in her conduct. You have felt her tyranny, you have seen her injustice, but I do not ask you to avenge the one or redress the other. The United States are sufficiently powerful to afford you every security consistent with their rights and your expectations. ”

“ Brock had not been long in Canada before trouble began in the regiment. He had an idea that one of his men, Carr by name, was waiting his chance to desert. He questioned him closely, but the man was sullen. “Tell me the truth like a man,” said Brock. “You know I have always treated you kindly.” The man broke down at the words and tone of his commander and confessed that he and others were planning to desert to the United States. Here we see that Brock was a man who knew human nature. ”

“ We see our country served by a succession of great men. Their greatness consisted in trying to weld Canada into this oneness and in trying to develop our illimitable resources. For this fifty years and for the fifty before it, Canada had no war to engage her attention until, in 1914, she joined with Great Britain in the Great War that the world might be “made safe for democracy.” ”

“ They set out to the accompaniment of the booming of the guns from the Hunter and the Queen Charlotte, which were in the river just above what is now the city of Windsor. Many of Brock’s men were quite new to the idea of conflict, and doubtless the thoughts of men before battle then were much the same as they are now. But the sun rose high in the heavens, and the hearts of the men rose with it. ”

“ He was certainly a man of action, and his biography is fittingly the first title in a series of Canadian Men of Action. The older nations of the world have their great ones. France has its Joan of Arc, Italy its Garibaldi, Russia its Peter, and Britain its Arthur and its Alfred. In ten short years in Canada, Brock accomplished much, for while he lost his life but four months after war was declared, it was his action and, after, his spirit which animated the defence of his adopted country against invasion. ”

“ Perhaps even more portentous to Brock was the state of mind of the average soldier in Canada. These men had come from Britain where the garrison life was pleasant and full of incident and where the cities offered excitement and amusement. Canada was a great contrast. It was sparsely populated. There were no cities, as these British soldiers understood the term, and the sameness of the life aroused unrest and discontent. The United States offered an easy refuge for deserters. ”

“ Wise Isaac Brock! He knew the value of placing a man on his honor.
After a short stay at Quebec, Brock and his men began their journey to York, the small but important town that was later to become the great city of Toronto. The 49th journeyed by water, for there were no trains. A schooner took the men up to Montreal, where, after resting, they took boats up the St. Lawrence. Picture what it meant to brave the wildness and storm of our great river, to these voyagers a waterway quite unknown, in small and open boats. ”

“ The British took nearly a thousand prisoners, among whom was General Wadsworth and about seventy other officers. The British on their side had lost eleven killed and something like sixty wounded. The Indians, no less gallant, had losses of five killed and nine wounded. History differs as to the American casualties. There were probably nearly a hundred killed and about two hundred wounded. So the inextinguishable flame of Brock’s spirit had blazed the way to victory, for Queenston Heights was a great victory. ”

“ The thoughts of all of us travel back along the line of those fifty years since Confederation swept away all divisions and made the people of what is now Canada one in name, that they might become one in purpose, ideal, and spirit. ”

“ The inconsistent and unjustifiable threat of refusing quarter, for such a cause as being found in arms with a brother sufferer in defence of invaded rights, must be exercised with the certain assurance of retaliation, not only in the limited operations of war in this part of the king’s dominions, but in every quarter of the globe; for the national character of Britain is not less distinguished for humanity than strict retributive justice, which will consider the execution of this inhuman threat as deliberate murder, for which every subject of the offending power must make expiation. ”

“ Brock’s regiment on its return from Holland was quartered in Jersey, where it remained until early in 1801. By this time Britain found herself forced to fight a multiplicity of foes. Even Russia had gone over to the enemy, whose forces daily grew larger and who were spending time and money in preparation. The line-up looked unequal. On the one side was Britain. On the other was France, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia. Denmark and Russia had a large fleet in the Baltic. If the fleets of these two nations should combine with that of France, British supremacy on the sea would be endangered. ”

“ But, doubtless to his amazement, in the summer of 1811, the government of the United States accused British officers in Canada of actually aiding and abetting the Indians in their lawlessness. Brock, naturally, had a hard enough row to hoe, for though he must deprecate the cruelty of the Indians, he was anxious to preserve friendliness with them, since, should war come, he desired them as allies, or at any rate, did not want them as enemies. ”

“ By what new principle are they to be prohibited from defending their property? If their warfare, from being different to that of the white people, be more terrific to the enemy, let him retrace his steps. ”

“ Between Black Rock and Fort Niagara part of the American army was camped. It did nothing to hearten them for the task that lay before them to see the men whom Brock had taken prisoners at Detroit, and who had come by boat to Fort Erie, march along the Niagara River to Fort George. From there the prisoners were sent down the St. Lawrence to Montreal, and in some cases, to Quebec. Some Canadian cities, therefore, had an opportunity of seeing that when Brock bared his arm it was not for nothing. They might indeed feel hopeful under such a leader. ”

“ Brock’s brother William and his wife happened to be walking in a London park, and Mrs. Brock asked the reason of the flag-waving and the firing. “Do you not know,” said William, “that it is Isaac’s birthday? It is in honor of him.” What William said in jest turned out to be the very truth.
If Brock’s victory had a happy effect on the people of Britain the opposite was the case in the United States. The Jeffersons, the Clays, and the Hulls of the United States had led the people to believe that their northerly neighbor could very easily be conquered. ”

“ This unequalled prosperity would not have been attained by the utmost liberality of the government, or the persevering industry of the people, had not the maritime power of the mother country secured to its colonists a safe access to every market where the produce of their labor was in request. The unavoidable and immediate consequences of a separation from Great Britain must be the loss of this inestimable advantage ”

“ A company of negroes, refugees from the United States, gave material assistance to the British. The six hundred American soldiers on Queenston Heights were surprised. Instead of an attack from down-stream they had to face one from the left. They were caught like rats in a trap, but fought valiantly. They saw that escape was impossible, for the swift current flowed behind them and they had no boats to take them back to the American shore. Besides, they faced almost double the number of men. Lieutenant-Colonel Winfield Scott of the regular army was their commander, and he was a brave man. ”

“ At the age of ten he was sent to school at Southampton, and later was at Rotterdam, where his tutor was a French pastor. Neither his parents nor himself would be aware, at that time, of the use that the knowledge of French he there acquired would be to him when he came to Canada later on.
He chose his profession early in life. For him there could be only two careers, the navy or the army. Guernsey men, from time immemorial, had favored the services as a means of earning their living, for the love of adventure was ingrained in the people. Besides, Brock had two brothers in the army. ”

“ One of these is Major-General Sir Isaac Brock.
Brock is called “The hero of Upper Canada.” That he undoubtedly was, but he was more. He was the hero of Canada, for while his efforts both as soldier and statesman were peculiarly for one province, their effect was felt by Canadians of later days from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Indeed it is not too much to say that Brock’s part in the War of 1812-14 made fast and sure what is now the Dominion of Canada for the British Empire. This makes him at once the primal hero of Canada. We have our other heroes. ”

“ Brock ordered him to do something which was admittedly difficult. FitzGibbon said he was sorry, but it was impossible. “By the Lord Harry,” cried Brock, “don’t tell me it is impossible. Nothing should be impossible to a soldier. The word 'impossible’ should not be in a soldier’s dictionary.” ”

“ A winter campaign was out of the question, and food and supplies could be had only from the ships at anchor, since Holland was so uncertain a quantity. So the expedition fitted out at great expense and very hopeful of success, ended in the shameful abandonment of Holland to the French. The British returned to England, while the Russians wintered in the Channel Islands. Brock learned much from Egmont-op-Zee, and if on the whole the campaign was inglorious, his own part had been a worthy one and the experience was invaluable. ”

“ The men in the navy were in a perpetual state of mutiny. There had been cases where the seamen had risen and murdered their officers. There had been a lack of actual naval fighting for some time, and the consequent dullness, added to the poor pay, made the navy a somewhat ragged and discontented unit. The seamen usually took the lead in revolt, and the soldiers sympathized with them. In the army there was additional reason. The officers were often bullies. Different ideas of discipline were held from those we know to-day. The average British officer terrorized over his men. ”