Page:Canadian notabilities 2.djvu/92

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by Canadian valour that the victory was secured to us. It is a matter of regret, however, that it could not be secured at a less cost than the death of the gallant General Brock. His biographer, in commenting upon it, says:—"The victory was complete; but it was felt by the conquerors as a poor compensation for the loss of the British chieftain, thus prematurely cut off in the pride of manhood and in the noontide of his career; while the sorrow manifested throughout both Provinces proved that' those who rejoiced in the failure of this second invasion Would gladly have foregone the triumph if by such means they could have regained him who rendered the heights of Queenston memorable by his fall."

General Brock was never married; but, though he left no wife or child to mourn his untimely death; his fall was lamented as a national calamity. The Canadian pulpit and press paid innumerable tributes to his worth, and the Provincial Legislature erected a lofty Tuscan monument to his memory within a few yards of the spot where he fell. Earl Bathurst, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in a despatch to Sir George Prevost, wherein the sentiment is more to be commended than the grammar, wrote as follows: "His Royal Highness the Prince Regent is fully aware of the severe loss which His Majesty's service has experienced in the death of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock. This would have been sufficient to have clouded (sic) a victory of much greater importance. His Majesty has lost in him not only an able and meritorious officer, but one who, in the exercise of his functions of Provisional-Governor of the Province, displayed qualities admirably adapted to awe the disloyal, to reconcile the wavering, and to animate the great mass of the inhabitants against successive attempts of the enemy to invade the Province, in the last of which he unhappily fell, too prodigal of that life of which his eminent services had taught us to understand the value." The House of Commons caused a tabular monument, by Westmacott, to be erected to Sir Isaac's memory in the south—transept of St. Paul's Cathedral; and, in compliance with a petition from the Upper Canadian Legislature, a tract of 12,000 acres of land in Upper Canada was granted to his four surviving brothers, together with a pension to each of them of £200 sterling a year for life.

The personal appearance of Sir Isaac was eminently soldierlike and prepossing. He was about six feet two inches in height, of fair complexion, and notwithstanding the activity of