By the time the whole trip was completed Brock had been afforded much
food for thought. He saw a country whose resources were barely touched.
Where we now have thriving communities, he saw settlements where the
people might be counted by handfuls. In the long journey up the St.
Lawrence the abundance of fish and game and the vast sources of wealth
contained in the land alone must have amazed him. He came from a country
across which the stage coach could travel in two or three days. But his
journey across but a section of Canada took him weeks. In England the
lakes were not a twentieth of the size of the one upon which York stood.
The meadows and lanes of England were a far cry from the densely
timbered stretches of Canada. The contrast between his country and ours
is sharp enough to-day. It must have been infinitely more so when Brock
made his first Canadian journey.
It was not long after the pardoning of Carr that Brock had again to face
a similar trouble. Part of his men had gone on to Fort George, while the
others remained with him at York. Brock’s kind treatment of Carr had had
a salutary effect upon most of the regiment, but there were still a few
malcontents. The next summer six of these, at the instigation of a
corporal in another regiment stationed near, deserted, and in a military
batteau—a big flat-bottomed boat, forty feet in length—which they had
stolen, started for Niagara. Brock, the man of action, thought quickly.
He took his servant, Dobson, and manning two boats, started in pursuit.
It was midnight and Lake Ontario was to Brock an unknown quantity, but
the boy who had played with the English Channel in all its moods was
unafraid. After a hard row the pursuers reached Fort George in the
morning, and search parties were organized. The deserters were secured
and made prisoners at Fort George. Brock was as stern this time as he
had been kind before, and his prompt action and personal pursuit put an
end to desertions when he himself was commanding the regiment. It is
said that the commander-in-chief, Lieutenant-General Hunter, who was
then at York, was very much annoyed with Brock for risking his life by
going in person to seek the deserters and read him a severe lecture on
his conduct.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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