the next minute the ground for half a mile
about was strewn with the remains, mangled to a pulp, of more than
three hundred men, ninety of whom were Canadians, two hundred and sixty
Americans, including Brigadier Pike fatally wounded by a rock striking
his head. In the horror of the next few moments, defense was
forgotten. Wheelbarrows, trucks, gun wagons, were hurried forward to
carry wounded and dead to the hospital. Leaving his officers to
arrange the terms of surrender, at 2 P.M. Sheaffe retreated at quick
march for Kingston, pausing only to set fire to a half-built ship and
some naval stores. Lying on a stretcher on Chauncey's ship, Pike is
roused from unconsciousness by loud huzzas.

"What is it?" he asks.

"They are running up the stars and stripes, sir."

A smile passed over Pike's face. When the surgeon looked again, the
commander was dead. For twenty-four hours the haggle went on as to
terms of capitulation. Within that time, two or three things occurred
to inflame the invading troops. They learned that Sheaffe had slipped
away; as the American general's report put it, "They got the shell, but
the kernel of the nut got away." They learned that stores had been
destroyed after the surrender had been granted. Without more
restraint, and in defiance of orders, the American troops gave
themselves up to plunder all that night. In their rummaging through
the Parliament buildings they found hanging above the Speaker's chair
what Canadian records declare was a _wig_, what American reports say
was a _human scalp_ sent in by some ranger from the west. From what I
have read in the private papers of fur traders {355} in that period
regarding international scalping, I am inclined to think that wig may
have been an American scalp. Certainly, the fur traders of
Michilimackinac wrapped no excuses round their savagery when the canoes
all over the coasts of Lake Superior, in lieu of flags, had American
scalps flaunting from their prows. At all events, word went out that
an American scalp had been found above the Speaker's chair. It was
night. The troops were drunk with success and perhaps with the plunder
of the wine shops. All that night and all the next day and night the
skies were alight with the flames of Toronto's public buildings on
fire. Also, the army chest with ten thousand dollars in gold, which
Sheaffe had forgotten, was dug up on pain of the whole town being fired
unless the money were delivered