The Astonishing General. Wesley B. Turner

      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]