CHAPTER X.
Canadian Hospitality—Muffins—Departure for the States—Desertions—Montreal again—Southerners in Montreal—Drill and Snow Shoes—Winter Campaigning—Snow Drifts—Military Discontent.
Canadian Hospitality—Muffins—Departure for the States—Desertions—Montreal again—Southerners in Montreal—Drill and Snow Shoes—Winter Campaigning—Snow Drifts—Military Discontent.
Although my residence in Quebec was very short, I left the city with regret. Compared with the cities of the States, its antiquity is venerable and its ways are peace; but from what I heard of public amusement in summer time I should say that life here would be found dull, as compared with existence in a European capital, or in a city so vainly gay and profitably festive as New York. There is no great wealth among the people, but a moderate competency is largely enjoyed, and neither wealth nor poverty attains undue dimensions.
I found at Quebec a very agreeable society, the tone of feeling which prevails in a capital, the utmost hospitality. Had I had a hundred mouths they would here all have been kept busy. Invitations came in scores, and were to be resisted with difficulty. Knowing all this I am the more astonished at the recent statements which I have heard, that the Canadians have not extended any civilities to our officers. If so, a great change must have taken place. I am not nowtalking of sleighing parties, but of the hospitality of the inner house. The fair Canadians may have been too kind in accepting the name and position of “muffins” from the young Britishry; but the latter cannot say they have suffered much in consequence. A muffin is simply a lady who sits beside the male occupant of the sleigh—Sola cum solo, “and all the rest is leather and prunella.”
The social system is intended rather for the comfort of the inner life, and for the development of domestic happiness, than for such external glare and glitter as Broadway delights in, or for such unsound social relations as mark the America of hotels. The great artists who adorn the drama or the lyric stage can rarely be bribed sufficiently high to visit these northern regions; but I doubt whether there is not a better taste in art among the people of Quebec than there is to be found in most cities of the same size in the United States.
On a gloomy winter evening I was once more battling with the ice on the St. Lawrence; and, after a long passage, left Point Levi for Montreal.
A weary life-long night it seemed, and a still wearier day in the train. It was close upon twenty-one hours of stuffy, foodless travel, ere we arrived at Montreal. Nor can I remember anything worth recording of all that linked weariness, long drawn out, except that, halting at a roadside station in the night, I came on a detachment of the Scots Fusilier Guards, who had come up from Rivière du Loup, after their passage in sleighs over the snows of New Brunswick, and were in high spirits, looking very red in the face, and bulky in comparison with the lean habitans. “Misthress,” quoth one of them to the woman at the bar, “wad ye gi’e me a dhrap avwhuskie?” The Hebe complied with this request, and for some very small pecuniary consideration filled him out nearly a tumblerful of the dreadful preparation known in the States as “Fortyrod.” The soldier tasted it, blinked his eyes, squeezed them close, pursed up his lips, smacked them, gave a short watery cough, smelt the mixture, and, looking at his comrades, exclaimed, “My Gude! Hech! I’d jist as soon face a charge of baynets.” After that proem I was prepared to see the hardy warrior eject the fluid, but he proceeded to a most inconsequent act: for, nodding his head, he said, “Sae, here’s t’ye, my lads,” and tossed down the fire-water incontinent.
There were several companies of H.M.’s 63rd Regiment in the train, also going up to Montreal. It did not escape me that at the station pickets were looking sharply out for intending deserters, who might have cut away in the darkness; and I was told, and felt inclined to believe it might be worth their while, that there were Yankee crimps lying in wait at all the stations to help the deserters across the frontier, if they could induce them to leave their colours. The anxiety and annoyance caused by desertion, and by the chance of it, add to the dissatisfaction which is now expressed in our army in Canada; but I must say I cannot quite sympathise with the violence and exaggeration in which that dislike finds vent.
Captains of companies suffer losses, but in many instances they have only themselves to blame. The men, seduced by high pay, either in the States or as farm-labourers in Canada, are seized with an irresistible desire to quit the service abruptly, “without leave,” and resort to ingenious artifices to escape.Sometimes a whole guard will march off bodily, non-commissioned officers and all; occasionally one of the number will submit to be handcuffed, and will be marched by his comrades through the post as a deserter, or a man will put on a sergeant’s jacket or sew chevrons on his coat sleeve, and march off his party as if they were going out on picket or patrol duty. Such artifices cannot always be successfully encountered, but they are to be met to some extent by increased vigilance.
I need not say that it was with satisfaction I exchanged my railway van for a comfortable room in the house of Mr. Rose at Montreal. The news of an immediate advance of the army of the Potomac which had been received from New York turned out to be untrue; no immediate hurry was there need for to go down to the seat of war. I dined at the club, where we had a very agreeable party, enlivened by the fervent conversation of some Southern gentlemen of the little colony of refugees which finds shelter in Montreal under the British flag. There is some work of Nemesis in the condition of these gentlemen. Here are Charleston people, who claimed the right to imprison British subjects because they had dark skins, now taking refuge under the British flag, from the exercise of the very power which enabled them to maintain their claim, and apologising to Englishmen for the peculiar institution on the ground that they treated their niggers better than the Yankees do.
The snow again falling, and the day cold. On the Sunday after my arrival, I walked into town in moccasins, and attended service in Christchurch, where the ritual was in close imitation of the cathedral formula at home. I saw a party of the Guards marched to church,who had an air of profound discontent on their manly features. Some Canadians near me evidently regarded them as hardened heretics going to a place of punishment, and at the same time deserving it as foreign mercenaries; but the Guards certainly did not seem to care one farthing for their opinion, if they understood the expression of it. The building is very handsome; but, in spite of the cold outside, I found the atmosphere unbearable, owing to the stoves, iron pipes, or some other undesirable calorific apparatus. The sermon was respectable and frigid.
I spent the next day visiting the remarkable places and persons passed over in Montreal on my last brief visit. In the evening I dined with Colonel Kelly and H.M.’s 47th Regiment, who entertained Sir Fenwick Williams and the officers of the Guards then in garrison, and on the following morning at 9 o’clock I drove over to the Barracks to see a drill of the regiment on the St. Lawrence in snow-shoes. Sir Fenwick Williams and some staff officers were on the ground. The regiment was admirably handled by Colonel Kelly, and the scene was very novel and amusing. The regiment was in excellent condition: the men seemed rather to like the fun with the snow-shoes, and when skirmishers were thrown out or called in at the double, there was certainty of a fall or two from unlucky privates tripping up in their shoes and tumbling in the snow, which flew like puffs of musketry. Fresh from parades of volunteers I felt the force of Lord Clyde’s maxim—“The first duty of a soldier is to obey”—as I looked at the measured tread even at the quickest, and the alert, agile formations of the men to whom discipline was the whole scope of militaryintellect. There was, I thought, in that complex machine of many parts, but of only one animating, moving power, what would be cheaply bought by the United States by many hundreds of thousands of dollars for the purposes of war, though man to man one of their regiments might be more intelligent, and quite as capable of deeds of valour as the old 47th, of whom indeed not many had the Crimean medal, though the campaign is now but a few years old.
In the evening I dined with the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Fenwick Williams, and met Mr. Cartier, Mr. Galt, and Mr. Rose.
The letters from England which came by every mail showed that the position was not much understood, as it was believed there would be a speedy movement of the army of the Potomac, which I knew to be buried in mud. The American papers of course deluded their readers by constant assurances that McClellan was about to move next week. It would seem, after all, that in new countries the practice of going into winter quarters, which prevailed among sixteenth and seventeenth century generals, was founded on good reason; but that as the land became better drained, and the roads were improved by civilisation and populations, the necessity for inaction was diminished. Napoleon astonished Europe by some wonderful escapades in the field; but even in the Peninsula the British suffered greatly in winter movements. In the old French war, operations in Canada were usually over in August or early in September; but the Americans, in their bold and skilful campaign of 1775, commenced their invasion or dash late in the year—managed so well that they broke in almost simultaneously at Montrealand Quebec, on the British, who had only one regular regiment in the Provinces, in November—and it was on the last day of the year that Montgomery and Arnold made their brilliant and unsuccessful attempt to carry the citadel by escalade.
Again, in 1812, it was as late as October before the Americans opened their campaign on the Niagara frontier; and it was about the middle of November when they directed their ill-managed and abortive demonstration against Montreal. They again moved in January, 1813, and several actions took place in the early months of the year, nor did the approach of winter drive the contending parties from the field; and a good deal of sharp fighting took place in December. In the following year the Americans began the offensive at a later period, though the corps intended to operate against the Montreal district was in motion in the first week of March. Our defeat at Plattsburgh occurred on September 11th. The Americans make much of it—with great justice. They defeated the best regiments of an army which had proved itself, in face of the picked troops of Napoleon, the first in Europe. When winter is well established in these high latitudes, perhaps it is, under ordinary circumstances, more favourable to military operations than it is in lower latitudes, where tremendous rains alternate with heavy snow-storms, which do not form permanent deposits over which to move men or guns.
On the following day I dined with Mr. Chamberlain, of the “Montreal Gazette,” Mr. Rose, Mr. Ryland, Major Penn, and a number of gentlemen connected with the Canadian press, at a famous old-fashioned English tavern, kept by an old-fashioned John Bull cook, whowould have fainted outright at the sight of avol-au-ventand died of anomelette glacée, where we had much old-fashioned English talk. On our issuing into the outer world there was a snow-fall going on, the like of which I, unaccustomed, had never seen before; and my voyage out to Mr. Rose’s was diversified by attempts of the sleigh-driver to get over boundary-walls and into gardens, till we came to a dead stop just as the fall cleared off a little, and permitted us to get a glimpse of the moon. But the moon gave no assistance, for its rays only lighted up great snow-mounds and a universal whiteness, and the road seemed as doubtful as ever. As I was deliberating what was best to be done, a sleigh-bell was heard jingling in the distance, and the vehicle gradually approached us. We hailed the occupant, and I heard a well-known voice in answer: it was that of Colonel Lysons, an inmate of the same hospitable abode as that I occupied. Our united efforts at last discovered the mansion.
The snow-storm continued next day: the fall was so great that Lysons, who was bound to Quebec on duty connected with the Militia Bill, and started early, was compelled to returnre infectain the morning. Towards the afternoon the storm ceased, and left a thick outer garment over the body of the country. The younger people of the house considered the occasion favourable for snow-balling, and I was included in some diffusive arrangements, very unfavourable to literary composition, for the spread of the white artillery, directed by willing hands and unrelenting aim at short range. I dined with the artillery mess—went afterwards to a ball given by H.M.’s 16th Regiment at the Donegana, which is the headquarters of Secessiondom—andfinished the evening by a visit to the house of Mr. Judah, who gave a dance which was attended by Lord F. Paulet and a number of soldiers, and, above all, by a lovely American, who created a strong current in favour of the Union, of which she was a staunch advocate.
As already hinted, I have heard of complaints from officers of the Guards and other regiments that the Canadians during the period in question did not treat them with the hospitality for which they were once celebrated. Of that point I am not well able to judge; but I must say, that during the whole period of my stay in Canada, I never was in any society in which I did not see British officers, and never knew of their having had reason to complain of neglect till lately. If there was any want of hospitable civility, I must think the officers were in some measure to blame for it: for among those stationed any length of time in Canada, or who knew the country in former years, I always heard unreserved praise of those Canadians who had the means of entertaining visitors. It must be remembered that there are few Canadians who are wealthy enough to give set dinners, and that the reserve which guards the family of the Frenchman existed in the times from which his descendants in Canada take their traditions and manners. Many people in Montreal, well inclined to show every attention in their power to the officers quartered among them, were deterred by the very prestige of the Guards’ social position from offering them ordinary civility; and by degrees in many cases an estrangement grew up.
I saw nothing to account for the discontent of officers who were quartered at Montreal, save andexcept the fact that they were on foreign service, that they were not in England or London among their friends, and that they did not like the people,—all grounds which they might unfortunately allege against any other part of the world in which the British army is forced to serve. The subject is only important, in so far as it exercises an influence over the relations of the two countries; a common expression of dislike on the part of men who exercise a great influence among the most powerful classes in this country must increase any tendency to regard with indifference the possession of the great territory which it is my belief we should seek to attach to the Crown by every possible legitimate means, Professor Goldwin Smith and the political economists of his school notwithstanding.
After a stay of some days in Montreal, I received intelligence which rendered it necessary for me to depart at once for the United States, and I returned to New York by Rouse’s Point, travelling night and day. I had seen enough of Canada to inspire me with a real regard for the people, and a sincere interest in the fortunes of such a magnificent dependency of the Crown, and I resolved, as far as in me lay, to attract the attention of the home country to a region which offers so many advantages to her children, and promises one day to be the seat of flourishing communities, if not of a vast and independent empire.