Sir Isaac Brock

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Eayrs Hugh Sterling. Sir Isaac Brock

CHAPTER I. Early Years

CHAPTER II. EGMONT-OP-ZEE AND COPENHAGEN

CHAPTER III. Canada: Mutiny in the 49th

CHAPTER IV. Rumors of War

CHAPTER V. Moved to Upper Canada

CHAPTER VI. A Foolish Boast

CHAPTER VII. Detroit Taken

CHAPTER VIII. His Hands Are Tied

CHAPTER IX. Queenston Heights

CHAPTER X. Conclusion

APPENDIX

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The year 1769 was an important one for Europe. In it were born two men who were destined between them to change the face of that continent. These were Wellington and Napoleon. There was another man who first saw the light in that year. His name was Isaac Brock, and while his life and work were hardly comparable in their effect and result to those of the two great Europeans, they were nevertheless an important factor in shaping the destiny of Canada. It may, perhaps, be laying undue stress on the work he did to call General Brock the Wellington of Canada. Necessarily he left less mark on the times in which he lived than did the Iron Duke, for his task was less monumental and his sphere less wide. Yet, in relative degree, Brock’s work was immensely important. We are beginning to realize, a hundred years after his death, just how directly he affected Canada and indirectly Europe. It would be interesting, however, to speculate on just what would have been the result had he remained in Europe. It might, – who knows? – have been his as much as Wellington’s to save the world from the ambitious schemes of Napoleon, but in the part he played, Brock admittedly did a very great deal to make the bounds of Empire “wide and wider yet.”

Isaac was born on October 6th, 1769, and was the eighth son of John Brock. Of his father we know little. He was a sailor, had been a midshipman in the navy, and his duty had carried him far afield, to India and other outposts. Isaac’s birthplace was Guernsey, an island in the English Channel, which is one of the beauty spots of the world. There could have been no more fitting cradle for a child who was to become indeed a man of action than this rugged little island, with its rocky weather-beaten coast, stern and bold in outline. The heavy seas of the Channel beat upon it in vain, and it is possible that in after-life, when he was buffeted by circumstances, his thoughts may have gone back to his island home, a small but hardy defence against thundering waves and shrill winds and raging tempest.

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One brother, Ferdinand, had been in the 60th Regiment, and when Isaac was a lad of ten, had given his life at the defence of Baton Rouge, on the Mississippi, fighting against the colonial revolutionists. The other, John Brock, was a captain in the 8th, known as the King’s Regiment, and probably with the idea of being near his brother, Isaac in 1785 purchased a commission as ensign in the 8th. Thus he had in John a hand and mind steadied and practised by reason of ten years’ service to guide and help him in the career he had chosen.

Isaac was keenly enthusiastic about this new life, and his brother’s example spurred in him the ambition to be a distinguished soldier. His love for history and his liking for serious reading stood him in good stead. He had had, perhaps, too much sport and too little study in those Guernsey days. He allotted his time differently now, and sedulously spent some hours each day locked in with his books. He was wise enough to know that he was not too well-equipped for his work. These were the years when his mind was receptive and plastic, and he used them well. He served five years and purchased his lieutenancy in 1790, when he was twenty-one. These were uneventful and quiet days, but they were days of preparation. Barrack-room and camp taught him the essential elements of soldierliness. He returned to Guernsey, for he had been quartered in England, and raised an independent company. This he commanded with the rank of captain, being placed on half-pay. The quietness and sameness of soldiering in England palled on him, however, and in the next year he arranged a transfer to the 49th Regiment, then quartered in the Barbadoes. These were the men whom he was to learn to love, and many of whom fought with him when, some years later, he received his death wound.

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