resence of the garrison, early in the month of March, 1804.
A most awful and affecting sight it was: the wind was easterly, strong,
and cold,--a thick drift of snow added to the gloom,--and, as if to
increase the horror of the scene, a few of the firing party, fifty-six
in number, instead of advancing to within eight yards of the prisoners,
as was intended, owing to some mistake commenced firing at the distance
of at least fifty yards. The consequence was, that the unhappy wretches
were only partially wounded, and dropped one after another. Nearly forty
shots were fired before one poor fellow in the centre fell, although he
was wounded through the abdomen at the first discharge. The men who had
reserved their fire, were at length ordered up, and, lodging the
contents of their muskets in the breasts of the culprits, by that means
put them out of torture. The unfortunate sufferers declared publicly
that, had they continued under the command of Colonel Brock, they would
have escaped their melancholy end; and, as may be easily conceived, he
felt no little anguish that they, who had so recently and so bravely
fought under him in Holland and at Copenhagen, were thus doomed to end
their lives, the victims of unruly passions inflamed by vexatious
authority. He was now directed to assume the command at Fort George, and
all complaint and desertion instantly ceased.

In the fall of 1805, in October of which year he was made a full
colonel, Colonel Brock returned to Europe on leave; and early in the
following year, he laid before his royal highness the
commander-in-chief the outlines of a plan for the formation of a
veteran battalion, to serve in the Canadas. In support of the plan he
wrote:

"The advantages which may attend the establishment of a corps
such as is here recommended, will be perhaps more clearly
understood by first adverting to some of the causes that
produce the inconvenience to which the troops occupying the
frontier posts of that country are continually exposed.

"A regiment quartered in Upper Canada is generally divided into
eight different parts, several hundred miles asunder, and in
this situation it remains at least three years. Great as is the
evil incidental to a state of separation, even where the mind
is in no danger of being debauched, what may not be apprehended
in a country where both the divided state of the regiment, and
the artifices employed to wean