Samuel C. Douglas

“ Douglas was a remarkable man, both in character and in person. In age he may have been about fifty, with a strong-jawed, rugged face, a grizzling moustache, peculiarly keen gray eyes, and a wiry, vigorous figure which had lost nothing of the strength and activity of youth. He was cheery and genial to all, but somewhat offhand in his manners, giving the impression that he had seen life in social strata on some far lower horizon than the county society of Sussex. ”

“ While the armies lay thus opposed to each other, Douglas resolved to give the young king of England a lesson in the art of war. At the dead of night, he left the Scottish camp with a small body of chosen horse, not above two hundred, well armed. He crossed the river in deep silence, and came to the English camp, which was but carelessly guarded. Seeing this, Douglas rode past the English sentinels as if he had been an officer of the English army, saying,—"Ha, Saint George! you keep bad watch here!" ”

“ Douglas sat down, when he began these sketches, in the mood for writing comic scarifications, and neither bird nor man, city nor river, was safe from his harsh laughter. He hurls a pen where King Saul in similar mood hurled a spear, and we must concede that he hurls it with force.
Even nightingales, however, do not infuriate him as Victorians and Puritans do. When he writes angrily about nightingales you feel that he is only being amusing. When he writes about Victorians, you realise that he is positively white with anger. ”

“ Then, when his father also passed away, on May 24, 1799, he was left in possession of the ancestral estates and became the fifth Earl of Selkirk.
As a youngest son, who would have to make his own way in the world, Thomas Douglas had prepared himself, and this was a distinct advantage to him when his elevation in rank occurred. He entered into his fortune and place an educated man, with the broad outlook upon life and the humanitarian sympathy which study and experience bring to a generous spirit. ”

“ Douglas is only thirty-seven; he will not fully mature his powers for ten years yet. I have talked with him many times and have known him intimately and I think I understand the man. He is distrusted in the South simply because he will not bend all law making to the slave interests. ”

“ Stung with this reproach, Randolph called upon his soldiers to follow him, exclaiming, "My wreath shall bloom, or I shall perish!"
As he advanced, the English, who were ten to one, wheeled round to attack him, and pressed hard on his little band. Douglas saw his jeopardy, and requested the king's permission to succour him. "You shall not move from your ground," cried the king; "let Randolph extricate himself as he best may,—I will not alter my order of battle, and lose the advantage of my position." ”

“ Curbing his impatience by awkward yet loving efforts to amuse the bright, intelligent little Douglas, who grieved after Poky and Sam, the only friends his young life had ever known, he journeyed to Washington, and on arriving there went at once to Willard's Hotel, where he secured a room for himself and his quaintly dressed little son. ”

“ With a heavy heart Brown saw Douglas leave. It was the shattering of his most dramatic dream of the execution of the Great Deed. When the black bees should swarm he had seen himself at the head of the dark, roaring tide of avengers, their pikes and rifles flashing in the Southern sun. Around his waist was the sword of George Washington and the pistols of Lafayette. His Aide of Honor would ride, this negro, once a fugitive slave. Side by side they would sweep the South with fire and sword. ”

“ I asked, "that Douglas is against all these people and that he has all these influences to fight? For example, these Puritans cannot rule if popular sovereignty is adopted everywhere. They are numerically too inferior. How, for example, can you stop the railroads on Sunday if you let communities, states, control the matter? But if these fanatics get into control of the Federal government, they can do it. Don't you see the point? This is what Douglas is thinking about. He knows that you can have freedom about life only where every man has a say." ”

“ You see an ocean-bound republic requires imagination to get the thrill out of it, but you can catch anybody in America with a military uniform. And while Douglas may be a war man, so to speak, he is really too honest to play that game. I'll grant him that much. I think that the Whigs are outplaying him. And it looks to me that the emotions of America—what some people might call the conscience of America—are being drawn away from Douglas by this slavery matter. Just now territory and railroads are not so strong, or will not be so strong pretty soon as the cry for emancipation. ”

“ The steed along the drawbridge flies, Just as it trembled on the rise; Not lighter does the swallow skim Along the smooth lake’s level brim; And when Lord Marmion reached his band, He halts, and turns with clinched hand, And shout of loud defiance pours, And shook his gauntlet at the towers. “Horse! horse!” the Douglas cried, “and chase!” But soon he reigned his fury’s pace: “A royal messenger he came, Though most unworthy of the name.
St. Mary mend my fiery mood! Old age ne’er cools the Douglas blood, I thought to slay him where he stood. ”

“ With all this intellectual activity, Douglas was not a reader. I had found Emerson through Abigail; I read the North American Review, and Cooper's novels as they appeared. But Douglas had contempt for the moral idealism of New England. He thought it impractical. "You can't have a brain without a body," said Douglas. "Let the country develop its bones, its muscles, attain its stature. These men think the world is run by righteousness, especially if you let them prescribe the righteousness. ”

“ We should have no iron bridges built, or Atlantic cables laid, or financial companies started, and we certainly should not have any man-killing machines a million or half-a-million strong; whereas every well-conducted person knows that such things are now-a-days absolutely necessary. The truth is, that John Douglas, or Captain Douglas, as the neighbours called him with a kind of grudging respect, was a skulker from the battle of humanity. What he wanted was a beach of white sand, a hot day, a blue sea, a book, a pipe, and the absence of his fellow-creatures. ”

“ Last of all, he killed his prisoners, and flung the dead bodies among this disgusting heap, throwing salt over the whole. This his men called in derision of the English, the Douglas Larder. Then he flung dead horses into the well to destroy it; set fire to the castle; and afterwards marching away, took refuge with his followers in the hills and forests. "He loved better," he said, "to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak;" that is, he loved better to keep in the open field with his men, than to shut himself and them up in castles. ”

“ He was like an inventor who, after making many experiments, hits upon a working device. He was like a philosopher, who conceives the theory, then clears it, shears away its accidents or even abandons it. He had long been distrusted in the South. The Kansas-Nebraska bill still further alienated the South. The South wanted slavery carried into the territories by the Constitution, even against the will of the people of the territories. What had Douglas to gain with popular sovereignty? ”

“ In 1837 he had had no difficulty in being appointed register of the land office, a position which compelled him to make his home in Springfield. It was only a few months after Lincoln rode into town, all his earthly possessions in a pair of saddle-bags, that Douglas appeared. Handsome, polished, and always with an air of prosperity, the advent of the young Democratic official was in striking contrast to that of the sad-eyed, ill-clad, poverty-stricken young lawyer from New Salem. ”

“ Douglas got in the car with Lewis, who whisked her down the mountain side to the station.
“Maybe he has carried out his threat of running away. He is always saying he is going back to Richmond when he gets tired of the camp, which he does occasionally when he has nothing to occupy him. If I had only stopped adding up expenses and built the log cabin for him! I have neglected him, I am sure—and what will Father and Mother say? I wish I had let him go with Josh. He always takes such good care of him.” ”

“ Nay, for the very dun young Douglas had an epigram,—as bright, but not as welcome, as a sovereign. A saying of those early days has found its way into a comedy,—but not the less belongs to his authentic biography. A threatening attorney shakes his fist at the villakin where at the window the wit is parleying with him. "I'll put a man in the house, Sir!" "Couldn't you," says Douglas, (and of course the right-minded reader is shocked,) "couldn't you make it a woman?" What a scandalous way to treat a man of business! Between Douglas and the lawyers, for many years, there was open war. ”

“ If he had not been a very sociable man, it was not through pride. He had done many generous actions. The children were fond of him. They waited for himself to find out the misfortune that had overtaken him.
Douglas's first intimation was contained in a letter sent him by a solicitor in Greenock. ”

“ Meanwhile, up at Stuart Lake, was Douglas learning what was untellable—the daily discipline of strong, absolutely self-reliant living; Douglas developing what McLoughlin meant should be developed when he sent the young man to such [325] a hard post—iron in muscle, iron in nerve, iron in will.
The story is told that once at a later era in Douglas’ life at Victoria, a clerk dashed breathless into his presence gasping out that a whole tribe of unruly Indians had got possession of the fort courtyard. “Will we fire, sir? Will we man the guns?” ”

“ He had no horror of slavery, knowing exactly what it was; on the other hand he was falsely accused of trying to plant it in the territories.
He was hunted and traduced! Moralists prattled of his lack of a moral nature; envy tracked him, shooting from ambush! He had become rich and famous. He was the first man in his party. He was young and full of power. He might be President. The sanctimonious quoted Scripture against him. "Where a man's treasure is, there will be his heart also," said an enemy in the Senate, referring to the fact that Douglas had married a woman who was a slave owner. ”

“ He soon became prosperous. Now he is rich. What public man has become so rich? Yes, here is the American cotter's home; and so many boys have come out of a place like this and gone to the wars or into public life. It is America's symbol."
"You do not like Douglas, do you, Reverdy?" I asked, as we turned away. "Yes, I like him, I have always supported him—but somehow I feel that he is not good enough. I don't know what else to call it. You know, I don't like slavery; at the same time I don't know what to do with it. Sometimes I think Douglas' plan is all right, again I am not sure. ”

“ Douglas had given him the impression that some danger was hanging over his head, and he had always looked upon his sudden departure from California, and also his renting a house in so quiet a place in England, as being connected with this peril. He imagined that some secret society, some implacable organization, was on Douglas's track, which would never rest until it killed him. ”

“ In 1858, ability, courage, activity, ambition, the prestige of success, and a plausible moderation in party politics combined to make Douglas the most conspicuous individual in the public view. There was no other way whereby any other man could so surely attract the close and interested attention of the whole people as by meeting Douglas in direct personal competition. If Douglas had not held the position which he did, or if, holding it, he had lived in another State than Illinois, Lincoln might never have been President of the United States. ”

“ Douglas married Eliza, daughter of Jeremiah Riordan, Surgeon in the Royal Navy, in 1868, and has four children—William, James S., Howard R. and Amy Douglas. He was formerly Vice-President of the National Club, and is a Trustee of the Toronto General Hospital, and of the Canadian Associated Press, of which he was a promoter. A Presbyterian in religion and a Conservative in politics. Mr. Douglas numbers among his clubs the National and Albany of Toronto, the Rideau of Ottawa, the Caledon Mountain Trout Club and the Cuckoo Valley Fishing Club. Is a Justice of the Peace for the County of York. ”

“ The earldom and entailed estates of Douglas reverted by the patent of 1358 to Archibald Douglas, 3rd Earl of Douglas, called “The Grim” (c. 1328–c. 1400) , a natural son of the “good” Sir James. With his cousin, the 1st earl of Douglas, he had fought at Poitiers, where he was taken prisoner, but was released through ignorance of his real rank. On his return to Scotland he became constable and sheriff of Edinburgh, and, later, warden of the western marches, where his position was strengthened by his becoming lord of Galloway in 1369 and by his purchase of the earldom of Wigtown in 1372. ”

“ I sink fast; but let them still cry my war-cry, and conceal my death from my followers. There was a tradition in our family that a dead Douglas should win a field, and I trust it will this day be accomplished."
The Nobles did as he had enjoined; they concealed the Earl's body, and again rushed on to the battle, shouting "Douglas! Douglas!" louder than before. The English were weakened by the loss of the brave brothers Henry and Ralph Percy, both of whom were made prisoners, fighting most gallantly; and almost no man of note amongst the English escaped death or captivity. ”