Wacousta or, The Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas 9780773573444

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W A C PU ST A

(W o T h e Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts (CEECT) is engaged in the preparation of scholarly editions o f selected works o f early English-Canadian prose. Wacousta is the fourth text in the Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts Series.

GENERAL EDITOR Mary Jane Edwards

EDITORIAL BOARD Mary Jane Edwards (Chair) Michael Gnarowski Robert G. Laird Robert L. McDougall J. Jeremy Palin John A. Stewart D. Roland Thomas S. F. Wise ADVISORS TO THE PROJECT Fred Cogswell (University o f New Brunswick); E. A. Collard (Ottawa); Gordon R. Elliott (Simon Fraser University); Francess G. Halpenny (University o f Toronto); Carl F. Klinck (University o f Western Ontario); Douglas G. Lochhead (Mount Allison University); R. D. Mathews (Carleton University); W. F. E. Morley (Queen’s University); Gordon R. Moyles (University o f Alberta); W. H. New (University o f British Columbia); J. M. Robson (Victoria College, Toronto); Gordon H. Roper (Trent University); Malcolm Ross (Dalhousie University); Clara Thomas (York University).

Wicousta cr,The Prophecy; A Tale of the Canadas

John Richardson

Edified by Douglas Cronk “Vengeance is still alive; from her dark covert, With all her snakes erect upon her crest, She stalks in view, and fires me with her charms.” The Revenge.

C arleton U niversity Press 1990

© Carleton University Press Inc., 1987 ISBN 0-88629-038-4 (casebound) 0-88629-040-6 (paperback) Printed and bound in Canada by The Alger Press Limited, Oshawa, Ontario.

Reprinted in paperback 1999 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Richardson, John, 1796-1852 Wacousta, or, The prophecy (Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts Series ; 4) ISBN 0-88629-038-4 (casebound) ISBN 0-88629-040-6 (paperback) 1. Pontiac's Conspiracy, 1763-1765—Fiction. 1. Cronk, Douglas Richard II. Title. III. Tide: The prophecy. IV. Series. PS8435.I33W3 1987 PR9199.2.R53W3 1987

C813\3

C87-090363-2

Distributed by: McGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS

3430 Me Tavish Street, Montreal, P.Q. H3A 1X9

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Carleton University Press and the Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts gratefully acknowledge the support of Carleton University and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in the preparation and publication of this edition of Wacousta. The cover of the paperback edition incorporates a pen and ink drawing (c 1923) by Harold McCrea, and is used with the kind permission of the McCrea family.

Contents Frontispiece: Lithograph o f John Richardson a fte r F. W. Lock, courtesy of the N ational Archives o f Canada

iv

A bbreviations

ix

Forew ord

xi

E d ito r’s Preface

xiii

E d ito r’s Introduction

xvii

Illustration: T itle-page of the 1832 Cadell an d Blackwood Edition

lix

D edication

lxi

Wacousta

3

Explanatory Notes

545

Bibliographical Description of 1832 Cadell an d Blackwood Edition

557

O th e r Published Versions of the Text

565

E m endations in Copy-text

575

L ine-end Hyphenated Compounds in Copy-text

577

L ine-end Hyphenated Compounds in CEECT Edition

579

A ppendix: Introduction to the 1851 Edition

581

N o te to S e c o n d P r in t in g

This printing reproduces on 50 lb. offset the first printing o f the CEECT edition with the exception that the epigraph has been a d d e d on th e title -p a g e a n d “ th o u g h o u t” now re a d s “throughout” on p. xxviii.

Abbreviations

ALS BL BVAU CEECT DCB OHM OKQ OOCC OO NL OOP OO U OSTCB OTM C OTNY O TU PAC PU QMM

A utograph letter signed British Library, London University o f British Columbia Library, Vancouver, British Columbia Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts Dictionary of Canadian Biography McMaster University Library, Hamilton, O ntario Q ueen’s University Library, Kingston, O ntario Carleton University Library, Ottawa, O ntario National Library o f Canada, Ottawa, O ntario Library o f Parliament, Ottawa, O ntario University o f Ottawa Library, Ottawa, O ntario Brock University Library, St. Catharines, O ntario Massey College Library, T oronto, O ntario N orth York Public Library, Willowdale, O ntario University o f T oronto Library, T oronto, O ntario Public, now National, Archives o f Canada, Ottawa, O ntario University o f Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania M cLennan Library, McGill University, M ontreal, Quebec

Foreword

T h e C entre for Editing Early Canadian Texts (CEECT) was established to prepare for publication scholarly editions o f m ajor w orks o f early English-Canadian prose that are now either out o f p rin t o r available only in corrupt reprints. Begun by Carleton U niversity in 1979, CEECT has been funded jointly by Carleton a n d by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council o f C a n a d a since 1981. During this time six editions have been in p rep a ra tio n ; three o f these, Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague, Catharine Parr Traill’s Canadian Crusoes, and Jam es D e Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, have alread y been published. A landmark work in the evolution o f early C anadian fiction, John Richardson’s Wacousta; Or, The Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas, originally published in 1832, is the fo u rth volume in the CEECT series. In th e preparation o f these editions, advice and guidance have b een sought from a broad range o f international scholarship, a n d contem porary principles and procedures for the scholarly ed itin g o f literary texts have been followed. These principles and p ro ced u res have been adapted to suit the special circumstances o f C anadian literary scholarship and the particular needs o f each o f th e works in the CEECT series. T h e text of each scholarly edition in this series has been critically established after the history of the composition and First publication has been researched and its editions analysed and com pared. T h e critical text is clear, with only authorial notes, if any, ap p earin g in the body o f the book. Each o f these editions also has an editor’s introduction with a separate section on the text, and, as concluding apparatus, explanatory notes, a bibli­ ographical description o f the copy-text and, when relevant, of o th e r authoritative editions, a list of other versions of the text, a rec o rd o f emendations made to the copy-text, a list of line-end h y p h en ated compounds in the copy-text as they are resolved in th e C E EC T edition, and a list of line-end hyphenated com­

x ii

FOREWORD

p o u n d s in the CEECT edition as they should be resolved in qu o tatio n s from this text. An historical collation is also included w hen m ore than one edition has authority, and, as necessary, ap p en d ices containing material directly relevant to the text. In th e preparation of all these CEECT editions for publication, identical procedures, in so far as the particular history of each w ork allowed, have been followed. An attem pt has been m ade to fin d a n d analyse every pre-publication version o f the work know n to exist. In the absence of a m anuscript or proof, at least five copies o f each edition that was a candidate for copy-text have b e e n exam ined, and at least three copies o f each of the other ed itio n s that the author might have revised. Every edition o f the w ork has been subjected to as thorough a bibliographical study as possible. All the known information about the printing and publication o f the texts has been gathered. T he texts have been subjected to oral and ocular collation, and to collations using the light-table, the Hinm an collator, and the computer. Specialists fro m the University’s Computing Services have developed several program s to help in the proofreading and comparison of texts, to perform word-searches, and to compile and store m uch o f th e inform ation for the concluding apparatus. T h e edited text, p rin ted from a magnetic tape prepared at Carleton, has b e e n p roofread against its copy-text at all appropriate stages.

Editor's Preface

J o h n Richardson’s Wacousta; Or, The Prophecy came to my atten tio n almost by accident while I was a graduate student at Sim on Fraser University. In the summ er o f 1973 Professor G o rd o n R. Elliott inspired me to study Canadian literature and to focus my attention on Canadian bibliography and the editing o f early C anadian fiction. At the time I knew next to nothing about th ese subjects. Professor Elliott, however, guided my studies and supervised my thesis on the editing o f nineteenth-century C an ad ian texts. He knew the great am ount o f work that needed to be d one in this field, and he knew that Canadian literary scholarship would remain seriously handicapped until the basic w ork in bibliography and editing had been completed. T h e extent o f the corruption of early Canadian texts was startling. M ajor works of some of the best known early Canadian au th o rs, Thom as Chandler Haliburton, William Kirby, Thom as M cCulloch, Susanna Moodie, John Richardson, and Catharine P a rr T raill were readily available only in faulty editions. Some w orks, R ichardson’s Wacousta among them, were reproduced in editions so corrupt that readers could no longer be said to be re a d in g w hat the authors wrote. And to the extent that the fo rm al study o f Canadian literature relied on these editions, the integrity o f criticism itself was in doubt. I assembled m odern editions o f several works of these early Canadian authors and c o m p a red them line by line and word by word to earlier editions. T h e m ain conclusion I drew about the editing of Canadian literary texts as a result of these careful analyses is reflected in the title o f my M.A. thesis, “T he Editorial Destruction o f Canadian L ite ra tu re : A T extual Study o f Major Jo h n R ichardson’s Wacousta; Or, The P r o p h e c y I dealt in detail with Wacousta because o f the belief o f many critics that Richardson is the first im p o rta n t Canadian novelist and Wacousta the seminal Canadian novel. T h e opportunity to produce a scholarly edition o f Wacousta came in 1979 with the establishing o f the Centre for x iii

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EDITOR'S PREFACE

E d itin g Early Canadian Texts at Carleton University under the g en eral editorial supervision o f Professor Mary Jan e Edwards. Wacousta, as it was written by Richardson, not as it has been m istreated for more than a century, can now be restored to the c an o n o f early Canadian fiction. My thanks go first to Professor Elliott who awakened my in te re st in Canadian literature, who guided me through the m azes o f bibliographical method, and who supported over the years my preparation of this scholarly edition. I wish to thank also K ristoffer Paulson, David Savage, and Victor Hopwood, w ho gave me help and encouragement in the early stages o f my w ork. H ad it not been for William F. E. Morley’s A Bibliographical Study o f MajorJohn Richardson, I would not have had the wealth o f bibliographical information essential to the preparation o f a critical text. I am indebted to James Reaney who invited me to co n trib u te a paper, “T he Americanization o f Wacousta,” to a co n feren ce on John Richardson held at the University o f W estern O ntario in December 1977, and who continued to p rovide m oral support. And I am indebted to David R. Beasley w ho em phasized the importance o f Richardson, and particularly o f Wacousta, in The Canadian Don Quixote: the life and times of Major Richardson, Canada's first novelist (1977). F o r th e ir cooperation and courtesy in making it possible for me to exam ine rare editions of Wacousta, my thanks go to the librarians at many o f the universities of this country: British C olum bia, Brock, Carleton, McGill, Montreal, New Brunswick, O ttaw a, Q ueen’s, Simon Fraser, Victoria, and W estern Ontario. I wish especially to thank the librarians at McGill, the National L ibrary o f Canada, the University o f Ottawa, and Q ueen’s for len d in g CEECT copies of the first edition of Wacousta and for allow ing them to be microfilmed. T he National Archives o f C an ad a also deserve thanks for perm itting CEECT to use their C en tral Microfilming Unit in Ottawa. In Great Britain I was g rate fu l for access to books and manuscripts in the British L ibrary, the Guildhall Library, the Library o f the London School o f Economics, the Public Record Office, and the Library o f St. B rides Institute, London; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; and the E d in b u rg h University Library and the National Library o f Scotland, Edinburgh. Finally, I am indebted to the staff o f

EDITOR’S PREFACE

xv

In terlib rary Loans at Carleton University, Liana Van d er Bellen a n d the o th er librarians in the Rare Book Room at the National Library, and Thom as Quigly of the Vancouver Public Library. T h e y traced scarce nineteenth-century newspapers, worried o v er m easurem ents of leaves and collational form ulae for prelim inary material, and pursued the many m inutiae that c o n trib u te to the making of a scholarly edition. I am especially grateful to Carleton University and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council o f Canada whose g en ero u s funding for the Centre for Editing Early Canadian T e x ts allowed me to do necessary research both in this country a n d in the United Kingdom. Also, through that funding, CEECT was able to employ able and tireless research assistants who collated texts, gathered material, and dug up countless pieces o f inform ation, and secretaries/word processors who entered the tex t o f Wacousta on the computer. In particular, my thanks go to H e a th e r Avery, Joseph Black, Mary Comfort, Jennifer Fremlin, A n d rew Kerr-Wilson, Timothy Murphy, Marion Phillips, and Jo h n T h u rsto n , past and present members of the CEECT staff w ho helped me to make this edition a unified whole. For co n tin u in g encouragem ent and advice along the difficult road fro m m anuscript to book, I wish also to thank Professor Mary Ja n e Edwards, General Editor of the CEECT series, and P rofessor Robert L. McDougall of Carleton University, senior m em b e r o f the Editorial Board at the Centre. Finally I wish to acknow ledge the help of the Open Learning Institute for allow ing me to use its photocopying and word processing eq u ipm ent. T h e encouragem ent, comments, and suggestions of my wife Jo an have helped immeasurably during all stages o f preparing this edition o f Wacousta. Douglas R. Cronk Open Learning Institute Richmond, British Columbia March 1987

Editor's Introduction

D ecem ber 1832 was an auspicious month for Canada and C anadians: in this month Thomas Cadell o f London and William Blackwood o f Edinburgh published a three-volume novel called Wacousta; Or, The Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas. Its author, d escribed on the title-page as “T he A uthor of ‘Ecart6’,” was L ieu ten an t Jo h n Richardson (1796-1852), later Major Jo h n R ichardson, Knight o f the Military O rder of St. Ferdinand, an U p p e r Canadian then residing in England. With the publication o f Wacousta,, Richardson had produced the work that he claimed in Eight Years in Canada (1847) was the first o f “the only two tales c o nnected with the early history”1 of U pper and Lower Canada, a n d h e had become, in his own eyes at least, Canada’s “first and only a u th o r.”2 Indeed, Wacousta has proved to be extremely p o p u la r, especially in North America. First reprinted in the U n ited States in 1833, it has been republished many times since in b oth the United States and Canada. Wacousta has also become R ichardson’s most highly acclaimed work and an im portant national symbol for contemporary Canadians. It is ironic, how ever, that despite its popularity and the seminal role it has com e to play in the study o f Canadian literature and culture, few peo p le have ever read this novel except in “an abridged and very im p erfect edition.”3 Wacousta is set in 1763 shortly after the signing o f the T reaty o f Paris th at officially ended the Seven Years’ W ar and that ceded m ost o f the French territories in North America to the British. M any o f the Indian nations, however, who had fought on the side o f th e French refused to accept the new British rule. In the sp rin g a n d sum m er of 1763 Pontiac,4 a war chief of the Ottawas, led a general uprising that challenged the new regime. In this u p risin g the Indians captured most o f the forts on what was then th e w estern frontier o f Great Britain’s N orth American colonies. x v ii

x v iii

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

R ichardson bases his story on these events; he concentrates particularly on the Indians’ long and ultimately unsuccessful siege o f Fort Detroit and the massacre that occurred when they c a p tu re d Fort Michilimackinac. R ichardson knew a good deal about the geography and history o f this frontier. He was born on 4 Oct. 1796 in either Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake), U pper Canada, where his father, Robert R ichardson, was a surgeon with the Q ueen’s Rangers stationed at F o rt G eorge, o r in nearby Queenston, where his m other, M adelaine Askin Richardson, may have been staying with an o ld e r sister. He spent the early years o f his life (1796-1812) in N ew ark, Fort Erie, York (Toronto), and Am herstburg, except fo r several m onths in 1801-02 when he stayed with his grand­ p a re n ts, Jo h n and Marie-Archange Askin, in Detroit. In 1802 he accom panied the Askins when they moved across the Detroit R iver to live near Sandwich (Windsor) on the Canadian side of th e b o rd er. In the W ar o f 1812, as a gentleman volunteer in the 41st Regim ent, Richardson was present at the capture o f Detroit. A fte r the Batde o f Moraviantown on 5 Oct. 1813, he passed th ro u g h the area again, this time as a prisoner-of-war on his way to F rankfort, Kentucky. In the introduction he wrote for a new edition o f Wacousta published in 1851, Richardson attributed his fascination with the Pontiac uprising to Marie-Archange Askin, who had been living in D etroit in the 1760s: th e old lady, with whom I was a great favorite, used to enchain my young interest by detailing various facts connected with the siege she so well rem em bered, and infused into me a longing to grow up to m anhood that I m ig h t write a book about it. T he details o f the Ponteac plan fo r the capture o f the two forts [Detroit and Michil­ imackinac] were what she most enlarged upon, and although a long lapse of years o f absence from the scene, a n d ten thousand incidents of a higher and more immedi­ a te im portance might have been supposed to weaken the

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

x ix

recollections o f so early a period of life, the impression has ever vividly rem ained.5 O th e r, closer relatives also contributed to Richardson’s aware­ ness o f the events that took place on this western frontier and o f th e people who played a role in them. Richardson’s father, a native o f Scotland, and according to his son, “o f a younger b ra n c h o f the Annandale family,”6 served in various capacities on th e fro n tie r from 1792 to 1832. In 1801-02, when John stayed in D etroit, his father was stationed at St. Joseph’s Island; this island, located in northern Lake H uron, is about thirty to forty kilo m etres northeast of Michilimackinac. O f R ichardson’s m o th e r very little is known, but she may have been half-Indian.7 C ertainly after her father m arried Marie-Archange Barthe in 1772, M adelaine spent time at both Michilimackinac and Detroit. P erhaps the most interesting o f Richardson’s immediate relatives was his m aternal grandfather, John Askin (or Erskine). B o rn in N orthern Ireland of a Scottish family that had ap p aren tly left Scotland as a result of the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, Askin em igrated to the province of New York in 1758. One o f his business partners in Albany, where he first settled, was M ajor R obert Rogers, who led the party that took Detroit over fro m th e French in 1760 and who accompanied Captain Jam es Dalyell when he was sent to help the beleaguered garrison at D etro it d u rin g the siege in 1763. Askin, who had certainly been in the D etroit area in the early 1760s, may also have gone to D etro it in 1763: according to Richardson, sometime after the B attle o f Bloody Run, probably in late August or early Septem ber 1763, his grandfather arrived from Albany “with provisions and am m unition sufficient to fill several Schenectady boats” and “u n d e r cover of a dark and stormy night” managed to throw the supplies into the besieged fort.8 By the mid 1760s, Askin was living in Michilimackinac where he was commissary to the garrison, ran a trading store in the settlement, and farm ed. An associate at Michilimackinac was Alexander Henry, who had been one o f the few survivors of the massacre there in 1763. In

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EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

1780 Askin and his growing family moved to Detroit where he again set up as a trader. In the 1780s, one o f his agents was the half-C herokee, half-Scottish John Norton, who fought on the side o f th e British in the War of 1812 and who duelled with, and m ortally w ounded, his wife’s alleged lover “near G rand River, U p p e r C anada”9 in 1823. After the duel Norton “p u t himself on trial an d was absolved by the court.”10 He then gave up his hom e a n d life in G rand River with the intention of visiting Cherokee relatives in the rem ote west. He was never heard of again. In Wacousta Richardson draws on his own and his family’s history. In addition to dedicating the novel to the “41st R egim ent, W ho Bear On Their Colours T he “Detroit,” ” R ichardson mentions in the introductory chapter his role in the c a p tu re o f Detroit in 1812. In the same chapter, probably th in k in g o f his father’s service on St. Joseph’s, he describes M ichilimackinac as “adjacent to the Island of St. Joseph’s, where, since th e existence o f the United States as an independent republic, an English garrison has been m aintained.”11 At several points he writes into his story references to Scottish Jacobites. O n e o f his characters is Captain Erskine. A nother is Lieutenant Jo h n sto n e; Richardson connects this officer to the Annandales a n d assigns to Johnstone a motto that he used himself. Madelaine R ichardson’s name is echoed in that of Madeline de Haldim ar. R o b ert Rogers and his role in the surrender of Detroit in 1760 a re m entioned; Richardson quotes directly from Rogers’ A Concise Account o f North America (1765), and apparently depends o n it for geographical descriptions. Alexander H enry’s Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories, Between the Years 1760 and 1776 (1809) may well be a source for Richardson’s depiction o f the massacre at Michilimackinac. Jo h n N orton tra d e d for Jo h n Askin in the territory o f West Augusta, a name th a t, according to David R. Beasley, Richardson’s biographer, was frequently “shortened to Wagousta. T he name ‘Wagousta’ a n d N o rto n ’s adoption of Indian ways and dress were to provide th e inspiration for the character of Wacousta.”12 Certainly, a description o f Wacousta that Richardson sent to Captain Robert

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

xxi

H e rrio t Barclay sometime in the summer o f 1832 elicited the follow ing reply from this hero of the Battle of Lake Erie: “I do n o t a t this m om ent rem ember any story like that to which you a llu d e as the subject o f your next book, except it be connected w ith the Scottish Indian Major who m arried a Squaw and b ro u g h t h e r to this country.”13 In a note to Barclay’s letter, which R ichardson reprinted in Eight Years in Canada, the author id en tifies “the Scottish Indian M ajor” as “N orton, alias, Teyoninhokoraw en, Chief o f the Six Nations.”14 W hen Richardson wrote Wacousta, he was, as he noted in 1851, “a long lapse of years” and “ten thousand incidents” away from his life an d family in U pper Canada.15 Since the spring o f 1815, w hen Richardson left his native land, he had served briefly (1816-18) in the West Indies, he had been m arried, and probably w idow ed,16 and he had lived as a retired army officer on half-pay in Paris, and possibly in other parts o f continental Europe, as well as in L ondon and its vicinity. He had become acquainted, then, w ith all sorts and conditions of men and women and had had a w ide variety of experiences. H e had also had a chance to broaden his artistic and literary education, which now included visits to such famous galleries as th e L ouvre and a more extensive reading o f both contem porary a n d o ld er authors. In Wacousta, Richardson quotes or alludes to passages from Milton’s Paradise Lost, Shakespeare’s Othello, Y oung’s The Revenge, and other standard English and classical au th o rs. A nd such popular bestselling writers as Edward BulwerL ytton, Jam es Fenimore Cooper, and Walter Scott influenced R ichardson’s work. Although he may have been exaggerating for th e benefit o f American readers, Richardson, commenting on th e “m an n er” of his story in the introduction to the 1851 New Y ork edition o f Wacousta, admits, “I have certainly robbed that first o f vigorous American Novelists — the ‘Last o f the Mohicans’ C o o p e r — which tale, albeit I have never read a novel by another a u th o r twice, I have absolutely devoured three times.”17 R ichardson had launched his own literary career in the mid 1820s. His first substantial publication, “A Canadian Cam paign,”

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EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

was published in the New Monthly Magazine and LiteraryJournal in 1826-27. In 1828, Tecumseh; Or, The Warrior O f The West: A Poem, In Four Cantos, With Notes appeared; this long commemorative poem showed how deeply Richardson, who had fought alongside T ecu m seh in the W ar of 1812, had been affected by this great In d ia n leader’s heroism and tragic death. Ecarte; Or, The Salons O f Paris, Richardson’s first novel, was published in 1829; in it he d rew once again upon his wartime experiences, although m aterial gathered in Paris provided the main focus. A second p oem , Kensington Gardens In 1830. A Satirical Trifle, and a second novel, Frascati's; Or, Scenes in Paris, which Richardson wrote in collaboration with Justin Brenan, came out in 1830. By the early 1830s, then, distance, experience, and practice in various kinds o f creative writing had prepared Richardson to look back on his past a n d that o f his country and to give both a powerful and im aginative shape in the form of the romantic and tragic story of betrayal, heroism, and revenge by which he is chiefly rem em ­ b e re d today. In Tecumseh Richardson “alluded to”18the events at Detroit and M ichilimackinac during the Pontiac uprising. In a passage describing the changes on “Erie’s banks”19 caused by the W ar o f 1812, the poet writes: N or m ore inactive they who ply the ball, A nd range them equal in a twofold file; Each ear attentive to the leader’s call, As when, the instrum ent o f death-fraught guile, It caus’d an unsuspecting fortress’ fall, A nd mingled m urder with the hellish smile O f still m ore hellish fiends, who frantic tore Each quivering limb, and q u a ff d the reeking gore.20 A n d in the note explaining this allusion, he tells the story o f th e In d ian s’ “plan for the reduction o f the two im portant posts o f D etroit and Michilimackinac”: T h e artifice resorted to was one well worthy of the Indian character; and although the garrisons were several hun­

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

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d re d miles distant from each other, the execution o f the project was fixed for the same day. According to their custom , but in greater numbers than usual, the warriors assem bled early on the morning of the day appointed, on a com m on adjoining the form er fort, where they usually played at ball: — their guns had been cut short to facilitate th e ir concealment, and every thing was in readiness, when, at a given signal, the ball was, as if accidentally, thrown w ithin the walls. T he request, that they might be perm itted to e n te r for it, was instantly accorded; but no sooner were th e gates thrown open, than they all rushed forward for the com pletion o f their enterprise. Greatly to their astonish­ m ent, however, and not less to their disappointm ent, they perceived the whole of the line under arms, and the artillerym en at their guns. It is almost needless to add, that rage and mortification were their predom inant feelings. T h e governor had been apprised of the scheme by an In d ian woman, who, grateful for certain little kindnesses shown h er by his household, formed the laudable resolu­ tion to save the unsuspecting garrison, even at the risk of in cu rrin g those torments she well knew must follow detection. It is gratifying to humanity to know, that suspicion even did not attach to her; and in her old age she was wont to speak on the subject to many o f the English families, in terms o f the highest exultation and selfsatisfaction. With the other ill-fated fortress the scheme proved but too successful; for those within had no guardian-angel to warn them o f their danger. On the same day, a n d at the same hour, the ball was thrown into the fort, the gates o f which were opened with blind and heedless confidence; — need I conclude? — the greatest part o f the garrison were massacred, and the most cruel indignities o ffe red to the unfortunate and surviving sufferers.21 It was not until the early 1830s, however, that Richardson began to work seriously on his novel based on this “artifice.” In Eight Years in Canada, Richardson says that in 1831, “while

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w riting” Wacousta, he was “ ‘vegetating’ in the neighborhood” o f his “wife’s family in Essex.”22 According to Beasley, Richardson was th en living in “the picturesque village of Waltham Abbey, th irte e n miles north-east o f London Bridge,”23 and his wife’s fam ily was that o f Maria Caroline Drayson, who became R ichardson’s second wife on 2 Apr. 1832. After their marriage th e Richardsons went to live in Langton’s Cottage, Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire. Richardson had probably finished w riting Wacousta by the time of his marriage. In the late spring or early sum m er o f 1832, he apparently promised to send Captain Barclay a copy o f Wacousta and told him o f his plans for a sequel w h ere Barclay himself “may be brought in.”24 Richardson may well have submitted his manuscript to Thom as Cadell, the distinguished London publisher, by early July 1832. A fter Cadell had accepted the manuscript, he arranged for its joint publication with William Blackwood of Edinburgh. T h e m an u scrip t was printed by the London firm o f Andrew and R o b ert Spottiswoode. During the week of 20 Oct. 1832, they began printing the thousand copies set in “Sm. Pica Leaded”25 th a t Cadell and Blackwood had ordered. They finished 15 Dec. 1832.26 T h e cost for the printing was £121 16s, plus £17 15s for corrections and £10 10s for cold pressing.27 T he publishers im m ediately prepared copies of this printing for issue. W hile Wacousta was being printed, Cadell and Blackwood m ad e arrangem ents to advertise its publication. On 1 Dec. 1832, th e Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres (London) reported in “L iterary Novelties,” a weekly column, that “Wacousta, or the Prophecy, a Tale o f the Canadas, by the A uthor o f ‘Ecart£’ ” was forthcom ing.28 On 4 December, and again on 11 December, the M orning Post (London) announced that Wacousta would be published “In a few days.”29 On 28 December, the Morning Chronicle (London) listed Wacousta as one of the “Books Published T h is Day.”30 And on 7 Jan. 1833, an advertisement in the Times rea d : J u s t published in 3 volumes post 8vo £1 8s 6d in boards W acousta; or, the Prophecy: a Tale o f the Canadas. By the A u th o r o f “Ecarte.”

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“Vengeance is still alive: from her dark covert, “W ith all her snakes erect upon her crest, “She stalks in view, and fires me with her charms.” — Revenge T . Cadell, Strand: and W. Blackwood, Edinburgh.31 T h e publishers also sent out review copies of Wacousta as soon as they were available. T he first reviews began to appear at the e n d o f December. T he Atherueum’s, for example, came out in its issue o f 29 Dec. 1832;32 the Sun's, in its issue of 31 Dec. 1832.33 Several others followed.34 A lthough most found points to criticize, the reviewers were generally favorable. Some emphasized the military and historical aspects o f the novel. T he reviewer in the Atheneeum noted: H istory passes over in silence the many exertions, both of valour and prudence, by which the Canadas were secured to England; and this is, we believe, the first instance in which the subject has been made the them e o f historic fiction. It is pleasing to find a soldier o f the present day anxious to rescue from oblivion the exploits of military men which had sunk into unm erited obscurity; and to see an honourable anxiety in a brave man to record deeds of bravery that have not yet received their fair meed o f fame. H e concluded: T h e m erits of this novel consist in the spirit of its historical pictures, which possess, at least, the consistency o f truth. T h e w riter displays no ordinary share of graphic power, a n d has the rare talent of “rendering a fearful battle in m usic.” His descriptions of scenery are well executed, but unfortunately they are rare. T he story itself is not very consistent o r very probable, but it maintains its interest to the end. T h e reviewer in the United Service Gazette also rem arked on the novel’s military content:

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T h e plot and incidents o f this military novel, the scene o f which is laid in Canada about the middle of the last century, a re altogether of the most striking description, and illus­ tra te m ore than any work o f fiction we have lately perused, th e p ro u d and inflexible character of the North American Indians, whose fierce hostility to the English soon after the conquest o f the Canadas from France, as exemplified in th e ir but too successful attempts by strategem on the several garrisons along the frontier, has formed the chief ground­ w ork o f the author. To those who would learn something o f th e wiliness o f nature, and subtlety of argum ent which distinguish the American Indian, we strongly recom mend th e two council scenes in the second volume, both o f which a re highly illustrative o f the blended cunning and m agnanim ity o f spirit o f this extraordinary and rapidly disappearing people.35 O th e rs considered Wacousta from a more literary point of view. T h e reviewer in the Satirist was enthusiastic about its quality as “o n e o f the most delightful stories which has issued from the press for some time”: T h e perusal o f this novel has afforded us more satisfac­ tion than anything of the kind which has fallen within the ran g e o f o u r reading for many a long day. Perhaps we may have m et with volumes containing a deeper-seated interest, b u t rarely any that have united so much simplicity with eloquence of style. T h e tale — and it is one that will please every reader — is laid in America, “a spot,” as the writer says, “hitherto u nto u ch ed by the wand of the modern novelist.” C harm ­ ingly has he occupied the new ground, and beautifully has he described the localities and the incidents to which they give rise in the course of his work. It will require but slender thought to perceive, by the enthusiastic ardour of the pen, that the author has been b re d to a military life, and that he is a man of very superior

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acquirem ents, and possessed of intellect and taste that must re n d e r him an ornam ent in the “tented field,” as well as the field o f literature.36 C adell and Blackwood were not the only ones prom oting Wacousta. O n 27 Oct. 1832, its author had written to William IV to ask for permission to send him a copy with an “autograph a d d itio n .”37 Permission being granted, on 14 Dec. 1832 R ichardson sent the King what must have been one o f the first copies o f Wacousta off the press. On 7 Aug. 1833, His Majesty’s secretary, answering another letter from Richardson, took the o p p o rtu n ity to assure him of the “deep interest” with which Wacousta had “been read by the whole Court.”38 Wacousta was well received in Great Britain; it proved to be even m ore popular, however, in North America. Early in 1833, A dam Waldie, a Philadelphia publisher who was then issuing the Select Circulating Library, a “New, Cheap, and Popular Periodical” th a t appeared weekly,39 received a copy o f Wacousta. Waldie acquired this copy in accordance with the “A rrangem ents” he h a d m ade “to receive from London a copy of every new book p rin te d either in that m art of talent, or in Edinburg.”40 Despite th e fact that, because British publications were not protected by copyright in the United States, these arrangem ents did not include either permission from or payment to Richardson and his publisher, Waldie immediately set about preparing Wacousta fo r his periodical. It appeared as “Wacousta; Or, T he Prophecy: A T ale o f Detroit and Michillimackinac” in Waldie's Select Circulating Library in four instalments published on 16 Apr., 23 A p r., 30 A pr., and 7 May 1833; it was set “on a double medium sh eet o f fine paper, in octavo form, with three columns on a p a g e .”41 Calling it the “first American edition,” Waldie intro­ d u c e d the serial with the following note: A lthough the following work has been received with g rea t favour by the reading public in England, it is in this country, where the scene is laid, and where we are more

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fam iliar with the Indian character, that its merits can be best tested. T hough not without defects, yet, taken as a whole, we think it will be pronounced a very superior production. For deep interest throughout, it has few rivals o f the m odern school, and the style and language are in general excellent. We feel compelled on a second perusal to consider it highly creditable to the author, and an earnest o f still higher flights in a field so successfully trodden by our own Cooper. It is the m ore rem arkable as coming from the pen o f the author of “Ecarte, o r the Saloons o f Paris,” a work in which the gaming houses o f the French capital, and its dissipations were the subjects—scenes which are strongly contrasted with those here portrayed.42 W aldie had such faith in this “very superior production" that he issued it simultaneously, again on a three-column page, in Waldie's Select Circulating Library, New Series, Vol. 1, Nos. 14-17. T h e standing type used for the text o f Wacousta in the periodicals was then rearranged so that one column o f type only w ould ap p ear on a page, and the actual first American edition o f Wacousta was prepared. It was published, probably in late May 1833,43 in two volumes by Key and Biddle o f Philadelphia. Its title, Wacousta: Or The Prophecy. A Tale O f The Canadas, followed th a t o f the English edition. W aldie’s Wacousta reached a large and wide reading public. T h e six thousand copies o f the Select Circulating Library that were p rin te d weekly were estimated by Waldie to reach eighteen th o u sa n d readers. T he weekly issues, furtherm ore, were pub­ lished annually as “a volume, well worth preservation, . . . accom panied with a title page and Index.”44 Newspapers in both th e U nited States and Canada also reprinted the novel. T he Ohio State Journal, And Columbus Gazette serialized Waldie’s Wacousta fro m 11 May to 7 Sept. 1833. T he editor o f the Journal deleted th e first chapter, however; it contained “little else than a description o f the country in which the scene of the events re c o rd e d in the Tale is laid,” and he therefore “deem ed it

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unnecessary to add to the great length of the ‘Tale,’ by giving it a place in [the newspaper’s] columns.”45 He also omitted p art or all o f several later chapters. T he Chronicle and Gazette (Kingston, U p p e r Canada) reprinted the second chapter o f Waldie’s Wacousta on 27 July 1833.46 In late December 1833, the American Wacousta became the basis of a play. “Wacousta, or the Curse, an In d ia n dram a” opened at the Bowery T heatre in New York; it was th e first o f many performances of this dram a in cities in the U n ited States and Canada.47 W hen Waldie advertised the Select Circulating Library, he assu red “the heads o f families, that they need have no dread o f in tro d u c in g ” this periodical “into their domestic circle as the g entlem an who has undertaken the editorial duties, to literary tastes and habits, adds a due sense of the responsibility he assum es in catering for an extended and moral community, and o f th e consequences, detrimental or otherwise, that will follow th e dissem ination o f obnoxious . . . aliment.”48 In editing R ichardson’s Wacousta this “gentleman,” perhaps Jo h n Jay Sm ith, not only cut nearly 20,000 words from the approximately 175,000 words in the novel, but he also altered it in ways that c h a n g e d its political orientation, its language, an d its characterization. R eferences to Canada and Canadians, passages o f patriotic enthusiasm , historical references that did not show Americans in a favorable light: all disappeared from the Waldie version. T he subtitle, for instance, was changed from “A Tale of the Canadas” to “A T ale o f Detroit and Michillimackinac,” both latter places well established as American by 1833. Richardson’s introductory geographical and political outline that clearly distinguished betw een Canada and the United States was blurred and his d escription o f the chain of lakes and rivers that divides Canada fro m the United States omitted. T he Waldie edition also om itted R ichardson’s mention o f Thomas Moore’s A Canadian Boat-Song, N iagara Falls, and Montreal. Richardson dem arked the political g eography carefully because his characters were either British, French-C anadian, or Indian, none of whom was attached to the

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U n ited States, but the editor cut out or obscured Richardson’s analysis o f the political background. Since American attitudes tow ards th e Indians were different from those o f both the British a n d the Canadians, he deleted suggestions of American perfidy against the Indians. Am ericanizing Wacousta also meant cleaning up its language fo r the “m oral community” at which the Select Circulating Library was aim ed. Richardson’s sailors and soldiers, and even one officer, speak a realistic, colloquial language amply peppered w ith oaths. But the Waldie editor made Richardson’s rough and tu m b le soldiers seem almost dainty by changing their “By Jasus” (C EEC T, p. 66) to “By gracious,” and omitting the “dam neds” a n d “hells” from comments like “what the hell are ye thinking o f now ?” (CEECT, p. 343) and “it’s some dam ned rascal o f a spy” (C EEC T, p. 378). T he editor cut phrases like “the bloody h e a th e n s” (CEECT, p. 67) and “a hell of a risk” (CEECT, p. 65). H is bowdlerizing likewise included passages that referred to sex, such as a com m ent Wacousta makes to Clara de Haldimar: “Your age cannot exceed seventeen; and time will supply what your m e re girlhood renders you deficient in” (CEECT, p. 460). T h e n a rra to r’s comment, “T here was a cool licence o f speech — a startlin g freedom o f m anner — in the latter part o f this address, th a t disappointed not less than it pained and offended the u n h a p p y Clara” (CEECT, p. 460), however, was left, although it is m eaningless without the sexual reference. W aldie’s editor simplified the nature o f the characters in the novel. H e turn ed Sir Everard Valletort, for example, into an o u d a n d ish fop and young Charles de Haldim ar into a frail, weak, effem in ate figure of little importance. But most o f all, the editor a lte re d the characters of the Governor and Wacousta. T h e a rro g a n t, unbending, unemotional villain o f Waldie’s Wacousta was no t the Governor de Haldimar that Richardson created. R ichardson wrote that “To have ascribed to Colonel de Haldim ar m otives that would have induced his eagerly seeking the condem nation o f an innocent man . . . would have been to have p a in te d him, not only as a villain, but a coward. Colonel de

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H ald im ar was neither; but, on the contrary . . . a man o f strict integrity and honour, as well as of the most undisputed courage” (C EEC T, pp. 416-17). The editor deleted that passage. He also o m itted several descriptions that conveyed the Governor’s em otions. T h e most notable alteration in Wacousta’s character was effected through deletions o f passages that had to do with his explanation o f why he was seeking revenge on G overnor de H aldim ar. Passages showing how Wacousta and De Haldim ar h a d becom e friends twenty years before the main events in the novel began were omitted, as were narrative passages that described Wacousta’s early personality, his romantic sensibility, his im patience, and his carelessness. Gone in the Waldie version w ere W acousta’s aesthetic sense and idealism, and gone too the m aster passion that accounted for the driving force o f his personality. Even Wacousta’s recognition o f what he had become was om itted: “My physical faculties had not yet been developed to th e ir present grossness of maturity, neither had my moral energies acquired that tone of ferocity which often renders me hideous, even in my own eyes” (CEECT, p. 462). In the Waldie version, then, Richardson’s Wacousta was changed from a type of noble outlaw central to the romantic tradition into a sentimental a n d sensational villain of popular melodrama. W hen Richardson found out about the existence o f this u n au th o rized edition and the substantial differences between its text an d that o f the Cadell and Blackwood edition is not clear. In 1835-36 he served with the British auxiliary legion that fought in Spain d u rin g the First Carlist War. T he controversies that su rro u n d e d his activities there and the publication o f the first edition o f his Journal O f The Movements O f The British Legion in L o ndon in 1836 and a subsequent edition entitled Movements O f The British Legion, With Strictures On The Course O f Conduct Pursued By Lieutenant-General Evans in 1837 undoubtedly distracted R ichardson from both Wacousta and its as yet unfinished sequel. L ate in 1837, however, the London newspapers were full o f items relatin g to the rebellions that had recently broken out in U pper

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a n d Low er Canada, and Richardson’s thoughts turned to home. U sing the pseudonym “NEMO,” Richardson sent a letter “O n th e ALARM ING STATE of the CANADAS” to the Morning Post. In this letter, dated 23 Dec. 1837, Richardson, identifying h im self as a “Canadian . . . one of a family that has ever been forem ost in its allegiance to the m other country,” emphasized his “rig h t to protest against anything in the shape o f unnecessary delay in the adoption of means for the effectual putting down o f this rebellion” and urged, among other measures, the dispatch o f tro o p s to the Canadas “at the first opening of the navigation to Q uebec.”49 O n 28 December, the day that the Morning Post published Richardson’s first letter, he wrote a second, which a p p e a re d in the Post on 3 Jan. 1838 as “Geographical Sketch O f C an ad a.” In it Richardson included an abridged version o f the first eighteen pages of the introductory chapter o f Wacousta, w hich he described as “an historical novel on the Canadas” that h a d “appeared some few years ago and . . . was honoured by a m ost flattering notice” in the Post, “a copy of the work having at th e sam e time been graciously accepted by His late Majesty.” T o explain his text Richardson added two notes. T he first identified Q uebec as having been “Captured by General Wolfe.” T h e second cautioned that Richardson’s description of the French C an ad ian s’ “attachm ent and loyalty” to England was “a picture o f th e F rench Canadians such as they were at the close” o f the W ar o f 1812, “and before Monsieur Papineau had started up to agitate them .”50 B a re ly six weeks a fte r the publication o f this letter, R ichardson, accompanied by his wife, “embarked at the London D ocks” for “the land of [his] birth.”51 In Eight Years in Canada, R ichardson explains that although his primary purpose in re tu rn in g to Canada was to make his “services. . . available in her d e fe n c e ,”52 he came on “a particular and confidential mission . . . th a t o f furnishing political information to the ‘Tim es’ news­ p a p e r.”53 Most o f Richardson’s activities in the Canadas in the sp rin g and sum m er of 1838 had to do with his position as c o rre sp o n d en t for the Times. He also pursued his literary career,

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how ever. According to Richardson, shortly after he arrived in C an ad a in April 1838, it was “intimated” to him that “a very gen eral dem and . . . [existed] throughout the Country” for the republication of Wacousta.54 Richardson, calling himself “the first a n d only writer o f historical fiction the country has yet pro­ d u c e d ,” decided to take “the sense of the public on the subject th ro u g h the medium of the press.”55 In m id May Richardson composed a prospectus in which he p ro p o se d to publish by subscription “a revised Canadian Edi­ tio n ” o f Wacousta “in eight monthly parts, at one quarter o f a d o lla r each num ber, to be paid for on delivery.” Each part was to “be contained in a w rapper” on which would be “printed the several Reviews of the work by the principal critics o f the London p ress”; the first num ber, moreover, would have appended to it “th e autograph letter which accompanied a copy presented to H is late Majesty, who took the warmest interest in whatever related to the Canadas.” If enough “applicants for copies of W acousta . . . to warrant the assumption that the book [was] really in dem and” could be found, the first num ber would be p ublished “early in July.” Those interested could contact one o f seventeen “gentlem en” who had “kindly offered to receive the nam es o f subscribers.”56 T h e prospectus was widely disseminated throughout the C anadas. It appeared, for example, in the Chronicle and Advertiser (N iagara) on 30 May 1838; in the Brockville Recorder on 7 Ju n e 1838; in the Patriot (Toronto) on 8 Ju n e 1838; and in the Chronicle and Gazette (Kingston) on 15 Aug. 1838.57 T he proposal also received editorial notice. The Brockville Recorder, reporting th e “proposition” to republish Wacousta, commented: “This work was, a few years since, republished at Philadelphia in Waldie’s L iterary Library, and ranks high among the class o f writings to w hich it belongs. T he scene is laid in & near Detroit, at an early p e rio d o f its history. The work embraces much o f the trait and sp irit o f the native Indians, while an exciting interest is kept up th ro u g h o u t.”58 T w o issues o f the first edition of Wacousta were published

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u n d e r the im print o f Cadell and Blackwood in 1839. Neither included the original dedication, and each had a new title-page. O n e resem bled that o f the 1832 issue of this edition, except that th e d a te 1832 had been changed to 1839. T he other was dated 1839, but according to this title-page, the novel was entitled The Prophecy; Or, Wacousta: A Romance of the Canadas; it was written “By C aptain Richardson. A uthor of “Ecart6” and it was a “N ew Edition.” These issues may have had something to do with R ichardson’s proposal to publish a new Canadian edition of Wacousta, but m ore likely were meant for distribution in the U n ited Kingdom and were perhaps published because of the in terest in the Canadas stimulated by the newspaper coverage of th e Rebellions o f 1837-38 and their afterm ath. T hat Richardson h im self did not know that these issues had appeared is certainly possible. M eanwhile nothing immediately came o f Richardson’s p ro ­ posal to p rint in eight parts a “revised Canadian Edition” o f Wacousta, perhaps because people had read, and still could read, copies o f the American edition. In February 1839 the Literary Garland, which itself was then only a few months old, expressed su rp rise that the novel had not yet been republished: T H E R E appeared, some months ago, in a num ber o f the provincial journals, proposals for a republication o f the novel o f Wacousta. We scarcely doubted at the time that a sufficient num ber o f purchasers would offer to ren d er the u nd ertak in g safe, the more especially, as the work, inde­ pendently of its thrilling interest, possesses the rare charm o f being the production of a gentleman owning his nativity in this country. We have felt some surprise at seeing the advertisem ent gradually disappear without hearing that the w ork was in progress, a circumstance, we would fain believe, to be only owing to the state of danger and excitem ent into which the Provinces have been thrown by the events o f the last three months. T h e Garland “confidently” hoped, nevertheless, that “as peace

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re n d e rs the public mind more easy, the plan of republishing W acousta may be revived, and that ere the sum m er is far advanced, it will be found in every boudoir from the Atlantic to Lake E rie.”59 By February 1839, however, Richardson, whose Personal Memoirs had been published in Montreal by A rm our and Ramsay in th e fall o f 1838, was about to launch another enterprise: that of com pleting for publication the sequel to Wacousta he had begun in 1832-33. Two chapters from this “unpublished continuation” a p p e a re d in the Literary Garland in March and April 1839.60 T he reception o f these and the other notices that “the author of ‘W acousta’ ” had received in “the Press of Canada” prom pted a le tte r o f thanks from Richardson. In this letter, which appeared in the Quebec Mercury on 4 May 1839, Richardson thanked “the Press . . . for the high enco[m]iums they have been pleased to bestow at various times on his literary productions,” assured th em that he would continue to delineate “Canadian subjects,” fo r which they thought he was “peculiarly adapted,” and a n n o u n c ed that the “ensuing summer shall be devoted to a n o th e r Canadian tale.”61 Later that m onth the Richardsons, u n ab le to find suitable accommodation in Am herstburg, rented a h ouse in Sandwich. H ere throughout the sum m er and part o f the fall Richardson worked on his sequel, The Canadian Brothers; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled. A Tale O f The Late American War, which was published by subscription in two volumes by A rm our and Ram say in Montreal in 1840. Living across from Detroit in 1839, Richardson was rem inded in various ways o f his first Canadian novel. In Eight Years in Canada he relates how he tried unsuccessfully to discover “the site o f the old fort” at Detroit “built originally by the French . . . w hich we had taken possession of in 1812”: I could not but deeply deplore that the fort no longer existed, for associated with it were stirring recollections of an early period o f the history of the country. At Detroit was laid a great part o f the scene of my “Wacousta,” and I confess it was with bitter disappointment that I beheld the

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o rd in ary habitations of men covering ground which had been sanctified by time and tradition, and hallowed by the sufferings o f men reduced to the last extremity, by a savage a n d vindictive enemy. Another object which naturally excited my interest was the ruined bridge, about two miles above the town and bordering on the river, where the execution of Frank Halloway is made to take place, and w here, during that disastrous war, when eight out o f nine of th e English forts were captured by the Indians, a company o f the 42nd was surprised, and literally annihilated by the tom ahaw k. H ere everything was changed. T he ravine rem ained, but on its sloping sides were to be seen evidences o f rich vegetation, while the bridge itself, known in those days as the “Bloody Bridge,” had disappeared beneath the action o f the water which had risen and overstepped its ancient boundaries.62 It was d uring his stay in Sandwich that Richardson realized th a t Am ericans knew more than Canadians about Wacousta. A t Detroit, and in its immediate vicinity, was laid the chief scenes o f my Indian tale of “Wacousta,” and as the A m ericans are essentially a reading people, there was scarcely an individual in the place who was not familiar with the events described in it, while, on the contrary, not m ore th a n one twentieth of the Canadian people were aware o f the existence o f the book, and o f that twentieth not one th ird cared a straw whether the author was a Canadian o r a T u rk . N or is this rem ark meant to apply simply to the rem ote region I was now visiting, but to hundreds of the m o re wealthy classes in all sections of the province.63 It is also likely that during this stay opposite “the American sh o re ”64 Richardson finally read a copy of Waldie’s edition o f Wacousta and discovered how the “gendem an” who prepared it fo r th e Am erican public in 1833 had changed it. T h a t Richardson had had an opportunity to study the A m erican edition is suggested in the advertisement for a “NEW

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E D IT IO N OF ‘WACOUSTA’ ” at the end of the second volume o f The Canadian Brothers. Dated “Montreal, January, 1840,” the advertisem ent announces: T H E “CANADIAN BROTHERS” being, as it will be observed, a continuation o f “WACOUSTA” — an abridged a n d very imperfect edition o f which has been printed in the U nited States, and even it being nearly out of type, a revised republication of the latter work, containing all the passages which have been omitted in the American reprint, will issue fro m the press during the ensuing summer. T h e announcem ent concludes that as the new “publication will be got u p precisely in the same style with the present work, and at th e sam e diminished price to subscribers, an opportunity will th u s be offered to the possessors o f the ‘Canadian Brothers’ to com plete their set.” Included in the advertisement was an extract fro m each o f seven reviews of Wacousta that had originally a p p e a re d in London at the time of its first publication in 1832.65 O nce again nothing immediately came of this proposal, and no new edition of Wacousta appeared in the summ er of 1840. By the fall o f 1840, however, Richardson had apparently struck upon a n o th e r scheme for making available to North American readers a n u n ab rid g ed edition of his novel. On 26 Oct. 1840, Richardson, now living in Brockville, wrote to Alexander Jam es Christie, the e d ito r o f the Bytown Gazette (Ottawa), to ask him to publish in the Gazette the prospectus for the New Era, Or Canadian Chronicle, the weekly new spaper Richardson was planning. “In return for this courtesy,” Richardson would secure “for the E d ito r. . . a copy of a very S uperior London Edition o f his Wacousta which he has ju st been apprized by his Agents Messrs. Cox 8c Co. is on its way o u t from England. — T he book is in three Volumes.”55 T h e Literary Garland once again tried to help Wacousta's cause by publishing part of one chapter in its February 1841 issue,67 a n d notices of the novel appeared in various Canadian news­ p a p e rs throughout 1841. On 13 Jan. 1841, the News and Times (K ingston) noted that it understood that “a London Edition o f

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M ajor Richardson’s ‘Wacousta,’ in three volumes, and printed on th e best paper,” had “arrived in this country from England.” Since “the num ber o f copies” was “limited to three hundred,” it u rg e d those who already had The Canadian Brothers and who w ished to complete “that work by obtaining its predecessor” to subscribe early. T h e work, which would be “ready for delivery as soon as the num ber o f copies required” could be ascertained, was b ein g sold “for three dollars” by subscription only.68 In March th e Kingston Chronicle and Gazette, the Montreal Herald, and the Quebec Mercury all announced that they had received copies o f the English edition o f Wacousta.69 On 23 Mar. 1841, the Montreal Gazette also noted the arrival o f “a late ENGLISH edition” o f this “celebrated Indian tale” and hoped “that on the present, as well as o n every other occasion, native literature and literary genius” w ould be “encouraged.”70 And on 2 Sept. 1841, a Niagara bookseller advertised Wacousta for sale in “3 vols.”71 T h is English Wacousta was actually the fourth issue o f the first ed itio n o f the novel originally published in 1832. This issue, how ever, had a new dedication “To H er Majesty’s 8th (Or King’s) R egim ent, W ho W ere In Garrison At Detroit, A nd Served In T h e Pontiac W ar At T he Period Connected With Which Are T he H istorical Incidents O f This Tale.” Richardson had dedicated th e first issue to “His Majesty’s 41st Regiment.” T he title-page o f th e fo u rth issue identified its author as “Major Richardson, K n ig h t o f the Mil. O rder O f St. Ferdinand. A uthor o f “Ecarte,” “T h e Canadian Brothers” &c.” It called this issue a “Second E dition.” And its im print read “London: 1840.” Presumably R ichardson himself had supplied not only the new dedication but also th e inform ation for the new title-page and had ordered th re e h u n d red copies of the three-volume “edition” that arrived in th e Canadas in 1841. A pparently, however, the volumes roused relatively little in terest, for an extended notice of the availability o f Wacousta a p p e a re d in the “Literature” section o f the New Era on 26 Jan. 1842. U n d e r the heading “WACOUSTA AND T H E CANA­ D IA N BROTHERS,” Richardson wrote:

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T H E SE NATIONAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS, having been got up at great expense and serious inconve­ nience to the author, without that rem uneration from the C anadian public, which as a Canadian writer, he has had a rig h t to expect from the more liberal portion at least o f the com m unity, are now to be disposed of, at the reduced price o f FIVE dollars for the complete set, containing FIVE VOLUM ES, three of which alone, (Wacousta) have always been sold in England, for no less than SEVEN dollars. T he two sets will be neatly and separately bound, so as to make two books, which as volumes o f reference, it cannot but be supposed, will Find their way into the library o f every C anadian Gentleman, desirous of knowing any thing connected with the early history of his own country. And it m ust be borne in mind, that the English Edition o f W acousta, sent for to this country, EXPRESSLY FOR CA NA DIAN READERS, is the only correct one that has ever issued from the Press. T he piratical reprint in Waldie’s C irculating Library, is incorrect, several of the most forcible passages in the book, being left out altogether. A fac simile o f the autograph letter, sent to HIS MAJESTY, KING W ILLIA M T H E FOURTH, and accepted with the presen­ tation Copy, will be prefixed to each SUBSCRIBER’S n u m b er o f WACOUSTA. Every subscriber will moreover, be entitled to a copy at halfprice of TECUMSEH, the last English num ber o f which is to be placed under the foundation stone of the Monument to be erected to that celebrated W arrior, yet which, it is intended to reprint from the original MSS. — thus completing the series o f CANA­ D IA N WORKS. R ichardson, commenting on this proposal, trusted that his “contem poraries,” who had “already afforded the most flattering testim ony o f the A uthor’s attem pt to infuse a spirit o f National L ite ratu re into his native land,” would not hesitate to urge “upon th e consideration o f the public, the reasonableness o f his present pro p o sitio n .” He concluded:

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EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION T h e Edition of WACOUSTA, embraces not m ore than 300 copies — and the moment one half of these are subscribed for, in the m anner above named, by those who really intend to redeem their own signatures, the set will be ready for delivery. Independently o f private subscription lists, the several POSTMASTERS and principal BOOK STORES, will receive the names of those who wish to relieve the author from a weighty responsibility incurred in th e fu rth e ra n c e of CANADIAN N A T IO N A L LITER A TU RE.

In th e same “Literature” section, Richardson reprinted four o f th e extracts o f English reviews of Wacousta that had already a p p e a re d in The Canadian Brothers. He also printed the “NAMES A N D R E S I D E N C E OF SU B S C R I B E R S H I T H E R T O R EC EIV ED .” This list contained forty-four names, including those o f “J . Cartwright Esq. M.P.P. Kingston,” “Fred. Griffin, Esq.,” an d Peter and Andrew McGill o f Montreal.72 D espite these supporters, that Richardson ever did sell all the copies o f Wacousta he had ordered from London is unlikely. In 1842, in fact, the series of misfortunes began that included the failu re o f three newspapers, the fiasco of his appointm ent as S u p e rin te n d en t o f Police on the Welland Canal, and the death of his wife. T h e measure of his discontent, particularly the u n h ap p in ess he felt at what he considered the neglect by C anadians o f one o f their first authors, is revealed in Eight Years in Canada. Contrasting at some length “the custom o f the civilized w o rld ” o f honouring its authors with the lack of recognition he h a d received in Canada, he announced: As this is the last time I shall ever allude to the humiliating subject, I cannot deny to myself the gratification of the expression of a hope, that should a more refined and cultivated taste ever be introduced into the matter-of-fact country in which I have derived my being, its people will decline to do me the honor of placing my name in the list of th e ir “A uthors.” I certainly have no particular ambition to

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ra n k am ong their future “men of genius,” or to share in any posthum ous honor they may be disposed to confer upon th em .73 In th e fall o f 1849, poor, widowed, and still, at least in his own eyes, u n h o n o u red and unrecognized in Canada, Richardson left fo r th e U nited States. R ichardson, still poor and unhonoured, especially by Cana­ dians, died in New York City on 12 May 1852. In the period b e fo re his death, however, he had succeeded in having his novels Hardscrabble; Or, The Fall O f Chicago. A Tale O f Indian Warfare (1850), The Monk Knight O f St.John; A Tale O f The Crusades (1850), Wau-nan-gee; Or, The Massacre At Chicago (1851), and Westbrook, The Outlaw! Or, The Avenging Wolf. An American Border Tale (1851) a n d several other new works published in the United States. And h e h a d organized the publication of a new edition of Wacousta by th e New York publishing firm o f Dewitt and Davenport. They h a d also brought out a new edition of Ecarte and o f The Canadian Brothers. T h e first impression of the second American edition o f Wacousta ap p eared in the spring o f 1851. Its title-page an n o u n c ed that it was called Wacousta; Or, The Prophecy. An Indian Tale; th at its author was "Major Richardson, A uthor of “H ard ­ scrabble,” “Ecarte,” &c.”; and that it was a “Revised Edition.” R ichardson, in fact, had composed a new introduction. Dated “New York City, January 1st, 1851,” this introductory “C hapter, w ritten eighteen years subsequent to the original publication of W A C O U STA in London,”74 replaced “CHAPTER I. Introduc­ to ry ” o f Waldie’s edition o f the novel. Otherwise the text of Wacousta issued by Dewitt and Davenport followed that o f the 1833 W aldie edition. T h is 1851 edition, like the 1833 edition on which it was based, was a critical and popular success. In the International Monthly Magazine O f Literature, Science, and Art (New York), for example, R u fu s Griswold called it “a powerfully written novel, . . . one of th e best we have illustrating Indian life.”75 A second impression

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o f this edition was published by the firm o f Robert M. De Witt, th e successor to Dewitt and Davenport, between 1857 and 1861; a th ird impression was brought out by the same firm between 1870 an d 1877, possibly in 1873.76 In the late 1880s the New Y ork firm of Pollard and Moss, which had acquired Dewitt’s stereotyped plates, altered these plates so that there were fewer lines p e r page and produced another impression o f the 1851 e d ition; this impression was issued in at least two different forms in 1888 an d 1889. At least the first impression of the 1851 edition m ad e its way into Canada. In December 1852, the Montreal bookselling firm o f D. and J. Sadlier offered each o f Wacousta, Ecarte, and Matilda Montgomerie, the new title given to the Dewitt a n d D avenport edition o f The Canadian Brothers, for sale at “2s 6 d ” each, or “FIVE of the 2s 6d ones for 10s.”77 A Germ an translation o f this second American edition appeared in 1858. T h e first Canadian edition of Wacousta was published by Jo h n Lovell in M ontreal in 1868. It omitted Richardson’s “Introduc­ tio n ,” b u t otherwise its tide, Wacousta; Or The Prophecy. An Indian Tale, its designation of the author as “Major Richardson, A uthor o f “H ardscrabble,” “Ecarte,” Etc.,” and its text follow the 1851 D ew itt a n d Davenport edition. This 1868 edition, which may also have ap p eared in a newspaper, possibly the Montreal Transcript,7H was advertised widely. In the Acadian Recorder (Halifax) on 5 Ju n e 1868, fo r example, M. A. Buckley, o f 85 Granville Street, H alifax, announced that he had copies o f “WACOUSTA OR T h e Prophecy — an Indian Tale” on sale for fifty cents each.79 Since 1868 Wacousta has been republished several times in the lan d o f Richardson’s birth. In 1902 “Wacousta. A CANADIAN tale o f the time o f PONTIAC” was serialized in the Evening News (T oronto). In 1906 the Historical Publishing Company o f T o ro n to published Wacousta A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy. This se co n d C anadian edition, which contained illustrations by C harles W. Jefferys, was, like the 1902 serial, based on the 1851 D ew itt a n d Davenport edition. As well as the change o f title, the 1906 d ro p p ed the first two paragraphs of Richardson’s introduc­ tion a n d m ade other changes in the text of the novel. Copies o f

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this edition were issued in the United States by the publisher A. C. M cClurg and Company, Chicago. In 1910, the T oronto publishing firm of McClelland and G oodchild bought the copyright of the 1906 edition o f Wacousta fro m the Historical Publishing Company. With the copyright M cClelland and Goodchild acquired “128 bound co pies,. . . the sheets o f a fu rth er 676 copies,” and the plates of this edition.80 W illiam F. E. Morley, who reports this information in A Bibliographical Study of Major John Richardson, concludes that “T h e se stocks were evidently consumed and the plates discarded by 1923,”81 for in that year, McClelland and Stewart, the successor to McClelland and Goodchild, published the third C an ad ian edition o f Wacousta A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy. This ed itio n included Jefferys’ 1906 illustrations and used as copy the 1906 edition. It may have been issued in New York in 1925 u n d er th e im p rin t o f the George H. Doran Company. It also may have been reissued by McClelland and Stewart in the late 1920s or early 1930s.82 T h e fo u rth Canadian edition of Wacousta A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy, based like the previous edition on the 1906, was p ublished in 1924 by the Musson Book Company of Toronto. Like the 1923 McClelland and Stewart edition, this Musson ed itio n included the illustrations and followed the text o f the 1906 Historical Publishing Company edition. Either it, or the 1923 McClelland and Stewart, may have been issued in New York by G eorge Sully and Company.83 In 1931 the Radisson Society of Canada planned to publish an edition o f Wacousta as the fourth volume o f the fifteen volumes in th e first series o f its “Master-Works of Canadian A uthors” edited by J o h n W. Garvin. T he edition, derived from the 1851 Dewitt a n d D avenport, was to have a foreword by Garvin dated 21 Oct. 1931, an introduction by Thomas Guthrie Marquis, and, as illustrations, four photographs, reproduced in sepia, and five rep ro d u ctio n s o f pen-and-ink drawings by Harold McCrea. T he edition was to be issued in different sets. T here were to be, for exam ple, 250 sets o f a “Hochelaga Edition De Luxe”; 26 sets o f a

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“S tadacona Edition De Luxe”; and 974 sets of a “Chrisiino E dition De Luxe.” A “Library Edition De Luxe” was also p lan n ed . T he work got as far as page proofs, which were co rrected , but it was never published, probably because o f the D epression.84 W hat was actually the fifth Canadian edition o f Wacousta, en titled Wacousta or The Prophecy, was published in 1967 by M cClelland and Stewart as No. 58 in the New Canadian Library series. T his edition, based on the 1924 Musson, was abridged, at th e publisher’s request, by Carl F. Klinck. He “reluctantly” cut Wacousta down to about “three-quarters of the original size,”85 ren u m b e re d chapters, and rewrote “transitions, always based on R ichardson’s own words . . . where portions of the story” were “o m itted in the interests o f abridgement. Certain changes in p a ra g ra p h in g and punctuation” were also made, “but without alteratio n o f the sense of the original.”86 Klinck likewise prepared fo r this edition a chronology of Richardson, “A Brief Reading List,” an d an introduction. This, the shortest o f the editions d eriv ed from the “abridged” and “imperfect” unauthorized ed itio n published by Waldie in 1833, is the version o f Wacousta th a t m ost contem porary Canadians have read. Since the tu rn o f the century, however, and in spite o f the poor quality o f the readily available editions, both Wacousta and its a u th o r have achieved the “posthumous honor” that Richardson so bitterly declined in Eight Years in Canada. One impetus to the revival o f interest in Richardson came in 1902, when Alexander C lark Casselman prepared an edition o f Richardson’s War of 1812 with an introduction that included a biography, genealogy, a n d bibliography of its author. In 1906 in Handbook of Canadian Literature (English), Archibald MacMurchy devoted m ore space to R ichardson than to any other early author, and in 1914 in his article on “English-Canadian L iterature” in Canada And Its Provinces, Thom as Guthrie Marquis stated that "in 1832 the publication o f Wacousta, by Major John Richardson, m arked the tru e beginning o f Canadian fiction.”87 W illiam Renwick Riddell, jurist and historian, was the first to

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publish a book about Richardson; John Richardson came out in 1923 in the Makers of Canadian Literature series under the gen eral editorship of Lom e Pierce. About Richardson’s stature, R iddell writes: “O f one thing we are sure; and that is, that time will prove o u r judgm ent true and sound when we gave him a first place am ong the Makers of Canadian Literature.”88 In evaluating R ichardson’s writing, Riddell says: T h e poetry and fiction o f Richardson are . . . valuable in them selves in that they give the first authentic note of a new literatu re in Canada, a literature instinct with the life and th o u g h t o f a new nation even then beginning to take shape, a literature in which extremes meet without impropriety, a literatu re of expanding life, cosmopolitan sympathies, robust democracy, pioneering idealism and freshness and profusion, prodigal in its richness and lavish in its gifts. . . . M ajor Jo h n Richardson showed — and not obscurely or ipcom pletely — where the strength o f Canadian poetry, d ram a and fiction must lie, namely, not in m ere imitation a n d variation of Old World themes, but in fresh and vigorous interpretation of our own life and thought. Only in this way can Canada develop an artistic soul and consciousness, and eventually arrive at that stage of national independence, co-ordinated and entire, which m akes possible a great spiritual contribution in the form of a national literature.89 In m ore recent years such items as “A Colonial Romantic” (1959-60),90 Desmond Pacey’s articles on Richardson; Klinck’s “ In tro d u c tio n ” to the New Canadian Library’s edition o f Wacousta (1967); Carl Ballstadt’s collection of reviews and criticism in Major John Richardson (1972);91 Morley’s A Bibli­ ographical Study of Major John Richardson (1973);92 M argot N o rth ey ’s analysis o f Wacousta as a Gothic novel in The Haunted Wilderness (1976); Beasley’s biography, The Canadian Don Quixote: the life and works of Major John Richardson, Canada’s first novelist

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(1977); Douglas Cronk’s M.A. thesis “T he Editorial Destruction o f C anadian Literature: A Textual Study o f Major Jo h n R ic h a rd so n ’s Wacousta; Or, The Prophecy” (1977);93 Jam es R eaney’s dramatization, Wacousta! (1979); Dennis Duffy’s con­ tem plation o f “Major John Richardson: T he Loyalist in Disguise” in Gardens, Covenants, Exiles: Loyalism in the Literature of Upper Canada!Ontario (1982); the papers collected in Recovering Can­ ada's First Novelist (1984); and Gaile McGregor’s comments on Wacousta in The Wacousta Syndrome. Explorations in the Canadian Langscape (1985) are some of the many articles and books that have helped to increase interest in, and raise the stature of, both th e a u th o r and his works in Canadian literature and culture.

THE TEXT

T h e aim o f this edition of John Richardson’s Wacousta is to p ro v id e the reader with an unabridged text that reflects as perfectly as possible the author’s known intentions about this early C anadian novel. No manuscript or proof copy has been located. T h e copy-text was chosen, therefore, from am ong the th re e editions o f the novel published during Richardson’s lifetim e: the 1832 Cadell and Blackwood, the 1833 Waldie, and th e 1851 Dewitt and Davenport. O f these, the 1851, with the exception o f its new introduction, is printed from the 1833. T he 1833 is, to quote Richardson again, “an abridged and very im p erfect” edition created from the 1832. T he 1832 English edition o f Wacousta, thus, is not only the first and the only edition p rin te d directly from the author’s manuscript and corrected by him, b u t also the only authorized edition ever issued. It is, then, th e copy-text for this CEECT edition. Because all the editions published after 1832 derive from the u n au th o rized 1833 Waldie edition, none o f their texts has been considered as a source o f possible emendations for the 1832 copy-text. In attempting to make the new CEECT edition c o n fo rm as closely as possible to R ichardson’s intentions,

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how ever, the editor has taken into account three items published a fte r 1832. These are the abridgement o f the first eighteen pages o f th e first chapter that Richardson prepared for the Morning Post in 1837; the new dedication that the author wrote for the 1840 issue o f the first edition; and the introduction he wrote for th e Dewitt and Davenport edition of 1851. In shortening the chapter for the Morning Post in 1837, R ichardson om itted phrases and sentences that referred directly to th e “narrative” developed in subsequent chapters o f Wacousta. H e also rem oved paragraphs that provided information m ore p e rtin e n t to the 1760s than to the Canadas in the 1830s. But these changes represent Richardson’s adaptation o f old material fo r a new purpose. T he selection in the Morning Post is, therefore, n o t a source of authorial emendations for Wacousta. It has been useful, nevertheless, in reinforcing the editor’s conviction that certain unusual spellings (as in “the River Sinclair”) which appear in both the 1832 and 1837 texts are authorial. R ichardson’s 1840 dedication o f Wacousta to the 8th Regiment, “W ho W ere In Garrison At Detroit, etc.” rather than to the “41st R egim ent, Who Bear On T heir Colours T he ‘Detroit,’ etc.” clearly suggests a change o f intentions. In 1832 Richardson em phasized his own service at Detroit in 1812 with the 41st; in 1840, th at o f the regiment at Detroit in 1763. In the context of th e story both dedications seem equally appropriate. T he C E E C T edition reproduces as its dedication that to the 41st R egim ent. T he 1840 dedication is included in the “Bibliographi­ cal D escription o f 1832 Cadell and Blackwood Edition” (CEECT, p. 557). Even though Richardson obviously oriented the introduction h e w rote in 1851 towards the Americans who would read Dewitt a n d D avenport’s edition, he provides information in it about the novel’s sources and about his own life. This CEECT edition, th ere fo re , follows the example of earlier editions and includes this introduction. When Richardson wrote this introduction in 1851, however, he may have known that Dewitt and Davenport w ere planning to reproduce the 1833 American edition with its

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badly cut introductory chapter from the first edition. Although h e was undoubtedly too desperately in need of money to argue with the publishers about their choice of copy-text, he may well have agreed to prepare a new introduction partly to provide a m o re suitable opening to his novel than in Waldie’s version. Since this 1851 introduction seems likely to represent an attem pt by R ichardson to improve as best he could an edition that he knew to be co rru p t, it has not been placed at the beginning o f this new edition o f the authorized text of Wacousta. Rather it has been included as an appendix. A ccording to A. and R. Spottiswoode’s final account to Cadell fo r p rin tin g Wacousta, “corrections,” which were presumably e ith e r authorial o r editorial since the printer charged for them, cost £17 15s.94 Extant evidence suggests, furtherm ore, that R ichardson was concerned about accuracy in the transmission of his texts from manuscript to print. When, for example, he sent his selection from Wacousta to the Morning Post in 1837, he included in his letter two corrections to the letter the Post had recently published: In my letter o f Saturday . . . two typographical errors occur which it may not be unim portant to notice, inasmuch as they appear to betray an ignorance o f names and places. F or instance, where the word “Indiana” appears, “Indians” should have been printed; and in allusion to the Canada fur tra d e , which is described as “north-west,” it should have been printed “north-western.” T he necessity for these corrections will be obvious.95 Even after A. and R. Spottiswoode had made corrections to Wacousta, Richardson apparently still found a few errors in the text. F our corrections that seem to be authorial are listed at the e n d o f Volum e III in the 1832 edition. In Volume I, the word “a d ju ta n t” is to be changed to “governor” in designating the source fo r the reading of “the finding and sentence o f the court” against F rank Halloway (Vol. I, p. 20096; CEECT, p. I l l ) , and in o n e instance “Ponteace” is to be corrected to “Ponteac” (Vol. I,

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p. 207; CEECT, p. 115). In Volume II, “was” is to be substituted fo r “w ere” in a sentence that reads in part “the tall warrior, accom panied by nearly a dozen inferior chiefs, were seen slowly advancing” (Vol. II, p. 49; CEECT, p. 185). In Volume III, the m o re sensible “emotion” is to replace “unction,” in a passage in w hich W acousta describes the way he viewed Clara Beverley after h e h elped h e r escape from her father’s isolated retreat (Vol. I ll, p. 260; CEECT, p. 483). All these corrections have been accepted in the CEECT edition. Inconsistency is not always to be tam pered with, but where inconsistency in the copy-text’s use of quotation marks in passages o f dialogue or reported dialogue may cause confusion, th e usage has been regularized. Similarly isolated aberrations a n d obvious printing blunders have been corrected in the new text. For example, the “De” in “Captain De Haldim ar” (Vol. I, p. 133; CEECT, p. 74) that is usually spelled “de” has been made consistent with all other occurrences o f the name in this form. R edundancies (“the the principal,” Vol. II, p. 3; CEECT, p. 159), reversed letters (“Michilimaciknac,” Vol. II, p. 177; C E E C T , p. 254), and dropped letters (“encirled,” Vol. Ill, p. 12; C E E C T , p. 346) have been emended. A query, “(qu. discern­ m ent?)” after “gum ption” (Vol. II, p. 317; CEECT, p. 330), that som ehow became part of the printed text has been omitted in the C E E C T edition. T he word “fond” has been supplied in the sentence “This was an amusement of which I was extremely and in which I had attained considerable excellence” (Vol. I ll, p. 236; CEECT, p. 469). In a few cases an obviously wrong word in th e copy-text has been replaced by the correct word in the C E E C T edition. Thus, for example, “fragrant” in the phrase “fra g ra n t dereliction o f his duty” (Vol. I, p. 139) has been ch an g ed to “flagrant” (CEECT, p. 77). Finally, in a conversation a m o n g Captain Erskine’s men, one of them, Will B urford, speaks several times; once, however, he is named “Dick” Burford (Vol. I, p. 119). In the CEECT edition “Dick” has been changed to “Will” (C EEC T, p. 67) to make this reference consistent with the others to th e same character. All these emendations are listed in “Emendations in Copy-

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EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

te x t” in the concluding apparatus. The form of “CHAPTER” at th e beginning o f each chapter and the capitalization o f the first w ord o f each chapter have been silently rendered consistent. T he R om an volume and chapter numbers have been silently changed to Arabic num bers, and the period that appears after each of these num bers in the 1832 copy-text has been silently removed. Because the division o f the novel into three volumes plays a role in its dram atic and narrative structure, the CEECT edition retain s the tripartite scheme. In th e preparation of this edition, a bibliographical analysis o f all editions, issues, and impressions was undertaken, and as many copies as possible of each were examined.97 Seven copies o f Cadell and Blackwood’s Wacousta, three issued in 1832, two in 1839, and two in 1840, were microfilmed for CEECT. In o rder to verify that these copies all belonged to the first edition and to establish an ideal copy, a light-table collation was perform ed by two m em bers o f the CEECT staff, each working independently. Photocopies from the microfilms made especially for CEECT w ere used in this collation. In order to determ ine the genealogy o f th e editions, oral and ocular collations that used various com binations o f editions were performed. T he 1832 edition, for exam ple, was collated with the 1833 Waldie and the 1851 Dewitt a n d D avenport; the 1851 with the 1868 Lovell, the 1902 serial, a n d the 1906 Historical Publishing Company edition; the 1851 with th e 1906 edition and the 1931 unpublished edition; and the 1924 Musson edition with the 1967 New Canadian Library. Since no edition except the 1832 is authoritative, the variants between it a n d the other published versions are not reported in the C E E C T edition. T he results o f all collations are available, how ever, at the Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts.98 T o p rep are the text o f the CEECT edition, the photocopy m ad e from CEECT’s microfilm copy of an 1832 issue of the first edition held by the National Library o f Canada (PS8435 133 W3 R eserve Copy 2) was entered by a typist on the com puter. By m eans o f a com puter program especially prepared for CEECT, this 1832 issue was proofed and corrected against an 1840 issue

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o f the edition held by Queen’s University (LP PS8435 127 W3 1840) th at had been entered by a second typist on the com puter. T h e 1832 issue was also proofed and corrected against a copy of t h e 18 3 2 issu e o f this e d i t i o n h e l d by Q u e e n ’s (LP PS8435 127 W3 1832) by means of an oral collation. Before th e C E EC T edition was sent to the printer, it was proofread orally, an d the CEECT text of Wacousta compared to the 1832 copy-text so that all the emendations made to this text could be verified. T h e CEECT text was also proofread at each stage o f the p rin tin g process. ENDNOTES T O INTRODUCTION 1 Richardson to Sir John Harvey, 20 Dec. 1839, in Eight Years in By Major Richardson (1847; rpt. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1967), p. 107. The second of the “two tales” was Richardson’s sequel to Wacousta, The C anadian Brothers (1840). In this, and in all other quotations included in the introduction, the grammar, punctuation, and spelling of the original have been retained except in a few cases where the style of the passage makes its meaning unclear. In these instances the editorial changes are indicated by square brackets. 2 Ibid. Richardson had already used this phrase to describe himself in 1838; see “New Publication,” Chronicle an d Advertiser (Niagara), 30 May 1838, p. 3. 3 “Advertisement” for a new edition of W acousta, p.[i], bound at the end of John Richardson, The C anadian Brothers , Vol. 2 (Montreal: Armour and Ramsay, 1840). 4 His name was “also spelled Pontiak, Ponteack, or Pontiague by the English in the 18th century, and Pondiac, Pondiak, or Pondiag by the French” (D C B , Vol. 3, pp. 525-31). Richardson’s spelling “Ponteac” was also current. In the spelling of Pontiac and the names of other historical characters cited in the introduction and other parts of the apparatus, CEECT follows the spelling adopted by the D C B . 5 “Introduction,” in Wacousta; Or, The Prophecy. A n In dian T ale (New York: Dewitt and Davenport, [1851]), p. vi. 6 Ibid., p. v. 7 Although John Askin married Marie-Archange Barthe in 1772, he had children before that marriage. Scholars have speculated that John Askin was first married to either a French woman or an Ottawa Indian woman before marrying Marie, and they speculate further that Madelaine was one of the daughters of that early unrecorded marriage and was, therefore, either part French or part Indian. Clarence M. Canada,

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Burton says that Askin manumitted an Indian slave in 1766, and suggests that “It is very probable that closer relations than that of Master and slave existed between John Askin and this Panise woman.” But Burton does not provide any evidence to corroborate his statement that “Askin’s three oldest children were born of an Indian mother” (“Detroit Biographies: John Askin,” Burton Historical Collection Leaflet, 3 (1924-25), p. 51). Milo Quaife reiterates Burton’s thesis, but he does not provide evidence either (The John Askin Papers, Vol. 1: 1747-1795 (Detroit: Detroit Library Commission, 1928), pp. 12-13). David Beasley says that “Richardson’s . . . mother was an Indian of the Ottawa tribe.” But he also says, “Nothing of [Richardson’s] mother has been recorded.” Beasley then concludes that “There is no evidence that Askin’s wife was from the Ottawa Nation save that she would have had her children only amongst her own people, thus accounting for the births in the central Ottawa town” (The Canadian Don Quixote: the life and works of Major John Richardson, Canada’s first novelist (Erin, Ontario: The Porcupine’s Quill Press, 1977), p. 9). Yet no record that Madelaine was born in the central Ottawa town exists. John Askin, however, lived in Arbre Croche, a fact that tends to undercut the argument that Askin’s early wife would have returned on her own to Arbre Croche to have her children (Quaife, “Detroit Biographies: David Bacon,” Burton Historical Collection Leaflet, 9 (1930-31), p. 48). 8 “Introduction,” 1851, p. iv. 9 A notice of this duel appeared in the London Times, 1 Oct. 1823, p. 2. 10 Carl F. Klinck, “John Norton,” in Recovering Canada's First Novelist. Proceedings from the John Richardson Conference, ed. Catherine Sheldrick Ross (Erin, Ontario: The Porcupine’s Quill Press, 1984), p. 21. 11 Wacousta or, The Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas, ed Douglas Cronk (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1987), p. 4. All subsequent refer­ ences to this edition are included in the text as (CEECT, p. 000). 12 The Canadian Don Quixote, p. 11. 13 Barclay to Richardson, 24 Aug. 1832, in Eight Years in Canada, p. 231. 14 Ibid. In “John Norton,” however, Klinck argues that the real John Norton could not have been a model for Wacousta. 15 “Introduction,” 1851, p. vi. 16 John Richardson, “of the Parish of St. George in the County of Middlesex, Bachelor,” married “Jane Marsh of Leamington in the County of Warwick, Spinster” in Paris on 12 Aug. 1825; nothing has been discovered about the time and place of her death. See The Canadian Don Quixote, p. 50, and Desmond Pacey, “A Colonial Romantic: Major John Richardson, Soldier and Novelist,” Canadian Literature, No. 2 (1959), pp. 24-26; Pacey reproduces “Richardson’s marriage certificate” from “the Miscellaneous Foreign Records in the General Register Office, Somerset House, London.” 17 “Introduction,” 1851, p. [iii]. 18 Tecumseh; Or, The Warrior Of The West: A Poem, In Four Cantos, With Notes (London: R. Glynn, 1828), p. 119.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

liii

19 Ibid., p. [27]. 20 Ibid., p. 32. 21 Ibid., pp. 119-20. 22 E ig h t Years in C anada, p. 125. 23 T h e C a n a d ia n D on Quixote, p. 69. 24 E ig h t Years in C anada, p. 232. 25 BL, Add. Ms. 48848, Strahan Papers, Vol. LI, p. 106. 26 Ibid., pp. 112-13. 27 BL, Add. Ms. 48822, Strahan Papers, Vol. XXV, p. 45. “Cold pressing” is “an operation employed in the better grade of books. After sheets are printed and dried they are placed under pressure in a screw press or hydraulic press to take out the indentations made by the type” (Geoffrey Ashall Glaister, G laister’s Glossary o f the Book, 2nd ed. (London: George Allen and Unwin, [1979]), p. 101). 28 L ite ra ry Gazette, 1 Dec. 1832, p. 765. 29 M o r n in g Post, 4 Dec. 1832, p. 1, and 11 Dec. 1832, p. 1. See also the S u n (London), 3 Dec. 1832, p. l,.and the M orn in g Chronicle (London), 4 Dec. 1832, p. 1. 30 M o r n in g Chronicle, 28 Dec. 1832, p. 3. See also Su n, 31 Dec. 1832, p. 1. 31 Times, 7 Jan. 1833, p. 7. 32 Atheneeum , 29 Dec. 1832, pp. 837-38. In February 1833, when the advertisement about the publication of W acousta was repeated in the M o r n in g Chronicle, it quoted from the concluding paragraphs of the A theneeum ' s review. See, for example, M orn in g Chronicle, 7 Feb. 1833, p. 4. 33 S u n , 31 Dec. 1832, p. 2. 34 See, for example, Literary Gazette, A nd J o u rn a l o f the Belles Lettres (London), 5 Jan. 1833, pp. 7-8, and A tlas (London), 13 Jan. 1833, p. 23. When W acousta was advertised in the M orn in g P ost in February and March 1833, the notice included a brief passage from the review in the L ite ra ry Gazette', see, for example, M orn in g Post, 14 Feb. 1833, p. 2. 35 U n ite d Service Gazette (London), 13 Apr. 1833, p. 8. 36 S a tirist (London), 30 Dec. 1832, p. 424. 37 T h e C an a d ia n Brothers, 1840, Vol. 1, p. [ix]. The contents of this “addition” are included in the “Bibliographical Description of 1832 Cadell and Blackwood Edition” in the concluding apparatus. 38 Ibid., p. x. 39 “Prospectus” for Select Circulating Library, Ohio State J o u rn a l, A n d C o lu m b u s G azette (Columbus, Ohio), 19 Dec. 1832, p. 3. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 “Note to the first American edition” of W acousta, The Select C ir c u la tin g Library. C ontaining The Best P opu lar Literature, In clu din g M e m o irs, B iography, N ovels, Tales, Travels, Voyages, & c., Vol. 2 (Phila­

delphia: Adam Waldie, 1833), p. 1. 43 An advertisement announcing that this impression of “Wacousta, or the Prophecy — a Tale of the Canada’s, in 2 vols.” was “For sale by

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EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

Betts & Anstice, 214 Broadway” appeared in the New York Evening Post on 31 May 1833, p. 3. 44 “Prospectus,” Ohio StateJournal. 45 “Miscellaneous,” Ohio StateJournal, 11 May 1833, p. 1. 46 Chronicle and Gazette, 27 July 1833, pp. 1-2. 47 See George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage (1928; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1970), Vol. 3: 1821-34, pp. 679-80, 682, Vol. 4: 1834-43, p. 85, Vol. 5: 1843-50, p. 461, Vol. 6: 1850-57, pp. 33, 378, and Vol. 7: 1857-65, pp. 40-41,655, where performances of “Wacousta, or The Curse” in New York City in 1833, 1834, 1836,1849,1851,1855, 1857, and 1865 are discussed. Beasley records that “Wacousta” was also staged in Detroit in 1837 (The Canadian Don Quixote, p. 116) and in Boston in 1851 (“Background to the Script,” Halloween, No. 2 (1976), p. 12). On 7 June 1856 “the Indian Drama” of “Wacousta the Renegade or the seige of Detroit” was performed at the Theatre Royal in London, Canada West; J.B. Roberts played Wacousta (London Free Press, 3 June 1856, p. 3, 6 June 1856, p. 3, and 7 June 1856, p. 3). See also “A Letter from James Reaney” and “Wacousta or the Curse. A Romantic Military Drama in 3 Acts founded on the novel of that title and dramatized by R. Jones author of ‘Natty Bumps — Mose in China, Brigadier &c.-s’,” Black Moss, NS 2, No. 1 (1976), pp. 2-9,41-74; the latter item is the first act of the melodrama by R. Jones the manuscript of which is held by the New York Public Library. According to Beasley, Robert Jones, rather than Louisa Medina to whom it is usually attributed, may have adapted Wacousta for the stage in 1833 (see “Background to the Script”). 48 “Prospectus,” Ohio StateJournal. 49 Morning Post, 28 Dec. 1837, p. 3. 50 Morning Post, 3 Jan. 1838, p. 3. 51 Eight Years in Canada, pp. [5]-6. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., p. 28. 54 “New Publication,” Chronicle and Advertiser (Niagara), 30 May 1838, p. 3. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. The “gentlemen” included three relatives, “W. Richardson Esq. Brantford,” “J. B. Askin Esq. London,” and “Edward Brush Esq. Detroit.” The others were “Messrs Armour & Ramsay Montreal”; “J. McFarlane Esq. Kingston”; “H. Stanton Esq.” and “H. Rowsell Esq.,” both of Toronto; “Mr. Ruthven, Bookseller Hamilton”; “T. F. Short Esq. Woodstock”; “S. Reid Esq. Chatham”; “W. Duff Esq. Amherstburgh”; “Joseph Woods Esq. Sandwich”; “Duncan Cambell Esq. Simcoe”; “Edw. Ermatinger Esq. St. Thomas”; “G. S. Jarvis Esq. M.P.P. Cornwall”; and “Doctor Trowbridge Buffalo.” 57 Ibid., and Brockville Recorder, 7June 1838, p. 3, Patriot, 8June 1838, p. 3, and Chronicle and Gazette, 15 Aug. 1838, p. 4; the last three advertised the proposed date of publication of the first part as “early in July or August.”

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

lv

58 B rockville Recorder, 24 May 1838, p. 2. 59 “Wacousta, — Or The Prophecy,” Literary G arlan d, 1 (1838-39), 144. 60 “Jeremiah Desborough; Or, The Kentuckian,” and “The Settler; Or, The Prophecy,” Literary G arland, 1 (1838-39), 181-87, 225-31. 61 Q uebec M ercu ry , 4 May 1839, p. 3. 62 E ig h t Years in C anada, p. 104. 63 Ibid., pp. 92-93. 64 Ibid., p. 92. 65 “Advertisement,” pp. i-iv, bound at the end of The C anadian B roth ers, Vol. 2, 1840. 66 PAC, Hill Collection, Christie Papers, Correspondence, 1839-Sept. 1841, MG 24, 19, Vol. 4, pp. 1025-1026, ALS, John Richardson to Alexander James Christie, 26 Oct. 1840. 67 “The Escape,” L iterary G arland, 3 (1840-41), 133-36. 68 N e w s a n d Tim es, 13 Jan. 1841, p. 3. 69 C hronicle a n d Gazette, 13 Mar. 1841, p. 2, M on treal H erald, 18 Mar. 1841, p. 1, and Quebec M ercury, 27 Mar. 1841, p. 3. 70 M o n tre a l Gazette, 23 Mar. 1841, p. 3. 71 C hronicle (Niagara), 2 Sept. 1841, p. 4. 72 N e w E ra , 26 Jan. 1842, pp. 109-10. Griffin’s copy of this issue of W a c o u sta , now held by QMM, contains the “fac simile of the autograph letter.” 73 E ig h t Years in C anada, pp. 94-95. 74 “Introduction,” 1851, p. [iii]. 75 “Authors And Books,” International M onthly M agazin e, 3 (April-July 1851), 37. 76 William F. E. Morley kindly supplied CEECT with this more exact suggestion about the date of publication. 77 Pilot (Montreal), 11 Dec. 1852, p. 4. 78 For a discussion of this possibility, see William F. E. Morley, A B ib lio g ra p h ica l Study o f M a jo r John Richardson (Toronto: Bibliographical Society of Canada, 1973), pp. 77-78. 79 A c a d ia n Recorder, 5 June 1868, p. 3. 80 A B ibliograph ical Study o f M ajor John Richardson, p. 83. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid., pp. 87-88. 83 Ibid., p. 87. 84 T he Library at Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, holds a bound copy of the corrected page proofs of this proposed edition; the information about it is derived from Mount Allison’s apparently unique copy. 85 “Introduction,” in W acousta or The Prophecy. A n abridged edition (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967), p. xi. 86 Ibid., p. [ii]. 87 C a n a d a A n d Its Provinces, ed. Adam Shortt and Arthur Doughty (Toronto: Glasgow Brook, 1914), Vol. 12, p. 535.

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EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

88 John Richardson (Toronto: Ryerson, 1923), pp. 207-08. 89 Ibid., pp. 206-08. 90 “A Colonial Romantic: Major John Richardson, Soldier and Novelist,” Canadian Literature, No. 2 (1959), pp. 20-31, and No. 3 (1960), pp. 47-56; rpt. Desmond Pacey, Essays in Canadian Criticism 1938-1968 (Toronto: Ryerson, 1969), pp. 151-71. 91 Major John Richardson. A Selection of Reviews and Criticism, ed. Carl Ballstadt (Montreal: Lawrence M. Lande Foundation, 1972). 92 A “preliminary version” was published as “A Bibliographical Study of John Richardson,” in the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada, 4(1965), pp. 21-88. 93 “The Editorial Destruction of Canadian Literature: A Textual Study of Major John Richardson’s Wacousta; Or, The Prophecy," M.A. Thesis, Simon Fraser 1977. 94 BL, Add. Ms. 48822, Strahan Papers, Vol. XXV, p. 45. 95 Morning Post, 3 Jan. 1838, p. 3. 96 The references in parentheses to volume and page numbers refer to the 1832 Cadell and Blackwood edition. 97 The provenance of the copies of each edition, issue, and impression examined and of those microfilmed is included in the “Bibliographical Description of 1832 Cadell and Blackwood Edition” and “Other Published Versions of the Text” in the concluding apparatus. 98 See also “The Editorial Destruction of Canadian Literature,” which contains a collation of the 1832 edition with the 1833 and 1851.

WACOUSTA; OR,

THE

P R O P H E C Y 8 $ a ie o f $ t

U still alive; from her dark covert, With all h«r make* eroct upoo bw crest, She *ta!ki In *I«rw, and 8 m me with her char**."

" V e n g ca n ce

The Bsvtnge.

BY

THE AUTHOR OF « &CARTk ”

IN THRKE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON: T. CADELL, 8TRAND? AND W. BLACKWOOD. EDINBURGH.

1832.

TO HIS MAJESTY’S 4 1ST REGIMENT, WHO BEAR ON TH EIR COLOURS TH E “DETRO IT,” CONNECTED W ITH W HICH ARE TH E PRINCIPAL INCIDENTS OF HIS TALE,

THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED, BY A ONCE SHARER IN TH EIR SERVICE, T H E AUTH OR.

London, Dec. 1832.

VOLUME ONE

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTORY

AS we are about to introduce our readers to scenes with which the European is little familiarised, some few cursory remarks, illustrative o f the general features o f the country into which we have shifted our labours, may not be deem ed misplaced at the opening o f this volume. Without entering into minute geographical detail, it may be necessary merely to point out the outline o f such portions o f the vast continent o f America as still acknowledge allegiance to the English crown, in order that the reader, understanding the localities, may enter with deeper interest into the incidents o f a tale connected with a ground hitherto untouched by the wand o f the modern novelist. All who have ever taken the trouble to inform themselves o f the features o f a country so little interesting to the majority o f Englishmen in their individual character must be aware,—and for the information o f those who are not, we state,—that that portion o f the northern continent o f America which is known as the United States is divided from the Canadas by a continuous chain o f lakes and rivers, com m encing at the ocean into which they empty themselves, and extending in a north-western direction to the remotest parts o f these wild regions, which have never yet been pressed by other footsteps than those o f the native hunters o f the soil. First we have the magnificent St. Lawrence, fed from the lesser and tributary streams, rolling her sweet and silver waters into the foggy seas o f the Newfoundland.—But perhaps it will better tend to 3

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impress our readers with a panoramic picture o f the country in which our scene o f action is more immediately laid, by com m encing at those extrem e and remote points o f our Canadian possessions to which their attention will be especially directed in the course o f our narrative. T he most distant o f the north-western settlements o f America is Michillimackinac, a name given by the Indians, and preserved by the Americans, who possess the fort even to this hour. It is situated at the head o f the Lakes Michigan and Huron, and adjacent to the Island o f St. Joseph’s, where, since the existence o f the United States as an independent republic, an English garrison has been maintained, with a view o f keeping the original fortress in check. From the lakes above m entioned we descend into the River Sinclair, which, in turn, disembogues itself into the lake o f the same name. This again renders tribute to the Detroit, a broad majestic river, not less than a mile in breadth at its source, and progressively widening towards its mouth until it is finally lost in the beautiful Lake Erie, computed at about one hundred and sixty miles in circumference. From the em bouchure o f this latter lake commences the Chippawa, better known in Europe from the celebrity o f its stupendous falls o f Niagara, which form an impassable barrier to the seaman, and, for a short space, sever the otherwise uninterrupted chain connecting the remote fortresses we have described with the Atlantic. At a distance o f a few miles from the falls, the Chippawa finally empties itself into the Ontario, the most splendid o f the gorgeous American lakes, on the bright bosom o f which, during the late war, frigates, seventy-fours, and even a ship o f one hundred and twelve guns, m anned by a crew o f one thousand men, reflected the proud pennants o f England! At the opposite extremity o f this magnificent and sea-like lake, which is upwards o f two hundred miles in circumference, the far-famed St. Lawrence takes her source; and after passing through a vast tract o f country,

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5

whose elevated banks bear every trace o f fertility and cultivation, connects itself with the Lake Champlain, celebrated, as well as Erie, for a signal defeat o f our flotilla during the late contest with the Americans. Pushing her bold waters through this somewhat inferior lake, the St. Lawrence pursues her course seaward with impetuosity, until arrested near La Chine by rock-studded shallows, which produce those strong currents and eddies, the dangers o f which are so beautifully expressed in the Canadian Boat Song,— a composition that has rendered the “rapids” almost as familiar to the imagination o f the European as the falls o f Niagara themselves. Beyond La Chine the St. Lawrence gradually unfolds herself into greater majesty and expanse, and rolling past the busy commercial town o f Montreal, is once more increased in volume by the insignificant lake o f St. Peter’s, nearly opposite to the settlement o f T hree Rivers, midway between Montreal and Quebec. From thence she pursues her course unfed, except by a few inferior streams, and gradually widens as she rolls past the capital o f the Canadas, whose tall and precipitous battlements, bristled with cannon, and frowning defiance from the clouds in which they appear half imbedded, might be taken by the imaginative enthusiast for the strong tower o f the Spirit o f those stupendous scenes. From this point the St. Lawrence increases in expanse, until, at length, after traversing a country where the traces o f civilisation become gradually less and less visible, she finally merges in the gulf, from the centre o f which the shores on either hand are often invisible to the naked eye; and in this manner is it imperceptibly lost in that misty ocean, so dangerous to mariners from its deceptive and almost perpetual fogs. In following the links o f this extensive chain o f lakes and rivers, it must be borne in recollection, that, proceeding seaward from Michillimackinac and its contiguous district, all that tract o f country which lies to the right constitutes

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what is now known as the United States o f America, and all on the left the two provinces o f Upper and Lower Canada, tributary to the English government, subject to the English laws, and garrisoned by English troops. T h e several forts and harbours established along the left bank o f the St. Lawrence, and throughout that portion o f our possessions which is known as Lower Canada, are necessarily, from the improved condition and more numerous population o f that province, on a larger scale and o f better appointment; but in U pper Canada, where the traces o f civilisation are less evident throughout, and become gradually more faint as we advance westward, the fortresses and harbours bear the same proportion in strength and extent to the scantiness o f the population they are erected to protect. Even at the present day, along that line o f remote country we have selected for the theatre o f our labours, the garrisons are both few in number and weak in strength, and evidence o f cultivation is seldom to be found at any distance in the interior; so that all beyond a certain extent o f clearing, continued along the banks o f the lakes and rivers, is thick, impervious, rayless forest, the limits o f which have never yet been explored, perhaps, by the natives themselves. Such being the general features o f the country even at the present day, it will readily be com prehended how much more wild and desolate was the character they exhibited as far back as the middle o f the last century, about which period our story commences. At that epoch, it will be borne in mind, what we have described as being the United States were then the British colonies o f America dependent on the mother-country; while the Canadas, on the contrary, were, or had very recently been, under the dominion o f France, from whom they had been wrested after a long struggle, greatly advanced in favour o f England by the glorious battle fought on the plains o f Abraham, near Quebec, and celebrated for the defeat o f Montcalm and the death o f Wolfe.

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7

T he several attempts made to repossess themselves o f the strong hold o f Quebec having, in every instance, been met by discomfiture and disappointment, the French, in despair, relinquished the contest, and, by treaty, ceded their claims to the Canadas,—an event that was hastened by the capitulation o f the garrison o f M ontreal, comm anded by the Marquis de Vaudreuil, to the victorious arms o f General Amherst. Still, though conquered as a people, many o f the leading m en in the country, actuated by that jealousy for which they were remarkable, contrived to oppose obstacles to the quiet possession o f a conquest by those whom they seem ed to look upon as their hereditary enemies; and in furtherance o f this object, paid agents, men o f artful and intriguing character, were dispersed am ong the numerous tribes o f savages, with a view o f exciting them to acts o f hostility against their conquerors. T he long and uninterrupted possession, by the French, o f those countries immediately bordering on the hunting grounds and haunts o f the natives, with whom they carried on an extensive traffic in furs, had established a com m unionship o f interest between themselves and those savage and warlike people, which failed not to turn to account the vindictive views o f the former. T he whole o f the province o f Upper Canada at that time possessed but a scanty population, protected in its most flourishing and defensive points by stockade forts; the chief object o f which was to secure the garrisons, consisting each o f a few companies, from any sudden surprise on the part o f the natives, who, although apparently inclining to acknowledge the change o f neighbours, and professing amity, were, it was well known, too much in the interest o f their old friends the French, and even the French Canadians themselves, not to be regarded with the most cautious distrust. These stockade forts were never, at any one period, nearer to each other than from one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles, so that, in the event o f surprise or

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WACOUSTA

alarm, there was little prospect o f obtaining assistance from without. Each garrison, therefore, was almost wholly dependent on its own resources; and, when surrounded unexpectedly by num erous bands o f hostile Indians, had no other alternative than to hold out to the death. Capitulation was out o f the question; for, although the wile and artifice o f the natives might induce them to promise mercy, the m om ent their enem ies were in their power p rom ises and trea ties w ere alike b ro k en , and indiscriminate massacre ensued. Communication by water was, except during a period o f profound peace, almost impracticable; for, although o f late years the lakes o f Canada have been covered with vessels o f war, many o f them, as we have already remarked, o f vast magnitude, and been the theatres o f conflicts that would not have disgraced the salt waters o f ocean itself, at the period to which our story refers the flag o f England was seen to wave only on the solitary mast o f some ill-armed and illmanned gun-boat, em ployed rather for the purpose o f conveying despatches from fort to fort, than with any serious view to acts either o f aggression or defence. In proportion as the colonies o f America, now the United States, pushed their course o f civilisation westward, in the same degree did the num erous tribes o f Indians, who had hitherto dwelt more seaward, retire upon those o f their own countrymen, who, buried in vast and impenetrable forests, had seldom yet seen the face o f the European stranger; so that, in the end, all the more central parts o f those stupendous wilds became doubly peopled. Hitherto, however, that civilisation had not been carried beyond the state o f New York; and all those countries which have, since the American revolution, been added to the Union under the names o f Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, Michigan, &c., were, at the period embraced by our story, inhospitable and unproductive woods, subject only to the dominion o f the native, and as yet unshorn by the axe o f

WACOUSTA

9

the cultivator. A few portions only o f the opposite shores o f Michigan were occupied by emigrants from the Canadas, who, finding no one to oppose or molest them, selected the most fertile spots along the banks o f the river; and o f the existence o f these infant settlements, the English colonists, who had never ventured so far, were not even aware until after the conquest o f Canada by the mother-country. This particular district was the centre around which the num erous warriors, who had been driven westward by the colonists, had finally assembled; and rude villages and encampments rose far and near for a circuit o f many miles around this infant settlement and fort o f the Canadians, to both o f which they had given the name o f Detroit, after the river on whose elevated banks they stood. Proceeding westward from this point, and along the tract o f country that diverged from the banks o f the Lakes Huron, Sinclair, and Michigan, all traces o f that partial civilisation were again lost in impervious wilds, tenanted only by the fiercest o f the Indian tribes, whose homes were principally along the banks o f that greatest o f American waters, the Lake Superior, and in the country surrounding the isolated fort o f Michillimackinac, the last and most remote o f the European fortresses in Canada. When at a later period the Canadas were ceded to us by France, those parts o f the opposite frontier which we have just described became also tributary to the English crown, and were, by the peculiar difficulties that existed to communication with the more central and populous districts, rendered especially favourable to the exercise o f hostile intrigue by the num erous active French emissaries every where dispersed am ong the Indian tribes. During the first few years o f the conquest, the inhabitants o f Canada, who were all either European French, or immediate descendants o f that nation, were, as might naturally be expected, more than restive under their new governors, and many o f the most impatient spirits o f the

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country sought every opportunity o f sowing the seeds o f distrust and jealousy in the hearts o f the natives. By these people it was artfully suggested to the Indians, that their new oppressors were o f the race o f those who had driven them from the sea, and were progressively advancing on their territories until scarce a hunting ground or a village would be left to them. T hey described them, moreover, as being the hereditary enem ies o f their great father, the King o f France, with whose governors they had buried the hatchet for ever, and smoked the calumet o f perpetual peace. Fired by these wily suggestions, the high and jealous spirit o f the Indian chiefs took the alarm, and they beheld with impatience the “Red Coat,” or “Saganaw,” 1 usurping, as they deem ed it, those possessions which had so recently acknowledged the supremacy o f the pale flag o f their ancient ally. T h e cause o f the Indians, and that o f the Canadians, became, in some degree, identified as one, and each felt it was the interest, and it may be said the natural instinct, o f both, to hold com m unionship o f purpose, and to indulge the same jealousies and fears. Such was the state o f things in 1763, the period at which our story commences,—an epoch fruitful in designs o f hostility and treachery on the part o f the Indians, who, too crafty and too politic to manifest their feelings by overt acts declaratory o f the hatred carefully instilled into their breasts, sought every opportunity to com pass the destruction o f the English, wherever they were most vulnerable to the effects o f stratagem. Several inferior forts situated on the Ohio had already fallen into their hands, when they summ oned all their address and cunning to accomplish the fall o f the two important though remote posts o f Detroit and Michillimackinac. For a length o f time they were baffled by the activity and vigilance o f the respective governors o f these forts, who had had too much fatal experience in the fate o f their 1 This word thus pronounced by themselves, in reference to the English soldiery, is, in all probability, derived from the original English settlers in Saganaw Bay.

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11

companions not to be perpetually on the alert against their guile; but when they had at length, in some degree, succeeded in lulling the suspicions o f the English, they determined on a scheme, suggested by a leading chief, a man o f more than ordinary character, which promised fair to rid them altogether o f a race they so cordially detested. We will not, however, mar the interest o f our tale, by anticipating, at this early stage, either the nature or the success o f a stratagem which form s the essential groundwork o f our story. While giving, for the information o f the many, what, we trust, will not be considered a too com pendious outline o f the Canadas, and the events connected with them, we are led to remark, that, powerful as was the feeling o f hostility cherished by the French Canadians towards the English when the yoke o f early conquest yet hung heavily on them, this feeling eventually died away under the mild influence o f a governm ent that preserved to them the exercise o f all their customary privileges, and abolished all invidious distinctions between the descendants o f France and those o f the mother-country. So universally, too, has this system o f conciliation been pursued, we believe we may with safety aver, o f all the numerous colonies that have succumbed to the genius and power o f England, there are none whose inhabitants entertain stronger feelings o f attachm ent and loyalty to her than those o f Canada; and w hatever may be the transient differences,—differences growing entirely out o f circumstances and interests o f a local character, and in no way tending to impeach the acknowledged fidelity o f the mass o f French Canadians,— whatever, we repeat, may be the ephemeral differences that occasionally spring up between the governors o f those provinces and individual members o f the Houses o f Assembly, they must, in no way, be construed into a general feeling o f disaffection towards the English crown. In proportion also as the Canadians have felt and acknowledged the beneficent effects arising from a change

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o f rulers, so have the Indian tribes been gradually weaned from their first fierce principle o f hostility, until they have subsequently become as much distinguished by their attachment to, as they were three quarters o f a century ago remarkable for their untameable aversion for, every thing that bore the English name, or assumed the English character. Indeed, the hatred which they bore to the original colonists has been continued to their descendants, the subjects o f the United States; and the same spirit o f union subsisted between the natives and British troops, and people o f Canada, during the late American war, that at an earlier period o f the history o f that country prevailed so powerfully to the disadvantage o f England. And now we have explained a course o f events which were in some measure necessary to the full understanding o f the country by the majority o f our readers, we shall, in furtherance o f the same object, proceed to sketch a few o f the most prominent scenes more immediately before us. T he fort o f Detroit, as it was originally constructed by the French, stands in the middle o f a common, or description o f small prairie, bounded by woods, which, though now partially thinned in their outskirts, were at that period untouched by the hand o f civilisaron. Erected at a distance o f about half a mile from the banks o f the river, which at that particular point are high and precipitous, it stood then just far enough from the woods that swept round it in a semicircular form to be secure from the rifle o f the Indian; while from its batteries it commanded a range o f country on every hand, which no enem y unsupported by cannon could traverse with impunity. Immediately in the rear, and on the skirt o f the wood, the French had constructed a sort o f bomb-proof, possibly intended to serve as a cover to the workmen originally em ployed in clearing the woods, but long since suffered to fall into decay. Without the fortification rose a strong and triple line o f pickets, each o f about two feet and

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a half in circumference, and so fitted into each other as to leave no other interstices than those which were perforated for the discharge o f musketry. They were formed o f the hardest and most knotted pines that could be procured; the sharp points o f which were seasoned by fire until they acquired nearly the durability and consistency o f iron. Beyond these firmly imbedded pickets was a ditch, encircling the fort, o f about twenty feet in w id th , and o f p ro p o rtio n a te d e p th , th e on ly communication over which to and from the garrison was by means o f a drawbridge, protected by a strong chevauxde-frise. T he only gate with which the fortress was provided faced the river; on the more immediate banks o f which, and to the left o f the fort, rose the yet infant and straggling village that bore the name o f both. Num erous farm -houses, however, alm ost jo in in g each other, contributed to form a continuity o f many miles along the borders o f the river, both on the right and on the left; while the opposite shores o f Canada, distinctly seen in the distance, presented, as far as the eye could reach, the same enlivening character o f fertility. T he banks, covered with verdure on either shore, were more or less undulating at intervals; but in general they were high without being abrupt, and picturesque without being bold, presenting, in their partial cultivation, a striking contrast to the dark, tall, and frowning forests bounding every point o f the perspective. At a distance o f about five miles on the left o f the town the course o f the river was interrupted by a small and thickly w ooded island, alon g w hose sandy beach occasionally rose the low cabin or wigwam which the birch canoe, carefully upturned and left to dry upon the sands, attested to be the temporary habitation o f the wandering Indian. That branch o f the river which swept by the shores o f Canada was (as at this day) the only navigable one for vessels o f burden, while that on the opposite coast

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abounded in shallows and bars, affording passage merely to the light barks o f the natives, which seemed literally to skim the very surface o f its waves. Midway, between that point o f the continent which immediately faced the eastern extremity o f the island we have just named and the town o f Detroit, flowed a small tributary river, the approaches to which, on either hand, were over a slightly sloping ground, the view o f which could be entirely com m anded from the fort. T he depth o f this river, now nearly dried up, at that period varied from three to ten or twelve feet; and over this, at a distance o f about twenty yards from the Detroit, into which it emptied itself, rose, communicating with the high road, a bridge, which will more than once be noticed in the course o f our tale. Even to the present hour it retains the name given to it during these disastrous times; and there are few m odern Canadians, or even Americans, who traverse the “Bloody Bridge,” especially at the still hours o f advanced night, without recalling to memory the tragic events o f those days, (handed down as they have been by their fathers, who were eye-witnesses o f the transaction,) and peopling the surrounding gloom with the shades o f those whose life-blood erst crimsoned the once pure waters o f that now nearly exhausted stream; and whose mangled and headless corses were slowly borne by its tranquil current into the bosom o f the parent river, where all traces o f them finally disappeared. T hese are the minuter features o f the scene we have brought more immediately under the province o f our pen. What Detroit was in 1763 it nearly is at the present day, with this difference, however, that many o f those points which were then in a great degree isolated and rude are now redolent with the beneficent effects o f improved cultivation; and in the im m ediate vicinity o f that memorable bridge, where formerly stood merely the occasional encampment o f the Indian warrior, are now to be seen flourishing farms and crops, and other marks o f

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agricultural industry. O f the fort o f Detroit itself we will give the following brief history:— It was, as we have already stated, erected by the French while in the occupancy o f the country by which it is more immediately environed; subsequently, and at the final cession o f the Canadas, it was delivered over to England, with whom it remained until the acknowledgement o f the independence o f the colonists by the mother-country, when it hoisted the colours o f the republic; the British garrison marching out, and crossing over into Canada, followed by such o f the loyalists as still retained their attachment to the English crown. At the com m encem ent o f the late war with America it was the first and more immediate theatre o f conflict, and was remarkable, as well as Michillimackinac, for being one o f the first posts o f the Americans that fell into our hands. T he gallant daring, and promptness o f decision, for which the lamented general, Sir Isaac Brock, was so eminently distinguished, achieved the conquest almost as soon as the American declaration o f war had been made known in Canada; and on this occasion we ourselves had the good fortune to be selected as part o f the guard o f honour, whose duty it was to lower the flag o f America, and substitute that o f England in its place. On the approach, however, o f an overwhelming army o f the enem y in the autumn o f the ensuing year it was abandoned by our troops, after having been dismantled and reduced, in its more combustible parts, to ashes. T h e Americans, who have erected new fortifications on the site o f the old, still retain possession o f a post to which they attach considerable importance, from the circumstance o f its being a key to the more western portions o f the Union.

CHAPTER 2

IT was during the m idnight watch, late in September, 1763, that the English garrison o f Detroit, in North America, was thrown into the utmost consternation by the sudden and mysterious introduction o f a stranger within its walls. The circumstance at this m om ent was particularly remarkable; for the period was so fearful and pregnant with events o f danger, the fort being assailed on every side by a powerful and vindictive foe, that a caution and vigilance o f no com m on kind were unceasingly exercised by the prudent governor for the safety o f those committed to his charge. A long series o f hostilities had been pursued by the North-American Indians against the subjects o f England, within the few years that had succeeded to the final subjection o f the Canadas to her victorious arms; and many and sanguinary were the conflicts in which the devoted soldiery were made to succumb to the cunning and numbers o f their savage enemies. In those lone regions, both officers and men, in their respective ranks, were, by a com m unionship o f suffering, isolation, and peculiarity o f duty, drawn towards each other with feelings o f almost fraternal affection; and the fates o f those who fell were lamented with sincerity o f soul, and avenged, w hen op p ortu n ity o ffe r e d , with a d eterm in ation prompted equally by indignation and despair. This sentiment o f union, existing even between m en and officers o f different corps, was, with occasional exceptions, o f course doubly strengthened am ong those who fought under the same colours, and acknowledged the same head; and, as it often happened in Canada, during this interesting period, that a single regim ent was distributed 16

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into two or three fortresses, each so far removed from the other that communication could with the utmost facility be cut off, the anxiety and uncertainty o f these detachments became proportioned to the danger with which they knew themselves to be more immediately beset. T he garrison o f Detroit, at the date above named, consisted o f a third o f t h e ------ regiment, the remainder o f which occupied the forts o f Michillimackinac and Niagara, and to each division o f this regiment was attached an officer’s command o f artillery. It is true that no immediate overt act o f hostility had for some time been perpetrated by the Indians, who were assembled in force around the former garrison; but the experienced officer to whom the command had been intrusted was too sensible o f the craftiness o f the surrounding hordes to be deceived, by any outward semblance o f amity, into neglect o f those measures o f precaution which were so indispensable to the surety o f his trust. In this he pursued a line o f policy happily adapted to the delicate nature o f his position. Unwilling to excite the anger or wound the pride o f the chiefs, by any outward manifestation o f distrust, he affected to confide in the sincerity o f their professions, and, by inducing his officers to mix occasionally in their councils, and his m en in the amusements o f the inferior warriors, contrived to impress the conviction that he reposed altogether on their faith. But, although these acts were in some degree coerced by the necessity o f the times, and a perfect knowledge o f all the misery that must accrue to them in the event o f their provoking the Indians into acts o f open hostility, the prudent governor took such precautions as were deem ed efficient to defeat any treacherous attempt at violation o f the tacit treaty on the part o f the natives. T he officers never ventured out, unless escorted by a portion o f their men, who, although appearing to be dispersed am ong the warriors, still kept sufficiently together to be enabled, in a

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moment o f emergency, to afford succour not only to each other but to their superiors. On these occasions, as a further security against surprise, the troops left within were instructed to be in readiness, at a m om ent’s warning, to render assistance, if necessary, to their companions, who seldom, on any occasion, ventured out o f reach o f the cannon o f the fort, the gate o f which was hermetically closed, while num erous supernumerary sentinels were posted along the ramparts, with a view to give the alarm if any thing extraordinary was observed to occur without. Painful and harassing as were the precautions it was found necessary to adopt on these occasions, and little desirous as were the garrison to mingle with the natives on such terms, still the plan was pursued by the Governor from the policy already named: nay, it was absolutely essential to the future interests o f England that the Indians should be won over by acts o f confidence and kindness; and so little disposition had hitherto been manifested by the English to conciliate, that every thing was to be apprehended from the untameable rancour with which these people were but too well disposed to repay a neglect at once galling to their pride and injurious to their interests. Such, for a term o f many months, had been the trying and painful duty that had devolved on the governor o f Detroit; when, in the summer o f 1763, the whole o f the western tribes o f Indians, as if actuated by one com m on impulse, suddenly threw o ff the mask, and com m enced a series o f the most savage trespasses upon the English settlers in the vicinity o f the several garrisons, who were cut o ff in detail, without mercy, and without reference to either age or sex. O n the first alarm the weak bodies o f troops, as a last measure o f security, shut themselves up in their respective forts, where they were as incapable o f rendering assistance to others as o f receiving it themselves. In this emergency the prudence and forethought o f the

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governor o f Detroit were eminently conspicuous; for, having long foreseen the possibility o f such a crisis, he had caused a plentiful supply o f all that was necessary to the subsistence and defence o f the garrison to be provided at an earlier period, so that, if foiled in their attempts at stratagem, there was little chance that the Indians would speedily reduce them by famine. T o guard against the former, a vigilant watch was constantly kept by the garrison both day and night, while the sentinels, doubled in number, were constantly on the alert. Strict attention, moreover, was paid to such parts o f the ramparts as were considered most assailable by a cunning and midnight enemy; and, in order to prevent any im prudence on the part o f the garrison, all egress or ingress was prohibited that had not the immediate sanction o f the chief. With this view the keys o f the gate were given in trust to the officer o f the guard; to whom, however, it was interdicted to use them unless by direct and positive order o f the Governor. In addition to this precaution, the sentinels on duty at the gate had strict private instructions not to suffer any one to pass either in or out unless conducted by the governor in person; and this restriction extended even to the officer o f the guard. Such being the cautious discipline established in the fort, the appearance o f a stranger within its walls at the still hour o f midnight could not fail to be regarded as an extraordinary event, and to excite an apprehension which could scarcely have been surpassed had a numerous and armed band o f savages suddenly appeared am ong them. T he first intimation o f this fact was given by the violent ringing o f an alarm bell; a rope communicating with which was suspended in the Governor’s apartments, for the purpose o f arousing the slumbering soldiers in any case o f pressing emergency. Soon afterwards the Governor him self was seen to issue from his rooms into the open area o f the parade, clad in his dressing-gown, and bearing

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a lamp in one hand and a naked sword in the other. His countenance was pale; and his features, violently agitated, betrayed a source o f alarm which those who were familiar with his usual haughtiness o f manner were ill able to comprehend. “Which way did he go?—why stand ye here?— follow— pursue him quickly—let him not escape, on your lives!” These sentences, hurriedly and impatiently uttered, were addressed to the two sentinels who, stationed in front o f his apartments, had, on the first sound o f alarm from the portentous bell, lowered their muskets to the charge, and now stood immovable in that position. “Who does your honour mane?” replied one o f the men, startled, yet bringing his arms to the recover, in salutation o f his chief. “Why, the man—the stranger—the fellow who has just passed you.” “Not a living soul has passed us since our watch commenced, your honour,” observed the second sentinel; “and we have now been here upwards o f an hour.” “Impossible, sirs: ye have been asleep on your posts, or ye must have seen him. He passed this way, and could not have escaped your observation had ye been attentive to your duty.” “Well, sure, and your honour knows bist,” rejoined the first sentinel; “but so hilp me St. Patrick, as I have sirved man and boy in your honour’s rigimint this twilve years, not even the fitch o f a man has passed me this blissed night. And here’s my comrade, Jack Halford, who will take his Bible oath to the same, with all due difirince to your honour.” T he pithy reply to this eloquent attempt at exculpation was a brief “Silence, sirrah, walk about!” T h e men brought their muskets once more, and in silence, to the shoulder, and, in obedience to the command o f their chief, resumed the limited walk allotted to them;

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crossing each other at regular intervals in the semicircular course that enfiladed, as it were, the only entrance to the Governor’s apartments. Meanwhile every thing was bustle and commotion among the garrison, who, roused from sleep by the appalling sound o f the alarm bell at that late hour, were hastily arming. T hroughout the obscurity might be seen the flitting forms o f men, whose already fully accoutred persons proclaimed them to be o f the guard; while in the lofty barracks, numerous lights flashing to and fro, and moving with rapidity, attested the alacrity with which the troops o ff duty were equipping themselves for some service o f more than ordinary interest. So noiseless, too, was this preparation, as far as speech was concerned, that the occasional opening and shutting o f pans, and ringing o f ramrods to ascertain the efficiency o f the muskets, might be heard distinctly in the stillness o f the night at a distance o f many furlongs. H e, however, who had touched the secret spring o f all this picturesque movement, whatever might be his gratification and approval o f the promptitude with which the summons to arms had been answered by his brave troops, was far from being wholly satisfied with the scene he had conjured up. Recovered from the first and irrepressible agitation which had driven him to sound the tocsin o f alarm, he felt how derogatory to his military dignity and proverbial coolness o f character it m ight be considered, to have awakened a whole garrison from their slumbers, when a few files o f the guard would have answered his purpose equally well. Besides, so much time had been suffered to elapse, that the stranger might have escaped; and if so, how many might be disposed to ridicule his alarm, and consider it as emanating from an imagination disturbed by sleep, rather than caused by the actual presence o f one endowed like themselves with the faculties o f speech and motion. For a m om ent he hesitated

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whether he should not countermand the summons to arms which had been so precipitately given; but when he recollected the harrowing threat that had been breathed in his ear by his m idnight visiter,—when he reflected, moreover, that even now it was probable he was lurking within the precincts o f the fort with a view to the destruction o f all that it contained,—when, in short, he thought o f the imminent danger that must attend them should he be suffered to escape,— he felt the necessity o f precaution, and determ ined on his measures, even at the risk o f m anifesting a prudence which might be construed unfavourably. On re-entering his apartments, he found his orderly, who, roused by the m idnight tumult, stood waiting to receive the commands o f his chief. “Desire Major Blackwater to come to me immediately.” T he mandate was quickly obeyed. In a few seconds a short, thick-set, and elderly officer made his appearance in a grey military undress frock. “Blackwater, we have traitors within the fort. Let diligent search be made in every part o f the barracks for a stranger, an enemy, who has managed to procure admittance am ong us: let every nook and cranny, every empty cask, be exam ined forthwith; and cause a number o f additional sentinels to be stationed along the ramparts, in order to intercept his escape.” “Good Heaven, is it possible?” said the Major, wiping the perspiration from his brows, though the night was unusually chilly for the season o f the year:—“how could he contrive to enter a place so vigilantly guarded?” “Ask me not how, Blackwater,” returned the Governor seriously; “let it suffice that he has been in this very room, and that ten minutes since he stood where you now stand.” T he Major looked aghast.—“God bless me, how singular! How could the savage contrive to obtain admission? or was he in reality an Indian?” “N o more questions, Major Blackwater. Hasten to distribute the men, and let diligent search be made every

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where; and recollect, neither officer nor man courts his pillow until dawn.” T he “Major” emphatically prefixed to his name was a sufficient hint to the stout officer that the doubts thus familiarly expressed were here to cease, and that he was now addressed in the language o f authority by his superior, who expected a direct and prompt compliance with his orders. H e therefore slightly touched his hat in salutation, and withdrew to make the dispositions that had been enjoined by his Colonel. On regaining the parade, he caused the men, already form ing into companies and answering to the roll-call o f their respective non-commissioned officers, to be wheeled into square, and then in a low but distinct voice stated the cause o f alarm; and, having communicated the orders o f the Governor, finished by recom m ending to each the exercise o f the most scrutinising vigilance; as on the discovery o f the individual in question, and the means by which he had contrived to procure admission, the safety o f the whole garrison, it was evident, must depend. T he soldiers now dispersed in small parties throughout the interior o f the fort, while a select body were conducted to the ramparts by the officers themselves, and distributed between the sentinels already posted there, in such numbers, and at such distances, that it appeared impossible any thing wearing the human form could pass them unperceived, even in the obscurity that reigned around. W hen this duty was accom plished, the officers proceeded to the posts o f the several sentinels who had been planted since the last relief, to ascertain if any or either o f them had observed aught to justify the belief that an enem y had succeeded in scaling the works. T o all their enquiries, however, they received a negative reply, accompanied by a declaration, more or less positive with each, that such had been their vigilance during the watch, had any person com e within their beat, detection must

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have been inevitable. T h e first question was put to the sentinel stationed at the gate o f the fort, at which point the whole o f the officers o f the garrison were, with one or two exceptions, now assembled. T he man at first evinced a good deal o f confusion; but this m ight arise from the singular fact o f the alarm that had been given, and the equally singular circumstance o f his being thus closely interrogated by the collective body o f his officers: he, however, persisted in declaring that he had been in no wise inattentive to his duty, and that no cause for alarm or suspicion had occurred near his post. T h e officers then, in order to save time, separated into two parties, pursuing opposite circuits, and arranging to m eet at that point o f the ramparts which was immediately in the rear, and overlooking the centre o f the semicircular sweep o f wild forest we have described as circumventing the fort. “Well, Blessington, I know not what you think o f this sort o f work,” observed Sir Everard Valletort, a young lieutenant o f the ------ regiment, recently arrived from England, and one o f the party who now traversed the rampart to the right; “but confound me if I would not rather be a barber’s apprentice in London, upon nothing, and find myself, than continue a life o f this kind much longer. It positively quite knocks me up; for what with early risings, and watchings (I had almost added prayings), I am but the shadow o f my former self.” “Hist, Valletort, hist! speak lower,” said Captain Blessington, the senior officer present, “or our search must be in vain. Poor fellow!” he pursued, laughing low and good humouredly at the picture o f miseries thus solemnly enumerated by his subaltern;— “how much, in truth, are you to be pitied, who have so recently basked in all the sunshine o f enjoyment at home. For our parts, we have lived so long amid these savage scenes, that we have almost forgotten what luxury, or even comfort, means. Doubt not, my friend, that in time you will, like us, be reconciled to the change.”

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“Confound me for an idiot, then, if I give m yself time,” replied Sir Everard affectedly. "It was only five minutes before that cursed alarm bell was sounded in my ears, that I had made up my mind fully to resign or exchange the instant I could do so with credit to myself; and, I am sure, to be called out o f a warm bed at this unseasonable hour offers little inducem ent for me to change my opinion.” “Resign or exchange with credit to yourself!” sullenly observed a stout tall officer o f about fifty, whose spleen might well be accounted for in his rank o f “Ensign” Delme. “Methinks there can be little credit in exchanging or resigning, when on e’s companions are left behind, and in a post o f danger.” “By Jasus, and ye may say that with your own pritty mouth,” remarked another veteran, who answered to the name o f Lieutenant Murphy; “for it isn’t now, while we are surrounded and bediviled by the savages, that any man o f the ------ rigimint should be after talking o f bating a retrate.” “I scarcely understand you, gentlem en,” warmly and quickly retorted Sir Everard, who, with all his dandyism and effeminacy o f manner, was o f a high and resolute spirit. “Do either o f you fancy that I want courage to face a positive danger, because I may not happen to have any particular vulgar predilection for early rising?” “Nonsense, Valletort, nonsense,” interrupted, in accents o f almost fem inine sweetness, his friend Lieutenant Charles de Haldimar, the youngest son o f the Governor: “Murphy is an eternal echo o f the opinions o f those who look forward to promotion; and as for Delm e— do you not see the drift o f his observation? Should you retire, as you have threatened, o f course another lieutenant will be appointed in your stead; but, should you chance to lose your scalp during the struggle with the savages, the step goes in the regiment, and he, being the senior ensign, obtains promotion in consequence.”

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“Ah!” observed Captain Blessington, “this is indeed the greatest curse attached to the profession o f a soldier. Even among those who most esteem, and are drawn towards each other as well by fellow ship in pleasure as com panionship in danger, this vile and debasing p rin cip le— this in satiab le d esire fo r p erson al advancement—is certain to intrude itself; since we feel that over the mangled bodies o f our dearest friends and companions, we can alone hope to attain preferment and distinction.” A m om ent or two o f silence ensued, in the course o f which each individual appeared to be bringing hom e to his own heart the application o f the remark just uttered; and which, however they might seek to disguise the truth from themselves, was too forcible to find contradiction from the secret monitor within. And yet o f those assembled there was not one, perhaps, who would not, in the hour o f glory and o f danger, have generously interposed his own frame between that o f his companion and the steel or bullet o f an enemy. Such are the contradictory elem ents which com pose a soldier’s life. This conversation, interrupted only by occasional questioning o f the sentinels whom they passed in their circuit, was carried on in an audible whisper, which the close approximation o f the parties to each other, and the profound stillness o f the night, enabled them to hear with distinctness. “Nay, nay, De Haldimar,” at length observed Sir Everard, in reply to the observation o f his friend, “do not imagine I intend to gratify Mr. Delme by any such exhibition as that o f a scalpless head; but, if such be his hope, I trust that the hour which sees my love-locks dangling at the top o f an Indian pole may also let daylight into his own carcass from a rifle bullet or a tomahawk.” “And yit, Captin, it sames to m e,” observed Lieutenant Murphy, in allusion to the remark o f Blessington rather than in reply to the last speaker,— “it sames to me, I say,

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that promotion in ony way is all fair and honourable in times o f hardship like thase; and though we may drop a tare over our suparior when the luck o f war, in the shape o f a tommyhawk, knocks him over, still there can be no rason why we shouldn’t stip into his shoes the viry nixt instant; and it’s that, we all know, that we fight for. And the divil a bitter chance any man o f us all has o f promotion thin yoursilf, Captin: for it’ll be mighty strange if our fat Major doesn’t git riddlid like a cullinder through and through with the bullits from the Ingians’ rifles before we have quite done with this business, and thin you will have the rigimintal majority, Captin; and it may be that one Liftinint Murphy, who is now the sanior o f his rank, may come in for the vacant captincy.” “And Delm e for the lieutenancy,” said Charles de Haldimar significantly. “Well, Murphy, I am happy to find that you, at least, have hit on another than Sir Everard Valletort: one, in fact, who will render the promotion more general than it would otherwise have been. Seriously, I should be sorry if any thing happened to our worthy Major, who, with all his bustling and grotesque manner, is as good an officer and as brave a soldier as any his Majesty’s army in Canada can boast. For my part, I say, perish all promotion for ever, if it is only to be obtained over the dead bodies o f those with whom I have lived so long and shared so many dangers!” “Nobly uttered, Charles,” said Captain Blessington: “the sentiment is, indeed, one well worthy o f our present position; and God knows we are few enough in number already, without looking forward to each other’s death as a means o f our own more immediate personal advancement. With you, therefore, I repeat, perish all my hopes o f promotion, if it is only to be obtained over the corses o f my companions! And let those who are most sanguine in their expectations beware lest they prove the first to be cut off, and that even before they have yet enjoyed the advantages o f the promotion they so eagerly covet.”

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This observation, uttered without acrimony, had yet enough o f delicate reproach in it to satisfy Lieutenant Murphy that the speaker was far from approving the expression o f such selfish anticipations at a m oment like the present, when danger, in its most mysterious guise, lurked around, and threatened the safety o f all most dear to them. T he conversation now dropped, and the party pursued their course in silence. T hey had just passed the last sentinel posted in their line o f circuit, and were within a few yards o f the immediate rear o f the fortress, when a sharp “Hist!” and sudden halt o f their leader, Captain Blessington, threw them all into an attitude o f the most profound attention. “Did you hear?” he asked in a subdued whisper, after a few seconds o f silence, in which he had vainly sought to catch a repetition o f the sound. “Assuredly,” he pursued, finding that no one answered, “I distinctly heard a human groan.” “Where?— in what direction?” asked Sir Everard and De Haldimar in the same breath. “Immediately opposite to us on the common. But see, here are the remainder o f the party stationary, and listening also.” T hey now stole gently forward a few paces, and were soon at the side o f their companions, all o f whom were straining their necks and bending their heads in the attitude o f men listening attentively. “Have you heard any thing, Erskine?” asked Captain Blessington in the same low whisper, and addressing the officer who led the opposite party. “N ot a sound ourselves, but here is Sir Everard’s black servant, Sambo, who has just riveted our attention, by declaring that he distinctly heard a groan towards the skirt o f the com m on.” “He is right,” hastily rejoined Blessington; “I heard it also.”

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Again a death-like silence ensued, during which the eyes o f the party were strained eagerly in the direction o f the common. T he night was clear and starry, yet the dark shadow o f the broad belt o f forest threw all that part o f the waste which came within its immediate range into impenetrable obscurity. “Do you see any thing?” whispered Valletort to his friend, who stood next him: “look—look!” and he pointed with his finger. “N othing,” returned De Haldimar, after an anxious gaze o f a minute, “but that dilapidated old bomb-proof.” “See you not som ething dark, and slightly moving immediately in a line with the left angle o f the bomb­ proof?” De Haldimar looked again.—“I do begin to fancy I see som eth in g,” he replied; “but so con fu sed ly and indistinctly, that I know not whether it be not merely an illusion o f my imagination. Perhaps it is a stray Indian dog devouring the carcass o f the w olf you shot yesterday.” “Be it dog or devil, here is for a trial o f his vulnerability.—Sambo, quick, my rifle.” The young negro handed to his master one o f those long heavy rifles, which the Indians usually make choice o f for killing the buffalo, elk, and other animals whose wildness renders them difficult o f approach. He then, unbidden, and as if tutored to the task, placed him self in a stiff upright position in front o f his master, with every nerve and muscle braced to the most inflexible steadiness. The young officer next threw the rifle on the right shoulder o f the boy for a rest, and prepared to take his aim on the object that had first attracted his attention. “Make haste, massa,— him go directly,—Sambo see him get up.” All was breathless attention am ong the group o f officers; and when the sharp ticking sound produced by the cocking o f the rifle o f their companion fell on their

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ears, they bent their gaze upon the point towards which the murderous weapon was levelled with the most aching and intense interest. “Quick, quick, massa,— him quite up,” again whispered the boy. T he words had scarcely passed his lips, when the crack o f the rifle, followed by a bright blaze o f light, sounded throughout the stillness o f the night with exciting sharpness. For an instant all was hushed; but scarcely had the distant woods ceased to reverberate the spirit-stirring echoes, when the anxious group o f officers were surprised and startled by a sudden flash, the report o f a second rifle from the common, and the whizzing o f a bullet past their ears. This was instantly succeeded by a fierce, wild, and prolonged cry, expressive at once o f triumph and revenge. It was that peculiar cry which an Indian utters when the reeking scalp has been wrested from his murdered victim. “Missed him, as I am a sinner,” exclaimed Sir Everard, springing to his feet, and knocking the butt o f his rifle on the ground with a m ovem ent o f impatience. “Sambo, you young scoundrel, it was all your fault,—you moved your shoulder as I pulled the trigger. Thank Heaven, however, the aim o f the Indian appears to have been no better, although the sharp whistling o f his ball proves his piece to have been well levelled for a random shot.” “His aim has been too true,” faintly pronounced the voice o f one somewhat in the rear o f his companions. “T he ball o f the villain has found a lodgm ent in my breast. God bless ye all, my boys; may your fates be more lucky than mine!” While he yet spoke, Lieutenant Murphy sank into the arms o f Blessington and De Haldimar, who had flown to him at the first intimation o f his wound, and was in the next instant a corpse.

CHAPTER 3

“TO your companies, gentlem en, to your companies on the instant. T here is treason in the fort, and we had need o f all our diligence and caution. Captain de Haldimar is missing, and the gate has been found unlocked. Quick, gentlem en, quick; even now the savages may be around us, though unseen.” “Captain de Haldimar missing!— the gate unlocked!” exclaimed a number o f voices. “Impossible!—surely we are not betrayed by our own m en.” “T he sentinel has been relieved, and is now in irons,” resumed the communicator o f this startling piece o f intelligence. It was the adjutant o f the regiment. “Away, gentlem en, to your posts immediately,” said Captain Blessington, who, aided by De Haldimar, hastened to deposit the stiffening body o f the unfortunate Murphy, which they still supported, upon the rampart. T hen addressing the adjutant, “Mr. Lawson, let a couple o f files be sent immediately to remove the body o f their officer.” “That shot which I heard from the common, as I approached, was not fired at random, then, I find,” observed the adjutant, as they all now hastily descended to join their men.— “Who has fallen?” “Murphy, o f the grenadiers,” was the reply o f one near him. “Poor fellow! our work commences badly,” resumed Mr. Lawson: “Murphy killed, and Captain de Haldimar missing. We had few officers enough to spare before, and their loss will be severely felt; I greatly fear, too, these casualties may have a tendency to discourage the m en.”

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“N othing more easy than to supply their place, by promoting some o f our oldest sergeants,” observed Ensign Delme, who, as well as the ill-fated Murphy, had risen from the ranks. “I f they behave themselves well, the King will confirm their appointments.” “But my poor brother, what o f him, Lawson? what have you learnt connected with his disappearance?” asked Charles de Haldimar with deep emotion. "Nothing satisfactory, I am sorry to say,” returned the adjutant; “in fact, the whole affair is a mystery which no one can unravel; even at this m om ent the sentinel, Frank Halloway, who is strongly suspected o f being privy to his disappearance, is undergoing a private examination by your father the governor.” “Frank Halloway!” repeated the youth with a start o f astonishment; “surely Halloway could never prove a traitor,—and especially to my brother, whose life he once saved at the peril o f his own.” T he officers had now gained the parade, when the “Fall in, gentlem en, fall in,” quickly pronounced by Major Blackwater, prevented all further questioning on the part o f the younger De Haldimar. T h e scene, th ough circum scribed in lim it, was picturesque in effect, and might have been happily illustrated by the pencil o f the painter. T he immediate area o f the parade was filled with armed men, distributed into three divisions, and forming, with their respective ranks facing outwards, as many sides o f a hollow square, the m ode o f defence invariably adopted by the Governor in all cases o f sudden alarm. T he vacant space, which communicated with the powder magazine, was left open to the movements o f three three-pounders, which were to support each face in the event o f its being broken by numbers. Close to these, and within the square, stood the number o f gunners necessary to the duty o f the fieldpieces, each o f which was com m anded by a bombardier. At

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the foot o f the ramparts, outside the square, and immediately opposite to their several embrasures, were stationed the gunners required for the batteries, under a non-commissioned officer also, and the whole under the direction o f a superior officer o f that arm, who now walked to and fro, conversing in a low voice with Major Blackwater. One gunner at each o f these divisions o f the artillery held in his hand a blazing torch, reflecting with picturesque yet gloomy effect the bright bayonets and equipm ent o f the soldiers, and the anxious countenances o f the women and invalids, who, bending eagerly through the windows o f the surrounding barracks, appeared to await the issue o f these preparations with an anxiety increased by the very consciousness o f having no other parts than those o f spectators to play in the scene that was momentarily expected. In a few minutes from the falling in o f the officers with their respective companies, the clank o f irons was heard in the direction o f the guard-room, and several forms were seen slowly advancing into the area already occupied as we have described. This party was preceded by the Adjutant Lawson, who, advancing towards Major Blackwater, communicated a message, that was followed by the command o f the latter officer for the three divisions to face inwards. T he officer o f artillery also gave the word to his m en to form lines o f single flies immediately in the rear o f their respective guns, leaving space enough for the entrance o f the approaching party, which consisted o f half a dozen files o f the guard, under a non-commissioned officer, and one whose manacled limbs, rather than his unaccoutred uniform, attested him to be not merely a prisoner, but a prisoner confined for some serious and flagrant offence. This party now advanced through the vacant quarter o f the square, and took their stations immediately in the centre. Here the countenances o f each, and particularly

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that o f the prisoner, who was, if we may so term it, the centre o f that centre, were thrown into strong relief by the bright glare o f the torches as they were occasionally waved in air, to disencumber them o f their dross, so that the features o f the prisoner stood revealed to those around as plainly as if it had been noonday. N ot a sound, not a murmur, escaped from the ranks: but, though the etiquette and strict laws o f military discipline chained all speech, the workings o f the inward mind remained unchecked; and as they recognised in the prisoner Frank Halloway, one o f the bravest and boldest in the field, and, as all had hitherto imagined, one o f the most devoted to his duty, an irrepressible thrill o f amazement and dismay crept throughout the frames, and for a m om ent blanched the cheeks o f those especially who belonged to the same company. On being sum m oned from their fruitless search after the stranger, to fall in without delay, it had been whispered am ong the m en that treason hftd crept into the fort, and a traitor, partly detected in his crime, had been arrested and thrown into irons; but the idea o f Frank Halloway being that traitor was the last that could have entered into their thoughts, and yet they now-beheld him covered with every mark o f ignominy, and about to answer his high offence, in all human probability, with his life. With the officers the reputation o f Halloway for courage and fidelity stood no less high; but, while they secretly lamented the circumstance o f his defalcation, they could not disguise from themselves the almost certainty o f his guilt, for each, as he now gazed upon the prisoner, recollected the confusion and hesitation o f manner he had evinced when questioned by them preparatory to their ascending to the ramparts. Once more the suspense o f the m om ent was interrupted by the entrance o f other forms into the area. They were those o f the Adjutant, followed by a drummer, bearing his instrument, and the Governor’s orderly, charged with

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pens, ink, paper, and a book which, from its peculiar form and colour, every one present knew to be a copy o f the Articles o f War. A variety o f contending emotions passed through the breasts o f many, as they witnessed the silent progress o f these preparations, rendered painfully interesting by the peculiarity o f their position, and the wildness o f the hour at which they thus found themselves assembled together. T he prisoner him self was unmoved: he stood proud, calm, and fearless amid the guard, o f whom he had so recently formed one; and though his countenance was pale, as much, perhaps, from a sense o f the ignominious character in which he appeared as from more private considerations, still there was nothing to denote either the abjectness o f fear or the consciousness o f merited disgrace. Once or twice a low sobbing, that proceeded at intervals from one o f the barrack windows, caught his ear, and he turned his glance in that direction with a restless anxiety, which he exerted him self in the instant afterwards to repress; but this was the only mark o f emotion he betrayed. T he above dispositions having been hastily made, the adjutant and his assistants once more retired. After the lapse o f a minute, a tall martial-looking man, habited in a blue military frock, and o f handsome, though stern, haughty, and inflexible features, entered the area. He was followed by Major Blackwater, the captain o f artillery, and Adjutant Lawson. “Are the garrison all present, Mr. Lawson? are the officers all present?” “All except those o f the guard, sir,” replied the Adjutant, touching his hat with a submission that was scrupulously exacted on all occasions o f duty by his superior. T he Governor passed his hand for a m oment over his brows. It seem ed to those around him as if the mention o f that guard had called up recollections which gave him

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pain; and it might be so, for his eldest son, Captain Frederick de Haldimar, had commanded the guard. Whither he had disappeared, or in what manner, no one knew. “Are the artillery all present, Captain Wentworth?” again dem anded the Governor, after a m om ent o f silence, and in his wonted firm authoritative voice. “All present, sir,” rejoined the officer, following the exam ple o f the Adjutant, and saluting his chief. “T hen let a drum-head court-martial be assembled immediately, Mr. Lawson, and without reference to the roster let the senior officers be selected.” T he Adjutant went round to the respective divisions, and in a low voice warned Captain Blessington, and the four senior subalterns, for that duty. One by one the officers, as they were severally called upon, left their places in the square, and sheathing their swords, stepped into that part o f the area appointed as their temporary court. They were now all assembled, and Captain Blessington, the senior o f his rank in the garrison, was preparing to administer the customary oaths, when the prisoner Halloway advanced a pace or two in front o f his escort, and removing his cap, in a clear, firm, but respectful voice, thus addressed the Governor:— “Colonel de Haldimar, that I am no traitor, as I have already told you, the Almighty God, before whom I swore allegian ce to his Majesty, can bear m e w itness. Appearances, I own, are against me; but, so far from being a traitor, I would have shed my last drop o f blood in defence o f the garrison and your family.— Colonel de Haldimar,” he pursued, after a momentary pause, in which he seemed to be struggling to subdue the emotion which rose, despite o f himself, to his throat, “I repeat, I am no traitor, and I scorn the imputation—but here is my best answer to the charge. This wound, (and he unbuttoned his jacket, opened his shirt, and disclosed a deep scar upon his

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white chest,) this wound I received in defence o f my captain’s life at Quebec. Had I not loved him, I should not so have exposed myself, neither but for that should I now stand in the situation o f shame and danger, in which my comrades behold m e.” Every heart was touched by this appeal— this bold and manly appeal to the consideration o f the Governor. T he officers, especially, who were fully conversant with the general merit o f Halloway, were deeply affected, and Charles de Haldimar—the young, the generous, the feeling Charles de Haldimar,—even shed tears. “What mean you, prisoner?” interrogated the Governor, after a short pause, during which he appeared to be weighing and deducing inferences from the expressions just uttered. “What mean you, by stating, but for that (alluding to your regard for Captain de Haldimar) you would not now be in this situation o f shame and danger?” T he prisoner hesitated a moment; and then rejoined, but in a tone that had less o f firmness in it than before,— “Colonel de Haldimar, I am not at liberty to state my meaning; for, though a private soldier, I respect my word, and have pledged m yself to secrecy.” “You respect your word, and have pledged yourself to secrecy! What mean you, man, by this rhodomontade? T o whom can you have pledged yourself, and for what, unless it be to some secret enem y without the walls? Gentlemen, proceed to your duty: it is evident that the man is a traitor, even from his own admission.— On my life,” he pursued, more hurriedly, and speaking in an under tone, as if to himself, “the fellow has been bribed by, and is connected w ith ------ T he name escaped not his lips; for, aware o f the em otion he was betraying, he suddenly checked himself, and assumed his wonted stern and authoritative bearing. Once more the prisoner addressed the Governor in the same clear firm voice in which he had opened his appeal.

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“Colonel de Haldimar, I have no connection with any living soul without the fort; and again I repeat, I am no traitor, but a true and loyal British soldier, as my services in this war, and my comrades, can well attest. Still, I seek not to shun that death which I have braved a dozen times at least in th e ------ regiment. All that I ask is, that I may not be tried— that I may not have the shame o f hearing sentence pronounced against me^