Death of a Patriot

by Don Gutteridge

  Praise for Don Gutteridge’s Marc Edwards series

  “Don Gutteridge has taken up his quill and written a riveting yarn of 1830s Upper Canada, steeped in conspiracy and political intrigue. Gutteridge is not only a master of this historical period, he writes like a veritable visitor from it. Canadian history has never been more gripping and enlightening. The story burns, the pages turn, and the reader learns. Fans of Bernard Cornwall and Patrick O’Brian will love Don Gutteridge and his Marc Edwards mysteries.”

  —Terry Fallis, author of The Best Laid Plans

  “Canadian history brought to muddy, cold, vicious, and sometimes heroic life.”

  —The London Free Press

  “Gutteridge weaves his tale perfectly, with believable characters and perfect scene-setting.”

  —The Globe and Mail

  “Don Gutteridge has created a fascinating cast of historically accurate characters as he follows a trail of murder and political intrigue with a bit of romance thrown in. Great mystery, great history, and a terrific read.”

  —David Cruise and Alison Griffiths, authors of Vancouver

  “A well-written, graphic, and moving history.”

  —Saskatoon Star-Phoenix

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  For Tom, Tim, James, and Kevin, my new generation of readers

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank Jan Walter, my editor, for her insights and helpful suggestions. Thanks also to my longtime agent, Beverley Slopen, who has been with this series from the outset, and to Alison Clarke and Kevin Hanson of Simon & Schuster for their constant support of Marc Edwards and his mysteries.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Death of a Patriot is wholly a work of fiction, but the border raids of 1838 did take place much as they are described herein. I have added my own cast of military characters and created the minor skirmishes central to the novel’s plot. Many of the captured invaders, or “Patriots” as they dubbed themselves, were indeed hanged, while others suffered the more humane fate of being transported to Van Dieman’s Land (now Tasmania). However, particular actions and characterizations attributed to actual historical personages like Sir George Arthur, John Beverley Robinson, and William Warren Baldwin are fictitious. In fact, Robinson was in England in 1838, campaigning against the union of the Canadas, but I have kept him in Toronto to oversee the trial in the novel. While the Hunters’ Lodges played a major role in the so-called Patriot Wars, my depiction of individual members is purely imaginary. Finally any resemblance between invented characters and actual persons is coincidental and unintended.

  I am indebted to the following works, which provided helpful background information: George B. Catlin, The Story of Detroit; Frank Angelo, Yesterday’s Detroit; Mary Beacock Fryer, Volunteers & Redcoats, Rebels & Raiders: A Military History of the Rebellions in Upper Canada; David H. Flaherty, ed., Essays in the History of Canadian Law, Vol. II; and R. D. Gidney and W. P. J. Millar, Professional Gentlemen: The Professions in Nineteenth-Century Ontario.

  ONE

  Briar Cottage

  Toronto, Upper Canada

  November 5, 1838

  Dear Uncle Frederick:

  Your October letter is happily received, and while you insist that I address the unpardonable omission of details political and military from recent correspondence, I must once again beg your indulgence and begin this report by bringing you up to date on matters much more compelling and germane to Clan Edwards.

  The doctor has now confirmed what my darling Beth and I had already deduced: a new addition to the family is expected to make his or her debut sometime about the middle of April. Our joy at this prospect is tempered only by the regret that Uncle Jabez did not live long enough to celebrate the arrival with us, and that you are thousands of miles away in a foreign land. I trust that you have come to accept the irrefutable fact that I have become—with no malice aforethought—a permanent resident of this provincial dominion of the Crown. But you of all people will understand such a decision, having married your French sweetheart and settled with her in a far country. Certainly I was pleased to learn that you have been able to complete the probate of Uncle Jabez’s estate and return to Normandy and the bosom of your family. Josh Henchard is a good and honest man who will manage the property well in your absence. Also, your suggestion that Jean-Marie take up the “squiredom” when he comes of age seems a wise one: we don’t want the Edwards name to disappear entirely from Queen Victoria’s domain, do we?

  I should tell you too that Beth has reopened her shop in the commercial property she inherited from her late father-in-law. The revived enterprise, proudly sporting the “Smallman’s” name over the window, provides dressmaking services to the town’s fashionable ladies and is unquestionably a going concern. At first I remonstrated with her, as tactfully as possible, but had little influence. What I have learned in my three and a half years here is that women, particularly those born and raised in rural settings, are independent and toughened by experience, both physically and mentally. They often do a man’s work in addition to their feminine responsibilities and demand to be respected for it. They even participate in political affairs, as you’ll recall my Beth has done. However, be assured that her role in the new enterprise is administrative and managerial: she feels obliged to use the premises on King Street to provide work for half a dozen local women and to honour the memory of her dear father-in-law. And I applaud both sentiments.

  Finally, to round off this personal segment, I can say that I am thoroughly enjoying my legal studies. There’s much to be said for choosing a profession on one’s own. When not at home getting in Beth’s way or disrupting Charlene’s household routine, I divide my time between the reading room at Osgoode Hall and a cubicle in the far reaches of Robert Baldwin’s chambers on Front Street, with occasional sojourns to the high court of Chief Justice Robinson.

  Now to meatier matters. The political situation is more precarious than ever. Two days ago, our best hope for a mediated solution to our problems resigned his commission and embarked for Britain from Quebec City. The measure of Lord Durham’s significance to these troubled provinces could not be better illustrated than by reference to the send-off he was given—in the capital city of the ancien régime and site of Montcalm’s defeat. Thousands of citizens, French and English, cheered his procession from the castle to the quay. People came from hundreds of miles away and camped out on the Plains of Abraham so that they could wave a handkerchief or a capote of farewell and genuine lament. (We had these details given us by a captain of the 34th, whose regiment passed through Quebec en route from New Brunswick to Toronto as part of the general buildup of regular troops here.) Our fervent wish is that he will be able to frame a report and present it to Parliament in Westminster before things fall apart on this side of the Atlantic. At the moment an eerie calm pervades the Canadas, as if we were holding our collective breath. The principal action is the dull rumbling of the rumour mill and the sight of fresh redcoats arriving daily. Spies are everywhere, according to both camps, spreading lies and half-truths.

  What we do know is this: the threats being made upon our sovereignty from the United States are real. Early last March a group of self-styled “Patriots”—four hundred strong, mostly American “liberators” with a scattering of exiled Canadian rebels—crossed on the ice from Sandusky, Ohio, and bivouacked on the south shore of Pelee Island, just off the main coast of Lake Erie and within
striking distance of our own fort at Amherstburg on the Detroit River. News soon reached Lieutenant-Colonel Maitland, who marched to the area with three hundred regulars and a handful of militia from the nearby town of St. Thomas. In an elegant flanking manoeuvre (which you, as a veteran of the Peninsular campaigns, will savour), Maitland took the main body of his outnumbered force around the island (on sleighs!) to the south side, where he expected to surprise the invaders and cut off their retreat. On the northern tip of the island, in dense bush, he stationed a force of seventy men under Captain Browne, whose task it was to pick off any of the enemy fleeing north to escape Maitland.

  However, just before the latter reached his destination, a preposterous contingent of sleighs arrived from the American shore, full of excited Ohio gentlemen (and not a few “ladies”), come to enjoy a bit of Sunday morning melodrama. Espying the British regulars advancing through the mist, they elected to abandon their front-row seats and hightail it back to the land of liberty, taking a number of soldierly fainthearts with them. The invaders, alas, had already detected the presence of Maitland’s force and determined to plunge northward across the island. When Maitland arrived, the Yankee encampment was deserted. He set off in hot pursuit, but the invaders had already reached the north shore of Pelee, and a fierce encounter took place with Browne’s picket, hunkered down in the brush. Outnumbered three to one, Browne spaced his men a yard apart to give the illusion of a greater force and directed a steady fire at the attackers, who returned it in kind. Fearful of losing too many men in such a sustained series of volleys, Browne ordered them to fix bayonets and charge. As you know, nothing turns a man’s bowels to liquid quicker than the sight of a line of ululating redcoats advancing upon him. The invaders broke ranks and scampered off in several directions. Dozens were killed and eleven captured.

  There was a local angle to this military victory. The St. Thomas militia, who fought with Browne at Pelee, were led by a Toronto man, Gideon Stanhope, even though his only connection with that area is a brother who farms nearby. Stanhope happened to be visiting when the call went out to the recently embodied militia unit. As he was a veteran of the 1812 hostilities (he’d been at Lundy’s Lane, though did not see action) and keen to participate, he was invited to head the unit. No doubt his being a prominent member of the Family Compact and the possessor of a fine horse influenced the choice. In any event, “Captain” Stanhope fought valiantly alongside Browne, rallied his green troops, and took part in the pursuit until a wound in his thigh compelled him to halt. Even so, as he was being evacuated later in the day, he spotted two figures on the ice just offshore, ordered his driver to stop, and proceeded to hobble out towards them, his worried ambulance men two steps behind. Coming up to the startled intruders, he drew his pistol and took them prisoner before they could recover their wits. The taller of the two Americans was none other than Thomas Jefferson Sutherland, the commander of the invasion force who had arrived late for his own battle and was ignominiously brought to heel by a man with one good leg. The upshot of this deed was that Gideon Stanhope, dry-goods importer, was given a hero’s welcome upon his return to Toronto in June, and thereafter dubbed the “Pelee Island Patriot”—in ironic salute to those misguided souls he helped defeat.

  While Captain Stanhope was being fêted, another raiding party of Patriots, all Americans we believe, crossed the Niagara frontier and carried out several forays in the Short Hills below St. Catharines. Most of them were eventually rounded up and imprisoned. James Morrison, their leader, was hanged at Niagara, and a series of courts-martial have been staged over the spring and summer, all of which keep the pot boiling, so that the divisions in the community—the established administrators v. more recently arrived settlers, Orange Lodge loyalists v. republican sympathizers, Tories v. Reformers—are only made deeper.

  Then in July, three more incursions occurred along the western border, one of them repulsed by local Chippewas. There are persistent rumours that the Hunters’ Lodges in the United States have recruited ten thousand men, all eager to liberate the enslaved populace of the province. In September, a convention of the lodges was held in Cleveland and a “Republic of Upper Canada” declared under the presidency of a U.S. citizen, Lucius V. Bierce. The Hunters are also reputed to be in league with rebels from Lower Canada, now living fugitive in Vermont and New York.

  The only encouraging result of all this commotion and uncertainty, including the loss of Lord Durham’s conciliatory leadership, is that most of the ordinary folk here have rallied to meet the external military threat, though no one is fooled by this apparent cohesion into believing that domestic political differences have been moved an inch closer to compromise. As I say, we are in the grip of a tension-filled lull, momentarily resigned to the reality that our immediate future is in the hands of a new lieutenant-governor, Sir George Arthur, and Her Majesty’s army. Only when our physical safety has been assured can we turn our attention to the task of rebuilding the polity—with, I trust, the guidance of Lord Durham’s report.

  Have I not, you may ask, been tempted or shamed into taking up arms again, as so many with less experience have willingly done? I have not. I have been there and have the scars to prove it. I see my own role clearly, and it is to use my talents for the law to help with the necessary reconstruction. Of course I would defend my city and my home, as any man would, but the presence of three thousand regulars and nearly twenty thousand militia suggests to me that we have little to fear other than these nuisance border raids, and these too are nearing their climax.

  We are informed, for example, that Mackenzie and other rebel leaders have withdrawn from active involvement with the Patriots, and that President Van Buren is at last about to move against these vigilante soldiers disrupting life on both sides of the border. We are bracing for a “final push” to be made sometime this month by the Chasseurs in Vermont and the Hunters in Michigan. In this regard, our own Pelee Island Patriot has taken up Governor Arthur’s request for the embodiment of eight new militia regiments (with “regular” army uniforms promised). Stanhope has formed one of two Toronto units, has been promoted to lieutenant-colonel as its commander, and has been observed marching his recruits up and down Front Street, with his battle limp poorly disguised. Indeed, he has been so impressive that he and six of his NCOs have been dispatched to Fort Malden at Amherstburg to help train the latest volunteers from the Essex region and provide an inspiring example to all and sundry. I’m sure we’ll hear more from that quarter before the “war” is finally won.

  I realize that all this may sound picayune to one seasoned at the side of the Iron Duke and tempered in the hellfire of Waterloo, but as you also know, any battle however modest is, to each individual in its midst, both an ordeal and a testing ground for personal courage. A bullet is a bullet, particularly if it be aimed at you!

  On such a pleasant note, I sign off for now. Write soon, and tell me only of vintage harvests and hearth stories in ancient Normandy.

  Your loving nephew,

  Marc

  TWO

  December 4, 1838

  Billy McNair was sweating and shivering at the same time. He could see his breath, like a visible exhalation of fear, floating before him on the icy, predawn air. Yet this morning was what he had wished for every day since he’d cheered the triumphant return of the York militia, marching to fife and drum up Yonge Street from their successful excursion in the Short Hills: he was going into battle. When the formation of new militia units was approved in July, he had been the first to enlist and the first corporal to be promoted to sergeant. Dolly had done her best to dissuade him, but even she had come around in the end. Her farewell kiss lingered still on his lips. And he had promised her that he would proudly don his “regular” uniform on their wedding day, should that glorious tunic of scarlet and green ever arrive.

  He and his companions were marching north along the well-travelled road towards the village of Windsor, all of them members of the raw and untried Windsor militia whom Lieuten
ant-Colonel Stanhope and his elite corps had been doing their damnedest to whip into shape before the anticipated invasion. An hour earlier, Sergeant Walsh and a dozen of his regular troops had stumbled into their makeshift barracks at Sandwich, bloodied, scorched, and exhausted. Theirs was a hair-raising tale. The American Patriots, it seemed, had come across the river from Detroit, three hundred strong, and landed under cover of darkness just above Windsor. There they set fire to a ship in the harbour, routed the small picket on duty, and moved against the village. Before the alarm could be raised, Sergeant Walsh and thirty of the 2nd Essex were surrounded and trapped in their own barracks. They held out as long as their ammunition lasted and surrendered only when the Patriots set the compound afire. In the ensuing mêlée many of them escaped, leaving their dead and wounded behind. As Walsh was scuttling into the bush, he saw General Lucius V. Bierce climb onto a beer barrel and begin reading a proclamation which informed the local citizenry that they had been liberated and would be welcome recruits in the inalienable struggle for freedom and democracy.

  Lieutenant-Colonel Stanhope had neither flinched nor hesitated to act at this news. Now the interim leader of the new Windsor regiment—thanks to the titular commander having been felled by the gout, again—he had integrated the NCOs he’d brought with him from Toronto into the fledgling units to stiffen them. With the presence of mind and steadiness of purpose that had prompted Governor Arthur to dispatch him to the battle zone along the Detroit River, he directed some two hundred men, a six-pounder, and a dozen pack animals towards Windsor, three miles upriver.

  The colonel, as Billy and others invariably referred to Gideon Stanhope, led the way, tall and lordly upon Pegasus, his alabaster Arabian gelding. He was fully accoutered in scarlet and green, and the sabre in his gilded scabbard tinkled like a sleigh bell. Slightly behind him rode the company captains, Charles Onslow and Jonathan Muttlebury, each of whom had seen action at Pelee Island in March, and who welcomed the fortuitous arrival of their comrades in arms from Toronto.