Captain Fitz

by Enid Mallory

  While Washington burned, the peace talks that would eventually end the war were already underway at Ghent. The commissioners met there on August 8, and at first made little progress.

  In early September, the British fleet and army moved up Chesapeake Bay toward the city of Baltimore. As they bombarded that well-fortified city, a young American lawyer wrote what would become the American national anthem.

  The next news to reach Upper Canada was from Lake Champlain and was the worst the Canadians had heard for some time. On September 1, Sir George Prevost led an army of 10,000 into American territory with some of the best generals from Wellington’s army. By September 6, they had reached Plattsburgh and awaited the British fleet on Lake Champlain under Captain Downie. British and Americans each had four ships but Downie’s large ship, the HMS Confiance, was unfinished. Prevost rushed Downie into action before he was ready and, when cheering American spectators indicated British defeat on the water, Prevost withdrew his formidable army, which was already across the Saranac River and on the verge of taking Plattsburgh. Wellington’s generals were furious; the stunned army fell back and returned in disgrace to Lower Canada.

  After the British burned the president’s residence in Washington in the summer of 1814, renovations and white paint made it henceforth “The White House.”

  Lossing, 934.

  Rain fell on the camp at Fort Erie for 13 consecutive days. Tiger Dunlop described the army’s situation as “rather a bivouac than a camp, the troops sheltering themselves under some branches of trees that only collected the scattered drops of rain, and sent them down in a stream on the heads of the inhabitants, and as it rained incessantly for two months, neither clothes nor bedding could be kept dry.”[3]

  The army of 1814 was more healthy than it had been in the summer of 1813, but sickness began to appear in September. It was inevitable that it would spread as the men were camped in what amounted to a shallow lake. Drummond began to talk of falling back to higher ground on the Chippawa, but he was reluctant to stop work on the third battery. General Brown in Fort Erie could see that this newest battery “would rake obliquely the whole American encampment,” and he determined to take it. FitzGibbon and Major-General Stovin returned from Kingston just before Brown’s army attacked the British batteries on September 17.

  At about three o’clock that afternoon, 1,600 Americans — militia and regulars — sprang out of the woods to attack the blockhouse at No. 3 Battery. Taking both blockhouse and battery from De Watteville’s troops on guard, the Americans advanced to capture Battery No. 2. By the time they reached the third battery, the British regiments were out in force and a wild fight was underway.

  The Glengarry Regiment was in the thick of it. In dispatches written later by Dr. Watteville, their part is described: “Lieut-Col. Pearson, with the Glengarry Light Infantry under Lieut.-Col. Battersby, pushed forward by the centre road and carried with great gallantry the new entrenchment, then in full possession of the enemy.”[4] Under heavy fire, Brown was forced to pull back his troops. Later, Drummond wrote, “I myself witnessed the good order and spirit with which the Glengarry Light Infantry, under Lieut.-Col. Battersby pushed into the wood, and by their superior fire drove back the enemy’s light troops.”[5] By five o’clock it was over and the British line re-established as it had been, but 79 Americans and about 100 British had been killed and almost another 1,000 wounded.

  Drummond decided the time had come to move back toward the Chippawa — the dreadful appearance of typhoid fever in camp hastened his decision. He described the condition of his men as extreme wretchedness: “Their present camp literally resembles a lake in the midst of a thick wood.” At eight o’clock on the evening of September 21, they reached the site of their new camp and bivouacked for the night under torrents of rain.

  In early October, General Izard marched 4,000 soldiers from Lake Champlain into Fort Erie, his total force was then 6,000 men. Drummond began to despair of his situation and lashed out in anger at Sir James Yeo for not daring to bring him the troops, newly arrived in the country but without transportation to the frontier. “I have, however, ceased to reckon upon any relief depending on the squadron … Should any disaster happen to this division … His Majesty’s naval commander will in my opinion, have much to answer for.”[6]

  Meanwhile, Fitz and his Glengarries, posted in advance of the army, were busy at a pushing-back-and-forth type of warfare, as Americans advanced toward the British camp at Chippawa and were repeatedly repulsed. Then, on October 18, more than 1,500 Americans were met by the Glengarries, the 82nd Regiment, and the 100th Regiment near the mills on Lyon’s Creek. Afterward, Colonel Meyers, who led the British force, wrote:

  The conduct of the Glengarry Light Infantry during this campaign has been so conspicuous that Lieutenant-Colonel Battersby and the officers and men of that corps can receive little further from any report of mine, but on this occasion I cannot refrain from adding my humble tribute of praise to their well-earned fame.[7]

  Brock’s Monument

  Ten years after the end of the war, a 41-metre monument to Isaac Brock was erected on Queenston Heights, near the place where he fell. Among the throngs of Canadians who arrived to honour Brock were numerous Americans.

  FitzGibbon was there. He had helped to organize the procession and led the march as the bodies of Brock and Macdonell were moved 11 kilometres from Fort George to the monument, in a solemn three-hour march.

  FitzGibbon’s account said, “Of the thousands present not one had cause to feel so deeply as I, and I felt as if alone, although surrounded by the multitude. He had been more than a father to me in that regiment, which he ruled like a father, and I alone of his old friends in that regiment was present to embalm with a tear his last honored retreat.”[8]

  In 1840, an Irish Canadian ex-rebel decided to get at the Family Compact by blowing up Brock’s monument. The damaged column stood until 1853, when the bodies of Brock and Macdonell were moved to a Queenston estate while the old monument was demolished and the new one built. In 1856, the bodies were moved again to be re-interred in the base of the structure. It soars 56 metres above the hill and stands 148 metres above the Niagara River, drawing thousands of visitors each summer.

  Brock’s Monument at Queenston.

  Gord Mallory.

  At last, on October 17, Yeo’s fleet appeared at the mouth of the Niagara River. His new three-decked super-sized ship, the St. Lawrence, had finally sailed, bristling with 112 guns. Chauncey’s fleet, as well as a small army under Brown, had already gone off to Sackets Harbor for fear of what Yeo and his big-gunned ship might do there. The arrival of the British fleet helped convince General Izard that maybe the game was up. The approach of a Canadian winter also helped to cool the ardour of the American attackers. In the afternoon of October 20, Izard started his army moving back toward Fort Erie. Finally, a report reached Drummond that the Americans were evacuating the fort, and he quickly sent Captain FitzGibbon with a small party of Glengarries to take a close look.

  Fitz left his party in the woods and rode on alone. He stopped close to the fort and listened to the silence. The only sound that reached him was the wind rustling some leaves still clinging to the November trees. An eerie atmosphere hung over the site. Waving back to his men to stay put, he rode cautiously into the fort. The place was in ruins. They had destroyed, dismantled, or blown up all the works inside the fort. Nothing remained but 10 or 11 kegs of damaged musket ball and cartridge.

  Sitting on his horse in the midst of the empty chaos, he experienced a great wave of elation that spread a wide grin over his face. This moment would always stick in his mind as the end of the war, although peace would not be official until March. Fort Erie was empty. Not one American remained on this side of the Niagara. He thought about Mary and the future he had not dared to plan. Maybe he had survived this crazy war after all.

  He rode back outside the fort, let out a wild Irish yell, and motioned his men to come on in.

  Chapter
15

  After the War

  I have resided in Canada, and in every city in it, east and west, for more than forty-five years, and few men have had such good opportunities of knowing its people as I have had; and few can feel a more ardent wish for their prosperity and happiness than I do; and I look to the future for all the British Provinces with the most cheering and confiding hope.

  — James FitzGibbon[1]

  Fitz tackled civilian life much as he would another battle; his enemies were the times he lived in, the political system, and, above all, his friends in the Family Compact whose entrenched positions made it difficult for men like himself to get ahead. It was inevitable that his allegiance should be with the Compact, men who had fought in the War of 1812 and imbibed a lifelong hatred of American democracy. Allied against the Compact were later immigrants from the United States, who brought American democratic ideas with them and clamoured for reform.

  The allegiance to king and country of the sheriffs, magistrates, militia officers, and customs collectors who formed the outer circles of the Compact was equally strong, but their rewards were certainly less than those of the ruling elite. It was in this group that FitzGibbon found himself. He held a variety of jobs, all poorly paid. By 1827, he was clerk of the House of Assembly and colonel of the West York Militia.

  James had first gone into debt when appointed to the adjutancy of the 49th in 1806, in order to buy his horse and uniform, and he remained in debt almost to his dying day. According to old friends, he was generous to a fault and many times went deeper in debt to help a friend. He also lived beyond his means in a two-storey house on 18 acres of land at Queen Street and Spadina Avenue in Toronto, with graceful willow trees, a bowling green, and spacious gardens filled with fruit and flowers.

  The Family Compact

  Sons of Loyalists who survived the war went on to fame and fortune as the rulers of Upper Canada. John Strachan, who defied General Dearborn when York fell to the Americans, was archdeacon of York by 1834 and the central star of the Family Compact. John Beverly Robinson, one of the eager young men who went with Brock to Detroit, became attorney general after Macdonell fell with Brock. By 1834, he was chief justice of Upper Canada, “the second most influential man in the province.”

  Christopher Hagerman, aide-de-camp to Sir George Prevost, became solicitor general in 1834. Archibald McLean was named chief justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench. Alexander Hamilton, a militia captain, became sheriff of Queenston and member of the Legislative Council. William Allan, an officer in the war, became a wealthy merchant, president of the Bank of Upper Canada, and member of both the Legislative and Executive Councils.

  Other familiar names find places in the outer circles of the Family Compact along with FitzGibbon. William Jarvis became sheriff of the Home District. William Hamilton Merritt, Fitz’s hard-riding comrade of the Green Tiger days, became a political leader and promoter of the Welland Canal. Dr. “Tiger” Dunlop made financial hay with the Canada Company, which owned large tracts of land near Goderich. Thomas Ridout, the young man who stole onions and fence rails, helped to organize the Bank of Canada.

  Anna Jameson, who came from England in 1833 with her attorney general husband, described the leaders of Upper Canada as “a stiff-necked gentry who have formed a petty kingdom in a raw lake port.” Her husband was nominally one of them, but this did not prevent Anna from seeing things the way they were.

  His first years with Mary were happy. They had happy, healthy children; a daughter Mary, then Charles, William, George, and James, then 12 more, none of whom survived. By the 1830s, Fitz spoke of his wife as delicate and unwell. When one considers that Mary was continually bearing and burying children, one wonders how she could remain sane, let alone well.

  Fitz was known as a superb teller of stories, and a man who would do anything for a friend or a cause he believed in. Many of his friends were fellow Masons and for a number of years he was Provincial Grand Master of the Order.

  According to his granddaughter, he had a habit of “interfering in whatever occurred within his cognizance whenever there appeared the remotest chance of such interference being for good, whether it was any of his business of not.”[2] It was inevitable that he would make enemies too. By 1834, he had one particular enemy. William Lyon Mackenzie, who published a radical newspaper, The Colonial Advocate, ranted and railed against everything Fitz believed in.

  Although politically on opposite sides, the two men were oddly alike. Both had been born poor and had educated themselves with fanatic determination. Both had an enormous capacity for work. Mackenzie often worked all through the night, pouring into printer’s ink all the anger and frustration he felt toward the Family Compact. Of FitzGibbon, Anna Jameson says, “With so much overflowing benevolence and fearless energy of character, and all the eccentricity, and sensibility, and poetry, and headlong courage of his country, you cannot wonder that this brave and worthy man interests me; unluckily, I can see him seldom, his life being one of almost unremitting toil.”[3]

  Both were gifted orators. Fitz used his gift to entertain or, on several occasions, to restore peace and order. In 1823, he was sent by the Governor to Perth where riots had broken out between Protestant and Catholic Irish. His gift of speech was even more eloquent in Gaelic and he soon had a mob of angry men quieted as they listened to him. In 1826, he was sent to Peterborough where similar trouble threatened, and again the magic of his Irish oratory saved the day.

  Mackenzie, on the other hand, used his colourful command of words to arouse and incite people against the government. He described the Family Compact as “official fungi, more numerous and pestilential than the marshes and quagmires that encircle Toronto.” Settlers who had grievances against the government could not ignore this little Scotsman, who bent over their ploughshares and poured out volumes of abuse against the Strachans and Robinsons and Hagermans.

  Both men led charmed lives and seemed impervious to personal danger. When cholera struck York in 1832, and again in 1834, both Mackenzie and FitzGibbon could be seen removing the sick to the hospital by cart and driving cartloads of dead to be buried.

  In 1834, as the town of York became the city of Toronto, William Lyon Mackenzie was elected mayor to the disgust of staunch old Family Compact types. On July 30, a noisy public meeting was held in the marketplace. What happened there was an accident but it would stamp the image of Mackenzie on FitzGibbon’s life in colours of horror and grief.

  A lot of boys, including Fitz’s sons, managed to find standing room on a balcony over some butchers’ stalls. When Sheriff Jarvis spoke in support of a vote of censure against Mackenzie the crowd stamped and cheered, and the balcony collapsed. Several boys suffered broken bones but far more dreadful was the fate of the few impaled upon the great hooks of the butchers’ stalls beneath. FitzGibbon’s third son, George, was one of those unfortunates. Fitz, stunned with grief, carried the boy home to his horrified mother.

  George only lived a few hours but in such pain that James and Mary could only be glad to see him go. The scar left on their lives never healed. His mother’s physical health steadily deteriorated while Fitz seemed to bear the abrasion mentally. He worked ever harder, driving himself for king and country; he worried incessantly about the forces of democracy undermining the political system he believed in. In some deep recess of his mind he linked Mackenzie with the terrible death of his son. As the threat of rebellion increased, that red-wigged agitator became for Fitz a personal obsession.

  The November 24 issue of Mackenzie’s newspaper published what was, in fact, a constitution for the new state of Upper Canada. Throughout the countryside, Mackenzie had a network of vigilance committees that could serve as a military set-up in time of war. By December 1837, the writing was on the wall, but it was the bad luck of Upper Canada to have a new lieutenant-governor who couldn’t read it. Sir Francis Bond Head was a blue-eyed, curly haired, rather handsome and winsome man, but curiously lacking in common sense. When Sir John Colborne had wr
itten to ask Sir Francis whether he could spare any troops for Lower Canada, where Louis-Joseph Papineau was leading a patriote revolt, Sir Francis replied that he would gladly send them all. When the last detachment moved from Penetanguishene through Toronto en route to the city of Quebec, Fitz begged Head to keep them. Sir Francis’s lofty reply was, “I do not apprehend a rebellion in Upper Canada.”

  In 1834, FitzGibbon had formed a corps of young Toronto men that he drilled twice a week during the summer months. His granddaughter says, “Perhaps the happiest hours of these years were spent in this labour of love. He was a soldier before everything. He loved the very rattle of accoutrements.” Now in 1837, those 70 young men, drilled by an old pro, might have to defend a city left without a soldier.

  Six thousand stand of small arms and ammunition had recently been sent up from Kingston and were placed by Francis Bond Head in the market hall, where he had only two constables guarding them. Fitz offered to use his corps of young volunteers to guard these arms. Head, of course, refused.

  By this time, Fitz was near distraction. He sat down and wrote a list of names, 126 men in all, whom he knew to be loyal citizens. He warned each of the men on this list to be prepared to come armed to the Parliament Buildings at any hour of the day or night when they heard the college bell ring an alarm. He also arranged that the cathedral bells be rung. Sir Francis was stunned, but Fitz did not stop talking long enough to let him say anything. Sir Francis, overwhelmed by the passion of FitzGibbon, consented. Fitz scurried off before the governor could change his mind.

  On the 2nd of December, a Saturday, a fellow Mason reported to FitzGibbon that pikes were being forged at Lount’s blacksmith shop at Holland Landing, and men were drilling every day in North York. Fitz hurried to Sir Francis with the news. Head and his council complained that the information was third- or fourth-hand. Fitz had at least one supporter, the Honourable William Allan, who rose and said, “What would you have, gentlemen? Do you expect the rebels will come and give you information at first-hand?” Laughter broke the tension briefly. Allan finished his speech: “I agree in every word spoken here today by Colonel FitzGibbon, and think that an hour should not be lost without preparing ourselves for defence.”[4]