Humours of '37, Grave, Gay and Grim: Rebellion Times in the CanadasLizars, Robina
History
Humours of '37, Grave, Gay and Grim: Rebellion Times in the Canadas
Lizars, Robina
Canada -- History -- Rebellion, 1837-1838
all is done;” and this, according to Dent, was the “death roll” of
Montgomery’s or Gallows Hill battle.
The full force was too much for the insurgents. The whole affair was
of not more than a half hour’s duration, and after some perfunctory
firing, a number of the “embattled farmers” standing about inactively
and wishing themselves anywhere but at Thermopylæ, the outcome was
confusion to the one side and a well followed-up victory on the other.
The wounded were tenderly picked up and carried off in carts to the
hospital; and Sir Francis, followed by the flower of his army, went in
pursuit of his flying subjects, to give his second word of command.
Before he could do so, Judge Jones, by now as full of “over-zeal” as
FitzGibbon himself, with a comrade who was noted as a splendid officer
and was known as handsome Charlie Heath, was trying to ride in at the
open door of the tavern. MacNab, thinking Jones was some prominent
rebel, promptly gave the word to “shoot me that man.” But some one in
the ranks, not so zealous, cried, “Don’t fire, it’s Judge Jones,” and
so saved the Judge’s life.
Two prisoners were now brought before his Excellency, who sat upon his
horse by the raised platform at the inn door. By his account, they were
arrantly frightened and gazed at the adjacent trees wondering which
ones they might be sent to decorate. But the dramatic Sir Francis was
fond of strong contrasts, he was a masterhand at light and shade.
These two were all that remained of Mackenzie’s army. So, after a
little homily, he pardoned them “in their sovereign’s name.” The
unhappy men nearly fainted, unable at once to take advantage of their
freedom.
The Governor next deemed it expedient to mark by some stern “act of
vengeance the important victory which had been achieved.” He forthwith
took a leaf out of his enemy’s book of tactics, and burned what his
detractors call the “houses of private citizens,” what he calls the
place “long the rendezvous of the disaffected;” the floors of one
“stained with the blood of Colonel Moodie,” “the fortress” from which
Her Majesty’s subjects had been fired upon.
He gave the order to fire the premises. “The heaps of dirty straw on
which he (Mackenzie) and his gang had been sleeping” acted as good
kindling; the furniture of the house, piled with it, soon set fire
to the great structure of timber and planks. The deep black smoke
poured from the windows, and the “long red tongues sometimes darted
horizontally, as if revengefully to consume those who had created
them, then flared high above the roof.” The heat was intense, but
to those “gallant spirits that immediately surrounded it,” seated
on their horses, was a “subject of joy and triumph, and ... a lurid
telegraph which intimated to many an aching heart in Toronto the joyful
intelligence that the yeomen and farmers of Upper Canada had triumphed
over their perfidious enemy ‘responsible government.’” But it was only
scotched.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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