It deserves to be recorded as an instance of good fortune, unprecedented perhaps in military annals, and especially in a country where the advantage and facility of escape were so great, that from the 6th of August, the day on which Major-General Brock left York for Detroit, to the period immediately preceding the battle of Queenstown, the force under his personal command suffered no diminution in its numbers either by desertion, natural death, or the sword. This comprehended a period of nearly ten weeks, during which an army was captured, and a journey of several hundred miles, by land and water, accomplished with extreme rapidity. In compiling this memoir, we have been much struck with the rapidity of Major-General Brock's movements: he appears to have been everywhere, and, as Veritas observed of him, to have "flown, as it were." To-day at York, engaged in his civil and military duties--to-morrow at Fort George, superintending the defences of the Niagara frontier, or at Kingston, reviewing and animating the militia. To-day at Fort George, watching the enemy--the next at York, dissolving the legislature--and a fortnight after, on his return from the capture of Detroit! To-day at Fort George again--a few hours after at Fort Erie, endeavouring to retake the brigs Detroit and Caledonia. And yet this most active and energetic officer was compelled, by his _defensive_ instructions, tamely to look on the _offensive_ preparations of the Americans for the invasion of the province committed to his charge! In conclusion, it is due to the memory of this excellent man to declare that, eminent and undisputed as were his public virtues, he was no less estimable in private life. In his own family he was the object of the warmest affection, and his servants carefully preserved relics of their dear master, as they styled him to their dying day. His cares and anxieties had no reference to the wealth he should amass, but to the sum of human misery he might relieve; and towards the close of his brief career, as the prospect of increasing honors and emoluments opened to his view, he contemplated his good fortune only as the means of diffusing felicity, of drying the tear of affliction. Indeed, so totally devoid was he of every mercenary consideration, that although he enjoyed an ample income from his appointments,[109] by which at least the purchase of his commissions might have been repaid, yet he left literally nothing but his fair name behind him. Some of his nearest relatives have since been cut off more prematurely, and far more cruelly, than himself; but those who still survive him possess the never-failing consolation which arises from the remembrance of his virtues, and from the reflection that, though his blessed spirit fled early from this world, they may meet again in the mansions of futurity.