SIR ISAAC BROCK ***
Produced by Steven Gibbs and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE
OF MAJOR-GENERAL SIR ISAAC BROCK, K.B.
INTERSPERSED WITH NOTICES OF THE CELEBRATED INDIAN CHIEF, TECUMSEH;
AND COMPRISING
BRIEF MEMOIRS OF DANIEL DE LISLE BROCK, ESQ.; LIEUTENANT E.W. TUPPER, R.N., AND COLONEL W. DE VIC TUPPER,
"What booteth it to have been rich alive? What to be great? What to be glorious? If after death no token doth survive Of former being in this mortal house, But sleeps in dust, dead and inglorious!"
SPENCER'S "Ruins of Time."
EDITED BY HIS NEPHEW,
FERDINAND BROCK TUPPER, ESQ.
_LONDON_: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & Co. _GUERNSEY_: H. REDSTONE.
1845.
PREFACE.
In the early part of last year, a box of manuscripts and the trunks belonging to Sir Isaac Brock, which had remained locked and unexamined for nearly thirty years, were at length opened, as the general's last surviving brother, Savery, in whose possession they had remained during that period, was then, from disease of the brain, unconscious of passing events. With that sensibility which shrinks from the sight of objects that remind us of a much-loved departed relative or friend, he had allowed the contents to remain untouched; and when they saw the light, the general's uniforms, including the one in which he fell, were much moth-eaten, but the manuscripts were happily uninjured. On the return of the Editor from South America in May last, he for the first time learnt the existence of these effects; and a few weeks after, having hastily perused and assorted the letters and other papers, he decided on their publication. Whether this decision was wise, the reader must determine. If, on the one hand, part of their interest be lost in the lapse of years; on the other, they, and the comments they have elicited, can now be published with less risk of wounding private feelings.
It has been the Editor's study to avoid all unnecessary remarks on the letters in this volume, so as to allow the writers to speak for themselves. But he has deemed it a sacred obligation due to the memory of Sir Isaac Brock, to withhold nothing descriptive of his energetic views and intentions, and of the obstacles he experienced in the vigorous prosecution of the contest--obstacles which his gallant spirit could not brook, and which necessarily exposed "his valuable life" much more than it would have been in offensive operations.[1] He regrets, however, that in the performance of this duty, he must necessarily give pain to the relatives of the late Sir George Prevost, of whose military government in Canada he would much rather have written in praise than in censure.
Brief memoirs are inserted, at the conclusion of the Appendix, of one of Sir Isaac Brock's brothers, the bailiff or chief magistrate of Guernsey, and of two of their nephews, Lieutenant E.W. Tupper, R.N., and Colonel W. De Vic Tupper, of the Chilian service. The premature fate of these two promising young officers is, to those who knew them best, still a source of unceasing regret and of embittering remembrance.
The notices of the celebrated Tecumseh interspersed throughout the volume, and the connected sketch of him near its close, can scarcely fail to interest the reader; that sketch is drawn from various and apparently authentic sources, and the Editor believes that it is more copious than any which has yet appeared of this distinguished Indian chief. A perusal will perhaps awaken sympathy in behalf of a much-injured people; it may also tend to remove the films of national prejudice, and prove that virtue and courage are not confined to any particular station or country, but that they may exist as well in the wilds of the forest, as in the cultivated regions of civilization.
