Maybe some day, he might achieve that dream. Joining Canada would benefit Vermont. Her best resources were timber, from which rafts could be built and floated down Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River to the St. Lawrence. Simcoe knew of negotiations whereby Vermont might be persuaded to become a British province, and he hoped they would succeed.
Ambitious though he was for a military appointment, he never felt entirely in good health. Elizabeth’s aunt, Mrs. Gwillim, had once written from Whitchurch, enquiring about “ … the Colonel’s bilious problem.”24 People knew very little about what caused digestive upsets and the true sources of most ailments. Certain herbal and metallic medicines were in use, but bacteria and their antidotes had yet to be discovered. Elizabeth liked to have her home kept clean, which helped, but not every illness could be prevented by a standard of hygiene that was high for the time.
TEN
INTO PARLIAMENT
Over time, the friendship between the Simcoes and the Drewes of Broadhembury and The Grange strengthened. A little background on the Drewes reveals how the county families were interconnected, and how the name Edward extended into the past. The story begins with a tablet erected in St. Andrew’s Church, Broadhembury, to the memory of Francis Drewe (1712-1773):
He was lineally descended from Edward Drewe Esq., Sergeant-at-law to Queen Elizabeth and Recorded of the city of London in that reign. Tho he moved in a less conspicuous sphere of life than his ancestors, He contented himself with living to establish the character of a diligent and upright magistrate, a valuable neighbour, a faithful friend and one of the best of parents.
In his will, dated 5 September 1771, he mentions his two wives, his surviving children and his brother Edward, who, with Francis’s son Thomas Rose Drewe and his nephew James Bernard Esq., proved his will in April 1773. This Edward was the father of Simcoe’s friend and cashiered officer, Major Edward Drewe. Francis’s seventh son, Herman, three years older than Simcoe and another dear friend, was in holy orders. Francis’s eighth son (this one by his second wife) also Edward, was baptized on 27 September 1756 at the church in Broadhembury. He was four years younger than Simcoe, and was also a valued friend. While Simcoe was becoming a warrior, this Edward was destined for the church. His mother, Mary Johnson, was a cousin of Elizabeth Sedgwick, Admiral Graves’s first wife, whom he probably met through Captain John Simcoe or his wife Katherine.
In the churchyard that surrounds St. Andrew’s are many Drewe graves. Broadhembury has changed very little since the days when Colonel and Mrs. Simcoe paid social calls on the Drewe family. Every property is thatched. The male line of the family at The Grange died out in 1903 and the properties were sold. Yet every effort has continued to ensure that Broadhembury retains its original appearance. Francis Drewe, who was born there in 1919, recorded that his grandfather purchased the village, but not The Grange. They took up residence in Broadhembury House. Although the present Drewe family that owns Broadhembury can not prove direct descent, there must be a connection.1
Noteworthy is the link to the time-honoured hymn “Rock of Ages.” The vicar of St. Andrew’s from 1768 to 1788 was Reverend Augustus Toplady, who wrote the words — sung to three different tunes, at least. A popular pub is the Drewe Arms. Passing through its stout wooden door is like stepping back several centuries — but mind your head, the beams are low; watch how you step on that uneven flagged floor!
Although the Drewes were such dear friends, they were not people of great influence. Simcoe placed greater hope in Mary Anne’s brother, James Bland Burges, Member of Parliament for Helston, Cornwall, 1787-1790. He was a supporter of William Wilberforce, the leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade, a cause Simcoe lauded. All the while he was constantly trying to settle the matter of his seniority as a lieutenant colonel. He continually badgered the authorities, in particular the Secretary at War, Sir George Yonge. He complained that Banastre Tarleton had been given preference by the King for the rank of full colonel. In November 1788 Sir George tried to appease Simcoe by offering him the Lieutenant Colonelcy of the 14th Regiment of Foot. This would bring Simcoe back into active service, but John Graves was not impressed and declined the offer as an “inferior position.”
Yonge made his offer shortly after Simcoe had returned from St. Omer, where he submitted a plan to the Duke of York, Commander in Chief of the Army. The plan, dated 28 November 1788, drawn by Lieutenant George Spencer, on half-pay from the Queen’s Rangers, was sent to the Duke through Yonge:
On my return from St. Omer I desired Major Hazer respectfully to offer your Royal Highness, in my name, a plan of the manoeuvers [sic] on which his troops were exercised. 2
The Colonel did not indicate whether his visit to St. Omer was on his own initiative or some sort of official expedition. The name “Hazer” does not appear on The Army List for that era, which suggests that he belonged to an ally. At the time, the Triple Alliance, of Britain, Holland and Prussia, had been formed to preserve peace in Europe. Making the others nervous was France, suspected of threatening that peace.
At home, Simcoe’s right hand-man on the estate, John Scadding, was playing his own part in local life by accepting a public duty. In August 1788 he became responsible for repairs to part of the Honiton Turnpike. On the 18th, at a meeting of the Honiton Turnpike Trust, Scadding was made a surveyor of a section of the local road. The meeting took place in the still extant Dolphin Inn. Records designating Scadding were signed by Robert Gidley, Simcoe’s agent. Gidley supplied Simcoe with a copy of the section of the minutes relating to Scadding’s appointment:
This appointee John Scadding of Dunkeswell, Yeoman, to be responsible for repairs for the road commencing at Clapper Land within the Borough of Honiton, home to the four mile stone on the Taunton Road, at £9-8s a year.3
The meeting stipulated that Scadding would be supplied with statute labour from affected parishes — workers who gave their time in lieu of taxes. Turnpike Trusts had begun in 1706, owing to the appalling condition of the roads. With the increase in wheeled traffic, the trusts were to extract tolls to pay for improvements. Trusts were set up somewhat later in Devon, because the increase in wheel traffic came later than in more heavily populated counties. In From Trackway to Turnpike, published in 1928, Gilbert Sheldon wrote:
The lanes and pack horse tracks of the eighteenth century were completely ruined by these cumbrous vehicles as were the droving roads at the beginning of the twentieth century by the invasion of the motor lorry.4
Sheldon quoted from C. Vancouver’s A General Survey of the County of Devon:
These narrow ways … are by traffic of carts bulged and forced out upon their sides, when the only passage remaining is a narrow ridge on top of the road, but which, from excessive coarseness of the materials of which it is made, is soon broken into so many holes and uneveness as much to endanger the knees of the horse and neck of the rider.5
John Scadding would need plenty of statute labour. Even today in Devon many of the minor roads and lanes are very narrow and steep; a few are green and would not appear to have changed much since 1788. Honiton was in a somewhat better situation than other towns. Of Honiton, Sheldon commented:
The trimness and beauty of its broad, handsome, well paved street, well shouldered up to each side with pebbles and green turf, which holds a stream of clear water with a square dipping place opposite each door, were extolled by eighteenth century travellers.
Much has changed, but Honiton still has its broad attractive street where markets are held twice a week.
On the whole, the year 1789 was uneventful in the lives of the Simcoes, except for the arrival of a fifth daughter. Sophia Jemima was baptized at St. Nicholas, Dunkeswell, on 25 October. Simcoe spent some time in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. In the latter, he visited Elizabeth’s cousin, William Walcot, who owned estates and stayed most of the time at his house in Oundle. Elizabeth still owned All Saints manor, Aldwinkle. The Colonel went to confer with Walcot over the administration of these lands.
In Leicestershire he visited with Francis Rawdon Hastings; with the death of his father, Francis was now the 2nd Earl of Moira. After yet another fruitless visit to London, Simcoe went off to Whitchurch to assure himself that his wife’s aunt, Mrs. Gwillim, had no need of advice. On 2 August, Elizabeth had written her Colchester friend, Miss Elliott, that the Colonel was away a lot that year on his “little trips.”6
He was again preoccupied with the future of Canada, and of Vermont. Preserved is a very long letter dated 3 December 1789, that he wrote to Evan Nepean, since 1783 Under Secretary of State. To show his understanding of the situation, he was sending Nepean a copy of his military journal, a “trifling return for the many favours for which I am indebted to you, and in this spirit I hope you will receive it with a kindness which the nature of the subject has no claim to expect.”
First, he advocated “annihilating every vestige of the present military government,” and “undermining by degrees the miserable feudal system of the old Canada” which should not be difficult in an area where “liberty universally ranges abroad … I should be happy to consecrate myself to the Service of Great Britain in that Country in preference to any situation of whatever emolument or dignity.”
The minds of thinking men are anxiously turned towards America. Mine naturally must be so from the part I bore in the War, and from belief my Father to have been the principal means of the Attack on Quebec having taken place, and the recent embassy I apprehend Washington has sent by Captain Guion to demand the Forts of Lord Dorchester, deserves the utmost attention. I hope therefore a few remarks which I take the liberty of offering to you will meet with your pardon and favourable acceptance.
He referred to the chain of forts along the Canadian border that were still garrisoned by British troops. Lord Dorchester was Guy Carleton, honoured with a barony for his withdrawal of the Loyalists and the British soldiers from New York. He was now Canada’s governor. Canada, Simcoe maintained, would not keep the forts “without an alliance with Vermont, and should they be given up, the loss of Canada ultimately and not very remotely must follow.”
The inhabitants of Vermont are a brave, virtuous and English Race of People, descendants of the best Families in the Country: the Pierponts, Seymours, Stanleys &c., Episcopalians and Enemies of New Yorkers and Congress. They claim the territories on which Michilimackinac and Detroit now stand, and are disgusted with the United States, whose policy has allotted them to Connecticut.
An Alliance, defensive and commercial, with this State, is a matter of great facility. They are anxious for it because all the waters of their Country fall into the St. Lawrence and they can from thence receive salt and rum at a much cheaper rate than from the Southern Coasts and Rivers.
Simcoe foresaw a canal cut from St. Jean to La Prairie, sixteen miles, to bypass rapids in the Richelieu River, at a cost of £10,000. The canal could become “the key to that Country, the Inhabitants of which are estimated already at 250,000.” If they were permitted to pay for it in raw materials, “Every individual would consume five pounds in English goods … and we should not have the precarious Trade of the Baltic to depend upon for our Naval Stores … this Country would be like another Switzerland between Canada and the United States. Mr. Chittenden the Governor is a fast friend of Great Britain.”
My information is principally derived from a respectable Loyalist, in correspondence with him, whom I never saw, but who has sent to me the outline of a treaty of Commerce between Canada and Vermont, as he believes I have the Interest of my Country at heart and more Influence with the Government than it is reasonable to suppose that a person in my secluded situation can possibly expect.
Vermont, in short, had much to gain through alliance with Canada, and the erection of two new governments:
with perfect English constitutions, one at Montreal and one on the Upper Lakes will secure our American Colonies for ages, not as the poor Canadians are held, in frigid neutrality thro’ dread of purgatory, but in active friendship and willing obedience: for my Father in a Momoir [sic] dated in 1755, many years before the conquest of Canada says: “Such is the happy situation of Quebec, or rather of Montreal, to which Quebec is the Citadel, that with the assistance of a few Sluices it will become the centre of Communication between the Gulf of Mexico and Hudson’s Bay, by an interior navigation; formed by drawing to itself a wealth and strength … to lay the foundation of the most potent and best connected Empire that ever awed the World.7
Just who this Loyalist was is a mystery. However, further on in his letter, Simcoe mentions a “Mr. Smith commonly called Billy Smith who I believe to be in Office in Canada whose opinions should be examined with caution on any point in which Vermont or New York interfere with Canada.” William Smith, a Loyalist from New York, was the Chief Justice of Canada at that time. Simcoe viewed Vermont through rose-tinted spectacles. He did not mention the real ringleaders of Vermont secession, Ethan and Ira Allen, Joseph and Jonas Fay, backed by an army of Green Mountain Boys. Few would have called the governor, “One-eyed Tom” Chittenden “a fast friend of Great Britain”! Rough-necks all. If Simcoe, admittedly a snob, thought he might meet gentleman in Vermont, he would have had a rude shock. Aristocracy was the furthest thought from the aspirations of Vermonters, but:
I am clearly of the Opinion that Government should act by America as it has done in the past, and appoint to its Superintendency one of the most respectable of our Nobility.I trust to your goodness that you will excuse these thoughts thrown together “Currente Calamo.”8
Amidst his concern with problems in North America, his future as a soldier or public servant, and the Wolford Estate, an old thought returned. His best chance of obtaining a public appointment was through active participation in politics. He had acquired a new friend of influence, George Grenville, 1st Marquis of Buckingham, whose younger brother, William Grenville, was in the government. The Grenvilles were cousins of William Pitt the Younger. Another friend of value was Henry Addington, Member of Parliament for Devizes, in Wiltshire, some sixty miles east of Honiton. Addington had been the Speaker of the House of Commons since 1789, a useful person to know. However, mainly through Buckingham, Simcoe stood for “St. Maws” (Mawes), in Cornwall, and he won. St. Mawes “belonged” to Buckingham. By June, Simcoe was in the House. When he rose to speak, he addressed himself mainly to matters concerning Canada, probably his main reason for entering into politics.
Colonel Banastre Tarleton was elected the same year as Simcoe, representing Liverpool, where his father, a wealthy merchant, had also been the mayor.9 Tarleton represented the interests of the textile manufacturers who depended on raw cotton from the southern United States. He rose to speak forcefully against abolishing the slave trade; reduction in the supply of slaves would mean economic disaster for his constituents. Simcoe, the man who had wanted to recruit blacks, naturally supported William Wilberforce, the evangelical Christian and member of the house since 1780 who was prominent in the fight to rid the Empire of such a vile practice.
Even though Simcoe was more involved than ever in his own interests, with Elizabeth he continued exploring the countryside in Devon and Somerset. Of one of their excursions, Elizabeth wrote a long account to Miss Elliott, at Copford, near Colchester, Essex, on 10 October 1790. Miss Elliott had only recently left Wolford Lodge after visiting the Simcoes. The cover of the letter was stamped “Honiton October 12th 1790” and marked “Free J.G. Simcoe.” Being a Member of Parliament had its privileges; franking — free post — was one of them.
On the journey Elizabeth described so vividly, they had gone into the more unsettled parts of the counties. Accompanied by Mary Anne Burges for the first few miles they set out on horseback without servants. “My dear Friend,” Elizabeth began:
I hope you had as good weather for your journey, as we were fortunate enough to meet with on our expedition, how many times did I wish for you to have engaged with the noble charming scenes I saw; Hembury Fort and Tracey Hill are mole hills compared with the grand scale of co
untry I had passed.
They had left “soon after you, in a very wetting fog which continued all the way up the hill, at the end of which we parted with Miss Burges, who I believe was all the time wishing herself in your little trunk, for she certainly would not have encountered the wet …” Here the Simcoes displayed qualities, when travelling, that became their trademark in later letters. They were undeterred by foul weather. In any case the weather soon turned fine. They went to Huntsham Castle and the Roman Camp, visited some fine woods, traced Roman roads, amusing themselves with their discoveries until they reached Dulverton (famous for its association with R.D. Blackmore’s novel Lorna Doone) . Elizabeth did not specify how they spent that night, but in the morning they were on their way again into Exmoor, the vast expanse of moorland (now a National Park). The next day, which was fine, “we undertook, trusting in our abilities and our little map to cross Exmoor without a guide.”
After going some little distance out of our way by wrong directions we soon got going again into a right path crossing a most grand and noble scale of country, crossing mountains torrents and such steep paths that were frequently obliged to dismount and walk down them, we continued our road from Hawkridge guided by Tumuli to Withpole [Withypool], the capital of the Moor …
It consisted of five wretched cottages. On they went to “Simmons Bath” (Simonsbath), a single cottage or ale house “just fit for the execution of Count Fathom’s horrid story; but as I had not heard that read the other night my mind was not oppressed by it.” She may have been thinking of Captain Fantom, a mercenary mentioned in John Aubrey’s Brief Lives, an unscrupulous murderer and ravisher of women. She continued:
John Graves Simcoe, 1752-1806 Page 11