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INTRODUCTION

The World of Isaac Brock

Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, K.B., is a well-known name to many Canadians, but less is known about the world in which he lived, served his king, and died defending Canadians. It was a world very different from what we know today, yet, with many unfortunate similarities. When he was born in 1769 (Napoleon and Wellington were also born that year), the world was dominated by the great powers of Europe — Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Prussia, and Russia. Britain had recently gained overseas territories by conquest from France but was soon to lose some of its most developed colonies and see the creation of a new nation in North America. Nevertheless, Britain’s industrial and financial strengths were growing, its empire continued to expand and it was becoming mistress of the seas.

France recovered from its losses of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) to help the American rebels win their independence, but its monarchy was inept and out of touch with its people. The result was revolution that produced a bloodbath in France, unstable revolutionary governments, war with neighbouring countries, and, eventually, dictatorship. During those years, Napoleon Bonaparte rose from the rank of a second lieutenant in the artillery to that of a general commanding the army in Italy and, later, in Egypt. He returned from there to help in a seizure of power to become first consul and, finally, in 1804, emperor of the French. The other great powers — Austria and Russia — fearful of revolution fought the French but their generals were no match for Napoleon.

Britain was most concerned that no single power should dominate Europe and that any country controlling Antwerp and the mouth of the Scheldt posed a serious threat to British maritime communications and security.[1] Thus, the British sought allies against Napoleon and undertook campaigns (1799, 1809) to gain control of Antwerp and the mouth of the Scheldt. Brock would have experience in the first of these assaults.

Nelson’s naval victory over the French and Spanish at Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, produced British dominance at sea, but on land Napoleon’s control increased. On the 20th, he defeated the Austrian general Mack at Ulm and in December smashed an Austro-Russian force at Austerlitz. At Jena and Auerstadt (October 1806), he destroyed the Prussian Army and occupied Berlin; Frederick William agreed to a peace treaty on Napoleon’s terms. The next year, at Tilsit, Napoleon forced the Czar of Russia to make peace and recognize his conquests in Europe.[2]

The Royal Navy imposed a tight blockade of the ports of western Europe in order to starve Napoleon of food and military supplies. His response was to intensify his attack on Britain’s economy, a warfare that extended back at least to 1796.[3] In the Berlin and Milan Decrees (1806–07) he closed the ports of western Europe to British ships as well as neutral ones if they had previously been to a British port. This was the beginning of what was called the Continental System. Fortunately for the British economy, France, its allies, and European neutral countries could not do without some products obtainable only from Britain. Consequently, these countries found ways to circumvent the Continental System.[4] In response to Napoleon’s decrees, Britain issued orders-in-council (1807) that sought to prevent or strictly regulate all trade with the ports of France or her allies. Neutral vessels were required to report to a British port before they could proceed to a continental one. In pursuit of their ends, both powers stopped and seized the ships of neutrals, many of which were American. This Anglo-French contest sowed the seeds of great future troubles because to the Americans Britain’s actions violated the freedom of the seas, while the British regarded these measures as essential in a war for national survival. Neither nation was prepared to back down in this dispute.

The Royal Navy, which grew to a strength of about 145,000 men and some 700 ships by 1812, faced enormous demands for manpower.[5] The chief method — although not the only one — that the navy used to obtain seamen was impressment. A press-gang of reliable seamen was sent ashore in a British port and they went about seizing men from streets and taverns and even homes. Crews of outward-bound ships were exempt but not those of returning merchant vessels, and those men might be snatched before their ships even docked. Other categories of people were exempt, including foreigners, but it was often difficult for Americans to prove their citizenship and the burden of proof fell upon the victim of the press-gang. Once taken, the men were locked up aboard a small ship and asked if they wanted to volunteer. If they said yes, they received a cash bounty; if no, they were still pressed into the service but without a bounty. It was a brutal process, widespread around the coasts of England and Scotland and often resisted by force.

One of the greatest irritants in Anglo-American relations arose from the Royal Navy’s practice of boarding neutral ships in order to impress British subjects and deserters from the navy. Many American ships were stopped on the high seas and sometimes American-born seamen were taken. It was not always easy to determine who was a genuine American citizen because certificates of citizenship were freely issued and even forged ones could be bought. Furthermore, the British government held the view that a British subject could not renounce his nationality without permission. The American view was different and it is not surprising that the United States government strongly resented the often high-handed behaviour of Royal Navy captains. Between 1793 and 1812, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 American seamen were pressed into the British Navy, with the largest number, some 6,000, taken between 1803 and 1812.[6] Impressment actions, at times, produced conflict between British and American ships — which will be looked at later.

In June 1808, when Napoleon put his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain, the French emperor seemed to be at the height of his power; but the Spaniards rose up in revolt and their new monarch fled. In August, Arthur Wellesley landed in Portugal with British troops and took possession of Lisbon. This was the beginning of the Peninsular War which tied down thousands of French troops there, but likewise committed Britain to major land warfare for an unpredictable future. Therefore, from 1808, Britain could spare little in troops or supplies for defence in North America. A large reinforcement (the 7th, 8th, 23rd, and 13th regiments of foot with equipment) had been sent under Sir George Prevost to Bermuda, Halifax, and Quebec early in 1808, but not much else could be done until 1814 when Wellington’s veterans became available for this distant war.

Ironically, Wellington’s Peninsular Army depended on American grain for its food supply and this need would affect Britain’s naval strategy toward the United States when war came. The British issued licences so that American ships carrying “Flour and other dry Provisions” to Portuguese or Spanish ports would not be seized by the British Navy or privateers. There is a reference to the British in one month in 1812 issuing 722 licences for such shipments to Lisbon and Cadiz.[7] The effect of licences issued by British officials as well as by Vice-Admiral Herbert Sawyer and Sir John B. Warren was to retain New England’s goodwill. American ships also carried American newspapers, which were valuable sources of information. The cost was high because all transactions had to be paid in specie. So while troops fell up to six months in arrears of pay and Portuguese muleteers and middlemen as much as a year, American merchants returned loaded with British gold and silver “that would gorge New England’s banks by the war’s end and help pay for subsequent industrial development.”

After the War of Independence, one of the most serious issues facing the United States government was relations with aboriginal peoples. Americans were rapidly moving westward and their government’s policy toward native peoples was based upon assumptions that within United States boundaries aboriginals were a conquered people who could expect their land rights to be extinguished to accommodate American expansion. In the 1780s, through several treaties and military actions, it became clear that the United States government intended to push settlement well beyond the Ohio Valley.[8] The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 reasserted American sovereignty over the region and provided for new states between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The ordinance declared that native “lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent;” but it went on to state, “they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars, authorized by Congress.”[9] To many American officials, as well as land-hungry pioneers, this ordinance made no difference to their actions and demands on Indian tribes. The result was almost continuous frontier warfare in the 1790s.[10]

In August 1794, at Fallen Timbers in Ohio, an American Army led by Major-General Anthony Wayne inflicted a crushing defeat on a confederacy of tribes. Their hopes of British help were dashed when the commander of Fort Miami held back his troops and closed the fort’s gates to native refugees. That refusal would be long remembered.

The native leaders were also aware of the outbreak of war in Europe, which meant that their old ally, Britain, would have to concentrate on its own defence at the expense of aid to them. Both Britain and the United States desired to settle a number of disputes, one being the continued British occupation of “frontier posts” within the boundaries of the United States.[11] In November 1794 the two countries made a Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation (named Jay’s Treaty after the American secretary of state) and the British agreed to evacuate the western posts by June 1, 1796. The posts they withdrew from included such major forts as Detroit, Niagara, and Mackinac (also known as Fort Michilimackinac). Western New York and all the territory north and west of the Ohio River was now firmly on the United States side of the boundary. Aboriginal nations had little choice but to accept Wayne’s offer to negotiate and the outcome was the Treaty of Greenville (August 3, 1795) by which the natives surrendered the greater portion of the Ohio Valley.

New states soon appeared: Kentucky in 1792, Tennessee in 1796, and Ohio in 1803, the same year that saw the purchase of Louisiana. President Jefferson, in a special message to Congress in January 1803, made it clear that his government’s policy would continue to encourage native peoples to abandon their traditional way of life in favour of agriculture, “domestic arts,” and industry (i.e., become like Americans). In a private letter in February, he made it clear that any tribe that resisted would be defeated and driven out of its territory.[12] The Greenville boundary rapidly became redundant as settlers poured across it and native lands continued to be purchased, particularly by the Treaty of Fort Wayne of 1809, which led to the acquisition of much of eastern and southern Indiana. The author of the treaty was William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory since 1800, who repeatedly used divide-and-conquer tactics to acquire lands along the Wabash River for American settlers.[13]

Desperate resistance to American expansion continued in the Ohio Valley, but tribes were driven westward and along the Wabash River they reached the furthest limits of their traditional territory. If they retreated westward, they would intrude into lands of other aboriginal peoples, some of whom were traditional enemies. The dispossessed tribes “were perplexed and disorganized. All they needed was a sign, a Messiah.”[14] He appeared in the person of a Shawnee prophet, who took the name Tenskwatawa and preached a doctrine of return to a traditional life and rejection of white ways. His teachings found wide appeal to tribes in a large area of Ohio, Indiana, and the upper lakes, and many people flocked to his settlement of Prophetstown at the mouth of the Tippecanoe River in Indiana. Toward the end of first decade of the nineteenth century, these western tribes formed a new defensive alliance around Tenskwatawa and his brother, Tecumseh, but most Iroquois refused to join. Eventually, American troops would march against this new confederacy at Tippecanoe.

The Canadas and northeastern United States.

Courtesy of Loris Gasparotto

British-native relations rested upon mutual benefits focused primarily on trade, but wars in North America with France and the American War of Independence created needs for military co-operation. The British government created the Indian Department, the fundamental purpose of which was to maintain the allegiance of native peoples, and from 1774 “British Indian policy … [was] … geared primarily to ensuring the preservation and defence of Canada through the military use and assistance of His Majesty’s Indian allies.”[15]

As a result of withdrawal from the western posts, the British began to construct new forts within their own territory: Fort George near the Lake Ontario mouth of the Niagara River, Fort Amherstburg on the Detroit River, and Fort St. Joseph on the island of the same name at the mouth of the St. Mary’s River in Lake Huron. Each post would have a superintendent, storekeeper, and other officers of the Indian Department, whose tasks included distributing gifts to aboriginal allies, maintaining bonds of friendship, and keeping detailed reports on native attitudes and actions. Expenses of the department were paid from army funds, which sometimes produced “nasty conflicts over military and jurisdictional authority and areas of responsibility in the management and administration of Indian affairs.”[16]

The British territory most threatened was British North America and its principal colony of the Canadas. Quebec or Canada came under British rule in 1760 (confirmed by the Peace of Paris in 1763) and was developing its unique characteristics. The influx of thousands of Loyalists after the American War of Independence had forced the British government to create a new constitution for Canada and to divide it into Lower and Upper Canada. The Constitutional, or Canada, Act of 1791 provided for a governor of the Canadas with a lieutenant governor in each section to preside over the elected legislative assemblies and appointed legislative and executive councils. From the outset, in Lower Canada French-Canadian members dominated the assembly but they did not have influence with the governor equal to that of the aggressive English minority that predominated in the appointed councils. There was a steady increase of antagonism between the two language groups, occasionally dramatized by the clash of their wills in the Legislature. The governors sent out from England managed to work fairly well with both groups until the term of Sir James Craig that began in October 1807. We shall pick up the story in a later chapter.

Settlement had moved slowly up the St. Lawrence River past Montreal, and farms and villages were confined mainly to the shorelines of lakes (Ontario and Erie) and rivers (St. Lawrence, Niagara). In effect, there was little competition for land between natives and settlers, whose population was small and increasing only slowly. The contrast with the rapid advance of American settlement south of the lakes and the resulting displacement of large numbers of native peoples was obvious to all. Furthermore, in the Canadas the fur trade was still vital to the colony’s economy and that required close co-operation between Europeans and natives, which often led to intermarriage. Canadians, therefore, tended not to regard natives as threats to their settlements, but, instead, when war threatened, they could be seen as potential allies.

Let us return to Europe to discover the origins of our hero.

Near the western end of the English Channel and closer to France than to England are tiny specks of land known as the Channel Islands. They are the remnants of English holdings in Brittany, Normandy, and other parts of the mainland. Guernsey, officially the Bailiwick of Guernsey, lies forty-eight kilometres west of the coast of Normandy. Like the other Channel Islands, it is a dependency of the British crown, but has its own lieutenant governor and chief minister who presides over a cabinet (Policy Council), which is elected by the Legislature (States of Deliberation). Its Royal Court is presided over by the bailiff and twelve jurats. In this small, semi-independent island world, the Brock family traces its ancestry back to Sir Hugh Brock, who was driven out of Brittany in the fourteenth century. The family lived in the island capital of St. Peter-Port and by the eighteenth century was playing a prominent role in island society and government. William Brock, who died in 1776, is considered the common ancestor of the present Guernsey family of the name of Brock. One of his sons, John (b. 1729) was the father of Isaac.[17]

Channel Islands, credit to G.R.D. Fryer.

Courtesy of Loris Gasparotto

The Brock family could be classified as “gentry” and its members intermarried with each other while the men, according to Donald Graves, “eagerly sought commissions in the British army or Royal Navy.”[18] Families like the Brocks, Le Merchant, and Saumarez of Guernsey and similar ones on the other Channel Islands provided officers for British forces in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Isaac would be born into that tradition.

NOTES

1. Adkins, War for all the Oceans, 280–314; Harvey, War of Wars, 672–75.

2. Adkins, War for all the Oceans, 168, 171, 197; Markham, Napoleon, Chapter 8.

3 Harvey, War of Wars, 141–42, 502–04, 515–16.

4. Indigo dye used to colour the blue of French troops’ uniforms was imported from India. Adkins, War for all the Oceans, 197, 205. Hitsman, Incredible War, 15, 22; Harvey, War of Wars, 536–38 mentions many products imported by the French government that were smuggled from Britain.

5. Latimer, 1812: War with America, 16; see page 6 for a favourable view of the treatment of sailors in the Royal Navy. Adkins, War for all the Oceans, 375.

6. Adkins, War for all the Oceans, 105–12, 206–09; Dudley, Naval War, 1, 61–2; Latimer, 1812: War with America, 16–18.

7. Dudley, Naval War, I, 491–93, A. Allen Jr. to all Officers of his Majesty’s Ships of War or of Privateers belong to Subjects or his Majesty, September 16, 1812; see also, 134, 527.

8. Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 61–5; Benn, Iroquois in the War, 18–20. See also, the discussion in Zuehlke, For Honour’s Sake, Chapter 4.

9. Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 69–73.

10. Prucha, Sword of the Republic, 20–38, provides a clear treatment. See also, Edmunds, Tecumseh, Chapters 2 and 3.

11. Ferrell, American Diplomacy, 66–72. Hickey, War of 1812, 6–7.

12. Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 107; see also, 82–5. For the role of the U.S. Army in securing control of the trans-Mississippi territories see Prucha, Sword of the Republic, Chapter 5. The U.S. government’s “factory system” (i.e., government trade stores) provided an important means to acquire more native territory. See Barr, The Boundaries Between Us, 178–83.

13. ANB, vol. 10, 223–26.

14. Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 108–09, 117, n. 59. The Prophet’s biography is in DCB, 7, 847–50. Tecumseh’s is in DCB, 5, 795–801, and Appendix D.

15. Allen His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 13, 19.

16. Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies, 91.

17. Tupper, Life and Correspondence, 1–4. Brock, The Brocks of England, is a very useful source.

18. Graves, The War of 1812 Journal of Le Couteur, 5–6. He refers to Jersey and Guernsey.