John Graves Simcoe, 1752-1806

by Mary Beacock Fryer

  The legislature met from 16 May to 3 June. Afterwards all civil servants must move to York without further delay. The 5th Regiment would be leaving in the summer, replaced by a garrison of Americans. Francis celebrated his fifth birthday on 6 June, and Simcoe drove Elizabeth to bid farewell to Mrs. Robert Hamilton at Queenston and to see other friends briefly. They left Newark by canoe, a boat following, on the 7th — their final journey of exploration on the margins of Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment. The children stayed in the boat, but their parents borrowed horses and rode part of the way to the head of the lake, where the King’s Inn stood, built by the governor’s order to convenience travellers. A group of natives, encamped a mile off, came and greeted them with a volley of muskets “in our Horses’ faces their usual mark of respect which frightened me and my Horse very much, he started & I shrieked, but the sound was lost in the Whoops of the Indians. They gave us the largest land tortoise I ever saw.”17

  Elizabeth described the plunge pool at Stoney Creek, a basin-like hole carved out more than a million years ago by the waterfall of an ancient river. This river had been obliterated during the last ice age, when the glacier scooped out the Great Lakes. For a time, the Niagara River dropped over the escarpment into the basin, before it changed its course to the present one. On 15 June, Joseph Brant arrived, bringing two of his sons and an escort of Mohawks. The boys, aged about ten years, Elizabeth reckoned, were to be put in school at Niagara. They gave Francis a boat, and his parents had him give them a sheep, a gift for the Mohawks’ dinner. Elizabeth made sketches as they went.

  Leaving the area around the King’s Head, they reached the mouth of the Credit River, and explored it for three miles until they encountered rapids and turned back. They reached York on the evening of the 16th. The children went to Castle Frank because Francis was again ill, where Elizabeth joined them after a large party at the garrison. Meanwhile, Simcoe had applied for a leave of absence, to restore his health. On 14 July they learned that the leave was granted. They would sail on the armed frigate Pearl, Captain Samuel Ballard in command.18

  The ship was at Quebec and would sail on 4 August, which did not leave much time for farewells. During the governor’s absence, Receiver General Peter Russell would be the administrator of the province. They learned that Lord Dorchester had resigned, and would be leaving Quebec probably before they arrived there. Dorchester’s successor, General Robert Prescott, was already in Quebec. On 21 July they left on the Onondaga for Kingston, to the salutes of other vessels in the harbour. They carried mountains of baggage and furniture, and many souvenirs of their five years in the Canadas — a sleigh for those rare occasions when enough snow fell around Wolford Lodge, a stove to help heat their home, and the canoe given by the North West Company.

  For the journey down the St. Lawrence they changed to bateaux, sleeping in houses where clean ones were to be found, in tents or in their boats. At each set of rapids, the governor insisted on remaining in the bateau while they shot them, which he found exhilarating, but Elizabeth did not:

  The great width of the River adds terror to the scene which presents miles of foaming waves. We stopped a little while that we might not overtake or run foul of an immense Cajuex or Raft that was going down, however she struck on a Rock & we passed her … The Gov. wished me to sketch, I believe he wished to take my attention from the Rapids … Canadians pass the Rapids safely so many times every year, but one has to resist all that can affright the senses … The Pilot to make himself appear brave was perpetually reminding us of the great danger which only his knowledge could save us from …

  They stayed a few days in Montreal, where Lieutenant General Gabriel Christie, the commander of the garrison, loaned them his coach to ride to church. Francis, who could only remember open carriages, called it a room on wheels.

  At Trois Rivieres they stopped to see the Reverend Jehosophat Mountain, the bishop’s brother, and reached Belmont, the home of the Caldwells, on 5 August. The Pearl was waiting for them though they were a day late. The next day General and Mrs. Prescott called at Belmont. Prescott was elderly, and Simcoe wondered whether he should sacrifice his leave and stay to help out. Elizabeth was appalled at the very idea. If he did not take his leave, the government would think he did not need it, which would call his integrity into dispute. Her husband was too patriotic for his own good.19

  They received a message from Bishop Mountain, offering to loan the Simcoes his house and carriage, since accommodation was almost impossible to find in Quebec that season. The Mountains’ youngest child had died the night before, and they were going to Trois Rivieres to stay with his brother Jehosophat. Gratefully the Simcoes accepted the offer. Mrs. Prescott had described to Elizabeth the dismal lodgings she rented while waiting for the Dorchesters to vacate the Château St. Louis.

  On 16 August, at the bishop’s home, they learned that the Active, carrying the Dorchesters, had been wrecked off Anticosti, but without loss of lives. The Dorchesters had been taken by schooner to Gaspe Bay. The Pearl left to take them to Halifax, and the Simcoes would have to wait until the ship returned to Quebec. On the 18th Elizabeth wrote: “The ship Adriatic arrived from Halifax [sic]. Dined at the Chateau Ther[mometer] 88. We are under great anxiety least Lord Dorchester should take the Pearl to carry him to England from Halifax.”20

  The Pearl returned on 3 September. On the 6th, a few days before they were to sail, fire broke out not far from the Mountains’ house, and spread rapidly from roof to roof because the shingles were of wood. By that time the Mountains had returned. Once Simcoe was aware of the danger, he sprang into action and took command of the defense of the houses. He organised the crew of the Pearl to carry water, and saved the Mountain house and others in the vicinity, although all caught fire several times. Elizabeth had their trunks sent to Chief Justice Osgoode’s house for safety, where they would spend the night. First they attended a ball at the Château, which itself had been threatened by the fire and had hoses trained on it to keep it damp.

  They boarded the Pearl on Saturday 10 September. Some of their fellow passengers were the officers from the lost Active. They sailed in a convoy of some 130 ships, the armed Pearl and other Royal Navy ships guarding the merchant vessels. John Scadding left Quebec about the same time, although he may not have been on the same ship. Colonel and Mrs. Richard England were aboard the Progress, rumoured to have been captured by the French. On 20 September:

  At 12 two French Frigates & a Brig were seen. They soon took 6 of our merchantmen who not having obeyed the Pearl’s signals were a great way ahead of us. We cleared for action. Captain [Leveson] Gower conducted me down two flights of steps into the bread room which just held me, the Children & my servant, there I spent 6 hours in perfect misery every moment expecting to hear the Guns fire, as we lay to for the Enemy. Never having been in real danger before, I had no Idea what it was to be so frightened.

  The Pearl encountered considerable rough weather. They had hoped to disembark at Tor Bay, Devon, but the breeze was too stiff. By 12 October they were off Dover, still unable to land until the following morning. With several officers they dined at an inn in Deal, very glad to be in a room that was not heaving up and down.21 They did not set out for Wolford Lodge immediately. Simcoe wanted to stop a few days in London to confer with the Duke of Portland, in order to justify the things he had done without proper sanction and to plead for the implementation of more of his projects. The Simcoe carriage finally drew in at Wolford Lodge on 22 October. During the damp, unpleasant autumn days Elizabeth admitted that everything seemed “so cheerless for the want of our bright Canadian Sun that the effect was striking & the contrast very unfavourable to the English climate.”22

  Simcoe had left a formidable legacy. He had laid the foundations for the future. His weaknesses as governor were a lack of experience, and a misplaced trust, especially in the granting of land. Despite orderly surveys, shifts in land policy caused confusion. Before his departure Simcoe tried to remedy the situation by abol
ishing the land boards and having all land petitions submitted directly to the executive council. The measure came too late. David William Smith (confirmed as Surveyor General of Upper Canada in 1798) investigated grants of whole townships, which Simcoe assumed would be filled with settlers. Of thirty-two such grants Smith found only six with many settlers, and “they were often simply moved from other locations in the province.”23 With all its faults, Simcoe’s open-door policy had resulted in a population almost double that of 1791. His “late Loyalists” from the United States were almost the only source of new people. War with France precluded mass immigration from the British Isles which he would have preferred.

  Undoubtedly Simcoe had too many bright ideas. His lengthy correspondence reveals a bombardment of his superiors, whether as soldier or administrator. His relationship with Guy Carleton/Lord Dorchester, whom he never met, casts the governor in chief in an unflattering light. Dorchester’s biographer, A. G. Bradley, whose work was first published in 1907, is sympathetic to his subject. A 1955 pamphlet by A.L. Burt paints a less rosy portrait. Dorchester was also a man who covered up his mistakes and could show lack of judgement, as when he ordered Simcoe to rebuild Fort Miamis.24

  Writing a summation of John Graves Simcoe in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, S. R. Mealing concluded:

  The most persistently energetic governor sent to British North America after the American Revolution, he had not only the most articulate faith in its imperial destiny but also the most sympathetic appreciation of the interests and aspirations of its inhabitants.25

  Ontarians will always remember Simcoe for the many places — urban and rural — which he named after people he wished to impress, or just for his friends. An exception is Saltfleet Township, now part of the City of Stoney Creek, named for a salt spring. Simcoe had sought a source of salt for food preservation and was delighted when his settlers found one. James Bland Burges, commenting that Simcoe “talks with his usual enthusiasm about the great work in which he is engaged,” wrote his sister Mary Anne, that he would “do my best not to disgrace my new namesake.” He referred to the Township of Burges (Burgess) in Leeds County, and he enquired about a land grant there. He might need a place of sanctuary should the Empress of Russia and the King of Prussia invade England.26 Next door to Burgess is Bastard Township, named in honour of John Pollexfen Bastard, its true origin sometimes clouded by the passage of time.

  SEVTEEN

  SAN DOMINGO

  While the Simcoes were still in Upper Canada, a noteworthy gentleman paid a call at Wolford Lodge. The Reverend John Swete was touring Devon, visiting places of historic interest and houses of prominent people. In December 1794, he painted a word picture of the Simcoe house: “two stories and was coloured with stucco of yellowish tone.” Swete knew the Simcoes were away, but he called to pay his respects to Miss Hunt:

  I could not help lamenting as I surveyed the wild and cultured beauties of the spot, that its worthy owner was absent from it in a less hospitable clime — but to the generous mind how weak is the voice in glorious ease when Honor calls. Was this that persuaded Col. Simcoe to quit his beloved rural shades — for the bleak region of Canada. Where as Governor of the back settlements is rendering service to his country by conciliating the Indian Tribes. He might well attach Fame and Honor to himself when those happy ends are effected.1

  From the sacrifice, as Swete saw the then Colonel’s time in the Canadas. Simcoe had come home to recuperate. His convalescence was of short duration. By the time the travellers reached Wolford Lodge on 22 October 1796, the government had selected a new assignment for Major General Simcoe. He was to be sent to the French colony of San Domingo, the portion of the Island of Hispanola now called Haiti. On 10 November, John P. Bastard wrote from Kitley, his seat in Devon, advising Simcoe to take a “medical man” with him to San Domingo.2 Bastard would help look after Simcoe’s family and be in touch with lawyer Christopher Flood. Elizabeth was horrified at the very idea of her General, now forty-four years old, going out to a fever island, the graveyard of so many Britons. Simcoe, the patriot, was willing to accept the commission, but he sought guarantees for the good of his family. On 10 December he wrote to the home secretary, the Duke of Portland:

  Having obtained His Majesty’s gracious Permission to return to Europe, expressly on the advice of my Physician that it was necessary for the preservation of my life I should the Autumnal heats of Upper Canada during the present year, I need not state to your Grace the apparent impossibility of my remaining in the island of St. Domingo during the unhealthy season. I am therefore to request that your Grace will have the goodness to take the formal measures that the Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s Fleet in that Station be especially directed to allot me a Frigate for the purpose of my return to Europe whensoever I shall think it necessary.

  I have the honor &…”3

  Permission, a little grudgingly, was forthcoming. The Speaker of the House of Commons was Henry Addington, who wrote hinting that on Simcoe’s return from Canada he would like to see his friend “employed in forming and arranging the Yeomanry cavalry and Troops intended for our defense” — a far cry from San Domingo.4 Simcoe, meanwhile, had rented a London town house at 53 Welbeck Street.

  On 19 December he wrote to Prime Minister Pitt thanking him for the provisions to be made for his son and family, and reminding him of the unhealthy climate of San Domingo: “I have twice already been obliged to quit a Southern Clime to preserve my life.”5

  San Domingo had been a French royalist colony, one of France’s richest; this was wealth built upon the backs of slave labourers. In 1789, 500,000 black slaves were working in the colony. Half of them were African-born, as distinct from those born into slavery in the colony, which implied a high rate of attrition and required the regular importation of fresh labour. When the slaves learned of the French Revolution, they seized the opportunity to be freed of their masters by rising in rebellion. The French in the colony, like those in France, were divided between royalist and revolutionary. By 1791 the slaves were well organised, and had found in their ranks an inspiring leader, the slave Francois Dominique Toussant L’Ouverture.

  With the coming of the French Revolution, Simcoe was on the same side as an old adversary over the matter of slavery and the slave trade. In Parliament the leader of the anti-slave trade faction was William Wilberforce, but the man who had enlisted his help was Thomas Clarkson, a schoolmaster’s son from Cambridgeshire. A member of the French Societe des Amis des Noirs was the Marquis de Lafayette. Visiting France, Clarkson met with Lafayette, and present were six “Deputies of Colour” including one Vincent Oge. They were bitter that white colonists of San Domingo were represented in the National Assembly, but the coloureds, or mulattoes, were not. Oge warned the members that if equal representation was not forthcoming, “a fire would be lighted up in San Domingo, which would not easily be extinguished.” Back home, Oge led an unsuccessful uprising that was the precursor to years of war on the island. Oge himself was guillotined, but his demise did not affect the slave movement. Toussaint L’Ouverture and his followers were further encouraged in 1794 when the French National Convention abolished slavery. The slaves in San Domingo naturally sided with the republican faction, who were anti-slavery.6

  The royalist French, fighting a losing battle, approached Adam Williamson, the British governor of Jamaica, their Caribbean neighbour. They asked Williamson to join in the war against the rebellious slaves and the French republicans in San Domingo. After some consultation with the home government, a British force of some 1,000 men landed in San Domingo in 1793. So began a venture which was doomed to failure. In August 1795, Williamson, now commander in chief of British possessions in the West Indies, came to the island. Of 982 troops landed, 630 were dead within six weeks. Between 1793 and the close of 1796, the British lost 7,500 men, mainly to yellow fever and malaria. They even recruited slaves to fight under French commanders. In May 1796, a further 7,000 British troops landed in San Domingo but the si
tuation did not improve, rather it worsened. Prime Minister Pitt’s solution was to send Simcoe to the West Indies as commandant and civil governor of San Domingo.7

  Still the patriot, Simcoe felt he could not refuse the appointment. Before his departure he had considerable correspondence with Adam Williamson, then living in Avebury, Wiltshire. Because of Williamson’s longtime service, he provided Simcoe with useful intelligence about the situation and background so that his colleague had an up-to-date briefing before he left England.8

  In January 1797, Simcoe set sail for San Domingo, accompanied by a military staff. On the 20th, he wrote to Elizabeth from the vessel, “3 leagues off [the island of] Porto Santo” (thirty miles from Madeira). He mentioned that among the officers accompanying him were Major Edward Littlehales and Henry Darling, now a captain in the 5th Regiment, withdrawn from Fort Niagara the previous summer. They boarded another ship at Madeira and met an American officer who knew the Simcoes.9 A month later they arrived at Port au Prince, the principal town of San Domingo.

  Ironically, Simcoe, so strongly opposed to slavery, found himself leading a campaign that, if successful, would ensure the continuation of slavery in the French colony — three years after it had been officially abolished. His heart could hardly have been in his task, but he also believed in the maintenance of law and order regardless of personal sentiments. His stay on the island was brief. His health again suffered in the hot, humid climate. Worse, this was an ugly war. Neither side gave quarter. The hatred of the slaves for their masters, and fear of them by the white residents, meant brutal, excessive conduct by both contenders. Simcoe’s order that “cruelties and outrages” must cease had no effect. Otherwise his campaign was partly successful. His forces took the basin of Mirebalais, north of Port au Prince, and they successfully defended the seaport of Saint Marc from an attack by Toussaint L’Ouverture and his followers. He informed London in mid-June that with 6,000 troops he could take the whole colony, but the government would no sooner send such a force now than when it had responded to similar entreaties from Upper Canada.