The American Invasion of Canada Page 13

  On the docks and in the streets the Indians are engaged in war dances, leaping and capering before the doors of the inhabitants, who give them presents of whiskey. “I have seen the great Tecumseh,” William Beall, still captive aboard the Thames, writes in his diary. “He is a very plane man, rather above middle-size, stout built, a noble set of features and an admirable eye. He is always accompanied by Six great chiefs, who never go before him. The women and men all fear that in the event of Genl. Hull’s crossing and proving successfull, that the Indians being naturally treacherous will turn against them to murder and destroy them.”

  Tecumseh’s followers have shadowed Hull’s army all the way through Michigan Territory, warned by their leader to take no overt action until war is declared and he can bring his federation into alliance with Great Britain. Hull has done his best to neutralize him, sending messengers to a council at Fort Wayne, promising protection and friendship if the Indians stay out of the white man’s war.

  “Neutral indeed!” cries Tecumseh to the assembled tribes. “Who will protect you while the Long Knives are fighting the British and are away from you? Who will protect you from the attack of your ancient enemies, the western tribes, who may become allies of the British?”

  Will a policy of neutrality lead to a restoration of the Indian lands, Tecumseh asks, and as he speaks, takes the emissary’s peace pipe and breaks it between his fingers. And later:

  “Here is a chance presented to us-yes, a chance such as will never occur again-for us Indians of North America to form ourselves into one great combination and cast our lot with the British in this war....”

  Tecumseh leaves Fort Wayne with a large party of Shawnee, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, and Delaware to meet Matthew Elliott at Amherstburg. Hull sends another emissary, urges another council at Brownstown, the Wyandot village directly opposite the British fort. Tecumseh refuses:

  “I have taken sides with the King, my father, and I will suffer my bones to bleach upon this shore before I will recross that stream to join in any council of neutrality.”

  Like the Americans, the Wyandot are split into camps of hawks and doves. They are important to Tecumseh’s cause because they are the senior tribe, looked up to by all the others. They are Huron, the remnants of the mighty nation destroyed during the French regime. At a great council held on the parade ground at Fort Amherstburg on July y, one chief. Roundhead, supports Tecumseh. Another, Walk-in-the-Water, advocates neutrality and crosses back into U.S. territory. But Tecumseh has no intention of letting the Wyandot straddle the fence.

  Upriver at Detroit, Hull prepares to invade Canada by landing his army at Sandwich. He attempts to move on July 10 but, to his dismay, discovers that hundreds of militiamen, urged on in some cases by their officers, decline to cross the river. They have not committed themselves to fight on foreign soil.

  The next day Hull tries again. Two militia companies refuse to enter the boats. One finally gives in to persuasion; the other stands firm. When Hull demands a list of those who refuse to go, the company commander, a Captain Rupes, hands over the names of his entire command. Hull’s adjutant harangues the men. Words like “coward” and “traitor” are thrown at them to no avail. Again the crossing is aborted.

  The war has yet to develop beyond the comic opera stage. Across the river at Sandwich an equally reluctant body of citizen soldiers-the militia of Kent and Essex counties, only recently called to service-sits and waits. These young farmers have had little if any training, militia service being mainly an excuse for social carousing. They are not eager to fight, especially in midsummer with the winter wheat ripening in the fields. Patriotism has no meaning for most of them; that is the exclusive property of the Loyalists. The majority are passively pro-American, having moved up from New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Isolated on the scattered farms and absorbed in the wearisome if profitable task of clearing the land and working the soil, they have as yet no sense of a larger community. Few have ever seen a newspaper; they learn of the war tardily, through handbills. Whether or not Upper Canada becomes another American state they do not really care.

  Lieutenant-Colonel St. George, who is convinced that these unwilling soldiers-most are not even uniformed-will flee to their homes at the first shot, decides to get them out of the way before the attack is launched. Otherwise, their certain rout would throw his entire force into a state of confusion. The only way he can prevent them from melting away to their farms is to march the lot back to the fort and make the most of them; perhaps their backs can be stiffened by the example of the regulars. Even that is doubtful: from his vantage point in the town of Amherstburg William Beall discovers that many of these former Americans express a desire to join Hull as soon as he crosses into Canada.

  At last, on July 12, a bright and lovely Sunday, Hull resolves to make the crossing, even though two hundred of his men continue to stand on their constitutional rights. He fears further mutinies if he keeps his troops inactive, and it is also his fancy that the Canadian settlers will feel themselves liberated from the British yoke once he lands and that they and the Indians will stay out of the war.

  Hull’s landing is unopposed. Colonel Cass is the first to leap from the lead boat, and thus the first American to set foot on Canadian soil. He immediately unfurls the Stars and Stripes while Hull’s staff searches about for a headquarters.

  Sandwich is a placid little garden village, almost every house set in a small orchard where peaches, grapes, and apples flourish. The conquering general seizes the most imposing residence-a new brick home, built in the Georgian style the year before, its interior still unfinished, belonging to Lieutenant-Colonel Francois Baby, a member of a distinguished pioneer fur-trading family. The Babys and the Hulls have been on intimate terms, but when James Baby, a brother and also a militia colonel, protests (his own home not far away is quickly pillaged), all Hull can say is that circumstances are changed now, a phrase which Lieutenant-Colonel Baby will throw back at him a month later.

  Hull has scarcely landed when he insists on issuing a proclamation intended to disperse the militia and cow the inhabitants, many of whom are either terrified of his troops or secretly disposed to his cause. Most have fled, but those who remain welcome the invaders as friends, waving white handkerchiefs and flags from the windows and crying out such phrases as “We like the Americans.” At Amherstburg, Beall encounters similar sentiments and confides to his journal that many solicit secret interviews with him, and when these are refused “occasionally and slily say ‘Success to the Americans and General Hull’, ‘Let us alone and we will take Maiden [Amherstburg] ourselves’, et cetera, and many expressions showing their warmth for us and the Americans and their detestation of the British.”

  Yet Hull cannot resist issuing a bombastic proclamation that seems designed to set the Canadians on edge. He has it printed, rather imperfectly, in Detroit, borrowing the press of a Roman Catholic priest. It is soon the talk of the countryside:

  A 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 the United States waves on the territory of Canada. To the peaceful, unoffending inhabitant, It brings neither danger nor difficulty I come to find enemies not to make them, I come to protect you not to injure you.

  Separated by an immense ocean and an extensive Wilderness from Great Britain you have no participation in her counsels 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 to redress the other. The United States are sufficiently powerful to afford you every security consistent with their rights & your expectations. I tender you the invaluable blessings of Civil, Political, & Religious Liberty, and their necessary result, individual, and general, prosperity: That libe
rty which gave decision to our counsels and energy to our conduct in our struggle for INDEPENDENCE and which conducted us safely and triumphantly thro5 the stormy period of the Revolution....

  In the name of my Country and by the authority of my Government I promise you protection to your persons, property, and rights, Remain at your homes, Pursue your peaceful and customary avocations. Raise not your hands against your brethern, many of your fathers fought for the freedom & Indepennce we now enjoy Being children therefore of the same family with us, and heirs to the same Heritage, the arrival of an army of Friends must be hailed by you with a cordial welcome, You will be emancipated from Tyranny and oppression and restored to the dignified status of freemen.... If contrary to your own interest & 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 are let loose to murder our Citizens and butcher our women and children, this war, will be a war of extermination.

  The first stroke with the Tomahawk the first attempt with the Scalping Knife will be the Signal for one indiscriminate scene of desolation, No white man found fighting by the Side of an Indian will be taken prisoner Instant destruction will be his Lot....

  I doubt not your courage and firmness; I will not doubt your attachment to Liberty. If you tender your services voluntarily they will be accepted readily.

  The United State offers you Peace, Liberty, and Security your choice lies between these, & War, Slavery, and destruction, Choose . then, but choose wisely; and may he who knows the justice of our cause, and who holds in his hand the fate of Nations, guide you to a result the most compatible, with your rights and interests, your peace and prosperity.

  WM. HULL

  The General, who is afraid of the Indians, hopes that this document will force his opposite number at Fort Amherstburg to follow the lead of the United States and adopt a policy of native neutrality, at least temporarily. At the very minimum it ought to frighten the settlers and militia into refusing to bear arms. That is its immediate effect. In Brock’s phrase, “the disaffected became more audacious, and the wavering more intimidated.” The proclamation terrifies the militia. Within three days the force of newly recruited soldiers has been reduced by half as the farm boys desert to their homes.

  Yet Hull has overstated his case. These are farmers he is addressing, not revolutionaries. The colonial authoritarianism touches very few. They do not feel like slaves; they already have enough peace, liberty, and security to satisfy them. This tax-free province is not America at the time of the Boston Tea Party. Why is Hull asking them to free themselves from tyranny? In the words of one, if they had been under real tyranny, “they could at any time have crossed the line to the United States.”

  Hull has made another error. He threatens that anyone found fighting beside the Indians can expect no quarter. That rankles. Everybody will be fighting with the Indians; it will not be a matter of choice. Some of the militiamen who secretly hoped to go over to Hull in the confusion of battle have a change of heart. What is the point of deserting if the Americans intend to kill them on capture?

  Precipitate action does not fit the Upper Canadian mood. This is a pioneer society, not a frontier society. No Daniel Boones stalk the Canadian forests, ready to knock off an Injun with a Kentucky rifle or do battle over an imagined slight. The Methodist circuit riders keep the people law abiding and temperate; prosperity keeps them content. The Sabbath is looked on with reverence; card playing and horse racing are considered sinful diversions; the demon rum has yet to become a problem. There is little theft, less violence. Simple pastimes tied to the land-barn raisings, corn huskings, threshing bees-serve as an outlet for the spirited. The new settlers will not volunteer to fight. But most are prepared, if forced, to bear arms for their new country and to march when ordered. In the years that follow some will even come to believe that they were the real saviours of Upper Canada.

  •

  MONTREAL, LOWER CANADA, July 45 1812. Sir George Prevost has moved up from his capital at Quebec to be closer to the scene of action. An American army is gathering at Albany, New York, poised to attack Montreal by the traditional invasion route of the Lake Champlain water corridor. If it succeeds. Sir George is perfectly prepared to abandon all of Upper Canada and withdraw to the fortress of Quebec.

  At this moment, however, the Captain-General, Governor-in-Chief, Vice-Admiral, Lieutenant-General and Commanding Officer of His Majesty’s Forces in Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Cape Breton, Newfoundland and the Bermudas is faced with a crisis on his own doorstep. A riot has broken out at Lachine over the Militia Law, which provides for the drafting of two thousand bachelors for three months’ training. Some of the men from the parish at Pointe Claire have refused to go, believing-or pretending to believe-that the act has not been properly passed and the government is simply seizing an excuse to turn young French Canadians into soldiers.

  When the army tries force, a mob resists and marches off to Lachine to seize a flotilla of boats in which the draftees hope to escape. The Riot Act is read; shots whistle over the insurgents’ heads and are returned; two civilians are killed. Four hundred and fifty soldiers invade the community and begin taking prisoners-so many, indeed, that they are finally released on the promise that they will “implore the pardon of His Excellency the Governor.”

  His Excellency is a suave diplomat whose forte is conciliation. He has learned that delicate art as governor of St. Lucia and later of Dominica, French-speaking islands in the Caribbean wrested from the mother country by the British but soothed into passivity by a man who has none of the hauteur of a British colonial bureaucrat. Born of a Swiss father and perfectly at home in the French language, Frevost has the exact qualifications needed to win over a race who also consider themselves a conquered people.

  Now, before some three hundred insurgents, the Great Conciliator appears and turns on his considerable charm.

  “His Excellency expostulated with them as a Father and pointed out to them the danger of their situation in a style truly honourable to his own feelings, assuring them of his forgiveness on delivering up those who had been promoters of the insurrection...which they cheerfully agreed to do....”

  Thus with the crisis defused and the approving comment of the Montreal Herald putting the seal on his actions, the Governor General can turn to graver matters. He is resolved to fight a defensive war only; he does not have the resources to go on the attack, even if he wished to. But he does not wish to. His own natural caution has been sustained by specific instructions from Lord Liverpool, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, to do nothing rash.

  Rashness is not Sir George’s style. He finds it difficult to countenance it in others. Surely the United States will do nothing rash! He is half convinced that the Americans do not actually mean to fight; that some accommodation can be made with them; that the war is not a real war; and that, in any event, it cannot possibly last for more than a few weeks. “Prudent” is a word that slips comfortably into his correspondence. He considers it “prudent and politic to avoid any measure which can in its effect have a tendency to unite the people in the American States,” for “whilst disunion prevails among them, their attempts on these provinces will be feeble.” Therefore it is important not to anger the enemy. Brock, specifically, is enjoined from “committing any act which may even by construction tend to unite the Eastern and Southern states.”

  Brock, with his reputation for dash and daring, worries Prevost. The impetuous, subordinate “is more than a week away by express courier and a month away by post. His audacity is legendary. Prevost has certainly heard the stories! One goes all the way back to Brock’s early days, when his regiment, the 49th, was stationed at Bridgetown in Barbados. There was in that company a confirmed braggart and duellist whose practice was to insult fellow officers
and finish them off at twelve paces. Brock, when accosted, accepted the challenge but refused to fire at the regulation distance. Instead, he produced a handkerchief and demanded that both men fire across it at point-blank range, thus equalling the odds and making the death of at least one of them a virtual certainty. His adversary panicked, refused to fire, and thus shamed was forced to leave the regiment.

  There are other tales: Brock in the saddle, insisting on riding to the very pinnacle of Mount Hillaby, twelve hundred feet above the Caribbean-a feat most horsemen consider impossible; or, in 1803, personally leading an eight-hour chase in an open boat across Lake Ontario to apprehend six deserters, a venture that brought him a reprimand.

  To a prudent commander, Brock’s presence can be disquieting, even alarming. He is known as a man who believes that “nothing should be impossible to a soldier; the word impossible should not be found in a soldier’s dictionary!” Will Brock attempt the impossible in Upper Canada? Prevost is determined that he shall not.

  The contrast between the two commanders can be seen in their official portraits. At forty-four, Prevost is a handsome man, his lean face framed by dark sideburns; yet even in his painted likeness there is a furtiveness. The eyes swivel back as if to watch the artist; little furrows crease the brow. There is a slackness of mouth, a hesitancy of stance, none of the knife-edge sharpness that distinguishes the features of his subordinate who, in his portraits, looks off resolutely and serenely into the middle distance.

  If Prevost is more diplomat than soldier. Brock is more soldier than diplomat. He remains disdainful of civilians, though he has learned to curb in public the tactlessness that once marked his dealings with the administration in Quebec. Prevost on the other hand has, in less than a year, worked a miracle in Lower Canada by managing to conciliate the French Canadians whose loyalty to the Crown had been placed in jeopardy by the racial arrogance of his predecessor. Under Sir James Craig, the Québécois found themselves shut out of all important government posts.