Such Want of Gentlemanly Conduct: The General Court Martial of Lieutenant John de Hertel
I just stumbled across this article, which may be of interest to members…
It chronicles the 1815 court-martial of a Canadian Fencibles lieutenant over a drunken altercation at Fort York (now Toronto), providing remarkable insight into Napoleonic-era British military justice.
link
"The light of a late spring sunset was fading fast on 22 May 1815 at York, the capital of Upper Canada. A mile west of town at the Garrison, the men of the Canadian Regiment had returned to their barracks for the night. All was quiet, save for occasional murmurs from the guardhouse and the low whistle of incoming winds from Lake Ontario.
Although a "sad blow to speculators," news of peace with the United States, breathlessly proclaimed by the York Gazette in a 15 February extra edition, was especially welcome in the capital, thrice threatened and twice occupied by American forces during the thirty-two month War of 1812. With the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, the relieved denizens and defenders of York (now Toronto)
faced descents of an altogether less military nature, like the overhead onslaught of "immense" flocks of passenger pigeons on 27 March 1815. Spring's early onset no doubt buoyed new-found feelings of optimism amongst the town's 720 inhabitants, now freed from the burdens of militia service, but by May conversation had turned to alarming reports of Bonaparte's return to Paris…"
returns to Flintloque to paint an Ogre.
