By August, an angry Simcoe had arrived back in England. He could not carry on without adequate troops and supplies from home, and he was ill from the few months in that disease-ridden climate. His superiors were not pleased by his premature departure. Henry Dundas, secretary at war, whom he regarded as a friend, did not bother to see him. The Duke of York, as commander in chief, even contemplated charging Simcoe with deserting his post. He still had a friend in the Duke of Northumberland. Writing from Syon House, his home at Isleworth, Middlesex, on 18 August, the Duke welcomed him home, and invited him to call upon him before returning to Devon.10 Joseph Brant, to whom Simcoe had carried the Duke’s letter and brace of pistols, had visited Syon House in 1775-76.
After a short stay in London, Simcoe returned to Wolford Lodge, greeted by an ecstatic Elizabeth and his daughters. Francis, by this time was boarding in Honiton in the home of the Reverend John Copplestone, who kept a small school in his rectory.11
Simcoe resigned both his San Domingo commission and his lieutenant governorship of Upper Canada. He was no longer willing to serve in Canada as anyone’s subordinate. The Duke of Portland did tell him he could expect to become governor in chief of the Canadas when General Prescott finished his tour of duty in 1799. This appointment never materialised, perhaps because Simcoe made a peerage a condition of acceptance.12
Months later, when she found that her General had not received the appointment, Elizabeth was disappointed. She would not be able to renew acquaintance with all the good friends she had made in Quebec. Besides, if Simcoe was stationed there, with the Château St. Louis as their residence, they could take all their daughters. Francis could not accompany them because he must remain in England for schooling. The spring of 1799 would have suited her nicely because they were expecting their eighth child in July 1798.
The San Domingo excursion had cost the British dearly in lives and money. In 1798 they made peace with Toussaint L’Ouverture and thankfully withdrew from any interest in the place. The slave army turned back the French in 1802 when they tried to retake their colony. Having triumphed over two major European powers, the blacks established their state, the first in the modern world. (That state has never been free of problems since.) Later, when Simcoe asked the King for “two Brass Spanish guns” from San Domingo, a memorial to the island’s last British governor, His Majesty assented and in due course the two cannon graced the hallway at Wolford Lodge.13
Due course implied lengthy negotiations, not the only example of Simcoe’s persistence. He wrote to the Duke of York, requesting him to ask His Majesty to confer on him “the token of Approbation which I most earnestly entreat your Royal Highness” to help him obtain “two or three small brass field pieces [that] were brought away from the Spanish Ports to Port au Prince”:
[they] were too difficult in their management & too curious in their construction to be of much military service; & were not used as being in no respect equal to the British Guns of nearly the same Calibre…. My humble request therefore is, that His Majesty will be pleased to give permission that I should obtain two of those Cannon, & that your Royal Highness would graciously condescend to order such permission into Effect.14
The Duke informed Simcoe that he had the King’s consent. He had notified the Master General of Ordnance. When the cannons did not arrive, Simcoe wrote to the ordnance people, who replied that no one seemed to know which cannons he wanted, and where they lay. Simcoe tried again, because he had heard that all ordnance stores removed from San Domingo were to be sold to the United States of America:
I shall not fail to desire that these two guns may be excepted from it; but the Directions … may be rendered more effectual if you can describe the Guns in so distinct a manner as to prevent the Ordnance Officer at Jamaica from mistaking them …
He then enlisted the aid of a former colleague at San Domingo, one William Spicer, who contacted the Commissary at Port Royal, Jamaica, where the San Domingo ordnance was housed. Eventually Spicer informed Simcoe that the guns were en route to England. They were next lodged in the Tower of London, without carriages. Simcoe ordered some built, to his specifications. (The guns — two 4-pounders — arrived at Plymouth on an ordnance sloop on 24 August 1800, two years after Simcoe had requested them.) 15
When he first returned from San Domingo, Simcoe was without an active role to play. He had had promises, but little else. He had antagonised some of the establishment, but he still retained some powerful and influential friends.
PART V
GUARDIAN OF THE WESTERN DISTRICT
Throughout 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte was annexing territories to France. In Ireland, growing unrest led to open rebellion in 1798. In June, the rebels were defeated near Wexford. Napoleon took Egypt, but in August, Admiral Nelson won the Battle of the Nile, which cut off the French there from Europe. Meanwhile, a French force landed in Ireland, which surrendered in October. By December 1798, Britain had agreed to an alliance with Russia. In 1799, Britain and Hyderabad divided Mysore between them. A coalition against France was signed by Britain, Russia, Austria, Turkey, Portugal and Naples. By September 1799, the Duke of York was commanding an army in Holland.
Britain captured Malta in 1800. By December, an Armed Neutrality Act of the North had been signed by Russia, Sweden, Denmark and Prussia, to counter Britain’s right to search ships of all countries. In 1801, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was proclaimed. In March, Czar Paul I (son of Catherine II) was assassinated. Britain seized Danish and Swedish islands in the West Indies, and the Treaty of St. Petersburg acknowledged Britain’s right of search.
With the Peace of Amiens, 1802, Britain and France ceased hostilities temporarily. Napoleon proclaimed himself the First Consul of France for life. In December, Peshaw of Poona surrendered his independence to the East India Company. The United States purchased the vast territory of Louisiana from France in April 1803. Hostilities between Britain and France resumed in May.
By 1804, war had broken out between the victorious East India Company and Holkar of Indore. Hobart, Tasmania, was founded in October, and Bonaparte was crowned Napoleon I in December. The highlight of 1805, on 21 October, was the Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson, the victor, was mortally wounded. Britain upset the United States by closing her West Indian possessions to American trade. That December, Napoleon defeated the Russians and Austrians at the Battle of Austerlitz.
In 1806, Britain occupied the Cape of Good Hope. With the death of Pitt, the Ministry of All the Talents succeeded him, and passed the act abolishing the slave trade. France and Prussia were now allied against Britain. In April, Britain declared war on Prussia after that country seized Hanover. By October, Napoleon had occupied Berlin, and he took Warsaw that December. In the meantime, Simcoe had died in Exeter on 26 October.
EIGHTEEN
THREATS FROM FRANCE
Early in January 1798, Simcoe received a letter from William Windham, an under secretary to the Secretary at War Henry Dundas:
Sir,
His Majesty having been pleased to appoint you to serve as a Major-General on the staff of Great Britain with one Aide de Camp I am commanded to signify to you the King’s Pleasure that you do obey such orders as you shall receive from His Majesty; the Commander in Chief [the Duke of York] or any other your Superior Officer,
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient humble
Servant,
W. Windham.1
Simcoe was to command the forces of the West of England with particular responsibility for “Most of Devonshire and Part of Somerset.” His military superiors were Lord George Lennox, the military governor of Plymouth and a full general in the army, and Lieutenant General Richard Grenville, who held an overall command for the western counties of Cornwall, Devon and parts of Somerset.
The threat of invasion by Napoleon and his armies was now very real. On 22 February 1797, three French frigates had shelled Barnstaple, in North Devon.2 The long coastline of south-we
st England was doubly vulnerable, first from the Continent, and second from Ireland. In December 1797, a French invasion fleet had sailed for Ireland without being discovered. Only a combination of bad weather and bad seamanship had prevented a French landing.3 The fleet had returned to France, but her troops might try to threaten England from across the Irish Sea. Simcoe and his military and civil colleagues had orders to make every preparation to repel the French, should they land, and to ensure that the invaders could not live off the country. He set about his new role with characteristic vigour and all the energy and enthusiasm he had thrown into the American War and Upper Canada. Again his fertile brain formulated ideas for the defense of his command, and he bombarded his superiors with them.
He could call upon civil colleagues of the Lieutenancy and the Magistracy, and he had at his disposal a mixed crop of fighting men — regular army, Militia and units of Volunteer Infantry and Yeomanry. The Militia was raised by a ballot system operated by the lord lieutenants of each county. (In Upper Canada he was astute enough not to refer to them as “Lord.”) Under the Militia Acts of 1758, each parish constable was required to submit a list of all men aged eighteen to forty-five. From these lists, men would be selected by ballot. Men not wishing to serve could persuade someone to act as a substitute, usually by offering an agreed sum of money. Where numbers of enrolled Militia were inadequate, a Supplementary Militia Ballot could be implemented. This form of 18th century conscription was not well received, but conscription rarely is.
The lord lieutenant of Devonshire was Hugh Lord Fortescue. Members of the Militia were subject to military discipline and law and were paid. The Volunteers were an adjunct of the Militia, and were under the same command structure. Parishes within the county raised their own Corps, usually organised by the local gentry and clergy or by committees. The government supplied the Volunteers with arms and some clothing, but most expenses were met by the men themselves. The Corps that were of cavalry, whether gentlemen, yeomen or tenant farmers, had to supply their own horses.
Plans for the evacuation of livestock, wagons and foodstuffs involved the civilians of the farms and villages. Most important, the Militia and Volunteers had to be trained into an efficient fighting force. Preparations involved all the western counties, though Simcoe’s responsibilities were Devon and the small section of Somerset.
The Devon and Exeter General Open Standing Committee began to function in April. Normally, meetings were held in Exeter Castle, with
Lord Fortescue, or Lord Clifford of Ugbrooke House, Chudleigh, as chairmen. The committee coordinated the preparations and implemented legislation enacted for the defense of the Realm, together with instructions from the Secretary at War. As a member of this committee, Simcoe advised the members on all military matters. Preparations did not wait for the formation of this committee. On 30 January, the first constructive steps were taken, the establishment of the Posse Comitatus or Defense Lists (which were separate from the Militia Ballot Lists).4
Lord Fortescue ordered a return submitted listing all males resident within each parish, specifying who could be recommended as “Chief and Petty Commanders.” Orders went out to the petty constables of the parishes within their constablewicks to comply with the decisions of the committee. They were for raising and establishing a “Civil Power” for general defense, and to suppress any riot or insurrection or rebel invaders, and to recommend, if the number to be levied on any parish exceeded 100 men, two or more “proper and fit persons from which may be chosen a Chief Commander” and also proper persons to be petty commanders over every twenty men. Others were to be chosen as directors of stock and drivers. A return was to be prepared of the numbers of “waggons,” carts and cart horses in each parish that could be “used for the removal of Dead Stock or conveying Soldiers or Baggage etc.” All returns were to be submitted by 19 February.
The High Constable for Hemyock, where Simcoe owned the castle and other property, did not issue the order until 7 February. This left little time to complete the considerable task. The parish’s return listed 240 men and recommended as chief commander the local parson, a common practice and in this instance the Reverend John Land. Many of the surnames on the return are to be found in the village to this day — Clist, Farrant, Moon, Pring, Hart, Salter, Wide and Lowman. Families throughout Devon tended to stay firmly rooted in their rural communities for many generations.
The first part of Hemyock’s return, “A,” named three other chief commanders, Robert Farrant, yeoman, Edward Lutley, and Robert Fry, sergemaker (who was also the high constable). Ten petty commanders were listed. Occupations of the men included husbandmen, labourers, weavers, thatchers, a butcher and a baker. Thirteen were wool combers; the woollen industry was important in the village. Transport numbered six wagons, twenty carts and sixty-four horses.
The second part, “B Live and Dead Stock” showed 470 oxen, 237 cows, 270 young stock, 1,296 sheep and 202 pigs. Dead stock (harvested crops in store) comprised 144 quarters of wheat, 60 of oats, 35 of barley, 73 loads of hay, 15 of straw, and 201 sacks of potatoes. The information was vital to the lord lieutenant (and later to the social historians of the county).5
On Friday 13 April, the committee met again. Simcoe was listed only as “Esquire.” Plans included the removal of “the aged and the women and children from the path of the invader.” A printed notice set forth the general principles for executing an “Act of Parliament made and passed in the 38th year of the reign of his present Majesty King George the Third intitled:
An Act to enable His Majesty more effectively to provide for the Defense and Security of the Realm during the present war and for indemnifying persons who may suffer in their property of such measures as may be necessary for that purpose.
The order asked for more returns — names of all men dwelling within the parish between ages fifteen and sixty, showing those incapable of active service owing to infirmity, and accounts of males under fifteen and over sixty, and of females “within such Parishes Tythings and Places by age, infirmity or other cause incapable of removing themselves from danger.” This and other returns were really a census. Emergency planning was comprehensive (and useful to later historians and genealogists).
Simcoe set out to meet all the newly appointed civilian commanders as well as his military subordinates. He undertook tours throughout Devon and his part of Somerset, and Elizabeth often accompanied him. Bubbling up was the Irish question. Aunt Elizabeth Gwillim, writing from Whitchurch on 28 March, thought the Irish situation looked ominous. Many people disapproved of Mr. Pitt’s solution, union with Great Britain and Catholic emancipation. The Catholic Duke of Norfolk, she maintained, was already making the country disloyal. She hoped the next baby would be a boy.6
On 13 May, Elizabeth described some of the Simcoe wanderings in a letter to her friend, Miss Elliott. They had been to the South Hams area:
and I have lately been a fortnight from home, which affords me an opportunity of telling you how much I wish you had seen the pretty scenery I had lately viewed — you would scarcely tho believe yourself in Devonshire were you to travel in that part of it called South Hams near the sea coast — the vallies [sic] are extremely rich, but the villages in Gloucestershire being so different from the dispersed cottages and little churches in the East of Devon … but neither the Dart nor the river at Ivybridge at all enchant me as they used to before I’d seen the rivers of Canada.
Sharpham, near the River Dart, was the home of John Pollexfen Bastard’s younger brother, Edmund. John P. was the colonel of the 1st Devon Militia, and Edmund was the lieutenant colonel. Apparently in the Militia, the colonel was the commandant; in regular regiments the lieutenant colonel was usually the commandant, and the colonel was an honorary rank. Pollexfen was a family name. In the 17th century, their ancestor, William Bastard, had married a Pollexfen heiress whose home was Kitley. It became the family seat, passing to John P.
The “Genl” often rode nine hours a day on horseback without suffering ill eff
ects. However, about three weeks before, he was seriously ill with “gout in his stomach”:
… because Ld. Somerville would have his Yeomanry received in the worst weather possible, in order that he might be no longer detained from the Agricultural Society; at the same time making his farmers lose a day during the sowing time — and obliged the General to pay a Physician a fee, the worst mode of spending money; but I hope it will be a warning to him in future not to omit changing wet clothes.7
Lord Somerville was Mary Anne Burges’s cousin, the eldest brother of her ward. The Hon. Julia Valenza Somerville was growing up at Tracey, and at Wolford Lodge she was like another sister to the Simcoe children.
Simcoe’s relations with the aristocracy and gentry were reasonably good, but occasionally problems would arise, such as the harvest taking precedence over the timing of troop reviews. The Simcoes did establish strong friendships with a number of distinguished West Country families, the Coleridges of Ottery, for example, and in particular the Cliffords of Ugbrooke, the wealthiest Roman Catholic dynasty in Devonshire.
The name Coleridge is well-known. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the poet. His brother, the Reverend George Coleridge, was the headmaster of The King’s School, at Ottery St. Mary. That year, Francis Simcoe, now nearly eight, had become a pupil at King’s (a school that still exists). Another brother, James, was a lieutenant colonel, and an aide de camp to General Simcoe. When fear of French invasion was at its height, Colonel Coleridge would climb, each morning, to the top of the Hilly Field at his home, Chanter’s House. From there he could see Wolford Lodge. He would focus his telescope on a certain window and if a towel was hung from it he was to hurry to the Simcoe house immediately.8
John Graves Simcoe, 1752-1806 Page 21