MAJOR-GENERAL SIR ISAAC BBOCK, C.B.
The name of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock is one of the most illustrious in our colonial annals, and is deservedly held in grateful and affectionate remembrance by the people of Canada. By dwellers in this Upper Province especially is his name a familiar and an honoured one; for it was here that the most memorable scenes in his life were enacted, and that the greenest of his laurels were won. It was here that he achieved those deeds of valour which have been commemorated by costly monuments on both sides of the Atlantic, and which have gained for him an imperishable name upon the page of history. It was here that, after arduous and chivalrous service in the council-chamber and in the field, he yielded up his life in his country's cause, almost with his latest breath cheering on his troops to repel the advance of an invading foe. It would be hard to over-estimate the value of his services to our forefathers, and (by consequence) to ourselves. He came to this country when not far past the hey-day of his youth. He found an army and a people divided by opposing elements of dissatisfaction; desertions from the army a matter of almost daily occurrence; public patriotism lukewarm or dead; weakness and disaffection everywhere. By the bright example of his own life, by unceasing watchfulness and vigilance, and by the exercise of a general prudence and good judgment such as were not to be expected from one of his years, he succeeded in reconciling hostile factions, and in infusing into the breasts both of the people and the army a patriotic fervour which preserved Canada from falling—at least for a time—into the hands of a grasping and formidable enemy. These constitute the chief of his claims to our regard and they are claims which we have neither the right nor the inclination to forget.
He was one of a numerous family, and was born in the parish of St. Peter-Fort, in the Island of Guernsey, on the 6th of October, 1769. The family of Brock is of Saxon origin, but had been settled in Guernsey for nearly two hundred years before
