PREFACE.


In the early part of last year, a box of manuscripts and the trunks
belonging to Sir Isaac Brock, which had remained locked and unexamined
for nearly thirty years, were at length opened, as the general's last
surviving brother, Savery, in whose possession they had remained during
that period, was then, from disease of the brain, unconscious of passing
events. With that sensibility which shrinks from the sight of objects
that remind us of a much-loved departed relative or friend, he had
allowed the contents to remain untouched; and when they saw the light,
the general's uniforms, including the one in which he fell, were much
moth-eaten, but the manuscripts were happily uninjured. On the return of
the Editor from South America in May last, he for the first time learnt
the existence of these effects; and a few weeks after, having hastily
perused and assorted the letters and other papers, he decided on their
publication. Whether this decision was wise, the reader must determine.
If, on the one hand, part of their interest be lost in the lapse of
years; on the other, they, and the comments they have elicited, can now
be published with less risk of wounding private feelings.

It has been the Editor's study to avoid all unnecessary remarks on the
letters in this volume, so as to allow the writers to speak for
themselves. But he has deemed it a sacred obligation due to the memory
of Sir Isaac Brock, to withhold nothing descriptive of his energetic
views and intentions, and of the obstacles he experienced in the
vigorous prosecution of the contest--obstacles which his gallant spirit
could not brook, and which necessarily exposed "his valuable life" much
more than it would have been in offensive operations.[1] He regrets,