Four Years on the Great Lakes, 1813-1816. Don Bamford
to come in contact with the enemy, and the period of our sailing was most ardently desired.
The wished for day arrived on the 31st March 1813, when we sailed from Plymouth in the Woolwich store ship, all in as high spirits as the prospect of danger, attended with the hopes of speedy promotion, could make us; and after a tolerable passage we anchored about two miles below Quebec, late in the evening of the 5th May, where the Commodore’s party went on shore.1
On the return of the boat we heard that the Americans had made an attack upon York, situated on the border of Lake Ontario, and the capital of the province of Upper Canada. They had plundered it of all the public stores, and destroyed the public buildings, among which were the two Houses of Parliament, and also a ship upon the stocks, on board of which Sir James Yeo had designed to hoist his broad pendant. With this news came orders for the officers and seamen to be ready to disembark by daybreak next morning, and to be prepared with three days provisions ready cooked. Every one was now actively employed through the night in securing our chests, and bedding, and getting the provisions cooked, and the men in readiness for disembarkation, [and] before daybreak the Woolwich was surrounded by small vessels to convey us to Montreal. By 10 am we were all clear of the ship, divided on board the small craft according to their size, and giving and receiving 3 hearty cheers, sailed up the River St. Lawrence with a fair wind.
Quebec Harbour, 1834, by Russell Alexander. Wingfield arrived here May 15, 1813. The harbour and town would not have changed substantially in the period between his arrival and the drawing shown here.
Everything had taken place so suddenly, that we belonging to the Midshipmen’s mess did not think, nor indeed had time, to apportion out our provisions, which were all drawn from the purser, and cooked together in the ship’s coppers, being divided among nearly twenty vessels, so that when we aboard the sloop, I and 3 others, began to enquire for something to eat, we found there was no part of the allowance of provisions on board, though some cunning dog had taken care of the grog. One vessel had all the biscuit and another all the beef, which should have been divided among forty-two; the pork, we afterwards learned, had been left on board the Woolwich. Our shipmates on board the other vessels were without any provisions; however, the Master of our sloop happened to have plenty of eggs on board which we purchased, and did very well, laughing heartily at those who* could get nothing, when we met them on shore.
On the 8th we arrived at Montreal, but had scarce time to speak to each other, being immediately marched off to Lachine, about 9 or 10 miles higher up the river, where the batteaus lay, [these being] flat bottomed boats, peculiarly built, and adapted to the navigation of the St. Lawrence, which, in many places is shallow, and extremely rapid.
After a fatiguing march along a bad road, not being much used to walking on shore, we arrived at our destined place, a village consisting of a few straggling houses. We expected our day’s provisions delivered to us immediately, the men having taken no refreshment all day, but we had to wait a considerable time before they could be procured from the commissariat store. In the meantime the seamen had to clean out the coppers, in an old decayed barrack, where they were quartered, which had not been used for years, except casually, and were near an inch thick with filth.
The sailors had plenty of money and were desirous of purchasing some fresh provisions from the inhabitants, not relishing the salt pork issued to them, and after holding a parley amongst themselves, different parties were sent out, unknown to the officers, and in a little more than an hour returned with a plentiful supply of fresh meat, and poultry of almost every description. The salt pork, which had been put into the coppers during the absence of these purveyors, was thrown out, and meat and poultry substituted for it. The sailors paid but little attention to the cutting up of the meat properly, and for the fowls, they were skinned to save the trouble of plucking them.
A party of us Mids formed our mess at the house of an old Scotch woman, from whom we bought a calf, and the men being all employed or intoxicated, we were obliged to kill, and skin it ourselves, which was done after a manner. However, we made a hearty supper, and then lay down before a good fire, for none of us had our bedding, and, for my part I saw nothing of mine until I arrived at Kingston, three weeks after.
We had mustered the seamen into the aforesaid barrack at 8 o’clock, to prevent them from strolling about the country, and a party of soldiers were placed outside, but in the morning, we found a place at the back of the building torn down sufficiently large to admit half a dozen persons. While the sentinel thought all was safe within, Jack was moving about at his pleasure.*
Old Fort Henry, watercolour and ink over pencil by Henry Francis Ainslie, April 1839. Wingfield would not have recognized the enlarged Kingston as the same wilderness village he found “on opening Navy Bay” when approaching by water in 1813.
On the afternoon after our arrival at this place, a sufficient number of boats were collected to convey one Division, and they started up the river with that portion of the baggage, which had arrived from Montreal, at which place an officer with a party of men were stationed to forward it.
Fifty men under a Captain, Lieutenant, and other inferior officers were ordered to take two large gun boats up the river, each of them carrying a 24 pounder carronade. [With] these drawing considerable more water than the flat bottomed boats, and being very unwieldy, it proved a most fatiguing job. On the 11th [of May] about 5 pm we started, for Upper Lachine, a few miles above our halting place, but before the boat I was in joined the other, it was past midnight, as she had the advantage of a pilot well acquainted with the river, while, from our ignorance we frequently lost the eddies and were swept down the stream.
We were about a fortnight on our passage, having to drag the boats up the rapids, and in many places totally to unload them. The men [were] sometimes in the water above their middles for hours together, dragging them through a current running 8 or 9 miles an hour, — and more than once the men and boat [were] swept down the rapids, in consequence of the men not being able to hold their footing, from the foulness of the bottom. In two or three places where the rapids were very strong, the militia was obliged to turn out to assist us; this must be understood as applying only to the particular parts of the river, and well they deserved the name given them.
The Captain commanding the gunboats fell sick when we had got through the most fatiguing part of our job, and returned to England, which made room for the promotion of one Lieutenant, and one Mid, which acted as a good stimulant to others.2
On arrival at Quebec where we learned the destruction of our ship at York, which was believed to be the only one on Lake Ontario, we expected to find nothing but large gun boats, but to our surprise, on opening Navy Bay [Kingston], we saw two ships of 23 and 21 guns, a brig of 14 and two schooners of 14 and 12 guns, comprising every sort of calibre, from a 68, to a 4 pounder. But previous to the arrival of Sir James Yeo, [they were] in such a wretched state with respect to discipline and furniture, that they would have reflected disgrace upon a maritime power of the lowest possible grade. They were under the control of the Military Commandant, and officered and manned by provincials, men of no experience whatsoever in naval tactics, while the Americans were amply found in stores, and manned with picked seamen from the sea ports, so that, without this reinforcement our ships would have been unable to put to sea the whole of the* summer.
The arrival of Sir James Yeo at Kingston, with this force, raised the drooping spirits of the inhabitants of that place, and generally of the country at large, who were well aware that the fall of Kingston must necessarily involve the whole country upwards in ruin. It is more than possible that Montreal, itself must soon have fallen into the hands of the Americans, and an attack was daily expected on the former place, but it seems our arrival made them alter their plans.3
On overhauling the rigging of the different vessels, we found it very defective, with no naval stores in the place to supply the deficiency, and, nothing but the determined perseverance of Sir James Yeo, and those under his command, could