The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume II Part 42
A day or two after this a.s.sault, General Drummond was reinforced by the arrival of the 6th and 82nd Regiments from Lower Canada; but this reinforcement was barely sufficient to supply recent losses. He deemed it unadvisable to attempt a second storming of the fort against a force twice as numerous as his own; but by continuing the investment, he cut off all communication of the enemy with the surrounding country, cooped him up in the fort, compelled him to draw his provisions and other resources from his own country, and thus rendered his occupation of that fort for the remainder of the campaign of no service to the invaders.
At about the expiration of a month, General Brown, having recovered of his wounds, again resumed command of the army on the Niagara frontier, and brought with him a strong reinforcement, resolving to attempt the destruction of the British batteries in front of Fort Erie. Pursuant to this determination, General Brown, on the 17th of September, at about noon, ordered a sortie of the whole American force, including both regulars and militia, in three divisions, under Generals Porter, Miller, and Ripley; and before the ready and reserved columns of the British could be brought from the camp (about a mile in the rear), the enemy had succeeded in penetrating the batteries, destroying the works with one magazine of ammunition, and spiking the guns. But ere he could effect his retreat, the ready and reserve columns arrived, and immediately commenced a determined attack upon his columns, and after about half an hour's desperate fighting, notwithstanding his great superiority of numbers, he retired before the bayonets of the British line, in great precipitation, under the cover of his works, after losing nearly 600 of his force.
The incessant rains which had fallen that season rendered it impossible for General Drummond to repair his batteries, or, indeed, to keep the field, on account of the exposure and increased sickness of the troops; he therefore, on the 21st of September, raised the siege and retired into winter quarters, in rear of his works at the mouth of the Chippewa.
General Brown affected some inclination to follow on the rear of the British army; yet, notwithstanding all the efforts which could possibly be exercised by a general were called into contribution by General Drummond to bring General Brown into action, it all proved unavailing.
The American general, "as soon as the coast was clear," having blown up the works, evacuated Fort Erie, and retreated across the river into his own country.
Thus terminated the campaign of 1814 on the Niagara frontier; and whatever might have been the object of the American Government when they sent that last army to invade Canada, it is certain that nothing was acquired, if we except a fresh proof (if such had been now necessary) of the loyalty of the Canadian people to their Sovereign, and their unshaken zeal to defend their country from the grip of its enemy, at whatever time he might think proper to invade it.[223]
PART IV.
REVIEW.
The author cannot better present a summary review of the true principles of loyalty, the origin, causes, characteristics, and results of the war of 1812-15, together with the conduct of the inhabitants of Canada in respect to it, than in the words of an address which he delivered to the York Pioneers at Queenston, in July, 1875, on the occasion of the anniversary celebration of the battle of Lundy's Lane. The address (which was entirely extemporaneous in the delivery) is here reproduced, as reported in the newspapers at the time:
"CAUSES OF THE WAR DECLARED BY THE UNITED STATES AGAINST GREAT BRITAIN, JUNE 18, 1812--CANADIAN DEFENCE--BATTLE OF LUNDY'S LANE, FOUGHT JULY 25, 1814.
"Address delivered by the Rev. Dr. Ryerson before the York Pioneers and other a.s.sociations a.s.sembled on Queenston Heights, near Brock's Monument, met at a pic-nic on Monday, July 26th, 1875, to celebrate the battle of Lundy's Lane.
"The Chairman, Colonel R. Denison, called upon Dr. Ryerson, who was warmly received.
"After a few preliminary observations, he said that he felt it a great privilege to be called on to address a number of those Canadians who had laid the foundation of our country, who had given Canada a name that was honoured throughout the world, and whose hearts beat responsive to those n.o.ble principles that made England the glory of all nations, and British inst.i.tutions the honour of mankind. (Loud applause.) He thought the York Pioneers might well be called the Canadian Pioneers--the pioneers of Canadian industry enterprise, freedom, and civilization. The object of the Society in giving an intelligent intensity to those principles that const.i.tuted the loyalty of the people of Canada, in preserving the traditions of the country, and in uniting in one centre the various elements of scattered light which were connected with the earliest rays of its opening history, were works well worthy of the defenders of the liberties of this country. The very foundation of the York Pioneers was a spirit of loyalty. What was that loyalty itself? It was no other than an attachment to the inst.i.tutions and laws of the land in which we live, and to the history of the nation to which we belong. It was not merely a sentiment of respect of the country to an individual, or even to the Sovereign. If it gathered round the person of the Sovereign, it was because that Sovereign represented the inst.i.tutions of the people, the overshadowing laws of the people, the real and essential freedom, and the n.o.blest development of the spirit of the people. Loyalty in its true essence and meaning was the principle of respect to our Sovereign, the freedom of our inst.i.tutions, and the excellencies of our civilization, and it was therefore a feeling worthy to be perpetuated by the people.
Shakespeare--that great apostle of human nature--has said:
"'Though _loyalty_, well held, to fools does make Our faith mere folly; yet he that can endure To follow with allegiance a fallen lord, Does conquer him that did his master conquer.'
"Loyalty is, therefore, faithful to its own principles, whether the personal object of it is in prosperity or adversity.
"'Loyalty is still the same, Whether it win or lose the game; True as the dial to the sun, Though it be not shone upon.'
"Hence, says Lord Clarendon, of a statesman of his time, 'He had no veneration for the Court, but only such loyalty to the King as the law required.' True loyalty is, therefore, fidelity to the Const.i.tution, laws, and inst.i.tutions of the land, and, of course, to the sovereign power representing them.
"Thus was it with our Loyalist forefathers. There was no cla.s.s of inhabitants of the old British-American Colonies more decided and earnest than they in claiming the rights of British subjects when invaded; yet when, instead of maintaining the rights of British subjects, it was proposed to renounce the allegiance of British subjects and destroy the unity of the empire, or 'the life of the nation' (as our American neighbours expressed it, in their recent civil war to maintain the unity of their republic), then were our forefathers true to their loyalty, and adhered to the unity of the empire at the sacrifice of property and home, and often of life itself. Of them might be said, what Milton says of Abdiel, amid the revolting hosts:
"'Abdiel, faithful found; Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, His loyalty he kept.'
"Our United Empire Loyalist forefathers 'kept their loyalty unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,' during seven long years of conflicts and sufferings; and that loyalty, with a courage and enterprise, and under privations and toils unsurpa.s.sed in human history, sought a refuge and a home in the wilderness of Canada, felled the forests of our country, and laid the foundation of its inst.i.tutions, freedom, and prosperity.
(Loud applause.)
"Canadian loyalty is the perpetuation of that British national life which has const.i.tuted the strength and glory of Great Britain since the morning of the Protestant Reformation, and placed her at the head of the freedom and civilization of mankind. This loyalty maintains the characteristic traditions of the nation--the mysterious links of connection between grandfather and grandson--traditions of strength and glory for a people, and the violations of which are a source of weakness and disorganization. Canadian loyalty, therefore, is not a mere sentiment, or mere affection for the representative or person of the Sovereign; it is a reverence for, and attachment to, the laws, order, inst.i.tutions and freedom of the country. As Christianity is not a mere attachment to a bishop, or ecclesiastic, or form of church polity, but a deep love of divine truth; so Canadian loyalty is a firm attachment to that British Const.i.tution and those British laws, adopted or enacted by ourselves, which best secure life, liberty, and prosperity, and which prompt us to Christian and patriotic deeds by linking us with all that is grand and n.o.ble in the traditions of our national history.
"In the war of 1812 to 1815--one of the last and hardest-fought battles was that of Lundy's Lane, which we meet this day, on this historic ground, to celebrate--both the loyalty and courage of the Canadian people were put to the severest test, and both came out of the fiery ordeal as refined gold. Nothing could be more disgraceful and unprincipled than the Madison (I will not say American) declaration of war against Great Britain, which was at that moment employing her utmost strength and resources in defence of European nations and the liberties of mankind. That scourge of modern Europe--the heartless tyrant, but great soldier, Napoleon--had laid prostrate at his feet all the Governments of Western and Central Europe, England alone excepted. To destroy British power, he issued decrees first at Berlin, in 1806, and afterwards at Milan, excluding all British merchandize from French ports, and prohibiting the use of British commodities throughout France and her dependencies, under severe penalties; searching neutral vessels for British goods, and confiscating them when found, with the vessels carrying them; interdicting all neutral vessels from trading with any British port; declaring all the ports of Great Britain and of her dependencies to be in a state of blockade, though at the very moment the English fleet commanded the seas. These Napoleon decrees violated the laws of nations, and affected the national rights and independence of the United States, as well as of the European nations; and had not President Madison and his war faction been in league with Napoleon, they would have resented it, instead of silently submitting, and thus becoming a party to it. In self-defence and retaliation upon the tyrant Napoleon, Great Britain, in January, 1807, issued Decrees of Council, declaring all French ports in a state of blockade, and declaring all vessels of neutrals liable to seizure which should engage in trade with France; and as the Napoleon decrees had declared all vessels of any nation liable to seizure which had touched at any British port, the English Orders of Council, to counteract this decree, declared, on the other hand, that only such ships as had touched at a British port should be permitted to sail for a port of France. The American President, Madison, being in league with the French usurper against Great Britain, made no remonstrance against the Napoleon decrees of Berlin and Milan, but raised a great outcry against the counter English Orders in Council, and made them a pretext for declaring war against Great Britain. But President Madison not only thus leagued with Napoleon to destroy British commerce, but also to weaken the British army and navy by seducing some 10,000 British sailors and soldiers to desert on board of American vessels, where they were claimed as American citizen sailors.
"England had always claimed the right to search and claim her deserting sailors on board foreign vessels, and that right had never been disputed by the United States, until now, under the teachings of Napoleon. But though there was no occasion for the exercise of such a right in a time of general peace, the exercise of it then was a matter vital to the existence and strength of the British navy; but, under the promptings of Napoleon, President Madison made it not only a subject of loud complaint, but also an additional pretext for war. Yet, to keep up some appearance of fairness, but in secret intrigue with Napoleon, the Madison Administration issued a declaration to open commercial relations with either of the belligerent powers that should first rescind the prohibitory decrees or orders. In May, 1812, Napoleon rescinded the Berlin and Milan decrees so far as concerned the United States, but had the unparalleled meanness to antedate them _thirteen_ months, and even apply them to 1810, dating them April, 1811, in order to play into the hands of his American confederates. Within a month after Napoleon had rescinded the Berlin and Milan decrees--June 23rd, 1812--the British Government cancelled the Orders in Council so far as related to the United States; but five days before that, the 18th of June, President Madison declared war against Britain, and then when, six weeks afterwards, he was duly informed of the cancelling of these Orders in Council, on which he had professed to declare war, he refused to ratify an armistice agreed upon between Sir George Prevost and General Dearborn, until the British and American Governments could confer with a view to prevent any further prosecution of the war. Madison and his faction of British haters and war adventurers naturally supposed, that as Upper Canada consisted of 70,000 inhabitants, and as the British troops were all engaged in the deadly war with France, except guards of regular soldiers in the Canadian garrisons, our country would fall an easy prey to his ambition; Great Britain would be humbled at the feet of Napoleon, and France and the United States would then divide the power and commerce of Europe and America. But British and Canadian loyalty, patriotism, and courage defeated their dark designs against the liberties of mankind. Even the patriotic and intellectual part of the American people denounced this unholy intrigue between their own President and the b.l.o.o.d.y ursurper of Europe, and this causeless war against Great Britain. The Legislative a.s.semblies of Ma.s.sachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Maryland condemned the war policy of President Madison, and some of them declared it to be but a party proceeding of the President and his minions to keep themselves in power and subsidize their hungry partizans. Only a small majority of Congress approved the declaration of war. A convention of the great State of New York, held at Albany, September, 1812, consisting of delegates from the several counties of the State, embodied, in elaborate resolutions, the intelligent American sentiment on the subject of the war. That convention declared: 'That, without insisting on the injustice of the present war, taking solely into consideration the time and circ.u.mstances of its declaration, the condition of the country, and the state of the public mind, we are constrained to consider and feel it our duty to p.r.o.nounce it a most rash, unwise and inexpedient measure, the adoption of which ought forever to deprive its authors of the esteem and confidence of an enlightened people; because, as the injuries we have received from France are at least equal in amount to those we have sustained from England, and have been attended with circ.u.mstances of still greater insult and aggravation; if war were necessary to vindicate the honour of the country, consistency and impartiality required that both nations should have been included in the declaration; because, if it were deemed expedient to exercise our right of selecting our adversary, prudence and common sense dictated the choice of an enemy from whose hostility we had nothing to dread. A war with France would equally have satisfied our insulted honour, and, at the same time, instead of annihilating, would have revived and extended our commerce; and even the evils of such a contest would have been mitigated by the sublime consolation, that by our efforts we were contributing to arrest the progress of despotism in Europe, and effectually serving the great interests of freedom and humanity throughout the world.' 'That we contemplate with abhorrence, even the probability of an alliance with the present Emperor of France, every action of whose life has demonstrated, that the attainment, by any means, of universal empire, and the consequent extinction of every vestige of freedom, are the sole objects of his incessant, unbounded and remorseless ambition.' 'Whereas the late revocation of the British Orders in Council has removed the great and ostensible cause of the present war, and prepared the way for an immediate accommodation of all existing differences, inasmuch as, by the confession of the present Secretary of State, satisfactory and honourable arrangements might easily be made, by which the abuse resulting from the impressment of our seamen might, in future, be effectually prevented.'
"Such were the sentiments of the most intelligent and patriotic American citizens in regard to the war of 1812-15; they had no more sympathy with the Madison-Napoleon war than with the recent Fenian invasion of our sh.o.r.es. And when the war was declared, our fathers knew their duty, and knew the worthlessness of the pompous proclamations and promises of President Madison's generals and agents. The blood of our United Empire Loyalist forefathers warmed again in their own bosoms, and pulsated in the hearts of their sons and grandsons, and in the hearts of hundreds of others who had adopted Canada, under the flag of British law and liberty, as their home. Our Legislative a.s.sembly--specially called together by General Brock, on the declaration of war--struck the keynote for Canadian loyalty, sacrifice and action, in a calm, expository and earnest address to the people of Upper Canada, and truly represented the already roused spirit of the country. Some of the words of that n.o.ble address are as follows:
"'This war, on the part of the United States, includes an alliance with the French usurper, whose dreadful policy has destroyed all that is great and grand, venerable and holy, on the continent of Europe. The government of this b.l.o.o.d.y tyrant penetrates into everything--it crushes individuals as well as nations, fetters thoughts as well as motives, and delights in destroying forever all that is fair and just in opinion and sentiment. It is evidently this tyrant who now directs the rulers of America, and they show themselves worthy disciples of such a master.'
"After noting the juncture selected for declaring war, the address proceeds: 'It is certainly not the least wonderful among the occurrences of this astonishing age, that we should find a nation descended from Englishmen, connected still by the same language and laws, by consanguinity and many similar habits, not merely eulogizing the implacable enemy of their parent state, but joining him in the war; while pretending to nourish the purest principles of liberty, bowing the knee before the foe of all just and rational freedom, and supplicating his acceptance of tribute and adulation.' After sketching the origin and sustained loyalty of the first inhabitants of the country, the a.s.sembly said: 'Already have we the joy to remark, that the spirit of loyalty has burst forth in all its ancient splendour. The militia in all parts of the Province have volunteered their services with acclamation, and displayed a degree of energy worthy of the British name. When men are called upon to defend everything they hold precious, their wives and children, their friends and possessions, they ought to be inspired with the n.o.blest resolutions, and they will not be easily frightened by menaces, or conquered by force. And beholding, as we do, the flame of patriotism burning from end to end of the Canadas, we cannot but entertain the most pleasing antic.i.p.ations. Our enemies have indeed said, that they can subdue this country by a proclamation; but it is our part to prove that they are sadly mistaken.' 'If the real foundations of true liberty, and consequently of solid happiness, consist in being amenable only to such laws as we or our representatives ordain, then are we in possession of that liberty and that happiness, for this principle was fully recognized in our excellent const.i.tution.' 'It is not necessary for us to examine the causes alleged by our enemies for this unjust and unnatural war, because an address from the House of Representatives of Ma.s.sachusetts, the most respectable in the Union, proves in the most satisfactory manner, that it is wanton and unprovoked, and is the climax of the various outrages previously committed against Great Britain. In this statement they have been joined by the minority in Congress, whose expositions of the secret reasons of the war, and the falsehood of those alleged by the President and his friends, is unanswerable, and must hand down the promoters of this diabolical measure to the execration of posterity.' 'Your representatives finished their labours with placing in the hands of His Honour the President (Sir Isaac Brock), all the public money they could collect, in order to contribute as much as possible to the extraordinary expenses which the war renders necessary, and they have the fullest confidence that it will be most faithfully applied.
Having thus endeavoured, to the best of their abilities, to provide for the welfare and safety of the Province, your representatives take the liberty of reminding you that the best laws are useless without the zealous co-operation of the people. Unless you are prepared to endure the greatest privations and to make the severest sacrifices, all that your representatives have done will be of no avail. Be ready, then, at all times to rally round the Royal Standard, and let those who are not called into the service a.s.sist the families of those who are called into the field.' 'Remember, when you go forth to the combat, that you fight not for yourselves alone, but for the whole world. You are defeating the most formidable conspiracy against the civilization of man that ever was contrived; a conspiracy threatening a greater barbarism and misery than followed the downfall of the Roman Empire--that now you have an opportunity of proving your attachment to the parent State which contends for the relief of the oppressed nations--the last pillar of true liberty, and the last refuge of oppressed humanity.'
"Such were the views and spirit with which the 70,000 people of Upper Canada, and their score of parliamentary representatives, engaged in the unequal struggle against myriads of invaders--relying simply upon their principles, their duty, and their G.o.d; and, in three months after the declaration of war, they had, with the aid of a few hundred regular soldiers and n.o.ble officers, driven back three invading armies, capturing Hull and the territory of Michigan, driving the invaders commanded by General Van Rensellaer down Queenston Heights, taking hundreds of prisoners, driving 'proclamation' General Smyth, with his 8,000, from the Canadian side of the Niagara river, near Fort Erie, so that he had to run away and retire from the army to escape popular indignation and disgrace. It is not for me to dwell upon the incidents and progress of the war; raids were made into our country, many battles were fought, and much property destroyed and much suffering inflicted; but those raids were severely retaliated, and at the end of three years not a foot of Canadian territory was in possession of the invader, while the key of the North-west, Fort Mackinaw, was in the hands of the British.
"Of all the battles fought during the war, the most sanguinary and obstinate was that of Lundy's Lane--the battle, the anniversary of which we are this day a.s.sembled to commemorate--the battle fought the last few months of the war, the 25th of July, 1814. It was the most formidable and final effort of the American General Brown to get permanent footing in Canada. The smallest number of American soldiers engaged in the battle, according to General Brown's report, was upwards of 5,000; and the largest number of British soldiers and Canadian militia engaged, according to the British General Drummond's report, was 2,800, although the greater part of the battle was fought with a force not exceeding 1,600. I shall not attempt to describe the order, or narrate the incidents of the battle; I will only say, that the high ground, near the east end of Lundy's Lane, was the centre of interest, and the position contended for by both parties in deadly strife for several hours. In no battle during the war did the Americans fight with such heroism and obstinacy; and in no battle was the courage, steadiness and perseverance of the British soldiers and Canadian volunteers put to so severe a test.
The enemy was drawn up in order of battle within 600 yards of the coveted eminence, when General Drummond arrived on the ground, and he had barely time to plant his artillery on the brow of the hill, when the enemy concentrated all his power and efforts to obtain the key of the battle-field. An eye-witness says: 'Columns of the enemy, not unlike the surge of the adjacent cataract, rushed to the charge in close and impetuous succession.' The curtain of night soon enveloped the scene, now drenched with blood; but the darkness seemed to intensify the fury of the combatants, and the rage of the battle increased as the night advanced. An eye-witness truly observes, that 'nothing could have been more awful than this midnight contest. The desperate charges of the enemy were succeeded by a dead silence, interrupted only by the groans of the dying, and the dull sounds of the stupendous Falls of Niagara, while the adverse lines were now and then dimly discerned through the moonlight, by the dismal gleam of their arms. These anxious pauses were succeeded by a blaze of musketry along the lines, and by a repet.i.tion of the most desperate charges from the enemy, which the British received with the most unshaken firmness.' General Drummond, in his official report of the battle, says:--'In so determined a manner were these attacks directed against our guns, that our artillerymen were bayoneted by the enemy in the act of loading, and the muzzles of the enemy's guns were advanced within a few yards of ours. The darkness of the night, during this extraordinary conflict, occasioned several uncommon incidents; our troops having, for a moment, been pushed back, some of our guns remained for a few minutes in the enemy's hands; they were, however, not only quickly recovered, but the two pieces, a six-pounder and a five-and-a-half-inch howitzer, which the enemy had brought up, were captured by us, together with several tumbrils. About nine o'clock (the action having commenced at six) there was a short intermission of firing, during which it appears the enemy was employed in bringing up the whole of his remaining force; and he shortly afterwards renewed the attack with fresh troops, but was everywhere repelled with equal gallantry and success. The enemy's efforts to carry the hill were continued until about midnight, when he had suffered so severely from the superior steadiness and discipline of his Majesty's troops, that he gave up the contest, and retreated with great precipitation to his camp beyond the Chippewa. On the following day he abandoned his camp, threw the greatest part of his baggage, camp equipage and provisions into the Rapids; and having set fire to Street's Mills, and destroyed the bridge at Chippewa, he continued his retreat in great disorder towards Fort Erie.'
"In this b.l.o.o.d.y battle, the Canadian militia fought side by side with the regular soldiers; and General Drummond said, 'the bravery of the militia on this occasion could not have been excelled by the most resolute veterans.'
"Such was the loyalty of our grandfathers and fathers, and such their self-devotion and courage in the darkest hour of our country's dangers and sufferings, and though few in number in comparison of their invaders, they had
"'Hearts resolved and hands prepared The blessings they enjoyed to guard.'
"There was doubtless as much true courage among the descendants of Great Britain and Ireland in the United States as in Canada; but the former fought for the oppressor of Europe, the latter fought for the freedom of Europe; the former fought to prostrate Great Britain in her death struggle for the liberties of mankind, and to build up the United States upon her ruin, the latter fought in the glorious cause of the mother country, and to maintain our own unity with her; the former fought for the conquest of Canada, the latter fought in her defence; the fire that kindled the military ardour of the former was the blown-up embers of old enmities against Great Britain, the gross misrepresentations of President Madison, the ambition of adventure, and the l.u.s.t of booty--the fire that burned in the hearts of the latter, and animated them to deeds of death or freedom, was the sacred love of hearth and home, the patriotic love of liberty, and that hallowed principle of loyalty to truth, and law, and liberty combined, which have const.i.tuted the life, and development, and traditions, and strength, and unity, and glory of British inst.i.tutions, and of the British nation, from the resurrection morn of the Protestant Reformation to the present day. A great writer has truly observed: 'The most inviolable attachment to the laws of our country is everywhere acknowledged a capital virtue;' and that virtue has been n.o.bly ill.u.s.trated in the history of our United Empire Loyalist forefathers, and of their descendants in Canada, and it grows with the growth and increases with the strength of our country.
"I have said that loyalty, like Christianity itself, is an attachment to principles and duties emanating from them, irrespective of rulers or teachers; but if the qualities of our chief rulers were necessary to give intensity to Canadian loyalty, those qualities we have in the highest degree in our Sovereign and in her representative in Canada; for never was a British Sovereign more worthy of our highest respect and warmest affection than our glorious Queen Victoria--(loud cheers)--and never was a British Sovereign more n.o.bly represented in Canada than by the patriotic, the learned, and the eloquent Lord Dufferin. (Loud cheers.) And at no period were we more free or prosperous than now. The feelings of his (the speaker's) heart went far beyond anything that his tongue could express, and the language of his heart that day was, might loyalty ever be the characteristic trait of the people of Canada, might freedom ever be our possession, and might we ever have cause and heart to say 'G.o.d save the Queen!'" (Loud cheering.)
_Note_ by the Author.--The Administration of President Madison, and his Declaration of War against Great Britain, are dark spots in the brilliant history of the United States of America, and the American narratives of the war are rather fiction than history--compiled largely from letters of officers and soldiers, who, in writing to their friends, sought to magnify their own heroism, even when suffering disgraceful defeats, and sometimes claiming victory when they were driven from the field. The usual tales on these occasions were that the Canadian forces were vastly superior in numbers and equipments, when it was known that the American armies were ten to one in numbers to those of Canada, and their invading forces were declared, by themselves, to be irresistible in strength and equipments.
The American account of the battle of Lundy's Lane is an example, and is repeated with exaggerations in the latest and most popular history of the war, namely, Lossing's Pictorial Field Book of the War of 1812, page 1084. Lossing says:
"The number of troops engaged in the battle of Niagara Falls was little over 7,000, the British having about 4,500, and the Americans a little less than 2,600." (p. 824.)
The very reverse of this was the fact, as quoted in the foregoing extract from the official report of General Drummond. When the American invading army consisted of 10,000 men, it is absurd to suppose that all but 2,600 would remain on the American side of the river, and the American historian states that every available soldier on the British side of the river was engaged in the battle.
Lossing likewise claims the battle for the Americans "because they drove the enemy from the field and captured his cannon" (p. 824). It is not true that the British were driven from the field at all; they were once pushed back for a few minutes, and their cannon were for a few moments in the hands of the Americans, who, however, were forthwith driven back, the cannon retaken, with two pieces left by the Americans. And how could there possibly be any American victory, when Lossing himself admits that the American army retired from the field during the night to Chippewa (p. 823), with the intention of returning next morning to bring off the cannon and other booty. Is it the characteristic of a victorious army to leave the conquered field and retire two miles from it? Lossing also admits that the Americans did not return to the battle-field next morning, but burnt the bridge which separated the British army from them, and retreated up the Niagara river. Is this the conduct of a conquering army, to flee from the enemy whom he pretends to have conquered? Mr. Lossing's admissions of details contradict the pretence of American victory at Lundy's Lane, and prove American defeat.
It is by such fictions of victories where there were defeats, interspersed with fict.i.tious incidents of individual heroism, that American vanity is fed, and American children taught in the schools what is purely apocryphal for history in regard to Great Britain and Canada.
But it is gratifying to observe a greatly improved feeling in the educated American mind towards Great Britain, and even the causes of the American Revolution, which were magnified in the American Declaration of Independence, and which have been exaggerated in every possible way in American histories and Fourth of July orations, are very much modified in the productions of well-instructed and candid American writers and public speakers. We observe on a late occasion in England, at the Wesleyan Conference, Bishop Simpson, the Ma.s.sillon of American pulpit orators, said, "The triumph of America was England's triumph. Their object was the same, and they were engaged in the same work. There were more Englishmen who would go to America, than Americans who would come to England (laughter), and while they in England had the wealth, the power, and the elements of usefulness, they were bound to use it in the interests of religion."
On the same occasion, the Rev. Dr. Curry, editor of the New York _Christian Advocate_, the most widely circulated religious paper in America, uttered the following n.o.ble sentiments:
"He was proud," he said, "of England (as the Fatherland of his), and, as he had now gone up and down through that island, and had witnessed its signs of substantial wealth, and of social order, he felt that both the public inst.i.tutions of the Government and the private virtues of the people were of the most valuable. He did not wonder that Englishmen were warmly attached to their own country, and he would say that were he not an American he should wish to be an Englishman. He rejoiced, too, that there now exists the most cordial good feeling between the two countries, and trusted that this would never be interrupted. They had very many interests in common, and should stand together in support of them."
On the last Fourth of July, the Rev. Dr. Newman, pastor of President Grant, who has finished a tour of the world, having been appointed to examine and report upon all the American Consulships of the globe, delivered a remarkable discourse on the progress of the nation, and also of the enlightened ideas and liberal inst.i.tutions in Europe. In an allusion to the American Revolution, Dr. Newman says:
"Our forefathers were not slaves; they were English subjects--English freemen, and we misrepresent them and the struggle through which they fought, if we look upon them as bound with manacles. They had an appreciation of what belonged to an English subject. And because the mother country refused representation where she imposed taxation, therefore those forefathers arose in their English manhood, protested against the abuse of governmental power, and a.s.serted that where there is taxation, there should be representation; and had Patrick Henry been admitted into the British Parliament to represent her American colonies, the United States of America to-day would have been the grandest portion of the empire of Great Britain."
In the same discourse the orator said:
"Behold England of to-day, in her rule at home, as well as in her policy towards her colonies, pressing upon her colonial possessions practical independence. She demands that they shall be so far free as to legislate for themselves, and pay their own expenses. England is now gathering together her representatives from Africa, and proposes under her benign sway to form a republican government for long-despised and down-trodden Africa. Whatever may be said of the Old East India Company under British protection, let me say, from personal observation, that from the eternal snows of the Himalayas to the spicy groves of Ceylon, India of to-day has a wise and paternal government given her by Christian England."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 221: Thompson's History of the War of 1812, Chap. x.x.x.]