d, or what is now King Street, were dense woods. General Sheaffe,
who had succeeded Brock at Queenston Heights, chanced to be in Toronto
in April with some six hundred men. Just where the snug quarters of
the Toronto Hunt Club now stand you may look out through the green
foliage of the woods fringing the high cliffs of Lake Ontario, and
there lies before your view the pure sky-blue surface of an inland sea
washing in waves like a tide to the watery edge of the far sky line.
Early in the morning of April 27 a forest ranger, dressed in the
customary Lincoln green, was patrolling the forested edge of
Scarborough Heights above the lake. The trees had not yet leafed out,
but were in that vernal state when the branches between earth and sky
take on the appearance of an aerial network just budding to light and
color; and in the ravines still lay patches of the winter snow. The
morning was hazy, warm, odoriferous of coming summer, with not a breath
of wind stirring the water. As the sun came up over the lake long
lines of fire shot through the water haze. Suddenly the scout paused
on his parade. Something was advancing shoreward through the mist,
advancing in a circling line like the ranks of wild birds flying north,
with a lap--lap--lap of water drip and a rap--rap--rap of rowlocks from
a multitude of sweeps. The next instant the forest rang to a musket
shot, for the scout had discovered Commodore Chauncey's fleet of
sixteen vessels being towed forward by rowers through a dead calm. The
musket shot was heard by another scout nearer the fort. The signal was
repeated by another shot, and another for the whole twelve miles, till
General Sheaffe, sitting smoking a cigar in Government House, sprang to
his feet and rushed out, followed by his officers, to scan the harbor
of Humber Bay from the tops of the fort bastions. Sure enough! there
was the fleet, led by Chauncey's frigate with twenty-four cannon poking
from its sides, a string of rowboats in tow behind to land the army,
coming straight across the harbor over water calm as silk. It has been
told how the fleet made the mistake of passing beyond the landing, but
the chances are the mistake was intentional {353} for the purpose of
avoiding the cannon of the fort bastions. At all events the report may
be believed that the most of Toronto people forgot to go back to
breakfast that morning. A moment later officers were on top of the
bastion towers, directing battery-men